OMG another fortnight of this wall-to-wall coverage of our political wannabes and I’ll be in severe distress.
‘Switch it off,’ you cry.
I can’t. It’s bloody everywhere. Newspapers, TV, radio, twitter, facebook, blogs that I normally devour for their witty intelligent comment. The journalists and political commentators are on highs, whipping themselves and presumably their audience into a fury. This is their gladiatorial arena with the politicians as bait and us - the baying masses, I assume - urging them all on.
Ok, hyperbole - but you get my drift. And for what?
In roughly a fortnight’s time we’ll make our ticks, the votes will be counted and another shower will be in to try and stay there for a full term. Will anything change? I don’t think so but I’m old and cynical. Having said that, fifty years ago a man I could not understand anyone trusting was voted in as a TD and stayed there for forty five years. I’m not particularly a political animal. But I am an animal. And my animal instincts made me wary, very very wary of this man, hackles up etcetera.I watched in despair as he held high office and actually led our government three times over a thirty year period. And surrounded himself with like-minded individuals. By your friends shall ye know them. It was, I think , this atmosphere that started back then that led finally to the spectacular rise and fall of our unregulated banking industry and the notion by those with wealth that this wealth could continue to self-generate without anything of substance behind it. Smoke and mirrors, smoke and mirrors.
So perhaps I’ve always been cycnical about politics. Mind you, it is beyond me why anybody wants to stand for public office so maybe my mindset is just incapable of understanding their mindset.
We're now a haunted nation. If the Tiger was just dead it might be ok- we could bury him, grieve a little and get on with our lives. Unfortunately he is now a ghostly tiger who will wander this land for generations. The developers washed their hands of their debts, the banks started to cry and passed it on to the Government because above all capitalism cannot be seen to fail. Why? I know it’s a simplistic question but perhaps it's one that needs asking. The Berlin Wall came down when communism was finally allowed to fail. If our banks failed and those who really owned the debt , German and British banks and bond holders or other even more globalised forces depending on which website you read - had to pick up the tab and reduce their share dividends to the already wealthy the world’s wall might collapse. But. Is that a bad thing? I think not.
Most of us would still get up each day, feed our kids, work, shop, play and the great cycle of birth, life, death would continue. It’s only the economy, stupid.
Yes, I’m cynical and jaded and no I don’t have any solutions. But at least I’m not behaving as if what happened to our lovely little country was nothing to do with me. If I hear one more outraged, unapologetic politician I might be forced to smack them. Hard. Except I don't believe in slapping naughty children.
No comments:
Post a Comment