It does feel a bit grim to be facing back into another FFFG 4 year (tyranny)term.

I recall seeing a projected outcome of what our 34^th Dáil constellation would look like a few months ago and feeling panicked that it was remarkably similar to the 33^rd. Both the projected and I started to feel crazy… I mean isn’t that the literal definition of insanity? Doing the same thing again and again, but expecting different results? A series of events that epitomises our political Stockholm syndrome.

We both crave and are terrified of change. 

We are resistant to the very thing we need (and are lacking) the most. 

This tendency maps onto our individual lives, just as easy as it transposes onto the collective level.

Ut supra, ut infra – which is Latin for ‘as above, so below’ an adage of alchemy.

We are all dangerously self-involved. To the detriment of the planet, society and (ironically) ourselves. Catholicism and crapitalism have conditioned us to not be able to see beyond our noses! Some folk are so myopic (near-sighted) due to unresolved trauma and a sense of disassociation – a reality I know only too well.. Other people are so comfortable, attached to that sense of comfort and inculcated into a ‘everything is awesome’ form of propaganda that so long as they can keep up with the Jones’ – nothing else matters. And then there’s those who are most acutely impacted by the profiteering policies of career politicians. These individuals are so stressed and not only money, but energy and time poor that they literally don’t have the luxury of pontificating over which bogus candidate they will vote for. There are far bigger survival fish to fry that day.

What irks me is that the young bright things who have emigrated, because they saw how abysmal their future prospects were when employee embargos, over-stretched public resources and chronic lack of potential homes dot the horizon, cannot vote. And instead we have the boomers rocking up in their majority and voting in the same drivel in human form that we have had for the best part of a century.

I also cast my imaginal eye back to 2009. I was 16 – long before I understood the nuance and inescapability of politics. I remember seeing Michael Martin on the TV.. the sight of him solicited a shudder and I asked my Granny, ‘who the fog is that?’. My first and instantaneous thought was ‘he looks like Mr. Burns’ - an uncanny resemblance.. He was stopping short of rubbing his fingertips together as he formulated a genius plan but I could totally picture him doing it.

He seemed so impersonal, unnatural, disingenuous. My Granny said he was a ‘Minister’ and I presumed it was something religious or something. There were many codes of normalcy that did not form part of the fabric of my upbringing. I was raised on a steady diet of love, quorn and trip-hop. Not so much Beatles, Sound of Music or six-one news. So while all the classic popular cultural references still evade me to this day, I have come to (slight) grasp of some of the socio-political workings of the world, including what a ‘Minister’ is.. I couldn’t believe that he was in such a position of power, and whatsmore making decisions that would limit aor liberate my life: my choices, my opportunities, my freedoms. I was appalled.

Of course, I am even more appalled now – nearly 16 years later where it’s the same nightmare realm territory and we are stuck with this gowl. And that he’s the leader of a party, set to be the leader of our State.

Again? Sadly.

A gain? Sadly not.

Micheál Martin said Israel was behaving like a “monster,” calling its response in Gaza “without a doubt, a violation of international humanitarian law.” But then what? The impunity with which our figure heads utter their disembodied rhetoric without any depth or commitment to act upon it is repulsive. On 27 June of this year MM, acting Tánaiste stated:

"There is absolutely no evidence that any airport in Ireland or any Irish sovereign airspace is being used to transport weapons to the conflict in the Middle East. All foreign military aircraft wishing to overfly or land in the State are required, without exception, to obtain diplomatic clearance. This has been the case for many years. Such permission is granted only where all relevant conditions are met, including that the aircraft is unarmed, carries no arms, ammunition or explosives, does not engage in intelligence gathering and does not form part of a military exercise or operation."

The above is patently not true.

The Ditch have expose evidence that aircraft carrying ammunitions, including a military engine weighing two tonnes and constitutive parts of F-16 fighter jets to the U.S.A. for Israel. This is just one of MANY flights. All meticulously documented. Eventually this duplicitousness will be exposed for what it is.

To my mind, each incumbent politician should be subject to a performance indicator assessment at the end of their term and if it can’t be shown that they have contributed to the PUBLIC GOOD, and by that I mean have the lives of average people living on the island of Ireland: the restaurateur, the Disabled man, the Traveller girl, the family seeking International Protection, the teacher, the nurse, the farmer… Unless all of their lives have improved i.e. they feel safer, more secure and more satisfied – then they shouldn’t be allowed to run again.

References:

Weapons of war went through Ireland on way from Israel to the US

September 19, 2024

https://www.ontheditch.com/weapons-of-war-checked-shannon-airport/