Profiles in Greed

CAN you remember the last time a politician in this country did something courageous?
As a rule, our politicians are opportunistic, selfish and small-minded.
They are guided entirely by political expediency, not by any moral imperative.
They build schools and hospitals and roads in places that will provide the greatest return electorally. Those with any kind of power pour money into their own constituencies to the detriment of other areas.
Our leaders - an inappropriate word if ever there was one - make deals, expedient and opportunistic deals, with people, regardless of who they are or what they have done or what they stand for. The likes of Beverley Flynn and Michael Lowry may be rehabilitated in Bertie Ahern’s mind. But that just goes to show what a nasty place that is.

When was the last time an Irish minister resigned, voluntarily, for doing or saying something wrong, for causing offence, for wasting money or just because he or she felt morally obliged to make a principled stand? (On that score, if Bertie had been in just about any other democracy in the world, he would have quit over his over signing blank cheques for Charlie Haughey when the dogs in the street were barking about his corruption. He would have walked once his dodgy dig-outs became public, he would have submitted his resignation over his mysterious ‘money in the mattress’ during his separation. But he wouldn’t have been there at all if he had had the manners to quit after suggesting that those who moaned about the economy should go off and commit suicide.)
Every move an Irish politician makes is inspired only by self-interest.
Since going into government (in the mistaken belief that the 500 or so in the Mansion House, who endorsed the decision to go into government represented the 86,000 voters who voted Green) John Gormley has been busy telling us what he cannot do rather than having the courage to actually do something.
He recently managed to outfudge his Fianna Fail colleagues when it came to explaining how he was spending tax payers’ money on his office and constituency workers. Power corrupts etc.
Our politicians have built roads and railways where they believe such schemes will win them votes. For years, little bits of dual carriageway littered the country, each one built to satisfy local political needs. One utterly bizarre stretch in Mayo, was even nicknamed the “Pee Flynn bypass.”
Wood Quay was destroyed because politicians feared the wrath of unions representing local authority workers, just as the M3 is now being built on a route recommended only by those who will benefit financially from its construction. Not one of the area’s elected representatives had or has the courage to put heritage ahead of self interest.
Some years ago, representatives of Irish politicians were given the “Profile in Courage Award,’ an accolade named after the book written by John F Kennedy, for their work on the peace process.
It has, before and since, been given to politicians who have made enormous sacrifices, who have lost their jobs - who have lost just about everything - because they put right before self-interest.
I cannot imagine it, ever again, being awarded to an Irish politician.
Sure, I can think of exceptions. I can think of Joe Higgins, I can think of Richard Boyd Barrett and a few others who, even if I don’t agree with everything they say and do, stick to their principles despite knowing that by doing so their are lessening their chances of getting elected. The Labour Party too, refused to prostitute itself after the general election which was the honourable, if not profitable, course.
I used to think to he Greens in the same way, but no more.
We now live in a country where Dail seats are passed on to brothers and sisters, widows and children as if they were a favourite old armchair or a wad of cash left in a will.
We live in a country where politicians are becoming less and less accountable, where the Freedom of Information Act has been watered down simply because it allowed people the freedom to get information.
We live in a country where politicians, presumably to compensate themselves for no longer being able to accept bribes and handouts, give themselves pay rise after pay rise.
We live in a country where new laws are brought in in jig-time to allow for the abolition of the very tribunals which are exposing Bertie Ahern’s duplicity and dishonesty.
It is a country where the prime minister believes a pay rise of more than the average industrial wage is not only justified, but merely a ‘token amount.’
So, just think about these words:
“In whatever arena of life one may meet the challenge of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follows his conscience – the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men – each man must decide for himself the course he will follow. The stories of past courage can define that ingredient – they can teach, they can offer hope, they can provide inspiration. But they cannot supply courage itself. For this each man must look into his own soul.”
John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage
Those words mean nothing to politicians in this country.
Instead, our politicians are greedy, grubby people.
And, yes, that is a moan.
And no, Taoiseach, I won’t go off and kill myself.

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It's A Conspiracy!!

They call them 'conspiracy theories.' It's a pejorative term. It's a put-down.
But just because things are called 'conspiracy theories' doesn't mean there aren't conspiracies behind them.
So where are the conspiracies then?
1. JOHN F KENNEDY. Very, very few people believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing John F Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Indeed many believe he had nothing to do with it at all and was the ultimate patsy. The Warren Commission which investigated the assassination failed to interview those who opposed the view that the fatal shots had all come from the book depository building. That farcical investigation is the subject of a wonderful book called “Rush to Judgement” by Mark Lane. Read it and you will realise that, yes, this one is a conspiracy. CONSPIRACY RATING. 10/10
2. .MARILYN MONROE. Marilyn’s death on August 4, 1962 is, of course, linked to the Kennedy’s. The death was ruled suicide though the actress had been upbeat and optimistic at the time, according to friends. Neighbours and, indeed, a policeman on surveillance outside her home, all say they saw Bobby Kennedy and the Kennedy brother-in-law, actor Peter Lawford at her home the night she died. She conducted affairs with Robert and John F Kennedy. Some in the FBI believed her to be communist. CONSPIRACY RATING: 8/10

3. POPE JOHN PAUL I. Born Albino Luciani, Pope John Paul I, reigned for just 33 days before his death on September 28 1978. The cause of death was given as a heart attack, though there will always be uncertainty because of the tradition of not carrying out autopsies on Popes. This, of course, led the a rash of conspiracy and cover-up theories, not least because Pope John Paul I was perceived to be a liberal. CONSPIRACY RATING: 1/10
4. ROSWELL. On July 8, 1947, the Roswell Army Air Field (RAAF) issued a press release stating that personnel from the field's 509th Bomb Group had recovered a crashed "flying disc" from a ranch near Roswell. The Army later said that what had been found was, in fact, a weather balloon. Witnesses claimed, however, that the military had been acting suspiciously, that debris had been switched, that the body of an alien had been found and so on. There is every likelihood that there was a cover-up at Roswell. But not of the finding of an alien craft. CONSPIRACY RATING: 2/10
5. JOHN STALKER: As Deputy Chief Constable of Manchester, John Stalker was asked, on May 24, 1984, to investigate a shoot-to-kill policy being operated by the RUC against the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland. On June 5, 1986, just as he was about to submit his final report, he was suspended from duty over false allegations that he associated with criminals. The main allegation was that Kevin Taylor, a friend of Stalker’s was a professional criminal. He wasn’t. The shoot-to-kill investigation was taken over by Colin Sampson and his findings never made public. CONSPIRACY RATING: 9/10
6. THE MOON LANDING: The world watched, on June 20, 1969, as Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon. Is that what they really saw? Websites will spell out all the ‘errors’ in the moon footage. Shadows going the wrong way, dodgy reflections in the astronauts visors and so on. Others will claim that, if man could travel to the moon almost 40 years ago, the place should be colonised by now, or at least, revisited on a regular basis. However, it is now claimed that anyone on earth with a powerful telescope, can see three retroreflector arrays, left on the moon by US missions. It is, however, much more fun to believe that it’s all a hoax. CONSPIRACY RATING: 5/10
7. PRINCESS DIANA: Muhammad al Fayed, for one, is 100 per cent convinced that his son Dodi, Diana and the driver Henri Paul, were murdered. And there is no doubt whatever, that Diana had become a thorn in the side of the British establishment. Furthermore, the idea of someone who was once royal traipsing around with a Muslim. Well. That was just too much. There is of course the mysterious white car which has never been found. The allegation that Henri Paul wasn’t drunk at all. There were suspicious ambulances and the like. But you’d have to say, it’s hard to imagine the British being quite so efficient in bumping Diana off. Good theories though. CONSPIRACY RATING: 5/10
8. THE TARA MOTORWAY: The Irish government blathers on about climate change and global warming and what it’s doing to reduce carbon emissions. And yet when presented with the opportunity to build an efficient railway (mostly using the old, abandoned line) from Dublin to the town of Navan in County Meath, it decided to build a motorway. The route chosen is destroying 5,000 years of history, yet, the government remains implacable. They talk about building the railway, but the route of the motorway, crosses the line of any proposed railway twice, making it vastly more expensive to ever go for the rail option. And still, no explanation as to why they flew in the face of logic. CONSPIRACY RATING: 10/10
9. WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION: Strange, isn’t it, how the leaders of two of the world’s most powerful country, simultaneously, found evidence of something that never existed? Yet, that’s what happened as George W Bush and Tony Blaire lied over and over and over again about Saddam’s alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction. So what were the motives for war? Oil, for one. And ask Dick Cheney about the others. CONSPIRACY RATING: 10/10
10. PAUL IS DEAD. It all began on October 12 1969 with a call to a US radio station claiming Paul McCartney was dead. The theory was, that on November 9, 1966, Paul stormed out of a recording session after a row with the other Beatles, and drove off, subsequently crashing his car. He was replaced, the story goes, with a lookalike and soundalike. Proof of the death? Paul’s bare feet on the cover of Abbey Road. Paul facing backwards in the photo on the Sgt Pepper album (it was actually Mal Evans. Paul wasn’t available for the shoot.) A hand over Paul’s head on the front cover of Pepper. Personally, the only real question is this. Would the real Paul have married Heather Mills? CONSPIRACY RATING: 1/10
Briefly, here are the ratings for another few.
ELVIS: Good fun and worth listening to all the nonsense 5/10
TWA FLIGHT 800; It crashed on July 17, 1996, off Long Island killing 230 people. Official verdict: Accident. But questions remain as there is some evidence it was struck by a missile. CONSPIRACY THEORY: 7/10
DUBLIN AND MONAGHAN BOMBINGS: Ii was May 17 1974 when Dublin and Monaghan were struck by no-warning bombs. Thirty-three people died. Nobody has ever been prosecuted. Conspiracy? Maybe. Ineptitude? More likely. Still, if there had been collusion and someone didn’t want it to come out... CONSPIRACY RATING: &/10
THE TUSKAR ROCK CRASH: Aer Lingus flight 712 from Cork to London went down on March 24, 1968 killing 61. Some suggested the plane had been hit by an RAF drone, or something similar. But it seems unlikely. CONSPIRACY RATING: 2/10
THE LUSITANIA: The ship was sunk off Cork on May 7, 1915, by a German U boat. Almost 1,200 died. One torpedo struck the ship and it is believed the second, larger, explosion heard, was munitions, which were being transported illegally, blowing up. CONSPIRACY RATING: 9/10
FLIGHT 93, 9/11: Did it crash? Or was it shot down? Well, who do George Bush and his cronies think more important? Themselves, or ordinary Joes? CONSPIRACY RATING: 8/10
THE DA VINCI CODE: God, the movie was awful. The book is based almost entirely on the premise, that if something isn’t A or B, well then it definitely must be C. Or G. Or K. Or Z. CONSPIRACY THEORY: 0/10
BRITAIN’S BRIBERY OF SAUDI ARABIAN OFFICIALS TO WIN ARMS CONTRACTS: Well. They admitted it. And they said it wouldn’t be in the ‘national interest’ to pursue those involved. So...CONSPIRACY THEORY: 0/10 or 10/10, whatever.
SHOWBIZ: How many scandals, rapes, drug overdoses, bouts of the clap, sexual preferences, sexual encounters, deaths accidental or otherwise have been covered up over the years? CONSPIRACY RATING: 10/10
IRISH POLITICS: Perhaps, after North Korea, Zimbabwe and Turkmenistan, Ireland is the most corrupt country on the planet. They’ve been getting away with it since the foundation of the state. And they’re still at it. CONSPIRACY RATING: 15/10

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