Democracy, a Side Show Masking the Greed Which Rules the World

The United States is going to the polls.
The Ukraine is facing a snap election.
The world's biggest democracy, India, is voting next year.
Journalists, commentators, pundits and experts of all sorts are excited.
Indeed, the voting public, the electorate will be quite exercised by the votes in those countries and anywhere else on the planet where they get the chance to choose those who lead them.

Only it's a complete farce. A complete and utter waste of time. A sham.
Because regardless of who it is we elect, no matter whether the odious Sarah Palin gets to second biggest job in the world, no matter who rules the vast population of India, it will make not a shred of difference.
We now know, democracy doesn't work, doesn't even exist.
Sure, on paper it looks better than totalitarianism, dictatorships, ancient monarchies and the like.
But in reality, it's no different.
Leaving aside altogether the way 'model" democracies like the US cheat people out of their votes by challenging those with a legitimate right to vote.
Forgetting altogether the 'hanging chads' and the irrational impatience of the US Supreme Court eight years ago.
Dismissing the long queues for voters in poor (Democratic) areas and the lack of such inconvenience in wealthier (Republican) areas, it is quite clear that George W Bush doesn't and didn't rule the United States.
Maybe Dick Cheney does and did. At least, maybe he and his mates do and did.
Because that's what we know now.
Business rules the world.
Money rules the world.
Bankers, hedge fund managers, investors, speculators, weapons dealers, gamblers rule the world.
The greedy, the immoral and amoral and the uncaring rule the world.
The selfish rule the world.
Vote for whom it is you please, they have, it is so apparent, no control whatsoever over world affairs.
World affairs have been run by bankers and investors and will continue to be run by bankers and investors.
Democracy is a side show, a distraction.
Democracy just hides the evil and the greed on which everything is predicated.
A handful of people, be they in the US, Britain, Russia, China, India - even little Ireland - decide what's what and the politicians fall into line even if they don't know that's what they're doing.
Depressing?
It certainly is.
Because if the rich just gave up a tenth of what they have, we would eradicate hunger, much of the disease that ravages the poor world, lack of education and misery.
But they won't because that's why they exist. To accumulate at the expense of others.
And there is absolutely nothing we can do about it.
Nothing.
Except, maybe, pray.

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It Wasn't A Celtic Tiger After All...

What do all of these animals have in common?
Unicorn, Yeti, Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster.
Well, not everyone believes they exist or ever did.
There are some who swear they saw the Abominable Snowman or Yeti in the Himilayas.
But, even though we know what it’s supposed to look like, there’s no proof there ever was such a creature.
Bigfoot has actually been filmed in the United States. But detractors say it was just an elaborate hoax and there is no Bigfoot.
The Loch Ness Monster has long been the subject of debate. There is one photograph said to be of the monster. But sceptics say it’s just a log floating down the lake.
And the Unicorn, well, only little children reading fairy tales believe there was ever a Unicorn.
There is another creature which is the subject of debate too, these days.
Most people on this island say they’ve seen it.
But others, like me, believe those people only think they’ve seen it. They have been persuaded by slick political campaigns that they have seen it. They have been told over and over again, that this creature can be seen almost anywhere in Ireland.
What creature is this?
It’s the Celtic Tiger.

So what does it look like?
Well, it looks like a shiny, expensive new car. It looks like a satellite dish and a 37 inch LCD television. It looks like an apartment in Spain or Turkey or Bulgaria. It looks like a bag of goodies from Sachs of Fifth Avenue or Bloomingdales. It looks like a new house. It looks like a large kitchen extension. It looks like a computer in every child’s room.
At least, that’s what we’re told it looks like.
Because if you look a little harder, you’ll see that it also looks like filthy hospital A&E areas, with sick people lying on trolleys for days. It looks like long waiting lists. It looks like a rampant MRSA bug. It looks like schools, bulging at the seams and children unable to get places to begin their education. It looks like an infrastructure system that can’t even deliver a modern road between any two major towns in the country but can, for some reason, build four motorways through Co Meath. It looks like a dire public transport system. It looks like one in nine children in the country living in poverty. It looks like government ministers who give themselves almost 30 pay rises in ten years. It looks like billionaires. It looks like a Taoiseach who bums money off businessmen and who then tells lies about it and who says he didn’t know his own local cumann had given his then live-in partner a €30,000 loan. It looks like a government which prefers to fight the parents of autistic children in court (with our money) rather than educate those children. It looks like a government more determined to satisfy the needs of business than the needs of the people of the country.
We still have lousy hospitals. We still have overcrowded schools. We still have poor. We still have homeless. We still have a drug problem. We still have a crime problem.
But the statistics don’t lie, do they? We all have more money. That’s what they say.
Mind you, if you put me sitting at a table with Sean Quinn, we’re worth, on average, €2billion each.
Only I’m not.
You see, what happened here was that some people became very, very rich indeed.
And most didn’t.
But the average went up.
And we all thought we were rich because Fianna Fail politicians, in the main, kept telling us we were.
And it felt good.
So we all loved the animal we thought was a Celtic Tiger.
And it might have looked like a Celtic Tiger at first glance.
But, you see, it wasn’t a Celtic Tiger at all.
It was a Greedy Pig.

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None Of The Above

❍The Viking site at Dublin's Wood Quay, destroyed by ignorant politicans

MY late mother was of the view that, when it came to voting in an election, there should be, at the bottom of the ballot paper, a box which you could tick called: None Of The Above.
If None Of The Above was then duly elected, the politicians would have to have another go at producing a candidate people actually wanted.
And those who failed in the first election would be forever barred from standing again.
I mention this brilliant idea because I have come to a conclusion about politicians, and not just those in Ireland, politicians everywhere.
They do only two things:
1) they create problems
2) they fail to solve them.
Of course, problems are the bread and butter of politics. When problems arise, they permit politicians to blather on, to indulge in double-speak and, betimes, triple and quadruple speak.
It permits them to go on television and radio and to give newspaper interviews which, they believe, give the impression they’re doing something when, actually, ordinary people realise they are blathering on, indulging in double-speak and, betimes, triple and quadruple speak.

Unfortunate soldiers may fight wars. But it is politicians who cause them and start them.
Factories close, jobs are lost, homes are repossessed, misery ensues and politicians talk and rabbit on. Sometimes, they even set up committees or working groups or task forces.
But they don’t actually do anything.
Floods devastate an area. And politicians rush to the cameras to tell everyone they will now do what they should have done years ago. And they think we’re grateful.
The spend money, our money, on big projects. But very often, if not always, the projects are designed, not to benefit people, but to help get the very same politicians re-elected.
They use our money to hire ‘advisors’ and ‘consultants’ who, on the surface of it, appear to be giving sound advice on national issues but who, when you look at it more closely, are – yet again – employed solely to increase the popularity of the politicians, to hone their image and get them re-elected.
Culture and politics are alien to each other.
They may attend and opera and nod off, they may even endure the first night of a play (never the second. The cameras aren’t there for the second) if they think it will improve their image.
But, right here in Ireland, it was politicians who ordered the destruction of Wood Quay (pictured above, during its destruction) It was the finest example of a first millennium Viking town in the world. I know, I was there, and I saw the houses and streets that were bulldozed to make way for a hideous office block which serves the dual purpose of burying the site under concrete and blocking the view of Christ Church from the quays.
Currently, they are destroying Tara for a motorway, which may very well be obsolete in less than 50 years.
They could have built a more efficient railway instead.
But developers don’t like railways. Developers don’t build huge DIY stores alongside railways. They don’t open retail parks along railways.
And that’s another thing politicians are not. Honest.
They won’t admit they chose a road instead of a railway from Dublin through County Meath, because it will open up land for development. They lied about it, and they continue to lie about it as the destruction, under a lame duck Green heritage minister, continues apace.
The big crisis in Ireland now is the forthcoming withdrawal, by Aer Lingus, of its services from Shannon to Heathrow.
Most politicians are in hiding.
Some local yokels are making noise.
But the government politicians who have surfaced – they managed to get to fund raisers at Galway Races in huge numbers, but have disappeared at the first sign of trouble – are engaging in the aforementioned double, treble and quadruple speak.
Democracy is a good idea in principle.
There is, likely as not, no better alternative.
But why is it, when it comes to election time, the choice presented to us is between one gobshite and another?
I would love if someday, some brave politician took up my late mother’s idea which might, ultimately, get some smart, honest, cultured people elected.
Sadly, as with culture, bravery and politics are alien to each other too.
Anyone know any half decent benign dictators who are looking for work?

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