The part of the Irish administration charged with advising the government on the carve up and sale of our state’s(people’s) assets is called ‘New Era’. This utterly opaque entity is enormously difficult to get real information on. The current distraught and legitimate anger of the Irish community at the stealing of their resources in return for loans to bail out rogue bankers belongs at their door.
Creeping privatization of energy resources, community and social services, health care and most importantly our sacred waters by an incestuous elite of business, banksters, politicians cronies sees little improvement in the oligarchical landscape of Ireland since the early 1800s. Different psychopaths – same old MO.
Our famous drunken prime Minister,(Brian Cowan), golfing buddy of the Anglo Irish Bankster set and the then regulator, who flushed us all down the toilet has been rewarded with a lucrative pension and a board appointment to a petrol retailer belonging to our ‘biggest tax dodging’ plutocrat. Cowan was most recently appointed to the board of Ireland’s largest private hospital. He is heavily invested in property. In fact a large cohort of our politicians are property speculators/land lords.
The professional classes as a whole invested heavily in property during the bubble as a pension option. These legal, accounting and medical professionals, avoiding Troika recommendation for reform, have thus far avoided any real dent on their lifestyles.
To facilitate the will of the oligarchs the judiciary have being handing down severe restrictions on where citizens may peacefully protest their legitimate concerns, especially when it comes to CIA ‘Extraordinary Rerendition torture victim transportation’ and enforced water meter installation. Last year these sames judges have claimed €1.67 million in expenses.
Ordinary citizens, muddied and billed as Ireland’s most dangerous citizens by media owned, (in most cases), by the same plutocrat whose company is a main water meter installer, and who have been found in contempt of these restrictions have met with jail sentences of up to three months. The most elderly detainee being octogenarian peace protester Margaretta D’Arcy with others being ordinary middle aged family women and men who have peacefully stood over their water mains connections hail, rain and shine.
By contrast the bankster buddies of both media pundits and politicans have in the main walked free with community service (in lieu of a two-year prison sentence) being the worst sentence handed down by the courts to Pat Whelan and Willie McAteer for a rogue 450 million euro scheme to unravel a secret stock trade in July 2008 that regulators feared threatened Ireland’s entire banking system.
The Irish tradition of political arrests and jailing continues apace against ordinary citizens. (Especially when it comes to natural resources). In fact a most interesting case was the deportation of Irish born political activist Jimmy Gralton from Ireland during the country’s ‘Red Scare’ of the 1930s. A dry run for US McCarthyism.
As the five water protesters tonight face jail the Irish tradition of the rebel song is again flowering in the following poem by Freddy Gough.
Thank you sweet protesters,
Who our furher just had jailed.
Thank you for your courage,
When we know that justice failed.
Thank you for your grit your balls
Your blood your sweat and tears.
Thank you for your sacrifice,
Enduring prisons fears.
Know that I am grateful
And I’m glad you did persist.
You are the bloody knuckles
Of a tired Irish fist.
You didn’t close your door,
Ignoring frightened Irish cries
Instead you stood up tall
And chose to fight agENDAs lies.
Each and every one of you,
Should lift your head with pride.
And tell all who will listen,
Why they locked you up inside
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