IRELAND WAKE UP

Below is a discussion between people tagged on a facebook photo called IRELAND WAKE UP, which originally came from Real Democracy Now Ireland PROTEST – 19TH JUNE 2011 (photo album), by Trevor Byrne. Although it appeared in the digital domain, it is probably very similar to the kind of discussions that are happening around the country. It is posted here to furter that dialogue in the hope that it inspires more and more Irish people to join with their European brothers and sisters in standing up for themselves locally, overcoming their fears and taking to the streets to demand REAL DEMOCRACY NOW.

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The conversation

• Mark: what the fuck does this photo mean. some knacker with a sign that he can’t read? what does this child propose we do, default on our soverign debt? I admit I’m a bit locked, but who doesn’t want a disaagreemnt with a few roasters on board?…

• Michael: Different I must admit, locked or not. Did youleave out the word ‘up’or ‘out’ maybe ‘in’?

• Mark: not sure really, perhaps we ought to set up a protest. and make sure they are all angry, in the same way that a 1 year old child throws a tantrum assuming that anger will make the problem go away, whilst knowing nothing about it

• Eamonn: I think you just inadvertendly made yourself famous for all the wrong reasons Mark.

• Michael: There are many more protests coming up soon.

• Mark: good, i know everyone means well, but it whether we like it or not the government will get their way and as much as we may not like it what they are doing is probably correct. as much as it pains me.

• Eamonn: Don’t go around calling children ‘Knackers’ Mark.

• Michael: Mark, how can inflicting unecessary pain be correct?

• Seán: A wee bit patronising there Mark. It’d probably be less offensive if you explained your views and qualified your argument rather than offering only assumptions.

• Mark: sorry, I am not trying to be patronising or offensive, rather realistic. I understand peoples upset, and rightly so, but we are in a position where we are skint. we can tell the IMF and EU to go whistle, burn the bond holder etc, but i don’t think that is practical. We don’t have any money. Yet we need money to run public services on which we all rely, and the government must pay for them. I hate to say this, but we are where we are. I am not a right wing zealot, rather a non revolutionary realist. i think we want the same things I look forward to further discussions tomorrow, when i am sufficiently rested.

• Michael: You should do more research Mark, the country is full of money, but most of it is in the wrong hands. What is wrong with this and many other countries is the system. Capitalism is a failed entity, it should be confined to the dustbin of history along with the leeches that thrive on human misery, the perpetraitors of inhumanity for greed, profit, war and power.

• Seán: We most certainly are where we are. We’re fucked. And bending over for some more – call me crazy if you will – well, it just doesn’t feel like a solution to me.Capital is an illusion in this picture. We have needs and we have manpower. Coupled with our resources, the solution’s quite clear.Let the orgiastic and alleged creditors go fuck themselves, for a change!

• Mark: this all sounds great, and of course in theory, it’s hard to disagree. but in reality, if you go out and get a job, work hard, and save money you earn to look after your kids, perhaps, and deposit your pay cheque and any savings you may accrue in the bank, then you are a bank creditor. not an alleged creditor, but a creditor. this also makes you, reference above, a greedy, war mongering, power hungry capitalist pig, who only cares for himself. i take it you don’t want the bank to default on any of your savings or pay cheques? you expect the state to guarantee them. and rightly so in the interests of finaincal stability. what i’m trying to say (bady) is that the governemnt’s actions are and have been entirely rational. unless you belive in a super elite class with billion and billions who are like a bond movie super villan who we all have to give our money to, i don’t believe these people exist. and if they do, why am i i not friends with them, along with my old pal Fupsey

• Eamonn: There is a super-elite class Mark. Of that there is no doubt.

• Seán: Nope I don’t expect to guarantee any capitalist enterprise. And I don’t expect the government to do so on my behalf. If the enterprise fails, it was a bad idea to begin with and either wasn’t implemented properly or was simply doomed to failure.If you were to give your friend your money for keeping and he pissed it away, you’d be outraged if your government compensated you by giving the same fucker the compensation, for him to piss away all over again!

• Mark: sure, but if everyone gave their money to this guy who pissed it away drinking and gambling in America, there would be no money left for anyone to do anything in IReland. Everyone’s money would be gone. I’m not suggesting that a guarantee of such a piss head is desirable, but simply necessary if all private businesses, public services, and basic law and order are at risk of collapse.

• Mark: im fully in favour of jailing the iss head by the way, and actually any of his mates or associates, without trial, just to make us feel slightly better
• Michael: How’s the hangover Mark?
• Seán: But therein lies the flaw Mark and indeed the con. Labour is the real currency in your picture. The cash and the pisshead are but the parasite and his method of infection. If he were to die right now, the world would continue to turn, all the lighter and happier for the efficiency and justice done.
• Michael: He was drunk, which isn’t an excuse really.
• Eamonn: I hope you have the shakes/horrors. You deserve them for calling that kid a knacker. You should be ashamed of yourself
• Míriam: @Mark. Ireland is paying more interest for the bailout that nobody in Europe, and it is normal, you do not protest and even you insult to people being savvy on this. And this is independently of being capitalist or not. (and I will keep to myself my option of people insulting someone without knowing anything about this person).
• Jim: I haven’t read any rational argument for defaulting on our debt. The idea that the free-market caused our problems and so should be completely dismantled is absurd. What should happen is a gradual restructuring of our debt, more checks and balances (i.e. regulations) on financial institutions, sharp reductions in the cost of the public sector, increased investment in eduction and entrepreneurship and laws to disincentivise corruption or bad management.
  There are just as many left wing (economic)obscenities as right wing: Think 70% of all Quangos, FAS, the Partnership process..etc.

• Seán: I didn’t borrow any money Jim. I don’t owe anyone anything. How’s that for a rational argument?
• Jim: It’s completely irrational. The debt is to pay for public services and to keep our banking sector alive. There was a properly bubble, but every special interest enjoyed the free money that came from it. You have to pay whether you personally owe anything or not; in the same way as I get to pay about half my salary each month in tax for a bunch of stuff I’ve never benefited from

• Míriam: I did not enjoy the free money from speculation and financial gambling in secondary markets, derivatives… This is so un-related with the real economy. The proof,do you know to whom we owe the money?.

• Seán: What public services. For the most part, the infrastructure existed necessary to sustain such entities, existed long before the Trojan Tiger. Indeed, for example, the infrastructure to supply dirty water to you, existed long before the advent of the alleged Irish State.But such arguments go nowhere. The point I make is this: Let’s say you borrow money from me. And that you die before I can recoup it and my profit. Should I hound you as of yet unborn children for it? Do you have a right to sell your unborn into such slavery. I don’t believe that you do and I god-damned well believe and will act to ensure, that the pseudo-Irish State will never succeed in a bid to enslave future generations. I bust my spine to make things right, here and now, though not in the way that the Irish government and alien feeders demand. But the buck stops with me!

• Jim: Fair enough, but if you were on social welfare you did to some degree benefit also if you were in the public sector, albeit not the same level as rich people.
  Also, when we talk about paying for this debt; what do you mean? How much do you think you’ll have to pay? unless you are in a fairly big job you won’ t have to pay much, in fact you’ll probably still have more disposable income than the European average

• Seán: The cash amount I have to pay is irrelevant. The lack of education, services and in general, society, is the true debt that needs to be discussed. Widespread poverty, moral, financial and educational are the issues. Disposable income is nothing but access to beads and chewing gum for the mind. Our whole system is in a state of collapse and still we listen to and follow the brays of the very donkies that took us here to begin with.

• Jim: I see; well I don’t want to live in a socialist state, I want to be able to keep and invest what (little) money I have. I do want banking and financial services to be de-risked and I do want accountable government. But I don’t want a large public sector and I want the government to have as little power over my day to day life as possible.
  Put more crudely, I want to pay a lot less tax.
• Seán: I don’t want to live in a socialist state either, though I’d argue that it’d be far superior to where we are currently.I simply demand equality. And I demand that no demands be made of me or mine without my consent and participation facilitating their implementation. And I demand that no scumbag presumes to represent me, regardless as to whether the herd has elevated him or her above themselves. Fuck him or her and fuck the herd too!

• Jim: ‎’no demands be made of me or mine’ would tax fall into this category?
• Seán: It most certainly would if I didn’t agree with such an entity. The amount of course, and the various stealth and theft taxes, are very much another matter.
• Hugh: Who contracted the debt? Banks and their bondholders. Let them repay the debt, fuck ’em. Did I own the banks? No. Did I hold any bonds? No. So why the fuck should my kids and other people’s kids get educated in dilapidated, rat-infested huts just so Peter Sutherland and his ilk get to wipe their holes on gilt-edged toilet paper? The only justification as to why they should is this: because if they don’t, Peter Sutherland and his ilk will come round and kick their fucking heads in. Well, pardon me if I demur from the idea that this is an example of the government doing the right thing.There is an extra dimension: the policies being enforced on the population so that Suds et al are kept in the lifestyle which etc. will have the effect of deepening inequality and concentrating power in the hands of the same people who caused the crisis in the first place. So if you’re talking about how justified it is that this debt should be paid, then you need also to talk about how the manner in which it will be paid is justified.

• Jim: It won’t be paid, they will pay the interest and that will be reduced in time. If costs were reduced and working practices changed (i.e. made more efficient) in the public sector there would not be a significant reduction in the quality of service they offer. If we just refused to pay the debt we will default, no one has a reliable model to forecast what this woudl mean for the economy.
• Míriam: ‎Hugh I completely agree with you.
• Cathal: Argentina?
• Jim: not equivalent, and personal wealth was decimated – not mega rich peoples’ but normal life long savers. I’d love to tell them all to fuck off, but unsatisfactory as it seems, sitting it out for now is probably the best strategy. Also, we are never going to pay off this debt
• Cathal: This is true Jim. Never indeed. Something’s gotta give, and its looking more and more like the Euro, or something bigger. The only other alternative I can think of is imperialist starvartion of and famine in the peripheral European states.
• Michael: Nobody has mentioned the giving away of all our natural resources to private multi million/billionaires. The proceeds from Shell alone in Mayo would wipe our ‘our’ debts overnight. You can tinker all you like with a stuttering engine that has never been reliable or properly functional. Scrap the system we live in. Capitalism is a failure, it should be scrapped for the immoral system it is. Start with a new constitution. Jim’s point about the ‘left’ and quangos etc. If it’s unfair it’s unfair, whether it’s connected with the trade unions/left or not. If we really want to change society for the better, we have to start with the most disadvantaged and vulnerable. A rising tide lift all boats? That’s maybe if you have a boat, some people can’t even bloody swim! The inequality in out society is endemic and propagated by greed and power. One line in every countries cionstitution should be: ‘Cherish all of the children of tha nation equally’.It’s nearly aconstitution in itself.

• Iosaf: It’s not just the Irish state & the Irish who live there who have to think how to profoundly change the false expectations society have in the speculative capitalist which could so quickly generate “wealth” (without its worth being appreciated and its value stored for the future) & then just as quickly foment penury & cause it us to consider ending the functions and services of our states which are for the most part the proof that we have become “more civilised”. This capitalist system is unsustainable for Ireland, Greece, Spain all of the EU and all of the developing world. Ireland is only a small economy and population & whether it flounders or crests the waves of an artificial global financial crisis won’t really make much difference for the future of our continent & ergo the future of the common ideals of rights that we European have. We ‎….do all have to wake up. Here in the Spanish state our mass movement is not just about unemployment. It is demanding political and electoral reforms and an end to corruption. it is odd that many of the reforms we want to see are mechanisms that the Irish in either the Eire state or northern Ireland statelt already have : open party lists, proportional representation, hondt mechanism, referenda. So ireland is not spain. Nor are either of them Greece. But there are residual elements common to all EU societies at this time……if we’re not careful we’re going to “wake up” in fifteen years without public health care, without equitable education, without collective bargaining, without social mobility….yes we’ll be so yankee….& yes we’ll have gone back to the victorian age. Ireland and the Irish should be scrutinisng the banking system and the role played by their state and economy in the global financial markets as outer rim of the city of London. that’s what I think….yes…. we all need to wake up. in different ways.

• Michael: Ioasf, you want what we have and we are up to our necks in corruption with all our ‘reforming democracy’. The root cause of the worlds problems from war to hunger is the system that fosters all that is bad for humanity and our existance, capitalism. You can put as many sticking plasters as you wish on sore, but you need to start rooting poison out of the wound before it starts to heal.

The #IrishRevolution starts now. http://tinyurl.com/66ln98o

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