The Quiet Road

Usually when those in power do something contemptible, my reaction is to feel contempt. I suspect I’m like most people in that regard. I’m the first to admit that it’s not a particularly nice emotion to be feeling. All the same, so long as the Irish government turns a blind eye to extraordinary rendition or Dubya Bush announces that his plan for Iraq is to (via PDF) ‘make it more like Israel’ (that’s like “bring it on” times a thousand, right? It can only be a deliberate attempt to piss off the insurgents) then it’s not like we’ve got much of a choice about how to feel.

That said, occasionally you’ll hear or read something so incredibly contemptible, so off-the-scale ludicrous, that you’re forced to just step back and admire the blatant arrogance and cheek of it. And like Bill Hicks discussing the police officers who — under oath — insisted they used the minimum force required to restrain Rodney King, today I am forced to wonder at the sheer size of Lord Goldsmith’s balls.

Seriously. They must be bloody massive.

Lord Goldsmith, for those who don’t know (or have already repressed the memory) was Tony Blair’s Attorney General. He was the chief legal advisor to the UK government for the best part of six years; appointed in 2001 and serving for the entire duration of the Iraq War to date. He’s just been replaced in Gordon Brown’s cabinet reshuffle by Baroness Scotland about whom I know sod-all except that — as with Goldsmith — her willingness to use an aristocratic title makes her an anachronism more suited to a museum than a government office.

Now, there’s no doubt in my mind that Lord Goldsmith’s role during the past few years has essentially been to try and convince anyone who’ll listen that New Labour’s participation in the outright destruction of a sovereign nation — I’m talking about Iraq here, not the UK — and murder of between 2 and 3 percent of the population, is completely legal and above-board. Whenever Tony Blair did something that should rightly land him in a cell in The Hague, Lord Goldsmith popped up and said it was completely legal and above-board. There’s a P.R. agent in the novel I’m writing. His name is Henry Stone and it’s his job to spin the actions of a rich psychopath so that they appear completely legal and above-board. He’s a bit part, not a significant character, but the consequences of his actions have serious ramifications and permit said psychopath to continue his nastiness. In the language of psychology we would describe Henry Stone as “an enabler”.

Anyways, Lord Goldsmith is no longer in a position to enable New Labour to run amok (though I suspect Baroness Scotland has been chosen for her ability to do the same). So, on the day he left office, he clearly decided it was time to let us all know what a massive pair of balls he’s got on him. He called…

for an investigation into how illegal torture techniques came to be used by British soldiers in Iraq. He said it was a matter of grave concern that techniques such as sleep deprivation, hooding and stress positions were deployed against suspects held by UK forces.

Clare Dyer | Goldsmith calls for inquiry into Iraq torture (via Bloggerheads)

Hang on a second; hasn’t he been in a position to order an inquiry into this for the past few years? He’s been the chief legal advisor to the government since 2001 and he waits until he no longer holds that position before mentioning this concern of his? Seriously, is this a joke? And if not, why hasn’t this man been lynched yet, big balls or no big balls?

Ah, but wait a second. Lord Goldsmith goes on to say:

“These techniques were outlawed on a cross-party basis in 1972. We have to seek why anyone thought these were permissible techniques. I think there needs to be an inquiry…
[But] Lord Goldsmith told the parliamentary committee that he was only aware such interrogation techniques were being used after Baha Musa, an Iraqi hotel receptionist, died in British custody.

Ibid.

Well, fair enough then. I’m hardly going to criticise the guy for not launching an inquiry into something he was unaware was happening. Arguably someone in his position should have been informed about the activity of British troops, but if he wasn’t then he can hardly be blamed for failing to act on information he didn’t have. So yeah, fair enough.

Except no! Not “fair enough”. Not even a little bit “fair enough”! You see, The Guardian article reminds anyone who didn’t know that:

Mr Musa, 26, had been detained under suspicion of being an insurgent. He died in Basra in September 2003. Seven members of the Queen’s Lancashire Regiment, which is now the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, faced the most expensive court martial in British history, but all were eventually acquitted. One soldier, Corporal Donald Payne, 35, became the first British serviceman to admit a war crime, that of treating Iraqi prisoners inhumanely, and was jailed for a year.

Ibid.

September 2003? That’s almost four years ago. Lord Goldsmith’s mitigation for not calling for an inquiry sooner is that he only found out about the situation four years ago.

As I say… what balls!

So he’s gone. I half-expected the world to feel a little bit lighter today… less shabby. But then I saw Gordon Brown’s celebratory wave and read his Let the work of change begin sound-bite. I looked closer at the photograph… “Haaaang on”, I thought to myself, “isn’t that the bloke that’s been sat behind Blair — smiling and applauding — at every important policy announcement for the past ten years?”

“It bloody well is, y’know!”

So the election is tomorrow. I had intended writing more about the whole thing, but life got in the way. I had other things to do, and getting enthusiastic about this turgid mess of a campaign would have taken a lot of time and effort. But I tell you something; if politicians could run our public services with the same level of efficiency they erect campaign posters, I’d vote for all of them! Within moments of Bertie and The President signing the document dissolving the Dáil, every lamp-post in the nation became a temporary billboard with three or four awkwardly smiling mugshots on each. Suddenly it’s impossible to walk to the village without being stared-at by a half-dozen unlikeable buffoons demanding my vote.

But who are those buffoons? And what do they stand for? Well, after a bit of googling, a bit of manifesto-reading and a handful of encounters with my local candidates, I think I’m in a position to summarise the choice on offer to the Irish people this coming Thursday. And it’s a grim choice indeed. I should point out that — having lived overseas for most of my life — I have very little knowledge of recent Irish politics. This has drawbacks: I can’t, for example, place a manifesto commitment into an historical context… is it a U-Turn or a long-standing policy? All I know is that it’s what they claim to stand for now. But there are benefits to a fresh perspective too, and I take no political baggage or long-standing party loyalty to my analysis.

The Big Two

As with many multi-party democracies, there are two big parties that dominate the political landscape. They are Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Unlike most multi-party democracies though, these two parties don’t represent a neat right:left opposition. In fact, both occupy almost identical centre-right positions on economic and social policy issues. The real difference is history.

The birth of the Irish Republic was no simple affair. It was complicated, it was messy, it was violent and it took decades to happen. But there’s one date to which you can anchor the narrative… Easter 1916. It was then that The Proclamation of The Republic was read from the steps of the General Post Office on O’Connell Street. The Irish people had attempted to gain independence on many previous occasions, but Easter 1916 signifies the start of the final attempt. By 1920 Britain had been dealing with an ever-escalating insurgency for four long years, and decided to cut their losses. In early 1921 the Irish Free State was born.

But the story didn’t end there. The movement that coordinated the rebellion split into two factions. And the Irish Civil War began. The political parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, are the modern remnants of those two revolutionary groups. But their reasons for opposing one another are long gone. They haven’t had a genuine ideological difference since Fianna Fáil dropped their commitment to a united Ireland (the Good Friday Agreement — and subsequent referendum — saw that commitment removed from the Irish constitution). They’re like feuding families who’ve long since forgotten the source of the original dispute and now spend their time inventing new reasons to hate each other.

Let me give you an example… one of the “burning issues” of this campaign has been law and order. The official crime figures are down, but people report feeling more vulnerable to crime than ever before (note: there are very simple psychological reasons for this, but explaining to people why some of their fears may be unfounded never won votes, right?) As a result, both main parties have been talking tough. And that tends to translate to “putting more police on the streets”. Now, one of Fine Gael‘s Big Ideas is “2,000 more police on the streets”. The line is on half their posters and leaflets and is a mantra constantly being repeated in the mass-media. So during a televised debate between Enda Kenny (leader of Fine Gael) and Bertie Ahern (leader of Fianna Fáil and current Taoiseach), Bertie pressed the Fine Gael leader on the issue. Given that there were already almost a thousand new police in training, was Fine Gael promising an extra 2,000 on top of that? Or were those trainees already included in the number?

Fair enough. Fair question. And it turns out that the answer is that “the 2,000 more” does include current trainees. No big deal really, but Enda fluffed it a bit and didn’t give a straight answer. So the two leaders of the main parties — the two men seeking to become the next leader of the country — then spent ten minutes arguing the point ferociously and talking over one another. And since then I’ve seen three separate current affairs programmes become completely bogged down on this issue.

And that there. Right there. Whether or not Fine Gael are providing extra funding for one or two thousand police in their budget. That’s what they’ve decided to argue about. I accept that there are many who don’t view sustainability or climate change or peak oil as The Big Issues I believe them to be. But I think we can all agree that whether or not Fine Gael are providing extra funding for one or two thousand police in their budget, can’t possibly be one of the most significant issues facing our nation as we set out to choose our government for the next five years. It just can’t.

Both parties offer broadly centre-right economic policies and are socially conservative. Fine Gael have an image of being slightly more socially liberal, but in reality you couldn’t slide a cigarette-paper between them. They both set their moral compasses by the Catholic Church and rarely — if ever — take a stance that might be seen to be in opposition to it. This fact alone should focus the mind of any genuine social liberal. Abortion and gay rights are just two areas where this conservative religious tendency has had a major impact on policy.

They both take identical prohibitionist positions on drug policy; believing that criminal gangs are the best people to be producing and distributing often dangerous and addictive substances. And they’re both very serious about enforcing that prohibitionist policy; criminalising addicts in need of help while simultaneously maximising both the harm caused by the drugs and the profit being made by those selling them. Both main parties appear to honestly believe that filling our jails with pot-heads is a good idea.

Economically, as I mentioned, they’re both centre-right. Back in the early 90s Ireland’s economy began to flourish. A conducive international environment coupled with significant inward investment from the EU allowed the government to begin a period of market liberalisation and reap the inevitable short-term benefits. Privatisation, low corporate tax rates and a willingness to sell anything that wasn’t nailed down led to The Celtic Tiger… a period of extraordinary economic growth. The current government; in fact Bertie himself, has pretty much claimed responsibility for this. But in truth, there’s no real difference between the economic policies of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. They might want to spend an additional 2% of GDP on this rather than that, and perhaps one wants to reduce taxation for first-time house-buyers while the other wants to increase the pension slightly. But essentially they both sing from the same hymn sheet…

“Economic growth is a good thing. It is desirable beyond pretty much all other things and we need to structure our society to this end”. This means the privatisation of state-owned assets: both parties believe that public transport should be sold to private investors and competition introduced. I have news for them both… nobody wants to compete for the Rathcoole bus route. There’s sod-all profit in it. I want a public transport system run for the benefit of the public, not the shareholders. Both main parties have as much as admitted that’s beyond their capabilities.

It’s a little indecent to watch the eagerness with which both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael prostrate themselves before the altar of Big Business. Indeed, The Market is the one institution they revere above The Church. I’m pretty certain if pro-Choice activists could just work out some way of making abortion profitable…

But then again, I knew it was all over for this election when I saw Trevor Sargent — leader of The Irish Green Party — herald his party as “truly business-friendly”. It seems economic growth is king, whatever your political hue. Which brings us neatly to:

The Other Four

This — theoretically at least — is where Irish politics starts to get interesting. Although Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are the big two; barring a miracle, neither of them will get enough of the vote to command an overall majority. Right now Fianna Fáil look certain to be the largest single party, with perhaps as much as 40% of the seats. Fine Gael have been hovering at just below the 30% mark.

The next Dáil will feature TDs from a number of smaller parties, as well as a handful of independents. Of the smaller parties, the ones that should gain enough support to play a part in the post-election deal-making are:

Labour. Currently around 10% in the polls. The Irish Labour Party aren’t quite as far from their socialist roots as Tony Blair’s New Labour, but they’re pretty damn close. Led by the jovial, though somewhat blustering, Pat Rabbitte they have tied their colours fairly closely to the Fine Gael mast. So when the privatisation of Aer Lingus was discussed on a political TV show, the Labour TD could only object to “the manner” in which it was being done and seemed to have no objection to the principle of our transportation infrastructure being run according to the dictates of the free-market.

Indeed, if you look at Labour‘s 5 Commitments for Change, you’ll notice that three of them are just calls for “more” of something we’ve already got… hospital beds, police and people buying homes. Clearly Labour believe that Ireland is pretty much fine; it just needs ‘a bit more of the same’. Certainly they don’t have any radical proposals that would warrant more than two paragraphs of anyone’s time.

Sinn Féin. Currently around 8% in the polls. The dark horse of Irish politics. For years the party was synonymous with bombs and hunger-strikes. It had a leftist slant, but was essentially a single-issue Republican pressure group. And whether or not you like their policies, it’s a credit to Sinn Féin that they are being taken seriously as a multi-issue party in this election. Indeed, as the issue of “The North” begins — hopefully — to fade into history, Sinn Féin are likely to be taken more seriously in the Republic. Most Irish people have strong opinions about Northern Ireland, but it hasn’t traditionally been a major influence on voting patterns. So long as Sinn Féin remained first and foremost “the political wing of the provisional IRA”, they were never likely to gain significant electoral ground south of the border.

What has impressed people, however, is the way in which Sinn Féin has successfully (fingers crossed) made the transition away from armed struggle and brought almost the entire Republican movement with them. They demonstrated that they’re capable of strength of purpose but also of understanding when a new direction is required. And people admire Gerry Adams for that. Of course, despite being president of the party, Adams can’t stand for election here in the Republic what with being Deputy First Minister in The North. Nonetheless his face is on every second Sinn Féin election poster. He’s the one “character” in this election who can challenge Bertie in both face-recognition and political charisma.

Unfortunately Sinn Féin‘s manifesto is a bit of a mish-mash. On the one hand they call for massive expansion of public transport, but on the other they seek to paint themselves as car-friendly (build more roads, reduce motoring costs, etc.) They talk about environmental responsibility and sustainability but also seek to abolish the bin tax (any erosion of the idea that individuals should bear responsibility for the waste they generate would be a disaster in my view). All the same, they are offering a genuine alternative to the centre-right corporatists and I applaud them for it. They are committed to retaining public ownership of those few assets we’ve still got left, and I tip my hat to this line from their manifesto (4MB PDF file)… “[We shall] Prohibit use of Irish airports, airspace, seaports, or territorial waters for preparation for war or other armed conflict by foreign powers or to facilitate any aspect of illegal acts such as the US Government’s programme of ‘extraordinary rendition’.”

The Greens. Currently around 6% in the polls. There’s no question that the Irish Green Party are compromised by the need to appear unwilling to rock the boat. If you are committed to a genuinely sustainable society, then you must accept an end to economic growth. Acknowledgement of this fact is still heresy in the mainstream, however, and consequently the Greens talk themselves up as a business-friendly party who offer a route to environmental protection that is sensitive to the needs of profit and industry.

Nonetheless, for anyone who genuinely feels that climate change and sustainability are Big Issues that require immediate action, The Greens are the only game in town. They would implement policies to reduce Irish carbon emissions by 3% annually. They talk about a “distributed energy grid” incorporating numerous small-scale renewable sources, and have a manifesto promise to “set a target for 5% of national acreage to be organically converted by 2012” (seems low to me, but it’s 5% more than anyone else promises). They’re also very very quiet on the issue of drug policy, but I’m extremely happy to see it gets listed under “Health” rather than “Crime” in their manifesto. And I’m also glad to see a commitment to “remove all gender specific terms from current legislation and regulations governing the granting of marriages to allow same-sex couples enjoy the rights and responsibilities of civil marriage”.

Along with Sinn Féin, the Greens are positioned significantly to the left of the mainstream in Irish politics. In addition, they are by far the most socially liberal of the six big parties.

Progressive Democrats (the PDs). Currently around 3% in the polls. This is the smallest of the Big Six, but has punched above its weight for the past decade as coalition partners of Fianna Fáil, providing them with enough seats to form a majority government. They have two main campaign slogans. Firstly; “Left-Wing Government? NO THANKS!” and secondly “Don’t Throw it All Away”.

They are economically on the far right, essentially free-market corporatists who split from the mainstream of Irish politics in the 1980s because nobody was right wing enough for them. They see themselves as an essential factor in driving recent economic policy and the “Don’t Throw It All Away” line is clearly aimed at those who have benefited materially from the economic anarchy of the past ten years and would like to see it continue.

Because of the Single Transferable Vote system, it’s possible to vote for more than one candidate on election day, listing them in order of preference. Every candidate wants to be Number One on your ballot, but they can reveal a lot when asked who they recommend for second and third preference. When Gerry Adams was asked the question, he replied that he obviously wanted everyone to vote Sinn Féin Number One, and that he honestly didn’t mind who got the voter’s second preference. But then he added; “of course, no thinking person would ever vote for the PDs”.

Although Michael McDowell is the leader of the PDs, it’s Mary Harney that most people associate with the party. She’s been minister for health for the past few years and there are major differences in opinion as to her performance. Indeed, according to the media, health is possibly the single biggest issue for the electorate with Enda Kenny of Fine Gael going so far as to instruct voters to treat the election as “a referendum on the health service” (I do so hate it when politicians tell me what issues I should be voting on). Both the nurses and the medical consultants are involved in industrial disputes with the Health Service Executive (the public body through which the health service is managed) and half the country sees Mary Harney as a crusader pushing through vital but unpopular reforms, while the other half sees her as a free-market zealot more concerned with “extracting value” than with providing a service that actually works.

The Issues

Health. It tops every opinion poll when people are surveyed about the issues they’ll be voting on this year. There’s a perception that the health service has actually got worse despite the unprecedented prosperity of the times. We hear news stories of full hospitals and people spending days on trolleys until beds became free. Stories of people showing up injured at A&E and having to wait hours to see a doctor. And stories of MRSI and other hospital super-bugs claiming lives. Meanwhile the nurses are on strike (they’re on a work-to-rule action, combined with targeted stoppages) and the medical consultants organisation is refusing to cooperate with the government on new contract negotiations meaning that no new consultants can be hired by the state.

It seems to be one crisis after another, and while I have to say that my own experience of the Irish health system has been very positive, there’s nonetheless a lot of dissatisfaction about. Definitely an issue working against the present government, despite the opposition not offering any actual solutions.

The Economy & Taxation. This is the big one for the current government. Irish people — on average — have seen a significant rise in living standards over the past ten years. It’s debatable as to how much of that is due to Fianna Fáil / Progressive Democrat management and how much is due to a confluence of factors beyond their control. But that doesn’t matter. If the economy appears strong and taxes are relatively low, there’s a tendency for people to avoid voting for change. Obviously it’s just one tendency and it can be outweighed by other factors. All the same it’s a powerful one and so long as the housing bubble doesn’t burst over the next 48 hours, it’ll definitely work in the government’s favour.

Law & Order / Crime / Justice. This encompasses two separate but connected issues. Firstly there’s a debate going on in Ireland right now regarding substantial reform of the police service (An Garda Síochána). There’s a growing view that the organisation is too parochial… “too much of a boy’s club”… as well as more sinister allegations of corruption. All of the parties talk about introducing “much needed reform” but stop short of suggesting details, lest they upset anyone.

Secondly, there’s the ever-present spectre of crime that inhabits far more of our collective psyche than the statistics suggest it warrants. But as alluded to earlier, there are understandable psychological reasons for this. The solution, of course, would be to instigate a radical restructuring of society aimed at dismantling consumer culture. Needless to say, that’s not a phrase I encountered in any of the manifestos. Instead we have a “more of the same” approach from all of the major parties with the occasional soundbite about tackling the causes of crime in amongst the tough rhetoric. In truth, none of them have anything original to say on the subject. So just like with health and the economy, this may be an issue the Irish consider important but we’re fooling ourselves if we think we’re being offered a genuine choice on it.

The Environment / Sustainability. Don’t even get me started. There should be a legal obligation, that every time a political candidate or corporate spokesperson uses the word “sustainable”, a big neon sign stating “I am a liar” flashes above their head. They. Just. Don’t. Get. It. “Sustainable” isn’t just a buzzword to bandy about; tagging it onto whatever you’re in favour of (growth, economic development, competitiveness strategy, whatever) in the hope that it’ll seem more wholesome to bothersome hippies. It actually means something.

So when all of the parties aside from the Greens promise “sustainable growth and economic development”, you realise that none of them actually get it. They don’t realise the importance of dealing with the fact that we live in an absurdly unsustainable society and this presents problems that require immediate action. The Greens at least seem to grasp the problem but fall short of proposing the sort of radical solutions required for fear of scaring away voters.

Immigration, Multi-Culturalism and Race. I bring these up simply to point out that they are not major electoral issues in 2007. Ireland’s booming economy has seen the demand for labour skyrocket and there’s been a massive influx of East Europeans to meet that demand. So far this has been a rather smooth process. Infrastructure planning has struggled to keep up with the population rise, but that’s been the worst of it. Any significant economic slowdown could change all that however. How long do you spend at the unemployment office before the Polish worker stops “fulfilling a need” and begins “stealing your job”? Sadly I believe this will be a far bigger issue in 2012 than it is this time around, and I don’t believe that whoever gets into power this week will be handling it very well.

Fingers crossed I’m proven wrong on this one.

Foreign Policy. I took an active interest in both British and American politics when I lived in those countries and they differ significantly from Irish politics in one way in particular. They both have foreign policies worthy of interest (and usually condemnation). In general Ireland doesn’t. We’re officially neutral, and are not a member of any military organisations such as NATO. We even have all manner of complicated get-out clauses with regards to any future European fighting force. That said, Ireland sends a disproportionate (to population) number of soldiers on United Nations peace-keeping operations. Historically we have been very pro-UN, pro-EU, indeed in favour of multilateralism in general.

On the other hand, Ireland is very clearly part of “The West” and we provide facilities for the United States military to refuel and restock. We don’t make the same offer to anyone else who might fancy using us as an aircraft carrier, so while we may not be a member of NATO there’s an obvious “nod and a wink” thing going on. The Greens and Sinn Féin want to do something about that. The others are happy to introduce “grey areas” into our neutrality. Ultimately though, foreign policy isn’t a big electoral issue.

The “personalities”

There aren’t many. People talk nostalgically about a time when Irish politics was full of interesting characters. Politicians with Great Ideals but without the resources — or often the competence — to follow through on them. These days we’ve got a bunch of empty suits who view politics as a lucrative career rather than a stint in public service. People without a Great Ideal between them and whose competence is largely irrelevant as they spend their time working out the best way to do nothing, at great expense.

Nonetheless, a handful do stand out. Towering above them all is Bertie of course. Leader of the nation for the past ten years, Bertie has managed to project an image that amounts to a bizarre blend of “international statesman” and “bloke on the street”. Despite Ireland’s limited unilateral foreign policy, we play a very active role in the EU. Bertie used Ireland’s presidency of that organisation to host a bunch of high-profile conferences which saw him rub shoulders with just about every major world leader you care to mention, and look at ease doing so. Then there’s also his genuinely praiseworthy contribution to the Northern Ireland peace process. I believe that when the history of The Troubles is finally written, Gerry Adams will emerge as the man who played the most crucial role (simply because it was thrust upon him to make the single largest concession, and to convince his followers that it needed to be made). But Bertie will be more than just a footnote. If the government of the Republic hadn’t struck exactly the right note throughout the process, it would have been scuppered.

(And credit where it’s due, the same can be said of Tony Blair. Monkeys and typewriters and what have you).

And yet Bertie Ahern appears to retain his home-spun charm. For all his photo-ops with Clinton and Bush and Blair and Koizumi and Annan, he can still press the flesh with his constituents and give the impression of being just another one of the lads. One of us. His face appears on more election posters than any other, while every Fianna Fáil candidate has the party slogan emblazoned across their ads… “Bertie’s Team”. He’s the dominating personality in modern Irish politics and — paradoxically — he’ll almost certainly be the primary factor in how Fianna Fáil fare in the election. Whatever the outcome.

In marked contrast, there’s Enda Kenny. Let’s just say that if neither were politicians, you’d definitely gravitate towards Bertie at a party and hope you didn’t get stuck with that Enda Kenny bloke who keeps wanting to talk about mortgages. The Fine Gael leader seems to personify The Bureaucrat. He’s serious and sober — and would insist, quite rightly, that politics is a serious and sober business. But he gives the impression that he might just enjoy that about it, rather than see it as a necessary evil. So although he seems to be a competent guy (you’d have no trouble trusting him to take care of your dog while you were on holiday for instance), he doesn’t have the ability to connect with people through the media that can make or break a politician.

There’s an old saw about success being 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. The difference between Bertie and Enda Kenny isn’t that they’re proposing anything different; simply that Bertie manages to focus your attention on the 1% while Kenny keeps emphasising the other 99.

I don’t know if that image quite works, but it’s close enough.

I also think Enda Kenny has suffered significantly from “the Blair factor”. A few days ago Bertie gave a speech to the combined Houses of Parliament in the UK. The first time an Irish leader has done so. The occasion was the return to power-sharing in Northern Ireland and it proved to be yet another great photo-op for Bertie. The statesman with a twinkle in his eye. Everyone in Ireland saw the news footage of his historic speech in Westminster. The news item included mention that Enda Kenny was a guest at the occasion, and the cameras deftly picked him out sitting a few rows back. Where Bertie looked completely at ease while commanding the attention of all present, Kenny looked strangely out of place. Like a member of the press corps who’d much rather be somewhere else.

And of course, as already mentioned, there’s also Gerry Adams. Sinn Féin are an all-Ireland political party with Gerry Adams as president of that party. So even though legally — if not, in his eyes at least, rightfully — he’s a resident and elected politician in a separate nation, Adams has nonetheless played a significant role in the Sinn Féin campaign here in the Republic. He’s admired by a hell of a lot of people (many of them grudgingly, but that’s sometimes the best kind of admiration), and although his party is significantly to the left of the mainstream in Ireland, and although The North hasn’t traditionally played a significant role in Republic politics, the Gerry Adams factor will doubtlessly boost the Sinn Féin vote.

Coalition shenanigans… The Next Irish Government

So them’s the parties… either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael (both centre-right conservative) will form the core of the next government. The question is all about which of them can attract coalition partners to give them an overall majority.

Right now we have a Fianna Fáil / PD government. The polls suggest that Fianna Fáil will lose enough seats to rule out forming a coalition with the PDs. The main opposition is an “Alliance for Change” featuring Fine Gael and Labour. Should they secure an overall majority between them, then they’ll form the next government with Enda Kenny as Taoiseach.

However, the polls also suggest that it won’t be quite that simple either. Right now neither of the centre blocs are attracting enough support to gain an overall majority. And that would make things very interesting indeed. There’s talk of a rainbow coalition; Fine Gael, Labour and The Greens. Meanwhile Bertie hasn’t ruled out an alliance with Sinn Féin (despite recent history, still a very controversial idea). This would certainly exclude the PDs from government and — I suspect — see them die out as a political force. On the other hand, it has been mooted that Labour might switch to the other side of the fence in a bid to prevent Sinn Féin becoming part of the government. This probably wouldn’t work if both parties maintain their current leadership (Bertie and Pat don’t like one another) so the question becomes whether or not Bertie’s team might ditch Bertie at the last minute in order to do a deal with Labour and prevent Sinn Féin having an influence on policy.

If either of the centre-right blocs gain support enough for an overall majority then nothing much will change. But the tantalising prospect of either Sinn Féin or The Greens holding the balance of power and tempering the inevitable centre-right corporatist government with something marginally less insane, is just enough to get me out to the polling booth tomorrow. My vote? 1- The Greens. 2- Sinn Féin. 3- The Workers Party (traditional unreconstructed socialists… they’ll get a tiny percentage of the vote, but I think there’s nothing wrong at all with having one or two old-style fire’n’brimstone lefties in the Dáil. They’re good at dissent.)

As for you? If you’ve got the vote and don’t plan on using it then I urge you to at least show up and spoil your ballot. A high turnout with a high spoilt-ballot count is a much better indication of general political dissatisfaction than a low turnout. And if you’re still undecided at this late stage, here’s my reluctant pitch for the Green vote. It’s a protest vote. It’s not saying that you believe the Green Party are the best people to run the country. Or that they have all the answers to global warming and peak oil and the death of our oceans. Instead your vote is saying that you want those issues addressed. Not talked about. Not stuck away in some underfunded minor department. But placed right at the centre of our agenda and informing policy in all areas.

Well, Bertie’s finally called the election. Speculation in the media began just after Christmas and had reached fever-pitch by Sunday morning when he paid a visit to Áras an Uachtaráin (the residence of the Irish President) in the Phoenix Park. With very little pomp or ceremony, himself and President Mary McAleese signed the document which legally dissolved the current Dáil. Thus did 166 politicians lose their jobs and a three week election campaign which will culminate in a national election on Thursday May 24th got underway.

I’ve never really paid close attention to Irish politics before. Which isn’t very surprising given that I haven’t lived here since I was a child. When I lived in the UK, I paid attention to UK politics… voting for Ken in the London mayoral elections and voting Green once and spoiling my ballot in two nationals. When I was living in the States, I followed the 1998 Congressional elections quite closely despite not having a vote (and enjoyed seeing several states pass medical marijuana propositions). I didn’t engage with Greek politics when I lived there; the fact that I didn’t speak the language was probably the biggest obstacle. But I recall being very impressed by the huge political rallies that still occur, and the willingness of Greeks to express their political will through massive demonstrations that occasionally look like they may involve storming parliament (few things warm the heart like a good storming of parliament). Then again, when I first moved to Greece the country had not long ago spent a spell as a military dictatorship. People who’ve recently seen tanks on the streets tend to be more actively engaged than those who haven’t. It’s just one of those things.

Anyways, the Irish elections promise to be genuinely quite intriguing as the outcome seems up in the air right now (unlike recent elections in the UK, for instance, which were always a foregone conclusion). The electoral system is proportional representation by means of the Single Transferable Vote. And no, I haven’t the faintest idea what that means. Well, I understand the principle. It’s designed to provide a parliament that as far as possible literally represents the voting intentions of the people. So if 10% of the people vote for Party X, roughly 10% of the TDs should be from Party X. Of course, because not every constituency has exactly the same population, you’ll never get a Dáil that perfectly represents the popular vote. Nonetheless, it achieves a far closer mirror of the intentions of the nation than First Past The Post systems (like the UK, where smaller parties can command 5% or 8% of the popular vote and not have any national representation whatsoever).

Of course, STV has plenty of downsides too. It rarely results in an overall majority for one single party. My own personal view is that this is actually a good thing. However, in practical terms, nations that wish to have an active foreign policy (such as the United States, Russia and the UK to name but three) would probably find such a policy difficult to navigate alongside the internal politics of a coalition government. In fact, this constitutes an excellent argument in favour of coalition governments… it makes starting wars a little more difficult.

That said, aggressive foreign policies aren’t the only argument in favour of stable and coherent government. Is it really helpful for the people running your public services to have different ideas about the best way to do it? Large projects can easily get bogged down if there’s not a single clear vision to guide them. On top of that, what do we want our politicians spending their time on…? Working on the best way to run public services, or working on the internal politics of a shaky coalition?

OK, fair enough, maybe public services would work a lot better if our dozy politicians just left them alone and dedicated themselves to spewing meaningless media sound-bites. Still, it’s simplistic to insist that PR systems are automatically “better” just because they closer reflect the popular vote. Indeed, if you’re like me and have serious problems with representative democracy in the first place, then just making it more representative isn’t necessarily making it any better.

See, on balance… I’d estimate that of all the people I’ve encountered in my life, I’d trust less than 50% of them to take care of a pet for a week. So I’m reluctant to live under a government they’ve chosen. Which isn’t to say that people are mad, bad or arseholes in general. Merely that most of us haven’t the faintest idea what’s in our best interest. It’s possible to prove this on an etch-a-sketch. And while I’m willing to re-evaluate this belief based upon any argument you may present, I’ll only consider it when almost 20% of all deaths in this country are no longer directly attributable to cigarette smoking. A fifth of us are committing slow painful suicide while simultaneously enriching those who got us hooked on cancer sticks in the first place. Let’s face it, as a group, we’re not demonstrating an ability to exercise good judgement there.

But whatever. This isn’t a post about my own preferred system of governance (modified anarcho-syndicalism with a dash of green and a generous dollop of whimsy). Just a warning that over the next three weeks I’ll probably write a post or two analysing the approaching election. I’ll do a bit of research on the STV system and explain how it works. I’ll discuss the various parties and what they have to offer (the phrase “rapacious capitalism” may well crop up). And I’ll tell you about the issues that — say the media — people are planning to vote on (the health system apparently tops the agenda). Think of it as a crash-course in Irish politics.

As much for me as you, dear reader.

I was over at Chicken Yoghurt just now (reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated I’m happy to say) and discovered, via this post, one of the strangest videos ever to grace YouTube… A World Without America. I had to watch it a second time to confirm that the first hadn’t been an acid flashback. It’s so absurd in fact, that I’m at something of a loss as to how to interpret it. As a pro-American statement it fails so miserably as to come across as a badly-executed self-parody. But as a satirical look at political propaganda in general, it commits the cardinal error of being literally unbelievable. We already live in a world where energy companies talk about tackling climate change by increasing fossil fuel use (honestly!). So it takes an especially bad writer to produce satire so over-the-top as to seem silly rather than scathing.

Employing the device of short fictional news reports, the video presents a quick glimpse at an alternative recent history of… wait for it… a world without America. Literally. The world map has an extra ocean where the USA should be. It’s clearly aimed at two audiences. Firstly (though perhaps incidentally) it’s aimed that those of us who would describe ourselves politically as anti-American, and who — by virtue of our opposition to what we see as an aggressive foreign policy carried out by an extremist administration with only tenuous legitimacy — clearly want nothing more than to wipe an entire nation completely off the map, and live in a world where all the little children have polio (seriously… watch the video). Secondly and most importantly, it’s aimed at those who support America’s self-selected role in the modern world but who maybe get a little concerned that all this talk of A Perpetual State of War sounds a wee bit dodgy. It does this by assuring them that if it wasn’t for America (and by implication, America as it presently exists) then we’d all be commies, either living in perpetual fear of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons, or dying of polio.

After the news reports, the video continues by flashing up a list of — what I can only suppose are — America’s greatest achievements. I was bemused to see “The liberation of the Falklands” listed along with “the bra”, “Elvis Presley”, “the motor-car”, “a democratic Nicaragua” (no, really) and “31% of global wealth”.

That last one is perhaps the most revealing of all. It tells you a lot about a person or organistion if they actively celebrate the expropriation of almost a third of global resources by less than 5% of the global population. A World Without America is a video celebrating, amongst other things, greed.

This should surprise nobody however, as A World Without America is produced by 18 Doughty Street… the online propaganda unit of the British Conservative Party. That’s not how they pitch themselves it goes without saying. Indeed, if it wasn’t for some recent intra-blog warfare, the fact that 18 Doughty Street is edited and financed by people with close ties to the Tory Party (including a prospective London mayoral candidate) wouldn’t be common knowledge.

Basically… and at the risk of blogging about blogging, 18 Doughty Street did an exposé on a NuLabor think tank which was using a legal loophole to register itself as a charity and get all manner of interesting tax benefits. Legal, but pretty damn unethical I think you’ll agree. Chalk one up to 18 Doughty Street, right? Well, no. It turns out that the person responsible for the video — a Mr. Iain Dale — was himself involved with a tory think tank. Guess what? Uh-huh… they use the same legal loophole. If all of that seems a bit vague, it’s because this all happened during my recent 2-month break from blogging and I can’t be arsed to go back and read every single post on the issue (there are many).

Anyways, the details are irrelevant. The relevant point here is that 18 Doughty Street is Tory public relations. Luckily for the rest of us, it’s run by a bunch of not-very bright people who seem to know even less about P.R. (no budding Edward Bernays is didactic doughty Dale) than they do about politics. And that’s not (just) me being insulting, it’s by their own admission. Well, the bit about not knowing much about politics. In a recent email, Iain Dale claimed not to know what the word “nihilism” meant. This is despite using the word himself in a prior broadcast. Now, I don’t know about you dear reader, but if you run a serious website under the tagline “Politics For Adults”, I’d like to think you have a rudimentary grasp of political theory. Perhaps I expect too much.

But back to A World Without America. It’s shoddy and it’s insulting and it’s as far from “Politics for Adults” as it is possible to get. I have no doubt that you could find a handful of people who describe themselves as anti-American and who genuinely seek a world without America. The trouble is; those people are lunatics. Serious people who consider themselves anti-American have a view that’s a little more nuanced than that. And if 18 Doughty Street wants to engage in politics for adults, then I suggest they put their money where their mouth is and address the anti-Americanism of rational adults, and not that of the lunatics.

I love America. I adore New York and wish I could visit my American cousins more often. And that’s literal cousins by the way. Like many Irish families, we spread a bit further west than Galway. I lived for a year in Chicago. And as for listing the praiseworthy achievements of Americans… believe me, I could go on for a lot longer than 18 Doughty Street’s strange little list. Though admittedly Elvis would be on mine too.

But in political terms, I describe myself as anti-American. I oppose the self-selected role America plays in the world. If it wants to play global policeman, then I have news for it… everyone in the world has to vote in US elections. Otherwise it’s a global tyrant. You can’t have it both ways. The people of Iraq did not elect George Bush. They had no representation in the political forces that decided to reshape their nation four years ago. That’s textbook totalitarianism.

And I oppose totalitarianism. I’m not claiming that the actions of despots can never have positive consequences (though in the case of Iraq, I would suggest that they have not). But I am suggesting that — excepting in clear cases of self-defence (anyone who tries to claim that the invasion of Iraq was self-defence should not expect a polite response from this writer) — the use of military force should be illegal, and should be considered a crime against humanity. I believe that militarism inevitably leads to despotism. And that to celebrate the role played by America in the modern world is to celebrate despotism and greed. Philosophically speaking, that’s halfway down the road to geniune nihilism, Iain.

It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.
– Albert Einstein

Mine too Albert.

There’s an essay by Robin Fishwick called In Defence of Hypocrisy which everyone should read. It’s very short but wonderfully perceptive, and it makes a point that should probably be made more often. In fact, I’m a walking illustrative example of Fishwick’s point. As mentioned recently, I was a strict vegetarian for most of my life; I did some hunt-sabbing in my late teens and I’ve been on a bunch of anti-vivisection or anti-whaling or anti-bloodsports demonstrations. I’d even put myself in the philosophically difficult position of believing that animals have certain ‘rights’ and that our behaviour towards them is in the sphere of ‘morality’.

However, since my early twenties, my footwear of choice has been the classic 7-eye, ankle-length Doc Martin black leather boot. And you wouldn’t believe the number of times I’ve been hassled about this fact. Confirmed carnivores, fresh from stuffing their faces in MacDonalds somehow feel justified in pointing out my ethical failing. “How can you wear leather boots”, they demand, “and yet still call yourself a vegetarian?” Of course by now I’ve developed a full repertoire of responses depending upon the person challenging me. My personal favourite is “The same way you can have shit for brains and still call yourself a human being”.

Thing is, my reasons for wearing leather Docs wouldn’t pass the ethical tests against which I judge the food I eat. I don’t have some great moral justification… it’s just that I really really like the boots, they’re very comfortable, and they work out quite cheap (despite not being cheap to buy) as they only need replacing every five years or so. I guess I’m simply failing to meet the ethical standards I have set for myself. I’m a hypocrite.

But I’m in good company. The vast majority of the people I truly admire have stuggled and continue to struggle to reach the standards they have set for themselves. If you’re reading this and thinking “Bah! I always achieve the standards I set”, then I humbly suggest you’ve not set them high enough. Albert Einstein, a great thinker and a profoundly moral man, was a strong proponent of vegetarianism for most of his life. But Einstein was also a human being with human failings and a real taste for German sausage. In letters to friends he wrote about his “terribly guilty conscience” every time he gave into temptation and ate his favourite food.

Should we deride the man for saying that “Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet” and then occasionally succumbing to the temptation of a smoked sausage sarnie? Or should we celebrate him for recognising a truth and doing his best to live his life accordingly, even if he failed from time to time? If it’s flawless heroes you want, then the human race probably isn’t the best place to look for them. We are imperfect creatures, and those of us who strive to overcome those imperfections – despite knowing that battle can never be completely won – shouldn’t be berated for each stumble.

Passive Vs. Aggressive Hypocrisy

But that’s hardly the whole story. There’s a hypocrisy that can’t be defended. One that is not the passive failure of individuals to meet the standards they set for themselves, but the aggressive insistence of others that we all meet standards they themselves fail to achieve. This form of hypocrisy can usually be seen in the three ‘P’s (parents, priests and politicians). So a child is threatened with a grounding if they get caught with a cigarette, despite the father smoking 40 a day. The congregation is threatened with eternal damnation if they steal, by a priest pilfering cash from the poor-box. And the public get threatened with a criminal record and imprisonment if they possess cannabis, by a politician who was an occasional toker for several years of his life.

All three of those are utterly indefensible. If a father wishes to punish his child for smoking a cigarette (not an unreasonable thing to do by any means) then he needs to give them up first. If a priest wishes to be a moral leader; to proscribe a standard of behaviour and threaten punishment for those who fail to achieve it; then that priest needs to live to that standard. And if a politician wants to enforce a law under which cannabis smokers are jailed or receive a criminal record (along with the various restrictions that places on the rest of your life), then that politician better not have been a toker himself.

Here’s an interesting question… does anyone believe it would have been possible for David Cameron to become leader of the British Conservative Party if he had a criminal record? Oh come on Tories! Be honest, there’s just no fricking way he’d even have gotten selected as an election candidate. Yet Mr. Cameron and his party have a policy that states clearly that Mr. Cameron should have been criminalised for his earlier actions. I love the description of the punishment Cameron received when his cannabis-smoking was discovered at Eton…

Eton launched an investigation into reports that some boys were buying drugs in the nearby town. During the course of the inquiry, Cameron and a number of other pupils admitted smoking pot…

Cameron was ‘gated’- meaning that he was deprived of school privileges and barred from leaving the premises or being visited by friends or family. His punishment lasted for about a week.

An Eton contemporary said the punishment had been particularly humiliating for the future Leader of the Opposition because it had come shortly before the annual ‘Fourth of June’ gala day, when the college is thrown open to pupils’ parents, relatives and friends who are invited to enjoy exhibitions, speeches, sports events and the traditional ‘Procession of Boats’.

‘Cameron was gated just beforehand, so his parents, who had been looking forward to spending the day with him, had to apologise to their friends,’ the student said. ‘It was all painfully embarrassing. But after that he pulled himself together and became an exemplary pupil.’

Cameron admits: I used dope at Eton

Awwww… poor lickle David… gated for a full week! And all that embarrassment. Meanwhile the latest Tory policy statement I can find on the subject of cannabis demands that the government reclassify cannabis as a Class B drug (rather than Class C as it’s currently classified). This means the Tory Party believe that anyone caught in possession of cannabis should be jailed for between 3 months and 5 years, receive a minimum fine of GBP2,500 and have a criminal record for the rest of their lives.

The Tories are prepared to forgive Cameron his youthful indiscretions of course. They’ve just spent over a decade in the wilderness with one unelectable leader after another; political expediency demands that they turn a blind eye to Cameron’s pot-smoking (and coke-snorting allegedly) days. But that’s just not good enough. The only reason David Cameron is within touching distance of power is because the policy he proposes regarding cannabis possession doesn’t apply to him.

Careful with that Vote

I was talking about the upcoming Irish elections with a friend recently. He was advocating a vote for Fine Gael for tactical reasons (a classic ‘anyone but the incumbent’ strategy that involves voting for the strongest opposition even if you don’t like them). “But D,” I argued, “you can’t vote for Fine Gael… you’re a pot head!” He dismissed this initially by pointing out that he didn’t vote on single issues. “Yeah, but this is one hell of a single issue D. You’re electing someone who wants to put you in prison. Who wants to take your family, your home and your job away from you. It’s sheer insanity for you to want that person in power.”

He’s reconsidering his position.

And I damn well hope David Cameron is reconsidering his. I’d love to ask him whether he believes his life would be better had his cannabis possession been subjected to the punishment he advocates for others? Would Mr. Cameron be a better, more-productive member of society if he’d been expelled from school, spent three months in a juvenile detention centre, and received a criminal record barring him from numerous positions (as well as travel to several countries)? Would society be better off to have one more half-educated ex-con with a chip on his shoulder?

We are all of us hypocrites from time to time, but David Cameron is guilty of an aggressive hypocrisy that makes him dangerous and untrustworthy and – I sincerely hope – entirely unelectable.

UPDATE: It strikes me that being “a half-educated ex-con with a chip on his shoulder” probably qualifies as “a better, more-productive member of society” than does Leader of the Conservative Party. However I suspect Mr. Cameron doesn’t think that.

From Europhobia (now dressed in lovely WordPress trousers and sporting a shiny new URL) comes news that investigations into European complicity in US war crimes have identified 147 occasions when Irish soil was “suspected of being used for ‘extraordinary renditions’ or transfer of prisoners without trial or legal redress to sites such as Guantanamo Bay or Uzbekistan.”

It’s clear that the so-called “neutrality” of Ireland is a sham. At Shannon we provide transfer, refuelling and storage facilities for the US Air Force. I suspect that our government would not have offered the same hospitality to the Iraqi airforce in the geographically unlikely event that Saddam Hussein had made the request.

That said, our constitution is pretty damn clear about the neutrality of Ireland, and it’s always been a strict rule that Shannon could not be used for combat missions. This means that long-range bombers can’t refuel in Ireland on their way to drop explosives on a city, but a plane full of marines on their way to shoot people in that city is acceptable. I wonder whether the revered group of idealists, poets, socialists and agitators who framed our constitution would be proud of a government willing to make such spurious distinctions.

Or of a people willing to quietly acquiesce.

But use of Irish soil during these CIA ‘extraordinary renditions’? That brings the moral transgression and culpability to a whole other level. Here we have the Irish State actively and regularly assisting a policy of kidnap and torture. And 147 flights over a period of a few years is pretty damn regular. We’re not talking about a couple of isolated incidents here.

Protestations of ignorance are hollow and meaningless. An independent neutral republic not only has a right, it has a duty, to regulate any foreign military traffic that crosses its border. And for precisely this reason! So that we are not complicit in acts inconsistent with our international obligations. If a US airforce plane lands in Shannon and it contains people snatched from the street by the CIA en route for torture in an Uzbek detention centre, the Irish authorities have an absolute legal obligation to detain that flight and prevent a crime against humanity.

That these flights were never once detained demonstrates either than the Irish authorities were aware of their nature and chose to provide assistance nonetheless; or that a deliberate policy of ignorance was in place. Imagine an Irish airport had been used as a stop-off point for plane-loads of Afghan heroin for the past few years. Imagine that in order to gain favour with the heroin producers, the Irish government ordered the contents of the planes not to be examined. Imagine that the government later claimed they didn’t realise anything dodgy was going on. Lastly, imagine how naive you’d have to be to believe them.

You may consider that an extreme analogy. And it’s true, it would take a peculiar kind of eejit to think nothing dodgy was going on if Afghan heroin producers asked them to ignore some planes. But the C.I.A.? I mean, come on! You can trust them to be completely legit and above-board, right?

As I say; a peculiar kind of eejit. The kind we seem to elect.

What’s worse is that even despite widespread acknowledgement that these torture buses were fuelled and resupplied by Ireland, we have not denied the US military use of the facilities at Shannon. Instead we have accepted assurances that such flights will never stop in Ireland if indeed they ever happen which they don’t.

So we’re checking the planes now? Well no. They’ve promised to be all legit and above-board from now on, so we don’t need to.

Who has? Ummmm… the C.I.A.

You mean the kidnappers and torturers? Doh!

I must be the only person in Ireland who doesn’t give a flying feck about Bertie’s loans. Quite how the issue has dominated the national media for two weeks now is completely beyond me. For those who haven’t been following it; it seems our current taoiseach got a few off-the-record “loans” when he was in personal financial difficulty back in the early 1990s. Initially the government tried to prevent a corruption inquiry from investigating these loans, which was actually the worst thing that occurred in my view (seeking to abuse their political power to secure preferential treatment).

During the investigation a few other things turned up; but basically it’s all roughly in the same ballpark… over a decade ago, to get him through some money-problems, Bertie accepted a few thousand quid that – in retrospect – he probably shouldn’t have. This has been seized upon by every opposition politician as an opportunity to publicly link Bertie and the idea of “corruption” in the eyes of the electorate.

Here’s my thing… there have been more important things to talk about for the past two weeks than Bertie making a bad decision 12 years ago. These ridiculous ideas in the media that Bertie’s loans “strike at the very heart of democracy” and they represent a “vital issue of public trust” are just that… ridiculous ideas. Of course Bertie Ahern is corrupt and untrustworthy. Anyone, here in 2006, who is still labouring under the delusion that any politician should be trusted needs a serious talking to. Maybe one of those “stop acting so hysterically” slaps. Politicians are a bunch of liars and cheats and should be regarded as The Enemy until further notice. OK?

Sheesh. Some people.

Bloody Mahmoud Ahmadinejad! Guess what he’s gone and done? Only started a blog is what. So suddenly I’m getting hundreds of hits from people typing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blog into google. Which would be nice if it weren’t so disheartening. Hundreds of people arriving at my site, taking a two second glance, and thinking “ugh, this definitely ain’t what I was searching for” before hitting ‘Back’ on their browser in the hope of finding something to better suit their disposition.

Mind you, I guess I should take heart in my failure to capture the large audience that google and its ilk can theoretically provide. One’s popularity is – with a few noteworthy exceptions – a direct indication of one’s general wrongness. Don’t believe me? Take a glance at who wins elections, who tops the charts, what has the exclamation ‘Bestseller!’ on the cover, and what sort of regurgitated drekk is putting bums on seats in cinemas this summer. The Sun is not only the most widely read newspaper in the UK, but The Irish Sun is the most widely read rag on this side of the water. And don’t even talk to me about reality television and just how far up the collective arse humanity can shove that.

Yes, yes, there’s exceptions. You don’t need to tell me about The Beatles or Gandhi. But for every Beatles there’s a Jason Donovan, a Cliff Richard, a Simple Minds and an Oasis. For every Gandhi there’s a Stalin, a Blair, a Nixon and a Hitler. So yes, I’m more than prepared to accept that once in a while they get it right, but I’m also firmly convinced that as a general rule, the judgment of The People is fundamentally faulty.

Which is usually OK. We’re just bloody monkeys after all, so it doesn’t really matter, in the grand scheme of things, how we make our decisions. Let everyone have a turn at the wheel whether they’re drunk or not. Where’s the harm?

Except… and here’s the problem… when I say “we’re monkeys so it doesn’t matter”, I don’t actually believe that. Well, I believe we’re monkeys of course (don’t get all fricking pedantic and insisting on using the word “ape”. I prefer “monkey”, OK? Purely on the basis that it sounds funnier). But I don’t believe that our decisions – and even how we make those decisions – don’t matter. Because, and this is where we move from the solid to the ethical, I am not a moral relativist.

In fact, I’m an absolutist of the Old School… harking right back to the Greeks no less; though I’d obviously like to throw the odd “neo” around to get rid of some of the more wildly superstitious stuff. I believe that each of us is born with rights and obligations. And I take what I call an “Einsteinean” view of the source of these rights and obligations. Einstein himself would cite The Buddha and Spinoza.

But source and justification is a tangent I’m not going off on today. Instead it’s the ramifications for sociopolitical organisation and decision-making that interest me. Because clearly, unless your moral system specifically enshrines the right of every individual to have an equal say in decision making (and mine doesn’t… moral codes derived from pantheistic belief systems are rarely so explicit) then moral absolutism implies a curtailment of democracy.

1) For democracy.

We are committed to democratic norms, procedures and structures — freedom of opinion and assembly, free elections, the separation of legislative, executive and judicial powers, and the separation of state and religion. We value the traditions and institutions, the legacy of good governance, of those countries in which liberal, pluralist democracies have taken hold.

The Euston Manifesto

You see, it’s difficult to square all those beliefs. “[D]emocratic norms, procedures and structures”… that means elections and stuff, right? But what if the people vote for closer ties between religion and state for example? Does that mean you stop believing in “the separation of state and religion”. Well, clearly not… but it is saying that where The People vote for closer ties between religion and state, that in such a situation it is right to implement such a policy. Right?

Which isn’t very absolutist. In fact it’s waaaay at the far end of the relativist crowd. It’s almost saying that morality can be mandated by popular whim. Which it can’t. And because social policy must reflect our collective rights and obligations, it follows that social policy (in relevant areas) cannot be decided by democratic mandate.

The most basic one…

… we each have an obligation to live our life in such a way that it does not prevent others from living theirs.

Without that obligation, our own corresponding right to live full lives is meaningless. And although we each bear that obligation as individuals, it also translates upwards as a collective obligation to organise our society sustainably. Because it doesn’t matter whether those we prevent living full lives are separated from us by distance or time; our obligation to them remains.

And because this obligation cannot be removed by popular vote, so it follows that decisions which impact the longterm sustainability of society and the ability of future generations to live full lives must be made based upon our unchanging obligation and not the current desires of the people (“full lives”, incidentally isn’t a crass gauge of life expectancy but a phrase that implies a life without being forced to bear unreasonable burdens created by your grandparents and their friends).

Luckily though, as well as containing the wet western wank of The Euston Manifesto, the internet also hosts some far wiser and more coherent voices. Voices such as Harry Hutton, who wonders…

Whose idea was it to have elections, anyway? If MPs were selected by competitive examination we wouldn’t be in this hole. We don’t elect airline pilots or heart surgeons, so why Prime Ministers? The idea that Mr Average Briton, walking around Tesco with his mouth hanging open, should be allowed to choose the government is superstitious nonsense.

Harry Hutton

Who the hell needs my oh-so-knowingly-dry pseudo-academic toss when we’ve got Mr. Hutton? That’s what I want to know.

A leaflet fluttered through my letterbox yesterday. It was from a local politician… a prospective Fine Gael (Fee-neh Gale) candidate in next years General Election. Her name is Frances Fitzgerald and her leaflet is a bit of early canvassing for next year, outlining some of her policies on mostly local – but also some wider – issues.

It took all of five seconds to establish that she has a whelk’s chance in a supernova of ever getting my vote. But that was never likely let’s face it. Fine Gael are a conservative centre-right party with a capitalist ideology. If there’s a mad independent candidate with staring eyes who is running on a ticket of whatever the aliens tell him… then he will better represent my views than Frances Fitzgerald. Because if Frances is standing for a party which seeks to perpetuate our rampant over-consumption and unsustainable economic growth, then she’s standing on the opposite side of the barricades to me.

The policy part of her leaflet opens with a section on crime. It’s beyond predictable; real mass-psychology 101 stuff, y’know? Open with fear. Scared people are more compliant… more receptive to any future statements you make once you’ve adopted the guise of “protector”. And what better way to do this than talk about…

• “more Gardaí­ on the beat”;
• “more [Garda] cars and CCTV”;
• “implement a policy of zero-tolerance”; and
• “ensure that criminals serve their time… not back on the streets posing a threat”.

That’s a distillation of the first four items in her 5-point plan to “restore law and order to all our communities”. The fifth and final point talks about investment in “recreational facilities for young people”. In the name of all that’s sacred! Does a politician who thinks in such an unimaginative and insultingly simplistic way honestly believe she can represent my views?

Solving crime

Look, if there is indeed a crime problem then let’s make a serious attempt to solve it. No, no, I’m not suggesting that we’re ever going to stop murder and mayhem. That’s never going away. We’re apes, and there’ll always be plenty of folks willing to act as a reminder. But despite this, clearly we could choose to address the crime problem more rationally than we’re doing at present.

I mean, tell me; has “more CCTV” ever resulted in “restoring law and order”? I lived in the UK for a while… land of the everpresent cycloptian eye. Everywhere you turn in London there’s a half dozen CCTV cameras peering at you accusingly. Yet they appear not to have eliminated crime in London as yet. Presumably, therefore, to have the desired effect we’ll need more than they’ve got in London. How many more Frances? Do you want us living in a world where our every moment is scrutinised by the lens?

I know a book about that.

And when you proudly proclaim your intolerance Frances, like a badge of honour, then I shudder at the thought of being represented by someone with so little compassion. Zero tolerance, eh? Whenever I hear a politician utter that phrase I hear a distant response… “let he who is without sin cast the first stone”. And I want to demand that politician imagine their life today if their every past transgression had been treated with zero-tolerance. Demand they tell me whether the compassion and forgiveness of others had any part at all in forming the person they are today. And why they seek to deny that to others.

Zero-tolerance is not a policy. It’s a way of looking at the world. And one that I will never vote for.

Of course I’m well aware of how difficult it is to accurately trace lines of cause and effect when it comes to something as complex as a social system. There’s just too many damn variables. Nonetheless, there’s a phrase from systems engineering… “predictable consequence”. It’s important to read that phrase as a technical term; one which is ever-so-slightly different to the literal. Think of it as a defined as “on the balance of probabilities and based upon what we know of the most influential factors of the system, this is a likely outcome”.

The point of the phrase is that it’s how the analyst identifies something that requires action. If I say that a predictable consequence of running a system at the required pressure would be blown valves; I’m not saying that the valves will blow. I’m saying they need to be replaced. It may sound like splitting hairs, I guess, but the distinction is a real one.

Now, to describe our drug policy as counter-productive is like describing the sun as warm. We have decided, voluntarily, to place one of the world’s largest and most lucrative industries entirely into the hands of violent criminals. We have voluntarily surrendered all control over the manufacture and distribution of some of the world’s most addictive substances. We have passed laws to ensure that the consumption of these substances is made vastly more dangerous than is necessary. And we have entire government agencies working tirelessly to drive up the price of these addictive substances.

The predictable consequence of that set of policies is a crime wave. It would not be stretching it too much to suggest that we’ve somehow managed to implement a set of drug policies which maximise the social damage of drugs. Rational drug law reform will not “solve crime”. However it will radically reduce the amount of violent and acquisitive crime in our society. So as a first step, I’d argue that’s the sensible place to start.

It’ll certainly do more to reduce crime than extra policemen and a couple of youth centres.

Improving public transport

Fine Gael is committed to introducing competition in the Dublin Bus market. By allowing private operators to tender competitively for licences…

Ohhhhhkaaaayyyy… I guess she’s really not after my vote. Well, it’s nice that she’s upfront about it.

Here’s my thing… this is what I actually want my bus to be. First and foremost, I want it to be a public service. Now that may sound selfish. “What about all those millions of people who want it to be a profitable business, eh?” you ask. But the thing is… are there really that many of them? Because I’ve yet to actually meet one, despite their prevelance in the political media circus.

I want a bus that leaves Rathcoole every half hour and takes me straight into the city centre bypassing the bottleneck that is Clondalkin. I don’t want the bus to make any profit, merely cover costs* and I want it to run 24 hours day (though the frequency can drop to one an hour between midnight and 5am).

That would be a public service. The fact that Frances Fitzgerald believes it would be a bad idea (or, mindbogglingly, that such a service is actually beyond the ability of Fine Gael to organise) suggests that her first desire isn’t to be a public servant. Rather she seeks to serve the interests of that portion of the population who would genuinely prefer the bus to be run primarily as a profitable business.

That can only mean the shareholders of the corporations tendering for the rights to make money out of our public transport. Good to know. All I need to do is become a wealthy shareholder in a predatory corporation seeking to run my bus service at the lowest possible cost to themselves and the highest possible cost to me. Then Frances Fitzgerald might want to represent my interests. Yay Fine Gael!

Almost time to take to the streets

Oh there’s plenty more, but really, who cares? If this is the best that mainstream politics can offer us… well, it’s clearly time to look outside mainstream politics for the solutions we need to the problems we’ve created. It’s time we swept aside the empty nonsense of the Frances Fitzgeralds of this world.

Woe betide the next politician to leaflet my street…