Citizenism

It is the worst of times one can say so with impunity. There are times when a person could feel they have woken from a bad dream. I try to engage my business honestly each day. As a writer of fiction I can run and hide in my stories. I can wallow in the imperfections of my characters. Sometimes I even seek solace with them—marvelling at their heroics or their restrained emotions.

Yet it extremely difficult to get away from the news. The spin—the billion euro radio, where small people rattle off sums with an air of superiority. It is like they are saying ‘I mean billions like, I actually said billions not millions!’ The spin continues, and life but not as we knew it goes on.

Politics is a funny business. Politicians are very funny individuals especially within the framework of what we would like to term our democracy. FG for example has
around 35,000 members. This from a population of 4.5 million. Labour would have far less than this. Yet we charged them to battle for our economy free us citizens from bank debt—and create a universal health plan. None of these things has happened. Mainly for ideological reasons in FG. For example the government chose to pay unsecured bondholders.

If you read up on FG they are referred to as right of centre—or Christian democrats whatever that means? But both FG and FF their ideological brothers have stripped this state, and namely you and I the citizen of our natural resources. So when they say that the country is broke and that we must tighten our belts, they are in fact lying. This country is not broke? It struggles because the citizen has no access to his and her assets. They have destroyed our fishing industry which is larger in area than our land mass itself. They have given away our oil and gas and other valuable resources to their friends in high places.

There are many other areas where we as citizens have been robbed. There is a huge potential in forestry and agricultural food processing. But the state sits back and does nought, threatening people with disabilities and bus passes. You see fellow citizens we don’t have a state any longer. We have a government that is unrepresentative of the citizen. It is choked by the outdated and undemocratic whip system. It is served by radio and television and newspapers that serve its interests and propaganda.

One can argue in these blogs for a miraculous conversion to socialism or indeed social justice. But the spin doctors pour boiling water on any ideologies save for neoliberal. Does anyone remember the series of silly speeches made by Enda Kenny? The man was demented—he spoke at length about job creation, and how the entrepreneur was standing by to save the day. I wrote at the time that I couldn’t wait for Enda to part the Irish sea and I would watch in awe as the entrepreneurial hordes marched on us with their jobs. They didn’t and Enda was lying as usual.

This government is anti state. They are bereft of policy. Only state intervention will create the jobs we need in sufficient numbers to refloat our economy. But how can a state intervene if we don’t have a state, but only government. Using the natural resources I have listed above and investing in indigenous projects is the way to job creation. The government I presume deep down know this so what is holding them back. The IMF—or the ECB—I seriously doubt it. What is holding them back is their fascist like adherence to a failed ideology. There is no room for citizenship or state within the confines of neoliberal thinking. So how can a government so slavishly ruled by this philosophy do the right thing by the very citizens they have no respect for?

There will be another general election but it may be a few years away yet. They bank on the notion that their ideology is in vogue. The opposition is more of the same well FF anyhow. The social democrats in the Labour party are proven worms, spineless and traitors to their fellow citizens. So we are left with capitalism and the unrealistic unworkable, against human nature socialism. Well how about a good dose of Irish citizenism—something new and very radical.