Sinn Féin need not apologise

If you want to link violence with politics in Ireland. Look no further than the Wikipedia timeline on the Irish civil war. I would imagine some people will be very surprised by the scale of the conflict.

It was a full scale military battle between the pro -treaty and anti-treaty forces. Its history is not widely spoken of in Ireland. Or is it taught in any great detail in our schools. The reason of course is that it doesn’t suit the powers that be, to inform the citizens how their political parties began life.

The years 1921-23 were turbulent years in a state just celebrating a form of independence. But as in many similar conflicts around the world what shames our current political masters? It isn’t the fact that we had a civil war where one side collaborated with our former colonists to seize power or on the republican side it isn’t that they fought for a thirty two county republic and lost. No! The shame is in the detail. The war degenerated from a military engagement into a campaign of dirty war. Where men were summarily executed in revenge for the actions of others and where barbaric torture took place. Also human rights were continually violated on both sides. Yet it was the Free State government that held all the aces in both infrastructure, financial and military support. It appears that the people were divided but because there was no clear ethnic differences, we avoided the genocide of civilians’ so rampant elsewhere.

From this dreadful and cruel conflict came our modern heroes FF & FG. They have between them almost exclusively run the state since 1923. After the civil war the pragmatic De-Valera re-entered main stream politics and with many of the socialist and leftist thinkers having been executed during the conflict it was the centrist republicans that he mainly represented. Life went on. Ireland was in the grip of the Catholic Church, who had threatened to excommunicate republican Catholics during the civil war. Yet they remained strangely ambivalent to the needless and often spiteful executions.

So the state moved on. The country was in the main economically poor. The Ireland created after the civil war was a very unequal one. In the 50’s people like Seán Lemass bought into a new economic ideology. This was the budding neoliberalism that was born in the USA. Ireland took this road of dependency. Inviting mainly American companies to come here and enjoy low taxes. This was done at the expense of us developing our own ingenious industry, and then developing our natural resources for our citizens.

We saw the results immediately an upturn in economic growth. Improved life styles for the middle-classes. However the poor remained poor. Ireland dubious prosperity was on a roll. The 60’s brought us all new hope. In 1969 the first man stepped on the moon. But the joy was rained on somewhat by events in Northern Ireland. Irish citizens were attacked and burned out of their homes. In scenes not unlike our civil war houses blazed. Sectarian death squads roamed the streets and the police force were 99% from one community. A new civil war had started in Northern Ireland.

The Fianna Fail government had many choices to make. They could go to the United Nations. They could request their economic allies in Great Britain to solve the crises.
When thousands of refugees fled across our border they could have intervened militarily to protect our citizens. But they didn’t. So the IRA rose from the ashes and they did protect their community. Their political wing Sinn Féin were also prominent in defending their people.

What followed was over 30 years of frustration. War, atrocities on all sides. Like in all wars innocent people bare the brunt of it. Young people executed often for sectarian reasons. Car bombs, gun attacks. Knee capping! Hunger strikes, interrogation, torture humiliation. Politics clouded with fear and tainted with old school pragmatism.

Our FF & FG sat back and watched. Their main aim was to appease the British. They colluded to have the conflict referred to as the troubles. Could you imagine anyone referring to the Irish Civil war as the troubles? But the real damage was done when along with middle Ireland they colluded in the labelling of those people defending Irish citizens as terrorists.

This resulted in section 31 of the broadcasting act. Its main function was to steal from the struggle any sense of ideology, and replace it with one motivation criminality and gangsterism. Now there is no denying that in time paramilitaries’ were infiltrated by some criminal elements. But there were banks robbed to finance the anti-treaty side in the early 20’s also.

It concerns me that Sinn Fein spend so much time defending their position on the war in Northern Ireland. They speak apologetically about reconciliation and moving forward. They might be better quoting back the atrocities and the murder that took place here in the early 20’s. It was on a much grander scale than anything witnessed in the terrible Northern Ireland war. They should ask the FG or FF hack to explain these dreadful deeds and ask how they ever got into constitutional politics. The same questions should be thrown back at journalists and analysis’s made by people like Vincent Browne. War is evil it kills people. Moving on at least adds some meaning to their existence and their deaths.

Ireland's Secret Coup

Ever since the coup d’état that we call the civil war—Ireland has been rendered stateless and without leadership. The mechanics of civil governance was reliant on the existing colonial model of legal and social order. Thus we got the political extortionists instead of visionaries, and our society today reflects this in a unique way.
The irony of all of this –is in the stark truth that our former colonial masters have moved on in so many areas—but they have left us behind dithering and shivering. When one examines what it was we inherited from our secret coup d’état—it is easy to understand why we live in this nightmarish Cul- de -Sac.
In essence we were left with the collaborators in the Free State who had no serious opposition outside of a the pseudo republican rabble led by Éamonn De Valera-this was a diluted mix of republican sympathisers who were beaten into submission during the merciless coup—[Civil War,] in fact not only were republicans tortured and murdered routinely- they were also executed on the grounds of their affiliation with socialism.

Thus our Free State evolved as a mirror image of our former colonial masters—save for the fundamentals were entirely different. We had some significant differences—in that we had within our midst the fascist Catholic Church with all its power and influence. The church controlled the citizenry through brutality and its collaboration with the newly imposed government. The other key protagonists were the wealthy—who were led by interest groups like hospital consultants and businessmen.

The war for social justice in Ireland had been fought for and lost in the 1913 lockout—and the subsequent targeting and executions of leftists in the coup d’état. So the new undemocratic Free Sate evolved on the basis that capitalism knew best—and the economic hardship that besieged the citizens was allowed to fester—through lack of political alternative and the mighty dominance of the Church millions of Irish people emigrated over the course of the next four decades—on the premise that they were born in a country that couldn’t sustain its citizens. The lie of course is in that it could and did sustain it citizens very well—as long as they were wealthy to begin with.

Then carefully nurtured by Church and State the idea of public and private evolved, this was designed to divide society on a social scale creating elitism and allowing the professional classes to reproduce themselves, this anti citizen policy culminated in the 1950,s when the citizenry were sold the greatest evil ever to oppress them –in true neoliberal style- the introduction of private health insurance, and the advocating of direct foreign [American] investment as the panacea for unsustainable little Ireland. This all took place whilst our greatest successes were actually in our public sector—but that wasn’t about any sort of ideological back tracking no this was just copy cat stuff—if the colonial masters did it—we should, and I am sure they were advising us all along.

So let us move swiftly on, to the present Junta that rule this false and undemocratic Free State,they are still using emigration as a kind of citizen cleansing and as an economic solution, they still spread the lie that this country cannot sustain itself without blanket foreign investment. Whilst many will point to the demise of Catholic influence –then why is it that collaborating Party members are so afraid to legislate on social and health issues—they are indeed afraid of their own Catholic constituency. The Junta are denying the citizen its legal right to legislation and its social right to leadership in this area.

This government are extorting money from the citizenry, by accepting the concept that foreign investors might leave if we dare to charge them the rate of corporation tax that they initially signed up for, they allow these multi-nationals to extort from the citizen, and then this Junta extort the citizenry themselves using idle threats of massive job losses. It is significant that they see the citizenry as separate from their Free State,in that they refuse to allow the citizen create jobs for the citizen on ideological grounds, and indeed have stolen and sold off much of the natural resources owned by the citizen—which were in reality the citizens collateral.

We live in the age of spin of media ownership by private interests—where neoliberalism has spread like a giant weed—people live and breathe at the retail shrines nationwide—we have not really lost our citizenship as in truth we never had it in the first place, it was taken from us in the coup d’état we call the Civil War, and Ireland has been a dictatorship ever since.

'Hey there is a thief in your House,'

I watched Annie Hall recently and I loved the bit where Woody Allen interviews a couple on the street. They are Mr and Mrs random bland, and they tell Woody that they are really happy, as they never think about anything, that nothing bothers them and life is perfect as they don’t have any problems. It leaves Woody perplexed as he spends much of the movie contemplating the meaning of life and being utterly miserable, but these people don’t think and don’t care, they are completely bland but they are ultimately happy, as their world is always perfect.

I was reminded of this the other night, when tweeters mostly female were following the Eurovision song contest, various tweeters were commenting on the different entries, whilst others eagerly awaited Ireland’s entry. All well and good in normal times—[if we ever had normal times,] but right now when the country is in meltdown, well it is hard to take. If that isn’t bad enough down my timeline came two particularly interesting tweets. The first was a You Tube video presentation on how Ireland’s oil and gas reserves were basically given away. They were in essence stolen from the Irish citizen and gifted to wealthy supporters of political parties. Stolen, and the citizenry are been whipped by austerity? The second tweet was from RBB and it concerned our forestry.

Now RBB is a mighty man and all that, but his complaints about the scurrilous and ultimately useless government plan to sell off the harvesting rights of our forestry were far too polite, given that he is a left wing agitator and defender of the citizen. Doesn’t he realise that this is undemocratic and the citizen has not been consulted on any proposal to sell off their collateral. In any other country this would lead to anarchy and all out civil unrest, but the Irish citizen is staying at home and watching the Eurovision song contest and hoping we will win.

Let’s examine in greater detail what has happened, the greedy rich and their political and banking allies broke the state, by artificially inflating property values, and encouraging reckless abandonment within our financial services. The FF government panicked and gave silly and unwarranted guarantees. The FG government came in on a wave of false promises and lies, they allowed their neoliberal ideology to rule, with the resultant austerity and cuts whipping the poor, and destroying confidence throughout society. They have not only a failed ideology but they have even failed miserably to implement this creed—making laughable statements and foolish errors.

It is in times like this that us Joe citizens can send these cretins to hell, and began to realise our assets and collateral. This would allow us seize control from the political hacks and refloat our economy and reform our political system, but hey we can’t as these buffoons gave away our collateral to their friends. We have private individuals owning and managing crucial assets owned by the citizen. These resources are not benefiting the state, and the Irish citizen is constantly duped into thinking that we don’t have resources, or that the cost of harvesting same is beyond us, which is total and utter nonsense. Norway has a similar population to us and they are thriving using their collateral to pay their way.


The question is what is the Irish citizen going to do about this? Is it that they don’t believe that its true—do the Eurovision watchers know this all happened but just don’t care? Or is that they think it was alright for the state to gift our collateral to their friends? Maybe they just don’t believe that our representatives would allow this to happen, unless they had no choice and their hands were tied and there would be no money in the Atms? Hardly as even the lying politicians haven’t used that excuse, no their excuse is simple, we couldn’t afford to drill in Barryroe oilfield, but Gavin O’ Reilly can is he bigger than the Irish state? Nonsense a country of nearly 5 million people could afford to hire the expertise needed to harvest our oil and gas, so anything said disputing that is a lie.

So my Eurovision watchers either don’t know or don’t care about the treacherous behaviour that has done them and their children, and grandchildren out of their stake in our precious natural resources. No they hope that some faceless bland wannabe pop star, can entertain them, Mr and Mrs bland are happy out, as they don’t think and they don’t care.

We are now in essence slaves to a financial and political ideology that rewards individualism and greed. The shrines are everywhere in these dumb shopping outlets on the edge of our towns. Citizens are devoured by relentless advertisements for retail outlets--it is either cut price bacon--or half price sofa's. We have destroyed all idea of collectivism and community, our health service is so divided and crushed it is barely operable. There are countless adverts brainwashing young mothers to take out expensive health insurance, the message is simple, if you don't fund yourself the state will fail you! The state being all of us citizens, we have been rendered useless all our assets and collateral has been transferred to the wealthy.

"Turn down that Eurovision racket, there is a thief in the house!"

Irelands Junta Rules by Extortion

Ever since the coup d’état that we call the Civil War,—Ireland has been rendered stateless and without leadership. The mechanics of civil governance was reliant on the existing colonial model of legal and social order. Thus we got the political extortionist's instead of visionaries, and our society today reflects this in a unique way.

The irony of all of this –is in the stark truth that our former colonial masters have moved on in so many areas—but they have left us behind dithering and shivering. When one examines what it was we inherited from our secret coup d’état—it is easy to understand why we live in this nightmarish Cul- de -Sac.
In essence we were left with the collaborators in the Free State who had no serious opposition outside of a the pseudo republican rabble led by Éamonn De Valera-this was diluted mix of republican sympathisers who were beaten into submission during the merciless coup—[Civil War,] where not only were republicans tortured and murdered routinely—but they were also executed on the grounds of their affiliation with socialism.

Thus our Free State evolved as a mirror image of our former colonial masters—save for the fundamentals were entirely different, we had some significant differences—in that we had within our midst the fascist Catholic Church with all its power and influence. The church controlled the citizenry through brutality and its collaboration with the newly imposed government, of course the other key protagonists were the wealthy—who were led by interest groups like hospital consultants and business interests.
The war for social justice in Ireland had been fought for and lost in the 1913 lockout—and the subsequent targeting and executions of leftists in the coup d’état so the new undemocratic Free Sate evolved on the basis that capitalism knew best—and the economic hardship that besieged the citizens was allowed to fester—through lack of political alternative and the mighty dominance of the Catholic Church.

Millions of Irish people emigrated over the course of four decades—on the premise that they were born in a country that couldn’t sustain its citizens. The lie of course is in that it could and did sustain it citizens very well—as long as they were wealthy to begin with, carefully nurtured by Church and State the divisive idea of public and private evolved.
This was designed to divide society on a social scale creating elitism and allowing the professional classes to reproduce themselves, this anti citizen policy culminated in the 1950,s when the citizenry were sold the greatest evil ever to oppress them –in true neoliberal style- the introduction of private health insurance and the advocating of direct foreign [American] investment as the panacea for unsustainable little Ireland. This all took place whilst our greatest successes were actually in our public sector—again this wasn’t about any sort of ideological back tracking no this was just copy cat stuff—if the colonial masters did it—we should, and I am sure they were advising us all along.

Let us move swiftly on, to the present Junta that rule this false and undemocratic Free State, they are still using emigration as a kind of citizen cleansing and as an economic solution, they still spread the lie that this country cannot sustain itself without foreign investment and more emigration. Whilst many will point to the demise of Catholic influence –then why is it that these collaborating party members are so afraid to legislate on social and health issues—they are indeed afraid of their own Catholic constituency, and it is the only plus mark one can award the Labour party in that they seem to have held a consistent stance on the abortion debacle.

The Junta are denying the citizen its legal right to legislation and its social right to leadership in this area, but worse still they are extorting money from the citizenry by accepting the concept that foreign investors might leave, if we dare to charge them the rate of corporation tax that they initially signed up for. They allow these multi-nationals to extort from the citizen and then the Junta extort the citizenry themselves using idle threats. It is significant that they see the citizenry as separate from the Free State-in that they refuse to allow the citizen to create jobs for the citizen, and indeed they have stolen and sold off much of the natural resources owned by the citizen—which in effect is the citizens collateral.

We live in the age of spin of media ownership by private interests—where neoliberalism has spread like a giant weed—people live and breathe at the retail shrines nationwide—we have not lost our citizenship as in truth we never had it, it was taken from us in the coup d’état we call the Civil War, and Ireland has been a dictatorship ever since.

Sinn Féin Should Lead the Radical Left

Sinn Féin should take a close look at the Meath East by-election. It was normal bland government stuff—the kind of thing the party hacks do in their sleep. It is a marvelous system where it is entirely possible they might get a Monkey elected, as long as it wore the old FG rosette. Those earnest radicals in SF should learn from the masters of spin and organisation. You see where the likes of FG and FF have the edge—is in their complete lack of respect for the electorate. These seasoned cynics know for a fact the electorate are politically inept—bland, and in many cases really scared. They know because they run the systems that educate the voters—many are the products of both religious and secular propaganda.

So when FG put forward the daughter of the tragic Shane Mc Entee—they knew it was a sure thing. The girl has no political pedigree; she is not radical even in the right of centre model. In real terms she is a number and she will adorn the back benches voting for or against any legislation as instructed. The old FG hacks will spout every so often as to how informed our electorate are—but I am afraid this is just spin so as to make really dumb people come across as intelligent.

Of course not all people who voted for the FG token candidate are dumb—many of the party faithful know about the numbers game, and they also know how to control society and protect the elite. But to succeed they need the blind assistance of the dumb electorate and they certainly got that.

Now where does Sinn Féin come in to all of this? Well rough figures suggest the poll was just 30% of the electorate which if correct tells us that 70% of those eligible to vote didn’t! Now as the boring political pundits remind us by-elections have a tradition of low turn outs. The question I am asking is why 70% of the electorate didn’t vote. Obviously some people were indisposed others may have been worried by the weather conditions and so on. Many people are apathetic to politics and the world around them save for what they can consume, others genuinely feel that the alternatives offered by the opposition parties are not credible.

Sinn Féin came third in the poll but if they had managed to steal some of the dissident vote they may have taken the seat. Now I say that with my tongue planted firmly in my cheek as I am no believer in our democratic system because basically it isn’t democratic, also if Sinn Féin add a number to the back benches it is just a pointless as FG.
However the main point that I make is an ideological one, yes that word again for those who love blandism they hate to hear it. With the centre right Labour party in disarray it is surely time for Sinn Féin to give the Irish people a real choice.

Do the Irish people need another left of centre party fighting for it citizens in the Dáil—or is it time for some leftist radicalism based on the rights and needs of the citizen. Yes they will run the risk of alienating some of their floating support but in my estimation they will gather huge chunks of the disenfranchised vote that is desperately seeking representation.

A radical Sinn Féin could restore democracy to the citizen and return the stolen natural resources to their rightful owners. With state intervention there would be massive job creation and improved economic growth—with all citizens paying a just amount of income tax. Sinn Féin could ensure that our Corporation Tax [lowest in EU] at 12.5% is actually paid to our citizens.
You see folks I deal in idealism and ideology—the right wing parties refer to this as 'Cloud Cuckoo land'—have a good look at the land they have created. Come on Sinn Féin do the right thing.

Scars of Ideology

There are times when one feels a deep sense of despair—and perhaps it is the movement from rural to urban that awakens it within me. You see in the little place where I live the clocks stopped years ago in many ways. It stopped in people’s view of society and of themselves—these people hold conservative values and change of any sort makes them uncomfortable. From the outside it appears idyllic. When I moved to Courtmacsherry in 2006 I was knocked out by the physical beauty—and the mild mannered no hurry and sure how bad attitude of the locals.

Seven years later everything looks the same but when one scratches the surface one finds that the skin is raw underneath. Yes unlike on my last visit to Dublin people are not rushing around aimlessly to fast food joints. There are no loud beeping of horns and banging fists on car bonnets. We have no neoliberal altars such as occupy the once beautiful Carrickmines valley.

Yet we do have our sores. In 2006 these houses sprung up in a field beside the estate where I rented a cottage. I had come to Courtmacsherry to write my first novel Viareggio. You could say these houses were thrown up—I passed by each day on my walk and what was an empty field soon filled with ordinary houses selling at exorbitant prices.

The houses were of course snapped up. Young upwardly mobile couples—and single people investing bought them up at rapid rate. Of course today all of these houses save for a few that were designated for social housing are in negative equity. Talking to local business people they lament the whole sad process.

This was once a thriving little resort—trains full of day trippers came from Cork city every summer Sunday in the fifties. People have holiday homes and caravans here—children have fond memories of golden summers spent by the sea. Mothers would arrive with their kids whilst husbands worked and drove down for weekends.

The West Cork railway was shut down in 1961---afterwards the ships that used unload coal and cement stopped sailing up the estuary. The current winter population of Courtmacsherry is just over 200. The local business people had placed their hopes on the success of the aforementioned estate. With many of the residents unable to pay mortgages and with many out of work, there is no money left to be spent down the main street. One owner confided in me that local politicians said at the time the building of these houses would resurrect commerce in the village.

It is a sad sight indeed to walk into your local friendly bar for a quiet pint and chat—only to find that there is just the proprietor and oneself.
So the small village of Courtmacsherry is hurting too. Many will look at the property bubble and the greed values imposed by vested interests as the reason for the downturn. Yes it is true many people borrowed money that in hindsight they could never afford to repay. Others are victims of redundancy from failed businesses. Many are self employed trades’ people who no longer have a market as money drains from the system.

Recently whilst walking by our small harbour I noticed a couple of fishing boats alongside—one was in good repair but I would be fearful of going to sea in the other one. It struck me the madness that has gripped our society. This is the natural industry for a small seaside village—with access to the Atlantic Ocean. Yet we as a citizenry have not instructed our representatives to create a proper indigenous fishing industry. Just think of the amount of jobs proper investment would create—jobs created by the state for the good of its citizens. The spin offs into food processing, and marketing would provide more jobs. Money would come back into the economy and the local businesses would thrive on the backs of secure employment.

Let us remember our government only create the conditions to enable job creation—they don’t actually create jobs. Why is this? Don’t they want to create Irish industry for our citizens or is that too socialist or leftist for them? They prefer the over reliance on American multinationals who come and go on a whim –and have no intrinsic loyalty to the state. They don’t even pay the correct low rate of corporation tax—bullies as they might leave [fright.]
I would like to dedicate this piece to all of those who swallowed the neoliberal line back in 2006, about property and using houses as investments—and I plead with them to examine this ideology that has doomed them and this nation.

The Irish Empire Says Sorry

FG are good students. They attended their daily lectures with zeal. The Americanisation of our politics is almost complete. We live in a system that has no correlation with truth or reality. Enda Kenny can engage the electorate with an academy award winning speech. His empty words written by a scriptwriter and most likely edited by a barrister. At no stage in his emotional tirade did he admit to any liability on the part of the state. Nor did he mention how compensation to the Magdalene women might be calculated?

A long time ago I formulated the thought of Mr. and Mrs. Joe average nodding to each other sitting by the fire. They are impressed with things like the mention of Euros’ and the ECB. Words like democracy and contagion modern political buzz words that are meaningless. They are not amused however by dirty words like Sinn Féin—or social justice. These people have been brainwashed into acceptance. The ideology that led us to ruin will somehow save us—we will in turn do just about enough to return to the international gambling table.

So Enda has learned from the Empirical political leadership in America—politics is about spin and modern communication means that image is everything.

Our Taoiseach apologised on behalf of the state. Admitting that the state colluded with the Roman Catholic Church in detaining women and girls illegally from 1922—to 1996. The fact that these women and girls were from impoverished backgrounds didn’t warrant a mention. His hammed up emotional outburst was silly and unwarranted. He holds the highest political role in the state so one expects him to handle matters of this nature with dignity.

Who was actually to blame for the torture of these women? Was it the Catholic Church and the Irish State—who was the Taoiseach apologising for? As an Irish citizen I am totally innocent. I was a child up to 1976 and after that I had no idea that such places existed. I am sure there are many people like me. Were the poor citizens who inherited the class system from 1922 to blame as they didn’t rise up against their betters –those who controlled their economic and spiritual lives with such savagery? The ordinary citizen cannot be blamed as they were as put upon as the poor women and girls incarcerated in the laundries.

In the final analysis it was the well off and the rich who were responsible. In collusion with their high powered Catholic allies. They inflicted this concentration camp style torture on the women and girls whose only crime was poverty. So we get this patronising apology from the leader of FG. This party that represents the middle and upper classes the practitioners of neoliberal ideology. They apologise on behalf of us the citizenry as if somehow we were responsible. I am convinced that the election of June 1922 that gave these people their mandate was carried by this same collusion between our power brokers. Add in the British and threats of reinvasion—and one can see the pressure placed on the electorate at the time.

The shame of all of this –is in the absence of a true Irish State one that was based on equality, and respected and took care of all its citizens –not just the wealthy.
Enda Kenny can apologise all he wants—he can try to reinvent the facts all he likes. But the truth will out eventually and no amount of voice wobbles will stop it.

Vincent Brownes PR man

The Tonight with Vincent Browne is a very popular show. Along with its television audience it is a big hit on twitter. Tweeters from all persuasions comment on their timelines about Vincent’s antics. Many also comment on his guests and are not afraid to praise or criticise. Some I know await gleefully in the hope that Vincent will tear into some hapless political hack. It seems to raise the animal in all of us to see some jumped up asshole in a suit—get their grilling from prosecutor Vincent. He doesn’t spare women either. I am convinced that Mary Hanifin lost her seat in Dun Laoghaire following her appearance on the show.

So it is particularly galling that Vincent has allowed the PR consultant make the most outrageous comments on his show. Not just once has our PR –hero made the same comments but twice. On neither occasion did Vincent correct him. Tell him to explain himself or ask him to retract his statement. No on both occasions he allowed our hero to spout his sick message with impunity. One wonders does Vincent secretly agree with him.

Like abortion prostitution is a divisive issue in Irish society. In fact anything to do with sexual morality and female reproduction is best not discussed. We have a whole load of ‘I don’t want to know,’ attitude. This leaves prostitution in the hands of criminals and abortion is dealt with by our heathen neighbours in the UK. An ideal solution for a state that has become hypocrisy instead of democracy. If we ignore it then it will disappear go away, ’anyway I don’t want to discuss these awful things.’

But our PR man does. Vincent interviewed a prostitute who had suffered terribly at the hands of her partner. He pimped her and lived off of her earnings. She actually was living proof as to why legalisation is needed. But Vincent and the Tonight show concentrated on the abuse and the sleaze, rather than seek a solution. One of his guests repeatedly asked him to view the German model over the Swedish law, [which criminalises the buyers of sex. In Germany many brothels are legal and workers have natural rights under the law. The buyers of sex are not criminalised.] Vincent ignored him concentrating on the criminality—and on the terminology used by the former prostitute to describe her clients.

There is of course the pertinent question. Why do people buy sex? Men mostly—some are married. I presume many have girlfriends’. There are those who are lonely depressed –disabled—it seems the buyers of sex come from all walks of life. There is no prejudice to age or social class, save the more comfortable can afford the charges.

But not only does our PR man [who was interviewed the following night after our prostitute] want to criminalise the buyers of sex. For the second time on the Tonight show he referred to such people as rapists. The first occasion he stated that visiting a brothel and paying for sex is akin to paying someone to rape their daughter. The second time he said that it was paying someone to rape a girl who was trafficked.
Now our PR man must be accusing the German government of collusion in this crime and any other jurisdictions that has legal brothels.

Of course Mr. PR, has the right to an opinion, but to say what he said twice on Vincent Browne and go unchallenged is amazing. Like Wilde reminded us that once is forgivable but twice? So far I haven’t seen any debate of this issue that even pretends to be balanced. It is a subject for the hysterical that is for sure. It pulls the right wingers from closed drawers. It leaves left wingers and liberals slightly embarrassed on how they could hold a view on such a thorny issue. I think the same dark blanket surrounds paedophilia and the true causes of it. The core issue is never examined. We wish for excuses rather than face up to the damn truth. This leaves the door wide open for serious freaks like our PR consultant. This reminds me that his previous title was as a member of some right wing think tank. Pity he didn’t stay in it, like a goldfish opening and closing his mouth. But we hear nothing.

Prostitution has always been with us. It will be with us forever. Make it safe legalise and control it—don’t allow the criminals run it.