Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things.  Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product – if we judge the United States of America by that – that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage.  It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them.  It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl.  It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities.  It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.  Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play.  It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials.  It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.

Eamonn Gilmore resigned this week, and I am glad he did.

However, I don’t subscribe to the simplistic opinions expressed by so many about the Labour Party.

This coalition government has been far from perfect, but when ever is any kind of government?

What annoys me most of all is that the Labour Party has been pummelled by the electorate on account of “austerity”, particularly because they supposedly “lied” to the people in order to get elected.

As far as I’m concerned, they did not lie.  In their campaign for the 2011 election they spelled out what they would do in a Labour-led government…a fantasy outcome definitely, but still a noble goal for any political entity.

When transpired was a big increase in seats for Labour but nowhere near enough to lead a government.  So what it came down to was whether or not they went in with the Christian-centre-“right” Fine Gael party.

I believe they were correct to go in with FG.  It was the lesser of two evils.  If we think austerity is bad now imagine what it would have been like if Enda was leading a government with a rag-tag band of mostly right-wing independents.  Either the cutbacks to public services would have been much, much worse or we would have had another general election a lot sooner, one which would hardly have guaranteed to bring any more stability.

So where did Labour go wrong? 

Well first I reckon Joan Burton was shafted by Gilmore and Michael Noonan when the cabinet was put together.  It was similar to that episode in Friends when Phoebe was put in charge of “ice and cups”.  Joan made her name in the Dáil by standing up to the financial sector and I don’t think the “old boys network” wanted her anywhere near the department, but I could be wrong.

For me, Gilmore’s biggest mistake in government was in keeping his head down and allowing himself to be openly attacked in the media from all sides.  This perception that he lied in his campaign snowballed to such an extent that it didn’t matter whether or not it was true…you can see in the election results that the public believed it.

And it didn’t help that not only were the attacks coming from the gagillion splintered parties on the so-called “Irish left”, but there was also plenty of sly digs coming from Fine Gael – not always directly, but often through their media outlet Newstalk, or as I call it, BlueshirtFM.

We live in a 24/7 media age, and what’s more, social media is a perfect way to reach young voters and not only get across the true aims of your party, but also to at least respond to the mud being slung at you from all angles.

Joan Burton may not exactly be young, but she does strike me as the type who would have the savvy to appoint people who can use these resources to restore a party’s lost image. 

Not that her task would be an easy one…during the week I saw a tweet from of all “people” Dustin the Turkey (aka a literal puppet of Fianna Fáil’s own spiritual homeland RTE) where he used the hashtag #JoanBrutal.  It’s one thing coming from an individual but I don’t understand why there wasn’t a bigger outcry telling Dustin to keep his beak out.

Ideally, the biggest change I would make to the Labour Party would be in name.  I have nothing against unions whatsoever, but they can’t define a political party if it has realistically aims to form an Irish government. 

As I have already said in this post our anti-establishment politicians are too splintered and need to be brought together somehow – we need an Irish version of the US Democratic Party, because the Irish version of the UK Labour one just isn’t cutting it.

But for now, I’ll make do with a change of leadership, once there’s a major change of attitude that goes along with it. JLP

Update 12noon Sunday June 1 : This tweet from a Dr Tom Clonan* and it is a classic example of the unchallenged attacks on the Labour Party which can be found on all sorts of media.  Remember – my point is not that the attacks are entirely unjustified, it’s just that I rarely see any evidence of the party standing up for itself, neither directly nor indirectly.  As you can see, I took it upon myself to at least challenge his premise.

* = [who describes himself as “Captain (Retired) Irish Times Security Analyst. Writer, Broadcaster & Lecturer in Journalism, Political Comms, DIT All Views My Own – Personal”] I

“I vote (in elections) for the same reason I’d punch a bear that was eating me. I don’t think it would make a big difference to the outcome, but at least that way it wouldn’t look like I want to be eaten by a bear.”

Nick Doody, comedian

I love rugby, which is probably why I run a site on it.  But there’s a good chance that you don’t.  So of course I respect that.

But while I appreciate that it is as much people’s right not to vote as it is for them to actually do it, I don’t have an awful lot of respect for people who simply throw up their hands and say “why should I vote, sure they’re all corrupt”!!!

Of course I fully understand if you don’t want to discuss “politics”.  But despite the impression given by the media, elections are not just about “politics”.  They are about government.  And this is something that affects all of us.

If we have the time to make ourselves experts in rugby, or soap operas, or X Factor, or stamp collecting, or whatever it is we focus on outside the earning of a crust, we should also have the time to have a decent handle on not only who is representing us in government, but also how they’re doing at it.

As far as I’m concerned, the most important statistic emanating from any democratic election for the government of a sovereign nation is not the tally of votes for the individual candidates – rather it is the percentage of the electorate who actually took the time to cast their vote.

There are three simple steps to voting : 1) make sure you are registered 2) engage in the process of finding out who is up for election and what they stand for, and 3) vote.

If you can pay taxes, if you can understand the rules of a sport, if you can keep up with what’s happening on a TV drama show, well let’s face it if you can put together a coherent sentence you can do all of the above steps.

We don’t talk about government enough at the watercooler.  That’s because we’re probably afraid that we can’t do it without discussing politics.

All I’m saying is that if you are eligible to vote in these upcoming elections, please do so, whatever your allegiance.  The more people do, the fewer are the places where the corrupt ones can hide. JLP

There are many topics where the Rich feel pretty safe picking up votes from those not-so-rich and the death penalty is one of them.

It’s ironic that I write this on what is known as “Star Wars Day”, because the debate surrounding capital punishment reminds me of a quote from Episode III of the movie saga.

When Obi-Wan (Ewan McGregor) and Anakin/Lord Vader (possibly the worst actor to join an established movie cast in film history Hayden Christiansen) are duelling towards the end of “Revenge of the Sith”, there comes this exchange :

Anakin : “If you’re not with me, then you’re my enemy!”

Obi-Wan : “Only a Sith deals in absolutes.”

An ironic quote I know, since Obi-Wan himself is offering an absolute of sorts…but the point is that when someone jumps to an extreme in a debate, it usually means they have a personal agenda in mind rather than a desire to come up with a reasonable conclusion that has considered all the available options with an open mind.

My contention is that it has been a concerted effort of the establishment to muddy the waters on most major issues in an attempt to disguise their overall aim of simply keeping the rich richer. 

I Am NOT suggesting they are as “evil” as the Sith in the Star Wars saga, however….note that I am comparing them to a character who’s story arc both begins and ends with much “good in him”.

To return to the death penalty, the problem faced by anyone who opposes it is that they can be depicted as ones who wish to excuse any crimes committed by a prisoner who finds him or herself on “death row”.

Consider the following; my apologies if it is overly gruesome…

“(Clayton) Lockett was convicted of kidnapping and shooting 19-year-old Stephanie Neiman, as part of a 1999 home invasion. She survived the initial assault; Lockett ordered two accomplices to bury her alive. He also raped one of her friends. He was convicted in 2000 and sentenced to death. His accomplices are serving life sentences.” – The Guardian

So if I tell you that I feel the state of Oklahoma did a bad thing by botching Lockett’s execution during the week, you could say that I am somehow suggesting that he didn’t deserve any punishment (or if you were feeling really ballsy you could say I somehow approved of what he did) and to top off your argument you could offer this supposed clincher – “what if he had done this to someone you cared about?”

Well there is no arguing with this mindset, though that doesn’t make it right.

Here is the bulk of my case against the death penalty, with points in no particular order…as you can see, much of it is based on my beliefs.

1) I don’t believe there exists “absolute” certainty on any court ruling, and to reject the death penalty would respect the fallibility of the judicial system.

2) Of course it is natural for the victims and their families/communities to seek harsh retribution, and I definitely would, but this is why the defendants are tried by the State and not by those in mourning.

3) Having studied Psychology (not extensively enough for a career yet enough to have a decent grasp) I would see beyond the financial burden on the tax-payer to keep such prisoners alive and appreciate the opportunity to study them and their pathology with a view to possibly preventing dangerous people such as this killing again.  A vain hope you might say but is it any more vain than the hope of finding a cure for cancer?

4) I firmly believe that the existence of the death penalty does not act as a deterrent for cold-blooded murder.

5) I also believe that this is not an argument which can be presented as “an eye for an eye”.  When a person commits murder, even if it is carefully planned, the process in no way resembles that of a legislative body coming up with a means of establishing a protocol for a state execution.  When you call for the death penalty you are asking your parliament to debate and draft a set of laws which outlines precisely how to kill a prisoner.  As was illustrated by the State of Oklahoma, this presents a multitude of difficulties.  If you reach a point where you have to say “well screw the laws, he deserved what he got”, you set a precedent that when taken to its own extremes renders the judicial system virtually worthless.

Here is my utopian suggestion to help solve the debate over the death penalty.

Take a jurisdiction like Ireland which doesn’t have it at the moment.  We used to hang people here so it’s not like we never had it, so we would make for a good test case.

I would suggest that we hold a referendum, with a simple question : “Do we re-introduce the death penalty to Ireland?  Yes or no”.  But although the question may be simple, the vote itself would be unorthodox.

For this special election, everyone would be made aware of a special provision.  Should the “Yes” side of the argument win, then the names of all who voted for the motion would be kept on a register, though not for publication. 

The reason their names would be retained is that for every time a prisoner was to be put to death, 12 from the register would be chosen, and all would be compelled by law to be present at the execution, and further still, one would be chosen at random to actually carry it out.

Throughout history although many have argued for the death penalty, when it comes to actually doing it, great lengths have been taken to hide the identity of those performing it. 

The guy operating the guillotine would wear a mask, the guy throwing the switch for the electric chair would be behind a screen, the people holding the guns for a firing squad would do so through a hole in the wall and in the case of the gas, multiple people would be used to drop pellets into the chamber with only one of them actually containing the killer gas so that nobody knew who actually killed the inmate.

My contention is simple –  you want it, you do it. 

Your name can still be kept private, as is currently the case with executioners, but although I know full well my suggestion would never actually happen, i wonder just how many would vote yes if it did.

I guess we’ll never know. JLP

You can always count on American politics to throw up a good laugh and boy, has Cliven Bundy fit the bill just nicely in recent weeks.

But the source of the humour, for me anyway, hasn’t been the man himself even though he is involved in an armed stand-off with the federal government over his long-standing non-payment of “grazing fees”.

The true mirth-merchants in the saga are the good ol US Republican party and their propaganda machine Fox News for whom Bundy’s “cause” was like a red rag to bullshit, with their senior host Sean Hannity taking centre stage.

What comedy there was to be had when it turned out (much to all of our surprise – not) that Bundy was in actual fact an ignorant racist.

I tell you…Usain Bolt couldn’t have run away from the man faster than the Republicans did.

In fairness, having heard Bundy’s interviews on national networks since his racist rant took YouTube by storm, it seems that the GOP at least got one of their spin doctors to work with him to try and haul things back a little bit, but the damage was done.

So the question has to be asked…why did they give a whack job like Bundy such a national stage in the first place?  Because there is a massive election coming up in November, that’s why.

The US President is elected every four years but in between there are what are known as “Midterms” when a lot of the seats in both of the other executive branches of government are decided.  The Republicans currently have control of the Senate, but since state legislatures around the country are unable to gerrymander constituencies for the Upper House, the Democrats have a fighting chance to hold sway there, and currently do.

But even that isn’t a sure thing anymore, and the GOP’s goal has to be to seize control of both houses to make President Obama’s last two years in power virtually worthless when it comes to getting anything done.

For this, they need to persuade all the Cliven Bundys across the country to go out and vote, because if only the uber rich people who really control the Republican party voted, they wouldn’t even clear 5% let alone close to 50.

Of course for me it is an endless source of amusement  to see their faith in the Nevada rancher so hopelessly backfire on them, especially when Jon Stewart gets in on the rib-poking.  But there’s also a downside in the whole story when I put it in the context of the current state of politics here in Ireland.

The US Democrat Party is far from perfect, but one thing I have noticed in recent years is that it is extremely good at unifying its message.  There’s a consistency to the narrative which you get from TV presenters like Rachel Maddow, online news sources like the Huffington Post, podcasts like The Majority Report and even comedy programmes like The Daily Show which is refreshing to say the least.

It is this consistent output that has the likes of the Koch brothers going to such great lengths to both discredit them and push their own candidates by any means necessary.  You could even argue that their hasty rush toward Bundy was a compliment to the American “left*”.

Do you see any nut-jobs getting such support here in Ireland?  Not so much.  Why?

Going by some of the million or so placards which are pinned up on billboards around Dublin for the upcoming Irish version of the midterms, there is a party called the “United Left”.  That term, on this island anyway, is quite possibly a bigger joke than the entire Bundy saga.

To say the anti-establishment movement is fractured in this country is a gross understatement.  First, you have the Labour Party in government. 

Now let me be clear…I do NOT believe Labour are truly anti-establishment; they represent the  bigger unions, whom I consider to be part of the establishment.  But they ARE considered “left”, and thus would attract a sizeable chunk of the votes of those who wish to vote that way (including myself at the last election).

Sadly, although it is grossly unfair to pin austerity entirely on Labour (in fact it would probably be much worse if Fine Gael were alone in government), they have allowed themselves to have this done to them by the mostly-conservative Irish media while offering precious little themselves to alter the public perception.

Then you have the other high profile organisations & figures on the “left”.  The Greens?  Already hacked to pieces after getting into bed with Fianna Fáil.  Sinn Féin?  They may be anti-establishment, but a different type of establishment.  They’re not “left” in any sense of the word, because in no way is “nationalist” a sense of the word IMO.  Yet they still seem to be hoovering up many of the votes being jettisoned by Labour and must feel like they are within touching distance of actual government.  Ming Flanagan & Mick Wallace?  Whatever good they may have done as TDs has been forever lost in the ether as they have allowed their public personas to become caricatures.

So do the pro-establishment parties here even need a figure like Cliven Bundy to rally their base?  Not in the slightest.  It doesn’t hurt them that The Iona Institute are pursuing their pitiful “Christians are the real victims in Irish society” narrative, but on a broad scale it isn’t really necessary. 

I am convinced that Ireland has it’s own Jon Stewart, it’s own Arianna Huffington, it’s own Rachel Maddow, even it’s own Barack Obama.  The question is – does anyone have clout, cash & cojones to give them even half the support that Bundy briefly enjoyed? JLP

* = one of the Prime Directives of this blog is to steer away from the usage of “left” and “right” to describe political discourse but sometimes on longer posts I feel have to resort to it with inverted commas my only refuge.

That I feel compelled to say “Lord rest them” whenever I mention my grandparents is a testament to how they raised me as a Catholic.

OK – maybe the fact that I no longer practice the faith (nor have I for many a decade) is hardly a ringing endorsement, but still there are many things left in my day-to-day behaviour which hark back to those days when they did their best to immerse me in the rituals and practices demanded by the Vatican.

Still, overall I suppose their attempts to bring me into the flock failed, but not for a moment do I consider them failures.  The main reason the “indoctrination” never took hold was that it is meant to be presented as the only philosophical option when there is so much information on the wider world for young people these days, even when my generation was growing up in the pre-internet age.

It must have been extremely frustrating for them.  My grandparents (Lord rest them) not only “failed” with me but also with my mother and her two brothers before me – sometimes I think the main reason they not only took on the challenge of raising me but also brought me to Catholic-centric Ireland was because they saw themselves as having a “second chance”.

The religious aspect of my upbringing came more from my grandmother – since my grandfather served in World War 2 (military intelligence for US army in Czechoslovakia) his outlook on life was always more “worldly” yet he was a man of few words and let her deal with that side of things.  I should note that he had cancer nodes on his voice box and had an operation to have it removed, but I think the lack of voice actually suited his character and he turned down all offer of having a “robot”-style voice as a replacement.

The thing about the paternal influence in your life saying little is that on the rare occasions when they do say things, they stay with you.

I remember one time when I was well into my “know-it-all teenager” phase I was harping on some weighty subject or other.  Lord only knows (there’s another one!) what the actual topic was, but it doesn’t really matter.  The audience for my rant consisted merely of Grandpa, and naturally I assumed he was paying attention to what I was saying.

What he said in his whispery tone when I paused for breath, however, made me think otherwise.

“You think you’re always right, don’t you?”

Taken aback doesn’t even begin to describe how I felt.  There I was trying to make a point about something that was important to me, but as it turned out I wasn’t even being listened to at all.

“Well, what do you want me to do…think I’m always wrong?”

“See?  You’re ‘right’ again!”

That brief exchange could well have been the catalyst for my blogging today.

I don’t see anything wrong with having opinions, nor do I see anything wrong with sharing them.  But what my grandfather taught me is that you have to be careful about how you present those opinions because it will affect how they are received.

Not once have I ever presumed my views right, neither back then nor now.  By expressing them I am challenging the world at large to set me straight or at the very least nudge me in the right direction if I am even slightly off.

With this blog I am trying to outline my views on the world at large, and in particular the way we are prevented from doing that by the premises and spin with which we are presented on a daily basis.

I imagine my grandmother is up in heaven with her head in her hands.  Beside her, I imagine my grandfather is allowing himself a wry smile when she isn’t looking. JLP

Hi there, sorry I didn’t post last week but I had been out the night before so I “earned” a rare Sunday morning lie-in!

My mother has put me on to a podcast called “The Best Of The Left” which, although it clearly accepts the “left v right” premise, is still a good listen.  There is generally a new show every 3 days and each one features clips taken from various sources highlighting stories and issues which more than likely will have fallen through the cracks of the mainstream media, intentionally or otherwise.

One such story came from good ol’ Texas where a case was heard in court of a 16-year-old boy who was driving a pickup truck while drunk and killed as many as FOUR people as well as seriously injuring two who were with him in the vehicle.

To cut a long story short, he did no jail time.  Why?  Because his lawyer convinced the court that he “suffered” from a “condition” known as “affluenza” which apparently means “enormous wealth blinded the youth from the responsibilities resulting from his actions”.

So in other words, he got off with a 1-year probation because his family was rich.  But for me, that’s not what stinks about this story.  What stinks about this story is the fact that this was actually the “best” outcome for the families of the victims.

Were he to be convicted and do prison time, sure, the families would have had their sense of justice BUT they would have been denied the opportunity to take him to “civil court” where a financial settlement could be reached.  This way, according to Reuters, they “may be entitled to monetary damages of up to $20 million each”.

All of which means in layman’s terms, if you have enough money, you can LITERALLY get away with murder.

One of the commentators on the podcast quipped :

“If this youngster and his family are overly burdened by their wealth, I’m sure the wider society would be more than happy to relieve them of some of it.” (paraphrase)

I certainly couldn’t blame the families for accepting this deal.  I could blame the system which allows for such a deal to be put before them in the first place.  Whoever said “the law is an ass” was spot on. JLP

One of the many tactics used by the Right Rich to give them traction is the vilification of the “media”.  It is also one of the more successful ones.

Basically, the purpose of what we call “journalism” is to both establish the facts on an issue and then report them.  This comes directly into confrontation with the purpose of conservative political spin, that being to hide the overall objective at work, ie allowing the rich to get richer.

So the more doubt that can be cast over journalism, the more the RIch get away with justifying their actions.

Of course it doesn’t help when so-called journalists can be bought.  Entire media empires are owned by the likes of Rupert Murdoch, Silvio Berlusconi and here in Ireland, Denis O’Brien and their basic function is to serve as a mouthpiece for their interests whenever they see fit.

And the prevalence of these conservative media outlets puts even more pressure on the few journalists left who actually want to get on with the task of reporting the facts as they see them, pushing them instead towards what we’re meant to believe is a “balanced” view taking the Rich point of view as “half” of the argument.

Probably the best and most powerful of these is Fox News.  They make full use of the First Amendment of the US Constitution to push forward the conservative agenda.  If that were to be your only source of gleaning information, you would quite literally be brainwashed into thinking that everything President Obama does, for example, is pushing the country ever closer to a socialist Muslim state.

The constant hammering home of their message puts pressure on other news sources to lean more towards those who choose to “attack” the Rich, rather than those who simply want to report the facts.  This is a terrible shame in my opinion.  And I find myself doing it all too often when I write myself, so it’s not like I’m saying it’s easy.

“OK, I’m about to give my opinion on something.  But when I do, what will the conservatives say about it?  They’ll call me a tree-hugger, or a liberal, or a socialist, or some other label that they invented and have been drilling (fracking?) into everyday usage for decades.  So everything I say I have to try and water down in case I leave myself wide open to their response.  Or even worse still…what if my opinions are ones they actually agree with?  Screw it…I just won’t say anything.”

Sound familiar?

I’m hoping to get to a point with this blog that I can just sit at my computer every Sunday morning and hammer out my opinions on things without giving a damn about how certain people will react, especially when that reaction doesn’t represent a counter-argument, rather a smokescreen that when broken down is nothing but puerile name-calling. 

Might take me a while to get there though.  Already I have edited and re-edited this short post about a dozen times!  JLP