Ireland could be turned around in a year

There are several pathological tendencies within the Irish state and society which are being ignored in the frenzy about rate cuts and gay presidents

The first is the role of the state itself in eviscerating civil society. This tendency has not lessened in the slightest since the fall of the 1997-2011 juntas and their replacement by – well, by everyone not part of the juntas. Indeed, the shamelessness with which the state continues to fix its citizenry for the speculation, megalomania, and sybaritic lifestyles of a very few for a very short period is remarkable

Yet that is less surprising, put in the context of a state that has lurched from a disastrous Roman Catholic fixation to a no less disastrous neoliberal one, all at the expense of its people. Indeed, encouraging immigration allowed Brecht's parodic notion of the leadership choosing a new citizenry, as the old one had failed it

The results have been catastrophic, at every level – material, cultural, and existential. At the last level, there were many refuges for hold-outs against galloping statism until recently – pub, music session/concert, freedom of assembly and speech. The state has used proxies like IMRO to control Irish music, whose 1990's torrent has now turned into a trickle. In the meantime, attested criminality in the music business goes unpunished in Ireland, with Irish musos forced to get their rights through legal action in Britain and the USA.

A second mechanism used by the state is the differential application of European law and recommendation to control its people. So a farmer who went down to the pub and had 3 pints every Saturday night for 35 years before driving back slowly on deserted roads suddenly finds himself subject to the same legislation as a joyrider going 200 km/h on a crowded autobahn. Competition law was actually used (via Siptu) to stop musicians agreeing what fee to ask for in a gig.

It is true, at the time of writing in August 2011, that Irish people in general like their new PM. That is easily explicable by the fact that the government he replaced made no secret of its criminality and lack of basic self-control. The best that Enda Kenny can do, given the parameters he has set his administration (or he has allowed others to set) will be to restore the confidence of some in a MO that was intended to be totalizing and criminal in the first place

The irony, of course, is that Ireland could be turned around in a year

1.Default on all debt. Indeed, the “loan” from the “UK” should immediately be written off as reparations
2.Re-emphasise the sense of genetic and cultural belonging that will motivate us to give of our best
3.Scrap every parasitical entity within the Irish state, from think-tanks to NGOs, that drag us down financially
4.Claim all natural resources for the people as the constitution requires