Decent Dissent and Dodgy Decisions - Lisbon and NAMA

POOR POLITICIANS

People who see certainties where others see nuances and shades of meaning are either prophets or a quacks, and our politicians are not prophets.
Our Minister of Finance cannot even accurately predict profits, or lack thereof, from the biggest gamble that Ireland has ever undertaken.
We have seen years of mismanagement and poor decision making of which NAMA is the most recent example, and with the Lisbon treaty we have chosen to say No, to dissent.
Dissent and disagreement with Government is the lifeblood of democracy, it is also essential because every once and a while it is right, and the powers to whom we try to speak are wrong.

One very important lesson came from America, from a courageous commentator Edward R Murrow - but more about him later.

The elected, transitional, holders of power in our state, our employees, continue to impugn the intelligence and the loyalty of the people of the state of Ireland in relation to the European Union.

Some media pundits credit our politicos with a knowledge and understanding of the challenges facing Ireland and Europe which neither common sense nor their track record suggests they deserve.

If our politicians had proven their self declared knowledge, foresight and planning, about finance, the economy, health services etc. we might be able to accept the premise that they knew what the hell they were talking about.

But to date this Government has proven little except their own arrogance and hubris in spite of its failure.
With bank bailouts, NAMA, toxic debts, rising unemployment and a real sense of insecurity and uncertainty their failures have enveloped the country in a fog of fear.
This fog, fear and confusion in addition to the BCI ruling on referendum coverage may yet be used to push through the Lisbon treaty on a second attempt.

THE GREATEST LESSON IN DISSENT

One of, if not the greatest American journalist of the modern era was Edward R Murrow. Never in a thousand years could my writing even come close to how he phrased a warning about Governments who felt they - and they alone - knew everything, dismissed accountability and marginalized dissent. In 1954, in a challenge to the McCarthyite witch hunts he said:

"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.
We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men -- not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular"

These words are utterly appropriate to our challenges today.

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty or allow the refusal to accept the Lisbon Treaty to be confused with our commitment to a European Union. Dissent is said to be the highest form of patriotism.

A No vote in a referendum is just that, we do not accept the proposition put before us by our elected legislators, and want a better deal.
We simply want a Union for the benefit of the people and communities, not for the politicians and corporations.

Our country was not created by people who achieved great things with courage, reason and conviction, not fear - and we must "not be driven by fear into an age of unreason based on illusory guarantees and clever editing.

When we dig into Irish history we see despite censure, public ridicule and the real danger of death we have had the incredible fortune to have had leaders who never allowed themselves to be subdued or cowed, and who supported just causes despite their unpopularity.

Our greatest leaders came from hugely diverse backgrounds. Jim Larkin overcame media vilification for Union organization.
James Connolly died for his belief in workers rights. Griffith’s commitment to self determination, O Connell’s belief in the right to vote, Parnell’s belief in fairness, Tone and Emmett’s belief in secular democracy and women’s rights fought for by people like Winifred Carney now buried in an unmarked grave in Milltown cemetary and Constance Markiewicz have all shaped our sense of nationhood.

We must remember that accusation is not proof, the cheap innuendos by Dick Roche and his ilk about funding of the No campaign mean nothing, particularly when dual standards exist in relation to the funding of the Yes groupings.

If the Government had accepted the recommendations of the Standards in public office, this issue would be more transparent and more in the interest of the democratic process but perhaps not in the interests of the Government.

DEALING WITH DISSENT

With other EU states going for parliamentary ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, without plebiscite, the attempt to force through the second Lisbon vote is an appeasement of sorts.

Again, we can learn from history. Dealing with dissent at home so as not to upset Europe was a policy followed in the 1930's by the Chamberlain Government who appeased an unaccountable system in Germany.
Chamberlain knew most of all that the staunchest critics of his European policy had to be marginalized and isolated - his supporters in the media portrayed the foremost critic as, if not totally senile, at best morally or intellectually confused - he was called Winston Churchill. History has taught us that all Chamberlains' certainties were in fact miscalculation and confusion.

That suggests that the office can not only make the man, the office can make the facts. The solemn guarantee Mr. Chamberlain held in his hand after the Munich conference were about as believeable as those Mr. Cowen has shown us.

But by unremittingly repeating these pointless garuantees (about what is not in the treaty) the illusion is created that the context of the treaty rejected by the Irish, as well as the constitution rejected by the French and Dutch, has fundamentally changed.

FIANNA FAIL FIXATION

At the launch of the Fianna Fail Yes campaign on September 2nd 2009 Mr. Cowen aptly demonstrated this arrogance by stating he did not even contemplate the rejection of the Lisbon treaty on a second attempt.

This is possibly the last chance FF have to 'win' an electorial victory before 2012. As the major party in power it is FF who, along with the greens and indies, have the power to put the referendum to the people, again, and have decided to do so, so it is primarily their referendum.

I for one do not want to see a triumphful FF telling us how they assured we won Lisbon. Its their only chance to win anything at this point, with the support of the opposition, corporations and even the church.

If Lisbon goes through they will use it as a further justification to go full term even with a 17% approval rating (i.e. family and friends) and as their are no more local or EU elections in that period, this is almost certainly the last chance people have to voice their dissent at the ballot box until 2012

CONCLUSION

We cannot allow a failing, self serving and corrupt Government, hardly worthy of the legacy of nationhood that they have inherited, or their corporate supporters to use control of the media and the fear of a deeper financial crisis that they themselves precipitated to force us to vote against our own best interests, and the interests of our fellow European citizens.

This country faces a great challenge. With the clear and present danger of financial ruin and longterm hardship, the confusion we as citizens must now address is stark and forbidding.

But note with hope in your heart we have made it through in the past.

The confusion and debate about Lisbon is really about if the Irish Government actually know what they are talking about - and their track record of the management of our country in health, education, financial regulation or economic planning does not engender any belief in their abilities to have made the correct judgement on the Lisbon treaty.

The chance to pause and reflect after democratic rejection has not been used to build the kind agreement that We the People really want, a desire that really exists

We want our leaders to give us a treaty that is accessable, that gives greater democratic accountability and transparency, and if they deliver that we will work with them to develop a better future for all.

Again, as always – thanks for reading. Even if you don’t agree with me – I hope you give some thoughts to the points made

And please let others now about these blogs

Citizen Simon - out





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Historical Irish Lessons in democratic displacment

In the first post I discussed what I would refer to as Democratic Displacement in the European Union.

Ireland is, rather bizarrely, in the position that of our population of 4.5 million - or about 0.8% of the European population – that is those of us over the age of 18, who are registered to vote, are the only people who have been given the right by referendum to decide the future of the European Union.

That is unfair on us and our approximate fellow 491 million citizens.

A treaty, which fundamentally re-arranges the way the EU works should simply not be decided by less than 1% of the population, the decision should be pan-European, by referendum – otherwise it is undemocratic.

It is comparable to asking only Maine along with Hawaii to or god forbid Alaska to elect the President of the United States

As we seem to be the chosen people this time out, I want to do this blog/podcast concentrating on the lessons of democratic displacement from Irelands past.

Of all countries in Europe, perhaps Ireland, with our post colonial heritage should best understand what happens when government becomes removed and remote.
The Irish of all people should look to the past and learn from its failings, to avoid them in the future.

Again, I need to emphasize that this is not anti British, or an anti European rant, it is my personal understanding of the lessons of the past.

For many, many years the vast majority of the Irish population was denied the right to choose self determination.

In our history systems of exclusion and discrimination were gradually phased out, first emancipation, then property ownership and finally gender based barriers were removed.

But for a great deal of our history, power was vested to men of property from one religious group – they were the economic and political powerbrokers of their time, in other words – those who inherited a feudal system, and the predecessors of today’s special interest groups – those who benefited from the system of the time.

Extrapolating from James Camlin Becketts book, A Short history of Ireland – from the census figures in 1851 0.025% of the Irish population had a say in the running of the Island.

Ratification of the Lisbon treaty would not be the first time that Governance of the Ireland of Ireland moved offshore to a largely appointed, un-democratic special interest group.

After the 1801 the Act of Union Ireland was ruled directly from London as part of the United Kingdom.
Executive power lay in the hands of the unelected, appointed Lord Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary for Ireland.

By elections limited to male property owners, Ireland sent 105 members of parliament to the British House of Commons, and representative peers elected twenty-eight of their own number to sit for life in the House of Lords.

The shift of political power, vested in a small proportion of the population, from Dublin to London, withdrew the rulers even further from the ruled.

The result of this was The Great famine, the most severe in the history of European agriculture from 1845-1848.

The warnings that this would happen were apparent and clear. The historian Woodham-Smith calculated between 1801 and 1845 there had been 114 commissions and 61 special committees dealing with Ireland and that – I quote - "without exception their findings prophesied disaster”

This was a contrast to Britain, which was beginning to enjoy the modern prosperity of the Victorian and Industrial ages.

The root cause of the disaster was the failure of the socio-economic system and the reluctance to admit fix the problems of Laissaiz-Faire, which at the time was regarded as the only viable economic system.
Also, the modification of Laissaiz Faire would reduce profits to the small special interest group.

Laissaiz Faire was the prototype of modern market economics.

The other issue that compounded the problem was the distance of governance.
The 45/48 famine was known as the great famine, or An Gort Mhor.
The failure of one commodity, the primary food crop, led to starvation and disease.
However, other commodity crops such as grain were exported in large quantities to service debts due to absent politician.

A hundred years before, in 1740/1741 there was another famine – the Year of the Slaughter. 10% of the Irish population are estimated to have died. Less is known about it.

However – as there was a government on the Island in Dublin at the time, docks were closed and food exports reduced and curtailed in an effort to alleviate the famine.

Even though those in power were from a tiny segment of the community, they lived in a parallel life of privilege, their proximity to the affected, ensured that pragmatic action was taken and a greater disaster than might have been was averted.

The 1740/41 famine, for example, did not result in the mass emigration of the 1848 famine, partially because the governing classes were closer and more answerable to those in the same society than there successors.

Of course I am not saying that the Lisbon treaty will result in another famine – in this time we are more advanced, but hardship will be experienced in a different way.

In the past, Ireland was an agrarian society, when the model collapsed due to reluctance to change from ill-advised economic concepts and political distance then people went hungry.
In the present Ireland is a service nation, leading in IT and electronic manufacturing.

It will not be the lack of potatoes that will cause pain, it will be the shortage of pounds, pence and euros in our system caused by ill-advised economic concepts and political distance that will put people into debt for decades.

So what can we do to avoid this –
Well, it sort of sucks – the only people who will have a say in the future of Europe are the Citizens of the Irish Republic.
The good news is, there are things we can do.

We can continue to reject the Lisbon treaty until a more democratic alternative, giving better representation, accountability, transparency and democracy is presented.

For Irish readers, the main thing is to get out and vote, you can vote for or against the treaty – that is your choice, but I would urge all of you not to vote for something you don’t understand or do not feel comfortable with and certainly not on the advice of Fianna Failure.

Some feel we should rely on the politicians for advice.

Brian Cowen, The Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) - on 12 May 2008, admitted in a radio interview that he had not read the Treaty of Lisbon in its entirety!!
As a Laywer he is one of the few who has the ability to read such legalese, but it is such a huge body of work I dont blame him.
The Irish times found most people simply did not understand what the thing was about.

For other European readers, write to your representative, make it clear that if you are not given a democratic choice for our Europe of the future, they can count on not getting your vote.

Let people know about this blog and other websites that give an alternative view on Europe.

Remember, We alone have the power to ensure that our political system works for us – that our system works for we the people, not a small corporate and political elite.

Its our choice.

Again, as always – thanks for reading, thanks for listening.

Even if you don’t agree with me – I hope you give some thoughts to the points made

And please let others now about these blogs, podcasts and youtubes.

Citizen Simon - out

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