New Year’s Wish

Greetings and a happy New Year.

In an Irish context, the ‘and prosperous’ addition to the traditional salutation is inappropriate. I have been shocked at the number of people who have contradicted or corrected me when I used the full traditional form of the greeting. Clearly, a very sombre mood has settled over the country as everyone now realizes the scope of our problems and uselessness of the ‘remedies’ applied so far.

I have spared the readers (all 6 of you, according to Google) any mutterings over the festive season mainly because I was having some fun but also because events were moving so fast and so farcically that any comment of mine was superfluous.

On the cusp of the Fianna Fail ‘heave’-let I have little to say that has not been said before by me and better by others. The old are eating their young in Ireland or at a minimum the hopes and dreams of their young. It is a terrible Swift-ian nightmare that we are living through with vampire banks, zombie political parties and predatory priests roaming the land.

But it also true that people get the politicians they deserve. FF were voted in in 2002 and in 2007. Legally, they have done little wrong apart from a consistent negligence but there is no court that would convict them.

The morality of their conduct is a moot topic when it comes to political parties in general and FF in particular but one can say with some certainty that they had no mandate for the changes they have imposed on the electorate and they have gone to great lengths to avoid seeking one.

My own party, the Greens, make themselves more hypocritical and farcical by the hour. Lately, they have described themselves as ‘semi-disengaged from Government’ while desperately propping up the Government and staving off the General Election in order to drive through legislation that is of concern only to themselves. Pontius Pilate was never this good at public hand wringing/washing.

The short term outlook is worsening by the day.

Capital is fleeing the country at an accelerating rate. The Central Bank is resorting to stratagems that would be considered fraudulent in any other bank. Inflation, through the price of energy, is increasing. The General Election seems sure to be a repeat of 1983 with an inconclusive result dominated by ‘independents’ and unlikely to be stable or enduring.

I sent out a New Years greeting to friends saying that “I wish you all the health, strength, luck and pluck needed to face the coming challenges and that you may end the year with more friends than you start with.” I repeat that good wish to those of you who did not get it via SMS.

I wish you luck this year. You are going to need it if you live in Ireland.