Ireland Goes Bust

[Peter Presland]

Well, look at it this way -- it is both our, and Paddy's, assigned duty to keep the filthy, crooked rich in Tehran caviar and vintage Dom Perignon and to pay the bunkering and vittling costs of their luxury super yachts.

... all the while being systematically stirred up to hate and ridicule the "Bog Trotters" or the "English Oiks" - depending entirely on geography of residence and assumed allegiance. And the problem is that the mass of both populations remain so easily and gullibly stirred, so that that their ire falls on each other rather then its deserving targets.

It reminds me (for example) of the apoplexy aroused by the campaign against so-called 'benefits scroungers'. In their justifiable indignation against such an alleged cohort, nobody, but nobody seems to notice that the money allegedly saved from such ballyhoo-ed "crackdowns" is a pittance compared to what could be raised from an almost trivial tax on wealth (and especially uber-wealth) while those in genuine need are put through ever more draconian hoops.

But attention is diverted - which of course is the real motive behind such campaigns. It is a constant source of amazement to me just how simple it is for our Lords and Masters to create such diversions. A snap of their fingers with appropriate populist emotional buttons duly pressed and the papers are full of it, wall-to-wall for days on end while the real crooks just cruise merrily on their way.