Political Posters, Fallen Saints And Me

By Charley Brady
"I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning."
- Stevie Smith

Boy, do I know in a very diluted way how that lady felt.

I drown every time I open the door of the bat-cave these days. You see, it's local and European election time here in what used to be a kind of half-assed Republic back in the days before we became obsessed with the Royal Family; the relentless pursuit of money; the death of Jade Goody; which model is sleeping with whatever football star and a hundred other things that we like to dwell on while pretending that we're above all that.

Not waving but drowning? I'm drowning because I can't answer the door these days without running into some self-serving politico who is telling me that they are going to change the world despite the fact that they've had 12 years in power to change it and all that time all they actually did was to feather their own nests, to cut people's wages and to run the country down the rabbit hole.

Apart from a mild desire to kill myself just to be free of them and the narrow, bigoted, money-grubbing world that they inhabit, what keeps me going is a sense of humour.

I particularly like the folks who have put up stickers in their windows that say "Fianna Fail - Don't Call".

I'll go along with that.

On the rare occasion that I'm able to escape out of the door then I'm drowning in election posters. The Fianna Fail ones that are hanging from every telegraph pole or lamppost are particularly funny as they have put the party logo in such miniscule writing that you would need a very high-powered magnifying glass in order to see it.

It's as if they are ashamed of the corrupt masters that they serve.

I saw a political poster for the Prince Lucifer Morningstar Party the other day and it was proudly emblazoned with his logo surrounded by the fires of Hades itself as if Satan knew that we would vote for him before we ever again voted for the likes of Brian Clown, big Brain Brian Lenihan and Typhoid Mary Harney of our crumbled Health System.

Truth to tell, I would probably vote for Uncle Adolf's Nationalist party for bigoted, bewildered loo-lahs before I would ever vote for the Fianna Failures.

At least the trains would run on time.

Not waving but drowning? I'm certainly drowning in the amount of tarnished haloes that I'm tripping over as I almost take an eye out on my way to crash over a discarded halo into the corner of one of these posters.

There's probably no good way to begin your journey to the next world but I can think of better things to see as your last vision on earth - a Galway sunset, a high-powered banker begging you for a glass of water or my dream lady Jessica Lange about to tell you that she's always wanted to be yours, forever - but crashing head-first into a poster of some grinning Fianna Fail goon certainly isn't one of them.

Those haloes were nice and shiny and gold until a month ago but with the advent of the Ryan Report into Church and State-sponsored child abuse they've gone a distinctly rusty colour. Why, I even have it on good authority that one of the God-botherers who dismisses me as a Hound of Hell was absent from her place in the front pew this fine Sunday morning. Say it ain't so. Some things in life should remain constant.

Call me insane (okay, you're insane - Ed.) but I've actually postponed a holiday for a month because I think that it's important to vote in the upcoming elections on June 5.

I'm pretty intrigued by Declan Ganley of Libertas, who is standing in the European elections, for the simple reason that all the right people seem to hate him. That's got to be a good sign.

An immensely wealthy man in his own right, he was one of the prime movers in the 'No to Lisbon' campaign, of which I was an unashamed believer in.

I've seen nothing since to change that and will be voting "No" once again when we are undemocratically forced into another vote, and who knows, another vote after that, until we get it the way that our masters in Brussels want it.

Ganley lives in Galway but was educated in England, returning to rural County Galway at the age of 13. To some of the dinosaurs in this state the fact that he has an unusual accent is enough to make him a figure of suspicion.

He started his rather chequered career by working on London construction sites before spreading his wings in rather spectacular fashion through working in an insurance company and then building an empire that ranged from dealing in aluminium in Russia, telecommunications in Bulgaria and through to forestry in Latvia.

Yes, he's ambitious and sometimes he's struck out and lost a lot of his own money, while at other times he has made a packet.

In America, of course, ambition is something to be proud of, but here in insular bloody Ireland it's something to be ashamed of.

I have never come across such a campaign of Chinese Whispers against an individual as I have in the curious case of a self-made man like Declan Ganley.

"Is he in the pay of the C.I.A?"

"He has links with the U.S. military, did you know that, Brady?"

These are questions that I was asked in all seriousness this week by the party faithful.

To which my answer is "Prove that he's being funded by the C.I.A., you joke, and as for the second one doesn't your own Fianna Fail party have links with the American war machine since you have given them the permission, in a neutral country to have a stopover in Shannon Airport on the way to Iraq?"

One FFer, definitely confusing TV with reality said "He's as dangerous as Lex Luthor."

Maybe it was a joke aimed at Ganley's rather fetching bald pate but I'm not risking my vote on a dweeb like that anyway. He might just have been serious.

Definitely my favourite comment from the FFers is: "Where does his money come from?"

Think about that for a moment: this is from a party that has been PROVEN to be dyed-in-the-wool crooks, who would rezone land at the drop of a hat, who will look the other way as soon as a money-stuffed brown envelope is shoved into their greedy grasping paws and has an ex-leader in Bertie Ahern - forgotten but not gone - who is whining that the deal he orchestrated with the child-abusing orders of the Catholic Church should stand because he's afraid that the Church may go bankrupt if we continue to abuse them.

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH MIGHT GO BANKRUPT, according to Ahern. If I wasn't weeping tears of sheer bloody frustration I would be weeping tears of laughter.

I don't know if Declan Ganley will be good for this country or not but I do know that he has rattled the cages of people that I loath and that's good enough for me. I'll be voting for him.

In the meantime watch out for those slippery haloes that you're tripping over these days and I hope to see you all again next week.

Same bat-time!

Same bat-channel!

You can reach Charley at chasbrady7@eircom.net