Liquid Milk In An Insane World

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are solely interested in power."
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."
- George Orwell's "1984"

By Charley Brady

It only takes the slightest of things to rile me up me these days.

Sign of the times, I suppose. I won't say it's my age as I never felt any different.

One of those things is being told what to do and how I can do it; what I can buy and not buy; how I can think or not think. That last one I'm beginning to - yes - think, is probably the way of the future in Ireland: not to think, as we seem to be a country that is in a perpetual coma, unable to stand against those in power.

I despise us for that.

People just accept now that this is the way that the world is. Well, do you know, it's not the way the world is. At least it's not the way it should be unless we let it happen so.

No, I'm not turning into a leftie or a bloody liberal or any of that nonsense that you can hang a label on.

Freedom slips away from people not always in gigantic coups or falling into dictatorship. Freedom slips away - your country slips away - when you just accept what you are told to do, or even worse pander and bow down to being told EXACTLY what to do.

Freedom slips away in little bite-sized chunks.

Like the light bulbs of Ireland. From the sublime to the ridiculous, eh?

The light bulbs of Ireland.

I only wanted this morning to buy a few spare bulbs for the bat-cave. Of course, I had forgotten since I last bought some that we don't have a choice in what we buy any more. Like something out of George Orwell's "1984", the ones that I buy have been erased from history.

In "1984" Winston asks the Interrogator: "Does Big Brother exist?" to which he is told that of course he exists. When Winston asks if Big Brother exists in the same way that he exists he is given probably the ultimate answer: "You don't exist". I know how that guy felt.

Welcome to Ireland. Except it's now in this answer from this morning:

"Oh, I'm sorry but they no longer make those light bulbs. I'm afraid that you will have to buy these eco-friendly energy savers that will cost three times as much, not give out as much light but will last a lot longer - and, you'll be happy to know, will be very good for the environment. Well, yes, since you ask, they do have mercury in them so you must be very careful when disposing of them.

"But the Green Party approves of them."

This is when you want to tear your own brain out, fry it and feed it to a Green Party member on the grounds that eating a willing person's brain is ecologically sound.

Luckily, before I immersed myself once more in my utter loathing for a sell-out Green Party that exists only to keep their masters in the Fianna Failure Party in power, and thereby themselves, it was pointed out to me by Frank Carroll in Dublin that this is in fact a European Union directive.

(I've mentioned Frank before: he may be the youngest octogenarian that I know but he forgets nothing and if you ever want to save yourself a trip to the internet then Frank is the guy to go to: phenomenal brain and a memory like Hannibal Lecter.

Sorry, Frank, it's true. Oh, and by the way it's a compliment. He still packs a pretty good punch, so I would never get on the wrong side of him.)

Anyway, we have so many directives from Europe now that this had slipped my mind completely.

But that's what you get when you sell out your sovereignty or even your right to make your own bad choices.

Trust me, on the latter I am somewhat of an expert.

I seem to be in an Orwellian state of mind at the moment because I love these titles that a sane country could never possibly throw up (throw up being the key words here).

For example the Property Services Regulation Authority was set up four years ago in order to do what exactly?

Well, it's supposed to keep an eye on estate agents but here we are almost half a decade later and we find that it has the legal power to do bugger all. It does have a full staff though, that are costing the taxpayers who knows how much?

Perhaps we'll eventually be told, like that poor sap Winston that it didn't exist, that it was just part of a deranged non-memory that is controlled by the State.

I love those words and how the politicians of this insane State must really, REALLY love them: thought police; thought crime; non-memory.

Here's my favourite and even the re-writers can;t argue with this one since they put it into print.

The National Milk Agency (don;t you love it?) says that it was set up for the "purposes of maintaining an adequate supply of liquid milk within the State." Jesus wept.

By the way, they don;t bother to explain, since we are such a bunch of gullible eejits anyway, exactly how they are doing this. Hell, why would a bunch of thick taxpayers who are funding "liquid milk" need to know the intricacies of what the bejesus these people are talking about?

Correct me if I;m wrong on this but what the hell is "liquid milk " anyway? Isn;t it just milk?

My head is ready to explode.

I thought that this was the way it came. Jeez, we live in a country full of cows and I had always just assumed in my ignorance that liquid milk is what we were putting on our cornflakes anyway.

I mean, I have a fridge that has two cartons of milk in it at the moment. Should I be concerned that I haven't just frozen the stuff, stuck it on the end of a stick and wandered around like some lost soul from the Land of the Bewildered, sucking on the frozen milk with a zombie- like stare on my head and saying: "Wow, this liquid milk thing will never catch on. I so much prefer my frozen-on-a-stick milk?"

Look, we are used to this non-government spitting right into our faces and then telling us to go and take a hike for ourselves.

What the hell, we deserve it.

Look at this week where a couple of the snout troughing pigs of the discredited Anglo Irish Bank have actually been arrested and questioned by frustrated cops who know that these swine will never see the inside of a jailhouse.

As I've said before so many times now, these aren't petty criminals or guys who would rob a handbag because they are god-damned junkies; - they would be put away immediately (well, maybe)- these are your garden grown white collar criminals that the Irish do not have the bottle to put into jail. They are still free to live in their mansions and are still free to put back the serving of justice for year after year because they still have the money to do it.

Freeze their assets? Oh come on, stop watching so many American movies. Over here that would constitute a very grievous crime against their Human Rights.

We've managed to do it on some memorable occasions but it took the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin to bring that about. Once all the fuss had died down it was business as usual.

So please: don't tell me that FitzPatrick and his fellow scum will ever do time. The only people doing time for the activities of these slime buckets in suits are the poor sods who lost their investments because they made the mistake of unwittingly dealing with the flotsam and pond life of the country.

Sure, they arrested another one during the week but it all has a sort of perfunctory feel to it: a few questions and out you go. This is one time when I will be delighted to be proved wrong but I'm really not holding my breath.

Yet Anglo Irish Bank is allowed this week to give an increase in wages to their top 72 chancers! This is at a time when EVERY WORKER across the country has had to take a pay cut of 10% and many have had take a cut of up to 28%!

Those who can't get work have been cut in their social welfare and those who have long term illnesses requiring medication have had what they pay per month increased by 20%.

Only yesterday I had to listen to a Fianna Failure supporter say: "It's their own f****** fault for getting sick in the first place. You can't be pandering to these **** all the time."

Amazing that these people exist; and that you aren't carrying a gun when you have to listen to them.

And Anglo Irish Banks can give their head honchos an increase of 10%. No wonder their lower level workers are as hopping mad as the rest of us.

Spineless Brian Cowen then adds to the anger by saying that he has no power to intervene in the bank's business. Well, WHY THE HELL NOT? The taxpayer had to bail the bastards out, so we own it! Why don't WE have a say in how it is run? It's not as if we could possibly do a worse job. In fact you would think that these sods would want to keep their heads down and try to be invisible.

I mean, it's not as if they could just walz into another job, is it? It hardly looks good on your resume: accomplishments: losing all of the investors money, ruining the bank and helping to drive the country further into the ground.

Hardly shining recommendations.

To complete the hilarity we're back to the Green Party who had their rousing "let's pat ourselves on the back" speeches on Saturday night. This was the night of the ludicrous Earth Hour when we were all urged to get in touch with our inner hippy by turning all the electricity off for an hour. John Gormley and his limp Green naturally got behind this pointless exercise. The only way that it would have saved any energy would have been if we had talked every person in China into joining us. And let's face it, they would have laughed their heads off at us.

The problem was that it took place between 8.30 and 9.30pm and guess when Gormless was giving his speech?

You got it in one.

So not only are they a bunch of unprincipled sell- outs, but they are a THICK bunch of unprincipled sell- outs.

Gormless probably thought that we could watch his ranting on candle-powered televisions.

In the meantime I'm off for a nice glass of warm liquid milk.

Stay as sane as you can, folks and I hope to see you all again next week.

Same bat-time!

Same bat-channel!

You can reach Charley at chasbrady7@eircom.net