Organising Orgies In A Brothel

"In the squares of the city/in the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office/I see my people
And some are grumbling/and some are wondering
If this land's still made for you and me."
- Woody Guthrie.

By Charley Brady

The next time that a teenager asks me why the hell they should vote I certainly won't be able to give them the usual trite answer along the lines of: "Oh, but your vote is important." Let's be honest, the ship sailed on that one when we plebs had to vote again for the Lisbon Treaty because we got it wrong the first time.

That's what democracy is in Ireland: you cast your vote and if it's not the right answer then we have to go through the whole thing again until you get it right.

This way, you see, they can legitimately say that we, the people, who are a bunch of thicks, didn't really understand it the first time around.

Since a good proportion of our elected representatives barely, by their own admission, finished second level education and as sure as Hell is black at midnight never made it to third who the hell are the politicians to tell US that we're a bit on the dim side.

The older I get the more I believe that the only real education is what you get from being constantly getting kicked in the nuts by your alleged masters; by learning from the streets and learning from experience.

Yet even that doesn't apply to our select committee of gougers and chancers because once they are in there all morality goes out of the window along with the few morals that they had to start with and that wonderful sense of "entitlement" kicks in.

You know, like "I'm entitled to expenses that I never earned" and "I'm entitled to hold down five pensions even though I'm still in my fifties and well able to work" or "I'm entitled to own dozens of houses even though I still have my schoolteacher's job to return to"; yeah, that kind of thing.

When teenagers ask you why the hell they should vote, then how can you argue after they have witnessed the conniving, back-stabbing and then when the chips were down, the sheer blatant hypocrisy of those that are supposed to WORK FOR US this week with the Fine Gael fiasco.

Our politicians have so skewed our perception of them that somewhere along the line we actually believed that they should take charge of everything because they were important-looking suit and tie Johns who obviously had the welfare of the country at stake; that they were doing whatever the hell they actually do for the country and not for their own venal, grasping selves.

Well, I never bought into that bull manure and look at where it has gotten those that did: their homes are being repossessed; banks with no credibility left whatsoever are being allowed to bleed the taxpayer to the point where we now have no money left over for hospitals; where the likes of Health Minister Morticia Hanley can say that say that we have a perfectly safe system despite people being left on trolleys in corridors for days on end and where doctor after doctor has told women at their most vulnerable that their child is dead in their womb, only to discover later that the child is still alive.

These are just simple mistakes, we're told. Yeah? Well, I don't have a womb myself for obvious reasons but I can imagine that being told that you have a dead child in there while all along it is a living human being must be as close to Hell as anybody would want to get.

At the time of writing we're up to 19 misdiagnoses on that, but I'm pretty sure that there are more to come. Yet Death's Head Mary Harney says that this is the safest country in the world to have child in.

Do you have any sprogs yourself, Harney?

No. I didn't think so.

Did you have to wait in a wheelchair in a hospital corridor, as a 93-year-old woman had to, when you were getting your (ah, bless her) sore wrist being seen to recently?

No. I didn't think so.

You're a disgrace, not just for the way that you have handled the Health Service since you took it over but for your entire lack of empathy with other human beings.

Why wouldn't teenagers - and older, much older - not just decide that it's not worth it because you will only get more of the same corruption that we have under Fianna Fail.

Look at the Fianna Gael party, our supposedly leading opposition party this past week. If ever they had the Fianna Failures on the ropes then it was this week and what do they do? They decide to have a split in the party by attempting a leadership coup in the same week that they had called for a vote of no confidence against FFs Brian ("Biffo") Cowen.

Just as an aside: a few people are still unsure as to why his nickname is "Biffo". Well, it's actually an acronym for "Big Ignorant F***** from Offaly." So now you know; and from the way that he started running the place into the ground right from the moment that he was Finance Minister straight through until he took the leader's job from the self-proclaimed man of the people Bertie Ahern because that dignitary had lied to a tribunal under oath about his finances he has borne that accolade well, proving whoever coined it quite correct.

He should have been on the ropes this week. This should have been Fianna Fails' swan song and FGs ticket to leadership but what does Fine Gael do? They illustrate once again that they couldn't organise an orgy in a brothel, let alone a p***-up in a brewery.

So Enda Kenny, party leader and supposedly the next Taoiseach comes under fire from his own close friend - in politics that means something totally different to those of us who live in the real world - Richard Bruton, who takes with him nine other defectors.

Now when I say nine, I do of course mean the nine that had the guts to be named as opposed to the go-be-the-walls who were waiting in time honoured fashion to see what the state of play was.

Guess what? It turns out that they had been planning this for a long time but for crying out loud would you look at the week that they decide to DO it in?

In the week that should have seen them wipe out any credibility that Cowen has left; the week that should have seen them surge ahead in the opinion polls; the week that should have shown them as a cohesive and cemented party it sees them instead looking like a bunch of no- hopers who couldn't find their own asses without a road map.

The one that hurt me the most, simply because I like her and her husband on a personal level, is Galway's Senator Fidelma Healy Eames who would not be drawn one way or the other. She said:

"There is extremely strong support for Enda Kenny. Perhaps those outside the party might prefer Richard Bruton more, but in Galway, FG members want Kenny."

So far, so good; but when pushed on which one she is backing she just had to give the typical politician's answer: "It will be like choosing between your mother and your father. Both have been very receptive to me. Richard spoke at a meeting I organised and Enda opened my constituency office."

Jesus bloody wept. What is it with politicians and their parents lately? Last week we had the crook Callely saying that losing his Dail seat was worse than the death of a parent and now we have to listen to this bilge?

Even more horrifying was when Enda Kenny had won the (secret ballot, naturally) vote, there is the bould Fidelma nearly elbowing everybody out of the way in order to be photographed behind him - after an entire week of sitting on the fence, if you don't mind!

You know, I have had people tell me to my face that they can't stand the sight of me and I have respect for them doing that; but this wishy-washy nonsense I simply can't abide.

As I write this I'm looking at a nice coloured pamphlet that was pushed through the door recently by some of Senator Eames' people and it has in large writing at the top: "Know Where You Stand".

Well, Fidelma, I don't have a clue as to where you stand. Especially since your vote was secret, despite the fact that you are supposed to work for us.

Democracy, my ass. Like I said, because I like you it just made it worse.

Of course the same Oranmore ass kissers who were cursing you behind your back last week were queuing up yesterday to shake your hand as if you had won a personal victory. You'll notice, I hope, that I wasn't one of them.

Well, they're all pals again. Now that the dissenters have lost to Enda they are tripping over themselves to tell us how steadfastly they will be standing behind him (presumably with the knives sheathed for the moment).

Could anyone blame teenagers for not voting when that's the like that you have in opposition?

Still, it's not all bad news: you may recall that two weeks ago I wrote about a thing called Michael Murray. It is a multiple rapist who should never ever have been freed in the first place but before I go on I think that I should answer Richard from New York who emailed me to say that he took exception to the fact that I was calling Murray "it" and "creature".

Fair enough, Richard. I normally try to reply to as many people as I can who take the time and the trouble to write to me, because it is appreciated very much; but in your case I just couldn't be bothered, to tell you the truth. Life is sometimes just too short to listen to entire tracts from Born Again headbangers such as yourself.

In the first place I know just as much about the Bible as you do. Secondly and most importantly I will not now or ever apologise for calling Murray a "thing" and referring to this pervert as "it".

You've missed the point, Richard. I don't consider this filth to be to human so why should I refer to it in terms that should only be used for human beings?

Do we have that out of the way?

And please, no more garbage about the Book of Revelations. As far as I'm concerned, some space cadet called John the Divine who appears to have been hallucinating due to a lack of food, wrote it. So go back to your cage, sing "Michael, Row the Boat Ashore" to yourself and leave me alone. And oh yeah, double your bloody medication; would you do that for me?

Back to Murray: This is the thing who within days of its release from jail in England had hit the streets of Dublin where he raped over and over during a period of less than a week.

The newspapers here decided to do their job by naming the creep and showing its ugly fizoog now that it's out - again - and it decided that since it was suffering high blood pressure and distress because of this, its legal team (yes, that's right, legal team) attempted to sue the papers and take an injunction out against them.

Thankfully, the courts have now thrown its attempt at a gagging order into touch as we are once again allowed to say where it has moved on to. I certainly don't want it anywhere near me or mine.

My devout Christian friend asks how we would feel if the poor "man" found life had become intolerable for him.

I can't, of course, answer for anyone else but I can say that in my own case it wouldn't cost me a wink of sleep. A

s a matter of fact I hope that his damned blood pressure is through the roof now. Anyway, he does of course have the right of appeal; and considering that the State always seems to be able to come up with the loot to help out the wrongdoers I have no doubt that we haven't heard the last of him.

Finally, many thanks to the gent who sent in the lyrics to "This Land is my Land". I was aware of it of course but must confess I had never read the closing verses.

If you substitute "relief office" for "welfare office", well... Guthrie might have been singing about the California dust-bowl period but it is weirdly apt for modern day Ireland.

Hope to see you all again next week.

Same bat-time!

Same bat-channel!

You can reach Charley at chasbrady7@eircom.net