As Long As We Behave Like Saps, We Can't Complain When We're Treated As Such

"Whether we are destroyed by a process of social collapse or by the explosion of nuclear missiles the fault will lie ultimately with us - in our own capacity for self-deception and our unwillingness to deal directly and courageously with the realities and injustices of our daily lives."
- from Michael Moorcock's brilliant political polemic, "The Retreat from Liberty"

By Charley Brady

I'd like to say that I'm not the kind of petty individual who says: "I told you so."

I really would like to say that but I can't. I LOVE to say: "I told you so". If that makes me petty, too bloody bad. I never said that I was one of the noble types.

Yet I would be willing to admit I was wrong if it meant that the totally corrupt creature that calls itself David Drumm was doing time now, as I recommended over two years ago. It's that long since I started, in this column, to ask why Drumm and his fellow criminal Sean FitzPatrick - who were only two of the chancers who were up to their jock straps in skulduggery through the disgraced Irish Anglo Bank - have not been brought to task for the millions that they now owe.

Don't tell me that we couldn't have had them banged up at least a year ago. Don't tell me that The Powers That Be For Some And Not For Others couldn't have used some imagination in tackling these spongers instead of the Law passing the buck to the Politicians who were paralysed with fear in case their own shady dealings with crooks emerged before they then passed it onto their mates, the Bankers.

"Oh sure, they were to blame for everything" wailed Bertie Ahern. Brian Lenihan and Brian Cowen. "They weren't telling us everything and we were just a group of poor gombeens that didn't really understand the manoeuvrings of these bad guys. If we had we would have put a stop to it."

Oh pass me the sick bucket: do they think that we have forgotten how cosy the politicians have been with the bankers and the builders and the developers and the cursed speculators for decades?

THEY ALL SLURPED FROM THE ONE TROUGH! All of them, the unredeemable swine that they are.

I must have sounded like a broken freakin' record over the last two years. All I've been asking is that they treat these gangsters in the same way that they treat the poor sods that can't afford to pay a fine or have done a dodge on their T.V. license.

Jail them. Jail them. Jail them!

There's no problem about jailing the guy who is cleaning windows in his spare time, so why can't we jail these big shots?

Now Dunn has outmanoeuvred the saps of Ireland and is laughing clear and loud - along with the swizzle-sticks who helped him - at the idea that because of the law in America he will continue to give the middle finger to the Irish yokels that he stole money from.

And make no mistake, America: he is laughing long and hard at you also.

While the Irish taxpayer is now stuck with a bill of €35 billion this former chief executive has declared himself bankrupt - in the United States.

He himself owes his former bank €8 million but they can whistle for it now as Dunn has filed for Chapter 7 protection in Massachusetts, saying that he had up to €10 million in assets and up to €10 million in liabilities and up to 49 unsecured creditors.

I do so love that "up to" phrase; and how crooks must like the way that their forms are worded in such a way that they can be as economical with the truth as they wish.

Speaking as one who saw his pension here wiped out, I just see pure blood red now that not only does Drumm get to keep his multi-million gaff in the States but because the bankruptcy laws there are more easy- going than here (Jesus wept!) he will also keep his pension.

I don't really blame you for giving the Irish a kick in the nuts, Drumm; nobody could say that we don't deserve it. We're soft and scared when it comes to "powerful" people like you, after all. When it comes to people like you there are still thousands who will talk tough at the bar counter but be the first to tug their metaphorical forelocks when they come in contact with their "betters".

Damn those cowards to Hell also, while I'm at it.

Maybe there really IS something to that whole "eight hundred years of colonialism" bull that is pulled out every time we get the chance to put away one of these money-grubbers. Why do the Irish immediately get nervous when they have to confront thieves and gougers face on? Already wealthy ones, that is.

Forget the English and perfidious Albion. It is the Irish themselves that are now responsible for the many evictions here; for people living in fear of jail because they have fallen behind with the electricity bill; for those who have committed suicide because there is just no more hope - and anyway, that was Ahern's despicable recommendation to them.

You can't blame the Brits this time. This is all down to the Irish sticking it to their own.

I'm going to say it one more time because it always bears repeating: the real thieves and criminals will never EVER go to jail in this country. It just won't happen.

How could it? That would open up far too many cans of maggots here. The banks and the politicians have been inextricably linked for a long time now. If we start outing even one who knows where it will lead?

I like to think that they, every damned one of them, are as nervous as bejaysus now; because it will just take one mouthpiece to bring the whole cardboard house down.

I live in hope for something approaching justice as I write this on Sunday morning because I hear that Drumm is getting ready to open his yellow beak and start singing. I hope that's true. I hope that he says he wasn't in this on his own and I hope to hell he starts naming names.

I also hope that his neighbours in Cape Cod realise that they have a viper in their midst. It can't be too nce to stay in a very pleasant enclave where nothing much ever changes and then suddenly you find yourselves having to look out of your window in the morning and see a different set of Irish hacks every day trying to get an interview with one of your neighbours: a man whose very name - David Drumm - has become a byword for corruption back here in Ireland.

He may have gotten away with his loathsome behaviour here, but that doesn't mean that we ever have to let him forget it.

Mr. Moorcock was right in his splendid eighties pamphlet: we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Talking about loathsome people, I have to take a deep breath here... there you go... and say something positive about Gerry Adams.

Yeah, that Gerry Adams. The one who was never in the IRA - honest. The decent terrorist, that guy.

So it kills me to say that I almost cheered this week when he caught out the Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson, he of the Conservative Party, who had the bull-necked insensitivity and stupidity to wear a wristband touting his support for the British Army while at a meeting on Thursday October 7th in Stormont House.

At that meeting the Sinn Fein leader headed a delegation of families from West Belfast in order to talk about what the hell had happened in August 1971 when 1 Para Regiment - yeah, I know what you're thinking - shot eleven unarmed people in what was to become known as the Ballymurphy Massacre.

Ten were men, one being local parish priest Father Hugh Mullen who was shot in cold blood whilst in the act of giving the Last Rites to one of the dying. One was a woman and mother of eight, Joan Connolly.

No real explanation has ever been given but since the same goons of the infamous Parachute Regiment went on, only six months later, to prove that they had honed their skills during this mass murder I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions.

I speak, of course, of Bloody Sunday where they fulfilled their murderous mission a hell of a lot faster.

Coincidences? I've never believed in them, me.

Ballymurphy took place during a three-day "security operation" that we later found out was known as "Operation Demetrius". Just to translate that into non-macho bullshit language: "Internment Without Trial".

I suppose that historians will always argue over how the hell the Parachute Regiment were allowed so much lee-way right the way through the Troubles; and don't forget that it was three battalions of these goons that were responsible for almost a staggering 90% of "unlawful killings" from the British side.

They were great recruiters for the Provos, that's for sure. Let's be honest, if I had been a young fella that day, witnessing that carnage, the first thing that I would have been doing is seeing how I could get hold of a gun.

Well, that's the way that many thought; and who could blame them?

So now that the families this week get the chance to meet Owen Paterson, what does he do? This chinless wonder proves that he has the lack of brains that he was born with by openly wearing a wristband showing his support for the British Army.

Of course he bloody supports them. Why wouldn't he? But surely to God there's a time and a place for respect and decency when you are meeting family members that lost one of their own.

No wonder Gerry Adams's eyes were falling out of his head.

One witness to the events said:

"During the course of the meeting, the wristband was clearly visible.

"At one point Mr. Adams challenged Owen Paterson for wearing the wristband, given the nature of the meeting. He made the point that this is a regiment that was born out of the UDR [Ulster Defence Regiment] which would not be thought of affectionately by nationalists.

"But more importantly this was a meeting at which a British Secretary of State was listening to horror stories from families who are victims of the British Army."

Needless to say, Paterson the Sensitive refused to give a commitment for an independent investigation.

Ah, sometimes you just want to scream.

As regards the ongoing Irish Banks Saga, well...

Let's hope that we've grown a pair by next week, at which time I hope to see you all again.

Same bat-time!

Same bat-channel!

You can reach Charley at chasbrady7@eircom.net