I Am Now Living In A Philip K. Dick Novel

"I wonder out loud if it is real; and I wonder out loud if all of us are real."
- Philip K. Dick

By Charley Brady

I recall listening to a politician pontificating-what else? - in Dublin's Shelbourne Hotel as far back as 1984. Leaning his bulk back against the counter and blowing smoke from an enormous cigar that often stayed in his mouth even when he was in full flight, he droned on and on, mouthing his callous theories to anyone who would listen. He felt free to be as crude and, in truth, as honest about his feelings as he wanted to be. After all, he was amongst his own kind, people who nodded at every pig-ignorant word that came from his lips. I didn't matter. I was there but they didn't really see me. I was only working in the place so I was essentially invisible and certainly of no account. I doubt that he even considered that I could have a thought of my own, that I could understand what was being said.

The sad fact is that he wasn't far wrong. I was what now seems ridiculously young and so it took a moment for me to realise that what he referred to as 'units' were in fact people. He was talking, as I say quite openly, about the need to sacrifice so many 'units' this week for something or other. I was horrified when the penny dropped and I realised that it was human beings that he was referring to.

That particular unit long ago shuffled off the mortal coil. What a loss to the race that was. Yet of course his thinking lives on in the form of our own current rulers, who themselves are now ruled by Europe. Although I felt nothing except unconcerned when I heard that he had died - what do you want me to do, lie about it? - he probably wasn't an evil man. It's just that, speaking from a position of power, he had long ago become disconnected from feeling any passion about anything except the need to make ever-larger amounts of money from the misery of others.

As I say, I was young then and even toiled on for far too long in thinking that he was an aberration rather than the norm. Of course he was no exception at all, as we now know. After a certain time in a place of privilege they all end up the same. Fine Gael and Labour had three terms to watch and learn from the antics of the hideous Fianna Fail party and have simply refined their sense of entitlement now that they are calling the shots. Or rather calling the shots in making Paddy and Bridget Q. Sucker take the lumps so that they can continue to look good and have their stomachs stroked by their European masters. Calling the shots in as much as letting legislation on abortion drag on for decades and yet be able to push through another piece of legislation that suits them better, all done under cover of darkness. In four hours. Whilst the country was asleep.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has sat in the Dail since the seventies. That is far too long a time to be cosseted and still cling onto any ideals he may have once had. It is not simply because of the legal and monetary ramifications that will arise out of him making an apology to those who slaved and were abused in the Magdalene Laundries, that he is keeping so quiet; it is not because he seems unable to convincingly utter a genuine word without a script written for him; it is not because he has shown himself over and over to be weak on our behalf. It is far worse than just being a person with no spine. I'm sure that he loves his family and is kind to small animals. But he no longer understands the person in the street. How could he? In other words there is simply no feeling of empathy any more. He has been a part of this rotten system for too long to be able to relate in any meaningful way. The same goes for the appalling, lying Justice Minister Alan Shatter or Michael Noonan and indeed for any number of them. (I won't include Phil Hogan as I doubt that he ever had anything except a puffed-up bullying sense of his own importance.)

It is now simply impossible to believe anything - anything at all - that comes out of their mouths. Here, and it is just an example amongst many, is Alan Shatter speaking passionately in the Dail in December of 2009:

"Does the Taoiseach intend to introduce legislation in the New Year to amend the redress board legislation to extend it to those who suffered barbaric cruelty in the Magdalene Laundries? The Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform now has irrefutable evidence that the state colluded in sending young women to what were then known as the Magdalene Asylums. They ended up in the Magdalene Laundries and were treated appallingly. Some of them have never recovered from the manner in which they were treated and their lives have been permanently blighted.

"Initially in this house the Minister for Education and Science denied that the State had any involvement in this. There is now absolutely irrefutable evidence as a consequence of court records that have been examined by the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform that the State was directly complicit in many women being placed in these totally inappropriate circumstances."

The underlines are mine; the text is Alan Shatter; but it was Alan Shatter in Opposition. Here was the same man, only different because he is now Justice Minister himself and in power, explaining last week why he, Kenny and their cronies couldn't apologise:

"The story is more complicated... It's not as simple as that [saying sorry]. What the report shows is that approximately 26% of the residents from 1922 onwards went into the Magdalene Laundries through a number of different routes, some through the court system, some through the social services; some were former residents in industrial schools. It also shows that there were a considerable number who were taken to the Laundries by their own families and left there... This is a very complicated story and there are a number of issues. What we want to do now is reflect on this very comprehensive report and give individuals and the different groups an opportunity to respond to it."

Spot the difference, anyone? One is contemptible fake, phoney outrage whilst in Opposition; the other is a damage limitation exercise when in Government. And haven't they become great guys for reflecting on everything? It's only a couple of weeks ago that Kenny was "reflecting" on a judge's decision to grant bail to a man who had admitted to years of raping his daughter. Now we have this yoke telling us he needs a bit of the oul' reflection time. He didn't sound as if he needed to do much reflecting in 2009 when he was mouthing out of him about "irrefutable evidence" and "State collusion".

I woke up one day and reality as I understood it had subtly altered. In fact I was now living in a Philip K. Dick novel, in a world that was less sane than that of The Man in the High Castle or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I could remember a different one, one where words meant something solid; but that world has changed. In 2010, in another show of faux anger, Michael Noonan said in the Dail:

"The Irish Government and the Irish taxpayer has no liability whatsoever for these debts... but the bail-out deal is now forcing them to accept liability because the bail-out deal puts this [words unintelligible]. So the minister, in his budget, reduces social welfare payments; he punishes the blind, the disabled, the widows, the carers, the unemployed. He taxes the poorest at work and for what? So that the taxpayer can take on liability for debts that the country never incurred and that arose from private arrangements between institutions... What a disaster! What an obscenity! How can the Government stand over it?"

Of course he was in Opposition then and in Philip K. Dick's Ireland that means that he didn't really mean that. Even though he said it. Even though it's on youtube. He meant something else entirely.

I live in a world now where people who don't reside in this country tell US what a great fellow Enda Kenny is. It's an alternative reality where you wake up one fine day and his mug is on the cover of Time and he has become the European of the Year. It is a universe where a left-wing party like Labour is now a right-wing one and I don't even know anymore what a middle or right-wing party even is. Words don't mean anything at all. It is as if they all took classes in studying Clinton's "I did not have relations with that woman" speech for hours on end.

It is a world where, in the early hours of Thursday morning a deal was hammered out that will be passed on to the next two generations. But the important thing is that the Dail Bar (heavily subsidised by the taxpayers so that our gougers can have cheap booze at the ready) was kept open until six in the morning in case they got thirsty!

And by heaven did some of them get thirsty! In fact some were so thirsty and rowdy that Sinn Fein's leader Gerry Adams had to suggest to Ceann Comhairle Sean Barrett: "If you want some order from the Government TDs, perhaps you would close the Dail Bar." For that sensible suggestion he was jeered, ridiculed and mocked. I never thought that I would say this but Sinn Fein is a party that is going up in my estimation all the time. (Now I know that I'm in a Phil Dick novel.)

In the world of the Dickhead though, keeping the bar open was a must, no matter how serious the bill that was being pushed through.

Fianna Fail Opposition leader Michael Martin wasn't happy at the monetary bill being hammered through without giving anyone time to read it; so naturally he bent over and voted 'yes' anyway. Martin wasn't happy about the lack of apology on the Laundries... even though he didn't give a cuss about them when he was in power.

Martin isn't happy about the abortion fiasco... even though he did nothing when FF was running the show. But this is a Phil Dick world and so what was said by them in that parallel world called the past NEVER REALLY HAPPENED!

One politician had a very good week in relation to the Irish Drinking Question and that was Independent TD Clare Daly. In the early hours of Tuesday morning last week she found herself stopped for making an illegal turn in south Dublin. She was arrested on suspicion of drink-driving, handcuffed and taken to Kilmainham Garda Station. She posted on her website that she had been given a 'house' measure of hot whisky after a hard night's work. Since a house measure is generally regarded as being larger than a normal pub one she must have been as surprised as anyone else when the result showed that she was in fact 33% below the legal limit.

Oh dear; I think that I can almost hear the calls of 'police brutality' starting up already from herself and her mates. Somebody's head will roll for this, no doubt. Fair enough, she has been 'vindicated'. But wasn't there just one person passing by with a phone who could have taken a photograph? After all, this is Phil Dick country, where it is likely to be the only chance I ever get to see a politician in handcuffs.

Now where did I leave that copy of Flow my Tears, the Policeman Said? Philip K. Dick, it's a shame you dropped off the twig in 1982 at the age of 53. Everything you were paranoid about... well, it turned out you weren't paranoid at all. They really were out to get us. That new world that you both looked for and dreaded, where memory of the past is erased and replaced with something much harsher, more cold, more pragmatic and more soulless is here. It arrived.

You should have hung around a bit longer. It all came true, mate. It all came true.

You can email me at chasbrady7@eircom.net or visit my blog on www.charleybrady.com