THE SCENE
The ECB/EU/IMF troika have taken our life's savings, emptied our Pension Reserve Fund; they have ordered that we sell the family silver (the ESB etc.) and give them most of the proceeds; they have coerced us into assuming a debt that isn't ours, blackmailing our weak government into paying failed private bonds - €19bn this year, €55bn for the four years 2012 to 2015 (incl.); under their instructions we are set to destroy €3.1bn on the 31st of this month, just as we did on the 31st of March last year, just as we're scheduled to do for the next nine years when that figure is set to be reduced on a sliding scale for another eight years or so - the most odious Promissory Notes, the bill (final total €48bn-€80bn) to bail out just one bank, Anglo Irish.
THE SMOKESCREEN - RESTRUCTURING
Sometime in the next few weeks someone in our overseer government will announce a 'restructuring' of those Notes - a reduction of the interest rates, an extension of the terms, a ‘holiday’ for a few years, or perhaps a combination of some or all of those. It will be presented as a victory. It is not.
The 'restructuring' is done for one reason, to ensure that the big banks get their blood-money. NOTHING that's been done since this whole mess began has been for the benefit of the people; first-to-last everything has been for the benefit of the banks - European banks, British banks, American banks, banks worldwide. €3.8bn austerity budget this year, €3.5bn in 2013, €3.1bn in 2014, €2bn in 2015, that's €12.4bn (3.8 + 3.5 + 3.1 + 2) of additional cuts and taxes for the year 2015; €3.1bn destroyed every March 31st, that's an equal €12.4bn for just those four years of our annual Promissory Note payments - our austerity, definitely, but for whose benefit?
The 'restructuring' is not done to alleviate the pain being suffered here in Ireland; we will continue to be bled, the old-age pensioners and their benefits the new target of the troika (of all the groups they – apparently – haven’t yet suffered enough, so their free travel/fuel/phone allowances, along with the old-age pension itself, are now in the line of fire). But bleeding us dry at this stage when there is still so much more to be had from us? No, that's not part of the ECB plan.
THE GREAT LIE
You'll hear and read the propaganda from Europe and from Leinster House, Fine Gael and Labour this week clapping themselves on the back for the great work they’ve done over the last year, the media cheerleading on the wings. Don't believe it. A quote: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” That was Joseph Goebbels.
THE GREAT TRUTH
Know the truth. What's at stake here is one of the fundamentals of human existence, the battle between right and wrong. In full view of the world, in broad daylight, the ECB is getting away with a crime, the extortion of tens of billions from the Irish people, the forced payment from the public purse of the failed private debts of others. That is wrong. Even if we were Switzerland and could swallow that debt whole without so much as a hiccup, that act would STILL be wrong. But we’re Ireland, and with that act we are being crushed by the ECB, by the EU. At every level, at the most fundamental level especially, it’s wrong, and that's where the focus of every discussion should lie. In Ballyhea and Charleville we proclaim that truth, we protest that injustice. Eventually, right WILL prevail.
Regards, Diarmuid O’Flynn
