REMOVING THE OBSTACLES TO FAIR GOVERNANCE

ROCK-BREAKING

In days of old when people came across a boulder blocking their progress, when there were no air compressors, jack-hammers, power-drills or any such modern gadgetry, they developed a simple method of ridding themselves of this very solid and seemingly immovable obstacle in their path.

They found the weak point in the boulder, drove in a wedge – several wedges in several weak points, if there was more than one. They excavated around the periphery, built fires in the hollow, let the heat build up, gradually hammered home the wedge(s) until eventually the boulder was reduced to rubble. No explosion, no collateral damage, problem solved.

In our campaign to get the bank-debt burden lifted from the Irish people we have met several such boulders, all the way to Brussels and back. From our experience with the Dáil Technical Group Promissory Note bonds Motion last week, we now know for certain of two such obstacles in front of us right here right now, at home.

FIRST ROCK

The first is our own government. We expected our Motion would be defeated, we did not expect the sneering disdain with which it was dismissed. In an effort (misguided, as it transpired) to make it acceptable to even the two government parties we had confined the Motion to the most obviously odious element of the bank-debt, the Promissory Note bonds; additionally, we had kept the wording as non-confrontational and as simple as possible.

And still it was lost. Not just beaten but, taking their cue from the arrogance with which the four who now rule the roost in this country (Kenny, Noonan, Gilmore & Howlin) treat all challenges, those who had backed it were derided and mocked as fools and simpletons, all 36 TDs plus all those of us who have been campaigning for years.

We know now, without shadow of doubt, this government will not ask for bank-debt writedown, not even on this most odious debt. That's one rock in our path.

SECOND ROCK

On the evening of the final debate a representative gathering from the various Says No groups from Dublin and from around the country met outside the Dáil, a show of solidarity with those inside supporting the motion on our behalf. Every news outlet in the country - radio, TV, newspaper - had been notified. All chose to ignore it.

RTE went one better however - perhaps even two better. On the main Six-One news, anchor Bryan Dobson referred to us as 'those idiots'; at around the same time, another RTE heavyweight, David Davin-Power, made his way through our protest but ignored what was going on. Stopped at a red light, he was approached by one of the organisers and politely asked if he'd have any interest in covering what was happening - "No interest in the world!", his dismissive reply, before stalking off across the road and into the comfort of the Dáil.

That's another rock in our road, our national media.

THE WEAK POINTS

We have already found the weak point in the government's position, the Promissory Note debt. Not a single Fine Gael or Labour Party TD who spoke against the Motion addressed what was being proposed, that we merely ask the ECB allow the Central Bank destroy the €28.1bn in Promissory Note bonds it shortly proposes to begin selling to the markets (very possibly to the same financial institutions bailed out by the original Promissory Notes).

We have driven our first wedge into that rock, now we must keep hammering, working with those TDs.

The national media rock? The weak point there, obviously, is the audience. Two wedges; first we boycott - stop watching, stop listening, stop buying; then we bombard, with e-mails, with letters, on Twitter, on Facebook. We let Bryan Dobson know, we let David Davin-Power know; they are the servants of the people, not the masters.

Then we build our own media, create our own information channels - written, audio, video. We have the technology, right?

TURNING UP THE HEAT

And all the while that we're driving home those wedges, we also keep turning up the heat. And we can – we certainly have enough fuel. 

Far from there being no protest in Ireland against all that's being imposed on us, there is protest everywhere:

• Our campaign against the bank-debt;
• The water charges groups;
• The Home Tax campaign;
• All the various organisations protesting all the cuts to the most vulnerable sectors of our society;
• The debt relief groups;
• The various charity organisations;
• Those fighting to reverse the terrible deals down in the sale of our energy reserves; 
• Etc etc.

Around all the rocks we've all been meeting, we’ve all also been excavating, exposing, lighting our individual fires. Now is the time to pull them all together.

BUILDING A NATIONAL COMMUNITY

We need an umbrella under which we can all gather, a central organisation, a central website; we can all continue with our own focus but above all we need a central ambition and direction, a coordinated drive to force the interests and the needs of the people back to the top of the agenda, no longer subservient to the demands of high finance. We need to force our politicians and our media to do what they’re supposed to do, we need them to fight for us and not against us, we need them to inform us and not fool us.

All of this is going to take time to build but like those wise people of old, we need to have the patience. This will not happen overnight, it won't happen in weeks, maybe won't even happen in months. But we don't just wait. We work, we build our fires, we keep increasing the heat, and we hammer away at those wedges.

NO VIOLENCE

Peacefully, patiently, working in community and in harmony, working especially with a smile on our face and a song in our heart, we’ll get this done.

Know the bounty we’ve been blessed with in this country, the rich soil, the bounteous rivers, lakes and seas, the beauty of the landscape, the wit and humour of the people, the music and culture, and so much more. We’re a nation that should soar, not a nation that will allow itself ever again be crushed underfoot by a new set of money-merchant masters.

Remember the words of Terence McSweeney, later adopted by Ghandi: "It is not those who can inflict the most, but those that can suffer the most who will conquer."

CLEARING THE FOG ON THE PROMISSORY NOTE DÁIL MOTION

There is some confusion out there on what exactly last week's Motion to the Dáil was about in relation to the remaining Promissory Note bonds now about to be sold off by the Irish Central Bank, confusion especially among those who spoke on the government side, every one of whom went off on 'we are great!' tangents, not one of whom actually addressed the Motion itself.

THE WORDING:

The following motion was moved by Deputy Joan Collins on Tuesday, 26 November 2013:“That Dáil Éireann: calls on the Government: — to immediately lobby the European Central Bank for a one-off exemption from the rules of monetary financing, to allow the Central Bank of Ireland to destroy the €25 billion in sovereign bonds issued in February of this year, in lieu of the remaining promissory notes, plus the €3.06 billion bond also being held by the Central Bank of Ireland in payment for the 2012 promissory note; and — to cease any and all interest payments currently being made on those bonds.”

CLEARING UP SOME OF THE GOVERNMENT MISUNDERSTANDINGS

• The Motion was not seeking unilateral default; it was merely putting it to this government that we should at least ask the ECB to allow the Central Bank destroy the €28.1bn in Promissory Note bonds;
• The Motion was not about the budget deficit over the last four years, the money borrowed to pay the nurses/teachers/guards, the Gov's alternative Troika when they want to defend their actions; not one cent of the Promissory Notes €31bn went towards 'closing our deficit', the gap between what we were taking in and what we were spending;
• The Promissory Notes billions didn’t ease any burden on the Irish people – the opposite is the case, it has added considerably to that burden;
• The Promissory Notes billions was money printed to bail out banks, bankers, bondholders, international institutional investors, the Eurozone, the Euro itself;
• Contrary to government claims, the Promissory Note debt is still intact, every cent of the €25bn that still remained in February of this year to be borrowed and burned, is still there (plus the €3.1bn bond issued to pay the 2012 Promissory Note), will still be borrowed, will still be burned; the actual notes are destroyed, replaced by sovereign bonds – the debt remains, in full;
• The major difference made by Michael Noonan’s February deal is this: where the bulk of the repayments had been over the next ten years, continuing then at a reduced rate for another ten years, now they’ve been spread over 40 with the bulk of that burden being borne by the next generation and the generation after - in simple terms, we are leaving a debt-legacy to our kids, forcing them into debt-slavery to the EU/ECB;
• We are already paying interest on the Promissory Notes debt, upwards of €300m/annum when the interest on the €6bn Prom Notes already paid is added to the interest we’re now paying to Europe on the €25bn that now sits in the Central Bank (this isn’t to mention the additional €1bn we’re losing on interest on the €20bn taken from the Pension Reserve Fund – another story for another day!);
• Making reasonable assumptions on the Euribor rate, economist Karl Whelan has calculated the interest on the €25bn Promissory Notes bonds (this does NOT include the €6bn in Promissory Notes bonds already paid) will ultimately total €47bn; this must then be added to the €25bn principal sum, giving an overall cost of €72bn (possible that €15bn of that reverts to ourselves through the Central Bank - I have to confirm this);
• A question no-one has asked – what if those bonds, when they’re being sold on to the markets, are sold at less than par (as happened with the 2012 bond, which would have cost €3.46bn), how much extra will this then cost us? Even more pertinent, what if those bonds end up in the hands of the very same instititional ‘investors’ that benefited from the original Promissory Notes? How obscene is that, that they profit twice?
• Ultimately this was an ECB decision to solve a European problem;
• Destroying those bonds now would have only a positive impact on the markets; those bonds haven't yet been sold so no bondholder is burned and it has the net effect of reducing Ireland's long-term debt burden;
• In their excuses as to why they won’t ask for debt writeoff the government quotes EU/ECB Articles, Rules and Regulations; these are the very same Articles, Rules and Regulations the EU/ECB itself bent and twisted to allow the €31bn be printed in the first place and that debt imposed on us, so why is our government so strong in fighting us on behalf of the EU/ECB, so weak in fighting the EU/ECB on behalf of its own people?
• Finally, THIS IS NOT OUR DEBT, never was legitimately, never will be legitimately. It's up to us to keep this to the fore.

The EU/ECB would love to see this issue buried; we now know however that no-one would more like to see us disappear than our own Government. Having done their dirty deal in February, it would be such an embarrassment to them now were we to get a writeoff on that debt. And THAT is why they won't even ask, not because they fear being told 'No', but because they fear being told 'Yes'.

A CORNER TURNED – LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE DÁIL MOTION

ROCKY ROAD TO DUBLIN

Since March 6th 2011, for 143 weeks at the time of writing and with the sole exception of Christmas Day 2011 (fell on a Sunday), every week and sometimes several times a week we in the Ballyhea Says No group have marched in protest at the imposition of private bank-debt on the Irish people, all €69.7bn of it.

It's been a long road, going on three years now, but this week we can say this - we have turned a corner.

FROM PROTEST TO CAMPAIGN

What began as a protest morphed into a campaign and so it was that we took the fight ourselves to Europe, first to the ECB HQ in Frankfurt, later to the EU, the European Council and the European Commission in Brussels, also again to the ECB itself but this time in Dublin, during one of their regular visits.

In our discussions with the officials from those various organisations we learned that while there is serious resistance to giving Ireland any kind of debt writeoff, there is also an acknowledgement that as a country, as a nation, we have been hard hit, disproportionately hit.

THE INDEFENSIBLE PROMISSORY NOTES

The most odious element of all the bank-debt, the area where we meet least resistance in Europe, is the Promissory Note debt, the €31bn printed in 2010 to bail out the two even then zombie banks, Anglo (€25.3bn) and INBS (€5.3bn).

THE DÁIL MOTION

On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, November 26th/27th, giving up one of their own very valuable Private Member's Bill slots, the Technical Group introduced a Motion to the Dáil on our behalf, which reflected the first of the three Proposals we have developed to lift the bank-debt burden from the Irish people.

It was a modest proposal, a deliberately mild proposal, simply stated that the Irish government should ask - merely ask - that the ECB give our Central Bank permission to destroy the remaining €28.1bn Promissory Note bonds it is about to sell onto the international money market. 

This is a debt that the ECB was complicit in imposing on the Irish people, it is debt that was never used for the benefit of the Irish people, it is debt that was assumed to protect European banks, perhaps even the Euro itself. We don’t just have a right to repudiate this odious debt, on behalf of future generations on whose shoulders it has been placed we have a duty to do. It was created by the Central Bank with the push of a button, its destruction can similarly take place with the push of a button.

BEARING WITNESS TO HISTORY

Watching that debate take place, seeing and hearing in the flesh the disdain in which we are held by this government, the sneering derision of a succession of government speakers, that was a real eye-opener. 

• They didn't insult just us in Ballyhea and Charleville who have been campaigning for so long on this issue; 
• They didn't just insult those in all the other Says No groups who have joined us in our weekly protest and campaign, reinforced by all those from various other organisations who joined us at the Dáil; 
• They didn't just insult the 16 TDs in the Technical Group, every one of whom supported this Motion; 
• They didn't just insult the six other Independent TDs who added their names to proposal, nor the 14 TDs from the Sinn Féin Party who also signed up to it; 
• They insulted all those tens of thousands who voted for all those TDs.

ANIMAL FARM

As they spoke, as they deliberately ignored what the Motion was proposing and focused on what it was not; as they one by one parroted their scripted lines on all the great things this government is 'achieving', on all the great 'progress' the country is making under the boot of this government, how all the numbers are improving, I couldn't help but call to mind some very pertinent passages from what has become a very pertinent book, George Orwell's remarkably prescient Animal Farm:

'Throughout the year the animals worked even harder than they had worked in the previous year. To rebuild the windmill, with walls twice as thick as before, and to finish it by the appointed date, together with the regular work of the farm, was a tremendous labour. There were times when it seemed to the animals that they worked longer hours and were fed no better than they had done in Jones's day. On Sunday mornings Squealer, holding down a long strip of paper with his trotter, would read out to them lists of figures proving that the production of every class of foodstuff had increased by two hundred per cent, three hundred per cent, or five hundred per cent, as the case might be. The animals saw no reason to disbelieve him, especially as they could no longer remember very clearly what conditions had been like before the Rebellion. All the same, there were days when they felt that they would sooner have had less figures and more food.'

That's in Chapter 8 - ye all know how the rest of that book goes.

DOBSON AND DAVIN-POWER

We got a couple of very up-close-and-personal insights into what our hugely expensive national broadcaster thinks of us. Up first was Bryan Dobson on RTE's Six-One News. Holding up a sign that read BURN THE BONDS, NOT THE BILLIONS, as Bryan was interviewing a new cheerleader for what they seem to hope is a new property bubble, one of our number spotted an opportunity to let the viewers know there was a protest going on at the Dáil. 'Idiots', that's how Bryan dismissed us but that's just Bryan, isn't it?

At around the same time another of our number, Fiona Fitzpatrick, spotted another RTE heavyweight, one David Davin-Power. As he waited at the lights to cross Kildare Street she went up to him and politely (that's Fiona) asked if he'd have any interest in covering our protest - 'No interest in the world', that was his dismissive reply as he stalked away. But that's just David, isn't it?

EDITORIALISED OUT OF EXISTENCE

Of much wider significance, and the reason our doughty protester felt compelled to hold up that sign, is this; despite being made well aware of what was a pretty historic event RTE made an editorial decision to give absolutely no coverage to either the Motion or to the protest.

• The fact that for the first time ever the 16 TDs of the Technical Group, from right across the political spectrum, could agree and unite behind a Motion of this nature - RTE deemed this was not news; 
• The fact that a Motion calling for debt writeoff had never before been debated in the Dáil - RTE deemed this was not news; 
• The fact that a small group which has been protesting for nearly three years, every week, that itself has been face-to-face with senior officials in the various layers of the European political institutions, could end up with one of its proposals being debated in the Dáil, being backed by 36 TDs - RTE deemed this was not news; 
• The fact that people had travelled mid-week from points north, south and east and west, also from Dublin itself, to be at the gates in Kildare Street - RTE deemed this was not news.

It wasn't just RTE of course. None of this got any mention in any national broadcaster, nor a headline in any national newspaper.

SO, WHAT CORNER HAVE WE TURNED?

what have we learned this week, where do we go now?

We've turned the corner: 

• From asking anyone in our own governing parties to do anything for us anymore - we know now they won't; 
• From trying to persuade Fianna Fáil to support our cause because this week, on this Motion, they showed their true colours yet again, undermined our Motion with an Amendment of their own, a Motion which very deliberately took the spotlight away from the Promissory Note bonds; 
• From trying to persuade our national media to be what they're supposed to be, the voice of the people, the questioners, the truth-revealers; 
• Finally, we know now a hard truth - we know we'll have to achieve this ourselves.

BUILDING FROM WITHIN

Note that I don't say we'll have to do this on our own. Why? Because we have also learned - we are not on our own.

In our campaign to have this odious debt written off,  

• We now have 36 elected TDs on our side - that's nearly 25% of the membership of the Dáil. Not just any old TDs either. Those speeches in favour of the Motion - the fire in the eyes, the passion in the voices, the heartfelt honesty in their words. Those TDs are the cream of the Dáil, and they are with us. 
• We have each other, all the new friends we've made over the last few weeks in building to that evening in the Dáil, all the old friends with whom we've been working for the past months and years. 
• We have our friends abroad, not just our fellow Irish who have been forced to emigrate in the past four and forty years but also our fellow citizens in EVERY country across Europe, on whom all our new masters in the banking and in the finance world would have THEIR rotten debts imposed. No, we are not on our own. 
• We have our courage, we have our commitment, we have our determination that this fight ends when we decide it ends, and it ends only when we have had satisfaction on this odious bank-debt. 
• And we have our own news network. We have Twitter, we have Facebook, we have YouTube. We can create our own lines of communication, we can spread our own word.

BREAKING FREE

In his speech to us on Wednesday evening, referencing the government's baffling refusal to ever even ask for bank-debt writeoff, Luke Ming Flanagan said it was like being at a dance, fancying someone across the hall, yet never having the courage to ask if they'd like to take the floor with you.

Well, we HAVE asked RTE to cover this issue, we've asked TV3, Newstalk, Today FM, we've asked every national new outlet in the country. And time after time we've been rebuffed. Isn't it time we got the message, that they have decided that any popular dissent will not be covered? Isn't it time that instead of relying on them to spread our message, we do it ourselves?

Let's not waste our valuable time anymore on the traditional media. Boycott them, ignore them; 

• If you follow any of them on Twitter, unfollow; 
• If you are on their Facebook page, blank it; 
• If you had been in the habit of tuning into their programmes on radio or TV, tune out; 
• If you had been buying their newspapers, either weekly or daily, stop. 
• They have decided to turn their backs on us, let’s do the same to them and just move on.

Even if they themselves seem to have forgotten it, we elected our TDs to be our servants, not our masters; even if they themselves seem to have forgotten, the media depends on us for their survival - we don't depend on them.

TIME TO EVALUATE

I propose now that we pause a few weeks and take stock; that we start that building from within. 

Don't feel in the least intimidated. We can do this, individually and in groups. We need neither a single gospel nor a single leader.

I've never been into hero-worship, never been into deification of any individual but neither have I ever been into the collective, into an entire nation speaking, thinking and acting along the same pre-determined lines. I long ago rejected religion for this very reason, embraced spiritualism and nature in its stead.

We don't need dogma, we don't need doctrine, we don't need anyone telling us how or what to think, when and why to act. We each have our own instincts and our own intelligence.

We can do this as independently minded independently thinking individuals; we can form groups of like-minded thinkers and act along common lines as we've done in Ballyhea but even there, the individual must not just be heard, the individual must be heeded.

Always, however, we've got to keep in mind the good of the community, that has to be our foundation, that has to be our focus. We’re in this as individuals but we’re not in it just for ourselves.

FINAL MESSAGE

There IS a silent majority out there but we know - they are on our side. Our challenge over the coming months is to convert them to the vocal majority. Let's get to it.

Let's take that time now to build. The battle lines are long drawn in what is now a long war. On the one side are the few who command the world's finances and who would impose their debts and their demands on the many; we are the many, we are all together on the other side of that line. 

Let's have no more divisive talk of left and right; we speak only of right and wrong. No talk of sheeple, no negativity, no internal combustion, no tearing each other apart. Time to close ranks, come together; time to plan, to reorganise.

Then we'll see who has the last word on this.

Thank you,

Diarmuid O'Flynn.

EXITING THE BAILOUT ME ARSE!

They’ve started singing it already, the new Coalition Chorus – Ireland is about to successfully exit the bailout! It's a lie, a false front being presented to the world. Here at home however we're only too familiar with the truth – far from exiting a bailout we're entering the fourth year of Ireland's bail-in, the fourth year of at least 40 years of debt-slavery to Europe.

There is a perception abroad that Ireland Inc. went crazy during what became known as the Celtic Tiger, that the country borrowed its way into trouble and we have now been 'bailed out' by the Troika.

A few facts:

• Entering 2008 - Gross Government Debt €47bn, National Pension Reserve Fund €20bn;
• Mar 2013 - Gross Government Debt €204bn; National Pension Reserve Fund €6bn;
• Troika ‘bailout’ loans €62.5bn; Ireland's bank bailout cost (to date) €69.7bn;
• Debt writeoff €0.

Begs a question then, doesn't it - just who bailed out who? 

The world is being duped and with this bank-debt burden on top of the crushing national debt on top of the mortgage crisis, with depression, emigration and suicide rising in every community, we're the fall-guys. This is our reality, as opposed to the Irish 'success' fantasy as told and sold worldwide by Enda Kenny.

The most odious part of the entire Irish bank-debt is the Promissory Note element, €31bn gifted by the ECB to two zombie banks (Anglo Irish and INBS) through its branch office in Dublin, the Central Bank of Ireland.

Despite the fact this was done to save the Eurozone, to save Europe's bigger banks, to save even the Euro itself, the Irish people have been landed with that entire bill, €31bn plus interest. The ECB 'allowed' the Irish Central Bank print that €31bn for those two banks, now they want that same €31bn taken back out of circulation. So we borrow, billion by billion, and we burn, billion by billion, til all €31bn is destroyed. In the meantime we're paying the interest on all those borrowed billions and then, we pay the capital.

In February of this year, to great fanfare, Finance Minister Michael Noonan announced a 'deal' on those Notes and since then every government spokesperson on every media outlet has attempted to give the impression that the remaining €25bn Promissory Notes are gone, finished, ended (we had already destroyed €6bn).

They are not. They have a new name, new home – they are now Sovereign Bonds, are held in the Central Bank and are about to be sold to possibly the very same bondholders who were bailed out by the original Promissory Notes €31bn in the first place - ah, irony. The one major difference? As though he wasn’t hammering the young hard enough, Minister Noonan has so arranged the Promissory Notes bonds payment schedule such that the bulk of it falls on future generations.

At 9pm next Wed, Nov 27th, the Dáil will vote on a Motion that will be proposed by the Technical Group (16 TDs with views and ideals ranging right across the political spectrum), calling for the full and final destruction of those Promissory Note bonds.

In Ballyhea we've been marching every week for 142 weeks with that as one of our prime goals. We're asking now that you

• Ask any of your local TDs – regardless of Party – who hasn’t yet supported the Motion to do so;
• Stand with us for just four hours at the Dáil on that evening, November 27th, from 6pm to 10pm, and add your voice outside to those arguing our case inside.

BURN THE BONDS, NOT THE BILLIONS

Regards,

Diarmuid O'Flynn.

A link here to those TDs yet to support the Motion

A link here to the Facebook Event page for Nov 27th.