God loves a Tryer

When I saw this on the news this morning, oh how I laughed. Fitting that a lame duck president, surely to be remembered as one of the greatest fuck ups in world history, has shoes thrown at him in Iraq. Now, for a guy in his sixties he was well able to bounce out of the way. Loath as I am to give him any credit. Then I saw this. Same scenario, different angle.

What struck me was the smirking from Bush towards the end. The first time I saw this clip it was subtitled, the aggressor shouting ‘this is for the widows, this is for what you have done’ with this in mind, to see the smirk reminded me that there was nothing funny about this whatsoever. George W Bush is a disgusting excuse for a human being, a war profiteer who has demolished two soverign nations in his time as US president. Here is a man that is directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children who were guilty of nothing except being in thier homes when the bombs started to fall. Parentless children, fathers and mothers robbed of their children and those lucky enough to have avoided bombs are dying because of a lack of clean water and antibiotics if they can avoid the mayhem brought about by the deconstruction of any form of common law and order brought about by the power vacum caused by the murder of Saddam. Call it what you will. Murder is Murder is Murder.

Akeel Faisal Ghazi. June 2008

And he smirks.

Maybe some morning he’ll wake up and realise the nature of his reign. But I doubt it. He’ll admire how much his children had the chance to achieve without casting a thought to the lives he took in persuit of something I dont think he is to clear about himself. The great Dr King called on us to let freedom reign. I very much doubt that this was what he had in mind.

Smirk on, Mr Bush. Maybe the next guy to have a pop at you will get it right. Maybe there wont be a next guy. One way or the other, maybe you will look back from some point and feel a pang of guilt for the pain you felt it unavoidable to inflict. But again, I doubt it.

Good News!

Driving home from somewhere yesterday, I was half listening to herself on about something and half listening to the radio, when I heard something about private pension funds being about to collapse. Now, let’s be clear in stating that I don’t have a huge private pension. I was offered a contributory one but I declined on the basis that I can’t afford it. I kinda need to put on the table now because I don’t mind eating shite but my 18 month old boy is a bit more particular.
Anyway, herself has a basic one too, and I said it’s something she should be looking into as it might be worth her while seeing if she can withdraw what money she has invested while it’s still there and we could put it somewhere safe, somewhere like a box in the wardrobe, or in the freezer or somewhere that probably won’t implode any time soon. So then, I read this;

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/1201/breaking66.htm

And now I realise, sure it doesn’t matter, tis all grand love. You might as well keep throwing money into a hole in the economy because you will always have your pittance from the government to keep you either fed or warm (but not both, mind) in your twilight years. Sure who cares if it all collapses and the tens of thousands of the Euros you have diligently invested in your retirement because you were too smart to have to rely on the system that you have been good enough to contribute to for your entire productive life vanishes in a blinding puff of incompetence. Won’t you have your €230 a week to look after yourself with? And sure isn’t that plenty to take care of your accommodation, food, fuel, transport, haircuts, clothing, lifestyle, medical expenses and sundry because you can rest assured, by the time my retirement comes around the government of this country will have flogged off and privatised the state to the extent that you can be pretty sure the aged and infirm will be entitled to nothing bar their meagre fistful of pennies with which to sustain them through the transition from the workplace to the grave.

I see it quite often. A dilapidated old man shuffling through pocket change in the supermarket queue. A frail old woman trying to decide whether she should get a pint of milk or save the change for the bus fare. Its hard to imagine (although the older I get the more frighteningly real it becomes) that these are the people who built this state. These are the people who have to choose between heat and food and are the same people who stuck around through the shit times to forage for work in order to keep the country afloat. Well, this is your thanks. And this is what’s in store for us all in years to come.

I never bought into the culture of greed that accompanied the good times, and I certainly won’t be buying into the idea that the people who did not benefit from the boom times should be expected to pay for it in very real terms by the people who fucked it up. But, I guess such is the lot of the great beast and not just in Ireland. We have been tamed by our masters, getting thrown the odd few quid in the budget of the year before an election seems to placate us. Lack of a viable alternative is NOT an excuse for voting in the same shower of incompetants time and time again. Any alternative is viable. Just because you dont know the devil doesnt mean he doesnt have any tricks up his sleeve, and in fairness, if the opposition make a balls of it, we can at least be sure about the fact that we are truly up shit creek.