Them and Us
There has been a lovely illustration of the "Them and Us" syndrome here recently.
There has been a fairly high profile trial where three of the ringleaders of the Anglo Irish Bank fiasco were brought to court. The three an their pals succeeded in bringing the entire country to the point of destruction, and every single citizen is going to pay for the consequences for many years to come. By treating Anglo as their own private little piggy-bank and recklessly lending unsecured loans of billions [yes – billions] to themselves and their cronies, they managed to bankrupt an entire country.
Of the three, one was let off entirely and the other two were found guilty but "it wasn't really their fault", so they have been assured that they will not be sent to prison.
How did this travesty of justice occur? Simple. Charge them with a sample charge and leave it at that. It is akin to a bloke running amok in a city centre with a Centurion tank, mowing down and killing hundreds of people, and then being charged with not wearing a seat belt.
Now consider a report that came out this week which tells the story of "justice" where the ordinary person is concerned.
60 per cent of Cork prisoners committed for not paying fines.
Now a "fine" in my book is just another form of legalised theft. Someone decides that in their book you have done something wrong and they then take that as justification for stealing an arbitrary chunk of your savings or salary.
Let's take a look at a couple of the figures.
There were 8,304 committals for non-payment of court-ordered fines in 2012, including 242 imprisoned for failing to pay fines imposed for not having a tv licence.
The average cost of imprisonment per prisoner was €65,404 in 2012, not including education spend.
By my calculation, that is over half a billion of taxpayers money for punishing people for refusing to be robbed. So by imprisoning people for such non-crimes as not paying a television tax they are in turn fining every man jack of us through their taxes.
So the rich and powerful can destroy a country and go scot free, while the rest of us get slammed up for the most petty and trivial "offences".
Just how corrupt and evil can a system become?
To my way of thinking this let off of those three bankers is deliberate reinforcement of a divide. I say deliberate because the system needs a divide to carry on operating in plain sight without the slightest chance that enough men and women will turn round and tear it down my ignoring it.
The system is a massive ego that craves constant attention. What better way to get the maximum attention than by pit the 'common man' against the 'elite' and visa versa?
it's a scenario that has been played out for thousands of years across the entire world has it not?
Perhaps and I am prepared to be shot down in flames here, perhaps if we simply turned the other cheek and forgave the bankers, politicians, unions in fact anyone thriving on divide and offered them the opportunity to atone for their actions and work together to deprive the system of our energy, our money and last but not least our attention.
If they won't take the opportunity offered then we goal them Icelander style or we strip them of their assets and ostracise them.
There certainly does seem to be a large element of rubbing our noses in it.
"Look how we can screw you over and get away with it, but if you step out of line……."
One of the main Anglo culprits is over in the US happily buying his way into Millionaire's Row. No extradition there then? Hah!
Nobody that I know ever believed any of the three would go to jail – guilty or not.
Certainly nobody in Greystones ever believed Seannie Fitz would spend time behind bars.
Of course it was a foregone conclusion. Equally this enquiry they are starting up is just going to be weeks of waffle with no conclusion other than "mistakes were made".
Many years ago I remember a cartoon in 'Private Eye' showing two Russians in Red Square watching a jet fly over towards the East. One turns to the other and say, "I hear Alexander Solzhenitsyn got forty years in the Gulag." The other replies wryly, "Imagine what he would have got if he was guilty."
The parallels with Ireland today are striking.