A Passport to Captivity

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I had a strange little encounter a few years back when I had to get my passport renewed. In Ireland, a Garda or a Justice of the Peace must sign and stamp your application form before you submit it. I had been living in my current home for twenty years by that point and the Garda Station was less than a mile away. The duty Garda looked at my form, looked at me and then said, "I can't sign that because I don't know you."

Sometimes on the radio news you will hear of a horrific murder of some kind and the piece will normally finish with the line, "The deceased is known to the Gardai!" This is a euphemism for some repulsive thug who regularly overnights in one of their many stations. So I asked the Garda that morning whether it was necessary to have a criminal record in order to get a passport. 

For the vast majority of us ordinary citizens, a criminal is one who breaks the most obvious laws of any State. Extreme violence, murder and intimidation spring readily to our minds as good reasons to take those people off the streets. We fund big homes for them that we call prisons so when we hear that our prisons are full, we nod sagely and think, "Well at least those bad bastards are off the streets."

However, we are only half right. Only a little under a half of the eighteen thousand places in our jails are taken up with real criminals. Indeed, it would be true to say that the Irish State could accommodate many more real criminals if we could catch them. You see, over half of the poor souls behind bars here are there for not paying fines!!!     

You can be jailed for not paying your TV license. A hungry Mother stealing a sliced pan for her children could end up in the slammer. Failure to repay a bank loan in full could see you behind bars. Mind you, the bankers can rob all of us and they get a bonus for it, but don't get me started on that. 

Of the reasons for non-payment of anything, I think top of the list must be a lack of money to do so. Surely that alone accounts for ninety per cent of non-payments? For the other ten per cent, there might be a moral principle for not paying up or some dispute about the terms. But basically, if you don't have it, you can't pay it. Lose your job and then see after twelve months what you can afford to pay for. And for the life of me, I cannot see how six months in jail is going to make it more possible for the individual to pay the bill/fine when they get out. Your jail sentence comes with a criminal record when you leave. Think of it as your qualification to ensure you never get employed again. 

This takes us naturally to the Gardai and the Courts. The poor Garda now has a list of new things called crimes giving him or her a reason to arrest almost any of us at any time. Think of motoring and all the reasons they have to pounce on you. Once in the court system it is anyone's guess what can happen. Our courts need to justify their existence and pay their overheads so you can understand why the pompous judge might arbitrarily dispense fine after fine to the queue of silent defendants. Non-payment of these fines though is viewed as contempt of court and for any pompous judge, that is most heinous indeed. You find out how heinous when you are back before him for round two. 

A family member who plied his trade in the judicial system once explained to me that the courts and the laws have nothing to do with right and wrong. Laws are there to serve the laws and courts exist to serve the courts, no other reason. Crime is defined as breaking one of our hundreds of laws and the only matter to be considered then is a punishment, never mind right or wrong. Inability to pay is no excuse for not paying because the black and white law dictates that you must pay regardless. So for any non-payment, the issue to resolve is the punishment and that is where our overcrowded prisons come in.

If a speeding charge fines you an amount you don't have and worse than that, it puts you off the road for a year, rendering it Impossible for you to get to work, then it is likely that you will be back before the beak again before too long. Your circumstances will escalate out of control and all because you don't have enough money to pay. The "Criminal Record Certificate" you'll get when once again free will see back again for more porridge. It is all so self-defeating and depressing.

And comically, when you finally decide to try to make a new life for yourself in another country, the Garda at the station WILL know you but because he does, he won't stamp your passport application either. That folks is justice in action.

 

The problem with Women

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Last week I was accused of misogyny. The circumstances or the reasons are unimportant but what is important is that I was not absolutely sure exactly what that word meant. It was spat at me at the time so I safely assumed that misogyny was probably something undesirable. I had heard the word bandied about in the past, usually by women, so I had some hazy notion it had something to do with them.

In my school when I was growing up we did civics as a separate course for a few years and, oddly for an all boy's school, women came up regularly in civics. We were taught to respect them, to cherish our Mothers, to love our sisters and to act like proper gentlemen when females were in our company. This meant giving up your seat on the bus, opening heavy doors for them and walking on the outside of the footpath when together with a girl. This last one apparently assured that if a car mounted the herb it would hit the male and not the female beside him. 

We were taught that women were physically weaker than us, they saw things differently than us and so whenever in conflict with one of their kind, we were to do the gentlemanly thing and submit to their whims. The underlying message was to always protect women and never, never do any of them any harm. After all, the argument went, we all had mammies and where would we be without them. We were invited then to view all girls our own age as the future mammies of Ireland. In reality it was the Christian Brother's way of teaching us tough energetic lads the idea of love without ever using that deeded four-letter word of course.

Misogyny though is apparently a hatred of women so when I did look it up I felt really wronged by the brazen woman who accused me of it. Those civic's lessons way back then had made a deep impression on the young boy I was and I incorporated the ideas learned at that time into a general code of conduct that has lived with me since. My view of women and my reaction to them when introduced has not changed too much in the intervening fifty years. I had always loved women as the most obvious opposite to myself.

The thing is, when you are taught and then you learn a way to think about things and you practice it over many years, it becomes a normal part of you. But times have changed, or so I am told, and women no longer want me to open the door for them. They'll find their own seat too, thank you very much and they'll walk on any part of a footpath that takes their fancy, with or without me. That's fine too as far as it goes. But the net effect now is that I find myself unconsciously avoiding the fairer sex because it's just easier that way. There is no risk of being taken up wrong or unwittingly causing offense if there is little or no contact. The 'misogyny' remark recently re-enforced that for me.

It does beg the question though, what would I do if I saw a man beating a woman up on the street now? I hasten to add that I have not seen such a thing but I'm told that it happens. So what should I do? Indeed, what would you do in that situation? My civics teacher would have had me wading in fists flying to save the damsel in distress. Any man who would do that deserves what's coming to him, he would have said. But today, that regrettably is not the case any more. The accepted wisdom now is to turn your head and keep on going and that reaction fits with my current avoidance of females in general. In the past that would have been labelled cowardly but now it is smart. It fits with the modern ethos of women wanting to take care of themselves too, doesn't it? And after all, if some guy was kicking me around the street I wouldn't expect some woman to intervene on my behalf, would I?

But I think it is sad that it has come to this. Sometimes I feel a bit of a fool for the years I spent telling my own young son about the correct way to treat a lady. In light of the modern assertive female it is almost laughable now to think of myself lecturing him on the importance of seeing the lady to her front door after a date. Advice on good table manners while treating a girl to dinner all ring pretty hollow now. For one thing, young guys no longer take their girlfriends for dinner, I have been told. They go fifty-fifty on everything and there appears to be little in the line of affection or caring during the modern date. Descriptions I have heard suggest a night of pitting their wits against each other and an older guy like me sees little in that to recommend it. I can do that with my mates any night.
Funnily enough, this is not a topic I feel comfortable discussing with a woman either. A chat about the nature of the relationship between the sexes can be a minefield. Then I read this. It is written by a thirty-six year old New York woman and it offers another insight on the topic, this time from the female perspective. She makes her early teens and twenties sound like a hell created by unwanted male attention. She talks about society's conditioning of women and the expectations of them. But as the years pass she now bemoans the lack of attention from men and complains that she is becoming invisible. She wonders what she will feel like at 45 or indeed 65. 

I'm nearly sixty and it doesn't matter to me one way or another, as regards my interaction with other males at least. But now, I too would avoid the writer of that article. It wouldn't be because she wrote it nor would it be because she was attractive or unattractive either. I would avoid her to avoid hassle, easy as that. From what she wrote too I cannot see her making first contact with me because that is not the way she is conditioned. So she and I will never have a pint together and discuss this vexing question. That's sad though I think.

But does it make me a misogynist?

 

 

Timing is Everything

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The Irish Independent Poll this morning makes sobering reading for the Government parties. The Blueshirts are only one point ahead of the Soldiers of Destiny and Michael Martin is the most popular leader of all. It seems that after the thumping we've been given for the last five years by out betters, we are reluctant to thank them for saving us.

You might expect therefore that this poll is the single most important problem/opportunity facing the politicos at this time. However, I suggest otherwise. An election cannot be far off and that means a shit-load of money to litter the country with posters, hire the hanger's-on to canvass and pay all of the expenses associated with pressing the flesh of people they won't need to acknowledge for five years afterwards. And don't forget the high cost of those American mentoring companies who will teach our gobshites how to avoid land mines in interviews.

Getting elected is a costly business and the bigger parties in particular will need a huge war-chest to win. That is what I mean by, "Timing is Everything," because now is the time for them to get out there and tap the seam of gold that is, "Cash-for-Promises." Seasoned lobbyists will know that the pre-election hysteria time frame is the most fertile of times to discreetly pass the cheques. Promises of planning permission will be thrown about like confetti at a wedding, seats on State Boards will have new names pencilled in for the future and and winks will be exchanged regarding State procurement policies in the event of re-election. You can probably think of many more yourself.

In this country we have a lame law that forces the parties to declare any individual amount given above €5,000. This of course means that if you wanted to buy €20,000's worth of influence and decisions in your favor, you would have to write four cheques of €4,999.99 each and hand over the fourpence in cash, (I suppose). In case it is ever checked to discover whether all of the cheques came from the same source, trusted members of that source can simply have the money transferred to their individual accounts and then pass it on to the relevant party personally. It's a no-brainer. It is a kind of insider trading really.

All the nonsense about 'hard decisions,' (they had to make), was uttered when they had five years stretching out in front of them and none of the decisions affected them personally. Now though, the extremely hard decisions are suddenly starkly facing them. Will they get re-elected or even elected? If so, what portfolio will they get? Will they back their own leader? Can they knife a colleague and get a leg up somehow? Could leaking sensitive information help their chances? All of these things are hard decisions for a politician and there is a strong element of gambling with each one. If something backfires, could I still survive? And where will I get the money to run a successful campaign without touching my own large savings? 

Believe me, this is a time of nervous panic for the high and mighty of Leinster House. They must all be scampering about now like headless chickens amenable to any approach that helps their chances of the big political lotto win that is five years on the perch up there. The brains at large ruthless corporations will know this naturally because they have an instinct for timing. 

An acquaintance told me a story once about about a company's discussions with one of the breed. The man had it in his power to do them a very large favour at a stroke of his pen, but he wasn't interested. So the company bought a brand new BMW, parked it in their yard and phoned the politician to tell him about it. They positioned the car as an awkward unwanted prize the company had won and according to the story, their CEO was frantically looking for someone discreet to just drive it away and remove the problem for them. The politician was asked if he knew of anyone that might fit that bill.

The car was gone that evening and in due course, the favor was done, yielding handsome profits. As inducements go though, a BMW was small potatoes. But for example, were a serious contender to come along with very deep pockets and a shopping list, wouldn't a privatized Irish Water be a real plum for them? For a plum that size you could get enough to give every voter €1,000 or its equivalent. Granted, most of our politicians would not do so in normal times but these are not normal times for them. This is war. You and I might think of that as treachery but for them, it is survival. In fact, it is for them, just another hard decision but this one could be nicely timed, (don't you think?).

Not a banking inquiry as we know it Captain!

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I remember an old cartoon I saw once of a guy in the dock with a tenacious lawyer grilling him. The guy turns a pleading look at the judge and the caption reads, "You ask me to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and then he asks me THAT!"

It sprang to mind yesterday when I read some of the media stories on the banking inquiry that is finally up and running, seven years late. When the bastards were finally shamed into setting it up, their first priority was what they called its, "Terms of Reference." This took ages to draft because they had to carefully avoid allowing anything that could embarrass or damn any of them. They had to ensure to forbid any questioning of activities that took place between certain dates, essentially pulling the teeth of anything the inquiry could usefully do. 

To refine the terms of reference further, they then chose an agenda. This stroke prevented anything they didn't want discussed or revealed from even coming up (because it wasn't on the agenda). Items on the agenda were all that could be dealt with. Only then could the charade begin. A procession of still wealthy has-beens were wheeled in to allow them to recite their own scripts. No hard questions could be asked and no real facts presented. It's been a con-job so far. Everyone said sorry but no accountability could possibly be apportioned and none of them were to blame for anything. It turned into an old-boy's club of back-slappers scoring points off each other. It was a case of politicians asking politicians questions.

Then an exasperated whistle blower revealed corrupt practices in the whole process and we had a storm in a teacup. Now they propose to hold an inquiry into the inquiry. The whole edifice is turning into as farce, as reported here. But you and I are not getting this farce for nothing. It is costing us fifty grand a day!!! That's a cool quarter of a million a week, every week.

Speculation abounds that we will end up needing an inquiry into the inquiry into the original inquiry. And the biggest insult is, that no inquiry can convict or sentence anybody. This is no court of law with consequences for the guilty. Indeed, Enda and his buddies have blatantly used it for electioneering. 

Is it any wonder we have lost respect for any of those bastards?