Ignorance

Writing a script has kept me away from the blog in recent days. But with book sales at an all-time low and the country in an awful way despite the media putting the best foot forward it really did not bother me. I know I don't have a big readership so highlighting the woes of the nation does seem like a waste of time sometimes. But at the end of the day it's a record of what is going on from a voice not married to the money that's still a plenty in the media and at the top-tier of Irish society.
Over the weekend protesters down at Corrib were subject to violence from security guards as members of the Garda stood by and watched according to reports on the Indimedia Ireland website.
The documentary, The Pipe which covered the whole debacle down there over the past five years is not even been sold in most outlets that should be selling it. You can read what you want into that, but the national broadcaster didn't seem to bothered, as they did not carry the story. Once again that's corporations for you. They feed you what they are told to feed you. Journalism is not what it once was. There's always an angle. The corpo angle. The same people who probably hold senior bonds in banks, you know the guys, the ones that ruined this country.

I'm fully convinced by the level of Garda presence on the nations roads over the past few months that the government maybe trying to fine there way out of this recession. I took my car off the road six weeks ago so they won't be getting any of my money, (money? laughs) but the presence is unprecedented and when figures are released in the coming months I suspect it will show record levels.
It's unfair to the majority of Gardai who do a fine job in this country to be saying this. At the end of the day, the orders come from the top, but it seems grossly unfair when the likes of people who bankrupted this country remain out of the clutches of the court and ordinary people are hounded. This AFTER having their lives ruined. There are certain people above the law in this country, so equality, which this country was founded on, is not in play.

It was announced today that the HSE is out of money with another five months of the year to go. With stories like this bound to become commonplace over the coming years as the willing government pander to Europe and destroy lives with austerity the honeymoon period for the new government seems to be finally over.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny was in Roscommon today where he was met by protestors who wanted answers to questions over the future of their local hospital. He started by saying to them, "There is a plan for Roscommon and there will be a plan for Roscommon.'
I'm still scratching my head.

Moving to Libya for a few sentences, a court in The Hague today issued arrest warrants for Col. Gaddafi for crimes against humanity. I came across this short video today which certainly made me think a little. George W Bush and Tony Blair started an illegal war in Iraq which has claimed in excess of 100,000 lives to date. One wonders why arrest warrants are not out for these pair.
I took this from a friends page on Facebook yesterday. He wrote - 'In 2000, Iraq under Saddam announced that they would be trading their oil in Euros as opposed to the dollar. Iraq was subsequently sanctioned and invaded! The day in 2003 when George Bush stood on the USS Lincoln with the banner 'Mission Accomplished' was the day Iraq's oil returned to trading in dollars therefore mission accomplished for the imperialist banker thugs!'
Libya is an oil rich nation. The Syrian leader murders his civilians, the Yemen leader the same, the Bahrain leader jails dissidents yet the world stands by and does nothing.
One wonders what the reason is for all this. Why do people not see what is really going on, whether it be here in Ireland or in countries across the globe.
Ignorance is the best friend of any government. Together with the media they deflect the masses away from all their ill, smothering them with Capitalist dreams that nearly always end in nightmare.
French writer Gustave Flaubert once said, 'Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times.' I too was ignorant of history for some time. History that you won't find in the school books. Recession may pass, I may move on, who knows, but the one thing it has provided me with is the time to learn history. What's been happening in the world has been going on for all of history. You search enough you begin to join the dots. It's not exactly nirvana when those dots begin to take form I can tell you.

The quote of the day should belong to the Taoiseach, but perhaps this one is more fitting, especially when on the subject of ignorance.
"There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance" - Socrates
I better shut up now before someone knocks around with the gift of a glass of hemlock. Or maybe not...

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Escape ignorance
Truthout