Stand silent for Ireland on Thursday
Posted on Monday, March 14, 2011 at 01:19 AM
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It's always easy to be cynical and believe me I can be good at it. So when I saw on Twitter (#IrishMinuteStand) that some people were trying to organize a protest against the bank debts that we the taxpayers of Ireland are expected to bear my initial reaction was to cringe. No one's going to pay attention and what good will it do anyway? This is just a pointless, possibly embarrassing, gesture.The organizers want to highlight the people's rejection of the imposition of the debts of "crooked and incompetent banks" on taxpayers and that Ireland is being forced to "carry the full financial responsibility for saving the Euro."
The protest will take the form of a minute's silence at noon on St. Patrick's Day. {I presume they mean noon wherever you are, not 12:00 in Ireland.} The organizers are especially keen that parade organizers support them in their bid.
The cynic in me can't see that happening. I can't see any parade of size taking on a protest organized via Twitter. Besides a protest of such scale would need a lot more time to get it right. Twitter is fine, but it's not going to get a big parade to stop for a minute's silence. Such a protest needs organization, explanation and negotiation.
Still the more I thought about it the more I realized just how great such a protest would be. Imagine if Dublin fell silent at noon on Thursday. That would be great. But imagine if 5th Avenue fell silent on noon on Thursday. That would be powerful. What a TV moment!
That would be something else, something for Ireland's hangmen - Sarkozy, Merkel, Barroso, Trichet & Rehn - to ponder. At the moment it's not hard for them to ride roughshod over us because Ireland is a small nation. It would be great to show them that while Ireland is a small nation, the Irish are not. They would probably not be happy at being called out in Dublin, but I suspect they'd experience a cold sweat if they saw such a protest in New York.
The difficulty, of course, is that we (thanks to our elected officials) are largely responsible for the country's economic collapse. People here acknowledge that and we all know that those debts incurred by our feckless government's excessive spending are ours to bear. On our own.
What we reject is that those debts incurred by Ireland's banks, owed to German and French banks and other institutions are ours? Why should we pay for the bad loans made by those banks to our stupid banks? Why should we pay if Europe's regulators failed to act to stop what they could all see (more clearly than we could) - that entire country was becoming a property bubble?
Ireland's facing a generation of economic pain if the bank debts remain ours alone. The powers of Europe don't much care about that, however. They don't want their banks troubled; they don't want to be honest with their citizens about the role played by their banks in our problems; they don't want to ask their citizens to share the burden. All they want is for us to pay back those debts regardless of cost or morality. That is far more cynical than I could ever be.
Stand silent for Ireland on Thursday.
8 comments
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TheYank | Mar 17, 2011, 05:38 AM EDT
mamaginnty,
I don't disagree with you. My point was that in America the banking crisis was mainly due to complex instruments like collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps and what have you. That's not what happened here. It was all down to run-of-the-mill property loans.
I don't disagree with you. My point was that in America the banking crisis was mainly due to complex instruments like collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps and what have you. That's not what happened here. It was all down to run-of-the-mill property loans.
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mamaginnty | Mar 16, 2011, 02:19 PM EDT
TheYank, you are quite wrong in saying good old fashioned morgages and development, yes we have that but you could say in such a small country a couple of billions worth. Big bankers and investors were involved in this mess, America was just one of many, Germany being the main culprit. The irish people themselves are not to blame. Billions upon Billions is owed, to build on every inch of Ireland would not have cost as much. The millionaires and billionairs are to blame, something is very wrong. Something smells rotten to the core with this, and it is not the irish people. I will be silent on Thurday but is the rest of Ireland willing to stand up and be counted. They will moan and groan in their local pub, the women in the local shop, where as they should be shouting, banging dustbin lid, anything that will make noise..outside every TDs and ministers home. Will they do it???
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LoyalCitizen | Mar 15, 2011, 01:55 PM EDT
@The Yank: Irish Bankers went mad with Irish peoples deposits and went speculating with sub prime mortgages markets in America and the American Stock exchange. This was encouraged by Irish Politicians. Its still an Irish problem to deal with thou.
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antoman | Mar 15, 2011, 09:59 AM EDT
Is it to late for our military to stage a coup and seize the Dail?We've lost our economic independence to Brussels and the Rothchilds whose only concern is to make us slaves for generations to come fattening the wallets of strangers.Can't wait for the next election when Sinn Fein will dominate.
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Madeliene | Mar 14, 2011, 11:24 PM EDT
Yes yes yes
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TheYank | Mar 14, 2011, 05:51 PM EDT
eiriamach,
I wish I could agree with you, but Ireland's bankers didn't need any American example to act recklessly or stupidly. In fact, whereas America's bankers could at least claim to some extent that they didn't understand the complex instruments that brought them down, in Ireland there were no complex instruments - just good old fashioned mortgages and property development loans.
I wish I could agree with you, but Ireland's bankers didn't need any American example to act recklessly or stupidly. In fact, whereas America's bankers could at least claim to some extent that they didn't understand the complex instruments that brought them down, in Ireland there were no complex instruments - just good old fashioned mortgages and property development loans.
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eiriamach | Mar 14, 2011, 02:14 PM EDT
"It would be great to show them that while Ireland is a small nation, the Irish are not"--right! I don't think the Irish bankers would have been as reckless as they were if American bankers had not been touting the great profits to be made by reckless investments and loans--made for a short while, that is. Now we're all paying the piper except for the wealthy, who have great tax breaks at the expense of all of us who actually work for a living (as long as our jobs last). I like the moment of silence idea. Let's do it!
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