THE latest issue of Vanity Fair, March 2011, reports on Ireland’s economic and political woes via Mr. Michael Lewis, author of Liar’s Poker and many other financial and economic works.
His story, entitled “When Irish Eyes Are Crying,” paints an interesting picture of Merrill Lynch’s overview of the Irish economy during the boom and how the servile peons of Irish politics bowed to King Merrill. The usual suspects are hauled before the public reader but no one is slated for jail time, wile thousands emigrate weekly.
However, Lewis’ simplistic knowledge of Irish history is farcical. He thinks the potato famine was the main cause of the 1.5 million to two million deaths from starvation.
Mr. Lewis would be advised to read deeper into the genocide perpetrated by the English by exporting the majority of Irish food to their burgeoning industrial empire. Probably Mr. Lewis’ ancestors partook in the colonization of Ireland if one looks at the Lewis family tree.
Overall the article is interesting from the modern perspective, and the author’s observation of the absolute zero coordinated protesting by the vast majority of people in Ireland.
Where is the outrage? Where is the back bone?
Mr. Lewis accurately illustrates this lack of widespread protest by attempting to contact one protester, the Galway man Joe McNamara, who avoids any interview with the author.
As far as I am concerned, the Irish people need to wake up quickly from their International Monetary Fund induced hangover and get out on the streets of Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick and Waterford. They need to tell the incoming clowns in Dail Eireann (Parliament) that they will NOT play ball with their colonial-IMF masters.
To agree without reservation or a fight to this monstrous “plan” designed by the very banksters who created the mess is a pathetic indication of the “fightin’ Irish.” We would do well to tear a page out of the Egyptian book of mass protest.
My grandfather and his comrades who fought in the IRA (1917 onwards) must be revolting defiantly in their graves!
A.P. Ó Máille
New York, New York
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