“You are quite entitled to disagree with me but don’t question my patriotism to my country”.
So said Brian Cowen to Eamon Gilmore in the Dail.
Isn’t patriotism a bit mental though, really? Nobody can help where they’re born or where they come from, so it’s not as if you’re making a choice based on facts or evidence. It’s just an acceptance that this is how you’re supposed to behave or feel about your own country.
I had an interesting back and forth with Adrian Weckler on Twitter last night. He was of the opinion that people should stay and fight to make things better in Ireland and those who go abroad are letting the side down a bit.
Personally, I have no problem with anyone who feels they’ve had enough of things here and I don’t feel they, or anyone else, owes it to anyone to stay. There’s nothing that says because we share the same passport we should be brothers in arms. To be fair, we were at cross purposes a bit. He was talking more about the opportunists who simply want to go because they want more money elsewhere, I was really thinking about people who were being forced out of the country due to the current circumstances.
However, unless we’re dealing with the fuckers whose behaviour got us into this mess, I don’t think anyone is open to criticism just because they want to go somewhere else to be a success, to get a better job, to fulfill their ambitions. If you’re culpable for the problems and you fuck off, then maybe you should be criticised, but at the same time, maybe we’re better off without you.
You only get one go at life. Some misplaced sense of solidarity with people who don’t give a fuck about you either way seems very odd to me.
I like Ireland because it’s home and familiar and comfortable, but I’d go live somewhere else without it really bothering me. I like being Irish as far as that goes, but it’s hardly a badge of honour, is it? I never feel particularly proud to be Irish, certainly not in recent years anyway, too much that goes on in this country makes my toes curl. Yet why should we have pride in something we have no control over? Should I be proud for having greenish coloured eyes or brown hair?
There’s plenty of stuff to be proud of in life, I’m not sure your nationality is one of them. Sorry it’s a bit rambly, just thinking out loud really.
Jesus that’s really profound Twenty. You’ve given us much to ponder over.
I pretty much agree exactly with your sentiments on pride/nationality.
The one thing that does irk me however is these articles by young folk heading off abroad moaning as if they were owed/due a nice cushy life, and that somehow it was robbed off them. Noone is owed anything in this world. By all means leave, but don’t make a song and dance about it.
If the situation here really annoys you, and you think its an injustice, then really you should stay to fight it, and make sure it doesn’t happen other people.
just dont vote fianna fail ever thats a start rubot
The Irish have been liked the world over mainly because we weren’t cunts. But we turned into cunts. The worst thing is the mé féin-ism of the last ten years where people only think about what’s in it for them and fuck everyone else. Bad manners and self entitlement abound.
We need a very large wooden spoon to redden our selfish little asses.
And I do think while people have every right to move away, we should also try and think about what we can do to un-cunt Ireland. We just keep taking the abuse over and over again only because the abusers are allowed to get away it.
We need selfless people to stand and fight and I’d do it in a flash if I thought there was enough others to join me.
I do see where you’re coming from but it’s a mighty task. When you look at what people are prepared to put up, across all spectrums of society, you’d have to think it’s an impossible job, no matter how many you have with you
That fat fuck Lenihan is only bringing up Patriotism as an issue as he expect us to toe the line for the good of the country without question.
Where was his patriotism when all his and his fathers cronies were getting us into the shit we’re in now.
If he’s such a patriot he should have CAB all over the bankers/Developers/Cowboys and strip them of every last asset and throw their arses onto Spike Island.
If you question whats going on you are not a patriot. The cheapest/Nastiest trick in the book. Hitler used this trick against the Jewish Sympathizers to keep them quite – That’s how shitty a ploy the “Patriotic” card is.
fucking hate patriotism and that whole concept.
Its always undeserved back clapping and a distraction for real failings.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msg54-jSPGM
just found a twenty spot in a pocket in me wardrobe i am off for stout . how irish is that patriotism me brown
It’s true that Patriotism is a dangerous thing. It’s usually used by people to do unpatriotic things. And the notion of a sovereign state is essentially old hat. We don’t rule ourselves really and never will again.
What’s happening now is a worldwide divide between people and their governments. It’s a kind of global patriotism that is needed. And that patriotism is loyalty to your community, your family and your friends. We don’t need a flag or an anthem to do that because it’s the need of people all over the world.
But we do need to stop huge corporations and organised religions deciding our destinies and limiting our choices and subjugating us in the illusion of ‘Freedom’.
We are the new slaves, just on a longer chain.
The Irish are too two faced to be truly Patriotic, George Bernard Shaw got it spot on when said, put an Irishman on a spit and you’ll have no trouble finding another one willing to turn him.
theres two types of patriotism in my book – one is what could broadly be called ‘positive patriotism’; this requires a kind of enlightened sense of collective responsibility, a desire to where youre from a better place – this extends from not fucking shopping trolleys into the canal, to not trying to ride the system just cause you can. this, from the very top to the very bottom rung of society in this country, seems to be an alien concept.
is far easier to pull on a celtic jersey, belt out a ra song, and go and watch the premiership.
is far easier to pull on a celtic jersey, belt out a ra song, and go and watch the premiership.
Thats the type of jingoistic,fucktard,unquestioning, bolloxology that pops into my head whenever i hear the word patriotism..
And thats down to what this country has become,which is not much to be honest..
The Govt treat the people like children..
The Church treat the people with contempt..
THe Banks are just fucking laughing at us..
Heads on sticks is what will shake the place up,and nothing less..
Isn’t Cowen one of those thick cunts trained by the 1950′s generation to call himself ‘catholic first and Irish second’?
Any Irish man or woman who thinks that way should be shot in the face.
Its the very definition of treason. Suppose I wrote to the wealthiest Irish people in Britain (and believe me there are some VERY wealthy Irish people here) and warned them that some cunt from Fianna Fail will be going around with a begging bowl soon enough and asked them not to donate any money at all but to insist the diaspora get the vote?
I suppose Cowen and other Fianna Fail knackers would question my loyalty for doing something like that.
Patriotism to a Fianna Failer is something you bullshit others with while filling your pockets.
I asked my Grandad once why he ahd to go on the run from old IRA comrades and he told me he got pissed off standing guard outside a bank while senior IRA men went in and emerged with bags full of cash. So he called them fucking thieves and went off and joined the Blackshirts.
My old man told me too that you should never ever stick your head over the parapet for Irish people because when its time to speak up they’ll shuffle around staring at the floor.
He was a representative for a load of people in a factory in Ireland and swore never to put himself in a situation like that again because of the cowardice of the people who made lots of noise when the boss wasn’t around and then went silent when the boss was there.
I’m not enjoying being Irish at the moment it has to be said.
The thought has occurred to me to either go back and get stuck in as vicious a fashion as I can but then again these memories come back to me and I wonder whether I’d be better off in my life just writing it off as a minor embarassment and changing my passport- fuck off to France in a few years with two fingers up at Treachery Island.
H
Patriotism and nationalism were the curse of the 20th century.
nationalism is an infantile disease it is the measles of mankind albert einstein
i got that from modern warfare great quote though
My old man was a well travelled man, well before his time. He never bought in to the bullshit here and as a result deprived me of a very comfortable upbringing.
The righteous bastard. But I’m glad he didn’t sell out.
Pulling on a Celtic shirt is not a sigh of patriotism, but a sign to other bigots that your out and about, I’ve never held with the view the Irish are stupid, but Robbie Keane is giving me doubts, it’s well known that rats leave a sinking ship, but this particular rat has just gone and joined one.
Whenever he was in a tight spot Bertie claimed he was a socialist. Or a nationalist. Not Cowen is claiming he’s a patriot.
Anarchist, communist, atheist, somnambulist, sunkist, arsonist, fascist, halfpist…
Take yer pick there Brian. Then stick it up your hole.
The Irish aren’t stupid. But we are thick.
It’s been said before over on P.ie the the best people leave Ireland. I’m reminded of the recent protests by a small group of Irish people during Mary Harney’s visit to New Zealand.
The worst accusation the Haughey proto-fascist clique of Fianna Fáil could throw at their enemies – real and imagined – was “anti-national.”
During the Celtic Bubble I felt as if my country was stolen from me by people whose values were inimical to mine. They and their ‘demographic’ ate up content in the print and AV media. Their spurious buying power quashed critical opinion and editorial independence. They resented the slightest contribution they had to make to support social infrastructure such as health and education services. They resented state interference and regulation. They bought into ‘competition’ and privatisation of what had been public services. They elected compliant governments who would never challenge their values. In the end they bankrupted themselves and they bankrupted the country and now they’ve woken up they’re wondering what the hell happened while they sold this society down the river.
We are experiencing a baby boom. The retirement age is going get older and older. In terms of the working population it’s a nill-all game and for anyone 35 or under, especially with young kids, emigation is the only option. Patriotism doesn’t come into it.
DeValera sold patriotism, and was elected time and again off the back of it. Meanwhile about 1m people left the country between the 1930s to the 1960s.
We’ve beta-tested the Irish Republic, it hasn’t worked. Time for a different operating system.
I said it last night during Twenty’s twitter chat with Weckler, and I’ll say it again – [Patriotism is] Bullcrap. It’s your job, your first duty as a parent or spouse, to take care of your family *first*. Everyone else *second*.
If a group made up of about six people in Cabinet decide to saddle 4 million people with debts that come up to around €4500 *per annum* just to pay the interest on the loans they’re giving the banks, then those who can take their skills and leave not only should do so, but it’s pretty much their duty to their families to do so.
Fucking power cuts. Cunting weather. Can I say FTP ?
Came back after 20 years abroad in 2003, thinking all sorts of idiotic stuff like ‘time to give something back’, ‘try to make a difference’ Left again in disgust last year, for reasons too numerous to mention. The continuing debacle over NAMA and what have you, and the collective failure of our political systtem and (so far, though I live in hope) the people has made me more certain of my decision. We are not yet a politically mature country
Well said Conan. Thank fuck for the Interswamp. Its not just me who thinks we should tear down the old Republic and proclaim a newer and more sensible one.
I’d love to know who these ‘bondholders’ are that are so protected as to be risk free. Why the fuck aren’t they taking a bath instead of the Irish taxpayer?
Its funny how these almost religiously free-market thatcheradmirers in FF, the media and the banks snarled at any suggestion that they should pay their way when it comes to the health service or other public services.
And when it comes to a straighforward loss for the bondholders at Anglo and the bank goes bankrupt which is what should happen according to free market doctrine suddenly there’s a hand in the national till, hospital closures, pay cuts for everyone to bail out these mysterious and to me unidentified ‘bondholders’.
How do we know the bondholders aren’t the Quinns, the Fitzpatricks, the Ronans etc?
I dunno Twenty – the only ism which seems relevant these days is nihilism.
The dail is only so much cant and rhetoric. Although I’m inclined to agree with Gilmore. I keep remembering the conspiricists after JFK was gonned, talking about a coup d’état.
Economic treason sounds right when scare billions in a democratic republic are first allocated to a casino bank.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKg4HLsu5gE
Its like the sort of shit you’d hear about from some dodgy little caribbean island.
Discussions ‘private’- what the fuck are these people only public representatives? There should be no such thing as ‘private’- that is an insult. The fraudulent loans will also be private. The loans given out ‘non-recourse’ to party hacks maybe in the last few ‘fill yer boots lads’ days before the shit hit the fan. That’ll all be private.
The debt will be public though. And it gets better because the so-called ‘elite’ can arrange their affairs so that they don’t pay income tax and its pretty hard to deduct to pay for NAMA from a non-dom who doesn’t pay any tax.
So it’ll be the PAYE and smaller businesses who will pay for it.
I suspect the economy would now be in a better shape if Anglo had been let go and deposit accounts/current accounts for businesses and individuals guaranteed and transferred to a new consortium with the bondholders and shareholders taking the bath.
How much consumer confidence is there going to be among the unemployed or those on the bare minimum and just how hard can you tax them before we have a huge black economy again and the tax take shrinks again?
This government will go down in history as one of the most financially corrupt in European political history.
Patriotism, like religion, is designed to keep stupid people in line.
Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious. – Oscar Wilde
back to Twenty’s point its been said that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel and I think we saw that today.
I’m proud to be Irish.
I’m not proud of the rapist priests, the incompetently run banks or the piss poor quality of lazy politicians we have. I’m not proud of Damien Rice.
I’m not a patriot because of these people above.
I’m a patriot because of the people in this country who aren’t the people above. There’s a lot more of us than them.
Fianna Fail have this big fucking hang-up about patriotism. Remember Lenihan in 2008 ending his budget speech with a reference to patriotic duty. He sat down with stupid fucking smirk on his face not knowing what everybody else knew – that the country is fucked, useless cunt. Lenihan wasn’t even patriotic to his own family wen he was told that Haughey stole his fathers medical fund. Cowen runs the country into a wall and all he cares about is being called a name. cunt
In the street I live in London, we had a young Irish lad arrive to live with his Irish aunt and her family about a month ago, he came from Ireland via America via Ireland,odd you might think, the story goes he went to the land of the free on a holiday visa and over stayed by a year, got 50 days in jail but the Americans the nice people that they are let him out in 35 days and deported him, back in Ireland the locals got sick of him telling how great a place USA is, and he told them he was going back, but he came to this God forsaken hole as he calls it, now he lies in bed till lunch time, and curses England and the English because he has to get up before 9am once a fortnight to sign on the DOLE, Oh he has some sort of diploma in computers which must have come handy when he was washing dishes for the mighty dollar.
I left during the last Big Fucking Mess, headed to London in 1988 because there was fuck-all work and too many people turning up to sign on covered in paint or plaster where the cunts had been doing nixers. Whenever I came back on holiday, I was assailed by the whingeing cunts who stayed, telling me I was lucky to have got out and how hard it was for those few who stayed (and who were, by implication true patriots). Frankly, if the likes of me hadn’t gone the lazy hoors who stayed at home on the fucking dole, waiting for some poxy twat to come in and offer them a job would never have had the sniff of a job. I still remember their holier-than-thou fucking beal bocht-ing and their sniffy dismissal of the mere possibility that it might not be the easiest thing to leave your friends and family to start again somewhere else. Of course, they were the saem cunts who’d tap you for fags and pints whenever you came home on the basis that you had an easy job over beyant while they were being done down by the world for their patriotism and loyalty to Mother Ireland. Fucking cunts. Best move I ever made was to leave Ireland and I moved to NZ because it’s s far away as fucking possible to be from that benighted hole without getting my feet permanently wet. The old sow who devours her farrow indeed…
Which one of Dickens books had the phrase, “Dining on a banquet of consequences”?
Cause sure as fuck we are.
As for that overweight,overcaffinated joke bellowing on about his patriotism being questioned
Talk about clutching at straws.
noddy, I take exception to the description ‘overcaffinated’. I don’t think its an addiction to Starbucks that’s his problem.
this long w/end will consist of these getting plastered about, again
http://i41.tinypic.com/o6litl.jpg
this portrayal of patriotism getting plastered – and the rte refers to the likes of miriam o’callaghan – paris hilton would have done a better job “interviewing” lenehin.
http://i40.tinypic.com/jinuaw.jpg
and this reward-therapy
http://i40.tinypic.com/346ook2.jpg
and maybe if I get lucky followed by this
http://i43.tinypic.com/2ecotwj.jpg
I grew up around haughey land. that cunt would go around questioning peoples partiotism, naming his yacht the “celtic mist” and living like an english squire on his manor with money sticking in his hole.
ff give cunts a bad name
do tell crank or at least steer is in the general direction.
even steer US in the general direction
“I hate patriotism, I can’t stand it. It was a round world last time I checked.” (Bill Hicks)
At what point in the future do we look back at the pigheaded incompetent obstinacy of the incumbents and stop calling it stupid and start calling it malignant treason?
The Cap’n Says:
March 31st, 2010 at 7:11 pm
How do we know the bondholders aren’t the Quinns, the Fitzpatricks, the Ronans etc
the whole thing stinks like a pyramid scheme. bernie madoff was arrested, put on trial and jailed within 1 year of his scam going public. nobody goes to jail here. they aren’t even arrested. those lists you see every 6 months of tax-defaulters and the fines they pay. If that was any other country they would be in jail. and rightly so. paying your tax is a social duty. Fianna Fail encourage financial crime. they are mafiosa scum
and the greens are still there.
just thought i’d ramble too twenty though you ramble better
paint bombs and/or cream cakes – is that assault?
david daven power is a fucking rte fucking wimp too. famously said for 3 days running that willie o’toole had nothing to fear. fuckwit
patriotism dyslexia
As an irishman I’m screaming “CHEAT CHEAT CHEAT” at Terry Henry. as an arsenal fan – a great. I can’t remember who said it but they said it about Blair – “In the end, they’ll always let you down”
The question is though, how much are you allowed to complain if you don’t do anything pro-active about it?
Its enough to make me wonder and even hope that their might me a woodbe,Lee Harvy Oswald type guy stroking a rifle waiting,primed to administer justice to any number of thoes pricks who have destroyed this nation.
Everyone knows that high end accountability does not exist in this country and for now never will.I think that hurts us as a nation the most to know that if you break the law(usually for something small)the law will pursue you with every thing its got.When everyone knows that 3 years from now the pricks who caused this will be living it up none the poorer,you know your nation is broken and pride is lost.
Till then the only solution,give every irish citizen a passport and a gun and watch the pride be restored.
All those involved in the long running stroke are treasonous cunts. They put their own interests ahead of the country’s interests and continue to do so. Cowans bluster and ire are meaningless. It really sickens my hole the way that politicians in Ireland respond to criticism. Of course worldwide politicians avoid responsibility but the way any criticism of FF (and Im sure if FG were i they would be no different), is met with anger and ridicule. They are incapable of defending themselves and fall back on taking expection or trying to ridicule their critics, remember Bertie’s let them hang themselves ‘gag’? These are lads (and women) weened on deference and stories of stickin it to the brits, they have assumed the position of untouchable overlords while linking themselves to tan bashing and victorious republic rhetoric, this mythology is their bread butter and their porn. they worship cute hoorism and condemn any suggestion or criticism or questioning or their ability or rightness. Its been said already they will whore themselves to whatever -ism or -ology that suits them at that point in time. they stand for nothing because they stand for everything and anything, just depends on who is askin and/or who is paying. cunts one and all.
The Greens are dead to me now. Forever. They propped this up, supported it, and they must know how much of a sham it all is.
I will campaign against them as vigorously as I will against FF.
amoral and sociopaths too cha.
i think cowen has been suffering from some sort of depression or illness for a very long time. his speech is slurred, repetitive and difficult to engage with. this excellent post on politics.ie sums up the ff operational decision by cowen and lenny that destroyed everything. america let lehmans go bust because it was bust. why did cowen do the opposite with anglo? I know lehamns were in the hedge-fund biz but anglo is way worse, it’s a glorified pyramid scheme
posted by the rebubblican
I haven’t seen Offaly’s champion pie eater get emotional but if he did we are getting closer to the real story as far as Cowen is concerned.
As I have posted elsewhere on this site Cowen when he became Minister for Finance quickly (one would hope if he had any clue) became aware of the dangerous situation the country was in due to the reliance on stamp duty taxes and the idiocy of lightening the load on income tax.
Bertie’s plan was to seal the deal as a three term taoiseach by splurging his way back into office. He needed a patsy and Cowen fitted the bill. He pre-annointed him as leader and exploited his party loyalty letting the economy trundle on out of control and crash into the mess we have to day.
As Vincent Browne famously has said about Bertie’s finances, it is not credible that Cowen wasn’t briefed as to potential emerging trends, it is not credible he did not know of the buccaneering fashion with which Anglo was being run into even more dangerous waters and it is not credible that his department was so far removed from the actual running of the financial system that the regulator was failing (or not bothering) to regulate the banking sector. He surely had enough time to put a brake (of whatever kind he could find) on the property bubble and inflationary tendencies.
He didn’t because the job was too big for him. It required a man of courage and principle, someone who could firmly face a barrage of criticism from all quarters. He doesn’t have the courage, the vision, the character or the ability to lead. His moment was in the Dept. Of Finance. In that moment he chose loyalty is to his party, the welfare of the citizenry was but second or third in priority.
So, on being crowned king of the tribe he thought he might escape (with an economic rebound somewhere in the distant future) but reality came crashing down on the night of the guarantee. Cowen realised I’m sure, his lack of leadership and action contributed to the peril the country was in. The dogs in the financial street knew after the collapse of the share price in the previous March that the markets smelled something rotten that had to be fessed up to.
So, picture it. The bankers approached the government with a one call fixes all choice. For the last 12 years or so, the government has rolled over and avoided confrontation with them as the merry go round wheels of political and economic success were greased by light touch regulation (in reality no touch – [The Wild West according to the NY Times]).
Having being presented with a call for a guarantee or a run on the banking sector what do you think the King of The Patsies would do? At his side was a smart lawyer and amateur economist who didn’t know his ass from his lawyerly elbow. In that moment Cowen must have seen his legacy if he got it wrong yet again.
Under pressure and now haunted by his own ineptitude he guarantees the banks. Incredibly fate has dealt him one more opportunity to deny the truth. Cowen and Lenihan alone decided the fate of our nation on that night. That fate was unnecessary indebtedness for future generations.
So this horrendous mess and unbelievable bail out of a bank that trashed the greatest period of wealth creation in this state’s history is approved. Quite rationally as Cowen is concerned because this is the last chance to continue wearing the emperor’s new clothes. Being honourable has never been a high priority for Fianna Fail.
If the opposition should do its duty by the nation they should push for an explanation as to why Cowen let it get this far. He is culpable personally to a large degree for potentially bankrupting the nation. Future generations of young and old are hamstrung because of his party.
Shame on a party that helped define this republic for plundering our future income for a wasted venture which covers the arse of scoundrels and buccaneers. Billions are being thrown around like confetti, billions that has YET to be earned.
Cowen is a beaten docket, the inner circle know this. They realise he is frail, hence the emotional wobble. The reshuffle is a circling of the wagons. They know I think that they might not get to the line in 2012. The truth is the inner circle (and I’m sure the party) don’t know what to do with a depressed Taoiseach, a man who is finding it hard to admit and deal with his failure, one played for a fool, a man who just wants to go home.
The problem is, his failure is costing you and I and our children thousands of euro. Lack of accountability is as prevalent as gamblers in Vegas in this country and it goes right to the top. The orthodoxy of a republic based on tribal loyalties, catholic moral hegemony, self selecting cliques and irresponsible bureaucracies have led us to this. Banama Republic indeed.
Do your duty Kenny and Gilmore. Get him out!! I don’t care how.
Not only are the greens dead but the very platform they stood on is losing credibility.
Global warming my feckin arse i hope they find a way of taxing their way in to somewhere warm!!!!
itchy that pretty much nails the saga of the man who rose without any trace of achievement.
Some six years ago I was hearing the stories from ordinary Joes working in the Dept of Finance and the Revenue. They were unanimous – “Brian Cowen is a joke,” they all said.
We need every dodgy document and decision to be leaked from Cowen’s days in that Department. It’s time for ordinary civil servants to do their job for the people of this country, earn some respect, and stop these idiots in their tracks.
Fucking Boggies!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCueMl54FdQ
I went out with a young wan from Dundalk who liked being Irish because as she said ” it’s great that we have our own wee mental country “
Try saying you despise Patriotism in the USA. You might as well say you breakfast on Babies Benedict and the tears of the Founding Fathers. I didn’t like it in Scotland when I was growing up – it seemed like just another way to believe yourself superior to others for no reason other than loyalty to some 18th century shortbread tin idea of a country that never existed. In the US it is one of the most insidious political tools you can wield and was responsible in large part for The Patriot Act.
question my patriotism to my country
To which other country could the dumb cunt be patriotic ?
“Try saying you despise Patriotism in the USA. You might as well say you breakfast on Babies Benedict and the tears of the Founding Fathers.”
Sam, make that Babies Benedict Arnold and you’ll cover all bases!
My hole.
I’ll pack up the family and move back there where we can have no fucking jobs and fight for the country from camp social welfare.
Fucking banana up the arse Republic.
Morons.
This belief that some Irish have that we are better then others drives me nuts.
I like what razzer says though – spot on.
There seems to be some move towards having a demonstration at the commemoration ceremony on Sunday.
McAleese will be there and most of the Fianna Failures.
Suggestions so far are a slow handclap during any speech by Cowen or visible signs of dissent via placards but not disruption of the minute’s silece obviously…
What do people think of this? I know the idea has got FF nervous as I can see the usual Mount St rentboys trying to disrupt people discussing the arrangements on bulletin boards etc.
I think its a decent start and would put FF/Greens on notice fairly publicly.
This article could start with “Celtic Tiger turns…”
http://www.theonion.com/articles/discovery-of-oil-turns-peru-into-bunch-of-assholes,239/
brian mugabe cowen
Dr. Johnston got it almost spot on on the 7th April 1775 when he said “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel” but this was topped by Ambrose Bierce with
“In Dr. Johnson’s famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer, I beg to submit that it is the first.”
Oh so true
It might be easier to fight for the country if the same people who claimed to be patriots weren’t running it into the ground and shafting it at every turn. Fight how? With what? Any resource or creativity that might have been capitalised on is being pissed into the wind or thrown on the heap.
I’d rather stay, but it’s depressing and futureless. But then going is scary… oooo, I don’t know. Head in the sand of despair.
Yeah I’ve always found blind patriotism a bit odd. Always reminds me of that playground philosophy that says you can call your own brother a cunt but if anyone else dared it’d be “2:30 behind the bike shed, no rings or biting”.
Well my brother’s a cunt and this country is a stinking shithole.
I’m in the middle of making a banner for sunday cap’n
A picture of Ahern with Cowen and underneath them the caption “Drunken Vainglorious Louts” – a ref to Yeats/1916 etc
I’ll post it up when I get it done
Whaddya reckon? A2 Size.
I was thinking of making it more like a sandwich board like the dude had outside the bookshop for Bertie book-signing so the pigs couldn’t pull it from me.
anybody with any other ideas on catchphase that’ll work please post them
tnks
’1916 Freed by Patriots,
2010 Betrayed by Thieves’
yes cap’n i like that
what about a photo of Cowen and Gormley with “Animal/Vegetable”?
‘1916 Freed by Patriots,
They were the cunts who got you into the mess in the first place.
Good letter in the IT
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/letters/2010/0401/1224267477377.html
And they wonder why young people drink and do drugs ?
heh
‘1916 Freed by Patriots,
They were the cunts who got you into the mess in the first place.
Good letter in the IT
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/letters/2010/0401/1224267477377.html
Spot on.
That was a great letter in Thursday’s paper.