Hands up here who would allow themselves be lectured to by a 22 year old student in NUI Galway about the state of chassis the country is in?

Not many hands. Yet you, you, have left a certain 22 year old with a deep sense of betrayal. Andrew Murphy, responding to a previous IT piece about emigration, says in today’s Irish Times:

My generation thought we had escaped this obligation, and for once would be handed down something perfect – a wealthy state with jobs and opportunity. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our “misfortune” is compounded by a sense of betrayal. Those who came before us had a chance to do something brilliant with the wealth but instead they blew it.

They meaning me and you and them over there and everyone but him and his generation, I take it. Can I assume the only reason the Irish Times published this is because it’s one of the most laughable, self-indulgent, witless pieces of writing that has ever been submitted to them? It’s the only thing that makes sense.

When I was growing up, I was often told about the 1980s. That decade became a byword for despair. Folks, we’ve all been watching and this isn’t the 1980s.

Folks? Fuck off, you patronising little cunt. And what the fuck do you know about the 80s apart from what you were told? He bleats on about how we educated ourselves and when we weren’t educating ourselves we were, and I quote, ‘J1-ing and inter-railing across the world’, as if both things were interchangeable. You either educated or you travelled, apparently. That was the 80s right? Because Andrew says so. He was told often, you know.

There are, I’m sure, many people in this country, myself included, who are anxiously awaiting the budget in December before making decisions about their future. It may well be that Minister Lenihan might make their minds up for them. Things might be better elsewhere. And then think about the 800 unemployed solicitors (as reported in today’s paper), the architects, surveyors, construction workers and those involved in associated industries who have two choices – do something different or go somewhere else to do what they do. And that’s not to mention those working in unrelated areas who struggle to find work in their chosen professions or the thousands of people who are fighting every day to keep their heads and businesses above water. A decision to leave Ireland won’t come lightly to any of them, yet this 22 law student in NUI Galways says:

Those who want to give up and emigrate have bought into the lie that this country cannot change, when in reality the only certainty is that it will change. We may be children of the 1980s but we are not prisoners of the 1980s. We have the ability to lead and change this country, if only we can stay around long enough to do so.

Give up? What a sanctimonious little shit he is. I wonder if he can explain to people how they can stay around long enough to change things when they can’t afford to pay their bills, pay their mortgages, support their families and the rest. They should stay and ignore opportunity elsewhere because of some sense of nationalism, is that it? As if leaving is treason? A bit of hardship now is worth it for the greater good, you see. The situation we find ourselves is not simply caused by the few, because:

… you all took the tax cuts, you all demanded more tax cuts, you never asked the questions you should have and you left us in an economic hole.

Oh, and here was I thinking that it was the government’s fault, and their powerful friends who got rich beyond their wildest dreams suckling from the cash-laden teat of the property bubble that the government manufactured and sustained despite warnings it couldn’t last.  Instead, the people should have said ‘No! We want to pay more tax! Please don’t lower rates, Mr Minister for Finance, sir. We can see the bigger picture here’. The ones whose taxes funded the lifestyles of the few so the government could give tax break after tax break to property developers. The people who worked as hard as they could to buy a house, a home for their family, and paid mad prices because this boom wasn’t temporary, it was permanent. Yes,many took advantage but we, the majority, are not responsible for the mess we’re in now.

Government have used phrases such as ‘we’re all in this together’, ‘national responsibility’, but I can tell you this, I don’t feel the slightest bit of responsibility to ‘Ireland’. I won’t be told that to emigrate is to ‘give up’, especially from a student who has yet to experience the real world. Andrew Murphy can start lecturing people when he’s got responsibilities of his own, when he’s got a family, bills, a mortgage. And we’ll see how principled he is if he finds himself right in the shit like so many Irish people today.

You won’t be surprised to learn that young Mr Murphy is a member of the Young Greens. Such trite ideology runs from top to bottom in that party. A bunch of fourth rate politicians who were suckered in by a government who would have done anything to stay in power at the last election. They knew they could grease up Gormley and ride him when they wanted, and so it has panned out. Thanks to the Greens we’ve got NAMA, their senators and TDs bleating on the radio and on the web and Twitter about their role in bankrupting the nation. Well done to you, we won’t forget.

But Murphy gets one thing right. He says:

Instead of rewarding governments for doing what is popular, we have to accept that as an electorate we must punish them for taking the easy option.

I cannot argue with that. And let’s remember that when push came to shove the Greens took the easy option. They could have showed some kind of moral fortitude and brought down this shambles of an administration. Instead they chose to back the very people who have brought this country to its knees. So when the time comes to dish out the punishment, I hope the Greens and Fianna Fail get what’s coming to them. I hope there is no Green Party left for Andrew Murphy to be part of – or if there is it’s some kind of breakaway group that has some sense of what is right and what is wrong, and not a shower of halfwits blinded by self-importance and power.

And if the Irish Times might please consider their readership before publishing this kind of sub-ragmag shite in the future I’d be most grateful.

Sometimes the morning paper reads like a comedy print-out. Not quite funny enough to the The Onion but Irish enough to make you laugh. For example:

Siptu seeks 3.5% pay increase for health staff.

Brilliantly execution of the classic ‘Everyone else is struggling but fuck you, we want a pay rise gag’. At a time when everybody can see that cuts in public sector spending are essential to any recovery, SIPTU want more cash for possibly the worst run agency since Charlie’s Charlie Angels sold blow from above a chipper in Coolock.

I think it’s the subtlety of it that makes me giggle so. And the fact that nobody has yet caved in the heads of these union chiefs.

Next up:

Lenihan expresses ‘frustration’ at not yet seeing bankers in jail

Now this is a work of discerning wit, no doubt about it. A man whose government facilitated, enabled and positively encouraged bankers to behave the way they did, knowing full well what they were up to, expresses ‘frustration’ that they haven’t been sent to jail. What’s funny about this is that we know that Lenihan has no intention of sending any of them to jail, except perhaps the odd immigrant teller who will be exposed as the sinister mastermind behind the whole thing.

“Your honour, it was Prince George Murphy II, from Nigeria, working in Permanent TSB in St Stephen’s Green, who was directly responsible for the demise of Anglo Irish Bank and certainly not their directors who fiddled books, broke rules, made fraudulent transactions, propped up the property bubble, lied to everyone and cost the taxpayer billions”.

It’s the kind of stuff Adam Sandler can only dream of.

Cóir plans to monitor polling and box seals

There are things in this world you can trust. The sun rises in the east, sets in the west. The sky is blue, grass is green, Damien Rice is a warbly annoying cuntspanner and Cóir are unquestionably the most honourable, dependable and reputable people in this whole Lisbon campaign.

I mean let’s forget about the fact they’re right wing catholics, let’s forget about the fact they hate women, gays and immigrants. Let’s ignore their lies, their scare tactics, their disinformation. Let’s ignore the pasts of the people involved in Cóir. Let’s look aside as the links to the despicable Youth Defence are brought to the fore and let us implicity trust the motley crew of mentalist, pencil licking helpers, they’ll have at the polling stations on Friday as they ‘monitor’ the amount of votes cast.

This is like that hilarious film Sideways where they go around touring vineyards. You don’t really give a shit what happens once they all die in the end, the tedious cunts.

The morning paper, I love it.