Taking one for the team; the Irish state's attempt to stop Greece getting a debt relief deal

We are witnessing the dying years of the first Irish republic. It has been traversed by various rough beasts, all slouching across the nation in the past generation. Echoes of these ideologies linger in the body politic;

• A very extreme ideological neoliberalism, with the country essentially been put in the hands of international banksters;
• An extended flirtation with neoconservatism, a flirtation that almost undoubtedly would have been consummated had e-voting (ie no elections) been installed;
• 32-county nationalism, based on the principles of the 1916 proclamation on which the state is founded

Given the lack of our education of our administration, it is unlikely that any of them could even understand how their views had changed as each of these ideas took possession of them in their all-too-long careers. For example, Taoiseach Kenny – who inherited his father's seat – has been a parliamentarian for 40 years, and has no accomplishments or qualifications of any sort. Insofar as one can say this, he is too intellectually slow to be a modern PM.

What prompts this post is that it turns out that much of the suffering in Ireland since 2011 has been inflicted at the hands of neoliberal ideologue Michael Noonan;

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/noonan-dismisses-ashoka-mody-comments-on-debt-writedown-1.2105893

For readers not familiar with Ireland, the “odious” debt referred to is “junior” debt ie unsecured bonds issued by private banks and - for the first time in world history – imposed on the sovereign ie the taxpayer. As Mody points out, this imposition ran contrary to this government's election manifesto. In short, Mody – as the IMF lead in Ireland – was waiting for Noonan to ask for a debt writedown. Noonan did not do so; had he done so, it has clearly been IMF policy since 2008 to allow a writedown.

Noonan ran for election as PM in 2002 and achieved his party's worst-ever result. I now work in Reboot Ireland with some of the young talent who put fine Gael back together again; FG's loss is our gain

There are various explanations for Noonan's “we took one for the team” as he put it. One is a sincere belief in this neoliberal world order, a belief no longer shared even by its erstwhile economist cheerleaders like Brad de Long of UC Berkeley. Another is simply that he was bribed to sell out Ireland. A final one may be found in the fact that he has abandoned even his few friends in Limerick, the few people willing to tolerate him of a Saturday night, and wants to mingle with the Davos set.

For any Greeks reading this, we Irish are embarrassed by this buffoon;

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/any-greek-rescue-deal-will-need-d%C3%A1il-sanction-noonan-1.2105801

The astonishing result is that 32-county Irish nationalism, stripped of its Catholicism, is now the prevailing ideology in Ireland and Sinn Fein is the most popular party. Take it that SF will favour a debt deal for everyone, even if we get kicked out of the poisonous embrace of the EU as a result

PS It turns out that Varoufakis  was part of the "troops out" movement   and sings republican ballads. The first Sinn Fein finance minister?

PPS The essential problem with the current neoliberal world order is that democracy has survived the assault from e-voting. The  neoliberal campaign aginst the nation-state is otherwise perfect;

1, Replace authochtonous culture with American garbage ( a la the MTV awards in Dublin, 1999)

2. Create a massive state debt, if necessary by illegally assigning private debt to the sovereign

3. Impose austerity, with rolling privatization, to repay this debt

4. Create fortress parliaments  - currently happening in Ireland - so that the corporate whores masquerading as "politicians" will feel victimized, yet safe. One of syriza's fuist moves in govt was doing away with the barricades.

But the fools, the fools! This new order suits at best 20% of the population, the rest are sick of austerity  and we will get a united Ireland out of it......

PPPS It is a script straight from the British version of “The office”. The Gervais character (accidentally/out of pique as it happens but we don't yet know that) takes a principled stand that turns out to be popular. He is due his moment in the sun, and journos gather – twice.

The first time he makes a non-announcement to “reboot” things. At the next, it is surely going to be carelessness rather than accident if he blows it. A hush descends as the journos await the hitherto unsuspected depths in this bumptious character.

Instead he announces that they've been awaiting his “brand” and party title. He then presses “Play” on a DVD player and they are confronted with an ethics officer – a finance adviser. The new party is called “renua”. (For the record, I never joined it and never will)

A hush descends as you laugh uncontrollably at the TV. As the closing credits roll, one of the pols who has hitched his wagon to the Gervais character in interviewed on live radio – but blanks out, as the Gervais character has given his party no policies along with a double-bind; don't let the party down.

Reboot/renua could have a wide range of policies by now. I know that for a fact as I wrote an extensive policy document on IP and presented it to acclaim at UC Berkeley of Feb 13 2015. Reboot/renua knew this and Ross McCarthy, director of policy admonished me beforehand not to let the “movement” down. So what happened?

Pols do not want to be constrained by policies and prefer to make them up on the fly; that is what went wrong with the Greens in Ireland. The most generous interpretation is that they came from FG, where policies are written by consultants, and saw the new political party as a marketing firm that naturally did not have any particular product/policy, the better to be able to sell ANYTHING However, the existence on an “ethics” officer, however ludicrous, suggests a darker story and I will end this PS on that note.

Many of the Reboot/renua have not really left FG socially. It makes sense that what Creighton is attempting is to rope a few thousand people in on a truly Kafkaesque (“The castle”) mission wherein they are permanently unsure of being on the right track. They then can be prosecuted by an “ethics” officer. Little Ross McCarthy, director of policy, ensures that no policies are ever finished to ensure FG-friendliness

So Lucy can rejoin FG with her new, browbeaten members at a price of her choosing. As it happens, she could have succeeded by doing it straight and honestly. She and the others will now lose their seats