Don Genaro
Jedi Council Member
I am currently reading “Ship of Fools- (How Stupidity and Corruption Sank the Celtic Tiger)” by author Fintan O’Toole and while there is probably not much new here it certainly did tie in with and confirm what I had just been reading towards the end of the online “Adventures” series, more specifically psychopathy and denial.
The book, as the title suggests, describes how greed and corruption sank Ireland. Of course, like so many books mentioned here, it offers confirmation of so many topics discussed in the work here without the author apparently being aware of it.
It tells the story of how since the 60’s Ireland has been milked and taken advantage of by bankers and politicians. How the banks carried out all sorts of scams and the government encouraged them either actively or by “slapping their wrists and allowing it to continue”.
What stood out for me as an example after having recently read so much about psychopaths was the following:
“Civic morality is not absent in Ireland, but it is marginal and fragile. The political system is tribal, local and clientelist- there is a strong impulse to vote, not for a decent person or a national leader, but for someone who will successfully manipulate the system on behalf of both constituents individually and the constituency as a whole. If morality comes into the equation it is often through the vague but powerful feeling that a lack of it might make for a more effective local champion. Thus, Ray Burke got his highest ever vote in North Dublin in 1977 – after the Sunday Independent and Hibernia magazine had shown that he had received a bribe of 15,000 from the builders Brennan and McGowan. (there was a Garda investigation but it went nowhere.)
The most spectacular example of this phenomenon in the Celtic Tiger years was the electoral career of Michael Lowry. Lowry had to resign as minister for Transport, Energy and Communications in 1996 when it emerged that a client of his refrigeration business, Dunnes Stores had paid for a huge extension to his house – an obvious tax evasion scam. At the 1997 general election, he got an extra 4,000 votes in North Tipperary.”
(Now where did we read about how the locals will rally around an exposed psychopath?)
The author goes on to say that “It then became clear that Lowry was a cheat and a liar. The McCracken tribunal revealed his evasion of taxes to be complex, organized and large-scale.....He misled the Dáil in December 1996 by failing to mention a series of large payments from Dunnes. He told the tribunal that if he had been trying to hide money he would have “put it in an offshore account”, creating the impression that he had no such account. In fact, he had at least four: one in the Bank of Ireland in the Isle of Man; one in an Allied Irish Bank subsidiary in Jersey; another Isle of Man account held through a company called Badgeworth; and an Irish Nationwide Isle of Man account. Only the first two of these accounts were disclosed at the McCracken tribunal – the existence of the other two emerged later at the Moriarty tribunal.”
And then comes the “confirmation” ...
The author states that : “Lowry, moreover, has shown no real remorse. He has never apologised. He regards himself as he told the Sunday Independent in 2009 as ‘a victim of my own success’ whose only fault was to ‘stick his head too high above the parapet’. He sees himself as a target of ‘state opression’ who was ‘only judged by the hobnobs’......”
“What happened after the McCracken report? Lowry stood for election again. His effrontery was entirely vindicated: he topped the poll and was elected on first count!”
Of course there are many more exposed in the book- I just thought that the language used by both the author and Lowry confirmed everything I’ve read so far about psychopathy. The book is an easy read and like I said, contains not much new in the way of knowledge but certainly plenty to confirm what I’ve been reading here!
Another topic covered which also seems to be more and more evident in modern media and political circuses is the whole celebrity/politician phenomenon. Sarkozy and his model girlfriend, Berlusconi as an ex-singer, Reagan and Schwarzenegger as ex-actors to name but a few. Well in the booming Ireland of the last decade our ex- leader Bertie Ahern couldn’t be any different and leaped with glee onto the rich and famous bandwagon. The author tells how when Ahern’s daughter, Georgina, married Nicky Byrne of “talented” Irish boyband, Westlife in 2003, they took over a small village one Saturday afternoon just south of Paris. The French riot police were called in to secure the area and Hello magazine paid €1 million for the exclusive. The shop-owners graciously closed their shops as requested but to the shock and annoyance of the locals, the wedding guests showed up in “cars with curtains on their windows” into a “zipped-up tent”. It seemed that after giving up their town to the guests for the day, they weren’t even going to get as much as a wave from the guests.
This point really got me as the author had pointed out how the “downtrodden Irish, treated so badly for so many centuries had become exactly what their oppressors had been- in fact he goes into this more, elsewhere in the book talking about how just before the crash, Irish property developers were starting to buy up land and property in England whilst celebrating that the “tables had been turned and now they were the new landowners in England”
So it’s a book well worth reading if you can get your hands on it. Easy reading and provides verification of the effects of Ponerology without the author being aware of it.
There is another part which I will quote later which spoke to me on a very personal level and relates to the whole Celtic Tiger thing and how it was reflected in the work of Michael Flatley...
The book, as the title suggests, describes how greed and corruption sank Ireland. Of course, like so many books mentioned here, it offers confirmation of so many topics discussed in the work here without the author apparently being aware of it.
It tells the story of how since the 60’s Ireland has been milked and taken advantage of by bankers and politicians. How the banks carried out all sorts of scams and the government encouraged them either actively or by “slapping their wrists and allowing it to continue”.
What stood out for me as an example after having recently read so much about psychopaths was the following:
“Civic morality is not absent in Ireland, but it is marginal and fragile. The political system is tribal, local and clientelist- there is a strong impulse to vote, not for a decent person or a national leader, but for someone who will successfully manipulate the system on behalf of both constituents individually and the constituency as a whole. If morality comes into the equation it is often through the vague but powerful feeling that a lack of it might make for a more effective local champion. Thus, Ray Burke got his highest ever vote in North Dublin in 1977 – after the Sunday Independent and Hibernia magazine had shown that he had received a bribe of 15,000 from the builders Brennan and McGowan. (there was a Garda investigation but it went nowhere.)
The most spectacular example of this phenomenon in the Celtic Tiger years was the electoral career of Michael Lowry. Lowry had to resign as minister for Transport, Energy and Communications in 1996 when it emerged that a client of his refrigeration business, Dunnes Stores had paid for a huge extension to his house – an obvious tax evasion scam. At the 1997 general election, he got an extra 4,000 votes in North Tipperary.”
(Now where did we read about how the locals will rally around an exposed psychopath?)
The author goes on to say that “It then became clear that Lowry was a cheat and a liar. The McCracken tribunal revealed his evasion of taxes to be complex, organized and large-scale.....He misled the Dáil in December 1996 by failing to mention a series of large payments from Dunnes. He told the tribunal that if he had been trying to hide money he would have “put it in an offshore account”, creating the impression that he had no such account. In fact, he had at least four: one in the Bank of Ireland in the Isle of Man; one in an Allied Irish Bank subsidiary in Jersey; another Isle of Man account held through a company called Badgeworth; and an Irish Nationwide Isle of Man account. Only the first two of these accounts were disclosed at the McCracken tribunal – the existence of the other two emerged later at the Moriarty tribunal.”
And then comes the “confirmation” ...
The author states that : “Lowry, moreover, has shown no real remorse. He has never apologised. He regards himself as he told the Sunday Independent in 2009 as ‘a victim of my own success’ whose only fault was to ‘stick his head too high above the parapet’. He sees himself as a target of ‘state opression’ who was ‘only judged by the hobnobs’......”
“What happened after the McCracken report? Lowry stood for election again. His effrontery was entirely vindicated: he topped the poll and was elected on first count!”
Of course there are many more exposed in the book- I just thought that the language used by both the author and Lowry confirmed everything I’ve read so far about psychopathy. The book is an easy read and like I said, contains not much new in the way of knowledge but certainly plenty to confirm what I’ve been reading here!
Another topic covered which also seems to be more and more evident in modern media and political circuses is the whole celebrity/politician phenomenon. Sarkozy and his model girlfriend, Berlusconi as an ex-singer, Reagan and Schwarzenegger as ex-actors to name but a few. Well in the booming Ireland of the last decade our ex- leader Bertie Ahern couldn’t be any different and leaped with glee onto the rich and famous bandwagon. The author tells how when Ahern’s daughter, Georgina, married Nicky Byrne of “talented” Irish boyband, Westlife in 2003, they took over a small village one Saturday afternoon just south of Paris. The French riot police were called in to secure the area and Hello magazine paid €1 million for the exclusive. The shop-owners graciously closed their shops as requested but to the shock and annoyance of the locals, the wedding guests showed up in “cars with curtains on their windows” into a “zipped-up tent”. It seemed that after giving up their town to the guests for the day, they weren’t even going to get as much as a wave from the guests.
This point really got me as the author had pointed out how the “downtrodden Irish, treated so badly for so many centuries had become exactly what their oppressors had been- in fact he goes into this more, elsewhere in the book talking about how just before the crash, Irish property developers were starting to buy up land and property in England whilst celebrating that the “tables had been turned and now they were the new landowners in England”
So it’s a book well worth reading if you can get your hands on it. Easy reading and provides verification of the effects of Ponerology without the author being aware of it.
There is another part which I will quote later which spoke to me on a very personal level and relates to the whole Celtic Tiger thing and how it was reflected in the work of Michael Flatley...
