On the off chance that you may find yourself in any doubt whatsoever as to the fact that political parties are naught but refuges for vile shit-spewing serpents, Scratch That Itch lays things straight.
A New York governor once said, ‘You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.’ This little titbit may prove a useful anecdotal conversation-piece for the youth of our nation. Especially since the recent budget which directly attacked people under the age of 26 by halving their dole will only succeed in driving more youth into cities like New York…or Toronto…or Melbourne… basically anywhere but here. Once again Ireland is in the export business, and figures would indicate that the number of folks bailing out of our bail-out is currently on a par with the live calves we ship out of the country.
Does anyone remember the poetry we got from Fine Gael when they were running for office? Let me remind you, there was a five point plan — actually, you may want to consider pulling on your wellies here as we enter a strange and reeking landscape. It’s not so much poetry as a stinking shitheap of lies and deceit. There is a youtube video whichpromises much (it’s entitled ‘Fine Gael’s 5 Point Plan’ for any of you who can bear the excruciating torment without bursting your own eyeballs with pliers and sticking burning knitting needles in your ears), which speaks of getting Ireland working.
Twice during the insufferable one minute and thirty six seconds we are treated to some ham-acting dullards spouting clichéd drivel about their reluctance to emigrate. I shouldn’t be surprised to find them currently treading the boards Down Under or Over Yonder. We are granted the pleasure of some equally vacuous “employer”, who has probably since been ‘disappeared’ into the serpent strewn, dank, sticky rain forest of nonsense that is NAMA, who hopes he can keep his employees on. Ach, jaysus thanks for that! Another old man wants to get his operation over and done with — thankfully he’s only a pitifully bad actor because if he truly was unwell in this horrendous joke of a nation I’d worry for him. A loathsome band of young people, feebly feigning enthusiasm, inform us that they’ve got plans. Some other dim-witted moron blathers on about becoming a primary school teacher. Well guess what! Now she can – with Jobbridge. Ireland’s ingenious answer to a lack of jobs. Lets just hope she wasn’t planning on getting wages or a career structure.
This fine piece of verse was also to be found on their election posters:
‘JOBS. NOT EMIGRATION.’
Boke.
These ballbags, loyally fondled by the State broadcaster, ensured that the message from this budget was that we had turned a corner. Whatever the fuck that means. You’ve to turn corners to do all sorts of things, like running away from Tesco security guards after robbing a bottle of Buckfast, or going for a quick shower in Birkenau. They persisted in wittering on endlessly about creating 3,000 jobs a month, oddly neglecting the fact that thousands more had been lost, or that 87,000 (when we last looked) leave every year to other cities that don’t stink of sycophantic failure. The current unemployment rate, in spite of all the cunning stunts (pulled by the stunning cunts) with the live register, is still 13.5%, and was 14.7% last year. Youth unemployment is the wrong side of 25% and we are vying for a place in the top ten in Europe. Of that 87,000 who legged it, 36,000 were aged between 15 and 24.
And what are we treated to? Bankrupted singers of Westlife whining about how they speculated wildly in the property bubble. If I hadn’t already used them, the knitting needles and pliers would have been particularly handy at this point.
If campaigning in poetry is the name of the game, perhaps an extended Limerick is in order:
Labour think their roses are red, The blue shirts are bluer than blue, They should never end up in bed, Yet, that pair of them always do. Making it last till their pensions get paid, Whilst the plain people of Ireland get laid, Nothing they say pre-election is true, And in the end we’re the ones screwed.
If a people get the government that they deserve, we must have pulled some particularly atrocious shit in a past life. We’ve got a bumbling assemblage of subservient swine in government now and the REAL plan with this budget was to drive young people out of the country. “Fuck off if you think we are going to give you anything like social protection, or the possibility of a future. Go home and live with your Ma, or better yet go off and get a job somewhere else, emigrate and come back to visit us and spend your tourist dollars when we have The Gathering 2014!”
By dispersing the young to the four corners of the world, the despicable fucks can continue to keep those of us that are left behind busy cleaning up the lube and strap-ons from their second-rate orgy. Before we know it we are the all-new, lower-paid, more precarious work force, which, coincidentally, helps keep them on a competitive level with their fuck-buddies in the faster growing world economies. Hmmm…
Forget the whimsy of poetry, the prosaic truth is the tale of a young person ending up working two jobs in Canada, your granny paying €2.50 for her tablets that keep her out of the mental hospital, and your suicidal young brother trapped at home, broke, depressed and jobless, whilst the pigs keep their snouts in the trough, uninterrupted.
Change comes through those who have nothing left to lose.