Wallowing in our own misery

Last night the Republic of Ireland soccer team scraped a win against a poor Georgia side. I’ve seen some bad games of football in my life but by Jaysis, it was painful to watch. Georgia scored after 46 seconds and then were content to sit back for the rest of the game, which seemed a good tactic considering the impotence of the Irish attack. I reckon all would have went well for the Georgians if the referee hadn’t decided to gift Ireland a penalty for no reason in the second half. After that, it came as no surprise that Ireland scored again. The goal celebration of Robbie Keane was euphoric enough to make anyone believe that going 2-1 up against Georgia at home in the 80th minute is something worth getting euphoric about. Maybe I’m a killjoy but I think that was shameful. In such a shite World Cup qualifier, a bit of humility wouldn’t have gone amiss, especially considering the fans paid around €50 for the privilege (I watched it on the telly thank God). I cringe at the thought of them playing a decent team. I was looking forward to all this being pondered by the panel after the game - I expected Eamonn Dunphy to rip into the team, the manager and the FAI but to my disappointment he was very subdued in his criticism. Fleeting references to two of Ireland’s best players not even being picked for the squad were made but any anger he felt over that didn’t show. He must have used up all his anger on Saturday night during the Late Late show when he was talking about the recession. That was vintage Dunphy. He was passionate and emotional because he was discussing a serious issue, but even then he didn’t go half far enough in expressing what’s actually happening.

For anyone who missed the end of the Late Late Show on Saturday night, it was fascinating stuff. As unlikely as that sounds (I happened to come across it by accident while flicking through the channels) and as much as I dislike Pat Kenny as the next person, it was a great insight into the way the country seems to be ‘dealing’ with the ‘economic crisis’. Not that Pat Kenny was anything to do with how insightful it was. His bland and often irrelevant questions often led to bland and irrelevant answers from the two other middle aged men with Dunphy. The senator defended Biffo and the other scoundrel from the moneyed class slobbered on about how “we shouldn’t get caught up in obsessing about taking our anger out on bankers”. Rightly Dunphy got wound up by all the nonsense coming from the other two and said that the people that caused the crisis should be brought to justice. He went on to say that as much as he respected Biffo for “giving his life to public service” he was wrong not to attempt to hold such people to account. Tears weld up in his eyes when he reminisced about when his own father lost his job all those years ago and how he knows how difficult it is for working families being threatened with losing their homes. All this got a good response from the studio audience who clapped at his more honest analysis of the situation. People have had enough of official apologists and their servile explanations of the crisis - most people recognise bullshit for what it is. Despite this, there is a lot of confusion about what should be done. Taking to the streets is very much on the agenda but unless people are demanding real change- i.e. revolutionary change, then they are going to be screwed over even more than they have been. I understand Dunphy’s difficulty in expressing a more truthful/radical analysis of the situation considering his prominence on mainstream TV and radio, but it really needs to be said. Biffo deserves zero respect – he is part of a political class that looks out for itself and not the people – that is the case for any politician from a mainstream political party. The whole system is rotten to the core. If Dunphy took the same honest approach to this as he does with Chrisiano Ronaldo, he’d be calling us all “petulant brats”. People whinge about the government and yet, with infantile expectations, they expect the same crowd of gangsters to get us out of the mess. It’s time we collectively grew up, grab the social/economic bull by the horns and stop wallowing in our own misery.