An Extraordinary Moment

 I am going to copy below a little piece which I have just written concerning the failure of Maria Steen to get on the ballot for the Irish presidential election. One may well ask what it has got to do with Sailing the Gannetsway and wouldn't it be better to leave politics out of it? Well, upstream of politics there are not alone physical realities, but spritual and religious ones as well! Dare I say that I was rather too far ahead of the posse in standing for the Christian Solidarity Party in a general election in 1997,- but there was something else that spoiled my campaign and has bedevilled efforts in this direction ever since, by which I mean disagreement about Irish membership of the EU. 

I am inclined to be as critical of the EU as anyone else,- it's just that my instinct is to work with those at home and abroad who wish to renew and reform it rather than to withdraw altogether - but I won't go into that now. The point is that in sailing the coasts from Scotland to the south of Spain, I seek to enjoy and to remind everyone of the ancient links that bind this heartland of Catholic Christianity, visceral spiritual links that seem to arise naturally from the splendid coasts, as indeed do the beautiful churches, cathedrals, calvaires and so on,- links that can actually be fostered by experiencing this wonderful environment and its cultures. There is no better or more authentic way to do it than under sail!

If real change is to be achieved, it will no doubt be in conjunction with others on the Continent and beyond. The same is true for 'the elephant' indicated below. Modern Ireland has a horrible habbit of waiting for others to lead the way. It is too bad that from what I hear, even such political discourse as is occurring on alternative media here about the presidential election continues to avoid this little matter,- but here is an occasion when we might make a useful little statement!

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The Irish political establishment was scared stiff of Maria Steen running for the presidency. There was hard evidence that she had a good chance of being elected, in the fact that she played a leading role in the rejection of their family law referendum. Now we are clearly under the communist and autocratic playbook, where you can only vote for candidates approved of by the Party.

I like to think, though I have no evidence to this effect, that Mrs Steen just might have been instrumental in bringing about some real transparency and accountability with regard to the whole covid fiasco. I’m sure the remotest possibility of this alone would have been sufficient to cause the establishment to make every effort to block her. This however is the famous elephant in the room, that has the credibility of our entire polis undermined. It should have been the starting point of every election since. They will have  to make more and more extreme efforts to suppress the truth, as the evidence, the death and injury pile up. Until it is seriously addressed, we are in mortal danger of falling into outright tyranny, with digital ids etc slouching along to meet us into the bargain. 

Our pols are meanwhile very keen on virtue signalling about the dire ills in a distant location which they know virtually nothing about and where they have no skin in the game, in Palestine. It’s a great distraction and some evidently reckon it makes them look good, standing up for poor mistreated underdogs like Hamas. In Ukraine, some even make Putin out to be a victim, provoked and betrayed by NATO,- at any rate they are equivocal about him. They don't care about, for instance, the continuing stream of ships leaving Aughinish here on the Shannon Estuary, laden with alumina for the Russians to make drones out of. I tried the political route to object a couple of years ago. A waste of time of course! 

Democracy  may be a nice idea, but when it gets in the way of making money…. Where would Ireland be today without, for another instance, the pharmaceutical industry? Covid was a master-stroke, in that it not alone made a heap of money for those behind Big Pharma, but heavily indebted us to the money-masters (probably the same crowd) who are now calling the shots. How long does it take to reduce any starry-eyed politician to compliance? A few tugs on the purse strings! It is because of Jesus’ example that some of us cherish the notion that genuine Christian faith may offer some hope of resistance,- there is that disquieting minority through the ages who actually chose God ahead of Mammon, following the truth within rather than tyrants without!

There is a very serious discontent building up within Ireland among  those of us who disapprove of the path we have been dragged down for this last twenty years or more. Now there is a very simple and non-violent course of action open to all of us. Simply write Maria Steen on the ballot at the presidential election! Even if you disagree with her on some points, and after all our president does not have much power, it will be a vote for real democracy, for justice and for truth, and if enough of us do it, it will send a message that, one might imagine, will be hard to simply ignore, even for that lot! After all that referendum last year did get rid of Leo Varadkar, though the incumbents are no better. We must keep trying to  build an alternative.