Anyone unfortunate enough to know what it is like to live with an alcoholic might see a parallel between coping with the insanity of addiction and the dysfunctional Irish political system. In an alcoholic household, the alcoholic is often the last person to admit there is a problem. He or she engages in grandiose thinking. They fail to listen. They act unreasonably. Their behaviour affects the entire household. They fool themselves. They bully. They are unaccountable. They are remarkably self-forgiving. While I am explicitly not stating nor suggesting nor implying that any member of Government is an alcoholic, the parallels are striking. The family is thrown into dysfunction and nobody knows from day to day what will happen next. The only predictable thing is that nothing can be predicted. Eventually, something like sanity is restored when healthy (non-addicted) family members say ‘Enough is enough. We’re not taking this anymore.’ They detach from the alcoholic and sanity can be restored.
Tag Archives: denial
Cowen and Fianna Fail in Denial
We deserve the leaders we get. If Fianna Fail vote confidence in Brian Cowen tonight, its opponents will be delighted and FiannaFail will not deserve to survive. Period. Listening to Cowen, the subtext to his every utterance is ‘denial’. How anyone with an ounce of sense could believe that Cowen is the best man for the job beggars belief. And he tells Morning Ireland on RTE Radio 1 just now that the way he handled the IMF bailout was grand. Even though his stooges Ministers Dermot Ahern and Noel Dempsey were haplessly televised together shaking their head denying the IMF were about to move in one week before the IMF bailout. Well might Dempsey and Ahern grab their pensions and run. Neither would be re-elected. But if FF vote Cowen back in tonight, voting confidence in their ‘leader’ who has led Ireland to such ignominy and distress (denied by Cowen, of course), then FF deserves to go the way of tyrannosaurus rex. Voting for Cowen tonight is nothing other than lemmings sauntering over cliffs and turkeys voting for Christmas. If they do so, they cannot blame Cowen for their demise but themselves. Will De Valera turn in his grave if Sinn Fein leads the Opposition in the next Dail ahead of the rump of FF?