New County Mayor for Cork: U.S. Corporations, U.S. First Ladies and bloodthirsty U.S. Secretary of State eulogized – Whats going on here then?
Cork gets new County Mayor – and acceptance speech leads to bizarre championing of neoliberal icons Steve Jobs, M. Obama and Hilary Clinton.
What, we may ask, is going on here? Of course we can only speculate as to what exactly goes on in the head of a modern day Irish politician or County Mayor, and in truth we would rather not – so perhaps a quick consideration of the current ideological world view of what the vast majority of our elected representatives today describe themselves as – the moderate centre-ground – will be more apt and appropriate.
The Liberal centre in Irish politics – in its obsession with the icons of modern-day imperialism & neo-liberal rapacious capitalism, hides a dark conservative black heart. Behind the veneer of diversity, openness and a false sense of ‘progress’, is an ignorance of the economic and military imperialism that leads to ever increasing inequality at home and mass exploitation alongside genocidal wars in the outreaches of today’s imperial fringe.
The imperialist fringes of today are of course the sweat-shops of China and the Indian sub-continent (where Apple Corporation and others exploit workers), as well as the killing fields of the Middle East and North Africa (where the Obama presidency fired up to 70 bombs a day – aided, abetted and celebrated by Hilary Clinton).
At home in Ireland, foreign corporations provide a limited taxable pool of workers, while escaping relatively tax free with the profits produced off the back of Irish workers labour. The fact that Ireland stubbornly refuses to develop its own industrial base and economic development based on its own productive forces and capabilities may explain here the reasons for the new County Mayor’s decision to sing the praises of the global icons of the neoliberal world economic order.
There are no giants of home grown business and industrial production, no native enterprises to celebrate the collective work of a community labouring to provide its own necessities – only pitiful gombeen middle men and sleeveen sweet-talkers that have sold the nation into never-ending dependence and subservience to the global market.
Alas, up pop the Obamas and the Clintons, Steve Jobs and the global corporate elite to fill the jargon loaded political discourses and speech writing of the Irish political classes – themselves in train to the maintaining of existing class privileges – serving the interests of international investors and exploiters, in order to maintain sly and pitiful advantage over their own community and neighbours.
