CATHAL O’SEARCAIGH A FAMILIAR VOICE
April 29, 2009
Now that O’Searcaigh is back in the news I thought some might like to hear /see the man himself.
The body language , tone of voice it’s all too familiar. It sounds much the same as those statements from church leaders telling us that they knew nothing….We’ve seen a hundred Catholic priests and Christian brothers use that same tone…..Fairytales were used in the old days to warn children of dangers …….ironic isn’t it .
….mind you , if it were you or I it would be different….it would be very different.
For further posts on O’Searcaight you’ll find more here.
Paddy O’Gorman The Moral Vacuum Mooney RTE
April 23, 2009
It’s never a good idea to lecture others on morality but when those others use the national airways to abuse the less fortunate in our society then we really have no choice. A new brutality is seeping into the national consciousness and for the most part it goes unchallenged. It’s become normal. It happens slowly bit by bit and many don’t even notice. It creeps up on us. It chips away at our very humanity. Men and women who should know better ……..Pride before a fall…wealth leading to arrogance. A liberal society becoming less liberal by the second. Brutality and intellectual vulgarity feeding off each other.
This afternoon( 22/4/09) on RTE Radio Paddy O’Gorman (speaking on the Mooney Show) declared that the homeless were to blame for being homeless. He said a lot of other things too…that the homeless were all drug addicts , alcoholic and mentally ill….. It was unpleasant listening to say the least. He spoke quietly as a man of some authority might…..when challenged by Mooney he held his ground ….he was sure of his facts ……he might have been an intellectual with that detached air of his. But this reasonable man was wrong in his facts. A display of intellectual vulgarity ….sloppy thinking…enough to impress the new landlord class but not quite enough to stand up to the cold light of day.
O’Gorman is a sort of itinerant nosy-parker. He will walk up to people in a charity shop or dole office and speaking in a somewhat whining social worker tone of voice talk to them as if they were for the most part half wits. It’s entertainment , show business and he, I imagine gets well paid for his trouble. But he doesn’t speak to just anybody. I’ve seen the man in action many time , indeed I’ve stood shoulder to shoulder (literally) with him but he never shoved his microphone in my direction. He studies the crowd , looking in all directions at the same time and then swoops on anyone who seems in any way in awe of him or at least of his microphone. As I say it’s entertainment …..
On the particular programme in question O’Gorman visited some dinner house ( run by Capuchins I think) and spoke to some people who described themselves as being addicted to drugs or alcohol. For some reason or other he jumped to the conclusion that all homeless people are addicts etc. I say he jumped to this conclusion because there is no evidence anywhere to back up this statement. I have been homeless myself in the past on more than one occasion as have some of my family and many of my friends and none of us are drug addicts or drunks. Being homeless is quite different from for example being unemployed. An unemployed person becomes visible to the state as soon as they claim benefit but this does not apply with regard to the homeless. O’Gorman seems to think that all homeless people present themselves at their local penny dinner hall but this is just not true. Why would the homeless want to do this in the first place ? The Government might tell you that they get their statistics from the records of the numbers who present themselves as homeless to Dublin City Council but yet again there is no reason to think that most homeless people actually do present themselves anywhere. When I was homeless I didn’t. Why would I?. O’Gorman repeatedly stated homelessness was not caused by a person not having money. Well , in my case it was purely about having no (or not enough) money. There are no shortage of drug addicted pop stars and the like but few if any ever end up homeless….and why ?……money…The reality is that it’s very easy to become homeless. A request for a rent book from the landlord can be enough to get you pushed out on the street and once on the street it’s not so easy to get a flat even if you can afford it.
Thousands of landlords will just not let a flat or room to anyone they perceive as ‘working class’. I have lived in or near bedsitter land most of my life and have lost count of the number of people who I met who were homeless. I didn’t ask them if they were drug addicts or the like but I’ve no reason to believe that they were. And I don’t recall seeing any of them queing outside the dinner house which I would pass on an almost daily basis.
At one point in the programme a couple of homeless drug addicts praised both the charities and government for the service they were providing for the homeless and O’Gorman simply took what they said on face value. Now if these people had for instance been raised in Catholic Orphanages , if they had been victims of abuse and they implied , as many have , that someone like Stanislaus Kennedy had been implicit in the abuse would he have simply accepted that ? No he would not. He would do what so many have done and told them ” Oh you can’t say that” etc. etc. O’ Gorman is quite happy to slander the less fortune and even give them a voice but they are on a short leash and they know. So they do what people in their position always do , they tell the man what he wants to hear. And they are not stupid , they know the game and know it well…….they have learnt the hard way. If O’Gorman was a serious journalist he would understand all this …..If he had been a fellow homeless drug addict himself he might have heard some very different opinions expressed. The poor have long since learned that charity comes at a cost and a high one at that. We all know that there is no such thing as a free dinner and there is nothing , NOTHING so vicious as a charity worker who is reminded of his prejudices or the fundamental ‘racism’ of his attitude to the poor. Tell any of these kind folk that you don’t like strangers being over familiar with you or that you don’t like being talked down to and you’ve got an enemy for life. O’Gorman would be far better employed if he were to ask some our fine upstanding bishops a few pertinent questions instead of inflicting himself on the less fortunate.
No reasonable person would deny the fact that addiction and poor mental health can contribute to homelessness but to claim that all homeless people fall into this category is pure nonsense. O’Gorman generalises about the homeless and is happy to do so. But his mistake comes from a fundamentally ‘racist’ attitude to those on the bottom of the social ladder. The poor , the less privileged can be , and are , spoken of in a manner that would never be tolerated if they were black or Polish. Substitute the word Blacks or Jewish or Romanians for Poor , Working Class , Homeless etc and most of our journalists would be in jail long since. O’Gorman might claim that he was doing no more than stating a truth but Derek Mooney for one was clearly disturbed by what O’Gorman was saying. Mooney showed great restraint and professionalism not to mention humanity but he couldn’t quite disguise his distaste for what he was hearing. Be it O’Gorman generalising about the homeless or some landlord/home buyer declaring that he/she worked hard to buy their home and now don’t want council tenants within a country mile of it the message is clear. Beggars on horseback. A dirty penny coin looking down on a farthing.
O’Gorman views must not go unchallenged. I have in the past had occasion to criticise Mark O’Halloran for laughing at drug addicts on RTE Radio and just today on the Joe Duffey Show yet more of this kind of thing was to be heard. I was only half listening to Duffy’s programme but at some point they were discussing the problem of anti social behaviour on the Dart. A woman called in and described how she and her husband saw some young woman buying drugs from this fellow. They (the fellow and girl) were ready to get off the train at the station and for some reason or other as soon as the guy got off this woman’s husband prevented the girl from getting off with him. She (the wife) then described how funny it was to see this girl dash off the train at the next station and go running for her drugs. She said the whole thing was very distressing for ‘respectable’ people (like herself) but repeated that the bit about the girl running for her drugs was funny. Duffy himself was not hosting the show but the man standing in for him apparently found nothing wrong with any of this. And this kind of thing is becoming far too common. The O’Hallorans , O’Gormans of this world may not know any better and clearly they don’t but RTE really should.
We see and hear the race card being used on a daily basis to stifle political debate. Anything that might ‘offend’ any group within society is VERBOTER ( regardless of it’s truth or relevance ). Anonymous bureaucrats inform us that we may not say this or that. The last time Europe visited all this on us a man called Hitler was running the show. But you can say what you like about those at the bottom of the social ladder. They no longer matter………….But , in a world where dead bodies are put on display in the local cinema and the popular will of the people (referendum) can be put aside I suppose anything is possible. I’ve said it before , the babarians are no longer at the gate. They’re all in the RTE canteen sipping tea.
Sausages Journalism Culture Blogging.
March 19, 2008
If your in the business of making sausages (or anything practical like that) then here is a great opportunity for you. For a modest fee The Academy will turn you into a journalist. Apart from the increase in salary that this will afford you there are other benefits which you may not be aware of.
For instance , as a journalist you may claim to be a champion of truth . You don’t have to be a good journalist to make this claim nor do you have to have even the vaguest interest in truth. You can also create the illusion that you are intelligent and most people will accept it as fact regardless of how stupid you might be. You can , in short , pass yourself off as a cultured chap with all that that implies. You can even sell your soul and still be applauded for it. Now if you decide not to be a journalist but to remain at the sausage factory then its a different matter altogether. In the latter case you may find yourself being labeled a ‘racist’ or ‘homophobic’ without you even having expressed an opinion on these matters.
Of course you don’t have to take up journalism. You could just as well take a crash course in poetry or film making. Any of these options will transform your situation…
You could of course bypass The Academy , keep the money in your pocket and just learn the ‘lingo’. You could practice in front of the mirror. Just stand in front of a mirror and keep repeating the stock phrases such as ‘multiculturism’ or ‘the right to choose’ or anything else that comes into your head. You don’t have to actually understand anything about these things as no one will notice or even care. But it’s important that you look yourself in the eye without blinking or fidgeting or anything like that. Hence the need to practice in front of the mirror.
Now if your one of those people who find themselves becoming sexually aroused in the company of young people then I definitely recommend becoming a poet……as a sausage maker you’ll only get your head kicked in but if you can string a few words together your on the horses back…
You might even decide to take up the blogging. But you won’t win any points in the Irish Blog Awards as a sausage maker. There are , by the way , no Irish sausage blogs….this in spite of the fact that there is something very appealing about a sausage. A sausage is a sausage. There is something very honest about it. It is , what it says on the label. You can rely on a sausage…And a man who makes sausages is a man deserving of honour.
Cathal O’Searcaigh Mark O’Halloran The Moral Vacuum
March 16, 2008
I have written quite a bit in the last couple of weeks about Cathal O’Searcaigh and the movie , ”Fairytale of Kathmandu“. I have not seen the film and to be honest I have no interest in seeing it. O’Searcaigh is not important to me , nor are the opinions of those who choose to justify him in their various and pathetic ways. So this is my final word on the matter , for what it’s worth….
On Wednesday morning last I got up and had my two cups of coffee , flicked on my laptop and checked my emails. I had my little Sony radio sitting beside the laptop and , as is my habit , I switched it on without any real intention of listening to it…..I like a little ‘background noise’ , I’m one of those people who cannot concentrate without something at least murmuring in the background. The Tubridy Show was on and he , Brian Tubridy was talking to the Irish screen writer Mark O’Halloran but I wasn’t really paying much attention….at least that is , not to begin with.
O’Halloran had been involved in the Irish movie , “ Adam and Paul“, I think he may have acted in it but I have not seen the movie , he may have also written the script , I’m really not sure. The film is about two drug addicts . It’s a ‘day in the life ‘ kind of thing and we are invited to watch as they wander around the streets of Dublin looking for their next fix……It’s a comedy…… Before making the movie O’Halloran had followed drug addicts ( Junkies , as he called them) around the streets and he found it all a great laugh… We know this because he tells us so and he was having a good laugh while recounting the story.
He told a story about two young women , obviously stoned out of their minds , in the middle of O’Connell Street fighting over a choc-ice. He mimicked their voices ……he laughed as he recounted how these women (we can imagine them ) fought in the street like two zombies…..and this was just one of his stories…. He had lots of them , he went to great pains to explain to us how you could have great fun following human derelicts on the streets of Dublin… For , what seemed to me like an eternity , this man laughed and invited us to laugh at the spectacle of those ghost like figures we see wandering the streets of our capital city…..He went on and on ……while still laughing he told us about the young man trying to hold a cigarette in his hand while a needle was hanging from his hand at the same time…..and he laughed and laughed yet again. It was relentless….I sat in my room horrified and sickened hardly believing what I was hearing…..and still it went on …..and on… At one point there was a reference to Beckett and the absurd….but that didn’t diminish the horror of what I was hearing…..
- And O’Searcaigh ? …People keep referring to the fact that he did not feel that he was actually doing anything wrong. …How he was , in his own way , rather innocent….even vulnerable. They wonder why he seemed only too willing to hang himself in front of the camera……We all know the story by now.
But the truth of all of this is really quite simple. O’Searcaigh , like O’Halloran is a moral degenerate. These men have no moral compass to guide them. They are not even aware of the sin they commit. They are , in their own way , truly innocent….but in the wrong way….They do not understand , indeed are incapable of understanding that it is wrong , yes wrong to laugh at , or exploit those who are less fortunate than ourselves. And those who feel the need to say we must not judge in this way (they’ll judges us as ‘racist’ or ‘homophobic’ at the drop of a hat themselves) are no less morally compromised. These media hacks , the paid minions of their media bosses attempt to impose a new morality. Far from being independent they are the lumpen proletaritat in the service of the New European Corporate State. Their morality is ‘modern’ and , when necessary , flexible…….and you need a new morality when trying to justify the ‘free movement of labour’ itself the harbinger of the New European Corporate State. These , the paid servants of their press baron bosses warn of the dangers of racism while our most fundamental rights are being negated by the day…..without as much as a whisper from them. The right to strike abolished for all practical purposes as is the right to free speech….the homeless litter the streets , the sick and aged are treated with contempt , Ireland becomes an economy in place of a country and they have nothing to say…….nothing that is apart from the stock phrases , ‘HOMOPHOBIC’ and ‘RACIST’………….and like O’Searcaight and O’Halloran they are well paid…….and they know how to get an Arts Council grant….in the past we had a name for people like this ……They are the New Ireland……and they have the confidence (arrogance) that goes with new wealth……alongside their masters they have their heads in the trough and are feeding with a frenzy…..
As I said many times , O’Searcaigh is not the real issue and never was. The real issue is both simple and complex at the same time and has to do with the society we inhabit. It has to do with our values , our morality if you want to call it that. But it also has a lot to do with power and how it is exercised. It has to do with a new morality for a New Ireland and how to sell that morality……
The moral relativism of O’Searcaigh did not come from nowhere. He , and the many , the very many who stand by him are a product of the society they live in. Our education system educated these people. And none of this is an accident. It hasn’t just happened. There is , as indeed there always is , a very real logic behind all of this……there is an inevitability about it all….
………..’and we have seen it all before. We’ve seen how , in Hitler’s Germany , millions of good decent people voted into power one of the most evil men in history……and we have asked ourselves how these people could not only let it happen but be willing participants in the affair…and even while we ponder the question our poor , sick and vulnerable lie for days in hospital corridors….with every passing minute our society becomes more uncaring….the rich get even richer while the poor are marginalised…..there is a new brutality in the air…..we have become selfish…..We have become both liberal and intolerant at the same time… we are , if we but knew if , the new barbarians…
No , O’Searcaigh is not important….and his poetry even less so. He is the product of a new Ireland but more importantly the product of a new Europe…..Had he been born twenty years earlier he might have been a Christian Brother. O’Halloran will continue with his movie career….no one will condemn him , no one will point to the obscene racism behind his warped sense of humour…..The journalists of Ireland will continue to prostitute themselves in the pursuit of advancement in their trade…..Tubridy will , no doubt , continue with his radio programme……he will I imagine ,warn us of the danger of racism from time to time…..and he’ll be well paid for it too…
…………………and the landlords of Ireland will smile……..
”Sure isn’t it a great little country”.
You can find a podcast of The Tubridy Show HERE. It may take a few minutes to download depending on the speed of you internet connnection.
