Bertie (nearly) Hits the Nail on the Head
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anti-capitalism |
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Sunday July 08, 2007 18:22
by w.
Alienation & Suicide in a 'Booming Economy'
In his address to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions conference the Taoiseach asked why people who are fed up with the current economic climate don’t just hang themselves. Maybe he hasn’t checked the statistics recently but it would seem like they are.
Suicide is the primary cause of death for males between the ages of 18 – 34 in Ireland. We also have the 5th highest suicide rate in Europe. There are a myriad of reasons why people kill themselves and I won’t assume to speak on behalf of anyone but Bertie’s comments not only showed his contempt for Irish people but also go part of the way to explaining the problem with the current Irish society.
Bertie stated, “Sitting on the sidelines, cribbing and moaning is a lost opportunity. I don't know how people who engage in that don't commit suicide because frankly the only thing that motivates me is being able to actively change something.”
Bertie’s remarks come from a position of privilege, despite his well constructed image as the people’s Taoiseach he has enjoyed a comfortable life and doesn’t understand the troubles most people actually have to endure, few of us have as many rich mates as him to give us regular ‘loans’ or enjoy actually being in a position to make decisions that matter.
The alienation that our celtic tiger society creates is another world for Bertie, one he will never understand. We suffer alienation at every level within this society, everywhere working people are kept atomised and pacified. From our call centres and the daily commute to the alcohol culture which helps us to escape the grind. We have no real control over our lives as lived, power lies with the bosses, politicians and landlords. Social partnership is slowly eating away what little power workers did have, despite our booming economy we must still work to pay our rent and live for the weekend.
In the streets we are isolated from each other, we fear strangers and public space is rolled back to create shopping districts and car parks, vacuous consumer culture invades everything. Dublin City Council does multi-million euro deals with private advertising companies to turn our cities into nauseating endless billboards and bans, under the pretence of their litter act, posters advertising everything from missing persons to public meetings and protests.
Political power is alienated power, pick your favourite party and hope they don’t turn around and fuck you over by entering coalition and dropping their pre-election promises. Parties don’t represent legitimate power, most people don’t vote, the parties embody our alienation and rule on behalf of certain sections of the population. Clientelism and the alienated-power of party politics erodes our capacity for self-organisation and solidarity, nothing is more isolating and depressing than feeling powerless to control your own life and having no sense of support from the community around you.
While Bertie would like to see us hang ourselves in despair the real task is and always has been to overcome this alienated society through the negation of capitalist social relations. As capitalist industry wreaks havoc on the environment we may be the last generation with anything of value left to fight for, by learning from the lessons of history and organising we can create a new humane world.
“The existing social conditions make the individual feel powerless, He lives in contradiction between what he is and what he would like to be...Either he then becomes fully conscious of the contradiction and it’s causes and so joins the political struggle for a full democracy which entails…the overthrow of capitalism”.
(Berger, 1972)
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Comments (21 of 21)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21Watched the RTE news last night showing Ahern making those remarks and his bumbling interview afterwards. I was appalled to think that this is one of the main people who is supposed to be representative of this country. He has about as much "cop-on" as a street-corner drunk. Surely we deserve better.
Have we got what we need - no. have we got what we deserve - yes. can we change it - no. will it chage in the future - yes.
You can see the idiot's speech here - http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0704/newsspecial_av.html after the ad plays.
Why did ICTU invite him to speak?
Coz of course many of you living in traditional Irish hovels of only two stories or extended luxury bedsits of 35 squared metres don't really have the stairwell or swing space for a proper DIY hanging. You can't really hang yourself properly - you just choke. yeuck. horrible way to go.
My advice to you would be get a pass to a big old building like the taoiseach's office. Lovely staircase there, you could make a political statement as you fall head over heels. All the same- we've wonderful reasons to be happy at our prosperity. See! how it has improved our lives in so many ways. Our school children are polite and know a celtic brooch from a viking clasp, and they've all seen the beaver rats you used to have in Limerick back in the old bad days. & the whale is only massive! really nice contrast between the rodents and lemmings in the glass cases and the whale. It may not be Jurassic park but it's educational. Oh yes. things have got better - we used have no safety procedures in either work or leisure and less than a dozen ambulances per 50,000.............hmmmm..........we still don't.
Actually most male's in Ireland commit suicide through either hanging (47%), drowning or shooting themselves. While most women opt for drowning (32%) followed by hanging and drug overdose.
so males go for hanging (47%), then drowning or shooting themselves and women opt for drowning (32%) hanging or drug overdose. We may never eradicate suicide completely but we're all agreed we have a serious problem in Ireland & need to discuss suicide prevention. We can do this the lighthearted way - stop boys getting guns and give them drugs instead and vice versa for the girls. We could do some outreach & send them to galleries and museums. We could cover up our canals and inland waterways and since the beaches are guarded by the DEA, Gardai, CoastGuard, LV Orla & Michael Douglas no-one is going to be breaking the waves this side of Lamb season.
or we can do it the heavy handed nasty way . I think we've been too easy on our young people for too long. They get away with blue murder. We need hard-hitting bill-board campaigns aimed at shocking and aweing them with pictures of body bags & social workers from primary school level up signalling out the suicidal types & keeping the pressure on them to conform & be normal. I suggest we ask prominent and famous and successful people who failed in their suicide attempts whilst young to come out and explain how their fame and prominence has helped them look back & realise how wrong they could have been. Most of all we need to control rope sales.
Bertie lets us know who he really is. He's not alone , he has his whole cabinet who take a step to the right every time theres a re-shuffle. And now the greens who have reneaged on every election promise to share power with them.
Whatever the reasons are, that an individual commits suicide, it is an appaling indictment of our leaders insensitivity to say that he thinks you too, should commit suicide if you dont like the way he is running things.
This should be Berties achilles heel but it wont. He is after all known as the teflon fellow. A name he has gotten, but not without help, namely from a toothless media-rte.
This is not only insensitive to victims of suicide and their families left behind, but an insult to us all. The graveyard out in Balgriffin is known as the 'un-lucky' graveyard. If you look at the dates on the headstones youll figure out why, if you know the stories youll know even more why it is called this ominous name.
If Berties wish is to fill this and many more graveyards with suicide victims who disagree with the way he is running things he may have this wish come true. I , for one certainly hope not.
the hard way means telling people they are losers and only normal people don't try and commit suicide- instead they succeed. The light hearted way means accepting that many of us have had (especially in youth) suicidal experiences. I know I did. But for the most part we don't talk about these moments afterwards. Quite a few of us have experience of suicide or suicide attempts amongst friends or family members or others in our communities such as schoolmates or neighbours. I'm sure if we were to look hard enough through the killer instinct little tiger genetic go-getter genecode which is the Ahern family tree - we'd find a suicide or suicide attempt too..,
I'm not an expert on suicide nor do I have any considered intellectual or analytic opinions on the phenomona - I admit I lean to the notion of a conflict between the will to live and "tanathos" or the death instinct which is inherently part of our cognitive structure & essential to it. Further I lean to thinking that most suicides seem to occur in late adolescence (up to early 20's) because it is then that our cognitive structures be they physical (the actual grey matter and wiring of our brains or the hormones which flood our body) or psychological (the reactions the hardware provoke based on limited experiences) are the most instable. If I'm not an expert - I at least have the experience of having tried it when young and seeing friends do so (with varying success) and then later in life having to deal in a certain role of bereavement with families I didn't know as they came to terms with the sudden "inexplicable" loss of that young adult "who had everything to live for". My experiences suggest to me that there are in fact clear patterns & thus groups in those who try & yet other patterns and groups in those who succeed . My experiences have also suggested to me that other mitigating and background factors are important - attitudes of wider society, pressures to succeed, weather & lack of individualisation. I am a part-time teacher and spend an average of twenty hours a week in schools and one university helping young people from teenage to young 20's spell properly, express themselves accurately and make noise & sounds in some type of coherent fashion. The two subjects I teach offer me more scope to understand the generational hopes and problems of my students better than if I were teaching them a science or business topic. Personal development is paramount from mid-teenage onwards. My impression is that in Ireland personal development meaning the identification of talents and abilities as a human resources are tailored to the needs of a competitive job market alone. This is to the detriment of Irish culture as much as an underestimated contribution to the social causes of suicidal urges.
Of course besides banning rope and covering the canals and giving the boys drugs - we could always do our best to improve the weather. IT is so striking that the richer the state generally the less sunshine it gets and the more homogenous the adolescent fashions are - and it those states (northern Europe) where kids kill themselves. Whereas in southern europe it is divorced or recently redundant males in their 40's who suicide - if not they murder their wives..,
We've food for thought. No famous succesful Irish go-getter little tiger is going to take the steps & talk. I suggest we do. indymedia has a role
The tide is turning in how suicide prevention is being done in Ireland. Groups like the one I volunteer with, SpunOut.ie, are reaching young people in creative ways and they've recently spearheaded a new 'tough times' campaign with Console, the 3Ts and the HSE. However, they don't have funding so it's hard to sustain this energy. I think the Action on Suicide Alliance are meeting Bertie on Tuesday so let's hope for some positive action!
Ref: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/83104
Obviously, Bertie Ahern never experienced what it is like to discover someone who hanged themselves, or a young girl in my home village who shot herself with her father's gun in the family bathroom. If he had experienced at first hand the traumatic effects it has on everyone in the family and the unbearable pain suffered by all connected with the lost person, he would not be flippant and joke about suicide. There is nothing funny about suicide to those who have lost family members, boyfriend or friend.
Mr. Ahern is obviously a very ignorant, callous man with not an ounce of sensitivity in him to make a joke about something as excruciatingly painful as suicide. Bertie Ahern should stick to the scripts that his PR people write for him. We all know that if he wrote his own speeches he would be gone long ago.
I suggest Mr. Ahern donates the thousands he has in a safe in his office to a suicide awareness campaign and attend some lectures on it to gain some education and a better understanding of issues surrounding suciide. If he did this, he would never joke about it again. Nobody out there can say they will never be affected by suicide - no one, not even Mr. Ahern!
And car crashes.
High density housing, estates with very little private green (no privacy or private entrance) Low earning in a country with highest prices anywhere in europe i'dimagine. everything is private hospitals health insurance & we cannot afford it Some of the reaoning behind this dreadful cause. Everybody is under pressure to have more and keep up with the neighbours and none of us want to see our child without and feel poor. nature..any one think these are some reasons? theres no body
They nearly wet their pants when anarchists start participating on their boards and the full-timer civil servant moderater had to wade in to defend innocent minds.
You lefty and liberal yime shad a choice last election to vote for change, to vote for better mental health care, for a party that has made suicide an issue in the public view. Next time round you better for Fine Gael.
"Bertie’s remarks come from a position of privilege, despite his well constructed image as the people’s Taoiseach he has enjoyed a comfortable life and doesn’t understand the troubles most people actually have to endure."
I dont like Bertie. And is NOW a rich man.
But when he talks about his past and his family, he seems like hes hiding something. You can not say he never had anything bad happen to him when he was a kid. Depression isnt just for the "working class".
Bertie and his corrupt cronies are in the driver's seat only because dumbos like yerselves are a bunch of hypocrites. You got your SSIA dosh just before the election. That was one of the greatest scams to lure voters in the history of the State. And you fell for it like a ton of bricks.
Besides, according to M*A*S*H "Suicide is painless! The unemployment queues are getting longer so it's time to make soylent green out of the useless drones. Avoid the rush. Step up and get your hangman's noose now. If that don't suit you there's always the Cliffs of Moher!
Firstly I would be curious to know where those who got their statistics on methods of suicde got these statistics from? At the moment currently in Ireland there is no national suicide survey into methods of self harm or suicde. Currently there are only two such research programmes in Ireland one in Cork on parasuicde and the other in St Vincents in Dublin which is concentrating only on Drowning and railway deaths. (On an aside these are throwing up very intresting data of clusters of deaths beside HSE run mental health instituitions)Due to lack of funding this reserch has only a very small team of people working on them .One of the few simple demands asked for by the 'action on suicde' group earlier this year was to establish a system for comprehensive, accurate and up to date data on Suicide in Ireland as at the moment there is none.
Also in response to Lemming,I can see your point that perhaps the hardline approach may work but it has been proven again and again in Ireland and countires across the world that a hardline aproach,'snap out of it' attitude accelerates suicidal deaths. Whereas in countries such as Australia and Scotland with well funded suicide prevention schemes the suicde rate is decreasing year in and out.
"'However, they don't have funding so it's hard to sustain this energy. I think the Action on Suicide Alliance are meeting Bertie on Tuesday so let's hope for some positive action! "
Along with spun out,teenline.lets get together foundation,bodywhys and countless other vital services that are all voluntary run.
Berties comments the other day were an insult to all those people who work tirelessly with no funding or backing to help end the sucide epedemic in this country. I dont hold my breath for the meeting on Tuesday. Bertie has shown his ignorance on the matter.He has created a society ripe for young suicide where peoples lives are dominated by money,debt and to quote a rep from Spun out.ie 'a country which has more golf courses then playgrounds.'
For the first time in its 24 year history the International Association for Suicide Prevention holds its annual confrence in Killarney this summer with delegates from Canada to Sydney attending. This will be the arena where Bertie and the ff goverment will be embarrased on a world stage. A country with one of the highest suicde rates and no properly funded suicde prevention programme........a complete disgrace.
All the statistics were taken from reports published online, I'm sure you can find them through google I'm far too lazy to do it for you.
Great quote by Berger too. Everybody should read "ways of seeing".
It was an insensitive remark.
So what?
People speak off the cuff in this manner every day all around the country. I'd prefer politicians to speak instinctively than recite everything off prepared scripts, even if they put their foot in it sometimes.
The media doesn't have the resources to do proper investigative journalism so every word from a public official is scrutinised for how much mileage can be gotten out of it, and sheep on sites like this just lap it up.
You lot, in synch with the MSM, are the thought-police.
I too agree that politicians should speak more fluidly and less prepared however, if they are going to be striaghtforward and direct then why not be that way in other areas of public life like dealing with crime, health and education. Prepared scripts are vomited out again and again creating an apathy towards politics.
So if Bertie would like to be straight forward and direct could he not choose to be so without the pub conversation hyperbole. Iguess I just thought of my friend and his dad who hung himself and how he must have felt hearing the leader of the state be so flippant about suicide.
oh well...
They lied to HAL and he killed them all.
Berties vision of Ireland does not correspond to actuaity. Does he believe that he has presided over the creation of some sort of Celtic Utopia that only a fool would not call paradise, the dogs on the street know better.
I agree with some of what the author of the above article says (Ahern is a moron who might pass as a patriot if he hanged HIMSELF in the morning), but does the author think suicide rates would be any lower in the socialist "utopia", which I'd imagine is being touted here? When people here are finished reclaiming the streets and arresting anyone they see as conservative, do you think redistributing land and wealth is going to lower the rate of suicide? Not at all, because suicide is not a subject dictated by material matters. The rich (particularly the uber-rich) are just as inclined to drink, take drugs and hang themselves as anyone else.
Dropping the suicide rate is not about examining what people have and haven't got, but about helping people to cope with and make the best of what they have at a given time. For instance, the man who has nothing but his family of six kids may never contemplate suicide because of the wealth he draws from their very existence, whereas the rich, childless woman living the high life in Dublin 4 might very possibly be found clinging to life after a drug overdose.