Mary O'Rourke – The Marie Antoinette of the nation

In a perfect but pathetic caricature of the nation Brendan O’Connor introduced Fianna Fail TD Mary O’Rourke onto his show last Saturday as – Mammy of the Nation.

Marie Antoinette of the Nation would, I think, be a more appropriate title but those who were there would be outraged at my suggestion.

The presenter, Brendan O’Connor is a great admirer of the scumbag, Bertie Ahern. When Ahern was lying his way through a whole series of excuses regarding his finances, O’Connor was taking the country, and in particular the media, to task for attacking such a great patriot.

O’Connor continues to rant on about the state of the country and those responsible for the disaster but, like his Sunday Independent colleague, Jody Corcoran, who is Ahern’s number one fan, his brain thinks that history only began after Cowen’s succession to the throne of power.

The politically ignorant audience would also be outraged at my description of O’Rourke as the Marie Antoinette of the Nation. They just couldn’t get enough of her. There was wild applause at her every utterance, no matter how stupid.

Let’s cover just two points this sub standard politician made.

When asked why she was calling for an election she explained that it would force the Opposition to reveal their plans to save the country.

Such (political) stupidity prevents her from understanding that even if the Opposition said they were going to hand over the country to the president of Zimbabwe, they would still win the next election. (Come to think of it, Mugabe would probably do a better job than our incompetent crowd).

When asked about Cowen she was very supportive, saying that he had turned a corner; (yet another corner turned) that he would lead Fianna Fail into the next election and there was every chance of victory.

Even O’Connor, an apparently strong Fianna Fail supporter, was stunned at O’Rourke’s political ignorance and naivety.

And still the audience applauded.

What we are witnessing here are two extremes of reality.

At one extreme we have a politician who seems to be completely unaware of the part her corruption infected party has played in the destruction of the country

O’Rourke is a senior member of the ruling elite in this country.

She operates comfortably within a largely corrupt political system that has destroyed any semblance of democracy and reduced our country to banana republic status.

She seems to have no problem whatsoever in forcing Irish citizens to pay the price for decades of political, state and business corruption.

She feels no guilt that the legacy of her corruption infected party will be the impoverishment of generations of Irish citizens.

O’Rourke, like the rest of her Fianna Fail colleagues, is a traitor to Ireland and its people.

On the other extreme we have members of the public, including O’Connor, who seem to have no ability whatsoever in identifying the enemy, of identifying those who have brought disaster upon the country.

O’Rourke, and the rest of our sub standard public representatives, is strutting around the media studios of the country being feted as if they were superstars.

If the people in that audience were politically educated they would see immediately that this so called Mammy of the Nation is actually a representative of the corrupt political system that has destroyed their lives and the lives of their children for generations to come.

They would have reacted to her presence with deep anger and thrown her out of the studio with O’Connor, fleeing for his life, close behind her.

It is this yawning gap between the arrogance and corruption of our body politic and the political ignorance of Irish citizens that needs to be bridged and this can only be achieved by a two pronged strategy.

Firstly, it must be instilled in the psyche of Irish citizens that it is they who hold power; that it is the politicians who work for them.

They must be made to realise that democracy is an everyday event and not just a case of voting for the local gangster every five years in return for petty favours.

Secondly, (and this will come about as a consequence if Irish citizens become politically educated) politicians must be made immediately accountable for all their actions.

Initially, this would mean jail sentences and other severe punishments until the disease of corruption was significantly cut out of public life. Only then could we claim to be a functional democracy and begin the long road to recovery.

In such a genuinely democratic environment it would be impossible for a criminal like Haughey to take power and plunder the nation’s resources.

It would be impossible for a scum bag like Bertie Ahern to become Taoiseach and disgrace the nation.

It would be impossible for sub standard politicians like O’Rourke to sit in a television studio doing impressions of Marie Antoinette without suffering the same fate as that aristocratic bitch.

Copy to:
Mary O’Rourke