How and Why Ming Flanagan Came a Cropper March 17, 2013

This week the love him or loathe him Libertarian Lefty rural hero-villain Luke Ming Flanagan came a cropper. Seemingly hoist by his own petard, after being exposed as having committed the very same corrupt act that he himself had railed against. His excuses ringing hollow and naive at best. Serves him right is fair comment and he was quite rightly exposed for his hypocrisy. Off with his hypocritical little head, came the cry from the establishment and media. Of course what they really meant was, get that little mouthy git and get him good. Not for the crime of having his points wiped. For them, Luke’s biggest crime was telling on the system, naming names and breaking the conspiracy of silence.

There are 60,000 or so more cases of point wiping, all potentially as bad or worse than Ming’s offence. When these were brought up, the desire to shoot the messenger was palpable and there was ZERO official outrage at the implications of those 60,000 wipings. Comparing the muted establishment reaction that greeted the new Lowry revelations to the hysteria over Ming tells you all you need to know.

Ming has been taken out and shot with outrage by those who couldn’t have cared less about the other cases or about the identites of other not-named Oireachtas members. Ming’s fall from grace has proven that points can be improperly wiped and are wiped. The outrage is that Ming is a hypocrite and not that there are thousands of others in the same boat that everyone in authority wants to forget about. No calls for any other heads were issued, only sympathy that they’d been associated with the rat was forthcoming.

Independent TD Luke Ming Flanagan commented:“This country should protect whistleblowers, it never has and it’s one of the reasons we’re in the hole we are in. We need to protect whistleblowers.”

http://www.thejournal.ie/joan-collins-clare-daly-penalty-points-701259-Dec2012/

So the flawed hypocritical whistleblower is to be reviled and to be cast out and all is to go back to normal. Exposed and disposed of, by a paper with an agenda of returning FF to power, the party whose leader they backed to the hilt when he was in the tribunals, rubbishing whistleblowers and witnesses, and pleading for understanding for human failings.

Their mission in taking out Ming was to say “ ah sure they’re all the same, FF are not so bad after all”. Their rehab mission on FF is working, as they are now up to 29% in today’s opinion poll. A party who has increased the National Debt to a figure approaching the cost of building 2m houses and handing them out for free, but of course there are no free houses, just enormous mortgages.

NAMA, secrecy, payoffs and pensions, a culture of impunity for the powerful combined with shooting the whistleblowers. We never stood a chance of finding out where the money went and we are left with the 2 ½ parties that run the country this way playing musical chairs in perpetuity.

The media advises against voting in radicals who might try and change things, preferring instead to trust a leaderless disinterested and frustrated public to just do what they’re told by the same actors again and again, and that somehow the great unwashed will have reformed themselves which will somehow reform the body politic by osmosis. They the powerful corrupt and their corrupting media set the agenda, they control the message and their message is things are fine the way they are, so they won’t set a reform agenda that threatens their backer’s interests and the status-quo.

Reform without change is impossible. People are led, by the media, by giants like Dev and Collins, by idealism. This country won’t willingly be reformed by those who benefit from it the way it is. To capture the public’s imagination will require new actors and new players.

I’m not naive enough to think that SF/Others would be radically different, but they are different, they’re a threat to the hegemony of the established parties and they’re quite brave about how they vote in Parliaments. Taking on the conservative block on abortion both north and south, while the cute-hoors prevaricate and wring their hands.

They are useful and expendable and crucially they are diluting the power of conservatism and cronyism in the South. To achieve their goal of reunification, they have to do more than get re-elected, they have to produce a country fit for reunification, something that requires the radical reform that the 2 1/2 parties and the Irish establishment and their media don’t want at all.

Shaadi  17.3.2013

Exclusive: Yet Again, O’Brien has to Put the Media Straight……. September 23, 2012

Apparently an RTE regular is the latest in the firing line:

Dear Dustin,

I have come across your work over many years and I have always respected you as a turkey and as one of Ireland’s most informed commentators.

I respect your right to freely express opinions.

However, your remarks about me over the past few months in the context of my media interests have crossed a boundary and you have left me no alternative to the resort of putting out my side of the story.

On Thursday 14 December, 2001, RTE published an article on retail sales in the run up to Christmas. The piece was strewn with factual inaccuracies and was based on the fundamentally false premise that I am corpulent. You perpetuated the lazy myth that I sold Esat Digifone to British Telecom in 2001 for a lot of money and moved to Portugal to avoid tax and eat sweets and further enhance my corpulence.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact I lost almost three quarters of a stone in that year alone. You persist in perpetuating an entirely lazy version of history. I am incredibly disappointed that you accepted inaccuracies which have been peddled by others that insinuated that my body mass has increased in a significant way. As an experienced and respected journalist you are behind the door in not coming forward about the incredible laxity you display in fact checking and adherence to the highest standards.

In relation to the finding of the Moriarty Tribunal you say that the Tribunal claimed “O’Brien gained at least two stone in weight during the period from June 1996…during which the deliberations on the award of the license were underway…’
The vast majority of the pies and cakes to which you refer were all contributed by corporate entities in which I had some involvement and the implication that the sweeties were somehow personal contributions is grossly unfair.

Even more grossly unfair is the finding by the Moriarty Tribunal that Michael Lowry received 1,173,396.00 liquorice all sorts and other benefits from me between July 1996 and December 1999. Take one unbiased look at Michael. He remains as skinny as a rake.
Dustin, you are well aware of my view on the Moriarty findings. I have always believed the Tribunal to be fundamentally flawed for the reason that not one witness who gave evidence ever stated that I had a sweet tooth. The list of witnesses included respected civil servants, government ministers, a Senior Counsel, and a Senior official from a Directorate or the European Commission, all of whom professed themselves to be not too keen on desserts and puddings and treats. This is to say nothing of the international telecoms expert , Prof Michael Andersen, who pronounced himself absolutely antipathetic to sugary snacks.

You really should bear in mind that these tribunals have exactly the same stature in Irish law as Weight Watchers.
They are very far from infallible and indeed are guilty of serious faults in both evidential and procedural undertakings.
The weighing scales do not lie.

However, you have used the idle speculations of afternoon tv programs to question my probity as a thin person with extensive media interests. I do not think it appropriated or justified that I should have no rights to assert my dignity as a skinny ninny in the context of a legally sterile report based on one man’s opinion of my chubbiness. It is not my fault that politicians decided to use Tribunals as a political football. Mary Harney was much plumper than me for many years.
If there was something real and meaningful amiss it should have been dealt with by the authorities who do have legal power and effect.

When the Moriarty Tribunal reported I welcomed the decision of the DPP to refer it to the dustbin of history and the various plumpish friends I have in a particular party have never had any doubt that when the contents of the report are considered in accordance with the proper rules of law and standards of evidence and the process has run its full course I will be vindicated as a perfectly weighted person.

I firmly believe, that in time , people in Ireland will come to understand that we have trampled all over the rights of plump people in sullying their reputations and their civil rights have been grossly impugned just because they had an extra couple of biscuits.

Finally, Dustin, I am putting you on good notice that if you continue to make smart remarks about my weight I will be left with no other avenue but to sue you.

Regards,
D.

Dustin the Turkey: Media Pundit and Former Candidate for Fianna Fowl, the Poultry Party

PaddyJoe (formerly McGillycuddy) 23 September 2012