Monthly Archives: May 2012

By Gavan Titley

Because the young Europeans must now step up to the plate.

Vote yes to supplement Lumumba jokes with feta gags.

To pretend that public expenditure is the root problem. To stop bombs going off in Dublin. To scupper the annoying remnants of democracy on the elastic voodoo of ‘the structural deficit.’

Vote yes if you liked Kenny doing Sarkozy impressions in Athlone. Vote yes for internships.

Vote yes because the treaty is a cushion that will under no circumstances be used to smother you* (*terms and conditions may apply).

Vote yes for that second bailout that we categorically didn’t need.

Vote yes for access to a fund that we can access if we can’t access the bond markets, but for which we will have to borrow billions from the bond markets to pay in our share.

Vote yes to rearrange deckchairs on the iceberg. Vote yes to support Labour’s bid for caviar on the Dail menu.

Yes to a treaty that the Bundestag rejected and the French have declared impossible in its current form.

Vote yes because The Irish Times does fret dreadfully about popular sovereignty. Vote yes because the Shinners will vote no and that 80s vibe still feels nice and comfortable.

Vote yes because Noonan thinks that Ireland being the only country in which this could pass is something to boast about at a business breakfast.

Yes to magical growth plans lashed up on Powerpoint.

Vote yes to pretend the capitalist crisis will go away.

 

Gavan Titley is lecturer in media Studies at NUI Maynooth and vice-chair of the ‘Diaspora, Migration and Media’ section of the European Communication Research Association

The Irish Times nails its ‘all business, all week’ colours to the mast this morning.

It’s stirring stuff.

In Ireland, the issue at stake is not leaving the euro, but there is a similar simplistic refusal among some No campaigners to acknowledge that the alternative to what they call the “austerity treaty” is also austerity.
And almost certainly austerity with spades. Some argue that our EU partners will surely see us right even if we vote No – a bit rich from those who have long decried the supposed malign influence that Berlin and Paris represent. Or that money forgone from a possible second bailout by the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) will be found elsewhere easily, notably by bleeding the rich. It is naïve, wishful thinking and an irresponsible feeding of fanciful narratives to a hurt people that desperately wants to believe comfortable truths. The left owes its constituency better, the truth.

A genuine dialogue on the treaty’s merits is also not helped by the wilful distortion of language that use of terms like “blackmail clause” represents.

…To that end we have come together with partners voluntarily to create the necessary structures for our common project. And, to enjoy the potential benefits of such a robust currency, not least the possibility of using its weight in the markets to create relatively cheap credit, we all agree to play our part.

The ‘left’, eh?

Well, we’re convinced.

Home Truths On The Treaty (Irish Times Editorial)