A friend tells us a home truth.
There’s a tendency amongst the anti-Lisbon crowd to regard anyone who tells a negative home truth as a “bully.” The German Ambassador to Ireland’s recent remarks here are statements of the bleeding obvious to anyone who bothers to inform themselves about the EU.
But what the ambassador said remains what it is. An accurate and truthful assessment of our situation.
Ambassador Christian Pauls is telling the truth. LIbertas don’t like that, and Libertas are probably being quite savvy in recognising that Irish people sometimes don’t like hearing the truth. Indeed, we have been brought up on a generation of politicians who have point blank refused to confront us with reality, hence our shock over the current economic crisis.
Libertas are playing to a receptive audience.
A couple of years ago, we had it all. A roaring economy. Exponentially increasing revenues. And, most importantly, we could still claim to be historical victims. We truly had it all.
Today, our economy is weakening. But more importantly, we’re suddenly not victims anymore. We’re not:
— disadvantaged compared to other “fortunate” EU countries
— suffering due to British oppression
— under the heel of the church
Jesus! How did this come about? For fuck sake — won’t somebody do something?
“It is absolutely extraordinary for a foreign diplomat to try to tell the Irish people what way to vote.”
How can it be more extraordinary than a foreign head of state (Vaclav Klaus) doing the same thing, but in the opposite direction?
Is it too much to hope that Libertas would start building a real political programme for the next five years, should it succeed to get MEPs elected in June 2009?