Today, Wednesday, I wrote these three comments…

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I’m with Furrylugs on this: now is not the time for imagination fatigue, brain drain, mind strike…

Now’s the time for ratcheting up the creativity, both on

  • the task of thinking through the problem (the crisis, its antecedents and opportunities) &
  • the task of organisation,leadership, method and process

Sunday is a family day in my house, though the Ides are perfect (15 March @ Tullamore). However, we should be able to have a virtual convention on here.

Let me be explicit with a challenging request…

The Challenge: prove yourself able to design a process fit for the task (see above)

The prize : reputation forever, and maybe even seedcorn funding for your business.

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Before commenting on David’s latest sermon, I’d like to make a plea: let us hear no more negative remarks that compare RoI to so-called “banana republics”. I for one love bananas and banana-ism remarks are hurtful to many. It is a terrible insult to banana republics to put RoI in the same boat.

Come out of hiding you magnificent 10, you used to be role models for Mr Cowen & Mr Lenihan. We have no interest in stringing you up - it’s enough to stick needles in your effigies. Hopefully most people have realised the folly of involving lawyers, the counter-productive nature of taking legal action against you.

Public and political disgrace is another matter. The longer you stay away from confession the more brutal voices will be raised. If you hide away much longer, you may have to emigrate and take your children and grandchildren with you. I am persuaded that at least one very senior cabinet member is horribly involved with the Anglo scandal.

Concerning David’s inspired invitation to use Roman Catholic confessional practice, I love the way this will bring out into the open interesting differences exist among critics of the disaster. He has thrown down a gauntlet: are you for revenge or recovery, punishment or revival?

I’m reminded of the end of Wagner’s Ring.

Brunnhilde starts with:

“Peace with your cries
of useless lament!
For you have all betrayed me;
for vengeance here I am come…”

and went on…

“He truest of all men,
betrayed me,
that I in grief might grow wise!

and finally…

“Brunnhilde greets you as wife!”
 
[The betrayed woman, who’d given up the gods for a human fate, was so consumed by love that she conquered her will to hate.]

The music at the end of the Ring says it all. Redemption is what it’s all about…

We so need redeeming behaviour from redeemed hearts. I too suggest we cannot afford to see a funeral cortège of destroyed businesses.

How people respond to David’s piece will reveal a lot. Thank you very much for an inspired strategy. I’m jealous of your skill.

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Tim,
I thank you for taking the trouble to put the lists of proposed action in one place on the previous thread. I think I’ll work on presenting it in a more digestible form…

I must say I’m taken aback by your…

“I still want the crooks punished, and they should be, as they are never remorseful and I intend to turn up to the national protest on Saturday at 2pm at Parnell Square (so fitting).”

I wasn’t expecting that. Also when you followed up by urging caution - in case it would be hard to charge culprits (my word) with criminal acts (or civil action) - I was perplexed and confused. Were you letting off steam? Of course you were, and I’d be disappointed if you weren’t incredibly angry. But do you mean to say that you favour legal proceedings?

I’ll bore people if I repeat again my hope that lawyers will not be enriched by such action. Public scrutiny, in the form of a parliamentary committee, open to all media, would be our best way to ensure this sort of behaviour never happens again.

I’ll support the proposal that aims to confiscate profits made on property development but suspect those profits will prove to be unavailable, and debt remission appropriate.

To those rushing to punish bankers:

whose job is it to ensure we live in a safe society, with security for our children and grandchildren? You all know and agree, it’s our democratically elected government, to whom we delegate that responsibility. Let’s remember the state is there to protect citizens and the organs of state were temporarily entrusted to Fianna Fail throughout these years. Today it emerges that Mr Cowen, as minister for finance, made important decisions that may well have symbolically, and actually, cemented the culture of inordinate risk taking.

I have nothing against risk takers.

I admire them and the magnificent achievements of entrepreneurial capitalism. In this respect I am an unreconstructed Marxist, who once read Das Kapital Vols 1-3 for breakfast. But when the state is commandeered for the purpose of insider trading on a grand scale, the time for a revolution is come.

I have been hoping Mr Cowen will understand that the country has need of a new contract between citizen and state. I’ve been hoping he would metamorphose into a leader fit for purpose. Each day that passes with him defending the government’s record is one more nail in the coffin of my hope. By Saturday, there may be an irreversible process of collapse. I feel for the man. He seems totally out of his depth. His culpability may be sapping his strength. Right now, he’s dead on his feet.

The internal contradictions of capitalism have advanced to the point where the market can no longer be trusted to operate - because the greed of the ruling class was not tempered by its politicians. [That’s my story of the death knell of the capitalist system.] But are there sufficient honest people of influence in Ireland to take over? Politicians we citizens can rely on to maintain a sense of moral decency and rectitude.

I fear not. And hope I’m wrong.

As for me not understanding David McWilliams, I’d love to know whether David McWilliams thinks I’ve misrepresented his intention. If this was a normal blog, the author of the post would re-enter the fray at some stage. Thankfully I’m happy that I’ve done my best to read his intention.