Freefall

http://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1095155
http://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1095662
Links to a couple of programmes which, if you have an hour or so to spare, will tell you almost everything you need to know about what happened to us over the last decade.

The Ballyhea march format

For our first march, on March 6th 2011, we had 18 people in total, two A4-size sheets stating in not very legible form from a distance of more than about ten feet, BALLYHEA SAYS NO! TO BONDHOLDER BAILOUT; we were more like a motley crew just out for a short stroll than a protest march, but after four more outings, we in Ballyhea have gradually come up with the following format:

1. Just two banners, each about 8’x18”, one for the front of the march, one for the back; the front banner states that BALLYHEA SAYS NO! TO BONDHOLDER BAILOUT; the rear banner says the same, with the addition underneath of JUST A 10-min MARCH, PULL OVER AND JOIN US – this banner is on poles, is held high and faced rearwards so it can be read by several of the trailing cars.

2. No other banners or placards – it’s a single message and the banners front and rear say it all.

3. No chanting, no slogan, rhyming or otherwise.

4. It’s not a silent march (though this would be hugely powerful as a spectacle) but it is quiet, soft conversations going on up and down the march.

5. Lines of three or four, shoulder to shoulder, arms linked across the shoulders in a display of solidarity; if there are kids in the line, hands held.

6. March held at the same time, on the same day every week, from the same starting point along the same route – 11.45am on Sunday morning, from the church car-park to the speed-limit sign on the Cork side of the village and back to the car-park.

All the above evolved over the five weeks of marching so far, and all have a reason:

If we allow other banners/placards, soon we would have various political groupings taking over sections of the march – this is non-political, and in the same way that every man, woman and child in the country is suffering the effects of the extra taxes and extra cuts, we want every man, woman and child to feel they should be part of this protest; that’s employed, unemployed, employee, employer, right, left, centre, old, young and all ages in between, female, male, native, settler; all are welcome, and will be made to feel welcome.

If we have chants it may frighten off those of a quiet disposition, but there’s another reason; every protest march we’ve ever known has been noisy, raucous – as anyone who has ever been in a long-term relationship will surely know, silence too can be a very powerful weapon!

Linking arms across the shoulders is a powerful visual statement of our own bond, a more powerful bond than anything held by the bank creditors.

Same time, same channel – this is an effort at consistency.  If we can get every community marching at the same time on the same day, for that quarter of an hour every week it will bring the whole country together in common cause.  When has that ever happened?

We are totally against major disruption, against any kind of destruction, against confrontation with the Gardaí or anyone else.  As the momentum builds, however, we do plan on extending the campaign, to have mass marches in different areas on different Sundays – significant dates - to pull it all together occasionally.  We hope to kick this off with a central march in Ballyhea on Easter Sunday, the 95^th anniversary of the 1916 Rising, with all the groups from the various areas coming to join us.  Ye bring the sandwiches, we’ll put on the kettle…

The above are guidelines only, with our reasons for same outlined, but we would stress here – we are only amateurs at this protest business, and everyone is free to do their own thing.  If it was made a standard protest, fine, but if you opt to do things differently, why not?  The most critical thing here is to get out and protest, however you choose to do it.

Regards, Diarmuid O'Flynn.

The basic questions

We’re hearing a lot of questions lately about how much we, the Irish people, can afford to pay, about whether we can afford to carry the additional burden of the private bank/bondholder debt imposed on us by the ECB on top of our own sovereign debt.  There’s talk of the ECB tweaking the inflated interest rate they are charging us for their loans, of even perhaps extending the life of the debt, as they look for ways to squeeze every last drop from us.  But what of the more basic questions, the more pertinent questions?

1.  The initial bad investment was made here by the bondholders, which then enabled the banks to make THEIR bad investments, which in turn allowed the developers to make theirs, then in turn again those who bought houses and properties etc. etc.; all the above have now suffered hugely, bar one – those who started it off.  Is it right that those bondholders should now see that bad investment paid off, in full?

2.  Most of those loans, up to 100 billion euro, were taken out by less than 100 decision-makers at the top of the Irish banking system; a) why should all of us, the Irish people, be held accountable for that recklessness by a few, and b) why are those bondholders NOT held accountable for their recklessness, for the fact that they didn’t carry out their own due diligence?

3.  Is it right that these bonds should now be paid off – in full – by us, the Irish people, most of whom had no hand, act or part in any of this, when we are already paying a massive price for the crash of a property boom inflated by the injection of all these billions?  What moral justification is there for that, for demanding that we pay twice – in effect – for the seriously flawed judgement of these bondholders?

These are the most relevant questions of all, and they should be asked by everyone in this country, again and again, until we get credible answers.  In tiny Ballyhea here in North Cork we’re saying ‘No to the bondholder bailout,’ and we’ve been saying it now for five weeks, a protest march at the same time every Sunday, 11.45am; Fermoy have taken up the call, and we now ask every other parish/village/town and city to join us.  Our cause is just, our questions legitimate; we will have answers.

Regards,

Diarmuid O'Flynn.

Ballyhea bondholder bailout protest - the fifth march

April 4th 2011

Dear Sir/Madam;

BALLYHEA SAYS NO! TO BONDHOLDER BAILOUT

The fifth march in the above weekly People’s Protest took place in Ballyhea on Sunday last, again at the regular time of 11.45am.  In what is often presented in deliberately complex and diversionary terms, our protest is based around a few simple and straightforward points:

·        1) Through a combination of factors we have been engulfed in an economic tsunami.

·             2) We, the Irish people, have already suffered hugely; jobs lost, people lost, salaries slashed, levies imposed, tens of thousands in negative equity – on and on.

·          3) The previous government, those who – through their ineptitude – were hugely to blame for getting us into this mess, have paid a massive price, both parties blitzed in the last election.

·      4) Our banking-system is destroyed, no longer functioning as a banking-system should, the price paid for the reckless lending that inflated the nuclear property bubble/bomb.

·        5) Through all this carnage, the bondholders, those who fed the billions to the banks who fed the property bubble, remain untouched and – by orders of the ECB – untouchable.

In Ballyhea, we say ‘no’ to that, and every Sunday at 11.45am until such time as we are heard, we will continue to say ‘no’.  It’s wrong, pure and simple. 

Everyone in this country is already paying a very high price for the recklessness of our bankers, our developers, our government, paying a high price also for our own foolishness in being persuaded by those bankers/developers/politicians.

What price are those bondholders paying for their bad investment, for their poor judgement, for their ineptitude in carrying out due diligence before bankrolling our madcap banks?  The ECB have demanded that we cover the losses of those bondholders – I repeat, in Ballyhea we say no; we’ve suffered our share, let the bondholders suffer theirs.

Contagion; for a variety of reasons the ECB is terrified of it – let’s give them another.  We ask now that parish by parish, village by village, town by town, city by city, the rest of the country join us in our protest, and give our new government our universal backing as they try to get the ECB to see reason.

Regards, Diarmuid O'Flynn.

A Call To Arms

April 1st 2011

A few bullet points to explain the on-going weekly Ballyhea Bondholder Bailout Protest march (every Sunday at 11.45am, our fifth march coming up this Sunday):

·        Since the dawn of time most wars have been about rape and pillage, about slaughter and plunder.

·        The insistence by the ECB in the deal struck with a weak and discredited Irish leadership last November that the bondholders – THEIR bondholders, in the main – be repaid in full was tantamount to a declaration of war on the Irish people, a massive financial yoke placed across our shoulders, ‘tribute’ to be paid to Europe for decades.

·        It’s a bloodless war, no actual rape and slaughter, but we are decimated nevertheless, our youngest, our best and brightest, forced out to seek shelter and succour abroad.

·        Even after all the goings-on of Thursday, the bondholders, those economic gamblers whose billions fuelled the inferno that still rages in this country, are to be left untouched, no price to be paid by them even as we, through penal budget after penal budget, buckle under the yoke fashioned by them.

·        Europe has been quoting ‘moral hazard’, that the Irish have to be taught a lesson – where is the ‘moral hazard’ as applied to these bondholders?

Make no mistake about it, we have been conquered, enslaved, our leadership coerced into accepting a deal that has crippled their own people.  We face huge odds, yes, but if our leadership don’t have the courage to fight on our behalf then we fight for ourselves.  There is still at least €35 billion at stake but it’s not just the money – it’s our sovereignty, our freedom.

In this fight, we need recruits.  The first battleground is Ballyhea, and we’ve been marching now for a month, every Sunday at 11.45am.  Join us, either in your own community or in ours.

Regards,

Diarmuid O'Flynn.

THE FOURTH MARCH

Ballyhea

Charleville

Co. Cork

To whom it concerns, and it still concerns us all;

Again today, again after second Mass in Ballyhea, we held our protest march against what was imposed on us by the ECB last November.  A bailout they called it, and bailout it was alright – a bailout of the bondholders.  It wasn’t a loan either; national bondage is what it was, a people made to assume a burden that wasn’t theirs.

We have a sovereign debt which is ours, and ours alone.  We can point the finger as we like for the current crisis in the public purse and there is more than enough blame to go around – the previous government, inept (at least) as it was; the unions who colluded with them in the rise and rise of the public service wage and pension bill; the ineffective opposition who themselves appeared to be unaware of the looming problems and were happy to keep their own snouts in the trough; and of course we the people, who were only too happy to take all that was being handed out.  As we try to balance the books and get our house back in order we’re paying a heavy price, all of us (those at the bottom of the scale a heavier price than most, but that’s another argument), but that is our debt.  As a sovereign nation, as an honourable nation, we should pay that debt, and we will.

There is another debt, however, the bank/bondholder debt that was imposed on us by the bully-boys of the ECB last November, a debt that was imported from outside.  Those who staked their money on the Irish construction industry, who provided the billions to our banks to fuel the flames that now threaten to engulf us all, were at least as greedy as any single one of us here – surely now they too must feel at least the same level of pain? 

There are people here who were unsecured, who have lost everything – the same rules, surely, should apply to unsecured bondholders? 

There are people whose homes are now worth only a fraction of what they were worth, and who must suffer the consequences of that – those bondholders whose bonds are now worth only a fraction of the original should surely suffer the same fate, yes? 

And what of the ECB itself; a currency was launched with great fanfare a few years ago but – we now know – there were serious flaws.  The ‘one-size-fits-all’ interest rate, the low cost of borrowing - that contributed hugely to the inflation of the property bubble here; the fallout now as the euro comes under attack is also a fault of the incomplete thinking when the new currency was launched.   

Is all of that our fault here?  Demanding now – as the ECB did last November – that the Irish people, as a whole, should shoulder the full burden of all the bank/bondholder debt, is wrong.

In this small parish, we protest that wrong.  It is not a political protest, it is a moral protest.  Last November the ECB came in and rode rough-shod over us, and perhaps – with all their sermons on how we should conduct ourselves – they feel that underfoot is where we belong; we don’t.

We are not trying to attack our own government here, trying to undermine them – far from it.  Through our stand, our march, we are offering them our backing, our support, our courage.  We are a small enough group (though growing) but we believe we have the backing of the vast majority in our parish; we are a small enough parish but we believe we have the backing of the vast majority in this country.  The sovereign debt is our debt, an Irish debt, and that we will pay; the bank/bondholder debt is a private debt, is a European debt, is a European problem – that debt, we will not pay, and it should never have been coupled with the sovereign debt.

We demand now that the bank/bondholder debt should be decoupled from the sovereign debt, should be dealt with separately on a European level; those who fuelled the fire here should also taste the flames.  This Sunday again, and every Sunday until we get satisfaction, we will continue our protest; meet in the church car-park, march begins at 11.45am sharp.  Up to the speed-limit sign and back, less than ten minutes, no placards, no sexy slogan; a small march in a small parish, but making a big point.  Join us, please.

Regards, Diarmuid O'Flynn.

THE PEOPLE'S PROTEST in a nutshell

THE BALLYHEA BONDHOLDER PROTEST MARCH EXPLAINED

Your household has fallen on hard times, the bank sees you as a bad bet and will lend you money only at a penal rate; as parents of a growing family you head for your local friendly Credit Union – the people’s bank – for help.  You explain your case - going to be in deficit for a few years but by dint of hard work and better housekeeping, will then be back in the black.  The Credit Union says ‘fine, no problem, here’s the loan you need to tide you over – oh, by the way, a few reckless friends of yours borrowed a lot of money from some foolish friends of mine and now can’t pay it back; as a condition of the loan you need you're going to have to assume this debt as well, in full - oh, and I'm going to have to charge you additional interest on that because we need to make a few bob on it ourselves also’.

Your local Credit Union would do no such thing, by the way, but if they did, would you sign up to such a deal?  Our twin Brians did, last November.

Take the above scenario and multiply it a million-fold; as a nation we ran into hard times, spent 15 billion euro more than we earned in 2010, for example.  The financial markets were beginning to charge us penal interest rates for our borrowings so in came the IMF and ECB, our friendly European Community bank.  And the ECB demanded of our Brians that as a condition of getting the loan to carry the nation across these next few difficult years, we – the Irish people – would also have to assume the private debts accumulated by our banks to the bondholders, many of whom are friends of our ECB (political investigative blogger Guido Fawkes obtained a list of the Anglo Irish foreign bondholders: German banks, French banks, German investment funds, Goldman Sachs.)

It was a disastrous decision by the previous government, taken at a time when their mandate to govern had long run out, and it was a move vehemently opposed by the opposition of the day.  Two of the major parties of that opposition are now in government, but already they have accepted the principle of this debt, are squabbling now with the ECB only over the interest rate – useless, ‘like giving an aspirin to a heart-attack patient’ is how TCD economist Constantin Gurdgiev describes it.

This additional debt is a millstone around the neck of the Irish people, will surely sink us, force us into a national default.  If that happens, then the cuts we’ve seen to date will pale into insignificance – we’re looking at pensions slashed, social welfare payments slashed, public sector pay slashed.  Don’t believe it?  Check out what happened in Latvia, in Argentina.

We MUST protest what happened last November; as a first step to rehabilitation, the sovereign debt and that private bank/bondholder debt MUST be decoupled, and that private debt dealt with separately.  This Sunday again in Ballyhea, 11.45, gather in the church car-park after second Mass, ten-minute march to the speed-limit sign and back; wherever you're from, please join us, because this concerns you – it should concern us all.