Paddy's A Soft Day in EL Passo ?

Let this blog lapse for a couple of weeks due to priorities shifting so for the 20 or so regular readers (that’s maybe 2 now !) apologies, here comes another rant…

Paddys Day..or is that Paddy's weekend ? or indeed as the drinks companies would like to have us now believe: Paddys week ! Anyway it all came and went and I worked right through it, national holiday's just don't put bread on my table, offer inspiration or liberation, future focus freedom or contribute a cent to cashflow, today's mass marketing debacle does not respect my sense of global identity or actually bond me to anyone, at least not now while I'm resident here surrounded by the other 4 million paddy's day patriots. (obviously if you find yourself isolated abroad the whole paddy's day celebrations offer completely different handles and hooks to hold onto and attach some fantasy about what it is to be born Irish - leprechauns 800 years of oppression, the land of saints and scholars, pints of stout, Celtic tiger cubs anyone ?)
My soft truth is that while I was some sort of nationalist in demographic and political analysis terms, I was raised speaking Irish and English in a working class multichannel area where all the clearest television singles were received from U.K. stations back when the UK was actually GB. The fact that my home town became known as El Passo, due to it's border location and gun slinging population didn't inspire confidence in bereft 70s and 80s Ireland. Whether certain people care to admit that or not, through 'the troubles', which were more than mere trouble my memory of that time was unrelenting bombing, maiming, shooting, deception, aggression, oppression, murder, collusion, butchery, sacrifice, terror, intimidation, evil, loss and sadness on every side, the in-human behavior that went on in the name of great states, struggling freedom fighters, community protectors or policy enforcers, somehow drained my enthusiasm for political rhetoric and the idea of politically motivated ownership of a fantasy island covered in green and gold. All we want is the power to determine our own future ?


IMHO personal choice is the only power worth having, often we deny it to ourselves because we conjure enemies and other adversarial ideas that thwart our course and restrict the range of choice, while social, economic and political factors will govern our material choices, educational standards build glass ceilings of knowledge and financial status encases us in a semitransparent demographic box, the hard choices come with spiritual freedom, decide to belong, decide to follow, decide to lead, decide not to decide. Forget about paddy all together.