Rage within the Machine

One of the sure signs that cages are rattled amongst the architects of this crisis is the anger with which dissent is met. Earlier today Conor McCabe crystallised an excellent argument about mass media doing exactly what they're supposed to do: culminating in shouty rage which is amplified by Frontline and Liveline. Conor writes of mainstream media in Ireland: 

"Today, when you turn on the radio, pick up a newspaper, or watch the TV, all you see and hear is screaming. Blind, mindless panic. They didn’t know what was going on back in 2006, and they sure as hell haven’t got a clue as to what is going on today. They don’t understand. Their way of seeing the world is out of step with the way the world works."

What they didn't know about the DDDA as a branch of Anglo-Irish Bank in 2006, they certainly do not know how a government austerity programme will tear the heart out of communities across this country.  The blind panic that has set in in Montrose and other places comes from an inability to consider alternatives. Remembering of course that There Is No Alternative, the timing, let alone the content, of this budget is never questioned. Why we should have an election now is never given serious consideration.

Watching The Week in Politics, you can see the anger bubbling under Sean O'Rourke's neatly groomed surface. He desperately wants politicians to answer his meaningless questions and at the same time he is unable to frame anything meaningful beyond the orthodoxy. This is but an echo though of the kind of intemperate macho manner we regularly see from The Brians, from that unlovable rogue Bertie or from Dermot Ahern. In case we needed reminding, here's the standard template. Ahern just doesn't get the idea that people might disagree with him. It's not that there's some false consciousness at play here: he just does not understand why people ask questions. 

This impatience with dissent is also seen in the press conference held on November 21, following questions posed by Vincent Browne. Brian Cowen is asked a question that sits outside an orthodoxy that he has prepared for. His address of Browne by his first name is an attempt to get him on side but also to take the effect of the question into the personal, not the political. About 5 and half minutes into this short excerpt you can see similar impatience. Again and again, in the Dail and at such conferences, we see The Brians using their fists to emphasise points urging us "to get behind" their plans.

The only way that Cowen in particular knows how to communicate an important point is by raising his voice. It is as if anything outside a prepared script is subject to 'actual emotion', the mask slips and the macho posturing is revealed. All else is technocratic twaddle. The additional effect of much of this impatience of course is that alternatives are communicated as outside what constitutes the norm. We see this again in the utterance that Fianna Fail's current low poll numbers are because of "tough decisions that must be taken", and not because they've screwed it up.