What Price National Sovereignty?



I don't know what the implications are of having G*d Save the Q***n sung at Croke Park today as far as Irish national identity is concerned. The Godfather of Irish bloggers,Twenty Major suggested the novel compromise of having it performed by the Saw Doctors. Me, I'd re-form the Sex Pistols and get Johnny and the boys to give it a lash. Now there was an Irish band worth its salt.

To be honest, I care not one iota about what ditty a bunch of egg-chasing, no-neck, latent homosexual homophobes choose to preface their futile activities prior to having soapy fun with wet towels in a communal bath. Whatever their national hue, they're all part of the global bourgeois class to me and the main problem with rugby union is the lack of on-pitch fatalities. No, what concerns me today is something of far greater significance than the staging of a violent touch-fest on the hallowed and heavily state subsidised turf of our national stadium.

I've been dragged unwillingly to the blogface today by something of far greater import to the always worrying question of national sovereignty on this small island. It's them damn Yanks again. They're only after breaching our firm but flexible for the right amount of inward investment neutral stance again and dragging us into the early stages of the next skirmish in their quest for global domination.

First it was giving their troops a duty-free stopover at Shannon. Then it was the suspicion that they might be running one way package holidays to Guantanamo through Irish airspace. But now something far more worrying is going on as Bush prepares to topple another domino on the road to World America.

Buried on the front page of yesterday's Irish Times’ business section, a part of the paper that usually goes unread from the letterbox to the litter tray in my house, was the disturbing news that the imperialist running dog, soda pop giants Coke and Pepsi have been using their Irish subsidiaries to rot the teeth and undermine the national morale of the people of Iran.


A pre-emptive strike? Mineral manoeuvres on the Iranian border
These unscrupulous purveyors of fizzy minerals, who have a long history of participation in the ideological arm of Yankee imperialism, are up to their old tricks again and bootlegging their tooth-rotting wares out of Ireland to circumvent US government sanctions on trade with this particular outlet of the axis of evil. My concern is that because of this ploy our plucky wee nation could end up the unwitting accomplice in some latter day equivalent of the Opium Wars.

This is no laughing matter. What happens if the imams and ayatollahs of Tehran get wind of our involvement? They have been rightly denouncing Coke and Pepsi from minarets and mosques for an age, warning the faithful against the perfidious effect of such bloating beverages on the fabric of Farsi culture, not to mention Persian peridontia. It's only a matter of time before they seek to take the war to the enemy. And it'll take more than mobilising the FCA to shield us from the fury of their fundamentalist fulminations.


Imagine the consequences if, tonight of all nights, they decide to declare a sanctions war on the Irish people. A lightning withdrawal of Kofte kebabs and Chicken Shwarmas across Dublin is enough to cause chaos on an average Saturday night. I have seen near riots start because Zaytoon decided to close before the Turk's Head and Isolde's Tower kicked out. A fatwah would be a mere bagatelle beside such retaliation.

But after a 6 Nations tie against the Brits? We are talking a potential national emergency. Why, the stress on the Health Service alone, with demands for the morning after pill reaching unprecedented levels on a Sunday before mass, is enough to bring this proud nation to its knees. What price tax incentives to multinationals when 9 months down the line the national gene pool is swelled to the bursting with neo-natal rugger-buggers because mammy couldn't slake daddy's drunken urges and send him off unconsummated to the land of nod with the remains of a Kubideh still on his shirt-front?

Action must be taken to bring a end to this vile trade in soft drinks before we pay the penalty. You have been warned.....