Support Real People

I indefinitely paused the paid subscription option on my Substack. I received a notification today for €6.67 from Stripe and I just thought to myself, is that really too much to lose for the price of absolute integrity. Monetary gain (however small) was never a conscious choice for me in this. I only have about 12 paid subscribers and it is not something you could ever make a living out of anyway so I decided to cancel. I don’t feel comfortable taking anyones money anymore. Not when many of our people are suffering. I don’t want to profit in even the smallest way from that. There is now no mechanism I can receive money through, from anyone anymore. There was a time when I put out consistent detailed content that took up lots of my time, resources and research. It encroached regularly into my leisure time so any extra few quid was welcome.

Now that the message is largely out to the public, thousands of people are now active and many of the things I was trying to warn about have already come to pass and people can see with their own eyes, I don’t feel it necessary to put out as many articles as I once did. My time with my family is precious and at times it has taken up far too much of it. I will try offset any resistance I engage in going forward against that and only personally get involved in things I believe will open up new terrain and expand the discussion further. When I feel the need to say something now, I tend to put up more short form stuff on Facebook anyway and even my Substack was always open subscription and free to read. I never put a single article behind a paywall. I never once asked for anyone to become a paid subscriber, anyone who chose that option did so entirely out of the goodness of their own heart and their belief I was providing a good service and platform for people to both read and discuss with me in the comments. I’m in this for real. For my family and for my country and I am in this with you, my people who are also real and also want what’s best for our country and people.

Which brings me to the point I want to make. I don’t know if these protests are controlled. I don’t know if the people will be shafted today at this meeting (although I know the state and whoever they are meeting with will try their level best to shaft them), that is up to the protesters to accept the terms and go home or dig in if they are not happy. Totally their business and their choice. I support them either way. This whole thing may well go nowhere and may well be blamed on shortages and other negative things to come down the line, who knows. But not to try is to already fail and I salute you all. Every last one of you.

Experience tells us that failure (in this single endeavour) is probably the most likely outcome, but if I was to choose action with the result of disappointment as opposed to inaction with the same result I would choose the former all day long. Every single act of resistance is a thread in the overall tapestry of the revolution. I will always offer my support to the people on the ground doing the actual work rather than online philosophers who have never attended a protest in their lives and pour cold water on the efforts of people who provide them with their content. If you want to support a movement going forward, financially or otherwise, it will be better served giving your money, time and energy to the people on the ground on the front line who need it the most. I’d be re-evaluating paid subscriptions to the people who want to milk your minds and pockets but will never have the courage to stand with you. Real community building is what’s needed and what’s important, not online fiction. This is trap I almost fell into myself but I’m glad I recognised it for what it was before it pulled me in to the matrix.

The fact that little cliques exist at the top of representation and membership bodies — and the dirty deals that could be done under the table that go hand in hand — should not be the focus here. That is weak and self defeating attitude. Basically admitting that you have no power because someone above you may make a deal behind your back. Why not instead, accept that these things exist, educate people about it and teach them to hold these people accountable instead of accepting it and doing nothing only trying to position yourself as some sort of sage for knowing this and others stupid for not. Our goal here is to rise the people up is it not, or am I mistaken?

We all know this is how it works by now, you are not educating anyone anymore in this regard. We can either try support salt of the earth working people to fight this dynamic or we can make patronising videos about why they are all thick culchies and encourage everyone to retreat back to the safety of online echo chambers where nothing gets done and no unity takes place. All it does is perpetuate division. Maybe that’s the point? Real life, real contact with real people is how we win, not by arguing online. If the sight of your countrymen coming together and mobilising throughout the country against government inspires you to do nothing more than pour cold water on their efforts, then you should not be listened to and rightly ridiculed. If the fact that the army could be mobilised and on the street fills you with trepidation, then perhaps you are in the wrong game and should retreat back into the temporary safety of your bedroom.

I stopped listening to YouTube intellectuals some time ago now who try to impart their opinions, knowledge and wisdom in an attempt to remote control you from afar. They will only ever stand beside you when you are paying into venues to hear them speak. Their solutions often come from offshore sources and packaged with the alignment with other nations that don’t care about Ireland. Encouragement for the investment of your hope in celebrities, leaders or cult personalities for salvation is also bizarrely muted in favour of looking to every day people for inspiration.

Always manipulating you to look outside of yourself and your own people ultimately leaving you feeling powerless. Looking outward instead of inward, outsourcing your sovereignty. They won’t stand shoulder to shoulder with you on the streets when it matters and will always be on hand to dampen expectations or any expression of unity that facilitates the re-emergence of the human spirit, mystifying you with abstractions and mumbo-jumbo. Real fathers and family men out fighting for their livelihoods for me represent the purest form of resistance that anyone can engage in. These people are the real heroes. Every Irish revolution was built upon this foundation. That is the spirit and energy necessary to struggle and fight for your stake in Ireland’s future.

When things get serious and while you are out on the streets forging real connections with your people and helping them and then you, the absentee content creators will probably be sitting in a plush new studio financed with money from god knows where telling you to relax, trying to calm you down and reassure you that the revolution hasn’t really begun yet and you are naive for believing so. The revolution will never begin if we were to listen to these people. To them your energy is content and they will try to harness and steal that energy and redirect it back towards their Patreon accounts. Only the triers and doers can make the seemingly impossible come to pass. The smallest of steps all plays its part in the overall picture. The smallest contribution makes a ripple. This protest is creating waves regardless of how the state may try to manipulate it, they have these plans regardless so tell me sages, is it best for everyone to just go home now and give up?

Give me the real people any day. The farmer, the fisherman, the builder and the butcher. These I can work with. These I can trust. These are the people who will be the vanguard and will be there on the streets standing with me in real life when the time comes and you need them. They are the people who will fight until the death when they have nothing left to lose because their children depend on them. Give me those people all day long. Warts and all. You can keep the pseudo-celebrity content creators, they’ve reached their expiration date. Real people will always be there to support the efforts of real people taking action, charlatans will obfuscate, mystify and attempt to redirect positive energy back towards themselves.