Plus ça Change Plus c'est la même Chose

From the newspaper the "Irish Independent": It was the most warmly welcomed initiative of the millennium celebrations -- a tree planted in the name of every family in the State.

But citizens who believe they own one of the famous "millennium trees", planted under the orders of the late minister Seamus Brennan in 2000, should make sure they have kept the paperwork detailing their ownership.

As concern grows that the Government is planning to sell off the "people's millennium trees'' as part of its privatisation strategy, Fianna Fail's marine and fisheries spokesperson John Browne has warned the Government, the ECB, the EU and the IMF troika to "keep their hands off'' the trees.

Outside of the free millennium candles, the most popular aspect of the celebrations was the assignation of 1.2 million trees, consisting of native oak, ash, birch, alder and Scots pine, to each Irish household as part of the People's Millennium Forests Project Household Tree scheme.

Households received an ownership certificate, with a covering letter from the minister for the environment detailing individual plot numbers where their tree had been planted. The letter noted: "It gives us great pleasure to enclose the certificate of authentication of your household's special tree for the millennium."

Mr Browne, however, believes that if Coillte assets are sold off then the "people's trees will be sold off to pay off the gambling debts of the Irish banks''.

More rhetoric. "When we said it was *yours* what we really meant was that it was *ours* to do with as we pleased, and most especially to sell for profit whenever we wanted and to hell with your children."

It's a grey day here, again, and I'm too easily depressed by news like this.

There are times when it seems to me that there is nothing politicians hold sacred. Not religion, not history, not heritage, not the people, not the language - nothing. They sit on their arses for years and pontificate at election times about the sacred oaths they swear and the responsibilities they take so seriously.

And then, when the elections are over, starts the back-room dealing all over again.

They lie and they lie and the press repeats the lies based on who they like the best or who has the biggest tits or the nicests suits, and in the end there's another two or four or six years gone by and another little bit of who we are gone forever.

I'm not a luddite. Not really. But why is it that this inevitable "change" we hear so much about always results in slightly higer taxes, slightly fewer jobs, slightly uglier cities and towns, and slightly fewer people who care?