Knowing which side thy bread be buttered :: Iran

Wednesday February 08, 2006 11:57

by iosaf

Thanks to our good manners, lack of religious hatred, and famed inter-cultural tolerance, the Irish people have in the last week become one of the few predominantly blue eyed pasty skinned nations of northern europe with a bit of viking past not to be threatened with armageddon. Our cartoonists and children book authors are safe. Our museum of Islamic literature with its oft overlooked iconoclastic illustrations un-molested, Our embassies proud and inviolate. & our butter sales have gone up. Time my friends to remind ourselves of our commercial relations with the state of Iran.
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you'll have a cup of tea and a buttered scone.

As reported by RTE the state news provider of Ireland which has only ever gone off air once (for 4 hours in 1972 nobody remembers why) Irish dairy products are enjoying a slight increase in sales.
http://www.rte.ie/business/2006/0208/food.html

We have much in common with the new fan base of Irish cholesterol. Like us their state begins with an "I" just like in "indymedia". And like us they don't have nuclear power. Because like us, they are a green lot. In fact green is one of their favourite colours and environmental issues are right up there, "the tara of East".

And it wouldn't be surprising therefore to know, that succesive Irish governmental regimes have taken advantage of such proximity of character, to promote Irish trade and of course the interests of the European Union and its predecessor the European Economic Community in that far off land.

Therefore one Larry Goodman, ranked in 2004 by the British Sunday Times newspaper as being worth £234m (€339m).
[The "m" stands for "million"] and at position 17 (or 18) on the European businessman richlist. was entrusted by both FF and FG led governments to sell our Iranian pals meat.

Nothing wrong with that.

Ah but! the meat had already gone through the books of the EEC/EU as having been turned into stew, plopped into cans, and distributed amongst the poor of the realm, so that they might have protein, grow big bones, and feel loyal Europeans one dole day a month. No-one could really get their head around it. And therefore the finest minds of the time, the young progressive democrats legal team, were comissioned to open a tribunal in Dublin and argue about it for many many years.

For those of you with short memories this all happened in and around 1990- a little reminder from the press of the time (October 1990)
"The week started with politicians hurling accusations at one another. It did not quite reach the "No, I didn't! Yes, you did!" level of debate but came close. Fine Gael and Labour demanded that the Government come clean about which Minister(s) made representations to a German bank on behalf of Goodman International. A Government spokesman said that there were absolutely no grounds for such accusations. He went on to counter with the claim that the last Government Minister to publicly align himself with Mr Goodman was Fine Gael TD Austin Deasy, who, three years ago, accompanied him to Iraq. That was topped with the accusation that Dr Garret FitzGerald, as Taoiseach, "maintained a very close liaison with Mr Goodman". Mr Deasy said they had it wrong. He visited Iran, and later Cairo, with Larry Goodman and a number of other beef exporters; nothing wrong with that! Dr Fitzgerald's response was that describing his "limited contact" with Mr Goodman as a close liaison suggested a level of desperation in Fianna Fail. While this lot were in full swing Proinsias de Rossa, leader of the Workers' Party, demanded that both Fianna Fail and Fine Gael confirm that they received donations (£100,000 and £30,000 respectively) from Goodman interests during the 1987 election campaign. He was all but ignored by both parties. By Wednesday evening the German Commerzbank issued a statement denying that it received any assurances from the Taoiseach or any other Government minister in respect of Goodman International. The Government immediately demanded an apology from the opposition parties. Alan Dukes, who was in the thick of the "debate", was just as quick off the mark saying that no apology would be forthcoming. Later in the week after it became known that Ray MacSharry was involved (see below) the two main opposition parties demanded that the Dail be recalled. The Taoiseach dismissed this request out of hand."]

oh yes murkey stuff.

And RTé even got complaints from Mr Goodman who during it all was a regular coffee drinker ( I kid you not) in Bewleys Grafton Street. But they went unheard. In fact most people forgot about how young PD lawyers had come to prominence and the fully paid mortgage, and both butter vouchers and tins of sloppy beef were abandoned by the EU/EEC as it accordingly abandoned its "Social conscience" and turned "big business". (I'm keeping this simple).

So we didn't hear from Mr Goodman for a while, and he went on expanding his beef business in all of europe and the middle east but obviously not India, because they're very sensitive about eating cows in India. [ I'll explain that another time. ]

But in the mid 1990's he roared like a stomping bull back onto the national stage, as our neighbours the dirty unhygeinic brits invented "Mad Cow Disease". This was in fact a secret service attempt to counter the long term effects of americanisation and junk food diet which NATO and Marshall Aid had brought the briton. Resulting in them becoming the most obese people in the EU/EEC. Mr Gummer the minister for food of Mrs Thatcher, stole the recipe for "SBE" from a WMD lab in the Anatarctica and in no time, no-one would touch a Briton's hamburger.

Unfortuanately, the foreigner was less au fait with European geography in those days, and banned all beef grown in the EEC/EU from their shops.

But the government asked mr Goodman to visit Iraq, Iran, Syria and Jordon to sort it out for them.-
http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/1997/12/29/bhead.htm

And he did suffering only 2 TV programmes from the ungrateful nest of stickies in Donnybrook for it, andthough he complained they didn't uphold them!
http://www.bcc.ie/20th%20Annual%20Report%20of%201999.doc
(Thankfully for us all, the ungrateful nest of sticks in Donnybrook are now a thing of the past, and have all gone into retirement).

I'm sure I left out some important details.
Hopefully other readers who are older and wiser than I
will append them together with succint and witty comments.