There's an easy answer to this; A criminal is a person who can go into an airport and blow up and kill innocent people. They can crash into whole buildings, destroying everybody in their path. They can deprive their country of food, shelter and education leaving innocent victims to their own terrifying fates of trying to take care of their children. Criminals own their women and constantly rape and beat them.
They can blame religion for the everything that goes wrong in the World.
Basically, a criminal is a person who hungers only for his own need and is driven by a hatred for others who get in his way.
As I watched the RTE news last night on my laptop from my holiday in Florida. They were reporting a murder which happened in my home town. I listened to the words, 'The man had been a known criminal who had received stolen goods and sold cigarettes in his past.' Although the reporter skimmed over the fact that the man had paid his tax debt to our Central Assets Bureau, he didn't mention that the man had also ran a legit furniture business that he built up from his youth and was forced to sell to pay his taxes. It was one of CAB's successful witch hunt's of the day which is typical of our Irish system. Go after the little people because you'll never catch the big ones.
I happened to grow up beside this 'criminal'. I knew his parents and family really well. I can tell you, they were hard working honest people and they raised their children to work hard.
We were the working class people. People who lived week to week to feed their families and pay their bills. Our parents and grandparents came from the tenements in Dublin. We were always chasing our tail.
We were poor people.
I suppose it's hard for people of wealth and education to understand what that's like. Poor people want nice things too. They want to send their kids to college. They want nice houses and they want to go on fancy holidays. They want to be recognised in society. And you know what? Poor people are not recognised in society. They were and are still discriminated.
God rest my own father, he lost his job in the 70's last recession and it broke his heart to be poor. He wanted better. He wanted a nice car. He dreamed of travelling the world. Unfortunately he died at age 64 when the pressures of raising a big family had just released him.
Not excusing theft, but I can understand why people wanted to make an extra few bob and I certainly know there's a market out there in the poorer society who would buy nice things cheaply or indeed their much needed cigarettes.
When you are earning just enough to pay your bills and feed your family, it's hard to save money and build on it. When I was growing up and I'm only 49, it wasn't heard of to go to college. Maybe one or two girls I knew of. We were never to realise by educating yourself further, that we would have the chance of a higher earning job in our future. We had to work hard with our hands and those who could work harder and longer and were clever enough to make an extra pound were the lucky ones. But we are not all the same. And some crimes are more criminal than others.
This 'criminal' was somebody's husband, somebody's father, somebody's grandfather, somebody's brother. Somebody's son.
What's going on today in Ireland is a different kind of crime. It's more terrorism than the so called terrorism of Ireland's rebel's who lost their lives fighting for Ireland's independence.
These new murderers have no conscience nor reason. These terrorists are killing to keep their drug world their sole empire. Because of the vast amount of money they are making.
Big money makes more big money and that gives these criminals big power. They can pay the best lawyers to keep them free and the best accountants to do their books.
Nobody can catch these big criminals.
So, the RTE will report about the little guys, but these are not Criminals.
Jean xxx
