Commentary
The smell of America
By Paul O’Sullivan
Online Journal Contributing Writer


Oct 23, 2008, 00:17

Recently, I attended a wedding in Dublin. The bride worked with an American investment bank. Inevitably, quite a number of the guests were employed in the financial sector. Legislation to enable the ’700bn bailout in America’ and moves by the Irish Government to guarantee deposit accounts up to a particular value had just been enacted. A whole industry perceived by many as other-worldly, sometimes with a palpable distrust, had just been incorporated into everyday topical conversation.

On that note, I actually overheard the utterance of ‘subprime’ from a gentleman waiting for his pint of stout to settle as the band struck up the first dance.

From a thoroughly enjoyable, fun-filled occasion, my lasting memory is this:

Throughout the day I was in the company of a young American man, perhaps in his late 20s or early 30s, who worked for the same firm as the bride. He had lived and worked in Ireland for several years, married an Irish girl and had little ambition to return to the U.S; allegiance to his country of birth were, for lack of a better adjective, tenuous, at this particular stage in his life anyway. After all, things do change.

As the band played on he took me through an ABC explanation of subprime and other matters he regarded as integral contributory factors to the current U.S. domestic and world financial situation. Interestingly, he also gave his prediction as to how the situation could worsen, including, he said, governments providing similar guarantees for credit accounts. I nodded gravely, knowing too little to credibly question his predictions.

While on subjects of global importance, subjects providing a commonality between people of different nations, we began a conversation about the U.S. presidential race. He was a financial contributor to the Democrats, had done a little work for the party online, whatever that meant. Outlining the strengths and weakness of both candidates he explained why he thought Senator Barack Obama would emerge triumphant, why Sarah Palin had been chosen by the Republicans and all the other topics scrutinised, analysed and hypothesised by media worldwide.

Disconcerted by the lead-weight of our conversation, a proportionally long time listening to the views of another and a steady intake of stout I unleashed my own opinions, albeit with some tactfulness and/or politeness, thankfully.

I asked my new American friend how anybody could take the presidential race seriously; national debates that were, thus far, unchallenging to any man of acceptable political stature, scrupleless political finger-pointing and comedy portrayals of the main characters which aren’t remotely funny because they are just too real to be true satire.

America is, I said, too polarised to examine topics of political concern. And, when it came down to it, rationale for voting would largely be based on political tradition, race and gender, not foreign policy or any other subject which the rhetoric has revolved around. Clearly, George Bush had created a precedent (and perhaps president) which had lowered standards to an unacceptable, farcical level.

As a parting shot I said America was in a cesspit, the odour of which was wafting across every continent. I know, highly melodramatic. But that’s what Guinness does to the tongue sometimes.

His reaction struck me, so much so that I imagined a stars and stripes waving in the wind, his face unable to turn away from it. Because, though his body language indicated he agreed, he did not respond with speech but merely looked at me with a bemused smile and shrugged his shoulders slightly. He would not, or could not, openly criticise the flag.

The next morning, I could not stop contemplating our lengthy conversation, plagued by uncertainty as to whether I had been too critical. To ease this burden I tried to put my feet in his shoes and vice-versa, wondering what he could have said to cause similar offence, something which might have been factually correct but unappealing to accept.

Something like: ‘You Irish think you’re marvellous because you won independence from Britain, but it took you hundreds of years because you couldn’t stop fighting amongst yourselves’ or, more contemporarily, ‘the Celtic-Tiger, such a squander the world has never seen.’ Something that makes one think of their national flag.

Unfortunately, I did not see him at breakfast to apologise.