Sunday Independent Stupid Statement of the Week September 18, 2011
Posted by Garibaldy in Sunday Independent Stupid Statement of the Week.trackback
As expected, the Sindo is up in arms about the candidacy of Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness for the presidency of the southern state (and if it’s true that he was the Chief of Staff at a time when the Provos believed themselves to be the legitimate government of the whole island, would this be a second and reduced version of the presidency for him?) Jim Cusack gets in early with the following reference to the proxy bomb horrors which many believe McGuinness personally authorised.
The IRA’s human bomb, international experts believe, inspired the Islamist suicide bomb tactic — Hezbollah in Lebanon, the first group to use suicide bombers worked closely with the IRA.
It took me all of about 45 seconds using google to confirm that suicide bombings in the modern era predate the first proxy bomb attack. Errant nonsense, and even in Cusack’s own terms surely self-defeating as so patently untrue.
The speech of Eoghan Harris at the Liam Lynch commemoration is printed in the paper. For a man who claims to be rescuing Irish history from distortions, it’s an interesting version of republican history.
Like all republicans since 1916, Liam Lynch never faced the fact that the fundamental problem was not to break the connection with England, but to create a connection with Northern Protestants — who rightly feared a repressive Roman Catholic republic.
I take it this wasn’t the right time to wheel out his connections to Cathal Goulding and the reassessment of republicanism he led in the 1960s.
Jody Corcoran proves himself a master of understatement.
Since the property bubble burst, public sector workers have taken a relative hit to their incomes; numbers employed in the sector have also decreased. As a result, the total pay and pensions bill fell by 10 per cent between 2008 and 2010.
A relative hit? I wonder what he would consider a proper hit. Total expropriation maybe? I’d also like to know what percentage of their wages the Sindo journalists have lost on account of NAMA and the rest.
Finally, Daniel McConnell has an article discussing Fine Gael.
Worse than that, the failure to tackle the public sector unions is an abuse of the mandate given to them by a people who overwhelmingly rejected that policy, long espoused by Fianna Fail in the last decade.
Once again, the Sindo needs some help in distinguishing between a majority in parliament and being the largest party there without one. There was no overwhelming mandate for any attach on the public sector or the unions, no matter how much the Sindo likes to pretend there was. And these are the people from whom we get lectures about democracy every week.
Going by some of the comments already posted on this site, it’s hard to know whether this post is Sunday Independent Stupid Statement of the week or Cedarlounge Stupid Statement of the Week.
Maybe it should be called Singing from the Same Hymn-sheet of the Week?
Searing political critique.
Don’t tug your forelock too hard son, it’ll make you go blind.
Huh?
You need to brush up on your sarcasm my dear boy, I was criticising the contributors to this blog, not politics.
You DO know the difference between political critique and a critique of bloggers, yes?
Unless, of course, you think that Cedarlounge constitutes Political Critique!
I mean, what’s the difference between someone here calling Sinn Fein a shower of bastards, and the Sindo doing the same?
If it’s ok for cedarlounge to call Sinn Fein a shower of bastards, SURELY it’s ok for the Sindo to do so as well?
Then again, I don’t have a doctorate so I’m not as clued in to the nuances of searing political critique as yourself, DR. X.
By the way, DR. X, when’s the next James Bond movie coming out? You must have a role in it with a name like that.
“my dear boy”
OK, which one are you? S. Ross? E. Harris? R.D. Edwards herself?
You might actually try substantiating your ‘critique’; although, based on what you’ve contributed so far, it can hardly be called this.
Beyond calling some posters here stupid, you haven’t added anything of value. Luckily for you, this would appear to qualify you for a career in journalism with Ireland’s best selling sunday paper. You can feel safe that there is a job opportunity out there.
“I mean, what’s the difference between someone here calling Sinn Fein a shower of bastards, and the Sindo doing the same?”
Anyone engaging in the ahistorical nonsense of supposed security correspondent Cusack on this site would be called up on it…. I guess they also wouldnt have been paid to write it.
@ roseincrapsisdead
“You might actually try substantiating your ‘critique’; although, based on what you’ve contributed so far, it can hardly be called this.”
You are joking, aren’t you?
You’re actually calling for evidence that there is an anti-sinn fein bloc on cedarlounge?
I have to ask this: are you stupid?
This was just from yesterday:
“this shower of bastards”
“condoning bombing and kneecapping”
“President McGuinness as chief mourner at a funeral for a veteran of 1970s/80s Garda Special Branch or G2? How will the officer corps react to having Martin as the head of the defence forces? I expect a tidal wave of leaks about McGuiness to ‘security correspondents’ between now and October 27 on a scale that will drawf the Donal De Roiste affair”
“if you think Norris has skeletons in his closet…there’s a shed-load of stuff from McGuinness, and some of it’s even on Youtube, why the IRA is right to kill informers etc…I’m looking forward to the footage of the Peter Taylor interview where he’s walking around the Bogside with McG talking about ‘GHQ’ and justifying bombing the shite out of Derry city centre.”
“The Chuckle Brother nominated by King of the Gombeens”
The funniest comment from yesterday, though, was this one:
“Obviously the ULA, such as it is, can’t field a candidate.”
It is an open secret that the ULA were on the verge of backing Robert Ballagh but backed away at the last minute because it would mean backing him in tandem with Sinn Fein – so they cried off.
So, Sinn Fein were all ready to back Ballagh, but it was the ULA who scuppered the deal.
Now, Sinn Fein have gone ahead with their own candidate, and the ULA are beating their chest about the choice of McGuinness.
They could have nominated Ballagh as an agreed candidate, but didn’t want to ‘taint’ themselves.
‘Tis a pity that the Socialist Party don’t feel the same sensitivity when it comes to someone like Billy Hutchinson.
Anyway, now we have Martin McGuinness and roseincrap wants me to show that there’s an actual anti-sinn fein bias on cedarlounge.
There you go. The studious intellectuals of cedarlounge.
Some of them have doctorates, dontchano!
Unfortunately you don’t seem to be able to differentiate between comments on the CLR and ‘An actual anti SF bias on the CLR’. Given that each mnth we advertise An Phoblacht, that we carry Dublin SF statements which on numerous times that I’ve noted approvingly how much I agree with them and I’ve stated many times publicly here that I’ve voted for SF since the early to mid 1990s I’m curious as to this bias. We try for a light touch in moderation as best we can so we tend not to delete every comment come what may that upsets our world views and only those which seem directly trolling or personalised. You can like or not but I’d appreciate you getting your facts right one way or another.
@Troll
“You’re actually calling for evidence that there is an anti-sinn fein bloc on cedarlounge?”
This was your point!?
How the hell was I, or anyone else, supposed to discern that from your reams of bullshit?
To top it off, do you think you are furthering the cause of Sinn Fein by rolling in on the side of the Sindo!? Madness.
How can you fail to differentiate between statements criticising McGuinness and the organisation for feinting left and moving right and statements claiming that Martin McGuiness is responsible for Al Qaeda? One is a debatable but valid argument; the other is pure nonsense based on no facts whatsoever.
And how the hell is a Blog that advertises ‘An Phobalacht’ regularly anti Sinn Fein?
I wonder is Tesco Jones aware that the owners of the site have easy access to his/her IP address and that, therefore, changing alias doesn’t actually hide your usual name? I ask because, given the rank stupidity of his/her contribution, you can’t take for granted that the trolling has been adequately thought through.
If this site, which is to say the people who actually post the articles here, have a bias towards Sinn Fein it is a mostly positive one. They faithfully advertise that flimsy rag An Phoblacht every month, presumably in the misguided belief that somebody cares what’s in it. They advertise statements by Sinn Fein bodies. Despite all evidence to the contrary, they treat the Provos as part of the broad left. I wish they wouldn’t, but you can’t have everything you want.
The contributors to the comments section have a wider set of perspectives. There are people who support just about every grouping on the left, using the broadest possible definition of that term, and people who have no particular affiliation. There are members and supporters of SF and people who are very critical of them. Tesco’s whining is little short of laughable. Defend the record of your party’s privatisers and retired kneecappers. Don’t cry and yap and mewl about other people having the temerity to criticise it.
at wordbystorm:
“you don’t seem to be able to differentiate between comments on the CLR and ‘An actual anti SF bias on the CLR’. ”
Huh? you’ll have to explain that to me. I said anti-sinn fein bias on the clr, not anti-sinn fein bias by the authors on clr.
you Do know the difference, yrs?
Also, you voted for sinn fein while a member of the workers party?
No wonder the party imploded with such tactical voting!
As for being a troll… ugh!
I made a point about the similarity between the comments expressed by commentators on clr and the sunday independent.
The immediate reaction to my comment was sarcasm by Dr. X.
That makes me a troll in the eyes of the cedaristas.
Maybe you need a doctorate to understand that logic.
The point remains, there is no difference between what is said by the anti-sinn fein bloc ON cedarlounge and the Sunday Independent today.
None whatsoever.
@ Mark P:
“I wonder is Tesco Jones aware that the owners of the site have easy access to his/her IP address”
now, now, **** we can all play detective if need be.
[Don't mention people's off-line identities - any more of that and I'll ban you immediately, and yes, that is trolling behaviour].
I suppose that expecting enough political sophistication from a Provo to be able to distinguish between right wing criticism of his party and left wing criticism would probably be holding him to an unrealistically high standard. To this idiot it’s all the same: They’re being mean about us.
Here’s a hint for you, you cretin: The Sunday Independent doesn’t object to Martin McGuinness because of his advocacy for PFI/PPP, his record as a privatiser or his record as a hatchetman for neoliberalism.
Let me get this straight, Mark P…
A left-winger calling Sinn Fein a shower of bastards is an act of political sophistication, but a right-winger calling Sinn Fein a shower of bastards is just scummy?
History is being made at this moment, we are watching the implosion of the EU and the market-based society it has created, and while all of that is happening, the socialist party and the SWP can’t even sit in the same room together without bitching – as was witnessed all too publicly last week in Dun Laoghaire.
history is passing you by, yet again, and it’s all your fault that it is. You can’t see the bigger picture and work together with other Trotskyists!
Unbelievable. you are consigning yourselves to a footnote in Irish history, and it doesn’t have to be that way.
Ah Tesco, you’ll have to do better than that as regards that statement about my voting for SF ‘as a member of WP’. I left the WP at the spilt and went to DL for two years. Strictly speaking I voted for SF while nominally a member of DL, a party that I left functionally in part because I was irritated at the level of anti-SF rhetoric from some people whose occupation of a moral high ground seemed ludicrous. My first vote for SF was Larry O’Toole in 1994 at the European Elections.
As for your phrasing. ‘An actual SF bias on the CLR’ suggests that the CLR itself is biased…
As for the comments yesterday both que, myself, Niall, Garibaldy, shea, ejh, sonofstan, vostoklake, blissett, paul b, all made comments that were either neutral or positive to SF.
Who cares about the anti-SF bloc on CLR? God knows I could spend my life worrying about people who take a different view about issues than me, or I can accept that they will and that that has little or no impact on my views and there’s more important work to get on with.
As for the Presidential election I’m sorry for various reasons that Norris hasn’t made it and doesn’t look likely to but my vote is going to McGuinness.
[Mind you I do agree with you that the shower of bastards comment is pointless rhetoric though your using someone else' offline identity is trolling and will lead to a banning if there's any more].
I realise that reading comprehension isn’t your strong point, either, but in fact nobody called Sinn Fein “a shower of bastards”. I referred to the people due to appear on our Presidential ballot as “a shower of bastards”. And no, that wasn’t a particularly sophisticated political critique, it was an off hand comment.
I’m touched by your concern for the well being of the socialist left in Ireland, by the way. But ultimately, how the left gets on in Ireland isn’t something which is of particular relevance to Sinn Fein except in so far as a strengthened left manages to challenge Sinn Fein and the other parties of privatisation and cuts. You aren’t on our side. Your party privatises and cuts and has fought bitterly against low paid workers who took strike action. You are the enemy, just as much as Fine Gael, Labour, Fianna Fail or the Greens.
That was in response to Tesco Jones, by the way, not WbS whose comment appeared in between.
Well, answer me this then Mark…
if Kieran Allen isn’t the enemy, why do you treat him as such?
It would be really helpful if the ULA could actually PRACTICE some working class unity.
I mean if three groups, all coming from the same strand of Marxism, don’t have the intellectual and practical skills to enable them to see the bigger picture and work together in the greater interest – well, how can they preach working class unity when they can’t even practice Trotskyist unity?
As I said, this is it. These are the days which will shape the future.
Either you are part of it, or you are nothing, a whisper in the records of history.
Organising separate meetings on the same day?
Bickering in public over procedure and who should get asked to what?
Is this how you plan to build the workers’ republic?
history is ready to leave you behind.
Stop your bickering and form your party.
By the way, I am not a member of Sinn Fein, although I love how it is assumed that I am!
I started off by pointing out the hypocrisy of criticizing the Sindo for its comments on Martin McGuinness when similar levels of vitriol are commonly expressed in the comment boxes of cedarlounge.
The response? Sarcasm and vitriol and a veiled threat to ‘out’ me via my IP address.
In response to another comment on this site – the ULA is probably still treated as ‘independents’ because it STILL isn’t a formally-registered party.
At this stage, questions need to be asked as to why that is the case.
and the ULA members have to ask themselves do they really want to argue over procedure while the world changes around them?
Tesco… read what you wrote here and think long and hard about what it means…
I started off by pointing out the hypocrisy of criticizing the Sindo for its comments on Martin McGuinness when similar levels of vitriol are commonly expressed in the comment boxes of cedarlounge.
From the off, as in your very first comment #1 you haven’t bothered to distinguish between the CLR and comments on the CLR. How else to interpret your point about ‘this post’ in comment #1?
And note that no-one, except for you had commented on the criticism of McGuinness in the Sunday Independent in the post Garibaldy wrote – because you were the first person to comment on it!
Now, that indicates that you were attacking Garibaldy for writing that post.
But wait, that makes no sense because how is Garibaldy ‘hypocritical’ for criticising the Sindo when on the McGuinness thread he’d been entirely neutral about McGuinness?
Unless you could see into the future and somehow envision that on this thread there would be attacks on the Sindo for criticising McGuinness.
But wait… that makes no sense either.
Kieran Allen isn’t the enemy, and I don’t treat him as such. There are lots of things I disagree with him about, some of which are important, but he’s fundamentally on the same side. Which isn’t true of Sinn Fein, or of you.
I am not even slightly interested in your “concern trolling” about the United Left. Neither am I even slightly predisposed to believe your attempt to distance yourself from Sinn Fein. Your posts here consist of equal parts whining and yelping about how people are mean about the Provisionals and obviously malicious attempts to stir shit about other formations.
Socialist quiz: who said, of whom, that he was “too rude”?
@ worldbystorm:
“From the off, as in your very first comment #1 you haven’t bothered to distinguish between the CLR and comments on the CLR”
unbelievable.
THIS is my FIRST comment on this thread:
“Going by some of the comments already posted on this site…”
what part of ‘going my some of the comments already posted on this site’ do you not understand?
As for your line about being a member of DL when you voted Sinn Fein and not a member of WP… do you realise that being a member of one party while voting for another is the point I was making, no? The actual party you were a member of is NOT the issue – it’s voting for one WHILE being a member of another that is ridiculous.
Why, it would be like Mark P here voting for joan collins.
Just on your love of language wbs, it’s a bit like watching ‘come dine with me.’ All flashy recipes but it comes from a tin, if you know what I mean.
I have to say, though, those ‘modern literary theory’ primers given out to undergrads are an absolute curse.
As for Mark P’s comments, all I can say is, time is ticking away….
Any chance that the ULA could practice unity before preaching unity – and before it’s all too late?
Believe it.
The continuation of your sentence… that “this post is Sunday Independent Stupid Statement of the week or
Cedarlounge Stupid Statement of the Week” reads like an attack on the CLR and in particular on Garibaldy who wrote it. Now, given that everyone else who read this thread thought likewise there’s no point in getting on your high horse about how innocent you are.
No it’s not ‘ridiculous’ to vote for SF while – and again, read what I wrote, ‘nominally a member of DL’. That ‘nominally’ is a clue. I was at that point a paper member of DL. In any case, when you thought I was a member of WP you were quite happy to ascribe my approach to the collapse of WP, so again, don’t play the innocent here.
Nah, mate, don’t have a clue what you mean about ‘flashy recipes but comes from a tin’ but given you’ve now dipped into abusing me personally I know precisely where you’re coming from.
As for “‘modern literary theory’ primers”crack, I don’t lecture in literary theory, never have, never will. But, interesting that you think that’s what I might have lectured in. Please continue so I get a handle on who you might be. Before I ban you [again, as I suspect this isn't the first time you've been asked to stop commenting here or have been banned outright].
Ejh:
Lenin said it of Stalin. In retrospect it was a bit like criticising Hitler’s dreadful painting.
critisising your own is one thing. being critisised by someone else is compleately different.
critiques get critiqued here. by the looks of things you fairly familiar with what happens on this site. seems to me your offended by other people expressing there right to disagree not praticularly with there line of disagreement. unhealthy attitude to people and politics there.
I seem to have missed all the fun yesterday. Just to be clear as some seem not to have grasped the point of highlighting Jim Cusack’s statement. It wasn’t highlighted as stupid because he was criticising McGuinness and co; it was highlighted because of the stupidity of the clearly false statement about Islamist suicide bombings being inspired by the proxy bombings.
So some of the criticism expressed here is based on a misunderstanding of what the point of the post actually was. Speaking of misunderstandings, at least one of the examples cited as being a criticism of PSF was actually a criticism of the mentality of the security establishment and the media and not a criticism of PSF in the slightest.
A lot of thunder and fury based on not very much I’d say.
>>>The IRA’s human bomb, international experts believe, inspired the Islamist suicide bomb tactic — Hezbollah in Lebanon, the first group to use suicide bombers worked closely with the IRA.
Wait a few years, and this rubbish will start turning up in ‘academic’ studies of the problem.
Eh the truth makes itself manifest eventually.
Eventually the lies of former securocrats will be exposed.
The evidence suggests otherwise – that when the citizens who can personally attest otherwise have died off, the reactionaries can find plenty of useful ‘academic’ patsies who are only too willing to prove that the moon is made of cheese, etc. (the revisionists of the fight for Irish freedom here, the civil rights movement in the US etc.)
Eoghan Harris: “Given what we now know about the cover-up of child sex abuse, about the secret cabals mentioned by the Archbishop of Dublin, about the arrogance of the Vatican in dealing with the Irish Republic, we might admit that some Protestant fears about Rome Rule were well founded.”
“Cough” Kincora Boys’ Home “Cough”.
If your comparing that incident with the Roman Catholic Churches role in similar you have some very serious problems understanding scale, institutionalization and impact – but a clear grip of whataboutry
I am struggling with the notion that the reason for establishing the Northern Irish state was fear of child abuse in Roman Catholic institutions. Presumably Mr Harris, who I understand is quite expert in matters of historiography, will be able to support the suggestion with some references.
“If your comparing that incident with the Roman Catholic Churches role in similar you have some very serious problems understanding scale, institutionalization and impact – but a clear grip of whataboutry”.
Do you agree with Harris’ comments about the RCC
then?
Harris is implying that the Ulster Unionist movement is
retrospectively justified by the RC sex abuse scandals in
the southern State. But the Kincora case proves the NI
statelet failed to protect vulnerable youngsters as well.
Not on the same scale as the RC abuses in Ireland,
of course (and nowhere did I say Kincora was
of the “same scale, institutionalization and impact”
as those RC abuse cases).
It is not “whataboutry” to mention Kincora in
this context.
I love how Harris tries to make the Catholics of
NI almost equally responsible for its sectarian
nature:
“These Protestant fears fed into the formation of Northern Ireland. Unionist fear of the Roman Catholic minority, and Catholic nationalist reaction to these fears, between them spawned a sectarian state, with bigotry on both sides”.
Yes, unionists were correct to reject Rome Rule – the UK is a state that has historically been more manuable to working class interests. As a socialist republican I would find it impossible to vote for McGuinness but do see him as a worthy candidate. Harris is a clown how damages any serious, or correct, position by associating with it – same now he is a neo-unionist as when he was a raging nationalist.
Unionist rejection of ‘rome rule’ was not due to any progressive political inclinations. It was intended to preserve an ethnic caste system in which ‘lesser breeds without the law’ were supposed to keep their heads down and shut up.
Dr. X – would you accept that the likely over one million people who supported the foundation of the northern state may have had a number of different reasons for supporting its creation and maintenance – just as some who fought to found the southern state did so in the hope of progressive social change while the ones who won out had different ideas? Or would you prefer to dress up nationalist and ethnic attitudes displayed by yourself as something else?
Hi Dave.
What makes you think I’m displaying a ‘nationalist and ethnic attitude’ with my comment?
Martin McGuinness said he would see the president facilitating a dialogue around the issue of what type of republic Ireland should be, and also being central in the unfinished business of the peace process, namely national reconciliation.
He said Republicans, including himself, have obligations to heal the wounds of their actions..
http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0918/president.html
-Let us resolve in 2016 to give men like Liam Lynch the respect that is due to all men who died bravely. Let us treat them, however, as fallible human beings, not as infallible republican popes.
Let us step out of their shadow. Our problems are our problems. Let’s start solving them. Let’s get real. Let’s raise up a real republic.-
Eoghan Harris
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/we-must-forget-the-fantasies-of-the-past-and-face-the-tough-truth-2880075.html
There’s really no great fundamental difference now between Martin McGuinness and Eoghan Harris.
So let’s move on to the real political issue: how Ireland’s ruling oligarchy is attempting to use capitalism’s crisis to bolster its political power and material position at the expense of the working class.
“There’s really no great fundamental difference now between Martin McGuinness and Eoghan Harris.”
Could you illuminate us further on your conjecture?
Theres a difference between convincing Unionists to join a United Ireland and embrace Republicanism which you could argue is what McGuinness is doing and totally condemning the concept of Irish Republicanism using any means necessary including disseminating totally false history which is what ex Senator “I’ve been in more political parties than the average man has been in brothels” is doing along with his cohort in the Sindo.
I’ve never been in a brothel.
Yeah its not great I know. Would work in the states though. Just trying to imply the commonly known fact that is the political equivalent of someone who works there. And it ain’t a pimp. Or hired muscle.
“We could start the conversation by asking why Protestant unionists pulled back from republicanism. Protestant republicans invented republicanism. They founded the United Irishmen in 1798. They put their trust in democracy and the common people. They rejected Absolute Monarchy, whether it came from King or Pope”….
-Eoghan Harris.
No, i don’ think Harris and McGuinness would have the same interpretation of Irish history. But the sentiments expressed by Harris here seem to me not too different from those expressed by McGuinness as he accepted the nomination. McGuiness spoke of healing the wounds caused by the IRA, about national reconciliation, and facilitating a dialogue about the nature the Republic.
But the whole presidential circus is really a distraction from the material difficulties caused by capitalism’s ongoing and deepening crisis.
Republicanism lost
Harris was, is and never will be interested in “healing the wounds”. Not only would it put him out of a job as a polemicist, it goes against the man’s belief since the late 70′s. The destruction of Irish Republicanism in all it’s forms and the belief in the nation state (btw I would never say that was the WP’s objective just to clarify. At least they managed to get rid of him but far too late).
Republicanism will go on, as it always has. 300 years surviving is pretty good.
“But the whole presidential circus is really a distraction from the material difficulties caused by capitalism’s ongoing and deepening crisis.”
+1. Its nothing more than a beauty pageant between old men. I know similar things are said about U.S. presidential elections, but at least that office has some power (well as limited by your corporate sponsors). It is an unnecessary distraction from the issues surrounding the financial crisis.
I’d just be done with it and go with the German system of electing their president.
Doesn’t seem to be any Kerrigan this week. Also Eilis
O’Hanlon seems to think RTE has a conspiracy to keep
Eoghan Harris off its airwaves.
O’Hanlon also asks: “Who’d have thought that George Hook would become the scion of drivetime radio? ”
Now Hook always struck me as a somewhat peculiar person, but to be descended from drivetime radio now that’s really bizarre.
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/radio-must-think-outside-box-2880059.html
“The IRA’s human bomb, international experts believe, inspired the Islamist suicide bomb tactic — Hezbollah in Lebanon, the first group to use suicide bombers worked closely with the IRA.”
Hack Cusack obviously believes new and improved history begins during the Regan/Thatcher era. All history before is too old, and therefore unworthy of mention.
The entire structure is pure Goebbels. International “experts” who remain unnamed; who “believe” so need not offer evidence; “inspired” because he can’t produce any formal evidential link between evil muslims and evil republicans – although then he explicity states they were concretely linked on an international level by virtue of him writing that such a link exists. Nor does the fact that the provos didn’t use suicide bombers seem germain to Cusack. Goebbels would be proud.
Wait a minute.
There was, before the beginning of new and improved history, an imperialistic/capitalistic state who used suicide warriors called the Kamikaze. Hmm.
However, I’m sure Hack Cusack is rightly proud of drones. They aren’t suicidal, and they kill innocent men women and children with such modern efficiency whilst leaving the brave warstick warriors comfortable in their air conditioned offices.
Capitalist terrorism is so . . . civilised.
It’s weird, Cusack must be of an age with myself or a bit older and the first suicide bombings I was conscious of were the Tamil ones – but that doesn’t fit with his worldview and of course there were plenty earlier by various groups and groupings of all sorts.
Yeah, but what’s the Tamil link with the provos, WBS?
Come on, lets get with the program, get on the winning team -lol or col (crying out loud).
can’t should be doesn’t with regard to suicide bombing
I sometimes wonder who reads Harris, but when people get so upset over fairly predictible hysterics from him, I sometimes also think: he must be delighted.
Look at the Lynch commemoration. Its a Fianna Fail event. The organisers have to have known Harris’s form. Yet they invited, so what did they expect? In terms of what’s usually said at the Lynch commemoration…it’s no worse than the stuff about Lynch being some kind of Fianna Failer. I remember once hearing a fella going on about ‘no other law’ before defending Liam Lawlor and Ray Burke. (As for the fella who spat at Harris-if your going to make your point, either hit him or don’t go in the first place. Spitting is a bit playground.) While I’m on the subject- Harris wouldn’t have been spat at during a Sinn Fein event, but FF ‘republicans’ feel that have a lot to prove. (Before you ask Harris addressed an Ogra SF meeting in the Teachers Club about 10 years ago. Plenty of give and take but no spitting).
I have heard from someone there that there is doubt over whether the spitting actually occurred.
Havent read the Sunday Indo for almost a decade now. Still alive, nourished. Others take heart!
Thanks for excellent summary here each week which confirms my own judgement that 4-ply toilet paper is cheaper..and softer.
RTE’s Week in Politics led with a cute attack on McGuinness, hounding poor Peadar Tobín asking him repeatedly if it is appropriate to allow McGuinness to be “commander in chief of Ireland’s defense forces”. Funny, haven’t heard it questioned of any other candidate whether *they’re* suitable to send the free-clothes-association boys to one of France’s neo-colonies to build tents.
Poor Sean Sherlock nearly had a heart attack after Peadar mentioned Martin’s name in a sentence with Nelson Mandela.
Poor Peadar was doing fine until he evoked Mandela, he certainly didn’t do himself any favours on that score. Sherlock was unwilling to look too closely at his own family background and the whole thing was unusually amusing when compared with the usual crap you get in the WIP. Several random conversations over the weekend suggest that McGuinness will do a lot better than what’s generally assumed in the meeja. I’m coming around with having a gunslinger in the Aras; if nothing else he could help the OPW cull the deer.
Joe Duffy is having a huge outburst at the moment in relation to McGuinness. Finian McGrath came on the line to defend his decision to back him. Joe’s barely veiled contempt and overbearing attempts at ysterical obfuscation is the best i’ve witnessed in quite a while.
One of the great things about living in the diaspora is that you are spared the horror that is Joe Duffy.
Having a degree of self-control also means I can choose not to listen
…. but, I turned it on. There’s a fella apoplectic at the thought of McGuinness with his “track record” having command of the defense forces. Lol, this is gas. The fella thinks McGuinness doesn’t live in Ireland.
Has anyone made the blindingly obvious point that we’ve had an ex-gunman pres before? (possibly two – did Sean T. ever actually carry a gun?)
Yes. http://twitter.com/#!/jonnyfallon/status/114837097575231488
I’m finding it hard to see why somebody with actual military experience would on those precise grounds be inappropriate as a commander-in-chief.
Dev and Sean T. O’Kelly did not favour the proxy bomb as far as I’m aware. Also while Dev did take up residence in Boland’s Mills for Easter Week it was British shells, and not IRA bombs, that devastated O’Connell Street. Marty in contrast, ordered the destruction of his home town’s centre. Dev never claimed that he left the Irish Volunteers shortly after 1916 either.
Before people here get entirely carried away with defending McGuinness, here is what he had to say about some of the many privatisation schemes he introduced in his time as Minister for Education, a period in which he was the biggest privatiser in Ireland:
“PFI contracts highlight the opportunities for partnership with the private sector in the pursuit of good value for money and the effective use of resources to meet the needs of schools.”
“It is now clear that PFI does offer real potential for value for money solutions to the pressing capital investment needs of our schools generally. My Department will, over the coming months, be consulting with schools authorities and other interested bodies, on its plans for the extended future use of PFI in conjunction with conventional capital new starts”.
“My Department has proved that PPP is a viable method of procuring facilities for young people – just last month the last of four pathfinder projects opened its doors to pupils. My Department will continue to work with school authorities to ensure that the best use can be made of PPP in tackling the backlog in the schools estate. Building on last year’s PPP announcement, I have decided to include two PPP clusters in this year’s capital programme. This will be subject to a value for money deal being secured with the private sector.”
“This is a challenging but exciting project, which will for the first time bring together controlled and integrated school sectors working together within PPP to procure new facilities without in any way compromising the ethos or management of the individual schools and I would hope to pursue this approach further in the future.”
“These two clusters represent new approaches to using PPP and I believe that the Department and the school authorities should continue to explore the opportunities provided by PPP.”
Don’t forget the effective privatisation of the 11 Plus due to the failure to replace the 11 Plus with a comprehensive system rather than simply abolishing it.
Who are you voting for Mark P?
I’ll be spoiling my vote rather than voting for any of the right wing bastards on the ballot.
I’ll probably spoli my vote but here’s one for Mark P;How can one person be so self-righteous every day every week?Do you ever get tired?
Mark P,if your version of socialism is so good how come we haven’t tried it by now?
Self-righteousness comes naturally to me Fergal, It came as part of a package with devastating good looks and sweat which smells like honeysuckle.
Did you actually disagree with anything I said?
And this package that is so devastating was it made by the state or did it come from the dreaded private sector?Or did it come from a workers’ cooperative(my kind of socialism).
I gree with quite a bit of what you said,Marty doesn’t do it for me but like all of us he’s a product of his environment.PPPs are a load of cobblers,good money for old rope.Yet,so of the more innovative and frrer systems of education have come from the dreaded private sector,AS Neill of Summerhill,Dora Russell while some really hideous forms of education have come from the state sector from the Nazis to our own little theocracy.
I’m voting for Mark P (internet guy) in brackets.
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