Sunday Independent Stupid Statement of the Week October 17, 2010
Posted by Garibaldy in media.trackback
Before we get on to the stupidity, worth noting this story about an IMF report arguing that fiscal “correction” is virtually certain to be damaging, and that raising taxes tends to be more effective than cutting public spending. In addition, one for the football fans. Eamon Sweeney is calling for Trapattoni to get serious or go.
Ruth Dudley Edwards has the solution to our problems. Stop caring about fairness and rights. That’s selfish.
Times are hard and those who brought Western countries to their knees don’t have the money to rescue them. It’s definitely unfair that blameless people have to pay up for problems created by the irresponsible. But we’re much richer than our forebears, we partied during the good times and it’s time we accepted that the money has run out, so we should stop whining and gracefully make sacrifices in the common interest.
For some reason, the phrase “bite the pillow and think of England” just came into my head. As did the phrase “if we thought like her, we’d still be living under feudalism”. And by the way, how come we don’t see her arguing during the good times, as well as the bad, that the better off should have to make sacrifices gracefully through things like high taxation? I wonder.
The Sindo campaign for an all-party consensus on screwing the working class forging economic recovery continues apace. Fianna Fáin Senator Marc Mac Sharry is upset that his call for a consensus made two weeks ago in the Senate has yet to produce results. He is clearly frustrated that the other parties are wondering why they should give the government an easy ride. His solution is quite simple. Not a consensus on strategic investment for job creation; nor a plan for dealing with tax evasion; nor prosecutions and the seizure of assets from those who have lied to and defrauded the government; simply a consenus on cuts
I do not want to be in a Punch and Judy show. I want to hear proposals of where cuts can be made and dispense with the pantomime that has gone on for two weeks. We know the benefits of consensus.
Let us seize the day and start putting forward tangible proposals that will make the necessary savings, but more importantly will lay the foundations for the job creation and growth that will drive national recovery.
Why wait for the cuts to lay the foundations for job creation and growth? Why not act to create them now? I won’t hold my breath for an answer.
One of the joys of the Sindo is the random people who turn up writing columns. Today we have Frederick Forsyth, novelist, and, it would seem, visionary geo-political thinker.
Personally I prefer the Anglo-sphere. The six nations of Britain, Ireland, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have immense wealth, numbers and power. We share history, literature, culture, democracy, jurisprudence and language.
The Irish would never be irrelevant inside a union of English-speakers. Seventeen million Irish-descended US voters see to that. The Irish have far more in common with Canadians than with Bulgarians. We all share the freedoms before the law and the world, bequeathed by the English Bill of Rights of 1689 and the American version a hundred years later.
Perhaps someone should tell him how 1689 worked out in Ireland. And that his plan is plain barking mad.
To end with a personal hobby horse rather than a stupid statement as such. I find myself in the strange position of being in part agreement with Eoghan Harris. He’s back to the theme of World War I, and the Irishmen who went to fight in it. He makes the argument that these people knew what they were doing, and to suggest otherwise is to retrospectively seek to change their politics to suit our agenda, and explain it away.
It’s time we gave our grandfathers back their free will, accepted their actions, and stopped seeking retrospective pardons on their behalf from Sinn Fein — or any other gang of green-shirted Gauleiters.
I agree that it is time we recognised the reality of Irish nationalist decisions to fight in World War I. Irish nationalism, as represented by Redmond, was an imperialist entity. We should recognise this, and view it accordingly. So I agree with the Senator that we should give them back their free will – all the more reason not to pardon them.
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
The working-class Irish who died in their thousands in WW1 did not join the British army out of pro-imperial sentiment. Those from the back lanes off Shandon street in Cork did so for a more basic reason,-economic necessity.
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That’s certainly true of many I’m sure CL. But Redmondism was clearly a pro-imperial political programme, and one that enjoyed huge support. We shouldn’t forget that Irish involvement in the Empire was taken as a given from everyone from O’Connell to Redmond who was not a separatist. Not every worker from Italy or Germany or Britain or wherever who joined up did so from economic necessity. There’s no reason why the Irish should be any different.
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That support for Redmondism was widespread is contradicted by the results of the 1918 general election.
Two of O’Connell’s grandsons died in WW1-and obviously they were not motivated by economic necessity. But for the vast bulk of the working-class Irish who volunteered for the British army the absence of any real economic alternative surely played a large role.
Many an Irish town had a ‘Shell-shock Terrace’ where the maimed veterans of the British army waited for the monthly stipend. And this money went to the family while the soldier served overseas. Very often the choice was between starvation and joining up.
There was even little imperial sentiment among English soldiers, many of whom were driven into battle at gunpoint.
The IRA and other anti-imperial forces have always used recruits who received their military training in imperial armies. Many of the Mau Mau freedom fighters in Kenya were returned British army soldiers from WW2.
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Support for Redmondism had virtually disappeared by 1918 certainly. But not in 1914. Far from it.
I of course accept that economic necessity played a large role.
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There was even little imperial sentiment among English soldiers, many of whom were driven into battle at gunpoint.
The rise in working-class sentiment after both World Wars is instructive of what happens when the true face of the supposed ‘nation’ is exposed, beyond the powers of the media to hide.
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@CL
I can confirm from family history that many of these men traded horrific injuries for family income, and died shortly afterwards.
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Personally I prefer the Anglo-sphere. The six nations of Britain, Ireland, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand
Someone should remind him that “Britain” doesn’t mean England, and that the Welsh and Scots are nations too.
Where would we be without loony Little Englanders for comedy? (and I’ll include Dudley Edwards in that category too)
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Not to mention that Freddie’s “Anglo-sphere” outside of his Britain is composed of English colonies where the WASP ascendancy has either disappeared or likely will in the future.
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I don’t get it. Is there some suggestion that Orangeism is un-Irish?
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I don’t get it. Is there some suggestion that Orangeism is un-Irish?
I think you’ll find that most adherents of Orangeism would argue that the very point is that it isn’t Irish… wouldn’t you agree?
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You are right. But they’d be wrong. However, the whole “we aren’t Irish” aspect of some Loyalism is only about one generation old. My uncle – a lifelong Orangeman – said he was proud to be Irish. It is very sad to find Irish people saying they are not.
Orangeism predates the Union in any case. It certainly isn’t anything other than Irish.
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No the Orange Order is certainly Irish but the British identity they cherish, forged in war and empire, is declining in Britain itself. Scottish and English Nationalism are on the rise and are actually playing off one another. The main threat to the union is no longer in NI.
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Orangeism predates the Union in any case. It certainly isn’t anything other than Irish.
Wouldn’t Scots disagree with this…?
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Robert Skidelsky in his lecture to the ICTU the other night suggested that Ireland needs to discuss leaving the eurozone. The lecture is available on the ICTU website.
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Ruth Dudley Edwards is Irish is she not?
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Are you telling me that there aren’t people in these twenty-six counties who consider themselves more sympathetic to England than to Ireland…?
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Ruth Dudley Edwards is Irish is she not?
Indeed she is. Unfortunately.
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Once again, the sympathy to England is only skin deep. Generally, Ulster unionists don’t like the English any more than the Scots do. I recently had this conversation with an Irish nationalist and it didn’t go well. Basically, the denial of Irishness on the part of some Unionists is an unwelcome trend, in my view, and only plays into the hands of some nationalists who say we aren’t Irish and should “go back to England”. Nationalists too might have to question what it is about their ideology that has produced this (very recent) trend.
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Tim I think you have a point there. Jennifer Todd identified two competing strands in Ulster Unionism: the ‘Ulster British’, who subordinate provincial loyalties to the union as a whole, and the ‘Ulster Loyalists’, for whom the interests of Northern Ireland are paramount and who are essentially Ulster Nationalists. The latter are I think more represented in the DUP. At the last election the DUP were promising to oppose any cuts to Northern Ireland’s block grant, while the UUP (in alliance with the Tories) countered that this was unrealistic and that Northern Ireland had a patriotic duty to carry its load. I’ve always thought that the Ulster Nationalist Prodistan wing of the DUP could be far more easily accomodated in a (federal) united Ireland than the Anglo-liberal wing of the UUP.
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Thanks for the reply, Shane. I think that analysis is correct, there has always been that tension within Unionism.
What a lot of people forget too is that there was a tradition of Republicanism (the 1798 kind) among Ulster Protestants under the surface, particularly among Presbyterians. Calvinism does not sit well with monarchism, and Presbyterians, as one minister told me privately, are reluctant enough to kneel before God let alone the queen.
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Nationalists too might have to question what it is about their ideology that has produced this (very recent) trend.
I’ve never encountered it, so it must be a Northern thing. One thing that is obvious, though, is how much of the Anglo-Irish population has drifted to the UK of its own accord since independence (some of them in my own extended family) – I wonder how this migration rate compares to that of other former British colonies?
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I’m surprised Marc Coleman didn’t make the Top 3 this week: he certainly deserves a place for his singular inability to learn the lessons of the economic crash.
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He came very close. But he lacked the pithy statement necessary to make the top 3.
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Are the Colemans, Marc and Karen related?
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And Shane?
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I’m not sure if I’d be entertained or appalled to discover that all three are siblings.
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they don’t cut the mustard,do they?
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‘or any other gang of green-shirted Gauleiters.’
Charming. But wasn’t the young Harris a participant in the harassment of Poppy wearers himself?
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But even were that correct that’s not the same. As he says himself he’s been entirely consistent across his political life. Entirely. Consistent. Entirely. Really. Really, really, really.
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As he says himself he’s been entirely consistent across his political life.
A cynic might make suggestions as to the nature of his one guiding principle.
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He did make a speech to the West Belfast Festival a couple of years ago claiming he had been consistent, in that he had consistently opposed the provos.
By that mark of course even people like Billy Leonard have been consistent – they’ve always opposed the UVF.
Like a lot of his speeches, or indeed communications generally, it was well crafted but did not stand up to the slightest touch of analysis.
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RTE reports:
Independent(sic) Senator Eoghan Harris has told the Seanad that the brunt of any cuts must be borne by those who can best take them.
Speaking during the Order of Business, Senator Harris said that meant starting with the political class.
Senator Harris said there were too many Government ministers from the Taoiseach down being paid far too much, with too many ministerial pensions.
He also said there were too many ‘fat cat’ civil servants.
One cheer for Eoghan Harris?
http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/1019/economy.html
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Great post Garabaldy as usual, Stupid Statement of the week is a great way to start the week. I couldn’t agree with you more on WW1. We can acknowledge the Irish went in droves to fight for British Imperialism. They could have been influenced to do so by poverty, as many in Ireland’s slum were, or adventurism, or saving ‘Catholic’ Belgium. Many Americans lost thir lives because they were conscripted to fight in Vietnam, another imperialist war. As for comrade Harris, you can find an explaination for his”consistancy” in any decent dictionary;
delusion of grandeur , grandiose delusion delusional conviction of one’s own importance, power, or knowledge or that one is, or has a special relationship with, a deity or a famous person.
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Thanks John. Appreciate it. I think you have hit the nail on the head regarding a certain Senator’s consistent attribute. Although in fairness top him, he does support the campaign against the extradition of Seán Garland, so, as with a certain Star Wars character, there may still be some good in him yet.
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Rapprochement?
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We can only hope that all prodigal children like the Senator may someday find the strength to return to the fold.
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Er, hopefully not.
The last thing the WP needs is the unexpected arrival of Twink at a national conference.
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