for lefties too stubborn to quit
It being Easter Sunday, I’m sparing myself reading this, so over to you. I’d be amazed if it’s not filled with very stupid stuff this week, including on the debate over the 2016 commemoration.
| tomasoflatharta on What you want to say – 17th Ap… | |
| ‘Killed for not spea… on ‘Killed for not speaking… | |
| WorldbyStorm on ‘Killed for not speaking… | |
| Tomboktu on ‘Killed for not speaking… | |
| raymonddeane on News platform? | |
| WorldbyStorm on Spirit of Revolution: Ireland… | |
| sonofstan on A stick? | |
| sonofstan on Spirit of Revolution: Ireland… | |
| Tomboktu on What you want to say – 17th Ap… | |
| WorldbyStorm on A stick? | |
| banjoagbeanjoe on A stick? | |
| Tomboktu on What you want to say – 17th Ap… | |
| 6to5against on A stick? | |
| donalfallon on That talk of a Labour/Social D… | |
| Colm on A stick? |
worldbystorm2014ATgmailDOTcom
The Cedar Lounge Revolution
Mystic Harris is on form:
I think the evidence suggests that our chances of getting Home Rule from a peaceful campaign of civil disobedience in the period 1919-1921 were pretty high. The evidence for this is the extraordinary success of the peaceful anti-conscription movement of 1918, which mobilised the whole country.
How could the British government have coped with a peaceful mass campaign of civil disobedience? Dail Eireann would have deliberated in defiance, republican courts would have functioned, the trade union movement would have paralysed troop movements. All with the sympathetic support of the powerful Irish-American lobby and most of the world’s press.
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/eoghan-harris/easter-2016-celebration-is-a-grenade-that-must-be-handled-with-care-30201462.html
LikeLike
How could the British government have coped with a peaceful mass campaign of civil disobedience?
Like we did in India, is the reply that springs to mind, but I’d concede that the notion doesn’t seem to me as absurd as most entries in this series. But you’ll have to call in the comments box historians* on this one.
[* Well actually strictly speaking I’m a history graduate, but I don’t claim any particular knowledge in this particular area.]
LikeLike
“Like we did in India, ” The British had a choice in India, deal with Nehru and Ghandi, or wait for a new Subhas Chandra Bose.
LikeLike
Testing
LikeLike
Harris favourably cites an essay by Padraig Yeates. Well worth a read.
“continued glorification of the Somme, or the GPO, is a self-indulgence we cannot afford.”
http://www.drb.ie/essays/commemorating-what-and-why-
LikeLike
It is well worth a read:
It has been cogently argued by historians as conservative as Ronan Fanning in his recent book The Fatal Path and his review of Charles Townshend’s The Republic for the Dublin Review of Books that the British government would not have conceded anything beyond the 1914 Home Rule settlement without the Easter Rising and War of Independence.
Makes you wonder why Harris likes it.
LikeLike
“Yet, as Charles Townshend points out, from an international perspective Irish republicanism had little in common with what passed for republicanism throughout much of Western Europe. Catholicism (or, more precisely, Roman Catholicism for in this case the qualification is important) was what set Irish republicanism apart. French republicanism, Italian republicanism, Spanish republicanism – all were nourished by arterial veins of anti-Catholicism and anti-clericalism. In Ireland, in stark contrast, nationalists of every hue – ranging from Sinn Féiners to Redmondites – competed in currying favour from priests and bishops “-Fanning’s review of Townshend.
http://www.drb.ie/essays/endgame
LikeLike
Jody Corcoran describing Brian lenihan as a modern day Michael Collins deserves mention
LikeLike
I really do wonder if there isn’t a sense of guilt over sticking the knife into him when he was ill, having supported him for so long. Collins was clearly a much better finance minister anyway.
LikeLike
Speaking of Home Rule, if it had been granted in 1918, it would have come at a huge human cost-tens of thousands of dead in the trenches of Belgium and France.
John Bruton was on the radio touting that home rule had been won peacefully. How come then Redmond urged thousands to go and kill and be killed to ensure the eventual success of home rule?
LikeLike
Collins would have got better terms from the Troika. After an unfortunate “accident” they would see sense.
LikeLike
I’ve only just started buying the Sindo again after three or four years of fallow inattention. Is it my imagination or is the New editor doing a reasonably good job?
* Gavin Sheridan on FOI is excellent;
* Kerrigan is up by the editorial;
* Eoghan quotes an insightful line on Easter from Padraig Yeates;
* Eilis O’Hanlon is faultless on Archbishop Martin;
* An old Irish Press man’s moving take on Tommy Cooper (http://goo.gl/fVpg63);
* and there’s some non f***nut analysis on #LE14.
I generally avoid stupid journalism, and the Sindo is way above quota on that. But, I get my best political kicks where I can get them.
LikeLike
Another cracked easter egg, the sindo has a good editor? Really? Really?
LikeLike
Have they moved Kerrigan off the back page now? I always preferred it that way, it was like suddenly reaching an oasis of sanity after stumbling through the barren landscape of craziness in the rest of the paper.
LikeLike
No, he’s still on the back page. He had two pieces in this week’s edition.
LikeLike
Surely the point of Kerrigan being on the back page is that you can read him without wading through the rest. If you set yourself up right, you can read Kerrigan without having to *touch* the Sindo.
LikeLike
Surely the point of Kerrigan being on the back page is that you can read him without wading through the rest.
In my day that was why the football used to be there.
LikeLike
The John-Paul McCarthy piece is also amusing. True believers in what Diarmaid Ferriter has called the cartoon history of Conor Cruise O’Brien, such as Harris, J-P, and Gerry Gregg are exasperated at the rise and rise of Sinn Fein. They are losing the propaganda battle.
Whether the populist nationalism of Sinn Fein is any threat to the interests of the ruling oligarchy is another matter.
LikeLike
Isn’t it funny how SF have become one of the main beneficiaries of the orthodoxy’s austerity programme?
FF, FG and the LP have all merged into a single policy party and by default SF have become the main alternative.
I know that SF would like to get into government for sometime around 2016, but the best thing that could happen to them is that FF/LP or all three parties formed a coalition government.
LikeLike
Good points, Ivorthorne
Might I point out that there is nothing particularly radical about being anti-austerity. Keynes regarded the working class as ‘mud’. Many conservative and liberals are against austerity; Paul Krugman, Martin Wolf, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Larry Summers etc, etc.
LikeLike
Might I point out that there is nothing particularly radical about being anti-austerity.
In practice there is, though, partly because austerity has become such a political orthodoxy and partly because it’s such a disastrous orthodoxy that to criticise it it nearly always to say so in terms that are immensely critical of the mainstream.
There’s times when just to say what’s in front of your eyes is radical, and these are times like that.
LikeLike
Great point, but it’s probably good to remind ourselves that, for once , the left is not arguing for something new and/ or genuinely radical, and that it is in fact the austerity junkies who are relentlessly pursuing a failed ideology to unheard of extremes.
LikeLike
In a country that craves consensus-opposing austerity borders on the revolutionary.All conservatives and all liberals support austerity in Ireland.
LikeLike
I think that you’re right.
In order to prime society so that it is more receptive to a Left-ish message, Left-ish political movements should consider allying with anti-orthodoxy politicians.
The greatest problem faced by the Left in Ireland is that large parts of the population believe in T.I.N.A. and unfortunately, this is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
LikeLike
CL perhaps you could enlighten us all as to what political formation you support?
LikeLike
Roddy – any comments on SF’s abortion leaflet in Belfast? Or indeed the ever changing position on the Quinns? Why the different policies north and south?
LikeLike
Unaffiliated. Pro-working class.
LikeLike
That’s very convenient that you’re “unaffiliated”
LikeLike
If you’ve got a point to make, spit it out eh?
LikeLike
I doubt roddy has a point to make. He is simply seeking a label he can stick on CL so he can avoid dealing with the arguments put forward. It’s a not uncommon attitude to political debate in NI, especially when there are so many, shall we say policy adjustments, to be discussed.
LikeLike
As far as I am aware SFs position on abortion is the same North and South.If posters here are trying to infer that SF are in thrall to the bishops then maybe they should talk to Dawn Purvis of Marie Stopes who will confirm that SF virtually alone ensured that her organisation wasn’t run out of Belfast .Every single SF MLA signed a position of concern to defeat a unionist /SDLP attempt to close Marie Stopes even when SFoffices in rural areas were under siege from precious life types.As for Garibaldy’s attempt to present his party as a totally secular party ,the Northern experience is somewhat different.In my own area the pioneer pin wearing church collecting sticks still exist.Even in Belfast,no later than last week a death notice for a WP member from “the North Belfast branch of the Workers party” ended with the quote “queen of Ireland pray for him” (The Irish News Wed April 16)
LikeLike
Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness, has said his party is opposed to any liberalisation of the law on abortion in Northern Ireland.
His comments come ahead of the opening of the first private abortion clinic on the island of Ireland next week.
The service, run by Marie Stopes, will operate in the centre of Belfast.
Mr McGuinness denied Sinn Fein’s stance was the result of pressure from within the Catholic Church.
Northern Ireland is not covered by the 1967 Abortion Act and, unlike the rest of the UK, abortions can be carried out only to preserve the life of the mother or if continuing the pregnancy would have other serious, permanent physical or mental health effects.
Speaking to Radio Ulster’s Inside Politics programme, Mr McGuinness said: “We’ve had a very consistent position down the years. Sinn Fein is not in favour of abortion and we resisted any attempt to bring the British 1967 Abortion Act to the north.”
The deputy first minister added: “We believe that in circumstances where there is a risk to a woman’s life, a risk to a woman’s mental health and the grave dangers associated with that, in the final analysis a woman has to make her own decision.”
He told the programme the party’s position on abortion had “absolutely nothing to do with Catholic orthodoxy, its about what we believe is good for our people”.
BBC 12 Oct 2012
McGuinness went on to attack Dawn Purvis for being involved in opening a private clinic in the North in competition with the NHS (I had to smile at that one given the cheerleading by McGuinness for PFI and PPPs.
LikeLike
In case any free staters on here doubt me ,the death notice with the religious quotation was inserted and paid for by “the North Belfast branch of the Workers party,the party of Sean ( “no f—ing witch doctors Garland) and who recently made a big issue of expelling Ghandhi of this parish.
LikeLike
JRG,you omitted to say that whe the issue subsequently came to be decided in the Assembly ,SF en masse including McGuinness used their votes to allow Marie Stopes to exist.Ask Dawn Purvis which party saved her from being run out of town.
LikeLike
This is once again a case of Sinn Fein talking out of both sides of their mouth. Sinn Fein’s decision to back the petition of concern was as a result of public pressure, not because of Sinn Fein dumping their anti-abortion stand. This was demonstrated during the Assembly debate when Catriona Ruane stated that Sinn Fein was not in favour of abortion but believed that the option of termination should be available in the case of rape, sexual abuse or incest, or where a pregnant woman’s life was in danger. – a position that would have failed to prevent the death of Savita Halappanavar.
The position of SF is demonstrated by the fact that they continue to oppose the extension of the 1967 Abortion Act to the North.
LikeLike
Christ, this clown really does think that saying that some elderly stickies in Belfast are religious Catholics is a defence of Sinn Fein’s anti-choice politics and feverish Bishop-licking.
LikeLike
Take five lads.
LikeLike
+1
LikeLike
I have no intention of engaging in any debate with Mark P who only resorts to personal abuse.For the record the only time I ever encountered a member of the SP in real life was at a Danny Morrison book launch.This very prominent if not the most prominent SP member was allowed to monopolise the event from the floor and was allowed to lecture an overwhelmingly SF audience without any censure or ridicule.Even when he railed for some considerable time about how the SP had stood up to the Brits and RUC during the troubles he was listened to wiith respect and manners.I recall thinking at the time would the same courtesy have been extended if the situation had been reversed .
LikeLike
do shinners claim to be pro choice? they have a few members who are also pro choice campaigners alight, but as i understand it their position was in line with that abortion referendum the result of which was not legislated for until recently, ‘where the life of the mother is in risk’ In recent years with in that parameter the nearest they came to straying away from a 100% anti abortion position was calling for legislation for that referendum.
LikeLike
Erm, “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others”: http://goo.gl/CJ9zq5
LikeLike
Ah ,Slugger O’Toole who will tell us any day now that Gerry Adams ate their hamster!
LikeLike
Roddy you’ve already had one go at Mick in which you laid out your view of what you see as his agenda which was just about within the rules. This sort of thing is outside them so please give it a rest.
LikeLike