<< ETHICAL ACADEMIC ~ MAIN ~ AS I RECALL >>
VOICES HEARD
George W. Bush is assisting the uncrushing of dissent:
Five Catholic sisters from Belfast, mounting an unprecedented confrontation with the Irish Republican Army, arrived in the United States today - to give President George W Bush a dossier identifying the IRA men who killed their brother …
The sisters say more than 70 potential witnesses in the pub, where a fight involving well-known local IRA figures began, are too afraid to identify anybody responsible to the authorities.
Let their dissent be heard.
Time for the IRA to go away.
Actually, that time was long ago. In retrospect, eradicating a disease is quite difficult.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 03 16 at 01:02 PM • permalinkThe IRA will go away when brits go away resistance to occupation will not die while occupiers stay…Bush calls for Syria to leave lebanon with no half measures what about the brits leaving Ireland? Hypocrisy I think so…“Go on home British soldiers go on home. ain’t you got no fucking homes of your own”
Irish69’s started his St. Paddy’s day drinking early. By the way, from what I’ve heard it should be “Irish68.”
Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2005 03 16 at 02:32 PM • permalinkFrom the Some People Never Learn Dept.:
IRA offers to kill those involved in Belfast slaying
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2005 03 16 at 03:32 PM • permalinkIrish69 - You are an idiot.
The British Army stays in Northern Ireland because it’s the United Kingdomm and that’s the way the citizens of Northern Ireland want it to remain.
What’s next? US Troops out of Hawaii?
Posted by Quentin George on 2005 03 16 at 04:09 PM • permalinkQuentin George, so the British should have stayed in America because it was part of the British Empire?
Have you ever been to Northern Ireland? When I went there the people I spoke to didn’t want to be part of the UK They were Irish in an Irish country.
There were people in America during the War of Independence that saw themselves as British but that didn’t stop American independence.I’m pretty sure the people of Chicago in the ‘30s were mad at the FBI for occupying the city and trying to suppress the legitimate desires of Al Capone and the millions of his followers. Of course, Capone wasn’t as bad as the leadership of the IRA. Up the Orange!!
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2005 03 16 at 06:39 PM • permalinkWhen you meet completetossers like Irish69 you should sing the following ditty, to the tune of “She’ll be coming round the mountain:”
Would you like a chicken supper Bobby Sands?
Would you like a chicken supper Bobby Sands?
Would you like a chicken supper, you filthy fenian fu..er?
Would you like a chicken supper Bobby Sands?“Up the Orange” yea you can up it all you want back where the British imported the Orange order from during the Protestant plantations taking Irish land from the Irish…To hell with the Orange Order…a bunch of marching terrorists who assault American women during their parades and get caught on tape doing so…
Here’s one for irish69:
TRADITIONAL IRISH FOLK SONG (DENIS LEARY)
They come over here and they take all our land
They chop of our heads and they boil them in oil
Our children are leaving and we have no heads
We drink and we sing and we drink and we dieWe have no heads, we have no heads
They come over here and they chop off our legs
They cut off our hands and put nails in our eyes
O’Grady is dead and O’Hanrahan’s gone
We drink and we die and continue to drinkO’Hanrahan, no O’Hanrahan
They buried O’Neill down in Country Shillhame
The poor children crying a fe dee din de
Hin fle di din fle di din fle de din de
In hey bibble bibble hey bibble bibble hey fle bibble deO’Hanrahan, no O’Hanrahan
We drink and we sing and we drink and we sing, hey!
We drink and we drive and we puke and we drink, hey!
We drink and we fight and we bleed and we cry, hey!
We puke and we smoke and we drink and we die, hey!Irish69, are you in fact Irish? (As in, born in Ireland to Irish parents and having lived there a reasonable amount of time). My apologies if you are, but I’ve met a couple of Americans of Irish descent who were, let’s say, waaay more Irish than the Irish.
Nobody ever wins an argument about this mess, but I’ll point out a couple of things; first of all, during the Revolutionary War, only about a third of the population were in favour of it; the other two thirds either didn’t give a toss or were Loyalists. If Northern Ireland is really like America in 1776 - well, who’s to say what the result should be this time around? Unfortunately the IRA guys seem to have a bit more expertise than the founding fathers when it comes to making pipe bombs and quite a bit less when it comes to knowing how to put together some sort of coherent government. Also there’s the issue of reunification; that wasn’t an issue for the US, but it would be for Ireland. Does Southern Ireland want them back? They’re doing pretty well on their own; do they really want to take on that baggage? Grand patriotic gesture says yes - more immediate considerations might say no. And oh yes, the Orangemen can go to hell too.
Irish69 has this much right: the English treated the Irish like total shit. They stole almost all (95%+) the land from Irish Catholics between 1610 and 1750. The vast majority of Irish Catholics were trapped in their own country, living as peasants in abject, almost indescribable poverty. (Irish Presbyterians and Anglicans fared much better, of course.)
Irish Catholics were devastated by the Great “Famine” - during which Ireland exported huge quantities of food - precisely because most worked on Anglican-owned farms not for cash, but for the “privilege” of growing potatoes on a small patch of land. When the potato blight hit between 1845 and 1848, over a million Irish (out of a total 8 1/2 million) starved to death. They had no money to buy grain, and their tiny potato crops failed. For their part, the British offered almost no meaningful assistance to their desperate, starving neighbors.
The British screwed Ireland for centuries, and I think they should have left in 1921. The British ruling classes didn’t want to lose their Empire, though, and Ulster had most of Ireland’s industrial base. So they partitioned the island. All in all, it’s a long, sad, ugly tale that doesn’t reflect well on a lot of Britons whom I otherwise admire.
That said: What good is the IRA doing now? Ireland’s economy is booming, the British aren’t going to leave Ulster, and violence is wrecking the country. The IRA might have been useful during treaty negotiations in 1920, but how are they helping the Irish people in 2005? Nowadays they’re just the local mafia, growing rich at the expense of Catholic neighbors whom they bully. I can understand why Irish Catholics are mad as hell, but the Irish have a much better hand to play these days than IRA terrorism.
Butch - I’m completely on board with the “Britain screwed Ireland royally” meme - though if I remember “The Great Hunger” correctly the British weren’t so much malicious during the famine (not Stalinesque) just mindblowingly incompetent: “What do we do? Oh, but we can’t do that, it would offend the landlords. I know! We’ll have people make charitable donations! Oh, wait, guess that money’ll run out eventually. What the hell, it’s a mess anyway.” Not that this helped the Irish any, of course.
You’re right - what’s the IRA doing NOW? I mean, I appreciate the power of an ancient grudge and all, but carry that to its extremes and soon you’re nodding your head thoughtfully as Osama Bin Laden yowls about “The tragedy of Andalucia” and thinking that maybe the Moors got a raw deal when they were booted out of Spain. Maybe they did, but it’s long over. Let’s talk about now, people. As I said before - to hell with both the IRA, which seems to spend most of its time putting a vaguely political colour on pure thuggery, and the Orange types who seem to think that the Battle of the Boyne was the greatest human event since the resurrection. They both need to grow up.
Butch you forgot that Lloyd George intended the partition to be temporary in 1921…IRA was a reactionary group spawned back to life by Bloody Sunday…the more violence of the 30+ year war perpetrated by british promoted the IRA and the British should have left long ago but for that slight “orange state for an orange people” that did not want to lose being on top…oh yea the IRA’s best tool right now is politics…but the distrust will not disarm them any time soon…play it as Ulster is the people’s land its there’s to decide the future of not some parliament across the Channel and break the community divide and you’ll have success slowly…But not all Loyalist paramilitaries are disarmed…why just the IRA…people focus solely on them but forget the other half of the equation because loyalist groups aren’t as prominent as the IRA…to disarm without having a solid hand to play especially with the checkered past of the UK establishment and the Orangemen would be suicide…
Youngy:
Quentin George, so the British should have stayed in America because it was part of the British Empire?
You mean, like in Northern Ireland, there should be a loyalist state in North America? Called, oh, I dunno, Canada. Good Idea.
Or do you want a re-run of “44:40 or Fight!”, to eject the Brits completely?
The situation is much the same.
While you’re at it, let’s support the Aztlan movement, and get rid of the US Army occupation of Tejas and California, regardless of the wishes of the majority of the inhabitants. I’m sure you’d find as much support for that in Mexico City as you would support for a United Ireland in Dublin. But probably not as much for the latter as in, say, Boston.
Irish69:
people focus solely on them (the IRA) but forget the other half of the equation because loyalist groups arenقt as prominent as the IRA
They’re not ‘prominent’ because unlike the IRA they don’t go around killing people and robbing banks… at least, not as much, and not recently. They’ve shown that they can sometimes behave in a rational manner, they’re not just criminal gangs compulsively wedded to violence for its own sake. They’re *rational* criminal gangs, who hopefully will fade away or go mainstream. If the IRA had been as restrained as the ‘loyalist’ Terrorist Scum, no doubt Gerry Adams and Co wouldn’t be so much on the nose.
Few people have less time for the Reverend Ian Paisley than I do. For that matter, I support the cause of Basque independance - but am implacably opposed to the terrorists in ETA. This is not about “worthy causes”, it’s about thugs doing thuggish deeds while getting support from people who should know better.
If you’re as Irish as your name indicates, why not listen to what the Taoseach is saying?
-What Aebrain said.
By the way, I’m an Irish Catholic.
Posted by Quentin George on 2005 03 17 at 01:39 AM • permalinkAnd Aebrain’s comparison with Canada was a good one.
One third of Americans were opposed to Independence, so the compromise was that they would leave the 13 colonies, and go to Ontario and Quebec.
You can’t just say “All the UK Loyalists should bugger off!” as some of them have lived in Ireland longer than I’ve lived in Australia. Protestant Plantations date back to the day of Elizabeth I, and the final demise of the native Gaelic aristocracy occured during the Flight of the Earls.
They have just as much a right to determine their own political future, without fear of being intimidated by thugs.
Posted by Quentin George on 2005 03 17 at 01:49 AM • permalinkQuentin George, so the British should have stayed in America because it was part of the British Empire?
If it remained so, certainly. It nearly did. The number of people in favour of revolution wasn’t as high as you think.
Have you ever been to Northern Ireland?
Yes, twice.
When I went there the people I spoke to didn’t want to be part of the UK They were Irish in an Irish country.
The majority of people I talked to thought the IRA were a bunch of thugs and didn’t want to be part of Ireland either.
There were people in America during the War of Independence that saw themselves as British but that didn’t stop American independence.
Considering most of the battles in the Revolution was between Loyalist and Rebel Americans, it was military defeat that sealed the Loyalist cause, not popularity.
Posted by Quentin George on 2005 03 17 at 01:53 AM • permalinkMurders by loyalist in 2003 six, 2004 three.
http://www.birw.org/Deaths since ceasefire/deaths 03.html
You will also see the list of IRA murders during this time at this site.
As for British Army and RUC involvement in murders check Stevens Inquiry article-The report also says its inquiries were obstructed by police and army officers, and vital evidence was concealed and destroyed.
Since 1989, Sir John Stevens has been investigating allegations that elements within military intelligence and the RUC’s Special Branch were colluding with loyalist assassination squads.
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Terrorism might even get a bad name.