Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Spotlight election special
What did we make of the Spotlight debate tonight? When I saw the format I was unsure, but It seemed to work quite well.
I must make a special mention of my good friend Jonny Hadley’s contribution - asking Gerry Adams about the truth recovery process in relation to the RUC. He got quite a reaction.
Thoughts?
Michael Shilliday @ 09:31 PM
Kensei
You’re entirely correct on your latest points.
The premise of MCT‘s comments is false anyway. It is quite clear Alliance has been attacking the UUP and SDLP far more than anyone else, for the quite obvious reason that that’s where the battle lines are.
I guess the very point they’re making is that if you’re Unionist, frankly you may as well vote DUP, and if you’re Nationalist, frankly you may as well vote SF.
The true extremes these days are represented by factions of all the sectarian parties, and by Ennis, McGeough and co.
Posted by on Mar 07, 2007 @ 09:53 AMIt’s a pity but Adams was right about that young man. We have so many young people obsessing about the troubles, that 22 year old man was 9 years of age when the IRA declared their cessation in 1994.
It’s very easy for such young people on both sides to take up hardline positions and spout rhetoric, they did not see the outworking of such positions and rhetoric, in blood.
It’s saddening to see, it really is.
It’s up to Nationalists to teach their children that the “struggle” was not glorious, and in many cases sickening acts where carried out in their name.
It’s up to Unionists to teach their children that the RUC/British Army/UDR where not impartial innocents in the troubles, and no one has a monopoly on victimhood, especially when you were still in nappies when the troubles ended.
The sins of my father are not my own, nor are the sins against him, against me.
If we don’t learn from the mistakes of history we are doomed to repeat it.
If young men and women spout the tired rhetoric of old soldiers they absolutely deserve a slap on the wrist and a stern talking to. If a child goes to put his hand in the fire it’s not “patronising” to shout NO!
The consequences are too fucking dangerous.
Posted by on Mar 07, 2007 @ 10:03 AMwell let’s just think that through.
Firstly only SF groupies take seriously this crap about the war stopping in 1994. There were two policemen murdered after that in Lurgan, for no other reason than to send a message to HMG and the evil prods.There was/is serious criminality- Macro, Northern bank, Mccartney and Donaldson killings, which may not have been directed at our community as a whole, but are clear evidence of ongoing propensity to crime.
Until one month ago Gerry & co were content to ignore these matters- apparently they still are, if Gildernew’s unfortunate honesty is anything to go by. No worries that memebrs of the movement will ever be grassed uo for ciggie/petrol smuggling,torching the odd orange hall,or punishment beatings. But Gerry would like you to rat on your neighbourhood joyriding spide,kiddy fiddler, or mugger.
perhaps the young man has a grave to visit, with the kller of his father still at large- perhaps he’s not even lucky enough to have a grave.
I agree those of us who actually lived through La Mon, Bloody friday, Teebane, etc etc need to be honest about those times. But it’s wrong to say that those with a past should ever be allowed to think we forget or forgive, especially since it’s a lot more recent than 1994, and we’ll only stop the next generation repeating our mistakes if we get a proper sense of perspective- which means admitting that the current SF/IRA leadership is unfit for office
Posted by on Mar 07, 2007 @ 10:20 AMDarth
“There were two policemen murdered after that in Lurgan, for no other reason than to send a message to HMG and the evil prods”
Yes, that was August 1997, shot in the back at a very tense time in the summer. Very cynical and never to be forgotten by me.
There was also the Feb 1996 bomb in London, which killed two Londoners. Again we must not forget.
It didn’t end in 1994 at all, and there were DAAD killings during the 94-96 ‘cessation’, and other killings after 1997.
So things have taken some time.
Posted by on Mar 07, 2007 @ 10:25 AMDarth
Where is the criminal convictions for Macro, Northern bank, Mccartney and Donaldson killings and the torching of the odd orange hall.
Sure we could say where are the convictions for Harryville,Holy Cross,Ahogill and Carnmoney but
nationalists dont deem unionist politicans unfit for office because of bigots in their community.The election today represents to the chance to move on from this yet still remember the suffering from the past in a sombre way.Hopefully we all can do thisPosted by on Mar 07, 2007 @ 11:19 AMIt’s very easy for such young people on both sides to take up hardline positions and spout rhetoric, they did not see the outworking of such positions and rhetoric, in blood.
Unfortunately-Adams-is-right.
But that is why the GFA and SA addendum is so hopelessly off beam, as it is a sectarian stitch up which cannot set the divide in stone.In my opinion the real crime of both the Unionist and Republican/Nationalist Parties who accepted this UK state stitch up, is that they willed the norths sectarian differences to future generations, with all the bitter confrontations this will undoubtedly lead to in the future, instead of making a real attempt to solve this problem, or at the very least build some sort of democratic cross community consensus that the majority of both communities can live with, whilst their political representatives work peacefully to resolve the two communities differences over nationality and nationhood.
Posted by on Mar 07, 2007 @ 11:26 AMThe above should have read, “cannot but set the divide in stone.”
apologies
Posted by on Mar 07, 2007 @ 11:27 AMI think that the main cause of concern regarding the Troubles is that one tends to remember the crimes that were perpetrated against ones community yet ignore the crimes that were perpetrated by ones community. I think lessons in history is valuable for all to learn so as to understand the past, know where we are today so as to have hope for the future.
Ignorance tends to be bliss in NI.
Posted by on Mar 07, 2007 @ 11:43 AMI thought G.Adams lost the plot on Spotlight, he,as always, patronised the DUP . That,s OK they can stand up for themselves. The young questioner was a different matter ,Adams was both patronising and dismissive and just plain rude. He also did not answer other questioners Re"PSNI” Awful performance!
Posted by on Mar 07, 2007 @ 11:49 AMBring back the middle ground, all is forgiven!
Well, you have until 10 tonight to do your part in that. Votáil Alliance.
Bring back the brains.
Bring back the midle ground!So do you Pádraig. Votáil Alliance.
Gerry Adams, having been shot in the chest and almost killed, having been interned without trial, and having lost numerous friends and relatives, has as much claim to victimhood as most. Despite that, he has led a revoluitonary movement away from violence, towards peace, democracy, government and power-sharing, acceptance of the colonial courts and the colonial militia.
Poor oul’ Gerry, and him with nothing but a second home in Donegal and a series of lucrative lecture tours in the US to see him through his retirement. Cry me a river, MCT, cry me a friggin’ river.
It horrifies me that the Alliance and other moderates are becoming increasingly shrill and nasty in their condemnation of the two largest parties.
Party attacks other party in election shocka! Gerry Adams isn’t the only one looking tired and saying stupid things as the campaign comes to a close. Do you understand this whole “freedom of speech” thing, MCT? You seem to want SF to be put on some sort of unbroachable pillar; and I seem to remember having this same conversation years ago.
In normal democracies political parties viciously attack one another on their programmes, but also make the institutions of government work. You seem to think our institutions of government are too fragile to have healthy, robust, political debate; that’s the road to permanent abnormality.
Posted by on Mar 07, 2007 @ 11:53 AMPoor oul’ Gerry, and him with nothing but a second home in Donegal
See what I mean MCT.
Sammy
If Alliance meant more by the middle-ground that the right to be opportunistic in both directions then they might be taken seriously by more voters.
Posted by on Mar 07, 2007 @ 11:59 AMSee what I mean MCT.
All you bourgeois Shinners seriously need to grow a thicker skin. If you can’t take a bit of a slegging from me, what would you do if slartibuckfast got stuck into you? Oooops, silly me, you’d get him sacked from his job like you did to Newtown Emerson.
If Alliance meant more by the middle-ground that the right to be opportunistic in both directions then they might be taken seriously by more voters.
That’s nearly as patronising as Gerry Adams to that fella on Spotlight last night. I’m not middle-ground, I’m liberal, and that means standing up to the cosy sectarian carve up worked out by the SDLP and now to be taken over and operated by you and the DUP, and all the human and financial waste that goes with it.
Seriously, you seem to have a real difficulty with criticism of Gerry and the Shinners. Do you find a string ensemble pops up behind you to play Barber’s Adagio for Strings any time someone criticises Gerry Adams?
Posted by on Mar 07, 2007 @ 12:10 PMSammy
Seriously, you seem to have a real difficulty with criticism of Gerry and the Shinners.
In all fairness if we had a serious problem with it why would we stay on this site and argue the toss about it.
A lot of people leave here but the Shinners in general stay and fight their corner. So when it comes to dermatological impenetrability I don’t think we can be considered wanting.
I just consider it a distorting factor in the debate (here and elsewhere) and one that is a barrier to progress.If Adams retired to Donegal in the morning the fundementals of politics in the north would not change.
Posted by on Mar 07, 2007 @ 12:27 PMWhat ever can be said about his past words and deeds, but in fairnes you have to give Adams credit. He has brought the Republican movement on in leaps and bounds. The abandonment of the ‘armed struggle’ and the adoption of a political strategy must be credited to him. He gets constant criticism and haranguing from all quarters, from Unionists to Republican dissidents. He is the best leader the party has had so far and the Peace Process owes alot to him as well. Compare life in the north today to 20 years ago. Is it not an improvement?
Posted by on Mar 07, 2007 @ 12:30 PM“dermatological impenetrability”
Reminds me of that eejit who was trying desperately to sound intelligent by saying “terminological inexactitude” on Spotlight, but ended up just ballsing it up…
Posted by on Mar 07, 2007 @ 12:37 PMHenry94
Amazing.
Funny how these are the people who accuse shinners of being Adams cultists, when the reality is that they are the ones with a morbid fascination over Gerry.
Sammy MorseYour knowledge of six county politics is staggeringly impressive, and your insights are fascinating, but every once in a while, you let yourself down a bagful. You did it with your reference to Patsy O’Hara as a “‘successful’ hunger striker”, and you’ve done it again here. Some of your comments, and the kind of treatment being meted out to Adams recently, have little to do with policy, or the cut and thrust of party politics - it’s old fashioned, pseudo-Paisleyite demonology. It appears to me that some measure of hatred is in your heart young man, and it’ll do no good there. Such hatred, while easily succumbed to in the heat of electoral battle, offers peace and politics here nothing whatsoever. Be well.
Posted by on Mar 07, 2007 @ 12:38 PMDUP Unionism could well do with an Adams figure; might help modernise its outlook in the secular world today instead of it lingering permanently in a bygone age of superstitious religious fundamentalism and witchtrials.
Posted by on Mar 07, 2007 @ 12:50 PMExtra, extra! Sammy Morse pseudo-Paisleyite! Read all about it!
Honestly, you couldn’t make this stuff up.
Posted by on Mar 07, 2007 @ 12:57 PMIt appears to me that some measure of hatred is in your heart young man, and it’ll do no good there. Such hatred, while easily succumbed to in the heat of electoral battle, offers peace and politics here nothing whatsoever.
(Emphasis mine)
Unbelievably patronising, MCT!!! Now that Uncle MCT has patted me on the head and told me off in a stern-but-loving, Werther’s Original, sort of way, will he give me 10p to go and buy a mix up?
Despite our obvious differences, MCT, I almost always enjoy your posts - often penetrating and with a sometimes brilliantly dry humour (I loved the line about that opinion poll being taken outside a Belfast Giants’ game). Your great weakness is that you can’t separate criticism of Sinn Féin from demonology. And sometimes SF themselves can’t, like Gerry’s patronising overreaction on Spotlight last night.
You always go on about how people react to their ‘neighbours’. Well, the vast majority of my neighbours vote for Sinn Féín, and some of my family members will be getting out the vote for them today. I don’t hate my neighbours, my friends or my family, and don’t presume that I do or that you know what is inside my heart.
Your problem is that you seem to think that Sinn Féin in general, and Gerry Adams in particular, are so decent, so right, so good that the rules of debate that apply in any other society don’t apply to them. Well sorry, the rules apply the same to Gerry as they do to anyone else. If he makes a tit of himself on Spotlight, he can expect to be ripped to pieces on Slugger, just as Durkan, Paisley and Ford can. That’s politics; if you’re going to put yourself up for election, you can expect plenty of people trying to tear you down. The messed up places are the ones where politicians can’t be openly attacked.
You yourself often indulge in fairly barbed criticism of other parties. In particular, you indulge in especially nasty rhetoric whenever the subject of the Alliance Party comes up. That’s fine. We’re big boys and girls. But what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander; if you’re going to dish it out, be prepared to take it as well.
Posted by on Mar 07, 2007 @ 01:02 PM.
. So Gerry lost it last night but were any of the others great confidence builders?
. .
. .
. Wouldn’t it be nice to see the Assembly back up and running?
. .
Wouldn’t it be nice to see the MLAs dealing with water charges, health and housing?
. .
Wouldn’t it be nice if SF and the DUP formed a lasting, stable government without the ding-dong styled blame game which passess for politics here?
. .
Just a thought…Posted by on Mar 07, 2007 @ 01:20 PM“What ever can be said about his past words and deeds, but in fairnes you have to give Adams credit. He has brought the Republican movement on in leaps and bounds.”
I’m sorry he is only finishing what he started under the constraints of consensus. It wasn’t an army road-block ahead but a political one.Posted by on Mar 07, 2007 @ 03:33 PMTrue, but Adams was able to influence fellow travellers of the Republican movement, particularly the hard liners (prior to 9/11 and international events). They were all brought on board, ok, bar a few disillusioned splinter groups and cranks. But a deal was brokered under his stewardship. It could have gone askew and who knows what could have happened. But it didn’t and he chartered a political course. All can see the merits today. Credit to John Hume and Dave Trimble.
Posted by on Mar 07, 2007 @ 03:59 PMGerry Adams treatment of that young man was discraceful. He did not need to refer to him as ‘son’ or deride him because of his age. The young man in question made a fool of himself when Adams asked him if he recognised the equality of all victims and he shook his head.
On tthe point about the questioners youth, I wonder if Adams would say that an 18 year old had a lot to learn when he was giving orations over the graves of 18 year old IRA volunteers?Posted by on Mar 07, 2007 @ 04:31 PMSammy (forgive the length)
You’re being eye-rollingly disingenuous. Were there available to me a politics.ie-style eye-roll emoticon, I’d use three of them right here.
There’s a line (and we all know there’s a line) between legitimate attack which is to be expected in party politics, especially around election time, and vitriolic hate-ridden abuse of particular political figures which throws yet more obstacles in the path of power-sharing harder. It’s not even a particularly fine line, yet it’s been overstepped so often in this campaign that those of us who, within our communities have been arguing for years for a more conciliatory, understanding, out-ward-looking republicanism are truly sickened by it. Gerry Adams has brought SF and the IRA to accept the PSNI and the British judicial system - I mean, what in the name of God more do you people want from him!? The stuff he takes on a daily basis is not policy-based or ideologically grounded - it’s just abuse, pure and simple. It has become the stock in trade of every hack in the country and every internet troll in Ireland. The whole “ball, not man” rule on this site in particular appears to be in permanent suspension as regards Adams.
As Henry pointed out before, Shinners and bedfellows on here are more than prepared to take a bit of a beating, especiallybecause they’re not afraid to dish it out. For you to suggest that we are thin-skinned is transparently vacuous and intellectually beneath you. However, we are entitled to call others when they overstep the mark of decency and genuine debate and slip over into the abusive, offensive or deceitful. Particularly seeing as the moderators do it to us. That’s what I’ve done on this thread and elsewhere.
Sammy, I don’t think for a second that you hate your neighbours, that’s why I didn’t use that form of word with respect to you (as you point out, it’s a favourite of mine). But I do think you harbour some serious and bitter feelings towards Gerry Adams and other republican leaders. The “succesful hunger striker” thing is the kind of political tourettism that typically reveals a substructure of hatred.
I think the Shinners are ripe for the occasional slegging, just like all the other parties here, but in recent months and years, the Shinners have been moderating their rhetoric significantly, largely, it seems, with a view to encouraging their community to contemplate hard choices, like IRA stand-down, backing the PSNI and accepting Paisley as FM. The only inflammatory thing I’ve heard from them has been directed at the NIO - hardly a vulnerable group. In contrast, the invective against SF from many quarters continues unabated. Spotlight was a case in point. Unionists (including those in APNI) should be applauding Adams.
Now, I’m not so naive as to see SF as incapable of sin; however, they and the communities they lead have come a long way - longer than anyone else in this process, and in such a way as to deserve a little respect from the likes of you, who’ve never had a good word for them in the past.
cont’d
Posted by on Mar 07, 2007 @ 05:21 PMWhich rather brings me to my own pet angst towards Alliance. You’re right that they get the lash of my tongue more than other parties. The reason for that is their hypocrisy. I’m pretty comfortable with the DUP and the UUP - both of them basically do what it says on the tin. But the Alliance Party paints itself as above sectarian politics and neutral on the national question, yet more often than not, this neutrality is notional in practice. On policy, they are absentee landlords on numerous issues on which cross-community leadership is vital - they’re useless on power-sharing because they don’t have enough support for a ministry, they flirted with the DUP on voluntary coalition, they’re nowhere on collusion, they’re absent on parades and they offer no leadership whatsoever on hate crime (which, let’s be honest, is a bigger worry for republicans than it is for unionists) unless it involves attacks on ethnic minorities. For crying out loud, they couldn’t even agree that it was ok for gays to have a nice room in Lisburn for a civil union ceremony.
There’s a reason why they have been all but wiped out in nationalist areas - it’s because they’re not liberal enough. they’re a pary of soi-disant moderates and phoney liberals. They simply don’t care about almost anything that people in republcan communities care about. And why? Because ... no votes there. Alliance always choose to dance with the one who brung ya. Instead of fighting to show some relevance to both sides of the house, they’ve abandoned majority nationalist areas (good luck in South Belfast, though - I think Anna Lo is a weak candidate, but I think her presence in the Assembly would send an important message). Moreover, they appear to reserve a special loathing for republicans - my observation is that the vitriol they spew towards shinners vastly exceeds any attacks on the DUP. Maybe it’s perception, maybe not - I think not.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, nothing I have ever said about the Alliance party has been laced with the type of acidic disdain, vituperative contempt and snarling hatred I hear from Alliance and fellow travellers. My attacks on APNI are based not on hatred, but on perennial disappointment. And puh-lease don’t get me started on “patronising”. I’ll simply ask you to consider your own collective beam, and refer you to “Your problem is that you seem to think that Sinn Féin in general, and Gerry Adams in particular, are so decent, so right, so good that the rules of debate that apply in any other society don’t apply to them.” I’m amazed you could type the word “patronising” with a straight face - it should be excised from the APNI lexicon. The very existence of APNI is an exercise in patroni..i..sation(?).
Ultimately, whether you like it or not, hardline unionists and hardline nationalists are going to have to make peace here. It will make that job all the harder having APNI hurlers on every ditch perpetuating the myths and waving the shrouds of the past for generations to come.
Anyway, I’m sure your political efforts over recent weeks has been enormous. I’ve enjoyed your constituency profiles immensely, and will hopefully look back on them with more fondness than Barney Eastwood. Best of luck tomorrow in whatever races matter to you. South Antrim and South Belfast no doubt. ;-)
Posted by on Mar 07, 2007 @ 05:34 PM
