Saturday, August 30, 2008
What gerrymander?
Here’s a glorious piece of revisionism about my home city. “Derry’s second class citizens” did not need to take to the streets in 1968 to get jobs and houses”. Academics rush in where even Gregory Campbell might fear to tread. Just for now we’ll keep the Fountain out of it. Remember Eamon McCann’s minor classic “War in an Irish Town” with its frank admission that divilment as well as injustice was part of the story? Let’s see what else is added over the weekend. Full reports please Irish Times.
Brian Walker @ 11:58 AM
It’s quite a short report and I doubt it does the full thesis justice butwhat he’s saying might make perfect sense: the unionists may well have constructed a plan designed to bring jobs (and preserve the Gerrymander) to Derry but Catholics were no longer prepared to wait - they’d just had enough.
NI in the 1960s was a more prosperous place than ever before and Catholics had also benefited from that increased prosperity - indeed it was the unwillingness of inward investors to play the sectarian game that contributed to the rise of Paisleyism: the prods could no longer automatically guarantee top dog position versus the taigs.
But Catholics didn’t want crumbs from the table, they were fed up - as your headline says - of being second class citizens. And Derry had its own issues: the univerisity, the motorways that eneded nowhere, the loss of railways etc
Elsewhere in Europe democratic governments, of all political stripe, planned to bring jobs because it was for the benefit of the citizens. How typical for the myopic, small town, big house scumbag Tories of the Ulster Unionist Party to look for jobs as a way of shutting the Taigs up.
Posted by on Aug 30, 2008 @ 12:56 PM”the unionists may well have constructed a plan designed to bring jobs (and preserve the Gerrymander) to Derry but Catholics were no longer prepared to wait - they’d just had enough.”
again not the whole truth. Nationalists and Republicans didn’t give too hoots about the housing and jobs being offered by Stormont. They were more concerned about politicising the religious divide in N.Ireland by hitching a ride on the back of the African-American Civil Rights Movement, which coming to an end in ‘68.
Posted by on Aug 30, 2008 @ 02:21 PMOh sweet Jesus UMH, don’t tell me.............Calton Radio again?
I’m sure the thesis must offer a full account of the premise on show. However I for one cannot fathom it.
Posted by on Aug 30, 2008 @ 02:44 PM”Oh sweet Jesus UMH, don’t tell me.............Calton Radio again?”
I’ve visited the website a few times and there seems to be a few posters who are carbon copies of the Republican posters on here, yourself included.
Posted by on Aug 30, 2008 @ 03:35 PMPrionsa Eoghan, tell me, what is it that makes you Republicans snigger at loyalist websites, when you are exactly the same as them, only you sit on the other side of the fence? Where abouts in the gutters do you get this air of grandeur from?
Posted by on Aug 30, 2008 @ 03:47 PMUMH
How am I exactly the same exactly? Show me where I make exaggerated claims, or make things up like you and we might have a debate. Also places like Calton Radio are echo chambers, hence you(and others, although you might all be one and the same) coming away with utter shite. No-one challenges the nonsense until it is aired on places like this where those airing it are given a showing up.
Anyhow.
Posted by on Aug 30, 2008 @ 03:56 PM“This sectarian consciousness is reinforced, week in, week out, by local Tory newspapers. The machinations of Catholic and Protestant Tories such as McAteer, Glover, Anderson, and Hegarty are carefully calculated to maintain the status quo. The end result is a working class which is unresponsive to socialist ideas...” from the McCann book.
Are there any ‘Tories’ in Derry now - or in Stormont?
Posted by on Aug 30, 2008 @ 04:03 PMHow am I exactly the same exactly?”
You vote for terrorists and give excuses why they murder and break the law. Carbon copy.
”Also places like Calton Radio are echo chambers, hence you(and others, although you might all be one and the same) coming away with utter shite.”
I’m not a member of Calton Radio, so you can stop fooling yourself about that. As for the utter shite, there’s enough terrorist supporting tripe on Slugger to make the average person through up.
”No-one challenges the nonsense until it is aired on places like this where those airing it are given a showing up.”
You can try till your terrorist loving heart is content to show my posts up, but the fact remains, you and your Republican friends are carbon copies of the people you laugh at. Ironic, isn’t it?
Posted by on Aug 30, 2008 @ 04:09 PMhttp://tigger.uic.edu/~rjensen/no-irish.htm
Abstract
Irish Catholics in America have a vibrant memory of humiliating job discrimination, which featured omnipresent signs proclaiming “Help Wanted--No Irish Need Apply!” No one has ever seen one of these NINA signs because they were extremely rare or nonexistent. The market for female household workers occasionally specified religion or nationality. Newspaper ads for women sometimes did include NINA, but Irish women nevertheless dominated the market for domestics because they provided a reliable supply of an essential service. Newspaper ads for men with NINA were exceedingly rare. The slogan was commonplace in upper class London by 1820; in 1862 in London there was a song, “No Irish Need Apply,” purportedly by a maid looking for work. The song reached America and was modified to depict a man recently arrived in America who sees a NINA ad and confronts and beats up the culprit. The song was an immediate hit, and is the source of the myth. Evidence from the job market shows no significant discrimination against the Irish--on the contrary, employers eagerly sought them out. Some Americans feared the Irish because of their religion, their use of violence, and their threat to democratic elections. By the Civil War these fears had subsided and there were no efforts to exclude Irish immigrants. The Irish worked in gangs in job sites they could control by force. The NINA slogan told them they had to stick together against the Protestant Enemy, in terms of jobs and politics. The NINA myth justified physical assaults, and persisted because it aided ethnic solidarity. After 1940 the solidarity faded away, yet NINA remained as a powerful memory.Posted by on Aug 30, 2008 @ 04:12 PMUMH
>>Ironic, isn’t it?<<
Er....No! Basics first. Look China you at least have to make a fair fist of a point, sticking to the relevant point that somehow or other people can see the angle you are getting at. Throwing mud clearly without any evidence does not really stand up. Here goes;
>>You vote for terrorists and give excuses why they murder and break the law. Carbon copy.<<
I’ve voted SNP at every opportunity, sure I had the chance to vote for a Unionist party, but I don’t vote for terrorists.
>>I’m not a member of Calton Radio<<
Never said you were, however you haven’t made these things up yourself. So the intellectually challenged usually club together, talk shite and hey presto it becomes fact. We get the ethnic cleansing shite, the genocide shite. I’m sure you can provide us with some others.
>>You can try till your terrorist loving heart is content to show my posts up<<
I frequently do, I reckon that this is the first time you have tried to defend yourself.
>>the fact remains, you and your Republican friends are carbon copies of the people you laugh at<<
Yep this is the same auld nonsense that hampers change. Let’s believe that they hate us as much as we hate them. Well it justifies the “not an inch” masterplan. Doesn’t it?
Irony..........Where?
Posted by on Aug 30, 2008 @ 04:20 PMYou’re starting to sound like some conspiracy nut, Prionsa Eoghan. You’ve gone far enough in your attempts to deviate from the original topic (Londonderry’s civil rights march) , and if you want to prove that you show up my posts, why not try to disprove my original post, instead of trying to claim my post is rubbish by using some loyalist website as a way to rubbish it.
Occassional Commentor’s post shows how Irish Catholics in the past were prepared to use any given situation to prevent integration, just as they did in Londonderry when the African-American campaign was coming to a close. They feared the way normalisation was taking place in N.Ireland after the war and they deperately needed some way of dividing the people.
Posted by on Aug 30, 2008 @ 04:44 PMNo UMH, it is not my job to disprove nonsense, as your point clearly is. Taigs did not care about housing and jobs they just wanted to copy the niggers and get at their betters. Is that what I have to disprove? I wouldn’t know how.
>>They feared the way normalisation was taking place<<
Ok you got me on that one. I’m sure Catholics did fear this, demonstrably true. Gerrymandering and job/housing discrimination was a normal habit I believe.
Posted by on Aug 30, 2008 @ 04:52 PM”No UMH, it is not my job to disprove nonsense, as your point clearly is.”
You still haven’t managed to get to grips with the point. CS Parnell claimed the Catholics in Londonderry, simply had enough and weren’t prepared to wait for better houses or jobs offered by Stormont, but I said they were more concerned in not missing the civil rights band wagon created by the African-American campaign.
Prove it wrong, China!
”Taigs did not care about housing and jobs they just wanted to copy the niggers and get at their betters. Is that what I have to disprove? I wouldn’t know how.”
‘Nigger’ is not an appropiate word for African-Americans, likewise ‘Taigs’ isn’t appropriate for Catholics. Why you would want to further deviate this thread is beyond me.
Posted by on Aug 30, 2008 @ 05:08 PM”Gerrymandering and job/housing discrimination was a normal habit I believe.”
where’s the proof that borders were solely changed for electoral advantage?
where’s the proof that job/housing discrimination took place? do you believe turning down a house because it’s not in the area you want, discrimination?
Posted by on Aug 30, 2008 @ 05:18 PM>>where’s the proof that borders were solely changed for electoral advantage?
where’s the proof that job/housing discrimination took place?<<
It’s accepted fact China, It is also the basic premise of this thread don’t ye know. However should you wish to go all revisionist on me, then I believe that is incumbent on you to provide us with the relevant info from Calton Rad........whoops, almost gave away your sources there;¬)
>>You still haven’t managed to get to grips with the point.<<
Aye, you’ll know that because I stated that in my opening contribution, nothing wrong with your comprehension I’m glad to see. Doesn’t make your band wagon generalisation any truer though, does it.
>>‘Nigger’ is not an appropiate word for African-Americans, likewise ‘Taigs’ isn’t appropriate for Catholics.<<
Sure it is, in the right circumstances.
Posted by on Aug 30, 2008 @ 05:32 PM”It’s accepted fact China,”
So that makes it legit does it?
”However should you wish to go all revisionist on me, then I believe that is incumbent on you to provide us with the relevant info from Calton Rad........whoops, almost gave away your sources there;¬)”
Why has Gerrymandering now become redundent in republican propeganda and one-man-one-vote now the breadwinner? any ideas?
Posted by on Aug 30, 2008 @ 05:44 PMwhere’s the proof that job/housing discrimination took place?<<
”It’s accepted fact China, It is also the basic premise of this thread don’t ye know.”
Tell me how it became accepted fact?, did someone kick up a stink because the housing executive didn’t place them in the Republican area they wanted? Live with it, it still happens today, MOPES.
Posted by on Aug 30, 2008 @ 05:48 PM>>”It’s accepted fact China,”
So that makes it legit does it?<<
What the fact itself or that these circumstances were the norm in Derry?
>>Tell me how it became accepted fact?<<
In the name ae the wee man. Incidents happen, if there is several of these incidents then we look for a pattern. These patterns are noted and recorded so that eedjits like you and I can debate over, it is commonly referred to as history. Now if you are challenging accepted history could you please provide your version of events, preferably not a version gained through visiting Loyalist echo chamber sites. However if you must at least make it entertaining, through in a few jokes and the like.
>>Why has Gerrymandering now become redundent in republican propeganda and one-man-one-vote now the breadwinner? any ideas?<<
More shite!?!?
Also it is rather ocd to always answer me in duplicate. A bit radge.
Posted by on Aug 30, 2008 @ 06:00 PMThe innocence of youth.
Posted by on Aug 30, 2008 @ 06:02 PMSo it was all a big misunderstanding?
No discrimination against Derry’s taigs after all!
Now that is a comforting thought:0)
Posted by on Aug 30, 2008 @ 06:02 PMDr.Prince obviously doesn’t have a clue.
He would appear to be dismissive of the great anger and frustration of things like refusing to upgrade Derry’s fine college to University status rather than building in a backwater like Coleraine, or of the closing of the railway or the naming of the new city. The awarding of a council house to the unmarried secretary of a Unionist political hack was just the final straw.
UMH needs to go to the sources rather than just spouting patent nonsense and name calling.Posted by on Aug 30, 2008 @ 06:19 PMIn the name ae the wee man. Incidents happen, if there is several of these incidents then we look for a pattern. These patterns are noted and recorded so that eedjits like you and I can debate over, it is commonly referred to as history.”
So how many Republicans does it take to turn a complaint against housing into a discrimination?
>>Why has Gerrymandering now become redundant in republican propeganda and one-man-one-vote now the breadwinner? any ideas?<<
”More shite!?!? ”
not at all… I was wondering why the Londonderry civil rights movement hasn’t taken the Stormont government to court over the issue. Maybe, the Gerrymandering claimed didn’t give advantage to the Unionist politicians after all?
Posted by on Aug 30, 2008 @ 06:21 PMWe have not yet heard any reponse from the other speakers, to which I look forward with interest and no contributions more keenly than those of Edwina Stewart and Kevin McCorry both of whom were there “in the thick of it, so to speak.
I was part of that generation from which the civil rights movement drew its strength (and weakness - at least on my part) and I was active in my way. As I recall, while it is true to say that ‘“Derry’s second class citizens” did not need to take to the streets in 1968 to get jobs and houses”’, they did so, as in Coalisland, with the hope that maybe someday…
What drove them onto the streets was to have a fair chance for their hope which had been so long denied. But gangster states cannot play fair, to do so would undermine their credibility with their own cowed base.
What followed was inevitable.
Posted by on Aug 30, 2008 @ 06:35 PMRepublicans are under the impression that Gerrymandering was invented by those undemocratic unionists. What nonsense.It is of American origin.
Governor Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts has the distinction of being its creator and Irish emigrants to US took it to levels which we would not recognise.
Alleged discrimination is interesting subject.
I have asked republicans on several occasions to point to one piece of legislation passed by the old Stormont parliament or indeed Westminster which discriminated against Catholics.
The one man one vote did not discriminate against anyone on the grounds of religion.
It was aimed at those who owned propery.The same laws on voting for local councils were similar to those found in many English cities and indeed in New York.
Did the poor Irish/Americans march on Albany shouting for one man one vote and at the same time try to destroy their city by bomb and bullet killing NY cops.
Changes did indeed take place and the same would have happened in NI but republicans were never interested in Civil Rights or a more democratic system.
The frustration etc was an excuse to wage war against the Brits and seek revenge against Unionists.
Republicans by their fascist actions shot themselves in both feet by making a UI impossible.
If only Ireland could have produced a Mandela or Luther King.Posted by on Aug 30, 2008 @ 06:45 PM”But gangster states cannot play fair, to do so would undermine their credibility with their own cowed base.”
America has states, N.Ireland doesn’t.
Posted by on Aug 30, 2008 @ 06:45 PM
