Monday, November 26, 2007
You couldn’t make it up..
An occasional series. If it’s not the Northern Ireland Executive’s Deputy First Minister, Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness, telling everyone of the importance of “Respect for authority..” [*ahem* - Ed] it’s Junior Minister, the DUP’s Ian Paisley jnr, emphasising the “importance of tolerance, acceptance and understanding in society..” Indeed.
Pete Baker @ 11:58 AM
Forgive me if I can pre-empt the predictable response from certain quarters:
‘Did Mr Guinness have respect for the people killed twenty to thirty years ago? Did he have respect for their lives and property?’ etc, etc.
Prepare for the broken record to resume. Hopefully this might be nipped in the bud. It has nothing to do with the present or the future.
Posted by on Nov 26, 2007 @ 01:28 PMBollocks, I’m a nationalist and that’s so ridiculous I’m having problems not swearing. To have a revolution you need a revolutionary party, wha?
Posted by on Nov 26, 2007 @ 01:42 PMCommunity challenged to capitalise on opportunity
Members of the community are being asked to come forward with ideas for improving community relations in Northern Ireland. The One Small Step Campaign, which was founded by senior figures from across society, has launched a public consultation with the objective of compiling 100 small steps towards a shared future for a book to be published next year.
The process to collate the ideas began at an event hosted by MLAs Danny Kennedy and Naomi Long in Stormont’s Long Gallery today (November 26, 2007).
Posted by on Nov 26, 2007 @ 02:19 PMAs you say Pete: indeed.
What a hypocrite.
Posted by on Nov 26, 2007 @ 02:53 PMJoey,
We are talking about somone who was a terrorist and destroyed lives along with the rule of law.....of course it makes a difference. The problem with this country is we have too many so called respecable politicians, from both sides of the coin. Smiling and moralising while trying to shove the old balaclava and kalashikov out of sight under the bed.
Tell the Butcher of the bogsides victims that his hypocritical gobshiting has nothing to do with the present or futurePosted by on Nov 26, 2007 @ 03:51 PMYeah Joey, how simply awful of people to bring up those tedious ole murders of Marty McG’s. Bad them. Boring them! *Everyone* - shush! Don’t be a nerd: mum’s the word!
Posted by on Nov 26, 2007 @ 03:51 PMThe discipline shown by republicans in adjusting to changed times and helping to construct the Peace Process is in sharp contrast to the behaviour of a certain unionist party which destroyed ‘the centre ground’ by refusing to form an executive.
Happily the electorate recognised who wanted to build a prosperous and peaceful future and who wanted to continue sulking.
We’re your partners now, lads,like it or not. You would be better leaving the infantile jibes and namecalling behind and making peace with the electorate as befits a political party.
Posted by on Nov 26, 2007 @ 04:07 PMAnd do you know what piece of ‘Republican discipline’ I’ve been most impressed with recently? Twenty of them beating some poor sod to death in a barn over the border because three of them couldn’t take him one night in a pub. That’s real discipline for you. Thank God we have them - how did you put it? oh yeah - helping to construct the peace process. And if we didn’t have Marty McG in the excutive, do you what the worst of it would be? What *would* his robots here on Slugger find to do all day?
Posted by on Nov 26, 2007 @ 04:11 PMAnyone for ’braised meat balls‘?
Posted by on Nov 26, 2007 @ 04:29 PMDespite a decade of loyalist violence Sinn Fein and their supporters kept their nerve and pushed on for a settlement which suited both sides.
Since when did unionists care about a small time criminal in South Armagh or has the hypocrisy gone on for so long that some unionists actually believe this nonsense? As well dissolve the UK because a few squaddies get involved in rape and murder as dissolve Stormont on this pretext.
Posted by on Nov 26, 2007 @ 04:39 PMLib,
They only kept their nerve, because they had no other option. and as for an agreement that suited both sides
A. that works both ways, and
B. Does it really?Im not knocking the process. just unbelieving of the people who are moralising.....i mean it makes the Conservatives “Back to basics” Scandal of the early 90’s look positivley innocent.
Fair play to Marty and Big Ian for the Pantomime, but, just cause they can sit and smile for a salary dosent mean that I for want to hear hypocrisy from either side.
Posted by on Nov 26, 2007 @ 05:01 PMWas Paul Quinn not showing repect?
Posted by on Nov 26, 2007 @ 05:07 PMDeezle Beezle,
they only had no option if you believe that they had rejected violence. Obviously the bulk of their electoral support also believes that since they only started voting for Sinn Fein after the GFA.
For the Agreement to work it has to offer something to both communities. I believe it does since unionists get stability and nationalists get shared acess to power.
Whether that will be enough we’ll have to see.
Posted by on Nov 26, 2007 @ 05:19 PMlib,
“they only had no option if you believe that they had rejected violence. Obviously the bulk of their electoral support also believes that since they only started voting for Sinn Fein after the GFA.”You can fool all of the people some of the Time.......
Posted by on Nov 26, 2007 @ 05:24 PMlib2016
Since when did unionists care about a small time criminal in South Armagh or has the hypocrisy gone on.
i am not a unionist, but i am from south armagh. but i care. i care. i care that assholes that have taken to adminisrating british rule here, can murder young people for disrepecing the local chief.
and your flippant, off hand dismissal of Paul quinn’s life as that of a small time criminal is typical of what is wrong with sinn fein these days.
dont upset our nice salaries in stormont for the likes of scum like paul quinn.
Posted by on Nov 26, 2007 @ 05:25 PMlib 2016
“Sf pushed for a settlement which suited both sides” What nonsense. They took what was on offer from the Brits and Unionists.
Posted by on Nov 26, 2007 @ 05:26 PMI remain undecided as to who the best unionist wind-up merchant on Slugger is - LibNeverNever, or, RepublicanGroans? Both have their merits, but I think the Libster’s shading it at the moment. That pitch-perfect capture of the Republican mindset - ‘a small time criminal in South Armagh’: shure didn’t he need moiderising? - was priceless. Keep on keeping on, old son.
Posted by on Nov 26, 2007 @ 05:28 PMWhat do people want MMc to say?
Respect and civility are bad things?
I think his words were very well put.Posted by on Nov 26, 2007 @ 05:57 PMsomeone call? ahem, unionists wind themselves up pretty good without us evil republicans coming along !
Posted by on Nov 26, 2007 @ 06:13 PMAs the old saying goes, ‘ If you can convince yourself what you are saying is true, then your half way there ‘ Or it could be a case of ‘ Bull Shit Baffles Brains ‘ Keep it up Martin, your fooling no one.
Posted by on Nov 26, 2007 @ 06:15 PMI think it would be more becoming if unionists were a bit more mannerly and subdued in their criticisms of the natives. After all, they are guests in our country.
Posted by on Nov 26, 2007 @ 07:08 PMlib 2016
“Since when did unionists care about a small time criminal in South Armagh or has the hypocrisy gone on. “The casual way you dismiss Mr. Quinn’s life and untimely death has already been commented on by harry. It is of course axiomatic of your whole style on this web site and much the same way as you dismissed the life and untimely death of a 20 year old nurse some 20 years ago. For a man who self describes as a pacifist this is a fairly unusual position to say the least.
You will no doubt reject and also (as an athesist) fail to understand this point but I do care lib. I care because I believe in the quote “Do not count as naught one for whom Christ scorned not to die). I care lib even about the people who died on hunger strike and those men who died at Loughgall. I even care lib about you, however much I despise your views. Such is the commandment of the One I follow. It is not easy, rest assured I would rather not care about you lib; but there it is. You cannot and no doubt will not accept such points. They offend against your whole world view. That is sadly your problem.
Posted by on Nov 26, 2007 @ 07:34 PMTurning back to the thread.
In terms of McGuiness’s comments about respect. McGuiness is ploughing a similar sort of furrow to Adams with his “I knew there was no military solution” type rhetoric. In McGuiness’s case it is all a bit more down to earth and pratical. McGuiness ever seemed the pratical one; not for him the pseudo liberal pseudo intellectual stuff of Adams.
What McGuiness is doing here is explaining that in the new dispensation people should respect authority especially as manifested by himself and his accolytes. This allows McGuiness to mascurade as a champion of law and order, opposing evil attacks on elderly people (unless of course they were at war memorials or were retired police officers). It is also about distancing himself and SF from the ongoing mafia activities of the IRA. Of course pronouncing that republicans had no part in the Quinn murder when pratically everyone and their dogs knows otherwise also helps.
These two different types of statement allow SF to appear to be a democratic party whilst at the same time giving a nod and a wink to those who might accuse them of “going soft”. This allows the continued courting of the ex SDLP vote (which just might be looking a bit shaky post the Quinn murder) as well as keeping most of the traditional hardline supporters happy. It even helps with unionist engagement and the calculated saddness and regret when unionists will not accept such peace loving and law respecting types; with of course the implicit suggestion that it is hardly surprising that the IRA had to kill so many of them considering their unreasonable tendancy not to air brush the past and obediently pose as the aggressors reluctantly killed by the heroic volunteers.
Posted by on Nov 26, 2007 @ 09:32 PMI ask again what should he have said? He could have added something about the Quinn killing perhaps - but surely it’s evidence of a commitment to a peaceful, law abiding future.
Posted by on Nov 26, 2007 @ 10:03 PMLeaving to one side whether McGuinness can ever display ‘commitment to a peaceful, law abiding future’ whilst refusing point blank to take any personal responsibility whatsoever for his truly evil crimes, your approach to ‘evidence’ is odd, to say the least, Dewi.
What sort of ‘evidence’ is it that 20 forensically aware, evidently not especially brave killers, tortured, vilely, to death a young guy just for getting on the wrong side of some Republican hoods? Why are there still Republican hoods to get on the wrong side of, never mind this being the consequence for doing it?
And this is the problem with Republicans on Slugger. They rant and whine about sundry past injustices, and they impute to Unionists of all shades and kinds, serried accusations of bad faith, sectarianism and collusion in what they plainly consider to be crimes (when done by others, not least murder). But name me one person killed by Unionists this year, last year, the year before that, etcetera and etcetera. Yet here - Quinn’s barbarous death - is still another murder carried out by Republicans (and, o sick and sorry apologists, parse them whatever way you will, that’s what they are and that’s what the manner of men who killed Quinn are proud to call themselves) and what do Slugger’s troupe of Provette posters do? Retreat into denial, irrelevance, outright fantasy, smearing counter-accusation and whataboutery that makes your eyes water (seriously, when you, and you know who you are, try this sort of sh*t on, do you even convince yourselves, as you certainly don’t convince anyone else?)
So I repeat, one more young man has just been murdered. He was a working class northern catholic. His monstrously wrong killing is self-evidently a political and moral injustice. A disgrace indeed, a stain on the society that not merely tolerates it but excuses the scum who did it. And what do Republicans do here? Either ignore it, or try to tactically finesse this little embarrassment by opportunistically ranting about anything and everything other than this.
Republicans stand as morally compromised as they do, not just because of their past actions (the murders, and the fellow-travelling excuses made for murderers) but because of their inaction in the present. The contrast between Unionism, even in the short period of this executive (no murders, not a one, not any way you cut it, so don’t, please, waste our time trying) and the grisly tally sheet of Republicanism is hideously instructive. And the all-too easy to predict howls of self-deceiving outrage there’d be from Republicans, were, somehow, the situation in fact the other way round, sadly tells us just how long the road to go is before Republicans finally face up to being morally responsible actors.
Posted by on Nov 26, 2007 @ 11:05 PM
