Slugger O'Toole

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Latest comments from 241934 john brennan (see all)

241934 john brennan has commented 422 times (15 in the last month).

1. Comment on A clumsy law is a small price to pay to remind us what the Troubles were really about
   on 11 June 2013 at 10:42 am

   Morp.
   In my book, much of the ‘physical force’ tactics employed by the Provos was quite synonymous with the extremes sectarian bigotry. Below are a couple of sentences from Jim Cusack’s recent book:
   “It’s very common in literature on Northern Ireland and the Troubles to see it largely in terms of a dominant Protestant majority and a Catholic minority, but in the Border areas it was the Protestants who were in the minority and who suffered for it. It has been ignored in large part because it does not fit into the ‘oppressive Protestants/oppressed Catholics’ dichotomy.
   “It is also one where a brutal sectarian dimension of the Provisionals is undeniable: the relentless bombing of Protestant businesses, the burning of farms, the shooting up of farmhouses to force the occupants out and the relentless campaign to kill Protestants in and out of uniform.
   “The Provos said and still say that they were killed for the uniform they wore and not for their religion but a good number of Protestants were killed who had left the UDR and others were killed who had never been in the security forces.”
   The “ethnic cleansing” of Protestants living in Border areas over 20 years of the Troubles was a “tool” to stop unionists coming to a political accommodation with the moderate nationalist party, the SDLP.

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2. Comment on A clumsy law is a small price to pay to remind us what the Troubles were really about
   on 10 June 2013 at 8:13 pm

   Sinn Fein, in the recent past, was never custodians of peace, or of a peace process. Its leadership’s justification of Provo murders, and the horrific nature of their indiscriminate, but calculated, murderous campaign, is proof of that.

   Neither can Sinn Fein be guarantors of future peace. Their goal remains a 32 county socialist republic. They have presently given up on ‘physical force’ as the means of achieving it, concentrating for the moment on the ballot box, instead of the Armalite. This requires more and more votes in the ballot, without scruples about the means and methods (e.g. extraordinary fundraising methods etc) for getting the extra votes. So watch out for a continued and increasingly intensive, expensive, sectarian and never ending election campaigning. If it doesn’t work it will be back to what we do best.

   Nearly 200 years ago, The Liberator, Daniel O’Connell, prophetically said of physical force republicanism:

   “She has no head and cannot think; no heart, and cannot feel. When she moves, it is wrath; when she pauses, it is amid ruin; her prayers are curses – her God is a demon – her communion is death – her vengeance is eternity – her Decalogue written in blood of her victims; and if she stops for a moment in her infernal flight, it is upon a kindred rock, to whet her vulture fang for a more sanguinary desolation.”

   So what Newton Emerson brilliantly said in 700 words confirms what The Liberator said in 70 words.

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3. Comment on A clumsy law is a small price to pay to remind us what the Troubles were really about
   on 10 June 2013 at 3:34 pm

   Morph.
   “what the SDLP should have done is stayed true to the D in SDLP and whipped the bill into a shape they could vote ‘Yes’ on in good conscience instead of passing legislation they still believe to be ‘flawed’ and then washing their hands of it by abstaining”
   But did not the SDLP propose amnedments, which Sinn Fein, refused to support?
   One – to ensure the bill was not retrospective, thus ensuring Kavanagh can remain in post?
   Two – to introduce an an indepenant appeals process/[panel, which SF also refused to support?
   So is it not SF which wants to keep on forever playing the victims’ card ” Oh poor me we are the victims in all this?
   As Newt wrote ” A far greater threat (to peace) is pretending the entire 30-year IRA campaign was justified, its violence was siccessful and victims like Mary Travers were an accidental aberration”

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4. Comment on On the matter of uncertainty and principle…
   on 7 June 2013 at 3:34 pm

   Is the SDLP alive or dead?
   Two things we know for sure:
   1. The SDLP never killed anyone.
   2. A lot of people presently alive, would presently be dead, were it not for the SDLP.
   During the Hume/Adams talks, many of the SDLP rank and file foresaw and forecast the inevitable outcome of clasping a viper to one’s bosom. But Hume’s argument was irrefutable. “If we can save even only one life, are we not obliged to try?
   Give credit where credit is due. The rank and file went along with Hume, even though some of its elected reps well knew that it far exceeded the call of duty to lay down one’s political live, not for a friend, but for a political enemy.

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5. Comment on No Dogs, No Irish….No Terrorists?
   on 4 June 2013 at 12:16 pm

   They haven’t gone away you know.

   Going by Siinn Fein’s anti-SDLP poster at the top of this post shows that the Provo graffiti writers haven’t decommissioned their paint brushes and aerosol cans.

   “No blacks -No dogs – no Irish – No ex-prisoners” is in the same inglorious tradition of Provo propoganda artists (vandals) e.g.:
   SDLP – Stoop Down Low Party
   SS – RUC
   Brits out
   Touts beware
   Sniper at work
   Etc etc

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6. Comment on No Dogs, No Irish….No Terrorists?
   on 3 June 2013 at 7:59 pm

   Socaire
   “The next thing – was it a war or not? Are all soldiers who kill murderers? And one for the fundaments – Thou shalt not kill.”

   In the final analysis each individual must take responsibility and be accountable for his own actions –“for what I have done and for what I have failed to do.”
   Yes a soldier, in a just war situation, can commit murder eg if he shoots someone, when he has choice of taking him a prisoner. A man with a gun may claim to be acting in self defence, but not if he waslying in ambush to shoot some who is not attacking him. How can anyone, or any cause, justify the planting of an indiscriminate car bomb. What cause can ever justify the treatment of the disappeared?

   For some physical force fundamentalists, there is no hierarchy of victims. So are people like Hitler, Pol Pot, the Skankill Butchers and the Enniskillen Bombers all equally victims? – All conditioned and programmed by their politics, life experiences and upbringing?

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7. Comment on Lord John Laird in hot water over Fiji ‘gig’…
   on 2 June 2013 at 11:48 am

   To be fair to Lord John Laird he seems to make membership of the House of Lords his life’s work and main source of income.
   He is top of the league for attendance, questions asked oral and written, expenses claimed, both travel and accommodation.
   What’s more as Laird Laird, he devotes some of his free time to promoting Ulster Scots. Perhaps we should give him a bit of leeway. Let the first among us who has never given ourselves the benefit of the doubt, when claiming travel expenses, cast the first stone.
   Not so long ago, NHS doctors were charging their patients £10 each for countersigning postal vote application forms.

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8. Comment on SDLP “A party not sure of where it is going or who it wants to take with it…”
   on 1 June 2013 at 5:45 pm

   I agree most of the analysis above, especially Mick’s 31May, 9.51Pm post. If there were an election tomorrow many former SDLP voters would most probably abstain. Few may go to SF, but for many that would be anathema. Alliance is neither fish, nor fowl. The UUP is all over the place. For its stance on moral issues, apart from strict Sabbath observance, the DUP is solid and sensible, but the intolerant spectre of Ian senior still haunts the party and is off putting for Nationalists and Catholics.
   But there are no elections due in the immediate future. So there is time for the SDLP to get its act together. What it presently needs is a clear, succinct manifesto, detailing policies and targets – and crib sheet of approved answers/statements/comments – to be put out by trusted, competent and approved spokespersons.
   We used to joke about John Hume’s single transferrable speech, but that delivered coherent polices, understood by the voters – and delivered votes for the party.

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9. Comment on SDLP reminded of the real politics of #SpadBill by its own retired politicians…
   on 31 May 2013 at 8:31 pm

   Dixie: yes we know how it started, but nearly all of us ended up as legitimate targets for IRA murder gangs – from catholic postmen to protestant female census workers.
   But at least Gerry Adams recently said on RTE that he agreed that the deliberate killing of one human being by another human being is murder. The next step will be to admit that the killing of Garda Gerry McCabe is not just regrettable – but was also murder?

   Just a short step from agreeing with Pope John Paul – “never call murder by any name other than murder”?

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10. Comment on SDLP “A party not sure of where it is going or who it wants to take with it…”
    on 31 May 2013 at 2:35 pm

    Recently, Bishop Eamon Martin and Fr. Tim Bartlett publically stated that, when it comes to the common good, moral considerations should come before political considerations. In general, most SDLP voters instinctively agree with them.

    However, on recent issues the present SDLP leadership is seen as to be very publically ignoring the moral dimensions.

    When Alban Maginness proposed inserting an amendment into a Justice Bill – an amendment designed to stop the opening of a private abortion clinic in Belfast – not one of his Belfast SDLP Assembly colleagues, including his party leader, supported him. All Sinn Fein MLA’s voted against the Maginness amendment.
    On same-sex marriage legislation, proposed by Sinn Fein, 8 SDLP MLA’s voted in favour, 5 were recorded as absent, with Alban Maginess being present, but abstaining from voting. On the same issue, also sponsored by Sinn Fein, SDLP local councillors followed a similar incoherent pattern. On this ‘conscience issue’, the present party leadership advocated a vote for, permitted abstention, but forbade a vote against.

    Against this recent background, and sensing alienation in traditional party voters and supporters, some of the party grandees decided to have decided to go public in the present SPAD’s debate -“to plug the hole in the dyke” – to stop the outflow of party support.

    By morphing into a full blown 100% socialist and secular party, there is no future for the SDLP.

    By aiming for the common good, through prioritising social justice, while observing moral and natural laws, SDLP does have a political place in Ireland (north and south) and and also within the UK and Europe.

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