Slugger O'Toole

Latest comments from FDM (see all)

FDM has commented 525 times (90 in the last month).

1. Comment on UTV Insight: Collusion and some of its innocent victims…
   on 11 May 2013 at 4:35 pm

   The last 24hrs have indeed been an eye opener.

   I will not acquiesce in and thus condone censorship by participating further.

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2. Comment on UTV Insight: Collusion and some of its innocent victims…
   on 10 May 2013 at 3:16 pm

   @Reader

   And was it Republicans or “Republicans” who carried out the Kingsmills massacre?

   ——————————————

   Actually you hit the nail on the head. You know of course that there are many republicans who are opposed to any form of violence in politics? So the point is if it was republicans who carried out Kingsmill, it was most certainly those who advocate violence.

   See republicans and “republicans”.

   My point is if you want to be identified apart from people whom you which to differentiate [or distance] yourself from, you call yourself something else. It really is that simple.

   Don’t like your name, what do you do? Change it.

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3. Comment on UTV Insight: Collusion and some of its innocent victims…
   on 10 May 2013 at 2:56 pm

   @Mick

   “Unionists is a collective noun. It does not differentiate between individuals or classes of individuals. It means, in literal terms every last man jack of them.”

   The people most guilty of misusing and abusing the term unionist, are indeed unionists themselves. No-one has more history on this site of actually decrying the use of that term for the specific reason that it is used as an umbrella, as a coverall. I have tried, time and again, to differentiate between the continuum of people who use that term between those ONLY in favour of a jurisdicational link with the UK at one end to those at the other for whom unionism means a whole shopping list of things including protestant nationalism/British Nationalism/EDL type right wing fanatacism/religion fundamentalism etc…

   Example:

   http://www.indymedia.ie/attachments/jul2007/paisley1969.gif

   Note the word that is given similar text size but more senior billing than the word UNIONIST in the picture. Perhaps a missive to Big Ian and the DUP to change their despicable, what was it, “racialism” is due.

   When I have attempted to differentiate I got it in the neck for having the audacity to suggest that a very large group who use that term today, what they mean by unionism is actually a form of protestant nationalism. The rump of DUP party members would be religious-fundamentalist-protestant nationalists in the objective interpretation of many. AND YET do they call themselves that? No. They call themselves unionist and therin lies your problem. It is also why I at least always use the term “unionist”, note the quotation marks. I am describing that group of people for whom the shopping list of what that means has very, very little to do with the consitutional link to the UK. My posting history is CRYSTAL clear in that regard.

   Now Irish nationalists are not the ones creating the problem here. Many unionists use the coverall term for the express purpose of hiding many truly awful philosophies under this benign umbrella word. Nationalists cannot dictate to people what they are or what they call themselves.

   So the bigger problem is for those within unionism who wish to be clearly identified as different from the rest in terms of their politics. From my point of view it is UP TO THEM to differenitate themselves, not my job. Would they accept any title I gave them? Not bloody likely.

   However looking at the grouping issue. Example. The Sinn Fein Ard Fheis and the Belfast Telegraph poll. “66% of respondents disagreed that a campaign [of armed struggle] is justified while British rule remains”. You would have to acknowledge that those people present at the Ard Fheis as members could be described pretty accurately as Irish nationalists as a collective.

   If we asked a group of people who self-identified as unionist if their government was justified in the use of extra-judicial methods to defeat the IRA, what percentage would say yes? I would say it would be upwards of 80%. Hence the use of the collective noun unionist would be appropriate with regard to that general perspective, especially for brevity and precis purposes on a short reply internet forum.

   Ultimately if unionists have a problem with being identified and lumped with “unionists” then I suggest they either get a different coat or adopt a different handle. I am sure John and Basil are melting their brains on this issue as we write since it is a wider issue for them and not one invented by me on a Friday morning in May 2013.

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4. Comment on UTV Insight: Collusion and some of its innocent victims…
   on 10 May 2013 at 11:57 am

   I’m with Morpheus on this one.

   I can’t see where we have gone off topic?

   I can’t see where we have been man playing?

   So difficult to know how we have deviated from the rule base?

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5. Comment on UTV Insight: Collusion and some of its innocent victims…
   on 10 May 2013 at 10:37 am

   @Mick Fealty

   “Did we not get enough blood libel over Bloody Sunday?”

   Well if these things have a shelf life then don’t be mentioning La Mon, Bloody Friday, Enniskillen or the rest to me if thats the new rule. If we are talking repetition I think of some notable others on here who have been stuck in the same groove on the LP for the longest time.

   “Who is this ‘them’ you speak of Kemosabi? Seriously, you need to be specific when you make slanderous accusations like that, or I’l be going into angry ref mode…”

   As I stated above.
   “If you push even just a little you see that “UNIONISTS” just don’t care what methods the military, the state and its nefarious agencies used. C/N/R/Irish lives just don’t have the same value to THEM.”
   There was me thinking that was clear.

   I think BluesJazz casual acceptance above of state murder of one side of the community confirms to at least the point I made above, which you have some issue with. These lives have assumed such a low value that they don’t warrant due process of the law. ‘Sucker punch’ them the suckers. Which in real life means that they should be extra-judicially killed by a state death squad possibly/probably in front of their wife and children.

   People like BluesJazz and the rest who hold such extreme views need to be challenged. There was me thinking this was just such a forum for them to be exposed to a counter point of view.

   However since we a sectioning-off parts of our collective history that we are not supposed or allowed to talk about anymore, could you provide us with a full list of events/themes/issues that are now proscribed on slugger?

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6. Comment on UTV Insight: Collusion and some of its innocent victims…
   on 10 May 2013 at 9:12 am

   If you push even just a little you see that “unionists” just don’t care what methods the military, the state and its nefarious agencies used.

   C/N/R/Irish lives just don’t have the same value to them.

   Morpheus is very right when he asks “Where’s the line?”

   Well there is no line for “unionists”. There is no bottom, there is no barrel that can’t be scraped, it is possible to get down lower than a snakes belly. It is possible for them to explain away obscenities as necessary. They need to dress it up with phrases like “sucker punch” because if they actually have to use the proper description of vile acts well they might have to face up them and their tiny ego’s just couldn’t take the hit.

   For goodness sake how many of the Shankill Butchers were given the PUL community equivalent of a state funeral?

   However the point I made stands. The British state broke one of the major tenets of counter-insurgency. They lost the moral argument through a catalogue of state-sponsored morally illegitimate acts, which they refuse to this day to own up to. Such is the ego hit this is causing to the British psyche and their institutions seen and unseen that they are trying desperately to draw a line under the entire troubles.

   However foul deeds will rise, Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.

   “the gunman survived and his target didn’t…”

   So true. How many of those brave soldiers on Bloody Sunday were shot that day? Or in Ballymurphy when they were using unarmed women, teenagers and men of the cloth as their safari animals of choice? Brave men indeed.

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7. Comment on UTV Insight: Collusion and some of its innocent victims…
   on 9 May 2013 at 8:04 pm

   @BlueJazz

   I think it says a lot when your national hero is a misogynist cold warrior who gets his kicks killing Johnny Foreigner with a smile on his face, whilst sporting his Union Fleg underpants.

   If you doubt his importance to the British psyche understand that he and the Queen no less were THE TWO “front and centre” British personalities at the latest team GB flag waving event, also known as the 2012 Olympic games.

   Whilst the general British public might not care, some other parts of the world are actually civilised. Perhaps one day as a nation they will grow up and stop treating the world as a military safari park. Hope springs eternal.

   BTW: The Battle of Algiers is one of my faves. Could I offer Mesrine: Killer Instinct, which demonstrates what happens to the torturers when let loose on normal society?

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8. Comment on UTV Insight: Collusion and some of its innocent victims…
   on 9 May 2013 at 7:40 pm

   @Mick

   “the British state authorities (democratic or not) appear to have used their agents and informers as a cancerous gene inside both sets of organisations, causing sustainable damage over duration of the long war and destroying its capacity to think and act independently from within”

   I would be interested to read some examples of the British secretive state agencies [MI5/MI6/FRU/Special Branch] actually hampering loyalist terrorist organisations? The documentary under discussion provided very clear evidence to the contrary.

   This was old-style counter insurgency in operation, which we have seen from Aden to Afghanistan, from Palestine to the Iraq.

   The “both sides were as bad as each other” with the British umpiring in the middle like good old Dicky Bird is about as wide of the mark as you can get. It is lazy and its just plain wrong. Britain ran the counter-insurgency in Northern Ireland. However they made a massive error in judgement. The below taken from Chapter 7 of the current Marine Corp Counterinsurgency manual (Dec. 2006), signed by Petraeus himself.

   “Lose Moral Legitimacy, Lose the War

   During the Algerian war of independence between 1954 and 1962, French leaders decided to permit torture against suspected insurgents. Though they were aware that it was against the law and morality of war, they argued that—
   • This was a new form of war and these rules did not apply.
   • The threat the enemy represented, communism, was a great evil that justified extraordinary means.
   • The application of torture against insurgents was measured and non-gratuitous.
   This official condoning of torture on the part of French Army leadership had several negative consequences. It empowered the moral legitimacy of the opposition, undermined the French moral legitimacy, and caused internal fragmentation among serving officers that led to an unsuccessful coup attempt in 1962. In the end, failure to comply with moral and legal restrictions against torture severely undermined French efforts and contributed to their loss despite several significant military victories. Illegal and immoral activities made the counterinsurgents extremely vulnerable to enemy propaganda inside Algeria among the Muslim population, as well as in the United Nations and the French media. These actions also degraded the ethical climate throughout the French Army. France eventually recognized Algerian independence in July 1963.”

   That is an absolute jewel in understanding why we are where we are in this region. If the British state acted in an above board manner then where is the problem?

   Lose moral legitimacy, lose the war.

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9. Comment on UTV Insight: Collusion and some of its innocent victims…
   on 9 May 2013 at 5:47 pm

   @Nevin

   “They might well put members of the British and Irish political and security establishments in the dock as well some who’ve sat on the Stormont benches but who’ve enjoyed immunity from prosecution here; the political process might crumble.”

   Obviously you are heavily implying Shinners. However most of the bench warmers of theirs at Stormont have done time for their war activities. Gerry Kelly, MMcG [in the South], Gerry A was interned etc… So it really would be difficult to go after them again, since even if you find them guilty of anything under the terms of the agreement they would walk for time served already. Whereas the securocrats have really only served time in their golf clubs. Hence their paranoia and sabre-rattling dread over any process looking at the past and the complete hostility to historical crime investigations of the role of the so-inappropriately-called “security forces”.

   “When I see Brian relaxing in the company of folks linked to paramilitary organisations, I get a little anxious, I’m reminded of the influence that paramilitaries continue to exert in many local communities.”

   That is an accusation of a lack of impartiality from Rowan. You can of course evidence that?

   “In a different context, a friend of mine was told by a senior civil servant that the department would spend whatever it took to protect its officials.”

   I think this underlines what I see as an attempt to turn down the volume here. These were government officials deciding who should live and who should die, who should be absolved of murder and who should shielded from prosecution.

   They call those actions crimes. The people who commit those crimes merit prosecution. No-one is above the law. Don’t try to imply that state murder is for the wider good. It is the road to hell.

   By doing what they did, the UK government lost all its legitimacy to govern this region. You can’t break the law of the land by killing the citizens of the state and then try and force the citizens to recognise their legitimacy to govern.

   Remember Camerons decision not to enquire and thus not to prosecute the guilty is the state covering its tracks NOW, not forty years ago, NOW.

   He is underlining that the UK is as sick today as it was then. Again fundamentally exposing to us that the UK government still cannot undertake to uphold the rule of law. Welcome to the 21st century where the UK government is still as bent as they come!

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10. Comment on UTV Insight: Collusion and some of its innocent victims…
    on 9 May 2013 at 2:57 pm

    The documentary is shocking.

    The two major statements, one of which I had heard at the time are David Camerons off hand admission in no. 10 and Brian Rowans comment. Here are both.

    “Look the previous Administration (Labour) could not deliver an enquiry…in your husbands case and neither can we because there are people all around this place who won’t let it happen.” Prime Minster David Cameron

    “You put Special Branch in the dock, and they will put the State in the dock…” B. Rowan

    Basically Cameron is admitting that the UK is not a parliamentary democracy and that the law of the country is not applied equally in all cases. Camerons further admissions in the Commons underlined the role of the state in the murder of Pat Finucane. To all those who have said, even in recent days on this site, that the judiciary is independent in the UK of political influence look pretty foolish when you look at those admissions by Cameron and others.

    1. So the UK is not a democracy.
    2. The legal processes are not applied equally.
    3. The state has agencies which plan, assist, facilitate and indeed carry out murder of its own citizens to order.
    4. Even the Prime Minister of the government admits that he is unable to take these people to task.
    5. Demonstrably the judiciary are unable to apply the law equally in all cases, especially those involving agencies and agents of the state.
    6. The police are unable to investigate all the criminal acts that occur in the state in cases involving the machinations of the agencies and agents of said state.

    When the “unionists” among you wonder why Irish people want to get out of the UK as soon as is practicable then look no further than the list above. The documentary underlines the fact that we really will need to wipe our feet after walking the UK door.

    If we compare the situation to the United States, a republic, we can see clear blue water. Richard Nixon had to resign the presidency of that country after been found to have sanctioned bugging, harassment and activities which led to burglary visited upon his political rivals.

    Here the state sanctioned murder and the Prime Minister admits that “nothing can be done about it because the people at fault won’t like it”.

    Rowan is right. If the state were to go after its own dogs, the dogs will bite back.

    The UK is a sick corrupt country from top to bottom, the quicker we are out of it the better.

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