End of history: Or how I learned to start worrying and forget about my bombs

Carál Ní Chuilín, MLA and Gerry Kelly, MLA are both open and proud on their previous membership of a now defunct branch of Óglaigh na hÉireann.  Both served prison sentences for bombing campaigns in areas mainly used by ‘civilians’ on behalf of that IRA. 

When the most recent in a long line of British ‘Chief Constables’ controlling policing in the north of Ireland needed a comparative for the recent extended disruption on the Antrim Road, he choose the Omagh bomb. 

He did not compare it with the bombs of the IRA the two north Belfast MLAs are linked with – when more accurate comparisons could have been found by the dozens. 

Why on earth would I encourage anyone to support or use the (PSNI/RUC) instruments of imperialism and capitalism oppression in any instances? 

I wouldn’t legitimise those feckers or the system they prop up. 

alan56

So what is the question then? 

Mr Crumlin

Did you google citizen smith? 

When is a revolution just violence?  In fact why does a revolution have to be violent – violence is the last resort not the first.  Only when peaceful protest is met with violence can you even countenance taking up arms. 

The days of the prophetic shock minority are long gone – who are they fighting for?  The conditions for war do not exist. 

Im glad eirigi has agreed to put their views before the people – I hope they listen to what is said.  I look forward to the canvas. 

By the way – maybe, just maybe, the reason the PSNI chose the Omagh bomb is because it was the biggest bomb with regards people killed – its the one that sticks in the pysche of most people. 

Mark McGregor

@alan56

The question is:

‘Anything to mask the clear position of Caral and SF….yes, that’

redhugh78

Mark,

Would you care to offer your thoughts on the ‘operation’? 

Stephen Blacker

Fair play to those two Shinners for trying to look after their people in a positive way.  It is good to see they understand that we are in a no win situation when it comes to violence. 

It is scary that an obviously educated person like Mark McGregor would not encourage anyone to report someone that plants devices or attempts to murder to the PSNI.  Thankfully people like this are in the minority in our society. 

fitzjameshorse1745

Indeed…well said those two MLAs in North Belfast. 
Turning in the no-marks who planted the bomb might actually be dangerous and quite brave. ( Just look at the way they murdered that guy in Derry last year)..Yet I suppose most of us would also turn them in too but we might not shout it from the roof tops. Confidential telephone would do for most of us. 
On the other hand I suppose in its own way actually handling a bomb is quite brave in a murderous evil kinda way. 
The third option…….keeping your mouth shut …….and glorifying in it……..seems neither brave in a rgood way.  O brave in an evil way. 
Personally I wouldnt boast about cowardice. 
But it takes all sorts. 

MichaelMac

‘I support republican and socialist/marxist revolution.’ 

Is that from the comfort of your very nice semi?  Also are OnH welcome to stick a few unstable boomers outside your own house for the wife and kids to step over? 

ORWELLSPEN

MichaelMac – well said.  I remember an IRA supporter from Carrickmore who told me without any shred of irony that the only time he didn’t support them was when they forced his family to let them use their home as a look out. “ Da was watching the Tv and they burst in and he missed the end”
Mark what gives OnH the right to kill?  They have no moral authority except their own self apppiintednrsx

ORWELLSPEN

MichaelMac – well said.  I remember an IRA supporter from Carrickmore who told me without any shred of irony that the only time he didn’t support them was when they forced his family to let them use their home as a look out. “ Da was watching the Tv and they burst in and he missed the end”
Mark what gives OnH the right to kill?  They have no moral authority except their own self appointedness

fordprefect

Problem I think you have here,IMHO, remember 1921?  The same people, Gerry Kelly and co., were telling people for years that the IRA would not stop until they achieved a united Ireland.  Now we have Gerry and co. squealing the place down and condemning people (remember “the politics of comdemnation get you nowhere”) and encouraging people to become touts.  Ask Kelly or any of his cohorts would they now condemn the killing of infromers pre-1994.  If not, why not?  The people who planted this bomb, I would assume, feel that they have been sold out by a bunch of self serving hypocrites, who, in years gone by have carried out worse acts than this. 

redhugh78

Earth to Mark? 

wild turkey

Mark

have any children?  I do

we live quite near the extravision shop. 

from time to time my kids use the shop

if the device had gone off, and say, my kids were maimed or murdered and if you knew who may have been involved, you wouldn’t turn them in? 

you wouldn’t turn them in? 
you wouldn’t turn them in? 

please don’t respond to this comment.  don’t.  you have made your point. 

any further comment from you i will consider to be your endorsement of the potential murder or injury to my children, to my neighbours and the life, however ideologically incorrect and impure, we clumsily weave in this local community. 

pippakin

Surely the point is that some people have in the past known about bombs and even bombers.  It is disingenuous to suddenly start caring for human life when they spent years being ‘uncaring’. 

Chris Donnelly

Pippakin
No it’s not. 

Look around you.  This society is dominated by people who have made distinctions between ‘good’ violence and ‘bad’ violence, whether it be on domestic or foreign soil. 

In fact, it’s a common trait to peoples the world over. 

ORWELLSPEN

Marxism eh?  Just like it worked in Cambodia, Cuba, Russia, Ethiopia, Libya etc.  All well known for human rights espousal and being humane to those who opposed their regimes.  But Mark, I’m sure onh would be just as humane in power.  Ireland may be one land mass but there are two nations on it.  Irish and British.  I watch RTE and I see a foreignness there.  I’m not criticising the south, it’s a nice country but I want no more to be part of it than I do be part of Portugal.  United Ireland will not stop the 1million strong British mInority being a 1million strong British minority so what is exactly you are wanting to unite and why?  As for nationalists, perhaps repartition will correct territorial anomalies. 

Then again, is Nark trolling? 

Chris Olphert

Mark you clearly didn’t make these comments and even this post with any degree of seriousness. 

Your views are so apparently absurd. 

I hear this socialist/Marxist dogma being bandied about all the time and it never fails to make me laugh.  I went through my own Marxist phase when I was about 15.  It’s a lovely notion but as alluded to above, it has never worked in human history. 

You talk about the imperialist regime and capitalist oppression.  I suppose the joy of subscribing to a fairy tale fantasy instead of real politics is that you get to snipe those BUILDING our future from the sidelines, knowing full well your own system will never get to make such decisions or bear the responsibility. 

As for ONH etc etc, as a good friend once told me, in every conflict once reconciliation and healing has been initiated there will always be a residual element who are simply and plainly, bad bastards, the psychopaths and deviants. 

I wonder if a Marxist regime would tolerate dissenting comments such as yours?  I doubt not.  Keep digging holes in the ocean Mark. 

fitzjameshorse1745

Actually I quite like Mr McGregors form of Socialist Revolution. 
He is not required to SAY anything. 
And only the people he supports are required to DO anything. 
There is a lot we could say about his nonsense.  But he would only glorify in it.  But two points.  One I have made often is that the defunct organisation to which MMG refers is not actually defunct at all.  They really havent gone away you know.  I dont move in the circles where I can offer definitive proof.  But it seems obvious to me that if they didnt exist…..the dissident no-marks might actually be emboldened to act more murderously on those who speak up against them. 

And frankly 2011 is not 1973.  Whether support for IRA action was a result of “real” support or “fear” (actually I think it was a combination of the two in the same people….we were all ambiguous) the fact is that the dissident no marks cant inspire support or fear.  Only loathing. 
Simply put, Im more afraid for my grandchildrens future than I am for my own.  That goes for most of us. 
And theres no way in Gods Green Earth Id permit them to live the way I did.  And that goes for most of us. 
In the wise words of Dr Phil on the Oprah Winfrey Show “Eventually we outlive our fears”. 
Redundancy.  Mortgage.  Childrens Education. 
The murderous intent of so called socialist revolutionaries is not a fear I intend to re-visit. 

Gerry Lvs castro

‘I support republican and socialist/marxist revolution.’ 

Mark get a grip.  You sound like a 1970s soundbite. 

Marxism has proved itself a particularly unpleasant beaten docket in the places Orwellspen has listed above and more.  What on earth makes you think Ireland can espouse Marxism when others have failed so dismally?  And what gives you the right to ignore the democratic will of the Irish people, both in the GFA and in their stunning lack of interest in Marxist parties (SF — debatably –notwithstanding)? 

http://www.aurient.co.uk Stephen Barnes

Baggot chose Omagh, not because it’s comparable in terms of loss of human life, but because it shows a callous disregard for the lives of civilians and innocent passers-by. 

You said “I support republican and socialist/marxist revolution.  Why on earth would I encourage anyone to support or use the (PSNI/RUC) instruments of imperialism and capitalism oppression in any instances?” 

If the police happened to be the Garda Siochana, would you think the same? 

I know Marxism states that police forces are the henchmen of the state, but given that human nature is human nature, what do you propose to prevent crime?  Ideology isn’t a solution to natural human greed/desire,,,,,

Dixie Elliott

Amazing Hypocrisy when you think the same party’s leadership once thought nothing of killing and secretly burying a mother of ten for informing. 

And before the self-righteous get on their high-horses I’ve said before publicly that these actions will merely lead to disaster and innocent deaths.  Republicanism needs to get it’s head out of the failures of the past and look for a better way forward. 

fordprefect

Dixie
Your first point about “Amazing Hypocrisy” is exactly what I was on about in my post. 

Nunoftheabove

Mark

What revolution is this mate ?  There isn’t one going on in Ireland, let’s be comletely clear about that – these are right-wing lumpen nationalists who, far from being radical, are actually rather conservatiave and in some cases reactionary when you think about it. 

What model of socialism/marxism (?)  do you have in mind for the rest of us and will we get any opportunity to dissent from it or oppose it (anti-pseudo-revolution rather than counter-revolution, I’d have thought) ?  If so, will this be via the ballot box or will it require us to oppose you in arms ? 

http://diaryarticles.blogspot.com/ articles

What’s with the hanging dummy photograph and the caption “judas” chosen to piss someone off. 

Intellectually, ideologically and morally bankrupt. 

Nunoftheabove

I guess it’s some form of so-called dissident warning to any ‘counter-revolutionary’ citizen (enemy of ‘the people’) thinking about volunteering for stool-pigeon duty and /or is a representation of what they believe to be SF policy on PSNI co-operation. 

One of the perverse ironies here is that the dissidents unlike Carál Ní Chuilín and Kelly are at least consistent.  I may loathe all that the dissidents stands for but on this issue their position is intellectually consistent and even morally consistent: it may be immoral depending on one position but it is consistent. 

Carál Ní Chuilín and Gerry Kelly supported and were part of a bombing campaign in which the sort of bombs the dissidents left in North Belfast were actually less dangerous than some of one’s Carál Ní Chuilín and Kelly approve of.  Here we will need some whataboutery as an illustration. 

The dissidents bomb was left in a reckless fashion to murder police officers who seem to have been a sort of target (and in dissident morality a legitimate target).  Had wild turkey’s or anyone else’s children died the dissidents would have said that was sad but acceptable (to them) colateral damage. 

Contrast this (and here is where we need to use the examples) with LaMon and Blood Friday where there was not even the beginnings of an attempt to target the police.  Then broaden it out into the likes of Enniskillen where the claims to be targeting the security forces are clearly lies: the near macassre of the children of Tullyhommon demonstrates that. 

Whilst once the likes of Carál Ní Chuilín and Kelly were content to have bombs targeting anyone and everyone and indeed planted these self same bombs; now they condemn bombs which are no more reclkess or murderous than their own.  Once these republicans told us they would not stop until Britain agreed to leave Ireland.  Yet at the very moment that these SF members were condemning the dissidents members of Her Britannic Majesty’s armed forces were making the bombs safe. 

Having done their volte face Carál Ní Chuilín and Gerry Kelly will not even accept the wrongness of their own actions. 

The dissidents are indeed immoral, unrepresentative, uncalled for murderers and criminals.  The only difference that they have with Carál Ní Chuilín and Gerry Kelly is that they are at least consistent in their immorality and murderous intent. 

Oh yes and one other difference: unlike Carál Ní Chuilín and Kelly they have not now obtained a tidy living at the expense of Her Britanic Majesty’s government.  Having climbed over the bodies of more than two thousand people here (including many of their own supporters and members) to achieve that lofty position Carál Ní Chuilín nad Gerry Kelly are in no position to lecture anyone on anything to do with the inappropriatness of planting bombs. 

Rory Carr

Having “said before publicly that these actions will merely lead to disaster and innocent deaths” will Dixie Elliot now say publicly whether or not, in order to prevent such disaster and the deaths of innocents, he would endorse the position of the Sinn Féin MLA’s in calling for the public to report to the policing authorities those they know to be involved? 

241934 john brennan

Terrorism is the same everywhere and at all times.  Terrorism is terrorism is terrorism ……..

The Brits once used pitch cap and triangle to intimidate and extract information
The IRA tarred and feathered girls, seen talking to British soldiers

Cromwell murdered Catholics in a church in Drogheda. 
The IRA murdered Protestants in a Gospel hall in Darkley. 

The Brits hanged people by the roadside – and left them hanging
The IRA stripped and murdered people – and left them in rubbish bags by the roadside. 

In the end terrorist leaders become unpopular.  After he was dead and buried.  Cromwell was dug up and publically hanged – by his own people. 

http://www.thedissenter.co.uk thedissenter

The republicans who planted the explosive devices in North Belfast were not ‘reckless’ they were deliberate.  And whether bombs on the street or policy as spouted by the dear leader on LMFM, each has the same (consistent) potential to wreck an economy. 

Back to the post.  These past few days of fun, coupled with the LMFM interview, have entirely at Adams’s expense.  It has been fun.  But to hate Adams?  Why?  He provides such great entertainment.  Long may the joke last. 

Fionn

On the TG4 website -for those who missed it or can’t receive the TV channel -is a really good series of documentaries about Dan Breen, Tom Barry and Ernie O’Malley, its relevant because in the end they went their seperate ways, when you watch the programmes individually its hard not to think that they each did the right thing, but thats impossible, at least one of them was wrong. 

Nunoftheabove

Turgon

The only reason Ní Chuilín and Kelly are earning, as you put it, a tidy living at the expense of the taxpayer (don’t dissidents pay taxes and/or accept dole cheques ?)  is that they have been democratically elected to do so.  It is not only principle that determines that the loser dissidents won’t earn an equivalent living from the taxpayer in the same is that they won’t be elected to do so.  That’s nothing whatsoever to do with their own cock-eyed pseudo-principles (paying homage to the brave anti-fascist internationalists who opposed Franco, but also lending full support and solidarity to the fascist verminous ‘resistance’ in Iraq and Afghanistan – impressively principled, huh ?) –  it’s everything to do with the fact that the taxpayer dismisses them and will have nothing whatever to do with them. 

Ní Chuilín and Kelly will doubtless never admit that what they were involved with was ‘inappropriate'; they’re very persuasive living proof of its futility though and to that extent I think can speak with some authority on the impotence of the vacuous death-cultists’ current campaign. 

Turgon

Nunoftheabove,
True up to a point but remember that there was a time when Kelly and co said they would not enter any power sharing and would not leave before the “Brits” agreed to leave. 

Now they have reinvemted their campaign of murder and instead of fighting to remove “the Brits” they now murdered people to get civil rights etc: the ones which were provided in the early / mid 1970s at the very latest and yet they carried on the bombing.  Of course they (Ní Chuilín and Kelly) were very keen on depriving other people of rights such as the right to life. 

They also got very few votes (and were certainly not elected) when they were at the bombing and murdering.  Indeed the overwhelming majority of nationalists voted against their campaign of murder.  As such the dissidents are in exactly the place where Ní Chuilín and Kelly were before they stopped: yet Ní Chuilín and Kelly refuse to accept that they were wrong to have started and have a set of reinvented reasons for their criminality. 

I also disagree about Ní Chuilín and Kelly being the living proof of the futility of violence.  No sadly their success seems living proof of the efficacy of violence and acts as a silent encouragement to the dissidents: kill enough people for long enough and then people will entreat with you, give you power and you too can wear Armani suits like Gerry Kelly. 

Sadly the lesson of the peace process seems to be that violence pays for the leaders of the violent: not maybe for some of the foot soldiers but for some of the leaders it seems to work. 

Nunoftheabove

Turgon

The futility theory is based on the fact that they got almost literally none of what they killed for and that their former comrades died for.  The outcome was a continuation of the union, a continuation of partition and power-sharing with some vague and in the main symbolic green frills around the edges.  I agree with you about their attempts to re-frame their conflict in strongly revisionist terms re.  parity of esteem etc .  McCann rightly described what they were at or ended up as “civil rights by wholly inappropriate means” and he’s spot on. 

Whether we can or should interpret the course of action they took towards politics as evidence that they were less absolutist and more pragmatic than any of their messages every suggested is an interesting debate.  I’d incline towards the view that while republicanism was/is in the north a broad church (Defenders, socialists, progressives and nationalist reactionaries) that for a lot of them their republicanism was something of a situational affectation and as such was never that deep to begin with. 

241934 john brennan

The sad lesson in all of this is that revolution is never required for democracy – but democracy is always required for revolution. 

The sad fact is that PIRA are failed revolutionaries and its leaders were/are no democrats. 

Without all the violence and abuse of human rights, including thousands murdered, the Civil Rights Movement and SDLP would have achieved democracy in the North, with an Agreed Ireland, by the end of the 1970s.  That SDLP route map still points the way forward. 

However SF/DUP, having fought each other to a standstill, have now agreed to prop each other up, and remain forever in this “separate but equal” standstill.  While each has separate majority votes, the can remain in this rigid, sterile position -but it is hardly democratic freedom

Nunoftheabove

241934 john brennan

Don’t disagree on the institutionalized sterility but even let’s assume for a moment that your basic thesis was true – in what respects would your Hume-speak ‘agreed Ireland’ and power-sharing framework have been different from what we have now, leaving aside the question of how Hume and company would ever have gotten the British and the Amercians interested and engaged and the unionists persuaded and/or faced down into accepting it had there been an abandoned provo campaign, say around 1972-73 (or indeed none at all) ? 

Rory Carr

Fionn,

I was able to find and view TG4’s programme’s on Dan Breen and the one on Tom Barry (in which the late Peter Harte’s disgraceful allegations were roundly exposed as deceptive), for which link I thank you, but I am unable to get anything on Ernie O’Malley.  Do you have the link by any chance and easy-to-follow directions to the programme itself? 

pippakin

I think real socialists are almost always doomed to disappointment and disillusion,either the voter can be persuaded that there is a ‘get rich quick scheme’ just for them, which will, of course, be much easier to achieve after the election.  Or the socialists succeed and discover the leaders are no better than any other ambitious politician eager to prolong their power and extend their personal wealth. 

There are though examples of a good mix of socialism and capitalism in some Scandinavian countries and perhaps its to them that socialists should look for inspiration rather than to the old and largely discredited leaders. 

Gerry Kelly et al, decided?  to take the path to peace and whilst that in itself is admirable as is their ‘instruction’ to their electorate to report crime of any shape to the police.  It does imo have the stench of hypocrisy about it.  Its a cop out to say A and B, especially the British, did this so that validates everything we did.  It does not, if was/is wrong for the British and others its just as wrong for republicans. 

http://www.thedissenter.co.uk thedissenter

Sorry, second para of last comment was meant for another thread. 

Fionn

Rory I did reply with links to everything at 3(ish) but its all parked for moderation. 

Apologies everyone for the clutter, just wanted to pass links onto Rory

241934 john brennan

Nunoftheabove
Had Sunningdale (1973) not have been shot and shouted down, and there had been relative peace (no IRA violence) with unionists and nationalists working constructively together with respect for diversity (more JH speak) – would we not have had 3 or 4 referenda on Irish unity over the past 40 years? 

As it is why do you think SF has not called for a referendum since the GFA (1998) and when do you think they will ask for one – or perhaps in their terms “demand it”? 

Dixie Elliott

Rory Carr

“will Dixie Elliot now say publicly whether or not, in order to prevent such disaster and the deaths of innocents, he would endorse the position of the Sinn Féin MLA’s in calling for the public to report to the policing authorities those they know to be involved?” 

Of course not Rory.  Despite the fact I no longer support the use of violence as a means to achieving the removal of the British, I don’t believe that touting will bring about an end to the use of armed struggle. 
We must persuade these groups that violence is counterproductive and only acts against the wishes of the people without whose support Republicanism is going no where.  Will we persuade them by reporting them to the state police?  Only a fool would think otherwise. 

On saying that we must look at how the British have controlled PSF to such an extent they are now the most powerful propaganda weapon in their hands.  They now talk like the Fitts and Humes of old, but at least these people didn’t carry countless volunteers to early graves having told them the war wouldn’t end until the Brits left. 

I’ll finish with quotes from two great Republicans which sum up the present day PSF……

“The problem was not how to defeat a nation in arms battling for all that makes life worth living, but how to fool a nation without arms into becoming the accomplice of its oppressor.  And the strategic move in question is already being hailed as a great landmark of national progress. 

Yes, ruling by fooling, is a great British art – with great Irish fools to practice on.” 

James Connolly 1914

“They will not criminalise us, rob us of our true identity, steal our individualism, depoliticise us, churn us out as systemised, institutionalised, decent law-abiding robots.  Never will they label our liberation struggle as criminal.” 

in the absense of ‘no IRA violence’ Lord Paisley would have manufactured it as in Ballyshannon, Miami Show Band etc, although if unionist politicans were clever they would have opted for Sunningdale instead of waiting for the GFA will involved Policing, North South bodies etc, heyho what’s a few thousand dead to a party political whose main excitment is to get across to London for the weekend to find out if Gerry Adams is a Lord or not, while there electorate are losing their jobs, suck it up you have no choice but to vote for us, no wonder everyone wanders of to the garden centre on polling day, unionist politics is rapidly been left with bloated idiots and rabid suggerites

Fionn

in the absense of ‘no IRA violence’ Lord Paisley would have manufactured it as in Ballyshannon, Miami Show Band etc, although if unionist politicans were clever they would have opted for Sunningdale instead of waiting for the GFA will involved Policing, North South bodies etc, heyho what’s a few thousand dead to a party political whose main excitment is to get across to London for the weekend to find out if Gerry Adams is a Lord or not, while there electorate are losing their jobs, suck it up you have no choice but to vote for us, no wonder everyone wanders of to the garden centre on polling day, unionist politics is rapidly been left with bloated idiots and rabid suggerites and nothing else

Nunoftheabove

241934 john brennan

I don’t wish to be disrespectful but you must surely be either relatively young and/or not have lived in NI very long if ever.  I was alive at the time and don’t recognize the ‘working together’ piece at all – the unionist right as it was then had a very convenient excuse for not working with catholics (sic) – the ‘Ra – but it was an excuse and they had no intention of ‘responsibility sharing’ with non-unionists in any circumstances whatsoever any more than they did do before civil rights kicked off, before the provos were even in business at all. 

A lot of quite mainstream unionists felt soiled, demeaned and belittled by even having to talk to ‘uppity taigs’ like Hume let alone less reasonable voices than his and people ought not be allowed to forget that. 

Rory Carr

Thank you, Fionn. 

Rory Carr

Dixie Elliot,

Are you seriously telling us that, in order to comply with your interpretation of some words written by dead Republicans you would do nothing to prevent an action which in your own words might lead to “disaster and innocent deaths” (by which I take it you mean “the deaths of innocents”)? 

You go on to say, “We must persuade these groups that violence is counterproductive and only acts against the wishes of the people without whose support Republicanism is going no where.”  Have you not considered that your attempts at persuasion (of which we see little evidence) have singularly failed and that if their violence flies in the face of the will of the very people on whose behalf they purport to act then they are little more than anti-social thugs who must be stopped by whatever means available within the constraints of law ? 

Indeed by your inaction have you not surrendered the right to claim that one is Republican to any individual, however counterproductive his actions might be to that ethos?  Is it the case in your theology that only those who kill, who court disaster, who put at risk the lives of innocents can claim the mantle of Republicanism?  Because that it is what it appears to be. 

And as for socialist/Marxist justification, I swear that the next little dissident twerp or cheerleader that I hear laying claim to Marxist principles I will belabour about the ears with Volume I of Capital, which will be closest he will ever come to any of its content I am sure. 

Dixie Elliott

So Rory, these dead Republicans, as you call them, were wrong and those who made a career out of carrying coffins which included that of Bobby Sands are right? 

Are you saying that the way of persuasion is the way laid down by the British.  To inform? 

You use the very words often spewed out by the Stoops in the past to describe PIRA.  Were the Stoops after all right in that for 30 years PIRA were flying in the faces of the people?  Were they right Rory? 

Did PIRA not kill, court disaster and put at risk the lives of innocents and for what the Sunningdale Agreement reworded?  Is this what volunteers died for or did they die for, as is being claimed now, to bring down an Orange State that didn’t exist since the Brits replaced it with Direct Rule in ’73? 

A typical shinner in that you try and label all who go against what can only be termed as Adamsism as cheerleaders of ‘Dissidents’.  I’ve stated before and publicly in the press what I think of the continued use of armed struggle, not because I believe those who engage in it are as you describe them in such Thatcheresque wording as anti-social thugs or criminals, but because I believe they are wrong! 

I am totally opposed to violence now because of how I saw that men who were unwilling to take up the gun actively encouraged young people to do so and walked over their graves into the very system they died to bring down.  And how they used brave men as pawns to redirect the struggle. 

So don’t give me lectures on violence mo chara, I know men and women who’s heads are fucked up with drink because of what they did in the past only to see nothing achieved.  Do you honestly think I want my children going through more years wasted on war? 

Of course the people want peace thats whats keeping them voting for PSF a party who rule over a wasteland of unemployment and growing poverty.  Look at West Belfast, the most deprived area in the North, abandoned by Gerry. 
The headlines in the Andytown News announced…’Invest NI Shame.  West Belfast £19.86m East Belfast £773.9m’
What use was Gerry and the 5 PSF MLAs who are growing fat on peace processing to the people of West Belfast? 

He cares so much he abandoned them to head carpetbagging South. 

Violence is wrong because only those who direct it profit in the end. 

As I’ve already stated I’ve publicly in the press and using my real name stated my opposition to the continued use of armed struggle, in the Derry Journal and most recently, after the bomb in the Derry bank, in the Sunday Tribune. 
My friend have you publicly, while using your own name, called on people to inform? 

Posting it up on Slugger doesn’t count and I await your answer. 

241934 john brennan

Nunoftheabove
Yes I was around at the time at the time of the Sunningdale Stormont power-sharing government.  In fact, 18 months earlier I was almost caught up in the Oxford St. bombs, on Bloody Friday. 
During the 5 months period of the Sunningdale Govt 103 people were murdered in Ireland, the majority by the Provos.  A couple of weeks before it collapsed (shot down by the Ra and shouted down by DUP and Loyalists), there was a 44 to 28 majority Stormont vote of confidence in the government.  However, the anti – democrats’ tactics prevailed and we know the who and the why. 

We also know that 37 years later some of those same anti-democrats are now combined in a sf/DUP Duopoly in Stormont. 

When will they demand a referendum on Irish Unity? 

Rory Carr

The same old whinge of immaturity as ever, Dixie.  The continuing violence of the dissidents is all the fault of those who choose to abandon violence, who sought and received the mandate of the people to pursue a peaceful road.  We have to understand how hurt they were that they would no longer be allowed to shoot and bomb as they pleased and gently encourage them that there is a better way. 

This same attitude is inherent in the statement, “I know men and women who’s heads are fucked up with drink because of what they did in the past.”  Has it never occured to you that their heads might be “fucked up with drink” because they won’t stop drinking?  Alcoholics Anonymous is open to all and only requires a willingness to be honest with oneself in order to find recovery.  Patting alcoholics on the back and telling them that you understand their pain is not only useless it is decidedly cruel and only serves to enable their addiction and add to the pain of those within their destructive orbit.  Further it helps to cushion them from the consequences of their actions which is just as you would have us deal with the dissidents and their actions which, in your own words (again), ” will merely lead to disaster and innocent deaths “. 

If you would have arrested an alcoholic husband (whatever excuse he gives for his drinking) who beats up his wife and terrorises his children (as I trust you would), firstly to protect the innocent victims and secondly for his own good then surely it is also incumbent upon a member of the nationalist community to help arrest those who would create disaster and the death of innocents because they are drunk on the grievance of failure and the misuse of words they have imbued. 

joeCanuck

Fionn,

The reason your 3ish post was awaiting moderation is that, if a simple commenter like ourselves has more than 2 links in a post, the site’s programme will embargo it, automatically. 

Dixie Elliott

Rory Carr are you honestly a shinner because if you are your posts are an indication of the absolute disdain your party now holds for those who actually did the fighting yet who no longer tow the party line. 

Your rant about alcoholics might have papered over your failure to answer my first and last questions regarding ‘the dead Republicans and did you publicly call on people to tout.  However it does show your intolerance to people less fortunate than ourselves, who suffer from an illness called alcoholism.  This is a form of bigotry as bigotry also covers an intolerance of various mental disorders.  Bracketing alcoholics as people likely to beat up wives and terrorise children is no different to saying all Protestants are loyalist supporters or all Catholics are IRA supporters. 

Thats what I noticed about you Rory you tend to hide your lack of answers at the end of a very long road which goes in the opposite direction. 

You say people who choose to abandon violence Rory.  When did the leadership choose to abandon violence and when did they tell the IRA rank and file they were abandoning violence? 

The 80s perhaps when Gerry and Fr Reid were visiting Haughey and Hume or as late as when Gerry said the IRA hadn’t gone away even? 

Dixie Elliott

Oh and Rory regarding the party line, which is pushed by the likes of yourself, that all Republicans who disagree with Adamsism and the GFA are ‘Dissidents’ or cheerleaders for continued violence.  That logic is no different to the bigots who claimed the Black Civil Rights campaigners in 1960s America were communists. 

Rory Carr

Yet, just as you would continue to enable drunkards in their alcoholism by sympathising with them, by “understanding their pain”, so you would continue to enable those engaged in violent acts because you understand and sympathise with their motives.  And, as always, it is somebody else’s fault.  Always this avoidance of taking responsibility for one’s own actions. 

Immaturity, that characteristic that is held in common by all alcoholics seems also to be a defining characteristic among dissidents.  Time to grow up and admit that you are wrong, that the consequences of your thinking and your actions will (as you so eloquently put it yourself), ” merely lead to disaster and innocent deaths “. 

Turgon

I hate to intrude on an intra republican squabble but I note Dixie Elliott’s now opposition to violence is all because of its ill effects on the perpetrators: not a word for the victims.  Much whataboutery for the coffins of the dead “volunteers” not a thought for the innocent victims. 

It is, however, fair that s/he notes that all the volunteers did was to help Adams and co to grow fat from the “peace process”.  It is not quite Sunningdale, however: there is one important difference; the republicans have power themselves.  Indeed Dixie that is what the volunteers died for and murdered for: to give Gerry and co power.  Do not, however, expect many of the rest of us to sympathise with your self pity.  Most of us quite enjoy laughing at it. 

Dixie Elliott

Rory again your rant about alcoholics is nothing more than an attempt to cover up the fact that you can’t answer any of the questions I put to you above. 

Were the dead Republicans, as you referred to them, wrong? 

Were the Stoops after all right in that for 30 years PIRA were flying in the faces of the people? 

What use was Gerry and the 4 PSF MLAs who are growing fat on peace processing to the people of West Belfast? 

You say people who choose to abandon violence Rory.  When did the leadership choose to abandon violence and when did they tell the IRA rank and file they were abandoning violence? 

The 80s perhaps when Gerry and Fr Reid were visiting Haughey and Hume or as late as when Gerry said the IRA hadn’t gone away you know? 

And finally Rory have you or will you be writing to the press using your real name to call on people to inform? 

Lets leave the alcoholics alone and answer the questions, especially the last one. 

Dixie Elliott

Turgon of course there were innocent victims on both sides and I have no problem in saying that.  Not one life was worth taking to put PSF in power if thats what you call it. 
And I say not one life whether it be a mother or a squaddie can justify where we are today. 

Oh I know you’ll swoop down like a vulture and pick holes out of what I’ve just said but personally I couldn’t give a toss my friend. 

You said…

“It is not quite Sunningdale, however: there is one important difference; the republicans have power themselves.  Indeed Dixie that is what the volunteers died for and murdered for: to give Gerry and co power.” 

As I said, what PSF have in Stormont is not power but it is more of a caretaking role in that they are administering Indirect Rule.  They have no power that lays in London. 

No volunteer died so that Gerry and co. could have power thats nonsense, it’s as nonsensical as saying they died to remove an Orange State which was shut down by the Brits in 1973. 

But lets not forget Turgon that the bigots in the DUP stirred the pot that led to killing by loyalists for years.  They had no problem sharing a platform with the likes of Billy Wright had they? 

You see this is the old Unionist mentality that has shackled the Shinners well into the system forcing them to robotically do what the SDLP did before them. 

Not just condemn but call on people to inform and help the PSNI. 

The sackcloth and ashes attitude which even the Shinners are now indulging in, right down to the likes of Rory Carr. 

It’s not good enough to say that armed struggle is counterproductive or that it will achieve nothing and likely lead to disaster, which by the way Turgon, means the killing of innocents. 

Oh no we must stand firmly shoulder to shoulder with the DUP and the Chief constable and call Republicans traitors which people should inform on to the proper authorities. 

We must prove we are worthy time and time again and be ready when the time comes to prove our loyalty to the state. 

I’m sorry but I’m not part of the system nor shackled to it and no anonymous Unionist on an internet forum will have me wearing sackcloth and ashes. 

Violence will achieve nothing therefore it’s wrong and if thats not good enough for the Unionists and other assorted hypocrites I really couldn’t give a monkeys fuck as they say. 

Rory Carr

You are not required to wear sackcloth and ashes, Dixie, but it might be helpful, if you really are opposed to the violent campaign of disgruntled and disloyal former IRA activists, that you add your voice to those of the elected representatives of the nationalist community in condemnation. 

Besides by turning them in you’d only be doing them a favour as they inevitably end up turning their guns only upon each other as they continue to fall out over the purity of each other’s commitment and the division of spoils. 

For the record – I am not a member of Sinn Féin. 

Dixie Elliott

So Rory you can’t answer my questions then.  Case closed!! 

fordprefect

Rory
Could you explain to me how they are disloyal?  Is it because they didn’t sell out and stick on suits and ties etc.  and do the Brits job for them?  Now THAT’S disloyal! 

Nunoftheabove

fordperfect

Aren’t the people who stick on suits and ties etc.  simply doing (to varying standards) the fairly limited job that they people who elect them require them to do and demand that they do ?  If they are, then that might be many things but disloyalty wouldn’t be one of them….unless you’re referring to fidelity to a cause which is at best ambivalent about any necessity for popular support of any description in order to kill people, civilians included.  In other words, some of them have transitioned from elitism to consensus – have you ? 

fordprefect

Nun
Transitioned from elitism?  Are you having a laugh?  These are the same people (SF) who told us for years, that the only way to get rid of the Brits was by armed struggle.  Is it any wonder that there are still people who listened to that line of reasoning, still engaged in armed conflict.  Consensus, still the same people who told us for years that the six counties was an illegitimate and illegal state.  By the way, I still don’t recognise the six counties as a country.  Just to finish, do you actually live in Ireland? 

Nunoftheabove

fordperfect

Well that’s kinda my point – they told you things for years and then they changed their actions to accord with the circumstances (When the facts change, I change my mind.  What do you do, sir?”) –  does that entitle them to any expectation that you should continue to believe in them ?  More to the point, why did you choose to believe them in the first place or did you form those opinions all on your own ?  There are credulous folks all around us, of course.  Mercifully most of them aren’t armed enough, pathetic enough or pompous enough to tell the rest of us how we should live without bothering to ask us how we feel about it or seeking some form of legitimate popular support to kill folks based on those opinions – I’d call that elitism, wouldn’t you ? 

Not sure why you think the place I live in is of any relevance or interest – might it alter your opinons on what I’m saying in any way ? 

fordprefect

Nun
I didn’t say I believed everything they said.  You said “There are credulous folks all around us, of course.  Mercifully most of them aren’t armed enough, pathetic enough or pompous enough to tell the rest of us how we should live without bothering to ask how we feel about it or seeking some form of legitimate popular support to kill folks based on those opinions-I’d call that elitism, wouldn’t you”?  I would indeed.  And you just described the American administration to a T. and the problem with them is, they are armed to the teeth, including nuclear weapons (the last US president couldn’t even pronounce the word “nuclear” properly). 

Nunoftheabove

fordperfect

Glad to hear you oppose the so-called dissidents on the same basis that I do – bad guys with useless politics; I’m not not sure what the relevance of the US State Department is to the layabout cornerboy self-loathers of the so-called dissident groups though and I’m very very sure you don’t know why you’re sure either.  Perhaps you’ve been watching too many of those hopeless Michael Moore movies again lately little fellow lol ? 

fordprefect

Nun
Oh, I’m very, very sure of the intentions of the US government, world police force and world dominance (and I don’t have to watch Michael Moore films to know that!)  wee lad, lol.  Unlike most Americans I read books and prefer not to tune into the “mainstream media” to listen to or watch a load of shit being served up! 

Nunoftheabove

fordprefect

Your interest in or knowledge of international affairs is admirably well concealed – I’ll give you that. 

Bit of a ‘Truther’ by any chance LOL ? 

fordprefect

Nun
Obviously not as well concealed as yours!  LOL

Nunoftheabove

fordperfect

If you wanna go there, let’s go kid – just a small piece of advice before you leap at the chance though – you’ll need to do a wee bit better than the world domination theories of Tommy Sheridan if you do though – even layabout reactionary so-called dissidents wouldn’t be that impressed by him or his mate the verminous jihadi ‘resitance’ -supporting George Galloway so if that’s your level, I’ll decline the invitation in advance on the basis that I already have a life, thanks. 

fordprefect

Nun
I have a life, Coward! 

Nunoftheabove

fordprefect

So that WAS the type of debate you had in mind ?  Aye, thought so mucker.  Oh I’m sure there’s an Eirigi blog or equally illiterate self-pitying RSF website you can entertain yourself with, if so – much more your level.  I undertand that the bold boys of Eirigi are still creaming themselves over the recent message of solidarity they received from the moribund revolting Cuba regime (surely the so-called dissidents should be expressing solidarity with the Cuban political prisoners instead, no ?)  and are still hollering from the rooftops about the poor wee oppressed imperialist, homophobic, totalitarian, racists and sectarian suicide bombers in Iraq and Afghanistan, pepared to kill themelves and their religious rivals such is the grave offence taken at the prospect of a bill of rights and a democratic form of government.