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hawkwing_lb"Hawkwing makes some interesting observations about writing, and shows a wholly atypical maturity and thoughtful outlook in her takeson politics -possibly a product of living in Ireland?"
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davefreer says this about me over on his LJ. I wanted to reply, but I didn't feel it'd be too polite to take over his thread. :g: This, however, is my LJ, and I can say anything I want.
So. Nice compliment, Dave, but I think you impute to me more maturity and thoughtfulness than I possess.
I'm not thoughtful about politics. We hates them, precious, hates them. I don't watch the news. My information on current affairs comes from the Sunday Independent and LJ. I do my best not to think about politics, because it's a subject about which I became very cynical, very young. I was twelve, I think, at the time of the Good Friday Agreement - just old enough to begin to take an interest in the goings-on of the external world, and just about old enough to see that it was a significant step in ending the troubles that have wracked this grand wee country [insert sarcasm as appropriate] since time began, or thereabouts.
Newsflash, people: the GFA wasn't the breakthrough it was made out to be.
Sinn Féin, in its current incarnation (not to be confused with Griffith's 1905 or de Valera's 1917 Sinn Féin, ancestors of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil respectively) has been engaged in a campaign of deliberate obfustication of the truth since the Agreement's signatories put pen to paper. Now, the IRA has declared decommissioning, and had that accepted - to Paisley and the DUP's disapprobiation and disbelief, but that's a rant for another day.
Now, the thing is, the declaration of the end of the armed struggle doesn't mean the end of the power of SF/IRA. Or the end of criminal actions by what is, effectively, a private army.
They gave up their weapons, sure. I'll believe they gave up all of them when Gerry Adams and his motley crew stop their triple-talking and call on their supporters to fully co-operate in the bringing to justice - the justice of the legal system, and not the balaclava and the bullet in the night - of the murderers of Robert McCarthy and a man whose name I've sadly forgotten, but who was reputedly repeatedly threatened by family of an IRA-man before his death.
They haven't. They also refuse to condemn the Belfast bank robbery in as many words, and Adams and McGuiness deny having at any time being members of the IRA Army Council, despite evidence - including references to their IRA position in the IRA decommissioning statement - to the generally-accepted contrary.
There is a real chance that regardless of their history and their repeated contempt towards the law and the institutions of the Irish Republic, Sinn Féin could hold the balance of power in the next Dáil. If Fianna Fáil were to enter into coalition with SF (eminently possible, despite promises otherwise - FF's promises can be trusted about as far as you can throw 'em), this party, with its history of illegality, its current connections to what has become Ireland's mafia - the IRA or a section thereof is alleged to control a significant slice of Dublin's drugs trade and protection-racketeering - could be in the position of making the laws of a state whose legitimacy for seventy years and more they refused to recognise.
(They haven't, incidentally, yet said outright whether or not they do recognise a 26-county republic. But Sinn Féin's claims to inherit the legacy of the 1919 32-county revolutionary Dáil or otherwise are, as with the Rev Ian Paisley, confirmed Protestant bigot, a rant for another day.)
Adams and co, quite frankly, terrify me. Quite aside from their connection to an illegal army -
- there is only one, count'em one duly constituted and lawful army in this country, and that is our Defence Forces (http://www.military.ie), just as there is only one, count'em, ladies and gentlemen please, one duly constituted and lawful police force in the Irish Republic, and that is An Garda Siochána (lit., 'the guardians of the peace'), and yes I do feel strongly about that, thank you very much -
- have you seen what they think is a sane economic policy?
I'm not, actually, quite sure what SF's policies are, when they're not involved with the godawful fuckup that is Northern Ireland. (Powermongering, precious, we hates it) The impression I have is of some mad Marxist-National Socialist blend, in which they promise to spend lotslotslots on every social issue there is, improve 'community policing' (and we thinks we know what they mean by that, don't we precious, and we by-god don't with a capital D want to see IRA vigilantes take on an official role) and somehow manage to create Paradise On Earth without raising taxes. Except corporate taxes, but it's a fact almost universally acknowledged that Ireland's low rate of tax on big business is responsible for a great deal of our economic prosperity, and shit, people, big business creates jobs, and the paychecks of big business' employees are what keep small, local businesses trading.
Then again, I can't fault Sinn Féin for not having coherent policies. No Irish political party has ever had what I'd consider a sensible approach to the running of the country, with the possible (historical) exceptions of William T Cosgrave's Cumann na nGaedheal (1922-1932) which had the problems of setting up a functional state (and did pretty well), Sean Lemass' Fianna Fáil government in the nineteen-sixties, and Garret Fitzgerald's short-lived Fine Gael dominated-coalition in the eighties.
Irish politics is dominated by local interests, scandals, and the back-hander in the brown-paper bag. Our current government, despite massive mishandling of the exchequer - they squandered the biggest budgetary surplus this country's ever seen or ever likely to see again, and we still don't have a decent hospital system - succeeded in achieving re-election, having systematically mis-represented the true state of affairs - ie, they lied.
'Course, they still systematically mis-represent the true state of affairs. Bertie Ahern, may his reign as Taoiseach end at the next general election, is a master of waffle and obfustication and taking an hour to say nothing at all. Though, mind you, he's not quite the bare-faced liar Gerry Adams - or most SFers - is.
I live in a town where the sentiment is overwhelmingly SF and socialist in flavour. Socialism's a good thing, when it can see the macro as well as the micro (doesn't occur nearly often enough). But Sinn Féin and the 'RA-men... The possibilities inherent therein frighten me.
Vigilanteism is an unhealthy thing for any society, community - and dare I say it, nation - to indulge in, or give tacit approval to. The law is a flawed tool, sure, but due process is the slender thread that separates order from anarchy.
And I really don't want to live in a society where the only rules are the ones you make for yourself.
And I've gone on, and on, and on. Sigh. Politics depresses me. I guess I'm a pessimist by nature. And a cynic.
I'm resolutely ignoring the small corner of my brain that whispers, realist. Really I am.
davefreer says this about me over on his LJ. I wanted to reply, but I didn't feel it'd be too polite to take over his thread. :g: This, however, is my LJ, and I can say anything I want.So. Nice compliment, Dave, but I think you impute to me more maturity and thoughtfulness than I possess.
I'm not thoughtful about politics. We hates them, precious, hates them. I don't watch the news. My information on current affairs comes from the Sunday Independent and LJ. I do my best not to think about politics, because it's a subject about which I became very cynical, very young. I was twelve, I think, at the time of the Good Friday Agreement - just old enough to begin to take an interest in the goings-on of the external world, and just about old enough to see that it was a significant step in ending the troubles that have wracked this grand wee country [insert sarcasm as appropriate] since time began, or thereabouts.
Newsflash, people: the GFA wasn't the breakthrough it was made out to be.
Sinn Féin, in its current incarnation (not to be confused with Griffith's 1905 or de Valera's 1917 Sinn Féin, ancestors of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil respectively) has been engaged in a campaign of deliberate obfustication of the truth since the Agreement's signatories put pen to paper. Now, the IRA has declared decommissioning, and had that accepted - to Paisley and the DUP's disapprobiation and disbelief, but that's a rant for another day.
Now, the thing is, the declaration of the end of the armed struggle doesn't mean the end of the power of SF/IRA. Or the end of criminal actions by what is, effectively, a private army.
They gave up their weapons, sure. I'll believe they gave up all of them when Gerry Adams and his motley crew stop their triple-talking and call on their supporters to fully co-operate in the bringing to justice - the justice of the legal system, and not the balaclava and the bullet in the night - of the murderers of Robert McCarthy and a man whose name I've sadly forgotten, but who was reputedly repeatedly threatened by family of an IRA-man before his death.
They haven't. They also refuse to condemn the Belfast bank robbery in as many words, and Adams and McGuiness deny having at any time being members of the IRA Army Council, despite evidence - including references to their IRA position in the IRA decommissioning statement - to the generally-accepted contrary.
There is a real chance that regardless of their history and their repeated contempt towards the law and the institutions of the Irish Republic, Sinn Féin could hold the balance of power in the next Dáil. If Fianna Fáil were to enter into coalition with SF (eminently possible, despite promises otherwise - FF's promises can be trusted about as far as you can throw 'em), this party, with its history of illegality, its current connections to what has become Ireland's mafia - the IRA or a section thereof is alleged to control a significant slice of Dublin's drugs trade and protection-racketeering - could be in the position of making the laws of a state whose legitimacy for seventy years and more they refused to recognise.
(They haven't, incidentally, yet said outright whether or not they do recognise a 26-county republic. But Sinn Féin's claims to inherit the legacy of the 1919 32-county revolutionary Dáil or otherwise are, as with the Rev Ian Paisley, confirmed Protestant bigot, a rant for another day.)
Adams and co, quite frankly, terrify me. Quite aside from their connection to an illegal army -
- there is only one, count'em one duly constituted and lawful army in this country, and that is our Defence Forces (http://www.military.ie), just as there is only one, count'em, ladies and gentlemen please, one duly constituted and lawful police force in the Irish Republic, and that is An Garda Siochána (lit., 'the guardians of the peace'), and yes I do feel strongly about that, thank you very much -
- have you seen what they think is a sane economic policy?
I'm not, actually, quite sure what SF's policies are, when they're not involved with the godawful fuckup that is Northern Ireland. (Powermongering, precious, we hates it) The impression I have is of some mad Marxist-National Socialist blend, in which they promise to spend lotslotslots on every social issue there is, improve 'community policing' (and we thinks we know what they mean by that, don't we precious, and we by-god don't with a capital D want to see IRA vigilantes take on an official role) and somehow manage to create Paradise On Earth without raising taxes. Except corporate taxes, but it's a fact almost universally acknowledged that Ireland's low rate of tax on big business is responsible for a great deal of our economic prosperity, and shit, people, big business creates jobs, and the paychecks of big business' employees are what keep small, local businesses trading.
Then again, I can't fault Sinn Féin for not having coherent policies. No Irish political party has ever had what I'd consider a sensible approach to the running of the country, with the possible (historical) exceptions of William T Cosgrave's Cumann na nGaedheal (1922-1932) which had the problems of setting up a functional state (and did pretty well), Sean Lemass' Fianna Fáil government in the nineteen-sixties, and Garret Fitzgerald's short-lived Fine Gael dominated-coalition in the eighties.
Irish politics is dominated by local interests, scandals, and the back-hander in the brown-paper bag. Our current government, despite massive mishandling of the exchequer - they squandered the biggest budgetary surplus this country's ever seen or ever likely to see again, and we still don't have a decent hospital system - succeeded in achieving re-election, having systematically mis-represented the true state of affairs - ie, they lied.
'Course, they still systematically mis-represent the true state of affairs. Bertie Ahern, may his reign as Taoiseach end at the next general election, is a master of waffle and obfustication and taking an hour to say nothing at all. Though, mind you, he's not quite the bare-faced liar Gerry Adams - or most SFers - is.
I live in a town where the sentiment is overwhelmingly SF and socialist in flavour. Socialism's a good thing, when it can see the macro as well as the micro (doesn't occur nearly often enough). But Sinn Féin and the 'RA-men... The possibilities inherent therein frighten me.
Vigilanteism is an unhealthy thing for any society, community - and dare I say it, nation - to indulge in, or give tacit approval to. The law is a flawed tool, sure, but due process is the slender thread that separates order from anarchy.
And I really don't want to live in a society where the only rules are the ones you make for yourself.
And I've gone on, and on, and on. Sigh. Politics depresses me. I guess I'm a pessimist by nature. And a cynic.
I'm resolutely ignoring the small corner of my brain that whispers, realist. Really I am.
