Sinn Fein/IRA- reactionary? [Archive]

ComradeMan

7th December 2010, 01:25

Tsssss I don't know. I support their aims of ousting the British from Northern Ireland, but I don't know about paramilitary tactics.

Also keep in mind that there are a LOT if "IRA"s, you know.

And as for collaboration with the Nazis, I've heard of this, but at the same time, Irish Republicans in general certainly did not get along with and fought openly with the overtly fascist and pro-Nazi Blueshirts.

To be honest, collaboration with the Nazis is a mistake that a lot of communists in countries under British imperial rule made back then.

But isn't that racist? Those Northern Irish who want to be "British" are like, born in Northern Ireland too aren't they?

Who?

And Franco?

What about the big statue to Sean Russel a Nazi collaborator whose statue is in Dublin? :crying:

I read somewhere that they had a list of Jews they were going to pass on to the Nazis if the Germans had won.
:crying:

Found this too... all connected with the CIA and drug running....

Former head of a CIA proprietary airline for over a decade, who described in great detail the drugs that he carried for the CIA, how the CIA set up his airline, how the CIA funded the operation, how the CIA armed terrorists, including the IRA.
http://www.ciadrugs.com/

Seems a bit weird to me that they run drugs and then issue out "popular justice" as mentioned on another thread.

ComradeMan

7th December 2010, 01:28

Didn't 'the' IRA bomb the Italian mafia out of Ireland? Out of a city or town in Ireland?

(this isn't a slight towards Comrademan who is allegedly from Italy)

From what I am seeing I don't think they really would have a problem with Cosa Nostra, but I don't think they could take them on either.

Article here may be of some interest
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-fbi-hero-who-joined-the-mafia-1054440.html

#FF0000

7th December 2010, 01:35

But isn't that racist? Those Northern Irish who want to be "British" are like, born in Northern Ireland too aren't they?

Uh, I don't know what you're talking about. They want Northern Ireland to be unified with Ireland. They want it under control of the Irish government and not the British one.

Who?

The Blueshirts. A fascist organization run by Eoin O'Duffy.

And Franco?

Er, a lot of IRA men joined the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War.

What about the big statue to Sean Russel a Nazi collaborator whose statue is in Dublin? :crying:

I don't kow.

I read somewhere that they had a list of Jews they were going to pass on to the Nazis if the Germans had won.
:crying:

Can you cite these things? I mean I don't doubt that there's truth to them but the IRA has had a very complicated history with a lot of groups splitting off one another and claiming the name while having hella dodgy politics. Same goes with the drug-running thing.

Nolan

7th December 2010, 01:39

Person #1: The IRA...

Person #2: Whoa, hold on. Which IRA?

Keep this at the back of your mind at all times.

Spawn of Stalin

7th December 2010, 01:40

Can we just clear up which SF are we talking about here? Republican? Official/WP? Provisional?

#FF0000

7th December 2010, 02:02

Irish historian Brian Hanley suggests that Russell was not a Nazi but concludes that his letters to his German contacts "betray astonishing political naiveté"

Eh, from wikipedia but this is sort of what I expected to find.

freepalestine

7th December 2010, 02:25

@conrademan
i hear the i.r.a support the palestine struggle also.

Spawn of Stalin

7th December 2010, 02:44

I believe the Provos trained with various Palestinian groups back in the day.

Mindtoaster

7th December 2010, 05:04

IRA police? They're clearly talking about the free state army, which was at war with the IRA.

There was also only one IRA in the 1920s

Devrim

7th December 2010, 07:37

IRA police? They're clearly talking about the free state army, which was at war with the IRA.

No they are talking about the IRA which was used against agricultural workers struggles back in the 1920s.

Devrim

ComradeMan

7th December 2010, 09:53

Well Arthur Griffith was anti-Semitic and he was one of the founders of SF.

Seems he supported anti-semitic movement led by Fri. Creagh in Limerick, 1904 and I found this too:

Evil influences: ‘The Three Evil Influences of the century are the Pirate, the Freemason, and the Jew’ (United Irishman, 23 Sept. 1899): ‘‘[A]ll countries in all Christian ages he has been a usurer and a grinder of the poor … The jew in Ireland is in every respect an economic evil. He produces no wealth himself – he draws it from others – he is the most successful seller of foreign goods, he is an unfair competitor with the rate-paying Irish shopkeeper, and he remains among us, ever and always alien.’ (The United Irishman, April 23rd 1904.) Further: ‘[The Irish ought to] cherish that feeling of hatred as their most valued possession, as the rock upon which the edifice of their nationality can only be built securely.’ (United Irishman, 5 March 1904, p.5; the foregoing quoted in Joe McMinn, ed., The Internationalism of Irish Literature and Drama (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1992), ftn., p.354 [q. author]. Note: the article is cited in Roy foster, ‘Varieties of Irishness’, in Maurna Crozier, ed., Cultural Traditions in Northern Ireland: Varieties of Irishness, [with] proceedings of the Cultural Traditions Cultural Traditions Group Conference, IIS 1989, p.16); also in Foster, Paddy and Mr Punch (1993) with comment: ‘anti-semitic ravings of Arthur Griffith’s United Irishman […] … make chilling reading; derived directly from anti-Dreyfus campaign in France, to which Griffith was violently committed’ (p.32). See also full extracts from his anti-semitic editorials arising from the Limerick pogrom rep. in Dominic Manganiello, The Politics of James Joyce (London: Routledge 1980).
http://www.ricorso.net/rx/az-data/authors/g/Griffith_A2/life.htm

History of Ireland.com (http://www.historyireland.com/volumes/volume13/issue3/features/?id=113841)

‘Oh here’s to Adolph Hitler,
Who made the Britons squeal,
Sure before the fight is ended
They will dance an Irish reel.’
(War News, 21 November 1940)
:crying::crying::crying:

In Defence of Marxism (http://www.marxist.com/ireland-republicanism-and-revolution-part-eight.htm)

In more modern times

The split in the Republican movement did not take place in a straightforward manner. Before the Provisionals were formed in January there were a number of minor splits between September '69 and January '70. Many of those who had left the IRA in 1966, because of the introduction of Marxist policies, returned to join the Provisonals. These were fanatical anti-Communists. This development suited the interests of the ruling class in the South very well, and they supported it by all the means at their disposal.

It was the Southern state intelligence services that set up and organized the Provisionals. The money and the guns of the Provos were supplied through the agency of two right wing ministers in the Dublin government - Blaney and Houghey. Large sums came from the USA, and were directed to the anti-Communist, pro-sectarian elements in the winter of 1968-69. Paradoxically, the leading element was an Englishman living in the Republic under the name of Sean MacStiofain.

Palingenisis

7th December 2010, 14:33

Well Arthur Griffith was anti-Semitic and he was one of the founders of SF.

Okay....Where to begin on this troll thread?

When Sinn Fein was started it wasnt started as a Republican party, they advocated a "Joint monarchy" along the lines of the Austro-Hungarian Empire...Indeed Arthur Griffith was a reactionary of the first order (he was very opposed to the workers during the 1913 strike) and was opposed to the revolutionary seperatism in the Fenian tradition (it was a Fenian who wrote the song the Red Flag by the way and the Fenian movement had strong links to the First International). It was only after the 1916 uprising in which the Irish Citizen's Army which was the armed wing of the Syndicalist union took part that Sinn Fein (a good ten years since its beginning) was basically subverted into a Republican party (due in no small part to the times that were in it). If people want to get an idea of what the present Sinn Fein came from it would be better to read the social programme of the First Dail (held in 1918) than the rantings of Griffith.

It is true though that many of the national liberation in the Tan war/war of independence were basically reactionary Roman Catholic nationalists and this is the reason for the civil war that followed soon on it as such conservative elements were effectively bought off (and many of them were indeed pleased for sectarian reasons with partition).

Palingenisis

7th December 2010, 14:43

I also heard they collaborated with the Nazis and helped Franco out to.

Okay....The helping Franco out bit is from ComradeMan's fevered imagination.

In regard to collaboration with the Nazies I presume you are refering to Sean Russell (who is actually a relation of mine on my dad's side :blushing:, both of them being of course southern Prods so save your accusations of sectarianism).

Sean Russell had earlier gone to Stalin looking for guns...Frankly he would have gone to the devil himself if he thought there were a chance of getting guns. Im not sure that he really had any politics outside of driving the Brits out...His trip to Germany was not exactly a sucess though he did manage to get Frank Ryan out (who was a Communist) out of one of Franco's jails, though blind and completely changed by torture from his old self.

He died abroad a German submarine returning to Ireland to carry out propaganda against the Free State joining the war.

Marxach-LÃ©inÃnach

7th December 2010, 14:45

Okay....The helping Franco out bit is from ComradeMan's fevered imagination.

Either that or Eoin O'Duffy was actually a republican all along :rolleyes:

Palingenisis

7th December 2010, 14:47

B
I read somewhere that they had a list of Jews they were going to pass on to the Nazis if the Germans had won.
.

This is just absurd....By the late 30s the Republican movement had been more or less smashed by a combination of black listing (which is making it impossible for someone to get a job for political reasons) and state repression, what was left over was interned in extremely harsh conditions by De Valera during WII. So how could they have made up lists?

There was some anti-semitic psycho claiming to represent the Republican movement publishing all sorts of anti-semitic crap from Ballygobackwards but the fact that he wasnt interned says everything.

Palingenisis

7th December 2010, 14:49

@conrademan
i hear the i.r.a support the palestine struggle also.

Yes they do...Even Republican Sinn Fein which the most conservative of the Republican groups do.

Palingenisis

7th December 2010, 14:52

The CIA drug connection...Well this is the first time I have heard that!

However outside of a (Provisional) Sinn Fein member who was caught with a little bit of hash (how many people here consider that a big deal??) no Republican has ever been arrested on drug charges. Though literally thousands have been arrested for armed robbery to raise funds, membership, etc, etc. So the whole "IRA drug pushers" thing basically is black propaganda from the gutter press.

Palingenisis

7th December 2010, 14:57

Basically the answer to the question is yes they were reactionary in parts and yes they were progressive in parts...Some people in them were both partly progressive and partly reactionary....Life isnt as simple and straightforward as ComradeMan wants.

IronEastBloc

7th December 2010, 15:04

The Irish republican alliance with Nazi Germany was more out of convenience that they both shared the same enemy (Great Britain) rather than any ideological cohesion. Irish republicans wanted an independent, United Ireland, and they couldn't take on the empire alone, so they thought their best chance would be with the adversary of Great Britain, which in the 1940's, was Nazi Germany.

that doesn't make them reactionary, however; it just means they were looking out for their own best interests.

But they are nationalists and seem okay with the established Catholic Church.

as far as their catholocism goes and whether or not that warrants a discontinuation of support, I'll leave the words of comrade Lenin with you on religion and Marxist revolution:

"Discrimination among citizens on account of their religious convictions is wholly intolerable. Even the bare mention of a citizen’s religion in official documents should unquestionably be eliminated."

Palingenisis

7th December 2010, 16:41

The Irish republican alliance with Nazi Germany was more out of convenience that they both shared the same enemy (Great Britain) rather than any ideological cohesion. Irish republicans wanted an independent, United Ireland, and they couldn't take on the empire alone, so they thought their best chance would be with the adversary of Great Britain, which in the 1940's, was Nazi Germany.

The thing is though that there wasnt an Irish Republican movement to form any alliances with anyone at that time...Most of the veterans of the tan and civil wars (if they can be really seperated), the fight against fascism on the streets of Ireland and in Spain, etc were either in prison camps or in England or America (because they would have literally starved if they hadnt gone over to those countries).

The so-called publication "War News" and Sean Russell did not any type of movement make.

Palingenisis

7th December 2010, 20:20

IRA police? They're clearly talking about the free state army, which was at war with the IRA.

There was also only one IRA in the 1920s

The thing is that he is right...The IRA during the civil war in some areas was indeed involved in strike breaking...For some Volunteers it was a matter of obeying orders and something they bitterly regreted all their lives, for some strikes were seen as undermining unity in areas under Free State and therefore it was a political necesscity, and for some to defending "holy" property rights. The thing that has to be remembered that like the Provisional IRA during the Troubles the IRA of the Tan and Civil wars varried from district to district and from unit to unit. This inconistency is the reason I gave up Irish Republicanism and looked for an alternative (though I support with Republicanism when its being progressive and I definitely want the Brits out).

ComradeMan

7th December 2010, 20:22

Well the IRA apparantly had links to the FARC in Colombia.

Meanwhile, the republican movement was facing the complete collapse of its support base in Washington and across America over the arrest of three alleged IRA men with links to the drug-dealing Marxist terror group, FARC, in Colombia.

Republican congressman, Peter King, one of longest-standing supporters in Congress of Sinn Fein, said: 'If the IRA has done what it is accused of then that is inexcusable and disgraceful.'

King, seen by many in Northern Ireland as an IRA apologist, said allegations that the IRA was involved in a drugs-for-arms deal with FARC would have a 'serious impact' on Sinn Fein's standing in America. He added that the Bush administration wants answers. Bush has helped fund a 'war' against narco- terrorists in Colombia, including FARC, to combat the flood of drugs smuggled into the USA.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/news_alert_mi5terror_4.html

This article from an Irish newspaper makes them seem more like the mafia
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/fuellaundering-still-in-full-swing-1586776.html

I have seen allegations that these splinter groups are into drug running too.

The more and more I read of this organisation the less I understand why people would support it and not the Communist Party of Ireland for example.

I notice the CPI's comments on the IRA and groups are not particularly flattering.

As for supporting Franco- it's not a figment of my imagination.

Eoin O'Duffy, Chief of Staff of the IRA, led the Irish Brigade of Franco's nationalists in Spain.

Palingenisis

7th December 2010, 20:32

Okay we have the rightwing nutjobs of prisonplanet and we have the fucking INDO!

Great stuff.

I knew this thread was a troll but I got a private message to answer your shite. Which I have tried to do honestly and to the best of my knowledge.

Im not going to answer every little piece of propaganda you can drag up against Irish Republicanism.

Sorry.

gorillafuck

7th December 2010, 20:33

Found this too... all connected with the CIA and drug running....

Former head of a CIA proprietary airline for over a decade, who described in great detail the drugs that he carried for the CIA, how the CIA set up his airline, how the CIA funded the operation, how the CIA armed terrorists, including the IRA.
http://www.ciadrugs.com/

Seems a bit weird to me that they run drugs and then issue out "popular justice" as mentioned on another thread.
I would be very surprised if the IRA was being funded by the CIA, since Britain and the US have been great allies with eachother since the 1800's. The only reason I could possibly see for that would be to make it appear as though more British troops were needed, as a false flag operation.

ComradeMan

7th December 2010, 20:37

I would be very surprised if the IRA was being funded by the CIA, since Britain and the US have been great allies with eachother since the 1800's.

Irish American aid to the IRA is well-known. They were working with FARC too... it's all smoke and mirrors with stuff, the mafia are probably involved as well, then the Americans are well-known to have worked with the mafia in the past and so and so on.

Anyway, I don't see why people (here) would support them rather than the Communist Party of Ireland- I never see threads about the CPI, but rather dubious threads praising the virtues of IRA/pseudo-IRA groups dishing out summary justice like a vigilante squad.

freepalestine

7th December 2010, 20:40

maybe someone should clarify the spanish civil war position of the i.ra. ,and those of the blueshirts.

Palingenisis

7th December 2010, 20:45

maybe someone should clarify the spanish civil war position of the i.ra. ,and those of the blueshirts.

The Blueshirts were founded by a former Free State Chief of Police who had fought in the Tan war but took the Anti-Republican side in the civil war.

He was bitterly opposed to the Republican movement because he saw it as basically a Communist front.

The Connolly Column made up largely of Irish Republicans was one of the most feared fighting forces in the Spanish civil war.

The term "Blueshirt" is a Republican insult to this day.

gorillafuck

7th December 2010, 20:47

I would be very surprised if the IRA was being funded by the CIA, since Britain and the US have been great allies with eachother since the 1800's. The only reason I could possibly see for that would be to make it appear as though more British troops were needed, as a false flag operation.
To elaborate on this point, any support to the IRA by the CIA would probably be similiar to Israels support for Hamas back in the day, which was to destabilize the resistance. There are so many Irish republican groups that maybe there was CIA action made to cause issues between them instead of focusing on British troops.

I bet that Britain is absolutely in love with the fact that so many modern day republicans focus on drug dealers instead of British troops.

Palingenisis

7th December 2010, 20:47

Irish American aid to the IRA is well-known. They were working with FARC too... it's all smoke and mirrors with stuff, the mafia are probably involved as well, then the Americans are well-known to have worked with the mafia in the past and so and so on.

You realize that the former General Secetary of the CPI came to Communism through his membership of the IRA.

The whole "Irish American" thing is really worthy of Rangers supporter...Most aid to the Provisionals came from the DDR/East Germany.

ComradeMan

7th December 2010, 20:51

The Blueshirts were founded by a former Free State Chief of Police who had fought in the Tan war but took the Anti-Republican side in the civil war.

He was bitterly opposed to the Republican movement because he saw it as basically a Communist front.

The Connolly Column made up largely of Irish Republicans was one of the most feared fighting forces in the Spanish civil war.

The term "Blueshirt" is a Republican insult to this day.

Eoin O'Duffy becomes leader

Eoin O'Duffy was a guerrilla leader in the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence; an Irish Army general during the Civil War, and the Irish police commissioner in the Irish Free State from 1922 to 1933. After de Valera's re-election in February 1933, he dismissed O'Duffy as commissioner, and in July of that year, O'Duffy took control of the ACA and re-named it the National Guard. He re-modelled the organisation, adopting elements of European fascism, such as the Roman straight-arm salute, uniforms and huge rallies. Membership of the new organisation became limited to people who were Irish or whose parents "profess the Christian faith". O'Duffy was an admirer of Benito Mussolini, and the Blueshirts adopted corporatism as their chief political aim.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blueshirts

Palingenisis

7th December 2010, 20:54

Eoin O'Duffy becomes leader

Eoin O'Duffy was a guerrilla leader in the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence; an Irish Army general during the Civil War, and the Irish police commissioner in the Irish Free State from 1922 to 1933. After de Valera's re-election in February 1933, he dismissed O'Duffy as commissioner, and in July of that year, O'Duffy took control of the ACA and re-named it the National Guard. He re-modelled the organisation, adopting elements of European fascism, such as the Roman straight-arm salute, uniforms and huge rallies. Membership of the new organisation became limited to people who were Irish or whose parents "profess the Christian faith". O'Duffy was an admirer of Benito Mussolini, and the Blueshirts adopted corporatism as their chief political aim.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blueshirts

By the IRISH ARMY...They mean the Free State Army that strapped IRA volunteers to landmines and than blew them up for kicks....As Police comissioner for the Irish Free State he was involved in murdering and torturing Irish Republicans. You know fuck all about Irish history and are just trying to troll.

ComradeMan

7th December 2010, 20:57

By the IRISH ARMY...They mean the Free State Army that strapped IRA volunteers to landmines and than blew them up for kicks....As Police comissioner for the Irish Free State he was involved in murdering and torturing Irish Republicans. You know fuck all about Irish history and are just trying to troll.

I'm not, why are you getting all defensive.

The links that followed all lead to IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY.

Found this too in the IRISH INDEPENDENT
IRA 'earned €30m' in FARC terror school

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/ira-earned-30m-in-farc-terror-school-505238.html

Sunday November 24 2002

Intelligence reports link the IRA with cash-rich guerrillas and a newly resurgent ETA, writes Jim Cusack
THE IRA could have received between €20m and €30m from the massively wealthy FARC guerrilla group (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) for training programmes in mortars, armour-piercing and explosives manufacture.

ComradeMan

7th December 2010, 21:09

funny that conrademan mentions italian fascists...
anyway he should make a thread of zionist nazi collaboration
and also the fascism of the zionists.such as begin,jabotinsky et al.

That would be interesting, would you do us the favour of talking about the Grand Mufti's collaboration with Hitler by any chance?

gorillafuck

7th December 2010, 21:12

funny that conrademan mentions italian fascists...
anyway he should make a thread of zionist nazi collaboration
and also the fascism of the zionists.such as begin,jabotinsky et al.
The topic of Israeli colonialists collaborating with fascists isn't really relevant here.

Palingenisis

7th December 2010, 21:13

ComradeMan the Irish capitalist media regularly prints unsubstanitated horror stories about the Irish Republican movement....But yeah there were links to FARC...FARC and the IRA more or less have the same politics (which isnt mine by the way though I consider both progressive).

Palingenisis

7th December 2010, 21:14

The topic of Israeli colonialists collaborating with fascists isn't really relevant here.

Neither is Italian fascism in all fairness.

gorillafuck

7th December 2010, 21:15

ComradeMan the Irish capitalist media regularly prints unsubstanitated horror stories about the Irish Republican movement
Irish capitalist media as in the free state, or as in Northern Ireland?

Palingenisis

7th December 2010, 21:19

I bet that Britain is absolutely in love with the fact that so many modern day republicans focus on drug dealers instead of British troops.

I can accept that sometimes I go off the deep end and am too Gothonic Stalinoid for my own or anyone else's good...Also though I dont like cannibis and dont like people smoking it around me I accept that it should be legal and is on a par with booze (though I realize you probably think its much safer than booze but thats another debate).

However I live in a pretty fucked up in many ways housing council/housing project block of flats and around the corner from me is another block of flats completely controlled by heroin dealing business men...You have no idea what these people do to communities and how the Free State police just ignore it...And usually the IRA is the only defense that people have against them.

Though I accept that some Republicans take the whole anti-drug thing to far.

Palingenisis

7th December 2010, 21:20

Irish capitalist media as in the free state, or as in Northern Ireland?

Both...The Free State is worse though. In many ways down here is more fucked up than up there but thats another story.

The Grey Blur

7th December 2010, 21:27

comrademan is restricted, right? he's clearly some sort of right-wing troll.

gorillafuck

7th December 2010, 21:28

However I live in a pretty fucked up in many ways housing council/housing project block of flats and around the corner from me is another block of flats completely controlled by heroin dealing business men...You have no idea what these people do to communities and how the Free State police just ignore it...And usually the IRA is the only defense that people have against them.
This is also going off topic and all IRA threads shouldn't be about drugs so I'll pm you.

ComradeMan

7th December 2010, 21:45

WTF!!! Is this like some Sinn Fein IRA site or something?

What drew me to this whole fucking subject was the other thread talking about vigilante gangs dishing up their version of "popular" justice and people saying good luck to them despite this being no part of leftist philosophy or ideals. On looking into the IRA, starting with the fucking Irish newspapers and the Communist Party of Ireland what I found wasn't very "leftist" to be honest, which led me to the question of why some here support them. Now it seems clear, it's not about the workers, it's not about communism, it's just third rate reactionary nationalism and if anyone dares comment on it then they are automatically siding with British Imperialism. I suppose it's okay to support ETA too- despite the fact they are not leftists whatsoever.

It seems to me that the IRA and Sinn Fein are:

1) ethnic/religious nationalists
2) not committed to Marxism/Communism
3) dubious historically given their links to facists and Nazis
4) dubious recently given their alleged activities

Now, they seem perfectly happy to cosy up to their former enemies too? Strangely not long after the US/UK declare a War on Terrorism.

Sorry for asking.... but.........

FreePalestine- all you do is troll with one liners, bullshit- parrot zionist, zionist at any given moment and copy and paste piles of so-called news from your sources- Your recent post on the fires was just a marvel to behold from a leftist principle too.
BTW- you have yet to state why I am zionist, you dickhead!

#FF0000

7th December 2010, 21:57

1) ethnic/religious nationalists

Uh, no.

2) not committed to Marxism/Communism

I suppose this is debateable. Not like all of us agree with the IRA's line.

3) dubious historically given their links to facists and Nazis

Those have all been explained, though.

4) dubious recently given their alleged activities

Alleged. Alleged.

Alleged.

Palingenisis

7th December 2010, 21:59

1) ethnic/religious nationalists
2) not committed to Marxism/Communism
3) dubious historically given their links to facists and Nazis
4) dubious recently given their alleged activities

My mum is a northern "Roman Catholic" atheist who hates Roman Catholicism and my dad is prod...Both are Republican. So fuck your religious nationalist bit...Historically the Roman Catholic Church ex-Communicated Irish Republicans on several occasions. I do believe that Irish Protestants were treated unfairly in the Free State but thats a whole other debate.

In Ireland most of the left grew out of Irish Republicanism...The rest is imported Trotskyism, and you should know my feelings on Trotskyism.

The links to fascists and Nazies is filmsy...The links to militant anti-fascism to this day is very fucking real.

And the Irish trash press...How come NO Republican Volunteers are in jail for drug dealing but probably most of them are in jail at this stage?

You are trolling.

ComradeMan

7th December 2010, 22:00

Palingenisis

7th December 2010, 22:01

I suppose this is debateable. Not like all of us agree with the IRA's line

Some are and some arent...Thats personally what I hate about Irish Republicanism. A lot of the time Irish Republicans can be so vague and all over the place.

#FF0000

7th December 2010, 22:02

So the IRA are not Irish nationalists?

I don't think that matters since nationalism within the context of anti-imperialism or whatever is considered to be something very different than nationalism in the context of an imperialist country.

Don't know if I agree with that but that is the common view aside from some Anarchists and left communists.

Palingenisis

7th December 2010, 22:07

I don't think that matters since nationalism within the context of anti-imperialism or whatever is considered to be something very different than nationalism in the context of an imperialist country.

Personally I think, well actually Im pretty sure about this, that there are both reactionary and progressive nationalists within an oppressed nation. There are reactionary Republicans and they should be opposed (Im thinking of some in Republican Sinn Fein).

ComradeMan

7th December 2010, 22:13

My mum is a northern "Roman Catholic" atheist who hates Roman Catholicism and my dad is prod...Both are Republican. So fuck your religious nationalist bit...Historically the Roman Catholic Church ex-Communicated Irish Republicans on several occasions. I do believe that Irish Protestants were treated unfairly in the Free State but thats a whole other debate..

There's one weird thing here-

You presume I was talking about being a republican, I was talking about the IRA and Sinn Fein, are they synonymous? I think I mentioned "nationalist", not republican.

So fuck you very much.

Let me ask a direct question.

Given the choice between Sinn Fein and the Communist Party of Ireland who would you "vote" for?

#FF0000

7th December 2010, 22:13

I wonder if ComradeMan think the Italian Socialist Party is a bunch of reactionary fascist collaborators because Mussolini edited their paper once.

ComradeMan

7th December 2010, 22:31

I wonder if ComradeMan think the Italian Socialist Party is a bunch of reactionary fascist collaborators because Mussolini edited their paper once.

Well the Italian Socialist Party dissolved in 1994 after the corruption scandals known as the Tangentopoli. Some of them went on to join up with Berlusconi and Craxi died in exile. So they are not really relevant are they?

Next point, "fascism" did not exist when Mussolini wrote for their paper, because Mussolini was not a fascist at that point- so it's anachronistic.

If you want to know whether I have ever supported the defunct Italian Socialist Party, then the answer is no.

Palingenisis

7th December 2010, 22:31

Given the choice between Sinn Fein and the Communist Party of Ireland who would you "vote" for?

Personally I would vote for neither.

The Communist Party of Ireland in the six counties was for a long time called the Protestant wing of Sinn Fein with good reason given how they oohhed and awwed over them until the Provies started having to enforce English cuts from Stormount to a point that they could no longer ignore (yes the CPI was against the armed struggle officially...But in reality they were very spilt over it and anyway all of them saw the Provies as being essentially on the right side).

ComradeMan

7th December 2010, 22:35

Personally I would vote for neither.

The Communist Party of Ireland in the six counties was for a long time called the Protestant wing of Sinn Fein with good reason given how they oohhed and awwed over them until the Provies started having to enforce English cuts from Stormount to a point that they could no longer ignore (yes the CPI was against the armed struggle officially...But in reality they were very spilt over it and anyway all of them saw the Provies as being essentially on the right side).

So how can you support a group in your own backyard yet say you wouldn't vote for it?

Why do you keeping bringing religion into this?

You are anti-communist in an Irish context then?

Palingenisis

7th December 2010, 22:40

So how can you support a group in your own backyard yet say you wouldn't vote for it?

Why do you keeping bringing religion into this?

You are anti-communist in an Irish context then?

I keep bringing in religion because you keep making references to it...Thats why.

The first point you raise shows that you know fuck all about Irish politics...What we call the IRA today broke from the Provisional IRA in the 1990s and they HATE (Provisional) Sinn Fein.

Im for the creation of a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Party in an Irish context. I really like people in the CPI that I know personally...But lets not forget how long they called on people to vote for Devalera, they were always a pretty cowardly and reformist party...But I would take them over Trots anyday.

ComradeMan

7th December 2010, 22:50

I keep bringing in religion because you keep making references to it...Thats why.

The first point you raise shows that you know fuck all about Irish politics...What we call the IRA today broke from the Provisional IRA in the 1990s and they HATE (Provisional) Sinn Fein.

Im for the creation of a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Party in an Irish context. I really like people in the CPI that I know personally...But lets not forget how long they called on people to vote for Devalera, they were always a pretty cowardly and reformist party...But I would take them over Trots anyday.

I think I only mentioned religion twice in passing. Are you denying that religion does not for one slight moment enter into the equation?

Weren't Sinn Fein anti-abortion at one stage given the staunch Catholic traditions of Southern Ireland?

So who do you call the IRA? The people who are acting like vigilantes? The Real IRA, the Continuity IRA? In fact how many fucking IRAs are there? It's worse than Peruvian communist parties...! LOL!!!

I suggest you moderate your tone. I am not Irish, I was asking questions from a leftist point of view and talking about what I found- it wasn't pretty.
No one told you to fuck off for being an idiot when you knew fuck all about ZImbabwe... worse really.

Are you pro-Life? Because I saw some weird stuff about women's duty to have children.

Are you a nationalist? I see the tag about the bold Fenian men and it makes me wonder?

Do you support the armed struggle of the IRA?

What is your real critique of the CPI- other than weird stuff about what you'd like?

I don't understand seeing that you say you are not a Sinn Fein/IRA supporter why you are getting so nasty about this? It's not like I am asking you to join the fucking Orange Lodge is it?

FFS

gorillafuck

7th December 2010, 23:03

So who do you call the IRA? The people who are acting like vigilantes? The Real IRA, the Continuity IRA? In fact how many fucking IRAs are there? It's worse than Peruvian communist parties...! LOL!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organisations_known_as_the_Irish_Republica n_Army

The Grey Blur

7th December 2010, 23:06

republicanism is a nationalist movement. but like any popular nationalist movement however it has and will in the future split along class lines. that's why you had IRA men disbanding striking workers, as well as being a contributing factor in the civil war, why seperate groups of former IRA men fought on opposite sides of the spanish civil war, why o'russell saw no contradiction in going to the nazis for guns, the stick/provo split in the 60s, and the continuing presence of both marxism and hysterical catholicism within the broad umbrella of the republican movement.

if you're referring to the 70s-90s armed campaign by the provisionals and the marxist-aligned INLA then whilst i personally think those tactics failed that war must be seen in the conditions of british occupation and daily humiliation, internment without trial, massacres like bloody sunday and ballymurphy. today most republicans accept that the time for armed struggle is over, so it's irrelevant to the discussion. the best republicans realise that the armed struggle can only ever be an adjunct to the popular struggle and can't replace it. provisional sinn féin, the most well-known sinn féin on the political scene today, are broadly centre-left and while i wouldn't say socialist they certainly aren't reactionary.

the communist party of ireland has a long history of republican activity, i recommend you check out this "irish in the spanish civil war" site for plenty of information that makes it obvious how casually participation in the IRA during the war of independence/civil war led many volunteers to communist activities and eventually fighting (and dying in their dozens) during the spanish civil war. not to mention taking the communist party of ireland's website as the informed gospel is about as nonsensical as me picking one far-left italian group at random (or the most ortho-stalinist one perhaps) and from their website/documents extrapolating about wider italian history and politics...

i'm proud to say i'm an irish republican and the best elements of its history give an example of how brilliant progressive causes can emanate from the indigenous struggle of a nation, as well as exemplifying the best elements of an internationalist outlook. in my own view (and that of marx, lenin, and a generation of working class fighters) the right and need for national self-determination is an instrinsic part of the battle for social and economic emancipation for the working class.

Palingenisis

7th December 2010, 23:08

If someone else asks the questions ComradeMan has asked I will be happy to answer them....But sorry I dont feel obliged to answer questions for an obvious troll for his entertainment.

ComradeMan

7th December 2010, 23:13

republicanism is a nationalist movement. but like any popular nationalist movement however it has and will in the future split along class lines. that's why you had IRA men disbanding striking workers, as well as being a contributing factor in the civil war, why seperate groups of former IRA men fought on opposite sides of the spanish civil war, why o'russell saw no contradiction in going to the nazis for guns, the stick/provo split in the 60s, and the continuing presence of both marxism and hysterical catholicism within the broad umbrella of the republican movement.

if you're referring to the 70s-90s armed campaign by the provisionals and the marxist-aligned INLA then whilst i personally think those tactics failed that war must be seen in the conditions of british occupation and daily humiliation, internment without trial, massacres like bloody sunday and ballymurphy. today most republicans accept that the time for armed struggle is over, so it's irrelevant to the discussion. the best republicans realise that the armed struggle can only ever be an adjunct to the popular struggle and can't replace it. provisional sinn féin, the most well-known sinn féin on the political scene today, are broadly centre-left and while i wouldn't say socialist they certainly aren't reactionary.
.

Thanks- a decent answer- it is confusing trying to find information.

But what I have noticed is that Pallingenesis seems to equate republicanism with the IRA and Sinn Feinn as synonyms per se.

I am also confused then to which IRA she is referring, for whom she says she supports? :confused:

I still found stuff on the CPI site that was quite negative towards the IRA and a lot of other stuff doesn't paint them in a good light.

That does not mean we are raging protestant unionists or whatever... just asking.

When I am in doubt about a country's history, I tend to see what their official communist party talks about first and then follow on from there. That's why I was asking....

Out of interest- do you support the CPI? You don't sound like you do...

ComradeMan

7th December 2010, 23:42

If someone else asks the questions ComradeMan has asked I will be happy to answer them....But sorry I dont feel obliged to answer questions for an obvious troll for his entertainment.

Stop throwing your toys out of your crib.

It's only "obvious" trolling when you can't answer or don't want to answer the questions- being hysterical in a political debate.

The other member here has answered the questions interestingly- you just resort to immediate attack and name calling.

Bear in mind YOU wanted to start a PanCeltic revolutionary group before, you're on a death penalty supporters group and you're praising vigilantes from the whatever-IRA who shoot people to deal out justice. Added to which you've got a nationalistic poem for a signature.

What are we to conclude?

I was asking questions with sources. If you have a problem with a source, say why- instead of attacking and squealing "troll", "troll" like an idiot.

Now the other information came from the Communist Party of Great Britain.

http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=91746
(IRA statement An Phoblacht/Republican News October 1971, p2). There were pragmatic and ideological reasons for this: "Certainly as revolutionaries we were automatically anti-capitalist. But we refused to have anything to do with any communist organisation in Ireland; on the basis of their ineffectiveness, their reactionary foot-dragging on the national question and their opposition to armed struggle. We opposed the extreme socialism ... because we believed that its aim was a Marxist dictatorship which would be no more acceptable to us than British imperialism or free state capitalism ... Ours should be the democratic socialism that was preached and practised by the men of 1916" (S MacStiofain op cit p135). Their view was clearly based on crass and ignorant anti-communist prejudices (see in particular the hysterical article, 'We oppose communist dictatorship in Ireland' APRN June 23 1972, p3).

I do apologise for being such a "Commie" and looking to see what the comrades say, ooops.... I forgot, this is RevLeft.

Have a look at this while you're at it...

http://www.socialistreview.org.uk/article.php?articlenumber=8844

But terrorism, as in planting bombs on government or civilian targets, or hijacking planes, or assassinations by small groups acting independently of class struggle, has always been deemed unacceptable.

This is because terrorism runs counter to the most basic principles of Marxism. Marx showed that the root cause of exploitation, oppression, tyranny and war was not bad individual rulers or bad governments but the division of society into classes, and the ownership and control of production by a minority class that live off the labour of the majority. The overthrow of a ruling class and the economic system on which it rests cannot be achieved by killing or frightening even large numbers of individuals, but only by the struggle of a new class which is the bearer of a new economic system.

Applied to modern capitalist society, this means that the only force capable of defeating the capitalist class is the organised struggle of the mass of the working class. In the words of Marx, 'The emancipation of the working class must be conquered by the working class itself.' This emphasis on the self emancipation of the working class is crucial not only for the overthrow of capitalism but also for the achievement of the aim, the establishment of socialism. Revolutions from above, even by forces claiming to act on behalf of the working class, result only in the replacement of one set of exploiters and oppressors by another (however good the intentions of the revolutionaries). This has been proved time and again in history, but above all by the Stalinist military seizures of power in Eastern Europe, China, etc, which simply replaced private capitalism by state capitalism.

Spawn of Stalin

7th December 2010, 23:54

Ah the Weekly Worker, always been more of a Heat man myself.

Palingenisis

8th December 2010, 00:04

Bear in mind YOU wanted to start a PanCeltic revolutionary group before, you're on a death penalty supporters group and you're praising vigilantes from the whatever-IRA who shoot people to deal out justice. Added to which you've got a nationalistic poem for a signature.

What are we to conclude?

Ive been around Wales, Cornwall, Brittany and the whole of Ireland...I have seen a lot of poverty, misery, drug addiction, colonial oppression and defeat there. I have known how our womanhood is demeaned and degraded in the strip clubs and brothels of London and Paris, I have seen our young men commit suicide one after another...The working class and working farmers of the celtic nations really have so much in common and suffer the exact same crap in the same ways. So honestly I really dont care what you conclude.

ZQ62PNvtk3s

ComradeMan

8th December 2010, 00:17

Ive been around Wales, Cornwall, Brittany and the whole of Ireland...I have seen a lot of poverty, misery, drug addiction, colonial oppression and defeat there. I have known how our womanhood is demeaned and degraded in the strip clubs and brothels of London and Paris, I have seen our young men commit suicide one after another...The working class and working farmers of the celtic nations really have so much in common and suffer the exact same crap in the same ways. So honestly I really dont care what you conclude.

I have known how our womanhood is demeaned and degraded in the strip clubs and brothels of London and Paris,

Terrible- but are they the only women demeaned and degraded in the strip clubs around the world?

No strip clubs in Dublin then?

Celtic nations? You could apply that same thing to the working class anywhere.... derp

You haven't actually answered anything and just spewed out a load of nationalist sentimental crap that could be applied anywhere.

You are a "Celtic" nationalist.

The working class does not have a state. Think about it.;)

I notice you don't mention the suffering of travellers in Ireland, victims of racism, and not by the British.

I am not going to defend British imperialism, hell no- but I am not going to fall for nationalist bullshit from the likes of you. Whereas Grey Blur actually answered the question you just squeal and come out with shit.

Fabrizio

8th December 2010, 00:21

They've got a right to their country. internal politics is up to them but Britain has nobusiness being there.

ComradeMan

8th December 2010, 00:25

They've got a right to their country. internal politics is up to them but Britain has nobusiness being there.

No one is questioning that, but we are questioning certain groups.

Palingenisis

8th December 2010, 00:39

No strip clubs in Dublin then?

You haven't actually answered anything and just spewed out a load of nationalist sentimental crap that could be applied anywhere.

I notice you don't mention the suffering of travellers in Ireland, victims of racism, and not by the British.

There are now a few but they are pretty innocent as strip clubs go...Sad. When we were part of the British Empire we had the biggest red light district in Europe where the souls and bodies of countless women and girls were destroyied. One of the good things about semi-liberation was that stopped.

And I am well aware of the oppression that travellers suffer in Ireland...My dad, a life long Republican and definitely a "nationalist" never recovered his health after the beating he took from Free State Police trying to defend a traveller's site....But you know fuck all about Ireland and you care less. Its all a feel good game to you isnt it?

freepalestine

8th December 2010, 00:41

No one is questioning that, but we are questioning certain groups.no- you are.
why dont read up on irish republicans/republicanism first,before slating something you seem to know nothing about.

ComradeMan

8th December 2010, 00:43

no- you are.
why dont read up on irish republicans/republicanism first,before slating something you seem to know nothing about.

Does republican automatically mean Sinn Fein or one of the many IRA factions? Does it?

Why don't you read posts and think about things?

Ooops--- trolls don't do that do they?

The Grey Blur

8th December 2010, 02:03

no, it doesn't, though the "provisional" sinn féin/IRA of recent times are the most popularly recognised 'republican' groups within ireland and internationally. there's your short answer.

the long answer is that irish republicanism is a broad church which incorporates both groups with progressive and regressive socio-political views. on specific instances it's a real pain-staking process to shift through the myriad of propaganda and nonsense (not from you, but from your various sources...the stalinist left in britain views during the provisional/INLA campaign ranged from cheerleading the bombings, to politically courting republicans, to outright condemnation, etc) to answer your questions. i recommend checking out the following articles and links if you want to read up on irish republicanism and its left elements before continuing further on this endless cycle of debate:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfe_Tone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Connolly
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Republican_Army
http://irelandscw.com/
http://www.marxist.com/ireland-republicanism-and-revolution-part-one.htm

The Red Next Door

8th December 2010, 02:47

comrademan is restricted, right? he's clearly some sort of right-wing troll.

Close; He is a damn zionist troll.

Che a chara

8th December 2010, 06:11

I'm not, why are you getting all defensive.

The links that followed all lead to IRISH REPUBLICAN ARMY.

Found this too in the IRISH INDEPENDENT
IRA 'earned €30m' in FARC terror school

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/ira-earned-30m-in-farc-terror-school-505238.html

Sunday November 24 2002

Intelligence reports link the IRA with cash-rich guerrillas and a newly resurgent ETA, writes Jim Cusack
THE IRA could have received between €20m and €30m from the massively wealthy FARC guerrilla group (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) for training programmes in mortars, armour-piercing and explosives manufacture.

Jim Fucking Cusack ?? C'mon man, he is a pro-Brit anti-Irish republican scumbag. Everyone knows that status of that asshole.

As for FARC, what if the IRA did have links to them, are you believing the Western propaganda that they are a massive drug dealing civilian mass murdering outfit !??

Che a chara

8th December 2010, 06:19

Che a chara

8th December 2010, 06:24

So the IRA are not Irish nationalists? Sinn Fein does not mean ourselves alone and they are not pro-Catholic?

Am I wrong in these assertions?

From the Sinn Fein website- history

1969:
Republicanism splits amid differing attitudes towards the deteriorating situation in the Six Counties. One section was in the process of abandoning the demand for complete British withdrawal from Ireland and went on to become Sinn Féin The Workers Party (the remnants of which were recently subsumed into the Labour Party). Sinn Féin emerges as a party of resistance of the nationalist people in the Six Counties and becomes the leading advocate of British withdrawal and a 32 County socialist republic. While the IRA, in response to the Battle of the Bogside in Derry, unionist pogroms in Belfast and the introduction of internment without trial, goes on the offensive.
http://www.sinnfein.ie/history

Dude, seriously ? The nationalism that is spoken off here is progressive nationalism akin to the SDLP. It is not the White, Catholic shite I think you are trying to pin on PSF (Provisional Sinn Fein).

Nationalist communities are the working class communities that support a United Ireland mainly through non-violent ways but that where under attack from the RUC, British Army, loyalist death squads and the unionist politicians, to which the Provos swore to protect as no-one else would

Marion

8th December 2010, 09:38

They've got a right to their country. internal politics is up to them but Britain has nobusiness being there.

Well, I'd certainly question that. There are three separate notions in your short post:

1) The Irish have a right to their country
2) Internal politics are up to the Irish
3) Britain has no business being in Ireland

Not a single one of these involves any analysis of class but instead uses mainstream concepts of nations rights. Capitalism will function perfectly well and adjust without any problems to Ireland having "rights" to its own country. To destroy capitalism entails an internationalist perspective and refusal to engage with all the capitalist elements calling for "nations rights" or "independence" because it suits their native capitalist class. A worker is still exploited whether their boss is Irish or British. And, much as you probably wouldn't like it, the British would still continue being "in Ireland" even if the country was independent - major trading and business links exist which an independent Ireland could not throw away.

Yes, working class people are exploited in Ireland, Scotland, Cornwall and any other "celtic" areas, with many workers in these areas being exploited as much by "indigenous" bosses as by English ones. However, this is the same exploitation that the working class faces globally. Ultimately though, its not the nationality of the boss that matters but the nature of capital as a global system.

Manic Impressive

8th December 2010, 10:56

To answer the question in the title no Sinn Fein and the IRA are not reactionary. To be reactionary they would have to support the regression of society to a previous state.

Here's the real reactionary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj5EXxcMJVI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj5EXxcMJVI)

ComradeMan

8th December 2010, 11:05

There are now a few but they are pretty innocent as strip clubs go...Sad. When we were part of the British Empire we had the biggest red light district in Europe where the souls and bodies of countless women and girls were destroyied. One of the good things about semi-liberation was that stopped.

So there weren't red light areas in any other major city of the British Empire at the time?

There weren't red light areas in practically all the major cities of the world- as there nearly always have been since the night of time?

The oldest profession?

Didn't James Joyce write about "Nighttown" in Ulysses?

The Irish government had, at one time, special visa categories for 'entertainers,' which enabled the trafficking of women for strip clubs and prostitution.
Jeffreys, Sheila (2009). The industrial vagina: the political economy of the global sex trade. Taylor & Francis. pp. 86–106. ISBN 9780415412339.

But you know fuck all about Ireland and you care less. Its all a feel good game to you isnt it?

Well, how can anyone find out if they ask questions from "experts" like you who refuse to give answers or analysis and just spew out nationalist sentimental crap?

Not so long ago you totally trashed that Croation guy for being a nationalist, calling him an ustaše,, a fascist and a nationalist- and all out attack and yet from what I see his position towards his Croatian-ness was rather similar to the tone you have about Irish-ness, with your "bold" Fenian men.... No one has done that to you here, just asked questions and yet you go on the attack.

Whether you like it or not people are entitled to ask questions and they may be uncomfortable questions, things we don't like, about groups and persons involved in politics.

Let's have a look at that little discussion in "Nationalism".

Exactly! But people who've never been in such a situation can hardly understand it. Let me mention my example - I'm a proud Croat, I can't help it and, more importantly, I don't want to change it. Since my nation fought a liberation war from 1991-95, with many war crimes and violations of human rights performed against us, I just can't be a Euro-federalist or a proponent of any other union of that kind. I'm not a nationalist, far from that, I respect all nations, races and cultures, but I chose to "love" my own, and I don't see what's so "bourgeoisie" in independence and freedom.

followed by

Both nationalists and anti-nationalists creep me out.

:confused:

but then....

You are a "Croat"???
You seriously want to present the ripping apart of Yugoslavia in a nasty Political Roman Catholic (National-Socialist just underneath the surface if that) bid to butcher your fellow citizens because they came from an Orthodox background (bank rolled across by western Imperialism;)) as some glorious national liberation struggle? Seriously fuck off....Ustache and chetnik scum like yourself who have caused so much misery shouldnt even be allowed on here.

Seems like you are being very hypocritical here. You knew fuck all about Croatia seeing as it's hard to be ustaše and chetnik at the same time.

It's all right for you to be a nationalist when it's Ireland or "Celtic" nations and yet it isn't all right for that Croatian guy who probably lived through one of the most brutal modern wars in Europe?

What's with this Celtic thing all of a sudden? I wasn't aware that "Celtic" was a nation- thought it was more of a language family to be honest?

I wonder if I proposed a Pan-Latin League, uniting all the Latin-speaking nations under one flag if it would be acceptable? LOL!!! The new Roman Empire of sorts?

You are a nationalist.

Che a chara

8th December 2010, 11:08

The Provisional movement did for a number of years did adopt a socialist perspective on the struggle and had many working class policies and actions during the 70's and early-mid 80's, but this gradually drifted away as they became more involved in politics in the Occupied 6 counties.

Zoid

25th December 2010, 23:57

Uh, I don't know what you're talking about. They want Northern Ireland to be unified with Ireland. They want it under control of the Irish government and not the British one.

An American, I guess?

The majority of Northern Irish people do not want to be under Dublin rule, whether the CIA are funding armed violence against their local communities from Greater-Dublin chauvanists or not. This is very clear. The "Irish" Republican movement, is now and has always been a reactionary joke. Quite how Patrick Pearse, their most prominent ideologue, a romantic middle-class son of a migrant from England was "oppressed" in the Provo-woe-is-us-lets-murder-our-neighbours-children line of history is beyond anyones knowledge (quite ironic considering Irish republican racism against English people, as well as Scots and Ulster-Scots who they use the ethnic slur "Huns" against). Most of the myths of Irish ultra-chauvanism simply don't stand up to analyctic inspection.

indigenous struggle of a nationPatrick Pearse, Wolfe Tone, Robert Emmet, James Stephens, Bobby Sands, Gerry Adams, John Stephenson, etc

All descend from imported British immigrants, some from the Plantations, others from the Ascendancy. These people are no more or less "idigenous" than the peoples in Northern Ireland who have rejected the CIA/IRA Greater-Dublin Reich ideology which was invented during the Victorian period. So the "indigenous struggle" crap just doesn't cut it. Unless you are going to say Lenny Murphy's struggle against the CIA-backed Greater Dublin fascists was an "indigenous struggle".

Where do you draw the line as to "indigenous" in this BNP style ethno-nationalist rhetoric in any case? Was Adolf Hitler's movement an "indigenous struggle of a nation"? Since the people in the North-Western Europe are so mixed together, especially in more recent centuries since industrialisation then this idea of a "pure Irish race" is laughable. The people who live in parts of the British Isles that wanted to separate, have, the majority in Northern Ireland want nothing to do with the ultra-nationalist agenda of Dublin. Quite how it is "progressive" for the CIA's terrorist gangs to attempt to force communities into a Greater-Dublin Empire, especially when the Irish Republic is perhaps the most reactionary state in all of Europe, is as yet unexplained. What have the Irish republicans proven in the 4/5ths of the island that is no longer part of the United Kingdom and hasn't been for a century? That they want to oppress women and deprive them of the right to abortion, that they want predatory clerics to rape and exploit innocent kids?

Green fascists, like Palingenisis, are some of the biggest hypocrites going. Pure racist/ultra-chauvanist scum, who wish to oppress the local Ulster-Scots communities who have voiced their self-determination against their ultra-nationalist fantasies, nothing less.

They've got a right to their country. internal politics is up to them but Britain has nobusiness being there. In that case, Greater-Dubliners have no business is in the internal politics of the Ulster-Scots communities who live in Antrim and Down, that want nothing to do with their expansionist agenda. These people opted out of the romantic Dublin-nationalist myths invented in the Victorian period and decided not to participate in a newly invented state representing this ideology which seperated from the UK. Green fascists don't like that they can't have a Greater-Dublin 51st state? Tough shit for them I guess. I suppose if they did force it against the communities who live there, then there would be no shortage of locals ready to "liberate" the Ulster-Scots nation with a campaign on the fash in Dublin.

Che a chara

26th December 2010, 03:25

Oh shit, Zoid is rewriting history again and trying to justify British state terrorism, ethnic cleansing and sectarianism in Ireland. The british government has no right to be in ireland militarily, politically and economically.

The majority of the island of Ireland want to be united as do the majority of Ulster.

You be very selective with your comments and delibertaly omit facts of British oppression on Irish republicans who rightfully rose to protect catholic/nationalist working class communities who were under attack from unionist politicians, the RUC, the British army and loyalist death squads - all in collusion.

The truth of the struggle has 800 years of history and that 800 years proves that only one community was under barbaric oppression by an invading imperialist force. Why is this hard to admit ? Can you not tell the difference between an oppressor and the oppressed (a liberator), especially given that the native culture, language and beliefs were criminalised and erased by that imperialist force ?

You try to connect a link between the "indigenous struggle of a nation" and the Nazis and the BNP when quite clearly Irish republicanism has always been about all inclusiveness and equality between all citizens, whereas the former was about exclusive inclusiveness of a one people (like loyalism)

And what the fuck are you on about;

the ultra-nationalist agenda of Dublin.
!??? show me proof of this disgusting lie and also prove this piece of shit allegation:

the Irish Republic is perhaps the most reactionary state in all of Europe

I've lost count of the amount of pish on your post Zoid. Plus this tactic of saying "CIA backed..." blah, blah, blah. Show proof of these lies. You're a compulsive liar trying to divert attention away from the truth.

And I also see you are forgetting previous comments on this thread. No Irish republican group supports the Catholic church. the church has been an enemy of Irish republicanism and socialism. You've tried to use the Catholic church as an excuse to try and attack and discredit Irish republicanism, well it hasn't worked.

Also what has the union brought for unionists and loyalists ? Nothing but grief, unemployment, sectarianism and division. The most 'loyal' areas to the queen are the most deprived and poverty stricken. what does that tell you about your false allegiance ?..... Capitalism is the real enemy, north and south.

Che a chara

26th December 2010, 03:30

http://britisharmykillings.org.uk/category/2/Crimes-in-Ireland

http://britisharmykillings.org.uk/category/24/Ireland

costello1977

26th December 2010, 04:02

Lot of ignorance on show here. People need to do a serious review of the situation before making any assumptions. What Im reading here exhibits people ignorant of the situation, reading a piece on the struggle and making definitive statements in reaction to the article.

So in a sense, many of the posters here are just as "reactionary" as they are claiming that the IRA/SF are!

As for the comments of "which IRA", there is one body of Republican volunteers, however, there are several different army councils. The natures of the disputes could be explored at great length, however I doubt most of the reactionaries on this website will go further than reading a reactionary article about the IRA and making those definitive statements.

Zoid

26th December 2010, 04:18

Oh shit, Zoid is rewriting history again and trying to justify British state terrorism, ethnic cleansing and sectarianism in Ireland. The british government has no right to be in ireland militarily, politically and economically.

If the IRA are "freedom fighters", then so are Lenny Murphy's Shankill Butchers. The dublin government has no right to be in Northern Ireland military, politically and economically. The majority of people in that era want nothing to do with the Green Empire.

The majority of the island of Ireland want to be united as do the majority of Ulster.Why just measure based on one island, rather than the archipelago of the British Isles? It is the pseudo-Gaelic ultranationalist reactionaries in the South who are the separatists after all. If they can take time off from having priests rape their kids to dictate on the geopolitical fate of Ulster-Scots against their wishes for self-determination, then why can't the entire British Isles do so respectively in regards to dublin?

The "Ulster" you refer to, as in the Province of Ulster, was invented during the Tudor period and only ever existed during the Tudor Kingdom of Ireland. I'm not sure why an arbitary and now defunct geopolitical measurement should override the wishes of the Ulster-Scots people to self-determination from the Green fascist, women oppressing, peadophiles in dublin.

You be very selective with your comments and delibertaly omit facts of British oppression on Irish republicans who rightfully rose to protect catholic/nationalist working class communities who were under attack from unionist politicians, the RUC, the British army and loyalist death squads - all in collusion. The British army initially moved into Northern Ireland to defend said community from loyalists Only for them to launch oppertunists attacks on them.

The truth of the struggle has 800 years of history and that 800 years proves that only one community was under barbaric oppression by an invading imperialist force. Why is this hard to admit ? Can you not tell the difference between an oppressor and the oppressed (a liberator), especially given that the native culture, language and beliefs were criminalised and erased by that imperialist force ?Pure Victorian era Fenian romantic-nationalist mythology. What do the Normans who also conquered England, south Wales and interloped into the Scottish monarchy have to with the modern day people of the British state to which the Ulster-Scots people have decided they want to remain tied to?

How dare self-proclaimed representatives of this reactionary tribe, the same imperialist tribe which invaded andcommited a complete (and successful) Holocaust against the Picts in Britain, exterminated the original inhabitants of the Isle of Man and genocided the Vikings who founded all of the cities in Ireland claim to be an "oppressed people"? Everywhere this group brings its reactionary ultra-nationalism, whether Scotland, England, Canada or the United States, they split and divide the working-class.

The ancestors of Gerry Adams, Bobby Sands, Wolfe Tone, Patrick Pearse, Robert Emmet, James Stephens were not in Ireland "800 years ago". The republican movement is mostly a collection of self-serving oppertunists more interested in self-gratification and a mythological-romantic dellusion than the liberation of the working-class (yes, "The Huns" who want to remain British, are mostly working-class too).

You try to connect a link between the "indigenous struggle of a nation" and the Nazis and the BNP when quite clearly Irish republicanism has always been about all inclusiveness and equality between all citizens, whereas the former was about exclusive inclusiveness of a one people (like loyalism) Bullshit. Narrow pseudo-"Gaelic" chauvanism crystalised from the Victorian era is the level of inclusion of republicanism. Any group which holds a view outside of this, is derived as "Hun". Standard nationalism. The republican movement fundamentally believes that the Ulster-Scots people should not have a right to self-determination, which they have quite clearly voiced and chosen to uphold. That is not "equality".

I've lost count of the amount of pish on your post Zoid. Plus this tactic of saying "CIA backed..." blah, blah, blah. Show proof of these lies. You're a compulsive liar trying to divert attention away from the truth.Are you denying the connection between the United States Government and Green-fascist terrorism, including the murder of Ulster-Scots children? You're having a laugh. Mickey Mouse go Home.

And I also see you are forgetting previous comments on this thread. No Irish republican group supports the Catholic church. the church has been an enemy of Irish republicanism and socialism. You've tried to use the Catholic church as an excuse to try and attack and discredit Irish republicanism, well it hasn't worked.
Regardless of whether they support it or not. Republicans claim that 1916 was the start of a "liberation" struggle. What have they done in the so-called "liberated" part of the island since the 1920s which would suggest annexing Northern Ireland would be a victory for socialism? Well so far, the reactionary dublin-fascists have continued to oppress women and let pedophiles rape their children. Good stuff. The exterminators of the Pictish people should prove themselves in the so-called 26 counties (again another Tudor invention, which for some odd reason greater-dublin chauvanists are attached to) before casting expansionist aspirations on their self-determined neighbours.

Che a chara

26th December 2010, 04:25

I have absolutely no time for the gombeen government in the 26 counties, nor does any Irish republican/socialist. Zoid is trying to imply that the aim of Irish republicanism is a 32county Irish nationalist fascist republic which will oppress 'Ulster scots' :rolleyes: . Never has this been the aim. that's just typical scaremongering and division tactics used by bigoted loyalists and imperialists.

The creation of a 32 county Socialist Republic as envisaged by James Connolly (read up on him Zoid) is what is being fought for. A worker's republic with no division along sectarian and class lines. British imperialism and capitalism allow and dictate to us that this should be the case... well the fight for the greater good and for a righteous cause is just. End partition amongst the working class and the institutions that able us to live in abject exploitation and the orange and green divide.

#FF0000

26th December 2010, 04:25

words, chauvinism towards Best Mod for being an American

This is all well and good but all I said was the IRA wants Northern Ireland and Ireland to be unified. Didn't say anything about the people of Northern Ireland. Try reading k.

Che a chara

26th December 2010, 04:30

Fookin' hell Zoid. What sectarian and utter shite you spout.

re-read the previous thread you trolled and ended up being walloped for the answers to your diatribe:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/pan-celtic-marxist-t136019/index6.html
#102 onwards

I'll have a go meself at your latest rant tomorrow, but it's late and time for bed

#FF0000

26th December 2010, 04:32

Hahaha I also love how close Zoid is getting to just going out and saying all Irish people are drunk pedophile catholics :lol:

I also don't "support" the IRA, for the record.

costello1977

26th December 2010, 04:34

If the IRA are "freedom fighters", then so are Lenny Murphy's Shankill Butchers.

That shows just how deluded you are. How can you compare the actions of brave men who fought for their ideological belief that their country should be freed to a man who freely admitted he just "like killing taigs"?

There is simply no ideology behind the gangsterism that was always exhibited throughout loyalism. The state is an abortive creation which, throughout its short existence, has continually tried to destroy itself, be it its Irish or British people. It is continually supported by the British Government, who are seeking to legitimise its control over part of the Irish land.

How are the IRA/INLA not freedom fighters exactly? They are fighting for a legitimate freedom, denied in defiance of the UN by the British and its subjects in Ireland.

costello1977

26th December 2010, 04:36

This is all well and good but all I said was the IRA wants Northern Ireland and Ireland to be unified. Didn't say anything about the people of Northern Ireland. Try reading k.

No such a place. The IRA want to wrest 6 occupied counties from the control of the British state. Sin é!

Zoid

26th December 2010, 04:39

Hahaha I also love how close Zoid is getting to just going out and saying all Irish people are drunk pedophile catholics :lol:

I also don't "support" the IRA, for the record.

Apparently letting pedophiles rape children is a purely dublin-fascist tradition. Never heard of Spaniards of Italians letting their children be exploited, so they can't hide behind religion for the exploitation racket they run in the so-called "liberated" Irish Republic. Pretty revolting either way. So is their medieval oppression of women. Lets face it, what else are dublin-fascists good for in the last 100 years? Killing people for territorial expanisionism (ie - imperialism/irridentism), splitting the working-class and raping children. Thats pretty much it. Oh wait, they sometimes sing drunken songs about Ze Gaelic Master Race and collaborate with Nazi Germany. :rolleyes:

#FF0000

26th December 2010, 04:41

Apparently letting pedophiles rape children is a purely dublin-fascist tradition. Never heard of Spaniards of Italians letting their children be exploited, so they can't hide behind religion for the exploitation racket they run in the so-called "liberated" Irish Republic. Pretty revolting either way. So is their medieval oppression of women. Lets face it, what else are dublin-fascists good for in the last 100 years? Killing people for territorial expanisionism (ie - imperialism/irridentism), splitting the working-class and raping children. Thats pretty much it. Oh wait, they sometimes sing drunken songs about Ze Gaelic Master Race and collaborate with Nazi Germany. :rolleyes:

lol man you are a bigot. it's like talking to someone from the 1800s.

Zoid

26th December 2010, 04:41

No such a place. The IRA want to wrest 6 occupied counties from the control of the British state. Sin é!

The county system was invented by the Tudors and doesn't exist in law in Northern Ireland anymore. In any case, there will always be resistance to greater-dublin imperialism and neo-reichism. No Surrender to the CIA and their drunken fascist puppets. :cool:

#FF0000

26th December 2010, 04:50

so Zoid what do you really feel about Irish people? Don't hold back bro.

Zoid

26th December 2010, 04:53

That shows just how deluded you are. How can you compare the actions of brave men who fought for their ideological belief that their country should be freed to a man who freely admitted he just "like killing taigs"?

Lenny Murphy is an "indigenous" man of Irish-Gaelic stock, while Gerry Adams and Bobby Sands are the descendants of planters. So when the soft yanks and other romantic-green fash get into spouting bullshit about so-called "national liberation", "their land", "idigenous freedom fighters", then it backfires pretty quickly. The land mostly belongs to the Ulster-Scots people who live and work there, some of it belongs to people who consider themselves Irish who live there in lower numbers. Pretty simple.

How are the IRA/INLA not freedom fighters exactly? They are fighting for a legitimate freedom, denied in defiance of the UN by the British and its subjects in Ireland.The IRA/INLA are "fighting" to supress the rights and explicitly known wishes of the Ulster-Scots people to self-determination in an attempt to enslave them into the reactionary clerical-fascist greater dublin reich. They are oppressors and mercenaries with known links to the CIA. All the vague references to "socialism, just once we're done with the killing Hun babies for Gaelic-fascism bit", doesn't wash. Face it you are an ultra-nationalist and a fascist, what is the difference between "Irish Republicanism" and Italian fascism or German Nazism?

#FF0000

26th December 2010, 04:55

what is the difference between "Irish Republicanism" and Italian fascism or German Nazism?

irish republicans explicitly state their aim is marxist socialism for one.

Che a chara

26th December 2010, 14:42

Zoid's banned. :) The chap is a pathological and habitual liar who is so insecure in his own identity about who he is that he has to create a fantasy about what the 26 county government represents. In fact he could easily be talking about the Brutish and Stormont government, in fact he probably copied and pasted articles he came across about the Brits and just removed their name and references and replaced it with anything Irish.

Irish republicanism has no problem with the citizens who came over to colonise as part of the plantation, they are as much a part of society as anyone else now, that has never been in doubt. It's the Brutish state and all of it's apparatus who has never had any right to be in Ireland. National self determination, liberation and emancipation is a just cause and one that Protestants like Wolfe Tone saw, and that continues to this day. Unlike unionism and loyalism who yearn for the return of the Orange state to oppress the working class and cause division and alienation under a falsified and gerrymandered 'border'.

How on earth he can compare Irish republican revolutionaries like the IRA and the INLA who were fighting injustice and the removal of the invading Brutish Imperialistic and oppressive Empire in occupied Ireland and fighting for civil rights and social justice for catholics/nationalists to a sectarian cold blooded murder gang who wanted to continue the ethnic cleansing started by the Brutish establishment and all it's politicians and removal the of people based on their religion shows a lack of sympathy and compassion for freedom and justice that is good form within unionism and loyalism.

Also it shows the level of intelligence that is very inherent in knuckledragging neanderthal fascist loyalists like him that he has to try and use child abuse to score points and discredit an entire 'country' and the ideology of Irish republicanism and socialism. Personally I call for the abolishment of the Vatican and a total reform of the Catholic church and a separation of religion and state, as do the vast, vast majority of Irish republican socialists, but hey, don't let the truth get in way of Brutish propaganda.

Every lie, slander, verbal diarrhea and shock words (in which he showed no evidence or proof to back up) he used has been totally refuted and debunked, but being a bigot he doesn't want to see the truth so wallows in denial and ignorance.

freepalestine

26th December 2010, 18:21

was zoid just a loyalist ,or some kinda nazi bnper.
for a guy who wrote the word fascistetc in in every sentence,he seemed abit contradictory.

pastradamus

26th December 2010, 19:50

was zoid just a loyalist ,or some kinda nazi bnper.

Is there really a difference anymore?

Im just glad the wanker's gone.

Imposter Marxist

27th December 2010, 18:06

This thread had the most brutal character assasination of someone i've ever seen. (And Comrademan did it to himself!)

khad

27th December 2010, 18:29

I wonder how many Palestinian skulls ComradeMan keeps in his closet.

Che a chara

27th December 2010, 18:39

I wonder how many Palestinian skulls ComradeMan keeps in his closet.

I bet not near enough as many Taig skulls Zoid has decorated around his bedroom.

Die Neue Zeit

27th December 2010, 18:48

republicanism is a nationalist movement. but like any popular nationalist movement however it has and will in the future split along class lines.

Other than the CWI's Socialist Party, only Sinn Fein is affiliated to the European United Left, the EU Parliament's Left party for the likes of Portugal's Left Bloc, France's Front de gauche, the KKE in Greece, and of course Die Linke.

Crimson Commissar

27th December 2010, 23:42

Devrim

27th December 2010, 23:49

Crimson Commissar

27th December 2010, 23:58

I believe the term 'thirty two county republic' is merely a way of saying including all of Ireland. The term 'Free State' comes from the fact that that is what it was actually called after it became partially 'independent' in the 1920s, and it was used to stress that it wasn't the all Ireland (i.e. 32 not 26 county republic they wanted.

Devrim
I don't understand why they can't just say "a united irish republic". It's just very strange. It'd be like calling the USA a "50 state american republic" every damn time you mentioned it.

Palingenisis

28th December 2010, 00:03

Che a chara

28th December 2010, 00:04

What's with irish republicans and this obsession with this specific number of counties there need to be in a liberated irish state? And how they always, 100% of the time, call the irish republic the "irish free state" despite the fact it is a capitalist state and is in no way "free". What the fuck is this county shit anyway? Why is it so important?

The nation if Ireland is made up of 4 Provinces (Ulster, Leinster, Munster and Connacht) and within those 4 Provinces there is 32 different counties. Ulster has 9 counties, Leinster has 12, Munster has 6 and Connacht has 5.

6 of Ulster's 9 counties is under occupation by British imperialism after partition and the gerrymandering of the border which undemocratically carved up Ulster and the country in a sectarian headcount, which is deemed illegitimate in the eyes of Irish republicans and socialists, and should be for any other sane person.

The term 'Free state' is a name given for the 26 county southern part which gained independence from British rule.

Che a chara

28th December 2010, 00:08

I don't understand why they can't just say "a united irish republic". It's just very strange. It'd be like calling the USA a "50 state american republic" every damn time you mentioned it.

Because it's not a "a united irish republic". The "united irish republic" as fought for and proclaimed in the 1916 Irish proclamation is an Irish state completely free from British interference. While part of Ireland is still under occupation, the term "a united irish republic" is seen as unlwaful within Irish republicanism.

Crimson Commissar

28th December 2010, 00:09

Because it's not a "a united irish republic". The "united irish republic" as fought for and proclaimed in the 1916 Irish proclamation is an Irish state completely free from British interference. While part of Ireland is still under occupation, the term "a united irish republic" is seen as unlwaful within Irish republicanism.
I meant when referring to a possible republic made up of the entirity of ireland.

Che a chara

28th December 2010, 00:15

I meant when referring to a possible republic made up of the entirity of ireland.

Ahh right, apologies for picking you up wrong. Well yeah, it probably will continue to be called the Republic of Ireland, or indeed even the United Irish Republic after unification, or better still, hopefully the Irish socialist republic :D

Crimson Commissar

28th December 2010, 00:17

Ahh right, apologies for picking you up wrong. Well yeah, it probably will continue to be called the Republic of Ireland, or indeed even the United Irish Republic after unification, or better still, hopefully the Irish socialist republic :D
Personally I think the only way Ireland will be united will be through a socialist revolution. I doubt the UK will be willing to give it up any time soon.

freepalestine

28th December 2010, 00:33

Personally I think the only way Ireland will be united will be through a socialist revolution. I doubt the UK will be willing to give it up any time soon.
i think the british govt do want to get rid of north of ireland.although the influence of the establishment and unionism is the only reason they still rule part of ireland.the views of the working class in the six counties arent as important to the elites ruling the british establishment

Che a chara

28th December 2010, 00:42

Personally I think the only way Ireland will be united will be through a socialist revolution. I doubt the UK will be willing to give it up any time soon.

Totally dude. There is 900,000 unionists is the North who don't really relate or support a United Ireland. What needs to be made clear is that the enemy is capitalism and the influence that Westminster has on the north. No-one in the occupied 6 counties voted for the Tory coalition. Yet they were able to dictate the massive cuts.

A unified socialist alternative will stop the continued division amongst the working class and guarantee religious and cultural liberty, whereas at present such practices are at the mercy of commissions in a divided green and orange government which effects everyone socially.

The UK's interest in keeping the north as part of the union is an interesting one, and for sure it is not one based on loyalty towards the citizens there as seen in the attitude and polices placed on the region, but one of selfish strategic reasons. There's no doubt that the north is a hindrance financially, but if the British were to up and leave that could cause civil unrest in the north, something the British government would want to avoid as their past there is already tainted with blood.

The end of the union would plummet the standing of the British empire as a world leader in exploiter. The north is also used to train the British Army and is used as a base to deploy troops abroad and also could also be seen as an ideal place (air and sea) for settling and deploying further military in the event of a bigger war.

costello1977

28th December 2010, 13:35

i think the british govt do want to get rid of north of ireland.although the influence of the establishment and unionism is the only reason they still rule part of ireland.the views of the working class in the six counties arent as important to the elites ruling the british establishment

No. they still have a lot of vested interests left in Ireland. One example of this is that an English lord, John Taylor, owns most of O'Connell street in Dublin.

Their capitalist interests currently control both sides of the border, so Ireland is still under British rule, de facto and de jure, so to speak.

Ireland will only be free when it is an Irish Socialist republic.

TheCultofAbeLincoln

28th December 2010, 13:45

To be honest, collaboration with the Nazis is a mistake that a lot of communists in countries under British imperial rule made back then.

This has to be remembered. I've read that Nasser, for example, and many pan-arabists who were united mainly by their hatred of the british empire, were quite avid fans of Hitler. Given their position in the world, I can't blame them for their realpolitik.

Marxach-LÃ©inÃnach

28th December 2010, 14:21

No. they still have a lot of vested interests left in Ireland. One example of this is that an English lord, John Taylor, owns most of O'Connell street in Dublin.

Not to mention the fact that on top of being owned by an English lord, the main street of Dublin's also named after a die-hard unionist

Che a chara

28th December 2010, 15:44

To be honest, collaboration with the Nazis is a mistake that a lot of communists in countries under British imperial rule made back then.

As well as members of the British Royal family.

http://american_almanac.tripod.com/naziroot.htm

Che a chara

28th December 2010, 16:17

A bit off topic, but for the pro-Brit imperialists and loyalist apologists (i.e. Zoid etc.) who lurk:

How British Free Trade Starved Millions During Ireland's Potato Famine (http://members.tripod.com/~american_almanac/potato.htm)

malthusela

28th December 2010, 16:23

The original IRA are/were highly supportive of the Catholic Church, and nationalists. They also sold any actually socialist ideals they had when they were given the opportunity of legitimate power.

costello1977

28th December 2010, 17:52

The original IRA are/were highly supportive of the Catholic Church, and nationalists. They also sold any actually socialist ideals they had when they were given the opportunity of legitimate power.

Looks like Zoid is back everyone! Join date is the 28th, just after Zoid was banned, comes on with some of the same rhetoric.

Well, the IRA shed those beliefs. Most people have evolved into a secular lifestyle anyway as can be seen in falling church going numbers.

As for the second part, the IRA has never seeked "legitimate" power, members have left and formed groups like Sinn Fein, Fianna Fail, the Workers Party, the IRSP etc etc.

To be honest, you just exhibited a limited knowledge of the problems here. For a quick start, neither the IRA has never been in power in the 6 or 26 counties. The British and Irish governments wouldn't have accepted that anyway.

Nolan

30th December 2010, 20:55

"Massively wealthy FARC"

hahaha.

Can barely pay its troops.

Palingenisis

30th December 2010, 21:03

Not to mention the fact that on top of being owned by an English lord, the main street of Dublin's also named after a die-hard unionist

Off topic but Danial O'Connell was also involved in British Imperialism in China as well as being a yeo-man (part of a counter-insurgency militia) in 1798.

It would be better to have the street named after Zig and Zag or Bosco.

Palingenisis

30th December 2010, 21:06

The original IRA are/were highly supportive of the Catholic Church, and nationalists. They also sold any actually socialist ideals they had when they were given the opportunity of legitimate power.

Which is why there was talk of shooting some Bishops and "nationalizing" the RCC along the lines that China eventually took :rolleyes:.

The Roman Catholic hierarchy was always opposed to Irish Republicanism.

Demogorgon

31st December 2010, 22:08

What's with irish republicans and this obsession with this specific number of counties there need to be in a liberated irish state? And how they always, 100% of the time, call the irish republic the "irish free state" despite the fact it is a capitalist state and is in no way "free". What the fuck is this county shit anyway? Why is it so important?
To clarify the Free State thing, when part of Ireland was given its semi-independence, it formed an entity known as the "Irish Free State" which existed until the end of 1937 when the modern entity was formed. Some people here use the term "free state" to signify they don't accept and Irish Republic forming without Northern Ireland, some are so ignorant of the actual facts that they think it still exists.

In any event, it is a silly thing to say, no matter the rights and wrongs of it, history did take a specific course and the Irish Free State was formed and then abolished and Northern ireland remained part of Britain and it is only possible to change the future situation, not the past one.

The Free State ceased to exist seventy three years and two days ago to be precise.

Palingenisis

31st December 2010, 22:12

The Free State ceased to exist seventy three years and two days ago to be precise.

The Free State officially lasted until the Republic of Ireland Act 1948.

Thats not seventy three years ago.

Demogorgon

31st December 2010, 22:16

The Free State officially lasted until the Republic of Ireland Act 1948.

Thats not seventy three years ago.No it didn't. It ceased to exist when its constitution was removed and the new state Institutions established. The fact that Ireland remained a semi-monarchy for several more years does not mean the Free State continued any more than the continued existence of the Canadian monarchy means Canada remains a Dominion of the British Empire.

This is not a matter of ideology or opinion, it is simply historical fact and failing to know this does not do your credibility much good.

costello1977

31st December 2010, 22:24

To clarify the Free State thing, when part of Ireland was given its semi-independence, it formed an entity known as the "Irish Free State" which existed until the end of 1937 when the modern entity was formed. Some people here use the term "free state" to signify they don't accept and Irish Republic forming without Northern Ireland, some are so ignorant of the actual facts that they think it still exists.

In any event, it is a silly thing to say, no matter the rights and wrongs of it, history did take a specific course and the Irish Free State was formed and then abolished and Northern ireland remained part of Britain and it is only possible to change the future situation, not the past one.

The Free State ceased to exist seventy three years and two days ago to be precise.

I hate to disagr.....no actually, I don't. To claim that the free state ceased to exist is a rather foolish assumption based on the fact that the state changed its name. Such naivety shows a lack of comprehension of the situation both now and at the time.

The fact remains that when the "republic" was "declared" by de Valera, nothing changed but the name. The British still controlled both key ports and strategic locations on the Irish coast. They controlled the economy through business and manipulated the Irish governmental policy through threats of embargo etc.

What I will give ya is that when they did become a "republic" they laid claim to the O6C through articles two and three of the constitution of the "republic". That was the basis on which the republic claimed to become an independent sovereign state. However, adding potency to my own claim, they scrapped these articles within the confines of the GFA, so they can no longer claim to be a "sovereign" nation. Therefore, 1998 heralded the return of "dominion" status to Ireland.

The free state dominion status has never actually been exceeded. The Irish state has never been autonomous at any stage due in no small part to the financial constraints put on the government by bug business and the ranchers in Ireland, and now the Irish risk losing the country to both Britain and Europe by accepting the bail out.

Also, the fact that you refer to the North as "NI" would indicate that you come from a Unionist persuasion. Whatever terminology you want to use to describe this abhorration is upto yerself, but it doesn't legitimise the bastardised state, nor does it given creedence to your theory that the Free State "ceased to exist".

There is a "de facto, de jure" argument to all this, with 'staters indicating that it was a republic in law, de facto, whilst republicans claim that these legal fudges were nothing but lies and that, de facto, the Irish were still under the foot of the English, for example, an English lord owns O'Connell street in Dublin.

Palingenisis

31st December 2010, 22:35

costello1977

31st December 2010, 22:44

I disagree with some of that Costello1977.

I dont accept the legitimacy of what will always be for me the "Free State" but an independent capitalist elite has arisen in the 26 counties which is a parterner (though a junior one) of a wider western Imperialism. This elite however regard the UK as an ally and militant Republicanism has an enemy annoyance true enough. That doesnt mean that their relationship with the UK state is the same as it was at the beginning of the last century.

Its not clear at all that the 26 counties is still a neo-colony. Certainly it is a neo-colonial elements still in place in its political economy but it also has Imperialist ones.

Some of the tramps on this forum could do with reading this post. This is how you respectfully put forward your criticisms of another persons posts, not by trolling and flaming and ignoring the issues. Great post mo chara. An adult debate...for once!

I would say, 100%, that since the change of power in 1922, the Irish people have never had a sovereign nation due totally to the control of Irish affairs by the big business men, bankers and ranchers, who as you rightly suggest, find closer allys across the Irish sea, for solely financial reasons.

With regards to the aspect of neo-colonialism, I would say that it is still a colony, nevermind a neo-colony. For a start, the banks are intristically tied to the British elite. Most of our export goes to the rich in Ireland, so the poor see not one red cent. Our greatest resources for example the Irish working class, are treated like assets, which can be bought and sold between the rich willy nilly.

The problem with the free state since its inception was that the people who ran the country for the brits before 1922, where the same people who ran it after, and they, the Dublin elite, are only interested in the British investment into their businesses.

Demogorgon

31st December 2010, 23:07

I hate to disagr.....no actually, I don't. To claim that the free state ceased to exist is a rather foolish assumption based on the fact that the state changed its name. Such naivety shows a lack of comprehension of the situation both now and at the time.

The fact remains that when the "republic" was "declared" by de Valera, nothing changed but the name. The British still controlled both key ports and strategic locations on the Irish coast. They controlled the economy through business and manipulated the Irish governmental policy through threats of embargo etc.

What I will give ya is that when they did become a "republic" they laid claim to the O6C through articles two and three of the constitution of the "republic". That was the basis on which the republic claimed to become an independent sovereign state. However, adding potency to my own claim, they scrapped these articles within the confines of the GFA, so they can no longer claim to be a "sovereign" nation. Therefore, 1998 heralded the return of "dominion" status to Ireland.

The free state dominion status has never actually been exceeded. The Irish state has never been autonomous at any stage due in no small part to the financial constraints put on the government by bug business and the ranchers in Ireland, and now the Irish risk losing the country to both Britain and Europe by accepting the bail out.

Also, the fact that you refer to the North as "NI" would indicate that you come from a Unionist persuasion. Whatever terminology you want to use to describe this abhorration is upto yerself, but it doesn't legitimise the bastardised state, nor does it given creedence to your theory that the Free State "ceased to exist".

There is a "de facto, de jure" argument to all this, with 'staters indicating that it was a republic in law, de facto, whilst republicans claim that these legal fudges were nothing but lies and that, de facto, the Irish were still under the foot of the English, for example, an English lord owns O'Connell street in Dublin.I don't come from a Unionist background, the fact that I refer to Northern Ireland by its commonly used name leads you to think I do makes me think you have lost your grip on reality a little.

Moving on, you are displaying a kind of demented ethnic nationalism here. In the first instance what do you think defines a "legitimate" state? They are political entities, not natural groupings of so called national groups. If you think the partition of Ireland was somehow an isolated incident in an otherwise natural creation of borders then think again. All drawing of borders is rife with injustice, the partition of Ireland had some very unhappy consequences, but as you clearly do not reject these kind of divisions in general, you cannot claim that a particular division stands out.

Further you are making the classic mistake of mistaking class issues for national ones. You think Ireland is somehow particularly restricted due to the power of foreign bourgeoisie, that is true of any country, the nature of capital is that it is transnational, fantasies about being lead by a local bourgeoisie being preferable are as unrealistic as they are reactionary.

Incidentally, the claim over Northern Ireland came in 1937, not with the declaration of a republic in 1948.

Palingenisis

31st December 2010, 23:20

I would say, 100%, that since the change of power in 1922, the Irish people have never had a sovereign nation due totally to the control of Irish affairs by the big business men, bankers and ranchers, who as you rightly suggest, find closer allys across the Irish sea, for solely financial reasons.

For a start just to make clear I accept that the six counties are under colonial occupation. However the reason that that old war dog Paisley came around to the GFA and his now all hugs and handshakes with the south is he was persuaded of the sovereign elites commitment to interputing the agreement as meaning that only when a majiority of Unionists accepts national re-unification that it would be even thought about.

There is no denying that the 26 counties is a very unequal, undemocratic society with a slavish media and an authoritarian state over it where working people enjoy very little power and respect. Are they soveirgn? No...But I believe that the elite of large business men, bankers and ranchers are soveirgn in a way that they were NOT at the start of the "Free State". Tony O'Reilly for instance is not subject to British capital but is an equal player with. Have they abandoned any commitment to re-unification and support British interests in the occupied six counties? Yes...But I believe they do so because they believe it is in their interests as junior parterners in a wider western European block.

Palingenisis

31st December 2010, 23:40

The problem with the free state since its inception was that the people who ran the country for the brits before 1922, where the same people who ran it after, and they, the Dublin elite, are only interested in the British investment into their businesses.

Is this true though? Its easy to forget just how much social and economic power the Ascendency had in the south of Ireland (in a way that they never had in Ulster) and they were very much broken by the Tan war. William Martin Murphy was indeed a scumbag capitalist but he was hardly a supporter of British interests as such. Also however weak the attempt might have been we have to remember things like the economic war under Devalera and the Anti-Partition League which are impossible to imagine today. There was a time that the capitalist class in Ireland felt very much constricted by Britian but there has been a real changes since than in the structure of the economy of Ireland since than.

Palingenisis

31st December 2010, 23:49

. In the first instance what do you think defines a "legitimate" state?

Republicans oppose the legitimacy of the 26 counties regime because it was born of the suppression of the Republic declared in 1916 and the Second Dail. Nothing to do with "ethnic nationalism".

Demogorgon

1st January 2011, 00:14

Republicans oppose the legitimacy of the 26 counties regime because it was born of the suppression of the Republic declared in 1916 and the Second Dail. Nothing to do with "ethnic nationalism".Because of course those remain the central defining characteristics of the state today. Historical disputes put current disputes in context and sometimes carry a great deal of emotional symbolism, but the suggestion that it is the primary motivation for a current dispute is nonsense.

Palingenisis

1st January 2011, 00:17

Because of course those remain the central defining characteristics of the state today. Historical disputes put current disputes in context and sometimes carry a great deal of emotional symbolism, but the suggestion that it is the primary motivation for a current dispute is nonsense.

Which current dispute are you refering to?

Demogorgon

1st January 2011, 00:38

Which current dispute are you refering to?
I was using it as shorthand for the division in Northern Ireland.

Palingenisis

1st January 2011, 00:43

I was using it as shorthand for the division in Northern Ireland.

Okay I wasnt sure whether you were refering to the dispute between Republicans and the 26 counties regime or the dispute over whether the 26 counties is a neo-colony or not.

costello1977

1st January 2011, 05:15

I don't come from a Unionist background, the fact that I refer to Northern Ireland by its commonly used name leads you to think I do makes me think you have lost your grip on reality a little.

Moving on, you are displaying a kind of demented ethnic nationalism here. In the first instance what do you think defines a "legitimate" state? They are political entities, not natural groupings of so called national groups. If you think the partition of Ireland was somehow an isolated incident in an otherwise natural creation of borders then think again. All drawing of borders is rife with injustice, the partition of Ireland had some very unhappy consequences, but as you clearly do not reject these kind of divisions in general, you cannot claim that a particular division stands out.

Further you are making the classic mistake of mistaking class issues for national ones. You think Ireland is somehow particularly restricted due to the power of foreign bourgeoisie, that is true of any country, the nature of capital is that it is transnational, fantasies about being lead by a local bourgeoisie being preferable are as unrealistic as they are reactionary.

Incidentally, the claim over Northern Ireland came in 1937, not with the declaration of a republic in 1948.

Well, now bearing in mind it took me 20mins to post this, give me a break on miss spellijng.

With regards to your terminology, the state is an illegal one, set up by a foreign country, so to give it a "normalisation" title is to help further legitimise its existence. By calling it "NI", you are legitimising the occupation.

Furthermore, your 2nd paragraph is just incomprehensible. For a start, Republicans believe the seperation of the island on sectarian borders is inherently wrong. Granted, all borders can be said to be unjust, but there should NOT be any borders in Ireland, and that is including the county borders. Also, to describe it as "ethnic nationalism" shows a lack of grasp of the current situation in the north as Republicans, those who seek to end British rule, are a congregation of many cultures. For example,Willy Wong who is an IRPOW.

Now coming to the third paragraph, your making up my position for me now, eh? Republican Socialists oppose all bourgeoisie business interests, Irish or otherwise, something you would have picked up with even the slightest examination of any post I have made so far on this thread. Once again, for example the IRA in North Belfast has often set up rate strikes AGAINST IRISH BOURGEOISIE LANDLORDS and gets no credit. People like yourself, the anti-Irish brigade, prefer to right off the national liberation struggle as being nationalist, which only show cases the narrow mindedness of yourselfs.

Lastly, I never questioned when articles 2 and 3 were ratified, but as you were kind to point out, the Republic was not ratified until 1948, meaning that they did not become part of the "Republic's" constitution until then. If you are going to try and argue semantics mo chara, at least arm yerself with the slightest of intelligence.

costello1977

1st January 2011, 05:22

For a start just to make clear I accept that the six counties are under colonial occupation. However the reason that that old war dog Paisley came around to the GFA and his now all hugs and handshakes with the south is he was persuaded of the sovereign elites commitment to interputing the agreement as meaning that only when a majiority of Unionists accepts national re-unification that it would be even thought about.

Mo chara, I think thatis an interesting postulation,however, with all due respect I beg to differ. Please hear me out.

Paisley is a very shrewd man, and was well aware that the GFA copper fastened british rule within the occupied 6 county state. However, he was still anti agreement, for which I can pose to reasons:

1) Because his political career was build on manipulation of the extremes of political thought and being used to such a position he naturally challenged the status quo;

2) Paisley, with his finger ever on the pulse, saw an opportunity to take power when all else were weaken;

In 1999, Paisley guaranteed one thing: this was that the GFA would be rewritten, this happened in 2006.

Palingenisis

1st January 2011, 12:19

In 1999, Paisley guaranteed one thing: this was that the GFA would be rewritten, this happened in 2006.

That is a very important point and cant be repeated enough. The GFA has been thrown in the dustbin of history, it has been exposed as not the "get out plan" of the Brits but a colonial ruse.

Palingenisis

1st January 2011, 12:22

Mo chara, I think thatis an interesting postulation,however, with all due respect I beg to differ. Please hear me out.
.

I see where you are coming from and a lot of it makes sense. However there has been a change in Unionism as regards its attitude to the 26 counties regime. Remember how O'Neill's attempt at a thaw was greeted in the 1960s or the Anglo-Irish agreement in the 1980s. This I believe reflects a change not in Unionism but in the 26 counties establishment. That was the main point.

Palingenisis

1st January 2011, 12:54

Paisley is a very shrewd man, and was well aware that the GFA copper fastened british rule within the occupied 6 county state. However, he was still anti agreement, for which I can pose to reasons:

I dunno....Logically that makes sense. The problem is that people are not always logical and that goes double for Unionists (I know people will say that Im being sectarian here however its important to remember that Unionism is a political idealogy seperate from Irish Protestant culture as such). While they have an almost pathological attachment to the British military and the Monarchy they are not overflowing with love or trust of the English establishment (many vaguely Unionist songs about WW I seethe with anti-English sentiment). There is in Unionism though with the copper-fastening of partition with the St Andrew's Agreement its decreased some what a deep fear of England betraying them (Unionism saw the formation of the Free State and especially the giving it of Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan as a majior betrayal back in the 20s). Plus there was the fact that Provisional Sinn Fein very sucessfully sold the "Peace Process" in the late 90s...a lot of people really believed that the ending of partition was on its way than as weird as that seems now.

Demogorgon

1st January 2011, 13:35

Well, now bearing in mind it took me 20mins to post this, give me a break on miss spellijng.

With regards to your terminology, the state is an illegal one, set up by a foreign country, so to give it a "normalisation" title is to help further legitimise its existence. By calling it "NI", you are legitimising the occupation.

Furthermore, your 2nd paragraph is just incomprehensible. For a start, Republicans believe the seperation of the island on sectarian borders is inherently wrong. Granted, all borders can be said to be unjust, but there should NOT be any borders in Ireland, and that is including the county borders. Also, to describe it as "ethnic nationalism" shows a lack of grasp of the current situation in the north as Republicans, those who seek to end British rule, are a congregation of many cultures. For example,Willy Wong who is an IRPOW.

Now coming to the third paragraph, your making up my position for me now, eh? Republican Socialists oppose all bourgeoisie business interests, Irish or otherwise, something you would have picked up with even the slightest examination of any post I have made so far on this thread. Once again, for example the IRA in North Belfast has often set up rate strikes AGAINST IRISH BOURGEOISIE LANDLORDS and gets no credit. People like yourself, the anti-Irish brigade, prefer to right off the national liberation struggle as being nationalist, which only show cases the narrow mindedness of yourselfs.

Lastly, I never questioned when articles 2 and 3 were ratified, but as you were kind to point out, the Republic was not ratified until 1948, meaning that they did not become part of the "Republic's" constitution until then. If you are going to try and argue semantics mo chara, at least arm yerself with the slightest of intelligence.
Arguing over legality is a bad argument in the first place because acceptance of the prevailing legal doctrine of states is to accept the capitalist notion of them. Moreover it is also a bad argument because by the actual legal status of states, rather than Republican tradition, I know of no valid argument as to why it would not have been legal to partition Ireland. Something being wrong is not the same as it being illegal after all and while the drawing up of state boundaries has almost always been unjust it has been legal, the reason being obvious; those who make the borders get to make the law.

The problems with your position are too many to go into in detail, but to try and cut to the crux of the matter, there are no "natural" nations and no one area has any right whatsoever to another area, the joining of any people into any political unit can only be just if they want to be joined. That is why Northern Ireland is inherently a place of injustice, no matter what way you cut it divisions there mean that either being part of Britain or part of ireland, or indeed attempting to be its own independent state would be going against the wishes of a large number of people there. The only possible solution is to attempt to find accommodation, not say one side is right and the other wrong.

Moreover partition should not be seen as an injustice to the Republic of Ireland, that is pure irredentism and not something any leftist should have any part of. Dublin has no right whatsoever to govern anywhere except by the consent of people there, by this I mean for instance if the people of Cork were to for some reason object to continuing membership of Ireland then they would be perfectly entitled to leave the Republic and Dublin would have no right whatsoever to reject this. By the same token Dublin has no more natural right to govern Northern Ireland than Britain does.

Now you can claim I am anti-Irish all you like, but I have no more concern at being called that than a Jewish critic of Israel should have at being called a "self-hating Jew", my position is objection of nationalism and embracing internationalism, indeed going beyond that to transnationalism and seeing borders as simply being administrative divisions between political units. The formation of a political unit should only be through people wishing to be part of this unit.

Marxach-LÃ©inÃnach

1st January 2011, 14:43

Demogorgon

1st January 2011, 15:27

You're taking about how "Northern Ireland will always be a place of injustice" and "Dublin has no natural right to govern Northern Ireland". "Northern Ireland" is a complete travesty with no basis in anything for its existence. The sooner it's thrown in the dustbin of history the better. Ireland as a whole voted for independence in 1918, was that respected? No, instead Britain drew a random sectarian border then walked off claiming a bunch of bullshit about how "that's the democratic wish of the people of 'Northern Ireland' which didn't exist until 5 minutes ago, not our fault if they don't want to join with Ireland", the exact same line you're now saying. Funny that.

I'm just not able to understand this whole concept of "internationalism" which amounts to supporting imperialism on the basis that "no borders are just". Maybe it's just me, but I think a border-less world is more likely to occur when all nations are on an equal footing with each other, not when some nations are lording it over a bunch of other ones. I see you've been calling Costello an Irish nationalist, but if anything, you're the one who reminds me of a British nationalist. I'm born and raised in Britain but I have no problem whatsoever saying that Britain should fuck off out of Ireland once and for all, whereas you're the one supporting Britannia's imperial designs.
You throw a bunch of ridiculous insults at me without taking the slightest effort to see what my position is. I am not a British Nationalist, I am opposed to the existence of Britain per se for the simple reason that it is domestically inherently undemocratic and internationally mischievous. So the notion that I am a British Nationalist is insane.

What I am not however is somebody who thinks political units should be drawn up contrary to the wishes of the people within them. "Ireland" does not exist as some kind of Platonic whole anymore than "Britain does", so to say "Ireland" voted for independence doesn't really mean anything, most of it did but certain areas didn't. If the British Government had been serious about solving the problem it could have attempted to persuade the Unionists into a single Irish state with their own devolved assembly much like the one they got, but devolved from Dublin, not Westminster, but they didn't and playing "what if" games is pointless.

Incidentally, partition wasn't about keeping a bit of Ireland while the rest went independent, at the time of partition the British Government had no intention whatsoever of giving independence to any part of Ireland, its intention was to give home rule (now called Devolution) to two Irish Governments, with them eventually reuniting all while remaining part of Britain and under the British Government forever. Independence for part of Ireland was something they never wanted and had desperately tried to avoid, so to say it was done in an effort to keep what they could ignores what was happening at the time. As it happens a lot in the British Liberal Party had the idea (as the Liberal Democrats still do) of giving Home Rule to Scotland and Wales also while dividing England into regions each with its own home rule parliament, does that mean they planned to give independence to parts of England?

Now the partition of Ireland was definitely unjust and was so because it led to much oppression within Northern Ireland, however the fact is it happened and continuing to talk like we can reset the clock is absurd, all we can deal with is the situation as it exists today and attempting to force Unionists into a united Ireland rather than convince them of its merits would simply be further injustice.

I don't support Northern Ireland staying part of Britain, I don't think the situation has done anyone any good, but the decision ultimately lies with the people there (and before you start, the fact that the entity came out of nowhere doesn't change the fact that almost a century of its existence means it very much exists now) and I am opposed to nay attempt to force the issue. Once again "Ireland" is not some natural entity that must be whole, it is a political unit and can only exist fairly so long as the people in it want to be part of it.

Palingenisis

1st January 2011, 15:34

I don't support Northern Ireland staying part of Britain, I don't think the situation has done anyone any good, but the decision ultimately lies with the people there (and before you start, the fact that the entity came out of nowhere doesn't change the fact that almost a century of its existence means it very much exists now) and I am opposed to nay attempt to force the issue.

A large majiority in four of the six counties wish not to be under British rule (of course an ever smaller majiority in over the whole of the occupied territory dont)...So what right does the UK state have to occupy Tyrone for example? And to say that the decision lies with the people there is simply false. Also like a typical soft-Unionist you seem blissfully unaware of the reactionary nature of the idealogy that supports partition.

Che a chara

1st January 2011, 15:39

freepalestine

1st January 2011, 16:02

Now the partition of Ireland was definitely unjust and was so because it led to much oppression within Northern Ireland, however the fact is it happened and continuing to talk like we can reset the clock is absurd, all we can deal with is the situation as it exists today and attempting to force Unionists into a united Ireland rather than convince them of its merits would simply be further injustice.

I don't support Northern Ireland staying part of Britain, I don't think the situation has done anyone any good, but the decision ultimately lies with the people there (and before you start, the fact that the entity came out of nowhere doesn't change the fact that almost a century of its existence means it very much exists now) and I am opposed to nay attempt to force the issue. Once again "Ireland" is not some natural entity that must be whole, it is a political unit and can only exist fairly so long as the people in it want to be part of it.the situation in north of ireland ,is not just about it being ruled by the britishgovt.
the n.ireland state is built on racism and unionist supremacy.i dont see that changing,without the dismantling of that state.

costello1977

1st January 2011, 17:06

That is a very important point and cant be repeated enough. The GFA has been thrown in the dustbin of history, it has been exposed as not the "get out plan" of the Brits but a colonial ruse.

Exactly. They rewrote the GFA without the permission of the mandate on which they rely so much.

I see where you are coming from and a lot of it makes sense. However there has been a change in Unionism as regards its attitude to the 26 counties regime. Remember how O'Neill's attempt at a thaw was greeted in the 1960s or the Anglo-Irish agreement in the 1980s. This I believe reflects a change not in Unionism but in the 26 counties establishment. That was the main point.

Sorry, wee bit to drink last night so I didn't catch your point about the change in the 26.

I dunno....Logically that makes sense. The problem is that people are not always logical and that goes double for Unionists (I know people will say that Im being sectarian here however its important to remember that Unionism is a political idealogy seperate from Irish Protestant culture as such). While they have an almost pathological attachment to the British military and the Monarchy they are not overflowing with love or trust of the English establishment (many vaguely Unionist songs about WW I seethe with anti-English sentiment). There is in Unionism though with the copper-fastening of partition with the St Andrew's Agreement its decreased some what a deep fear of England betraying them (Unionism saw the formation of the Free State and especially the giving it of Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan as a majior betrayal back in the 20s). Plus there was the fact that Provisional Sinn Fein very sucessfully sold the "Peace Process" in the late 90s...a lot of people really believed that the ending of partition was on its way than as weird as that seems now.

Another good post.

I just want to add that, like the sticks in the 70's, the Unionists and loyalists are now quite happy to play house with SF because they no longer pose a threat to the state of the Union.

costello1977

1st January 2011, 17:22

Once again "Ireland" is not some natural entity that must be whole, it is a political unit and can only exist fairly so long as the people in it want to be part of it.

Sure it has no borders with any other country, so therefore it is a natural entity and should be whole. In the end of the day, the protestant workers would be as equally and fairly treated in a 32 county socialist republic. The only way to show them this is to create this state and let them experience the equality.

Palingenisis

1st January 2011, 17:28

I just want to add that, like the sticks in the 70's, the Unionists and loyalists are now quite happy to play house with SF because they no longer pose a threat to the state of the Union.

I dont get what you mean by like the sticks in the 70s, did you mean the stoops? Unionism wasnt happy at all to share power with the Stoops and basically wrecked the Sunningdale agreement. Im not sure they "happy" to share power but they realize that due to demographic changes in the six counties that they have no choice.

costello1977

1st January 2011, 17:33

I dont get what you mean by like the sticks in the 70s, did you mean the stoops? Unionism wasnt happy at all to share power with the Stoops and basically wrecked the Sunningdale agreement. Im not sure they "happy" to share power but they realize that due to demographic changes in the six counties that they have no choice.

I mean the Official IRA/ Workers' Party. In the 70's when they called a ceasefire, they began helping the BA with policing and then became very friendly with the UVF, who were still murdering catholics.

I think they are only happy to share power because they realise that the SF leadership is now middle class and has no interest in rocking the boat. The union is very safe at this moment in time.

brigadista

1st January 2011, 18:02

Thanks to Irish comrades on here for the posts- makes interesting and informative reading
:):)

Vanguard1917

1st January 2011, 18:05

costello1977

1st January 2011, 18:17

The anti-imperialist mass movement in Ireland has ended. You can't give "support" to something that doesn't exist. You can evaluate its historical merits, and this is obviously crucial in gaining a correct understanding of the present situation, but the period of struggle which began in Ireland in the late 60s ended in the 90s, and the political situation in northern Ireland has changed fundamentally, with former republicans administering British rule and small "dissident" groups acting with no real base in any mass movement.

In that sense, i would go along with Bernadette Devlin McAliskey's simplification when she said, "The war is over and the good guys lost." Times have changed.

Bernadette is a very shrewd politician and should still be a representative of the Irish people.

The highlighted is true to an extent. Yes our former comrades are administering British rule, but more and more people in the community are beginning to see through the lies.

You can ask Fionntan. I remember 5 years ago, he was being spat at and harranged by SF members. These same people are now to the front of opposition to SF. Things are starting to swing back towards republicanism, but time will tell how that affects the situation here.

Palingenisis

1st January 2011, 18:31

Irish Republicanism seemed completely dead and lost in 1965.

Demogorgon

1st January 2011, 20:07

A large majiority in four of the six counties wish not to be under British rule (of course an ever smaller majiority in over the whole of the occupied territory dont)...So what right does the UK state have to occupy Tyrone for example? And to say that the decision lies with the people there is simply false. Also like a typical soft-Unionist you seem blissfully unaware of the reactionary nature of the idealogy that supports partition.
In principle nationalist areas of Northern Ireland ought to be allowed to leave Northern ireland and leave the Republic, though given how disastrous partition proved the first time round, in practical terms I wouldn't be altogether enthusiastic for a repeat performance.

As for you accusing me of not understanding the reactionary ideology that supports partition, that is nonsense, the ideology is British patriotism. That is clearly reactionary. So is Irish patriotism.

Demogorgon

1st January 2011, 20:10

Sure it has no borders with any other country, so therefore it is a natural entity and should be whole. In the end of the day, the protestant workers would be as equally and fairly treated in a 32 county socialist republic. The only way to show them this is to create this state and let them experience the equality.
It is a ridiculous argument to claim that Ireland is a reactionary state because it is an island with no external borders, by that logic Britain is a natural state, Welsh and Scottish opinion be damned.

Moreover, you claim that Protestants would be treated equally in a United Ireland and as such should be forced into it for their own good. Aside from the problem of forcing people to be freedom actual political freedom includes the right of succession, should a United Ireland be secured and a clear majority of the population of a certain area of it wish to secede from it, would you support that?

Palingenisis

1st January 2011, 20:38

As for you accusing me of not understanding the reactionary ideology that supports partition, that is nonsense, the ideology is British patriotism. That is clearly reactionary. So is Irish patriotism.

Firstly I was talking a bit more than areas....I was talking about whole counties that want nothing to do with British rule, indeed a majiority of the statelet in terms of space....The only reason that Tyrone was included in the statelet was that otherwise the whole project would be unviable.

Clearly also you dont understand the nature of Ulster Unionism if you consider it a regional variety of common garden Toryism (and no I dont hate all Unionists or think that they are all the same though they all frustrate me, I have Unionist friends and even know people in the Orange Order in the south) . Its not (a hint why...Ireland isnt Britian).

Also I dont consider English patriotism reactionary. If you are from England its normal and healthy to love your country and its people aswell as be interested in your national traditions. Same with Irish patriotism. To reduce the idealogies that underpin the struggle as a mere clash of patriotism is a gross simplification.

There is also something cute and touching about your faith in the UK state to accept the desire of its subjects.

Demogorgon

1st January 2011, 22:40

Firstly I was talking a bit more than areas....I was talking about whole counties that want nothing to do with British rule, indeed a majiority of the statelet in terms of space....The only reason that Tyrone was included in the statelet was that otherwise the whole project would be unviable.

Clearly also you dont understand the nature of Ulster Unionism if you consider it a regional variety of common garden Toryism (and no I dont hate all Unionists or think that they are all the same though they all frustrate me, I have Unionist friends and even know people in the Orange Order in the south) . Its not (a hint why...Ireland isnt Britian).

Also I dont consider English patriotism reactionary. If you are from England its normal and healthy to love your country and its people aswell as be interested in your national traditions. Same with Irish patriotism. To reduce the idealogies that underpin the struggle as a mere clash of patriotism is a gross simplification.

There is also something cute and touching about your faith in the UK state to accept the desire of its subjects.You reveal yourself with your praise of patriotism. Why should I hold the country I live in in higher esteem than any other? Naturally there are going to be things I like about wherever I live, principally the fact that it is where my family and friends are, but some kind of national loyalty towards it?

This is a trend in all of your posts of course, your nationalism mixed with authoritarianism and social conservatism makes me think you are really just a Third Positionist. At best.

Once again, I reject any irredentist nations that states have the right to territory by any justification other than the desires of those living there. A United Ireland can only come about should people in all parts want it. Personally I hope it does come to that, but I totally oppose attempting to force people to become part of a state they don't want to be in. There has been quite a history of that in Ireland and it has never worked very well so far.

Palingenisis

1st January 2011, 22:48

Once again, I reject any irredentist nations that states have the right to territory by any justification other than the desires of those living there. .

So you reject the occupation of four of the six counties....Thats a start :)

Palingenisis

1st January 2011, 22:49

This is a trend in all of your posts of course, your nationalism mixed with authoritarianism and social conservatism makes me think you are really just a Third Positionist. At best.
.

I support abortion rights,the legalization of homosexuality and divorce rights...And you think Im a social conservative...:rolleyes:

You need to get out more comrade.

Palingenisis

1st January 2011, 22:51

You reveal yourself with your praise of patriotism. Why should I hold the country I live in in higher esteem than any other? Naturally there are going to be things I like about wherever I live, principally the fact that it is where my family and friends are, but some kind of national loyalty towards it?

Who said anything about holding it in higher esteem...:rolleyes:

Patriotism is not the same as national chauvinism.

Demogorgon

1st January 2011, 23:09

I support abortion rights,the legalization of homosexuality and divorce rights...And you think Im a social conservative...:rolleyes:

You need to get out more comrade.
Very progressive, most Conservatives would agree with you there. I was referring to your many law and order pronouncements.

Palingenisis

1st January 2011, 23:13

Very progressive, most Conservatives would agree with you there. I was referring to your many law and order pronouncements.

My flatmate's nearly 15 year old son has to stay in during the evenings because our estate is tormented by lumpen scum...Whats wrong with law? Whats wrong with order? They bring FREEDOM to people who just want to live, learn, work, love and generally get on with their lives.

Demogorgon

1st January 2011, 23:15

My flatmate's nearly 15 year old son has to stay in during the evenings because our estate is tormented by lumpen scum...Whats wrong with law? Whats wrong with order? They FREEDOM to people who just want to live, learn, work, love and generally get on with their lives.
I rest my case. You believe that the solution to crime is authoritarian law and order politics. That is social conservatism.

Palingenisis

1st January 2011, 23:21

I rest my case. You believe that the solution to crime is authoritarian law and order politics. That is social conservatism.

Its part of the solution certainly...Not the whole solution.

But I support the popular execution of rapists and heroin dealers aswell as punishment beatings and knee capings in some cases...Because I have seen it work and friends from estates in other parts of the country have seen it work. If thats social conservatism so be it.

Normal working class people see it that way....But your "socialism" is obviously just born from sentimentality and not the actual struggles of the wretched of this earth.

Demogorgon

1st January 2011, 23:25

Its part of the solution certainly...Not the whole solution.

But I support the popular execution of rapists and heroin dealers aswell as punishment beatings and knee capings in some cases...Because I have seen it work and friends from estates in other parts of the country have seen it work. If thats social conservatism so be it.

Normal working class people see it that way....But your "socialism" is obviously just born from sentimentality and not the actual struggles of the wretched of this earth.Yeah, yeah, the worst kind of law and order conservatism, no point in looking at the real cause of things or even worry about making them work, just spew out right wing pseudo-solutions because they sound easy. Take your third positionism elsewhere.

#FF0000

1st January 2011, 23:27

But I support the popular execution of rapists and heroin dealers aswell as punishment beatings and knee capings in some cases...Because I have seen it work and friends from estates in other parts of the country have seen it work. If thats social conservatism so be it.

It's wrong though and anecdotal evidence is worthless. I really don't know what to tell you but that is abuse and not punishment, and abuse simply doesn't work. Hell, basing a legal/prison system on punishment hardly "works" and turns out costing way more than it's worth.

Normal working class people see it the way....But your "socialism" is obviously just born from sentimentality and not the actual struggles of the wretched of this earth.

Well if you can say that, then I can say that your "socialism" is born from a vulgar workerist worldview at best and not a separate, principled, and scientific Marxist outlook.

Palingenisis

1st January 2011, 23:39

It's wrong though and anecdotal evidence is worthless. I really don't know what to tell you but that is abuse and not punishment, and abuse simply doesn't work. Hell, basing a legal/prison system on punishment hardly "works" and turns out costing way more than it's worth.

I know this open a whole philosophical can of worms but never the less we all have (limited...sometimes severely so) freedom of choice...Marx didnt have to devout his intellect to the liberation of humanity and so live in poverty for most of his life (poverty that included the avoidable death of his favourite son) but he choose to....I have done things in my life that were frankly wrong and however I try to get out of it in my head I know that my personal choice was involved and so I rightly bare the consequences. People ultimately have the choice, however limited and it becomes more limited the more bad choices that you make. I fully realize that there is a "vulgar workerist" streak to my view of world...However its all well and good saying that heroin dealing, etc is a social product and to blame the individual is wrong....But these individuals cause havoc and misery in working class communities right now....And I firmly believe that the working class has everyright to defend itself against them or those who would do such acts through whatever means necessary.

Palingenisis

2nd January 2011, 00:53

I mean the Official IRA/ Workers' Party. In the 70's when they called a ceasefire, they began helping the BA with policing and then became very friendly with the UVF, who were still murdering catholics.

Okay back to actual reality....My dad was a stick but left over them the hunger strikes (as did a lot of people than at least in the south who had come from Republican backgrounds) so Im going to give somewhat of a defense of them until about 1977 when I believe that they started out a genuinely counter-revolutionary path. Besides the problem of the occupation there is also the problem of sectarianism which has created a wedge in the working class and given the six counties the lowest wages outside of possibly Cornwall in the UK, yes they the are interconnected but they are still seperate problems which is something a lot of people from what could be called the "Provisional" tradition a lot of the time dont realize. There is always the danger that the north will explode into a sectarian blood bath.

For those who support the GFA such as our "comrade" Demogrogon or whatever the so-called "Peace Walls" have doubled since the introduction of the GFA which was carefully designed both to cement and to manage sectarian tensions (in other words the so-called policy of "Ulsterization"). It was fear of such a sectarian blood bath occuring that caused the sticks (wrongly in my opinion) to declare their ceasefire in 1972 though it should be pointed that militarily (given their initial "retalition" policy) that they more active in the next two to three years than they had been before.

Another part of the context of their turn from Republicanism was the Provisionals under Billy Mc Kree who in the early 70s to 77 did carry out unjustifable sectarian attacks against innocent protestant workers aswell as attempting in 1976 to "cleanse" Belfast of Sticks.

Billy Mc Kree was ousted by the Provisionals themselves shortly afterwards and the Belfast brigade re-organized but the damage was done.

Also it should be pointed that the Provisionals themselves held talks with Loyalists and Unionists during the early 70s....Such doesnt make you necessarily counter-revolutionary. It was only in the 80s that criminal elements in the Official IRA joined up with criminal elements in the Loyalists...But that was more psycho greed than political. The connections between Loyalist death squads and Dublin criminal gangs would make for interesting reading if it ever comes out.

costello1977

2nd January 2011, 04:12

Okay back to actual reality....My dad was a stick but left over them the hunger strikes (as did a lot of people than at least in the south who had come from Republican backgrounds) so Im going to give somewhat of a defense of them until about 1977 when I believe that they started out a genuinely counter-revolutionary path. Besides the problem of the occupation there is also the problem of sectarianism which has created a wedge in the working class and given the six counties the lowest wages outside of possibly Cornwall in the UK, yes they the are interconnected but they are still seperate problems which is something a lot of people from what could be called the "Provisional" tradition a lot of the time dont realize. There is always the danger that the north will explode into a sectarian blood bath.

For those who support the GFA such as our "comrade" Demogrogon or whatever the so-called "Peace Walls" have doubled since the introduction of the GFA which was carefully designed both to cement and to manage sectarian tensions (in other words the so-called policy of "Ulsterization"). It was fear of such a sectarian blood bath occuring that caused the sticks (wrongly in my opinion) to declare their ceasefire in 1972 though it should be pointed that militarily (given their initial "retalition" policy) that they more active in the next two to three years than they had been before.

Another part of the context of their turn from Republicanism was the Provisionals under Billy Mc Kree who in the early 70s to 77 did carry out unjustifable sectarian attacks against innocent protestant workers aswell as attempting in 1976 to "cleanse" Belfast of Sticks.

Billy Mc Kree was ousted by the Provisionals themselves shortly afterwards and the Belfast brigade re-organized but the damage was done.

Also it should be pointed that the Provisionals themselves held talks with Loyalists and Unionists during the early 70s....Such doesnt make you necessarily counter-revolutionary. It was only in the 80s that criminal elements in the Official IRA joined up with criminal elements in the Loyalists...But that was more psycho greed than political. The connections between Loyalist death squads and Dublin criminal gangs would make for interesting reading if it ever comes out.

Ill start a thread on it here, derailed this one terribly.

Small Geezer

2nd January 2011, 05:18

With a few exceptions, this thread is bristling with half baked ignorance of Irish Republicanism.

As with any collection of human beings, there are going to be flawed individuals.

I am not a maoist, but when a war of national liberation against imperialism is going to be fought the broadest coalition of forces needs to be formed. Once the greater enemy is defeated then you can turn on your indigenous right wing threat.

I support the Provisional IRA and Sinn Fein. They were not dogmatically Marxist but they had read their Connolly and knew that a capitalist economy recreated in Ireland would not free the 32 counties.

The PIRA/SF were not about a united Ireland however, at least not immediately. The duty of Republicans in the north at the outbreak of the war was to be the armed wing of the civil rights movement for oppressed republican communities.

They have largely succeeded in restoring a lot of democratic rights for the Republican communities. They have not abandoned their socialism and their non sectarian approach means their socialist anti-neo liberal politics will appeal accross the divide.

The strategy (if they have one) of lunatic fringe groups like the RIRA and the CIRA will not work. The consciousness of the whole of the Irish people, which by all accounts is rapidly developing, needs to reach the stage when they put their faith in a united 32 county republic with a planned economy. It will happen. Too much has happened over the past 800 years to prevent it.

The western alliance is declining. Neo Liberalism has ripped the manufacturing base out of the western powers. Their effort to prolong their dominance on the rest of the world by creating a boom through gambling their financial services has backfired and their last chance has passed. A multi polar world based on peaceful coexistence will emerge and Britain will no longer have the strength to smother the Irish peoples just and democratic demand for nationhood.

#FF0000

2nd January 2011, 06:22

I know this open a whole philosophical can of worms but never the less we all have (limited...sometimes severely so) freedom of choice...Marx didnt have to devout his intellect to the liberation of humanity and so live in poverty for most of his life (poverty that included the avoidable death of his favourite son) but he choose to....I have done things in my life that were frankly wrong and however I try to get out of it in my head I know that my personal choice was involved and so I rightly bare the consequences.

You are way way too hard on yourself for some dumb thing that almost everyone does.

People ultimately have the choice, however limited and it becomes more limited the more bad choices that you make. I fully realize that there is a "vulgar workerist" streak to my view of world...However its all well and good saying that heroin dealing, etc is a social product and to blame the individual is wrong....But these individuals cause havoc and misery in working class communities right now....And I firmly believe that the working class has everyright to defend itself against them or those who would do such acts through whatever means necessary.

Yeah see I'm probably gonna look the other way if a group of concerned citizens goes out and deals with a drug dealer in their neighborhood however they want to deal with them, but an armed paramilitary group or the State doing it is completely different.

Che a chara

2nd January 2011, 08:16

Yeah see I'm probably gonna look the other way if a group of concerned citizens goes out and deals with a drug dealer in their neighborhood however they want to deal with them, but an armed paramilitary group or the State doing it is completely different.

The "armed paramilitary group" act out of accordance from the community. armed groups are also seen as defenders of working class communities because of the absence of an able and accountable and legitimate police force and justice system. The volunteers who carry out these punishments do so knowing that it could mean a loss of their liberty or lives. They are trained soldiers and have the knowledge of how to not get caught in these situations, which all in all puts them in a position of responsibility.

It's also well documented and acknowledged, especially in republican working class areas, that offenders usually cut a deal with the police in order to get a shorter sentence or a more lenient punishment in exchange for information regarding certain individuals in their area and to keep a look out. These are known as £5-10 touts. These criminal elements are then again free to carry out their campaigns of criminality and in doing so furthering the division and anti-social behaviour (as a tactic by the police to make them more acceptable and needed) knowing that the police might look the other way, as long as they report back.

#FF0000

2nd January 2011, 10:09

The "armed paramilitary group" act out of accordance from the community

How? How's this thing organized? How many people in this "community" are in on this? How does the armed party get their orders? Is it something that's brought to a vote or something, or is it someone asking a favor a la the Mob?

How the fuck do they know they're acting out the will of the community? What is the structure?

The volunteers who carry out these punishments do so knowing that it could mean a loss of their liberty or lives

Yeah that sort of happens with vigilantes. What's your point?

They are trained soldiers and have the knowledge of how to not get caught in these situations, which all in all puts them in a position of responsibility.

"Trained Soldiers" is a big stretch. That's like saying one of those insane backwoods militia groups we have in America is made up of "Trained Soldiers", I think.

Lt. Ferret

2nd January 2011, 13:30

How bout when they hang those pesky blacks for jiving into their neighborhood and whistlin' at all da white wimminz? is it acceptable, if the neighborhood as a whole supports it?

ComradeMan

2nd January 2011, 16:20

I found this article on Libcom.

entitled...
IRA: anti-working class bastards! (http://libcom.org/history/ira-anti-working-class-bastards-subversion)

What struck me most was the glossary at the bottom:-

GLOSSARY OF LEFT-SPEAK

Freedom Fighter = Capitalist-In-Waiting
Right of Nations to Self-Determination = Right of Capitalists to Exploit Workers
Fighting against Imperialism = Fighting for "our" Capitalists against Foreign Ones
Socialists giving Critical Support to Nationalists = Hypocritical Tossers

Does anyone know anything more about "Subversion"?

SUBVERSION and similar organisations have always argued against the lies of "national liberation movements" and fake-socialists (the "Left" for short) and every other organisation or institution that pretends to be pro-working class. But for anyone who hasn't been convinced by our arguments, just ask yourself one question - what could there be in common between the need of the working class to put an end to oppression and exploitation and create a truly free, world human community on the one hand, and on the other the aims of people who are content to bomb the workers of Manchester, Warrington or anywhere else, and the "Socialists" who support them.

http://libcom.org/history/ira-anti-working-class-bastards-subversion

brigadista

2nd January 2011, 17:54

^^^^ from 1993 in response to the warrington bombing????

ComradeMan

2nd January 2011, 18:07

^^^^ from 1993 in response to the warrington bombing????

I also noted that but the article was dated 2010.

Found this too from 2010

http://nifriendsofisrael.wordpress.com/

http://nifriendsofisrael.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/belfast___060509_073-first-and-deputy-first-ministers1.jpg?w=450&h=337

Martin McGuinness with the Israeli Ambassador.
:confused:

Palingenisis

2nd January 2011, 18:22

Martin McGuinness with the Israeli Ambassador.
:confused:

You do realize that Martin McGuinness is now a minister in the devolved parliment in the occupied six counties, and so a member of the British goverment?

ComradeMan

2nd January 2011, 18:23

You do realize that Martin McGuinness is now a minister in the devolved parliment in the occupied six counties, and so a member of the British goverment?

Yes, and his party is.....?

And the OP asked about....?

Palingenisis

2nd January 2011, 21:55

Yes, and his party is.....?

And the OP asked about....?

The OP's post was moronic because the IRA linked to Provisional dont exist anymore.

Anyway since you are so matey with kriskrams I wouldnt think you would see might a Zionist scumbag as all that reactionary....:rolleyes:

ComradeMan

2nd January 2011, 21:58

The OP's post was moronic because the IRA linked to Provisional dont exist anymore.

Anyway since you are so matey with kriskrams I wouldnt think you would see might a Zionist scumbag as all that reactionary....:rolleyes:

No argument then?

Why can you never engage in a discussion without going on ad hominem attacks?

The problem with nationalist movements is fundamentally they just replace one state with another state. Republics are founded on private property rights and guarantees and despite their rhetoric they don't actually create a classless society.

The OP post was asking for information based on something noticed in the fucking Communist Party of Ireland's webpage (you may have noticed this is RevLeft). Instead a bunch of nationalistic bullshit gets posted as an answer and anyone who dares criticise this particular movement/movements from a leftist point of view is automatically branded an apologist for British Imperialism.

What has this got to do with Zionism? If you want to talk about Israel then start a thread and we can discuss it.

Palingenisis

2nd January 2011, 22:09

You brought up zionism you muppet.

ComradeMan

2nd January 2011, 22:16

You brought up zionism you muppet.

Ah... artful bit of twisting there. So are we to presume that Sinn Fein is now pro-Zionist?

BTW- what's Krimskrams got to do with things?

Why do you keep running away from the points of discussion and getting "personal"?

Che a chara

2nd January 2011, 22:21

one could argue that the Sinn Fein mentioned in the first post is not the same Sinn Fein that collaborates with the british and was off lording it with those complicit with zionist war crimes of today.

The provisional movement (Provisional Sinn Fein) came into being in 1970, and while at the time of it's founding wanted to concentrate more on british imperialism rather than capitalist exploitation both north and south of the border, this was seen as a necessary reaction to British state policies of denying civil rights to the nationalist/catholic community and implementing draconian measures on those suspected of being involved in Irish republicanism (most who were the victims of such an injustice were innocent catholics).

Peaceful protests were all criminalised. The attacks in England were seen as taken the struggle to the belly of the beast were there was very little accountability and justice to sectarianism and collusion by the British colonial police, the RUC, the British army, loyalist death squads and policing reserves all supported by the unionist government in the occupied 6 counties.

The Provisional movement were of working class origin and commanded respect and support in these areas which were under constant attack from loyalism and the British state. I'm not condoning the deaths of innocent civilians (which just include that, 'civilians', not politicians or military personnel or those working within barracks), but the campaigns by the PIRA helped move the struggle forward in terms of equality for the catholic/nationalist community and helped remove many of the oppressive structures that were in place in the O6C

You wont find many supporters of the Provisional Movement here (revleft) anymore. In the past yes.

Che a chara

2nd January 2011, 22:25

Ah... artful bit of twisting there. So are we to presume that Sinn Fein is now pro-Zionist?

BTW- what's Krimskrams got to do with things?

Why do you keep running away from the points of discussion and getting "personal"?

They're a bit hypocritical when it comes to the Palestine-Israel conflict. Members would often be seen carrying Palestine flags and visiting Gaza in support of Palestine freedom in the past, but then you see this sort of behaviour by Martin McGuinness which would lead one to believe that this was stunt motivated by money. But Sinn Fein can still be seen at times giving lip service to justice for Palestine.

The youth movement within Provisional Sinn Fein (Ogra) are active in promoting Palestinian justice and opposing Zionism though.

ComradeMan

2nd January 2011, 22:35

The youth movement within Provisional Sinn Fein (Ogra) are active in promoting Palestinian justice and opposing Zionism though.

Do you mean Republican Sinn Féin?

What I found on them listed their ideology as

Irish republicanism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_republicanism),
Irish nationalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_nationalism),
Éire Nua (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89ire_Nua),
Distributionism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributionism)

Palingenisis

2nd January 2011, 22:37

No he means Provisional Sinn Fein you muppet. Thats what he wrote.

You really are a dim troll.

Che a chara

2nd January 2011, 22:39

Do you mean Republican Sinn Féin?

What I found on them listed their ideology as

Irish republicanism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_republicanism),
Irish nationalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_nationalism),
Éire Nua (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89ire_Nua),
Distributionism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributionism)

Nah, these boyos:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%93gra_Shinn_F%C3%A9in

Republican Sinn Fein are a different Sinn Fein. Both claim to be the mantle and originators for the Republican Movement, which is why you'll often see each referred to either 'Provisional' Sinn Fein (PSF) or 'Republican' Sinn Fein (RSF) to differentiate.

ComradeMan

2nd January 2011, 22:41

No he means Provisional Sinn Fein you muppet. Thats what he wrote.

You really are a dim troll.

For fuck's sakes you are really a moronically stupid pain in the ass. I was asking a question, I couldn't fucking find any information on "Provisional Sinn Fein" the only thing that came up was Republican Sinn Fein and another webpage that was, let's say, not really neutral.

Err... when you don't know something, or you aren't sure, on a err... discussion forum, it's quite normal... err to ask a question.... ? Concept check....

To be honest if you are typical of the movements you espouse then it leaves me wondering what the fuck you are doing on a leftist forum.

ComradeMan

2nd January 2011, 22:42

Nah, these boyos:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%93gra_Shinn_F%C3%A9in

Republican Sinn Fein are a different Sinn Fein. Both claim to be the mantle and originators for the Republican Movement, which is why you'll often see each referred to either 'Provisional' Sinn Fein (PSF) or 'Republican' Sinn Fein (RSF) to differentiate.

Thanks-- fuck, how many of these splinter groups are there?

Perhaps someone should put up a list, because it's all quite confusing.

Okay- so their ideology is

Irish reunification (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Ireland),
Irish republicanism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_republicanism)
Left wing nationalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_wing_nationalism)
Democratic socialism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_socialism)

Palingenisis

2nd January 2011, 22:44

To be honest if you are typical of the movements you espouse then it leaves me wondering what the fuck you are doing on a leftist forum.

I espouse Marxism-Leninism-Maoism....Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is the largest revolutionary communist movement in the world today you muppet. :)

Che a chara

2nd January 2011, 22:46

Thanks-- fuck, how many of these splinter groups are there?

Perhaps someone should put up a list, because it's all quite confusing.

What makes matters worse is that there is a NEW Sinn Fein in town called 'Real' Sinn Fein who split from Republican Sinn Fein this year:

http://realsinnfein.com/

but they still very confusingly refer to themselves as Republican Sinn Fein too :confused:

ComradeMan

2nd January 2011, 22:47

I espouse Marxism-Leninism-Maoism....Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is the largest revolutionary communist movement in the world today you muppet. :)

Then how do you align that to nationalism?

I would also like to have a source for your quote....

ComradeMan

2nd January 2011, 22:48

What makes matters worse is that there is a NEW Sinn Fein in town called 'Real' Sinn Fein who split from Republican Sinn Fein this year:

http://realsinnfein.com/

but they still very confusingly refer to themselves as Republican Sinn Fein too

It reminds me of that British Monty Python "Popular Front of Judaea" sketch....:crying:

gb_qHP7VaZE

Palingenisis

2nd January 2011, 22:52

The how do you align that to nationalism?

I would also like to a source for your quote....

Because Marxism-Leninism-Maoism being a movement of real working and oppressed people doesnt have hang ups about a healthy patriotism (what actual socialist nation did...Why was the Great Patriotic war called the Great Patriotic war? :rolleyes:).

"In wars of national liberation patriotism is applied internationalism."

Mao Zedong.

Guess what? I also support Hamas when they off settler piggy wiggies.:crying:

ComradeMan

2nd January 2011, 23:02

Guess what? I also support Hamas when they off settler piggy wiggies.:crying:

So you haven't got a source.

Hamas.... :laugh:

Set up by the "Zionists" you hate so much,

Hamas official accused of helping Mossad hit squad

Palestinian 'defectors' suspected of involvement in murder
Police hunt six new suspects as more details of plot emerge

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/17/hamas-official-accused-mossad-murder

Hamas Ideology:-

Islamism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamism),

Islamic fundamentalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_fundamentalism),

Palestinian nationalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_nationalism),

Religious nationalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_nationalism)

See also:-

Les très secrètes 'relations' Israël-Hamas (The very secret Israel-Hamas 'relations'), Le Canard Enchaîné (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Canard_Encha%C3%AEn%C3%A9), February 1, 2006 (issue n°4449) (French)

Hamas who shoot at striking Palestinian Workers.... :thumbup1:

WTF are you doing on a leftist forum?

Palingenisis

2nd January 2011, 23:04

Why are you restricted comrademan? :)

ComradeMan

2nd January 2011, 23:06

Why are you restricted comrademan? :)

Why are you here?

Now, why don't you answer the point?

Palingenisis

2nd January 2011, 23:10

Why are you here?

Now, why don't you answer the point?

I already answer....:crying:....Why are you restricted?

Also I didnt say I supported Hamas, I said I supported them when they kill settler piggy wiggies....:crying:

Palingenisis

2nd January 2011, 23:17

Why do I allow myself to get caught up in stupid fights with people like you and Demogorgon who couldnt care less really when it comes to it about anything and anybody outside of yourselves and how great you are?

:crying:....That is depressing.

ComradeMan

2nd January 2011, 23:19

I already answer....:crying:....Why are you restricted?

Stick your circumstancial ad hominems up your nasty, violent, ethno-nationalist ass to be honest.

Also I didnt say I supported Hamas, I said I supported them when they kill settler piggy wiggies....:crying:

So you support them then... When they shoot settlers yes, but when they shoot striking Palestinian workers no and you'll just conveniently ignore all the other bits. I suppose someone else could say they support the British forces in Northern Ireland then, just of course when they might not be shooting the people we like... what a pitiful outlook.

You really have the most worthless, illogical and unprincipled set of shit politics I have come across on RevLeft.

There is little point trying to have a discussion with you really is there?

Demogorgon

2nd January 2011, 23:19

Because Marxism-Leninism-Maoism being a movement of real working and oppressed people doesnt have hang ups about a healthy patriotism (what actual socialist nation did...Why was the Great Patriotic war called the Great Patriotic war? :rolleyes:).

"In wars of national liberation patriotism is applied internationalism."

Mao Zedong.

Guess what? I also support Hamas when they off settler piggy wiggies.:crying:
Perhaps the phrase "Great Patriotic War" was one of the many signs that all was not well...

Once again though, your love of national divisions and the so called virtue of seeing something exceptional in the country you come from reveals your true political outlook.

2nd January 2011, 23:34

Perhaps the phrase "Great Patriotic War" was one of the many signs that all was not well...

Once again though, your love of national divisions and the so called virtue of seeing something exceptional in the country you come from reveals your true political outlook.

Is it reactionary to see something exceptional in your own family over others' families as well? What's so impossible about having a healthy love of your land and its culture while respecting (maybe even loving?) other lands and cultures?

Palingenisis

2nd January 2011, 23:34

Perhaps the phrase "Great Patriotic War" was one of the many signs that all was not well...

Once again though, your love of national divisions and the so called virtue of seeing something exceptional in the country you come from reveals your true political outlook.

Who are the one supporting national divisions (your support for partition slip your mind?)...And all countries are exceptional.

Your insult to the memories of those who sacrificed so much in the Great Patriotic war really reveals your class outlook. Only a spoiled brat could write such a thing.

ComradeMan

2nd January 2011, 23:37

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

Who are the one supporting national divisions (your support for partition slip your mind?)...And all countries are exceptional.

Your insult to the memories of those who sacrificed so much in the Great Patriotic war really reveals your class outlook. Only a spoiled brat could write such a thing.

Was that after they carved up Poland, massacred the Poles and watched as the Nazis carved the other part up, shortly after they stopped supplying the vile anti-Semitic and racist regime of Nazi Germany with vital oil for its war machine....?

2nd January 2011, 23:40

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

"In wars of national liberation patriotism is applied internationalism."

Look I can do quotes as well

Palingenisis

2nd January 2011, 23:43

Stick your circumstancial ad hominems up your nasty, violent, ethno-nationalist ass to be honest.

Says the Zionist....:rolleyes:

Marial was right...You arent Italian...Why claim to be?

2nd January 2011, 23:46

I don't even really identify with Scottish culture that much and feel more at home in Europe if anything, but (shock and horror) I still somehow manage to fully support Scotland's right to sovereignty, and don't think it's inferior to any other country.

ComradeMan

2nd January 2011, 23:47

Says the Zionist....:rolleyes:

Marial was right...You arent Italian...Why claim to be?

Why am I a Zionist? Please explain or shut the fuck up.

Mari"3"L was right... prove it.

What's with the ad hominem attacks because you get called on your shit politics. It's interesting from a freudian perspective that you bring nationality into the argument as well.... errhum... nationalist....?

Per il resto... beh, va a fotterti! ;)

"In wars of national liberation patriotism is applied internationalism."

Look I can do quotes as well

So can I

Lenin: "The proletariat cannot support any consolidation of nationalism, on the contrary, it supports everything that helps to obliterate national distinctions and remove national barriers, supports everything that makes the ties between nationalities closer and closer or leads to the amalgamation of nations. To act differently means taking the side of reactionary nationalist philistinism."

Lenin, The Right of Nations to Self-Determination.

Palingenisis

2nd January 2011, 23:53

Per il resto... beh, va a fotterti! ;)

Okay...I bow before your greatness, I am a worm next ComradeMan unfit to breathe his cyber air...But please, please before you show me how to be an aweswome revolutionary communist like yourself tell you why such an upstanding representive of Leftism managed to get restricted? :confused:

ComradeMan

2nd January 2011, 23:58

Okay...I bow before your greatness, I am a worm next ComradeMan unfit to breathe his cyber air...But please, please before you show me how to be an aweswome revolutionary communist like yourself tell you why such an upstanding representive of Leftism managed to get restricted? :confused:

Lenin: "The proletariat cannot support any consolidation of nationalism, on the contrary, it supports everything that helps to obliterate national distinctions and remove national barriers, supports everything that makes the ties between nationalities closer and closer or leads to the amalgamation of nations. To act differently means taking the side of reactionary nationalist philistinism."

You should be restricted because you are a nationalist and you hold non-leftist positions.

Why can't you discuss something without being violent, aggressive and resorting to ad hom attacks?

2nd January 2011, 23:59

So can I

Lenin: "The proletariat cannot support any consolidation of nationalism, on the contrary, it supports everything that helps to obliterate national distinctions and remove national barriers, supports everything that makes the ties between nationalities closer and closer or leads to the amalgamation of nations. To act differently means taking the side of reactionary nationalist philistinism."

Lenin, The Right of Nations to Self-Determination.

What makes you think I don't support a border-less world? You know how countries still manage to have regional variations within them despite being single countries? I look forward to seeing that on a worldwide scale

Palingenisis

3rd January 2011, 00:00

I repent off my nationalism...I want to follow Comrade Man thought, the beacon of light to the international proletariat...But please help me out...Why were you restricted?

Palingenisis

3rd January 2011, 00:02

What makes you think I don't support a border-less world? You know how countries still manage to have regional variations within them despite being single countries? I look forward to seeing that on a worldwide scale

Of course Communists oppose all national chauvinism and cultural isolationism on nationalist principles and look forward to a borderless global community. That goes without saying.

ComradeMan

3rd January 2011, 00:02

What makes you think I don't support a border-less world? You know how countries still manage to have regional variations within them despite being single countries? I look forward to seeing that on a worldwide scale

I don't think you do not and have no issue with you whatsoever.

The proletariat of the oppressor nation must not confine themselves to general, stereotyped phrases against annexation and in favor of the equality of nations in general, such as a pacifist bourgeois will repeat. The proletariat cannot remain silent on the question of the frontiers of a state founded on national oppression, a question so 'unpleasant' for the imperialist bourgeoisie. The proletariat must struggle against the enforced retention of oppressed nations within the bounds of the given state, which means that they must fight for the right to self-determination. The proletariat must demand freedom of political separation for the colonies and nations oppressed by 'their own' nation. Otherwise the internationalism of the proletariat would be nothing but empty words; neither confidence nor class solidarity would be possible between the workers of the oppressed and oppressor nations; the hypocrisy of the reformists and Kautskyites, who defend self-determination but remain silent about the nations oppressed by 'their own' nation and kept in 'their own' state by force, would remain unexposed. V.I. Lenin, The Right of Nations to Self-Determination (1914), LCW, vol.20, p.422.

costello1977

3rd January 2011, 01:38

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

Rubbish. Patriotism is the natural extension of our cultural differences. The Irish have had their language and culture systematically destroyed by the British.

Insults about being nationalist or bourgeoisie are in actual fact tools used by the capitalist ruling class to undermine and marginalise Republican Socialism.

Good on yes lads for partaking in the art of "ruling by fooling" that the British and the capitalists are experts at.

ComradeMan

3rd January 2011, 08:42

Rubbish. Patriotism is the natural extension of our cultural differences. The Irish have had their language and culture systematically destroyed by the British.

Insults about being nationalist or bourgeoisie are in actual fact tools used by the capitalist ruling class to undermine and marginalise Republican Socialism.

Good on yes lads for partaking in the art of "ruling by fooling" that the British and the capitalists are experts at.

Oh, so Lenin was a bourgeois tool of the capitalist ruling class British.
:thumbup1:

Demogorgon

3rd January 2011, 10:50

Who are the one supporting national divisions (your support for partition slip your mind?)...And all countries are exceptional.

Your insult to the memories of those who sacrificed so much in the Great Patriotic war really reveals your class outlook. Only a spoiled brat could write such a thing.
Oh spare me. One can easily justify any conflict or state anywhere with emotive appeals like that. It is no disrespect to those who made an individual sacrifice to say that they were not fighting for a socialist state.

And you are apparently labouring under a delusion that I "support" partition. Have I not said often enough that I think it was a deeply unfortunate event? What I recognise however is that it happened and we have to work with what is.

Demogorgon

3rd January 2011, 10:54

Is it reactionary to see something exceptional in your own family over others' families as well? What's so impossible about having a healthy love of your land and its culture while respecting (maybe even loving?) other lands and cultures?
People don't see something "exceptional" in their family, what they see is that these are the people they know and love, love being a natural human feeling for those close to us. By contrast most people in my country (a country being a collection of people), I have never met and I cannot have any special feeling for them beyond the natural respect I have for all human beings, regardless of where they come from.

ComradeMan

3rd January 2011, 11:27

Third Positionism

=

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a4/National_Bolshevik_Party.svg/200px-National_Bolshevik_Party.svg.png

Some members here sound like they

=

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/N-A_star.gif

costello1977

3rd January 2011, 12:33

Oh, so Lenin was a bourgeois tool of the capitalist ruling class British.
:thumbup1:

Didn't see his posts on this thread there, can you point out which screen name he posts under?

As far as I am aware, Lenin was long dead before the phase of struggle we discuss began, but sure youse revisionists are good at making things up!

costello1977

3rd January 2011, 12:37

Oh spare me. One can easily justify any conflict or state anywhere with emotive appeals like that. It is no disrespect to those who made an individual sacrifice to say that they were not fighting for a socialist state.

And you are apparently labouring under a delusion that I "support" partition. Have I not said often enough that I think it was a deeply unfortunate event? What I recognise however is that it happened and we have to work with what is.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but do you not defend the right of a small section of Irish society to annex part of the country off from the rest at the behest of a foreign government?

Answer me this then.

Considering that what happened in Ireland 400 years ago is happening in Palestine now, will the Israeli state then become "legal" in your eyes at some juncture down the road?

ComradeMan

3rd January 2011, 12:40

Didn't see his posts on this thread there, can you point out which screen name he posts under?

As far as I am aware, Lenin was long dead before the phase of struggle we discuss began, but sure youse revisionists are good at making things up!

Lenin died in 1924.

Engels spoke (unflatteringly and not in a way I support either of the so-called "Celtic nations").

The United Irishmen were in 1798.

Irish Republican Brotherhood 1858.
Easter Rising 1916.

Lenin also wrote on Ireland.

But then your analysis would invalidate most of Marxism's "founding" bases in terms of an analysis of the Irish situation seeing as most of them were dead before 1969...

Demogorgon

3rd January 2011, 13:05

Correct me if I'm wrong, but do you not defend the right of a small section of Irish society to annex part of the country off from the rest at the behest of a foreign government?

Answer me this then.

Considering that what happened in Ireland 400 years ago is happening in Palestine now, will the Israeli state then become "legal" in your eyes at some juncture down the road?
I support the right of all people to choose the political units they belong to and believe that no country, Ireland included, is a natural entity with any right to exist beyond the wishes of those in it.

You cannot use what happened 400 years ago to justify a proposal for the present day, you think you have made a clever example with Israel, but in fact you are doing what apologists for Israel do, they say that the injustice of the expulsion of Jews from Palestine justifies what they do now. The world does not work like that, the living take precedence over the dead.

You seem to think we ought to go back to some time in the past to find the "just" division of nations, but when exactly is this point? The world as it exists now is as it is because of conquest. In England for instance the Saxons invaded the Celts, the Vikings invaded them and the Normans invaded both, and that is a very simplified account. With each invasion appalling injustice was committed, but are you seriously suggesting we go and try to undo what happened hundreds of years later?

ComradeMan

3rd January 2011, 13:22

I support the right of all people to choose the political units they belong to and believe that no country, Ireland included, is a natural entity with any right to exist beyond the wishes of those in it.

You cannot use what happened 400 years ago to justify a proposal for the present day, you think you have made a clever example with Israel, but in fact you are doing what apologists for Israel do, they say that the injustice of the expulsion of Jews from Palestine justifies what they do now. The world does not work like that, the living take precedence over the dead.

You seem to think we ought to go back to some time in the past to find the "just" division of nations, but when exactly is this point? The world as it exists now is as it is because of conquest. In England for instance the Saxons invaded the Celts, the Vikings invaded them and the Normans invaded both, and that is a very simplified account. With each invasion appalling injustice was committed, but are you seriously suggesting we go and try to undo what happened hundreds of years later?

Excellent point. I believe that all cultural groups have a right to self-determination where they live, but what I do not subscribe to is this "blood and earth notion" of a genetic right to territory in order to from a nation state- that's racism and it's flawed from every point of view.

Before I get called on my support for indigenous people's rights- they are not trying to set up nation states on an ethno-nationalistic basis, not even the Zapatistas.

Before I get called on Israel-all I have ever said is that the Jewish people inasmuch as, not more nor less, have a right as much as everyone else to self-determination within an egalitarian/democratic Israel-Palestine.

Using these historical arguments is silly because the runaway train takes us where? Perhaps I should throw some cohorts together and liberate the Romano-British Welsh/Cornish people from the Saxon and Gaelic invaders and we'll all be citizens of Rome again.:lol: But oh wait... the Romans were invaders too... hell, everyone who speaks a Romance language either give it up or come to live in Lazio. Where will it end?

Demogorgon

3rd January 2011, 14:42

Yes, I agree. It reminds me of a time when I was arguing with an anti-immigrant American whose arguments against Mexican immigrants boiled down to "they come from elsewhere and we would have less problems without them), I asked him if that meant that black Americans should be sent back to Africa, whites to Europe, various other ethnic groups to point of origin and native Americans to Russia?

A lot of what you see with the rhetoric here is very similar to anti-immigrant rhetoric and it reaches absurd points sometimes. I saw someone here argue that indigenous people are the only people with any right to be in any given place. Stop and think of the implications of that for a moment.

The crucial point is justice. The Israel-Palestine conflict should not be looked at in terms of "rights" to the territory based on historical claims, it should be looked at in terms of the appalling way Palestinians are treated by Israel. Were the situations reversed in terms of who held the power would these people be willing to justify Palestinian persecution of Jews based upon territorial claims? I hope not, but the logic of the position they take says that they should.

This is what happens when you embrace right wing views of nations and indeed start to look at it in terms of something akin to property rights over territories. Only by looking at where the persecution and injustice is can you get an accurate picture of any conflict.

Che a chara

3rd January 2011, 16:06

Britain's involvement in the occupied 6 counties is the main reason why sectarian tensions run so high. The continued Stormont government is an orange and green assembly. Westminster dictates cuts to the region despite not one person having the power to vote for anyone in Westminster. That is definitely a denial of self-determination for ALL citizens of the region.

If that is not enough to want to cut the ties with the British then I don't know what is. It's abhorent to think that 'what we have, will do, and just move on', becuase that is furthering the British agenda of splitting the working class on their terms, and not for the benefit of the people.

Talking of 'Rights to territory', not one person is even implying that those of 'Protestant, Ulster, Loyalist' (PUL) persuasion does not have any right to territory or culture here. They are not being displaced or oppressed, nor will be in an Irish socialist republic, like what is happening to the Palestinians (and what happened to the Irish during Britain's ethnic cleansing campaign here). What is being opposed is British imperialism and all the structures of oppression, denial of self-determination and sectarianism which the presence of the British state perpetuates.

costello1977

3rd January 2011, 21:22

Lenin died in 1924.

Engels spoke (unflatteringly and not in a way I support either of the so-called "Celtic nations").

The United Irishmen were in 1798.

Irish Republican Brotherhood 1858.
Easter Rising 1916.

Lenin also wrote on Ireland.

But then your analysis would invalidate most of Marxism's "founding" bases in terms of an analysis of the Irish situation seeing as most of them were dead before 1969...

Once again, your ignoring the fact that we are discussing the IRA from the period of 1969 onwards, in other words PSF and PIRA. The rest of what you posted becomes irrelevant because it is not within the context of the op.

Palingenisis

3rd January 2011, 21:26

Oh, so Lenin was a bourgeois tool of the capitalist ruling class British.
:thumbup1:

Read what Lenin wrote on the 1916 insurrection you muppet.

Palingenisis

3rd January 2011, 21:30

You seem to think we ought to go back to some time in the past to find the "just" division of nations, but when exactly is this point? The world as it exists now is as it is because of conquest. In England for instance the Saxons invaded the Celts, the Vikings invaded them and the Normans invaded both, and that is a very simplified account. With each invasion appalling injustice was committed, but are you seriously suggesting we go and try to undo what happened hundreds of years later?

For your information I regard the Ulster settlement of the early 17 th century (though not the Plantations) as largely a positive. What are you on about? We are discussing the current occupation and partition now...By the British state backed up with its murderous squaddie scum...Now one is advocating ethno-nationalism accept in your head drunk as it is on your white skin privilege.

costello1977

3rd January 2011, 21:33

I support the right of all people to choose the political units they belong to and believe that no country, Ireland included, is a natural entity with any right to exist beyond the wishes of those in it.

Surely you also support that this right has to be expressed democratically? This was done in 1918, but was ignored world wide. Support came from the Eastern Bloc and the middle eastern enemies of Britain, but the British Leftists and anarchists remained, and remain, very silent on this issue. The vast majority of the Irish people want to live in a 32 county, non-British interfered with, Ireland. Sin é.

You cannot use what happened 400 years ago to justify a proposal for the present day, you think you have made a clever example with Israel, but in fact you are doing what apologists for Israel do, they say that the injustice of the expulsion of Jews from Palestine justifies what they do now. The world does not work like that, the living take precedence over the dead.

I don't think I was using it to justify anything. My point was that it was illegal then and is illegal now. Then I asked you would you consider the illegal Israeli state to be illegal if it had existed for 400 years? Simple question, the deflection on to me about my preferences doesn't hide the fact that you neglected to answer the question.

You seem to think we ought to go back to some time in the past to find the "just" division of nations, but when exactly is this point? The world as it exists now is as it is because of conquest. In England for instance the Saxons invaded the Celts, the Vikings invaded them and the Normans invaded both, and that is a very simplified account. With each invasion appalling injustice was committed, but are you seriously suggesting we go and try to undo what happened hundreds of years later?

Instead of making up statements or implied meanings, do you care to point out exactly where I promoted this idea? I don't think I have expressed anything other than my belief that Ireland, both the Vichy and the occupied territories, should be freed from British rule. Other posters have brought up irrelevancies like Scotland etc (for my own part, I brought Israel in) so I'll sum up my position of other countries thusly:

I support the right of the people of occupied countries to rebel against illegal state oppressions, and support their right to self-determination.

costello1977

3rd January 2011, 21:35

Read what Lenin wrote on the 1916 insurrection you muppet.

What this?

The Irish Rebellion of 1916

By V. I. Lenin

The views of the opponents of self-determination lead to the conclusion that the vitality of small nations oppressed by imperialism has already been sapped, that they cannot play any role against imperialism, that support of their purely national aspirations will lead to nothing, etc. The imperialist war of 1914–16 has provided facts which refute such conclusions.

The war proved to be an epoch of crisis for the West-European nations, and for imperialism as a whole. Every crisis discards the conventionalities, tears away the outer wrappings, sweeps away the obsolete and reveals the underlying springs and forces. What has it revealed from the standpoint of the movement of oppressed nations? In the colonies there have been a number of attempts at rebellion, which the oppressor nations naturally did all they could to hide by means of a military censorship.

Nevertheless, it is known that in Singapore the British brutally suppressed a mutiny among their Indian troops; that there were attempts at rebellion in French Annam [Vietnam] and in the German Cameroons; that in Europe, on the one hand, there was a rebellion in Ireland, which the freedom-loving English, who did not dare to extend conscription to Ireland, suppressed by executions, and, on the other, the Austrian Government passed the death sentence on the deputies of the Czech Diet for treason, and shot whole Czech regiments for the same crime.

This list is, of course, far from complete. Nevertheless, it proves that, owing to the crisis of imperialism, the flames of national revolt have flared up both in the colonies and in Europe, and that national sympathies and antipathies have manifested themselves in spite of the draconian threats and measures of repression.

All this before the crisis of imperialism hit its peak; the power of the imperialist bourgeoisie was yet to be undermined (this may be brought about by a war of attrition but has not yet happened) and the proletarian movements in the imperialist countries were still very feeble. What will happen when the war has caused complete exhaustion, or when, in one state at least, the power of the bourgeoisie has been shaken under the blows of proletarian struggle, as that of tsarism in 1905?

A ‘putsch’ or national rebellion?

On May 9, 1916, there appeared, in Berner Tagwacht, the organ of the Zimmerwald group (1), including some of the Leftists, an article on the Irish rebellion entitled Their Song Is Over and signed with the initials K.R. It described the Irish rebellion as being nothing more nor less than a putsch, for, as the author argued, the Irish question was an agrarian one, the peasants had been pacified by reforms, and the nationalist movement remained only a purely urban, petty-bourgeois movement, which, notwithstanding the sensation it caused, had not much social backing....
The term putsch, in its scientific sense, may be employed only when the attempt at insurrection has revealed nothing but a circle of conspirators or stupid maniacs, and has aroused no sympathy among the masses.
The centuries-old Irish national movement, having passed through various stages and combinations of class interest, manifested itself, in particular, in a mass Irish National Congress in America (Vorwarts, March 20, 1916) which called for Irish independence; it also manifested itself in street fighting conducted by a section of the urban petty bourgeoisie and a section of the workers after a long period of mass agitation, demonstrations, suppression of newspapers, etc.
Whoever calls such a rebellion a putsch is either a hardened reactionary, or a doctrinaire hopelessly incapable of envisaging a social revolution as a living phenomenon.
To imagine that social revolution is conceivable without revolts by small nations in the colonies and in Europe, without revolutionary outbursts by a section of the petty bourgeoisie with all its prejudices, without a movement of the politically non-conscious proletarian and semiproletarian masses against oppression by the landowners, the church, and the monarchy, against national oppression, etc.—to imagine all this is to repudiate social revolution.

So one army lines up in one place and says, We are for socialism, and another, somewhere else and says, We are for imperialism, and that will be a social revolution! Only those who hold such a ridiculously pedantic view would vilify the Irish rebellion by calling it a putsch.

Whoever expects a pure social revolution will never live to see it. Such a person pays lip service to revolution without understanding what revolution is....

The socialist revolution in Europe cannot be anything other than an outburst of mass struggle on the part of all and sundry oppressed and discontented elements. Inevitably, sections of the petty bourgeoisie and of the backward workers will participate in it—without such participation, mass struggle is impossible, without it no revolution is possible—and just as inevitably will they bring into the movement their prejudices, their reactionary fantasies, their weaknesses and errors.
But objectively they will attack capital, and the class- conscious vanguard of the revolution, the advanced proletariat, expressing this objective truth of a variegated and discordant, motley and outwardly fragmented, mass struggle, will be able to unite and direct it, capture power, seize the banks, expropriate the trusts which all hate (though for different reasons!), and introduce other dictatorial measures which in their totality will amount to the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the victory of socialism, which, however, will by no means immediately purge itself of petty bourgeois slag.
Social-Democracy, we read in the Polish theses, must utilize the struggle of the young colonial bourgeoisie against European imperialism in order to sharpen the revolutionary crisis in Europe.
Is it not clear that it is least of all permissible to contrast Europe to the colonies in this respect? The struggle of the oppressed nations in Europe, a struggle capable of going all the way to insurrection and street fighting, capable of breaking down the iron discipline of the army and martial law, will sharpen the revolutionary crisis in Europe to an infinitely greater degree than a much more developed rebellion in a remote colony.
A blow delivered against the power of the English imperialist bourgeoisie by a rebellion in Ireland is a hundred times more significant politically than a blow of equal force delivered in Asia or in Africa.

ComradeMan

3rd January 2011, 21:48

I found this here:-

http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2009/12/14/was-1916-rising-putsch-lenin-radek-trotsky

Was the 1916 Rising a "Putsch"? Lenin, Radek, Trotsky.

Author: Sean Matgamnna

Lenin expects national revolts as a consequence of the inter-imperialist war and seizes on the 1916 rising with both hands as objective evidence. He was right, that the rising was and would be part of a developing chain of events. Thus it proved to be.
But in fact things might have turned out differently. When the British started to shoot the leaders of the rising there was a shift of sympathy towards them. Yet it was not alone the Rising that made for the decisive shift in Irish politics in the 32 months between April 1916 and the general election at the end of 1918, in which the old Home Rule party was all but annihilated. The second, republican, Sinn Fein (the first Sinn Fein had been monarchist), gained 73% of Irish seats in the Westminster Parliament (for 48% of the votes cast).
The decisive shift came from the attempt of the British government to impose conscription.
Without that the shift would probably have been much smaller. The Home Rule Party would probably have survived (it survived in the six counties until 1970, when its forces merged into the SDLP), Sinn Fein would have been much weaker.
It is one of the myths of the Stalinists that Lenin supported the 1916 rising. No he did not. It is clear from what he writes that his ardent sympathy is with them, but how he saw them is expressed in the passage above. There is no question that he endorsed their tactics. He never, then or later, commented on James Connolly's role in the rising.
The Comintern's 1920 theses on working class alliances with "revolutionary nationalists" in countries where such people existed, is both an endorsement and a severe implicit criticism of Connolly, who dissolved the Citizen Army into the National Army on the eve of the rising.
Lenin got it right about 1916 because it did, as he expected, prove to be part of a burgeoning movement.
And what has this got to do with Afghanistan and the Stalinists' Saur coup? Lenin was writing about 1,200 republicans and socialists, amateur soldiers, who pitted themselves in arms against the mightiest empire the world had ever known, in the second city of the imperial centre. As Lenin insists on pointing out, they were connected through common aspiration and common identity with a long tradition of mass Irish nationalism.
Their deed helped prepare the forces that seized the chance when the British tried to force conscription through.

:confused:

costello1977

3rd January 2011, 21:49

ComradeMan

3rd January 2011, 21:53

Thanks for stating the obvious now what about the content?

Palingenisis

3rd January 2011, 21:54

While we are at it an interesting report on the subject of Ireland during the Tan War by an English Communist....

http://thecommune.co.uk/ideas/ireland-and-the-world-revolution/

ComradeMan of course is busy using google in an attempt to provoke annoyance.

He is going on ignore now.

costello1977

3rd January 2011, 21:56

Thanks for stating the obvious now what about the content?

I seemingly had to state the obvious as you couldn't tell the difference between Lenin's own righting and a revision of it. No need for sarcasm.

ComradeMan

3rd January 2011, 21:59

I seemingly had to state the obvious as you couldn't tell the difference between Lenin's own righting and a revision of it. No need for sarcasm.

Yeah, because I didn't notice it said by Seamus Matgamnna- :lol:

Now, what about the content....?

costello1977

3rd January 2011, 21:59

Whoever expects a pure social revolution will never live to see it. Such a person pays lip service to revolution without understanding what revolution is....

Lenin himself says all that has to be said with regards to some of the posts on this thread which are both anti-Irish and anti-Irish Republican socialist.

ComradeMan

3rd January 2011, 22:01

^^^^^^^^ You can stick that strawman too.

Why is it that it turns into an anti-Irish thing as soon as you can't answer the questions? No one here, certainly not me, has any "race/ethnic" issues with Irish people.

Stop being so pathetic.

Now are there Irish republican/nationalist movements that espouse a worker's state and the abolition of private property or not?

If so- who?

costello1977

3rd January 2011, 22:08

^^^^^^^^ You can stick that strawman too.

Why is it that it turns into an anti-Irish thing as soon as you can't answer the questions? No one here, certainly not me, has any "race/ethnic" issues with Irish people.

Did I not answer every single question you have asked me? For the most part, I can see plenty of evidence that points to anti-Irish bigotry, in fact other posters have posted proof on this thread. Go back and read.

Stop being so pathetic.

This post is riddled with insults. This post has to be the most pathetic I have read today on any forum.

Now are there Irish republican/nationalist movements that espouse a worker's state and the abolition of private property or not?

If so- who?

The IRSP, Eirigi, 32csm, RSF.....all to certain extents.

The IRSP and Eirigi would be most prevailant, but the fact that you have to ask that question portrays that you have a limited knowledge of the Irish question, yet you are making definitive statements whilst lacking basic knowledgeof the situation.

Away and shake yerself!

Demogorgon

3rd January 2011, 22:14

Surely you also support that this right has to be expressed democratically? This was done in 1918, but was ignored world wide. Support came from the Eastern Bloc and the middle eastern enemies of Britain, but the British Leftists and anarchists remained, and remain, very silent on this issue. The vast majority of the Irish people want to live in a 32 county, non-British interfered with, Ireland. Sin é.

Of course the decision should be made democratically, but you don't get to choose what the boundaries the decisions are made in in advance. The very beginning of any democratic unit has to be gaining the consent of everyone in the unit to respect those particular boundaries, if a certain area does not want to be part of it, it is unjust to include it

To take a much less contentious example, after the first World War one of the questions was what to do with Schleswig, an area that had once been part of Denmark but had become part of Germany and had a mixed population with Danes predominant in the North and Germans in the South. Anyway a referendum was held and to nobody's surprise the Northern part voted to rejoin Denmark and the Central part to remain with Germany (no referendum was held in the Southernmost part at this stage, the result being certain). In the event Schleswig was divided with the Northern part going to Denmark and the Southern part staying with Germany. Was this the wrong result? Should it have had to remain United one way or another?

The same is true of Ireland, the will of the people in one area cannot overrule the will of the people in another. The people in the Republic of Ireland wanting Northern Ireland to be part of their country, has no more relevance than what the desire of the majority of people in Britain is. After all were it the case that the majority of people in Britain wanted Northern Ireland to be part of their country, would that justify Northern Ireland staying in Britain? The decision is Northern Ireland's alone to make in the same way that the decision of Scotland or Wales (and indeed if the time should come Cornwall) to Secede from the UK is their own to make.

Of course the question arises as to why the particular boundaries should exist, given that they are blatantly unfair. In the abstract the most democratic thing to do would be to have a referendum in each area, keeping each unit as small as practicable as to what country they wanted to be part of, so that those parts of Northern Ireland that do not wish to be under British rule can get out, indeed that has been suggested before, it being Harold Wilson's preferred solution. In practice though that would probably make things even worse and given that partition went so badly first time round I wouldn't want to see it happen again, so we are left with a situation without any good solution.

Incidentally my own view is that Ireland should be united, what I am arguing is that the general Democratic will is what should prevail.

I don't think I was using it to justify anything. My point was that it was illegal then and is illegal now. Then I asked you would you consider the illegal Israeli state to be illegal if it had existed for 400 years? Simple question, the deflection on to me about my preferences doesn't hide the fact that you neglected to answer the question.

I didn't answer because the question was irrelevant for several reasons. The first being as I said that situations change with time, the other reason being that legality is meaningless here. I know that talk of it has taken on sacred meaning to some Republicans but it is an incredibly bad argument. The first reason is that what is legal and what is right are two different things and in the case of international borders rarely coincide, those who make the borders getting to make the rules. So claiming that the law is what is important undermines your own case.

The other reason it is a bad argument is that it is one that you will certainly lose. Like I say those making the borders get to make the law so they will make sure that they make what they do legal otherwise they will tie themselves in knots in their own courts. By any prevailing legal theory of international law, the partition of Ireland was legal. That doesn't mean it was right, like I say they are unrelated things, but the law does not stand in opposition to it.

The situation with Israel is similar to an extent too. Its expansion is probably illegal, but the pre-1967 borders are legal. That doesn't make them right though.

If you really need an answer to your almost meaningless question, here it is: I neither know nor care when and whether Israel's current position might become legal. It is wrong now and if the situation of oppression continues as it is it will always be wrong. Whether it is legal or not does not mean a damn to me, it is what is right that matters.

Instead of making up statements or implied meanings, do you care to point out exactly where I promoted this idea? I don't think I have expressed anything other than my belief that Ireland, both the Vichy and the occupied territories, should be freed from British rule. Other posters have brought up irrelevancies like Scotland etc (for my own part, I brought Israel in) so I'll sum up my position of other countries thusly:

I support the right of the people of occupied countries to rebel against illegal state oppressions, and support their right to self-determination.
There's that "illegal" thing again, strange that you give the very law that oppresses you such standing.