Arlene's bigotry shines through

Started by StGallsGAA, February 14, 2018, 01:13:21 PM

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MoChara

Quote from: HiMucker on February 19, 2018, 01:43:25 PM
Quote from: screenexile on February 19, 2018, 10:45:10 AM
Quote from: johnneycool on February 19, 2018, 10:34:47 AM
Quote from: ziggysego on February 17, 2018, 11:53:00 PM
NEW LIGHT SHONE ON DRAFT AGREEMENT – By Eamonn Mallie

http://eamonnmallie.com/2018/02/new-light-shone-draft-agreement-eamonn-mallie/

So Arlene as part of this iterative process emailed Mary-Lou and Co a proposal which had an free standing Irish language act BU she didn't agree to it....................

I'd have thought you wouldn't have emailed anyone a proposal with anything you weren't happy with especially your adversaries, iterative process or not.

Hard to see Arlene lasting much longer now.

I think Arlene was OK with it but when the proposal went back to the headbangers it was a complete no no. . . she's been shown up as a very weak leader in this whole saga.

McGuinness and Adams have had to give in on many things but were always able to get their people on board the DUP don't have the leadership to get things done anymore!
I agree with this. Look at the way Adams and McGuinness led republicans.
Provos stood down
Decommision
Sitting in stormont
Acceptance of principle of consent
Acceptance of partition
Adminsterting British rule under the union flag at the gates stormont.

All sold as 'stepping stones' to ultimate victory.     

ie. defeat dressed up as victory.

Unionists leaders can't even deliver British rights to people here for fear of feeling less British
Fionnaula O Connor once wrote that republicans are great at making their people think they have won when they have lost with the opposite being the case for unionists.


Maybe that's all Arlene needs to do, sign the agreement and then get a black taxi up the Shankill tooting the horn and waving the flag.

HiMucker

Quote from: MoChara on February 19, 2018, 02:05:36 PM
Quote from: HiMucker on February 19, 2018, 01:43:25 PM
Quote from: screenexile on February 19, 2018, 10:45:10 AM
Quote from: johnneycool on February 19, 2018, 10:34:47 AM
Quote from: ziggysego on February 17, 2018, 11:53:00 PM
NEW LIGHT SHONE ON DRAFT AGREEMENT – By Eamonn Mallie

http://eamonnmallie.com/2018/02/new-light-shone-draft-agreement-eamonn-mallie/

So Arlene as part of this iterative process emailed Mary-Lou and Co a proposal which had an free standing Irish language act BU she didn't agree to it....................

I'd have thought you wouldn't have emailed anyone a proposal with anything you weren't happy with especially your adversaries, iterative process or not.

Hard to see Arlene lasting much longer now.

I think Arlene was OK with it but when the proposal went back to the headbangers it was a complete no no. . . she's been shown up as a very weak leader in this whole saga.

McGuinness and Adams have had to give in on many things but were always able to get their people on board the DUP don't have the leadership to get things done anymore!
I agree with this. Look at the way Adams and McGuinness led republicans.
Provos stood down
Decommision
Sitting in stormont
Acceptance of principle of consent
Acceptance of partition
Adminsterting British rule under the union flag at the gates stormont.

All sold as 'stepping stones' to ultimate victory.     

ie. defeat dressed up as victory.

Unionists leaders can't even deliver British rights to people here for fear of feeling less British
Fionnaula O Connor once wrote that republicans are great at making their people think they have won when they have lost with the opposite being the case for unionists.


Maybe that's all Arlene needs to do, sign the agreement and then get a black taxi up the Shankill tooting the horn and waving the flag.
;D A Unionist leader wouldn't even know where to get a black taxi! 


Orior

You guys need to listen more to Ruth Dudley Edwards. I'll summarise for you:

1) Every Unionist is a saint, and bend over backwards to accommodate roman catholics
2) Roman catholic should appreciate the freedom they have in northern ireland
3) Gerry Adams is the devil incarnate
4) All Sinn Fein voters are numbskull sheep
Cover me in chocolate and feed me to the lesbians

charlieTully

Quote from: Orior on February 19, 2018, 09:13:02 PM
You guys need to listen more to Ruth Dudley Edwards. I'll summarise for you:

1) Every Unionist is a saint, and bend over backwards to accommodate roman catholics
2) Roman catholic should appreciate the freedom they have in northern ireland
3) Gerry Adams is the devil incarnate
4) All Sinn Fein voters are numbskull sheep

Sounds like syfurus

Wildweasel74



blewuporstuffed

I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow doesn't look good either

AQMP

I rarely agree with Malachi O'Doherty but it's hard to counter this analysis of where unionism is now:

=====================================================================================

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/news-analysis/union-can-only-be-saved-by-showing-respect-for-irishness-malachi-odoherty-36625353.html

Arguably the stupidest mistake made by a unionist was Gregory Campbell's speech to his party conference in which he said that the DUP would treat Sinn Fein's wish-list like toilet paper.  I can imagine people in the Sinn Fein strategy team watching that and saying: Gotcha!

Campbell had broken one of the simpler rules of politics - never say never. He committed his party to never conceding anything to Sinn Fein on the Irish language and treating with contempt their aspiration to have an Irish Language Act.  From that moment on Sinn Fein had it in its power to humiliate the DUP by getting it to climb down from that proud boast, or to break it.  This fits with the DUP's understanding of the Trojan Horse theory expounded by Gerry Adams, by which the equality agenda is presented as a tactic to undermine unionism.

But the thing about Trojan Horses is that the gates of Troy have to be opened for them.  And Campbell and others in the DUP leadership effectively opened the gates, invited the horse to come in and walk around, presuming they'd be able to chase it away again.  Because, by the logic of the Good Friday Agreement and power-sharing, Sinn Fein needs the DUP as much as the DUP needs Sinn Fein. This has been a calamitous misreading in the situation by unionists.

Sinn Fein is a bigger and more extensive party than the DUP.  Yes, the DUP vote thrives on contention every bit as much as the Sinn Fein vote does. The logic of that is that contention serves both well but ultimately drives them apart. Therefore, in time both have to get on. Both lose if they don't. But the DUP loses more than Sinn Fein does.  The DUP, if it loses Stormont, keeps six councils of the 11 in Northern Ireland and 10 seats in Westminster.  The seats in Westminster have huge value for now because the DUP is indispensable to shoring up the Tory Government.  But that advantage could be gone by Christmas and might not come back for another 20 years.  The party currently has a seat in the European Parliament but is determined to be rid of it.  So, without Stormont the DUP will have very little.

Contrast that with Sinn Fein's position.  It has a clutch of councils in the west of Northern Ireland. It has seven seats in Westminster but doesn't take them. It will continue after Brexit to have representation in the European Parliament through the Irish Republic, where it also has councillors, TDs and senators.  Compare Sinn Fein's position in the Dail with the DUP's in Westminster. Currently Sinn Fein is polling at 20% of the vote down there. It stands a good chance of being in government; not a great chance, but not a negligible one. What prospect is there that the DUP will have seats at the Cabinet table in Westminster? None.  It will be outside looking in if one day a British Secretary of State is sitting down with a Sinn Fein Tanaiste to discuss repairing devolution. Couldn't happen?

So, while it looks as if we have a deadlock that damages both parties equally, Sinn Fein has such a broad base and so many platforms that it can more easily sustain the loss of Stormont than the DUP can.  This hasn't sunk in with people who still think in terms of majority and minority communities in Northern Ireland and always calculate on the assumption that unionism has more clout than nationalism.  That's how it used to be.  Sinn Fein does not only have more platforms than the DUP, it has a hand to play.  It will now focus on opposing direct rule and Brexit.  And it knows also that these positions will appeal beyond the voter base.

Northern nationalists do not like the DUP. They feel that the DUP gave no consideration to protecting their Irish identity inside the European Union, the one structure that gave it parity with Britishness.  And since the border is now back at the heart of political dispute, the last thing many nationalists want is for the DUP to hold power in Northern Ireland or be in a position to represent Northern Ireland in talks with Europe.  And this is bigger than Sinn Fein. People who will never vote Sinn Fein are turning their backs on power-sharing because they don't want to be even part-governed by the DUP.

So what can the DUP do to win them back, for win them back it must?  The Union is not secure if only the Protestant community wants it, because the demographic shift is rapidly eroding a Protestant majority.  The only way to save the Union is to convert Catholics to it.  And that was not such a hard job until very recently.  At least a third of the Catholic, nominally nationalist, community lived content with the Union. They worked in the Civil Service and the institutions of state.  A civic unionism might have acknowledged that silent assent.  But a unionism which pegged its commitment to evangelical religion and the monarchy was never going to bring significant numbers of that community out of the closet to declare their preference for the United Kingdom over a united Ireland.  There was a time when unionism could indulge the fantasy that it was a bulwark against religious heresy, when the Orange banner symbolised loyalty.

But what is a unionist to be loyal to now? To a retrenched evangelical culture which can lose them the Union, or to the Union itself, which it can only hold onto with confidence by including Catholics and respecting Irishness?  And even that might be a hopeless pipe-dream now, depending on the outworking of Brexit. If it goes badly for British-Irish relations, then it will go badly for nationalist-unionist relations in Northern Ireland.  This isn't to say that there can be a united Ireland very soon, though more people are now talking up that prospect than before.  I suspect that if Labour comes to power, direct rule will take a colouring much more to Sinn Fein's taste. I think Corbyn might prove perfectly obliging when asked for a border poll.
Though if his own prospects fall on a refusal of Sinn Fein to take their seats, he'd hardly be daft enough to think he owed them favours.

Sinn Fein does lose out after last week's collapse. The LGBT community now sees that giving their vote to Sinn Fein got them nothing, and if there is an election they may pay for the betrayal of those hopes.  But it is unionism that seems bereft of a vision today. It is unionism that must rethink its entire prospects if it is to have any significance at all.

Dire Ear

Malachi can't help himself with the hatred of SF, even at the end of that piece.

johnneycool

Quote from: Dire Ear on February 21, 2018, 11:57:18 AM
Malachi can't help himself with the hatred of SF, even at the end of that piece.

Not much wrong with that article in fairness, but does Malachi think the LGBT community voted en mass for the Shinners on the strength of them wanting same sex marriage legalised?

I'd have thought Alliance was the LGBT communities main ally.



NAG1

Quote from: johnneycool on February 21, 2018, 12:06:46 PM
Quote from: Dire Ear on February 21, 2018, 11:57:18 AM
Malachi can't help himself with the hatred of SF, even at the end of that piece.

Not much wrong with that article in fairness, but does Malachi think the LGBT community voted en mass for the Shinners on the strength of them wanting same sex marriage legalised?

I'd have thought Alliance was the LGBT communities main ally.

SF especially among their young activists seem to be making a massive push in this sector of the electorate.

Orior

Rules of the plantation were that natives dropped Irish and carried out business in the invading tongue.

Seems like 400 years later the plantation is still an ongoing process.
Cover me in chocolate and feed me to the lesbians

Minder

Quote from: NAG1 on February 21, 2018, 12:10:15 PM
Quote from: johnneycool on February 21, 2018, 12:06:46 PM
Quote from: Dire Ear on February 21, 2018, 11:57:18 AM
Malachi can't help himself with the hatred of SF, even at the end of that piece.

Not much wrong with that article in fairness, but does Malachi think the LGBT community voted en mass for the Shinners on the strength of them wanting same sex marriage legalised?

I'd have thought Alliance was the LGBT communities main ally.

SF especially among their young activists seem to be making a massive push in this sector of the electorate.

It needs to be more than hash tags and billboards though (all non unionist parties are the same btw), when hardy came to hardy SF seemed comfortable enough with no SSM
"When it's too tough for them, it's just right for us"

haranguerer

Redundance of petition of concern in reformed stormont meant it was pretty much guaranteed to go through anyway, no?