The wondrous adventures of Sinn Fein (part 2)

Bishop of hope

A good article in the Times today dating back to 1990.
It seems SF were only the IRA army councils third preference in negotiating peace for them at that time and they referred to them as only the political party closest to their views.
Gerry and Martin it seems must have been separated somewhat at that time from the overall wants of the Army council.
Begs the question of them being controlled by the army council completely i suppose.
Political expediency and some kudos must then go to SF for bringing the council with them, particularly Gerry Adams after reading that.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/ira-sought-to-bypass-sinn-f%C3%A9in-in-talks-with-british-new-files-suggests-1.4445383?mode=amp

Pkiernan

Hilarious.

https://www.businesspost.ie/ireland/mcdonald-tells-sinn-fein-supporters-to-stop-being-pig-ignorant-online-6b9e25a6

She realises that SF will never be in power until they stop being SeeYouNextTuesdays.

Do the shinnbots on here understand that in order for SF to improve, they need support from normal people, who find the IRA references disgusting?

Smee_Again

The cat is out of the bag now unfortunately.

frag420

Pkiernan wrote: »

Hilarious.

https://www.businesspost.ie/ireland/mcdonald-tells-sinn-fein-supporters-to-stop-being-pig-ignorant-online-6b9e25a6

She realises that SF will never be in power until they stop being SeeYouNextTuesdays.

Do the shinnbots on here understand that in order for SF to improve, they need support from normal people, who find the IRA references disgusting?

Yeah that party are full of synt’s...

Eric Cartman

Theyve cut their cloth hoovering up votes in the welfare classes and those unfortunate sects who still see hardline violent republicanism through rose tinted glasses. Now they wonder why their supporters routinely expose their ignorant and violent ways... It takes mary lou levels of bare faced lies to pretend like they werent aware of this all along

Tig98

"Lads, get a bit of cop, don't leave any evidence that links back"

doublejobbing 2

Supporters? It's their elected reps in a great deal of cases.

I'm half tempted to vote for the local councillor next time he runs for the Dail just so his rambling Facebook account receives a more widespread audience. If ever a man was stuck in the past. And he does more ranting about RTE conspiracies than Gemmaroids.

oldtimeyfella

If their supporters stop being ignorant then i would imagine they would stop voting for SF.

hatrickpatrick

blanch152 wrote: »

A government that has a country in the top 10 of every possible metric?

Again Occam’s Razor is against you on this one.

This is the problem with neoliberals - you're so, so, so obsessed with "macro" indicators and completely blind to whether or not those indicators have any bearing on individual quality of life. This is the same reason FG were blindsided by their underperformance in the 2016 election - macroeconomics suggested a recovery and they simply ignored the realities of life on the ground for people experiencing cost of living hyperinflation.

This government, since its inception, has been one clusterf*ck after another. It's been perhaps the most chaotic start to a new coalition I've ever seen. We've had drink-driving ministers, illegal social welfare inspections at airports (followed by utterly scandalous attempts to gaslight the public by retroactively editing government documents to feign prior notice of this policy), the introduction of various "roadmaps" and "level systems" for dealing with COVID which were tossed out the window almost immediately after being introduced, and horrendous mismanagement of the pandemic since the new coalition took over.

Fine Gael's government had a handle on the situation back in March or April and were reasonably scandal-free for most of that time. As soon as they jumped into bed with Fianna Fail, the sh!t hit the fan as many knew it would - the idea that FF had in any way changed their spots since the 2000s was always a ridiculous suggestion, particularly when their current leader was the minister for health who presided over the beginning of the overcrowding / under resourcing crisis which we are still grappling with the effects of today.

In that context, it is[/] laughable that an opposition party's online brain farts would command more attention from the media than the sitting government's snatching of defeat from the jaws of victory.

I've actually been saying this since the summer - kudos to Fine Gael for handling the outbreak of COVID as well as anyone could have and for successfully crushing the R number to the point at which, during the early summer, it felt like we were finally rounding the corner.

Fine Gael and Fianna Fail together, on the other hand, managed to take that optimistic picture and completely destroy it.

In that context? The Bobby Storey funeral and Golfgate deserved the gigantic amount of press they got. Idiotic bullsh!t written by people years and years ago on the internet, where idiocy abounds and filters are non-existant? Absolutely, utterly, mind bogglingly insignificant and irrelevant to the vast majority of people.

It's in that context that I'm suggesting that the media seems to have an agenda.

To give you a hypothetical analogy, it feels as if, on the day of the 9/11 attacks, the attacks themselves were the second headline on the New York Times' front page, because Rudy Gulliani's personal issues took the top spot.

That's all I'm saying. No conspiracy theory and no claims of "fake news". It just feels like the Irish Times and to a far greater extent, the Irish Independent, have an agenda which is painfully transparent.

The only thing which remains to be seen, IMO, is whether this is a genuinely "Sinn Fein bad" agenda, or merely a "pissing people off sells ad revenue" agenda.

Necro

Mod:

Threads merged, no need for multiple SF threads on the go at once

um7y1h83ge06nx

Mary Lou comparing her supporters to animals - hilarious.

RandomViewer

Teri must be a hard taskmistress , poor Bish and Blanch out to bat first thing

Bishop of hope

RandomViewer wrote: »

Teri must be a hard taskmistress , poor Bish and Blanch out to bat first thing

My post was valid on the other thread too.

https://m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/michelle-oneill-did-not-endorse-public-health-message-despite-experts-advice-39904031.html

**** talkers SF as is evidenced here.

tikkahunter

Briggs Limited Weevil wrote: »

Mary Lou comparing her supporters to animals - hilarious.

She was quite happy for them to flood social media with her not my Taoiseach campaign or photos of her and my Taoiseach all over it , shared and liked by SF politicians and councilors not just supporters . The comments under all of the post were appalling. Leo took some abuse - Paki , Half breed Bastard and queer being some of the most popular comments. People with this mindset are not going to change and the left parties are rampant with them .Or the people who claim they are liberal until someone disagrees with them and they become rabbid on social media - so much for being liberal . SF have a huge scummy following which is now mixed with the tin foil hat brigade and anti everything or anti anybody who has tried to make anything of their lives . The older hardcore members don't even want to be attached to these but will take the hit if it gets votes .They are the imposter party who have no viable solutions to anything just shout and roar of how unfair everything is .

Bonniedog

Bishop of hope wrote: »

A good article in the Times today dating back to 1990.
It seems SF were only the IRA army councils third preference in negotiating peace for them at that time and they referred to them as only the political party closest to their views.
Gerry and Martin it seems must have been separated somewhat at that time from the overall wants of the Army council.
Begs the question of them being controlled by the army council completely i suppose.
Political expediency and some kudos must then go to SF for bringing the council with them, particularly Gerry Adams after reading that.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/ira-sought-to-bypass-sinn-f%C3%A9in-in-talks-with-british-new-files-suggests-1.4445383?mode=amp

I suspect that the Army Council was playing the priest along. Adams controlled the army and the party. It suited him to give the impression to Haughey that he was somehow having to bring the hawks along. That was supposed to strengthen his hand,

In any event the IRA/Adams were in contact directly with the Brits at this time most likely unknown to Dublin. There were people on AC opposed to ceasefire - actually more so to what took place after which involved the IRA surrendering without having achieved its objective - but they were consistently outmanoeuvred and duped by Adams and his allies until it was too late to do anything but leave.

You can be fairly certain that none of the documents on the key contacts between Adams and London via intelligence will ever be released.

Brendan Bendar

Pkiernan wrote: »

Hilarious.

https://www.businesspost.ie/ireland/mcdonald-tells-sinn-fein-supporters-to-stop-being-pig-ignorant-online-6b9e25a6

She realises that SF will never be in power until they stop being SeeYouNextTuesdays.

Do the shinnbots on here understand that in order for SF to improve, they need support from normal people, who find the IRA references disgusting?

I’m sure she had some of our friends in here in mind.

Uhmm .... one or two of the constants here seem to be missing...

Must have got a ring up from squareface.......:cool:

RandomViewer

Brendan Bendar wrote: »

I’m sure she had some of our friends in here in mind.

Uhmm .... one or two of the constants here seem to be missing...

Must have got a ring up from squareface.......:cool:

Didnt read the article ,did you Anto? "SF supporters and those of other parties"

smurgen

Brendan Bendar wrote: »

I’m sure she had some of our friends in here in mind.

Uhmm .... one or two of the constants here seem to be missing...

Must have got a ring up from squareface.......:cool:

Commend you Brendi on proving Mary Lou's point with your insult "McDonald said she rejected the “Fine Gael HQ line” that the online abuse was “all the Shinners”.

blanch152

Bonniedog wrote: »

I suspect that the Army Council was playing the priest along. Adams controlled the army and the party. It suited him to give the impression to Haughey that he was somehow having to bring the hawks along. That was supposed to strengthen his hand,

In any event the IRA/Adams were in contact directly with the Brits at this time most likely unknown to Dublin. There were people on AC opposed to ceasefire - actually more so to what took place after which involved the IRA surrendering without having achieved its objective - but they were consistently outmanoeuvred and duped by Adams and his allies until it was too late to do anything but leave.

You can be fairly certain that none of the documents on the key contacts between Adams and London via intelligence will ever be released.

It was very interesting reading the reports from Daly that Sinn Fein couldn’t control the IRA but that the IRA controls Sinn Fein.

Still rings true today.

blanch152

Bishop of hope wrote: »

My post was valid on the other thread too.

https://m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/michelle-oneill-did-not-endorse-public-health-message-despite-experts-advice-39904031.html

**** talkers SF as is evidenced here.

That article shows up the stupidity and pettiness of Sinn Fein, vetoing a UK-wide message designed to save lives.

When Mary-Lou is talking about pig ignorant she should start with their public representatives. The lads in here can wait, they provide us with entertainment anyway.

RandomViewer

blanch152 wrote: »

That article shows up the stupidity and pettiness of Sinn Fein, vetoing a UK-wide message designed to save lives.

When Mary-Lou is talking about pig ignorant she should start with their public representatives. The lads in here can wait, they provide us with entertainment anyway.

The article is quite limited and was lifted from the Indo which is questionable at the best of times, also if SF had a lone veto in this Tommie Gorman would be foaming at the mouth on RTE what we have here is an article in a unionist paper lifted and edited from the Irish version of the National Enquirer telling the readership what they wanted to hear Sunday World hsd story in the nineties about Elvis taking his death and moving to Castlederg, ,this is on the same level

FrancieBrady

RandomViewer wrote: »

The article is quite limited and was lifted from the Indo which is questionable at the best of times, also if SF had a lone veto in this Tommie Gorman would be foaming at the mouth on RTE what we have here is an article in a unionist paper lifted and edited from the Irish version of the National Enquirer telling the readership what they wanted to hear Sunday World hsd story in the nineties about Elvis taking his death and moving to Castlederg, ,this is on the same level

Classic Sindo sensationalism alright...great headline - perfectly reasonable explanation at end of the article.

PearseCork92

If the IRA still exists, and the intelligence on this is conflicting, then the Army Council are nothing more than aging vets that meet for pints. If blanch can point to open-source intelligence that the PIRA pose any threat to the political process, this thread would be an opportune time to post it. Even if his boogyman pronouncement that members of the IRA 'direct political strategy' is true, who cares? Isn't that the whole point of the peace process? Ballot box and not Armalite? We all know the grandees of various political parties stick around long after their electoral sell-by date to pull strings in all the mainstream parties.

I remember a number of years ago being in a well-known political watering-hole and a crusty old household name former cabinet minister was lecturing a current cabinet minister and a junior minister loudly about how to do things. The backroom boys phenomenon doesn't exist just in West Belfast.

Bonniedog

PearseCork92 wrote: »

If the IRA still exists, and the intelligence on this is conflicting, then the Army Council are nothing more than aging vets that meet for pints. If blanch can point to open-source intelligence that the PIRA pose any threat to the political process, this thread would be an opportune time to post it. Even if his boogyman pronouncement that members of the IRA 'direct political strategy' is true, who cares? Isn't that the whole point of the peace process? Ballot box and not Armalite? We all know the grandees of various political parties stick around long after their electoral sell-by date to pull strings in all the mainstream parties.

I remember a number of years ago being in a well-known political watering-hole and a crusty old household name former cabinet minister was lecturing a current cabinet minister and a junior minister loudly about how to do things. The backroom boys phenomenon doesn't exist just in West Belfast.

The IRA surrendered. It lost. The only ones who believe it still exists are Celtic shirt wearing imbeciles who wouldn't have been let near the IRA when it mattered, and fringe unionists.

The last IRA Army Council transformed itself into an unelected cabal that dominates SF through appointments to the Ard Comhairle. Pretty much as the other traitor IRA did in the Workers Party, excpet it never disbanded nor handed over its weapons

blanch152

PearseCork92 wrote: »

If the IRA still exists, and the intelligence on this is conflicting, then the Army Council are nothing more than aging vets that meet for pints. If blanch can point to open-source intelligence that the PIRA pose any threat to the political process, this thread would be an opportune time to post it. Even if his boogyman pronouncement that members of the IRA 'direct political strategy' is true, who cares? Isn't that the whole point of the peace process? Ballot box and not Armalite? We all know the grandees of various political parties stick around long after their electoral sell-by date to pull strings in all the mainstream parties.

I remember a number of years ago being in a well-known political watering-hole and a crusty old household name former cabinet minister was lecturing a current cabinet minister and a junior minister loudly about how to do things. The backroom boys phenomenon doesn't exist just in West Belfast.

Open-source intelligence?

Are you suggesting that the IRA are so incompetent that every Tom, Dick and Harry will be able to prove the existence of their secret organisation?

Get up the yard, as McMurphy would say.

PearseCork92

blanch152 wrote: »

Open-source intelligence?

Are you suggesting that the IRA are so incompetent that every Tom, Dick and Harry will be able to prove the existence of their secret organisation?

Get up the yard, as McMurphy would say.

Well you said it with such conviction as if you had access to Special Branch memos. I wouldn't like you to run afoul of the State Secrets Act there kiddo.

blanch152

PearseCork92 wrote: »

Well you said it with such conviction as if you had access to Special Branch memos. I wouldn't like you to run afoul of the State Secrets Act there kiddo.

The PSNI are on the public record as to the continued existence of the IRA leadership, with the Garda agreeing wit them.

Can’t get more open-source than that.

PearseCork92

blanch152 wrote: »

The PSNI are on the public record as to the continued existence of the IRA leadership, with the Garda agreeing wit them.

Can’t get more open-source than that.

I said intel indicating that the PIRA are a threat to the political process. You can't because there is none. It's acknowledged they are not a threat. If there are army council members talking shop in a bistro in Belfast and reminiscing about kidnapping Shergar, who gives a hoot?

You're playing boogyman. It's silly.

hatrickpatrick

tikkahunter wrote: »

She was quite happy for them to flood social media with her not my Taoiseach campaign or photos of her and my Taoiseach all over it , shared and liked by SF politicians and councilors not just supporters .

How is any of that abusive? That's merely cheerleading for one's desired political outcome. Absolutely nothing wrong with it.

The comments under all of the post were appalling. Leo took some abuse - Paki , Half breed Bastard and queer being some of the most popular comments. People with this mindset are not going to change and the left parties are rampant with them.

Speaking as a leftist those individuals can go f*ck themselves. Unfortunately there are indeed a lot of those people who support anti establishment movements for entirely nefarious reasons, but it's completely inaccurate and unfair to characterise all SF supporters in this way, as indeed it's completely inaccurate and unfair to characterise all FFG supporters as neoliberal leeches.

Or the people who claim they are liberal until someone disagrees with them and they become rabbid on social media - so much for being liberal.

Being opinionated and strongly supporting your chosen political aisle and being liberal are in no way mutually exclusive. You'll have to be more specific if this is to be a valid argument.

SF have a huge scummy following which is now mixed with the tin foil hat brigade and anti everything or anti anybody who has tried to make anything of their lives.

This is the kind of commentary that pisses me off. Nobody has anything against "anybody who has tried to make anything of their lives". It's those who have done so by exploiting others that we have a problem with. Owning a f*ckload of excess property, hoarding it, and charging exorbitant prices for others to use it does not count as "making something of your life", it counts as being a leech on the economy participating in economic "activity" which should never have been normalised as a means of making a living. If the economic activity through which you make your living does not produce a good or service in exchange for the money you are taking from people, you are exploiting the system.

You may not agree with this, but it's a perfectly legitimate political belief to hold.

The older hardcore members don't even want to be attached to these but will take the hit if it gets votes .They are the imposter party who have no viable solutions to anything just shout and roar of how unfair everything is .

Untrue. Their solution to young peoples' economic woes is to take the same top-down approach that previous Irish governments did for decades.

Are you honestly unaware that socialised housing was mainstream for more than 60 years from the beginning of the 1930s? This "the private market dictates everything" model is the aberration, it's an extremely recent bizarre and f*cked up policy which has been causing trouble since its inception. It has existed for thirty years and has only been widely practised since the late 2000s. Before that, housing the population in affordable homes was considered a duty of government. Ensuring a quality of life for citizens was considered a duty of government. The "let them eat cake" approach was adopted by Fianna Fail in the late 2000s and gleefully accelerated by Fine Gael in the 2010s - it is not a longstanding policy.

It amazes me that so many people point to our current paradigm as the "normal" and "proper" way for human civilisation to operate, as if it's been unchanging and set in stone for millennia. The Irish government build hundreds of thousands of homes during the 20th century and only ceased doing so in the 21st, when both of the main parties were totally overcome by greed.

Sinn Fein are merely proposing to turn the clock back by twenty years, to government policies which were far, far better and which prevailed for the majority of the previous decade. Governments looking out for quality of life and providing public services and infrastructure because it's the right thing to do, and not for profit, is the norm. In terms of the history of this state, that norm versus the recent aberration stands at a 60:30 ratio at the very least, and from my own research it's really more like 80:20.

For anyone to look at that 20 and act as if it's the "standard" is absolutely ridiculous.

Bishop of hope

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

How is any of that abusive? That's merely cheerleading for one's desired political outcome. Absolutely nothing wrong with it.



Speaking as a leftist those individuals can go f*ck themselves. Unfortunately there are indeed a lot of those people who support anti establishment movements for entirely nefarious reasons, but it's completely inaccurate and unfair to characterise all SF supporters in this way, as indeed it's completely inaccurate and unfair to characterise all FFG supporters as neoliberal leeches.



Being opinionated and strongly supporting your chosen political aisle and being liberal are in no way mutually exclusive. You'll have to be more specific if this is to be a valid argument.



This is the kind of commentary that pisses me off. Nobody has anything against "anybody who has tried to make anything of their lives". It's those who have done so by exploiting others that we have a problem with. Owning a f*ckload of excess property, hoarding it, and charging exorbitant prices for others to use it does not count as "making something of your life", it counts as being a leech on the economy participating in economic "activity" which should never have been normalised as a means of making a living. If the economic activity through which you make your living does not produce a good or service in exchange for the money you are taking from people, you are exploiting the system.

You may not agree with this, but it's a perfectly legitimate political belief to hold.



Untrue. Their solution to young peoples' economic woes is to take the same top-down approach that previous Irish governments did for decades.

Are you honestly unaware that socialised housing was mainstream for more than 60 years from the beginning of the 1930s? This "the private market dictates everything" model is the aberration, it's an extremely recent bizarre and f*cked up policy which has been causing trouble since its inception. It has existed for thirty years and has only been widely practised since the late 2000s. Before that, housing the population in affordable homes was considered a duty of government. Ensuring a quality of life for citizens was considered a duty of government. The "let them eat cake" approach was adopted by Fianna Fail in the late 2000s and gleefully accelerated by Fine Gael in the 2010s - it is not a longstanding policy.

It amazes me that so many people point to our current paradigm as the "normal" and "proper" way for human civilisation to operate, as if it's been unchanging and set in stone for millennia. The Irish government build hundreds of thousands of homes during the 20th century and only ceased doing so in the 21st, when both of the main parties were totally overcome by greed.

Sinn Fein are merely proposing to turn the clock back by twenty years, to government policies which were far, far better and which prevailed for the majority of the previous decade. Governments looking out for quality of life and providing public services and infrastructure because it's the right thing to do, and not for profit, is the norm. In terms of the history of this state, that norm versus the recent aberration stands at a 60:30 ratio at the very least, and from my own research it's really more like 80:20.

For anyone to look at that 20 and act as if it's the "standard" is absolutely ridiculous.

Personally I wouldn't be looking to turn clocks backwards or politicians espousing it.
We need to move forward and the provision of housing will never revert to where it was, simply because of the overwhelming cost of providing it and that won't change nó matter who's in govt.
That link has been broken and it will never return.
Theres Dreamers and believers in all creeds, its easy to put out dreams, beliefs are often dreams too, that's the case with most leftists now.
Pretend leftists throw out such rhetoric as easily as spilling out water, SF are such.