“I think this was a paramilitary-type operation carried out with paramilitary precision.”
The ongoing attacks in Ballymurphy, previously noted on Slugger, today saw a hijacked JCB digger being driven by masked men into an uninhabited house owned by Edith Notorantonio, a family whose properties have been repeatedly attacked. The attacks escalated following the murder of Gerard Devlin at the start of last year, a murder in which two members of the Notorantonio family were charged in Feb 2006, and has rumbled on in the background ever since. The house has now been declared unsafe and will be demolished, although the family have stated that they are determined to rebuild it. The Belfast Telegraph report is worth noting,
Gerard Devlin’s aunt Bernadette O’Rawe said: “The Devlin family had absolutely nothing to do with this. This has been carried out by someone who has a personal grudge against the Notorantonio’s.“I think this was a paramilitary-type operation carried out with paramilitary precision. There is no way the children could have done this. It is very frightening that our family is being implicated in this.”
I am sorry that Pat has chosen to stop contributing, I’ve always found his point of view invaluable, and of course informed, even though I may not agree with it. But it is the right decision to allow the post made by “History lesson” to stand. I think Pat is using a technique used by many political mavericks, including Stalin in the early 1940s. Come under pressure, and bow out; then everyone queues up to clap you back in again. It’s not the first time Pat has used this tactic.
The other contributions on this thread here amount to, once again, republican whining. Republicans come under criticism, and for this reason the entire site is regarded as a huge witch hunt operation. You lads can’t take your slagging like men.
“You lads can’t take your slagging like men.”
You are probably the only Republican critic that can deliver that line with any credibility.
Barring Pat every Republican is still here. The dissident trolls and most of the stoop wind-up merchants are still AWOL or operating under post-electoral red face nom-de-plumes.
The muck slinging continues. The success is still unquestionable.
I say – slap it up ye, the bitterness only shows how beat you are. Bring it on, the ministries and seats counter any bullshit better than words.
SuperSoupy must be a very bitter and angry individual. If the blinkered and hypocritical views expressed by SS can be taken as a reflection of a wider SF opinion, it would appear (and worryingly so) that true Irish unity is a long way of. Clearly criticism of SF only comes from “dissident trolls and most of the stoop wind-up merchants”. I do not for a minute doubt the sincerity of such views but we have to realise that some people are happy to follow SF, blindly, happy to be told what to think, say and do and happy to surrender any individuality.
Like many people, this “dissident troll / stoop wind-up merchant, etc etc†(and I must be ‘cos SuperSoupy says I am) is firmly of the opinion that when SF speaks, it does so with a forked tongue. It says one thing to the media which can often translate into something very different on the ground. Gerry has endorsed the PSNI but that has not cascaded to the grass-roots yet….
Soupy, all I know is that many unionists consistently accuse Slugger of being pro-nationalist, and many republicans continuously complain about unionist/anti-SF bias. That means Mick’s doing something right.
There appears to be a tendancy in some quarters of republican thinking that has a hard time with free speech. I’m thinking specifically of that time when Gerry Adams told Mark Devenport not to ask stupid questions when he posed an entirely reasonable, albeit sensitive, question on the issue of the IRA army council. Pat seems to think that people should be stopped from posting speculation, disregarding the fact that hard facts about community issues, especially when they revolve around secret paramilitary organizations, are not easy to come by in the first place. Secondly, the complaints about speculative contributions only ever come from republicans when Sinn Fein is the target. Republicans are more than happy to continuously post all kinds of speculative innuendo about the RUC, PSNI, collusion, MI5 etc etc.
Regarding the sock puppets, I don’t think they contribute anything at all. I’d like to see IP addresses being logged alongside people’s posts to put a stop to that. If push comes to shove and people want to be anonymous, they can find a cybercafe or something.
It’s still a shame that Pat is not about. There are two types of republican contributors; the minority (comprising cg, Chris D, Pat and one or two others) who appear to argue their point rigorously and who provide real insight; and the Sinn Fein cheerleaders who are just repeating the party mantra and getting the boot stuck into the Brits/unionists/police/Alliance Party etc. I’m certain that a considerable chunk of the republican contributions here are coming from outside of these islands.
This is a SF dominated area but the fact is that they do not carry the same clout “on the ground” as they once did… Going to the police is still not an option out of fear of reprisals and so a jungle war ha a free for all exists. May be SF could do more but do they really want to?
Regarding the Republicans who post on here, they seem unable to dampen their anger and bitterness towards pretty much anybody else. Regardless of political differences, they nearly all persist in posting vitriolic, angry snipes at just about anybody who opposes the SF line. May be they are sent here to do just that? Either way, it stiffles any real debate.
3.00am eh SuperSoupy? The nerves can get frayed and the mind addled at that ungodly hour.
Still, amidst all the petulant trashing of anyone who dares utter the slightest criticism of the infallible machine of unsullied political piety that is PSF/PIRA, you do remind us of what the wee “war” was all about
As you so triumphantly affirm, it was all about the precious “ministries and seats”. Yes “ministries and seats”.
All those innocent people killed and maimed -all those lives wasted, including the volunteeers who thought it was a struggle for national liberation; all the resources trashed that could have been invested in health, education and jobs; all the polarisation of the working class, ghettoised in the north to the nth degree; all the predictable alienation of Protestants from things Irish; the deep well of hurt and pain. What was it all for, again?
Why of course, “ministries and seats” in a partitionist six-counties Stormont assembly fronted by the defiant statue of Edward Carson and nary the flutter of a tricolour about the place.
In short,a return to the future that was Sunningdale – only this time with the political knuckle-draggers who opposed it first time round, at the helm of the ship of fools.
And, if there is any “slapping up ye ” to be done, you would think that Republican-ultras,who dedicate themselves to bullying online propaganda, might just for once take a reddener and show a bit of humility in the face of decades of monstrous folly.
I strongly support Mick’s stance on playing the man, but this thread is becoming a great winge fest and it just makes it boring for everyone.
The SF supporters feel hard done by? Fair enough but then anyone who says anything against that party here is likely to be howled down or at least abused, even if it was a balanced comment. The problem is that many of the less bright ones (and there are some real exceptions on Slugger) havent yet discovered that real politics is as much about listening as spouting propaganda. ‘Debates’ can then rapidly degenerate to ‘my da’s bigger than your da’ stuff.
But, to an extent, that’s politics and if u dont like it, well there are other ways to spend your time and many of us who do come here hope you will use them!
PS why am I a troll? because i dont want my email inbox cluttered up with abuse
“But, to an extent, that’s politics and if u dont like it, well there are other ways to spend your time and many of us who do come here hope you will use them!”
Why would you come here?
Mutual backslapping?
I agree entirely with Comrade Stalin’s point of view and I would like to encourage Mick to maintain the high standards of fairness and consistency that he shows.
The idea that this site is a cold house for republicans is frankly laughable. We often hear the same complaint by unionists when they feel as if they are being ganged up on.
I find it interesting that nobody has seriously challenged the assumptions behind History Lesson’s analysis….