the house of orange is pretty in offensive to be shot at. afterall he's just forgiving the wrongs of the past. it is a bit stupid but franly english canadians and folkies of that ilk can be stupid over ethnic issues.

as a backdrop i would recomend that any one read the tripartite commission report on northern ireland, excerpt of which were reprinted in that revolutionary rag "the economist". the commission made up of memebrs of the european high court of justice , the united nations commission on human rights and the european commission on human rights found that there had never been a democratic election in northern ireland, that the british government had directly armed the UDL (which has now changed it's name) and in fact the UDL were off duty british soldiers largely. they were from the ulster only regiments that are unique in the british army in that they are requited locally and serve in a local battle zone.

the commission also found that the british government had used the services of MI5&6 to establish and arm hit squads that killed about 2500 catholic union leaders, daycare organizers and the like, without actually finding very many IRA. the report is damning and was largely conceded by the british governement and the "economist" alterd it's position to pull out(at least that was the editorial.

the level of abuse in northern ireland hadsn't changed, and it's time the english speaking world recognized that. europeand are not naive about the british conduct in the north.

now personally i have found englisg canadian folkies to be quite bigoted against native canadian gaels on occasion--too often for comfort. i remember being told not to sing a song in gaelic i worked on for weeks(i'm not very good at gaelic) becauce as they said"we sing canadian music here". well i guess we capr bretoners aren't quite canadian--well we aren;tand it is traceable to the same imperial bigotry that has led to the long standing abuse in ireland.

i'm old enough to remember how nova scotians were treated in ontario when we came up to look for work in the tobacco fields. the locals would gang up on us twenty to one and spit on us when we came to town, shouting "dirty nova scotians". we weren't all that clean and were looking for a shower and to clean clothes. we had to go every where in groups. when a big group of us fought back and put the boots to the bastards the cops chashed us and left the poor english victums alone. sounding a little too faniliar to other gaels in the north and south of ireland. the law doesn't protect some people--right now it's poor people in toronto.

now i admit most of this bigotry has subsided, but i'm a little jaded when the nice english people all together protest their pureity and innocence. these kind of abusses do not occur unless there is widespread complicity--and the nazi lament--we didn't know doesn't wash.

i'd like to forgive the whole house of orange and the shits who kicked me out of a vancouver folk club, or spit on me in tillsonburg, but it would be a lot easlier if they would stop doing it, and apoligized