BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?

Subject: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Fiolar
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 08:55 AM

Recently seen in a news item. A dinner and dance is to be held to celebrate the escape from the Maze prison, 20 years ago a large number of IRA prisoners, some of which are still at large. The forthcoming clebration is being condemned by Unionist politicians. Does this mean that any one who celebrates for example Allied prisoners escaping from German POW camps during WW2 should also be criticised?

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 09:29 AM

Does this mean that any one who celebrates for example Allied prisoners escaping from German POW camps during WW2 should also be criticised?

I guess the family of any German killed in an an allied escape would be justified in criticising such celebrations, Fiolar. There are two sides to every argument as you well know and such blatant feigned naivety does not become you.

If you want to start a flame war try to be a bit more subtle in future..;-)

Cheers

Dave the Gnome (On no-ones side but the right one!)

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 12:20 PM

Nothing the Irish nationalist community does to celebrate it's victories over the years escapes criticism by Unionist politicians. Par for the course. The Unionist politicians abusing their position to stir up a tempest in a teapot, as usual.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 12:29 PM

Quote: The forthcoming clebration is being condemned by Unionist politicians. Unquote

Presumably these are the Unionist politicians that are still celebrating the Battle of the Boyne (1690)? (Check out the URL, by the way)

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: okthen
Date: 16 Sep 03 - 01:47 PM

Who's throwing the party? If it's Her Majesty's Government I'd suspect a trap.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Hrothgar
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 03:28 AM

Nothing the Irish Unionist community does to celebrate its victories over the years escapes criticism by nationalist politicians. Par for the course. The nationalist politicians will abuse their positions to stir up a tempest in a teapot if opportunity offers, as usual.

Now sue me for plagiarism.

A plague on both your houses! Listen to Stan Rogers' song, "TheHouse of Orange" again!

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 09:49 AM

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 09:55 AM

Why did the orange chicken cross the road?

Because his father, and his father's father, and his father before him, have always exercised their right as British subjects to cross the Queen's highway in accordance with hallowed tradition.


Why did the green chicken cross the road?

To protest against provocative road-crossing by the triumphalist orange chicken which has always denied his right to exist.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Dead Horse
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 02:53 PM

The RFA Maidstone was used as a prison ship during those times, and I often wonder if any inmates managed to tunnel their way out!!!
(OK, so I am a Goons fan)

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 17 Sep 03 - 03:06 PM

" A plague on both your houses! Listen to Stan Rogers' song, "The House of Orange" again!"


Here here Hrothgar!

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 18 Sep 03 - 12:55 PM

Dead Horse, Seven detainees on board the prison ship Maidstone did manage to escape by swimming ashore whilst the uniformed goons "kept watch". Ard Mhacha

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Sep 03 - 01:54 PM

Hrothgar, simple minded attempts to equate the supposed oppression of British Unionists with Irish Republicans and Nationalists, or to equate the supposed oppression of Israelis to the oppression of Palestinians, always conveniently overlooks/leaves out one essential, salient fact: who wields ultimate political and military power over whom.

Sorry, but the "pox on both houses" argument is bullshit. "Both sides" are not "equally to blame" for continuing political violence and bloodshed. Political violence and repression is NEVER that simple.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Sep 03 - 01:57 PM

People tend to slide very neatly from saying "both sides are at fault", which is true in most conflict situations, to implying "both sides are equally at fault", which is not.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 18 Sep 03 - 04:20 PM

I agree entirely. It is entirely the fault of the British, Guest. We should have nuked Ireland years ago and put and end to the problem once and for all.

Cheers

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 19 Sep 03 - 12:47 PM

Dave sounds like you will be going to Turkey, Engerland- Engerland-Engerland. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 19 Sep 03 - 01:02 PM

Hehehe! - I only live 2 miles form Old Trafford, Ard Marcha, and I have never been! Can't understand all the fuss myself. I prefer other games myself. Can't understand why the fish in the barrel haven't gone for the bait this time though;-)

Cheers and glad someone at least can trade absurdities...

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Tam the Bam (Nutter)
Date: 19 Sep 03 - 01:06 PM

No Comment!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 19 Sep 03 - 01:20 PM

Careful Dave, Gnomes should tread softly, remember how we eliminated our Leprechauns. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 19 Sep 03 - 02:44 PM

I thought the Leprechauns were still there AM! I remember seeing Sean Connery in Derby O'Gill and the little people:-)

Do you know what Saint Patrick said when he drove all the snakes out of Ireland though?


"Are you alright in the back there lads..."

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 19 Sep 03 - 03:10 PM

Bus destination, Catterick Army Camp. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: InOBU
Date: 19 Sep 03 - 10:58 PM

I find it histerical that US and British citizens are outraged at the Republican community... Geeze louize... after Mai Lai, Jillianwalla, etc etc etc... you'd think folks would find the ladder down from their high hourse, especially since the wankers in NATO had EVERYTHING to do with the war in Ireland. Plague yer own houses first, guys... while I sit and smile over the image of Bic McFarlain driving the warden's green mercadies down the falls road.
Rave on
Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 20 Sep 03 - 03:02 PM

It was certainly quite a day - the biggest jailbreak in UK history, with 38 prisoners getting out. (The Maidstone had been decommissioned many years earlier, Dead Horse.) Half were recaptured almost immediately, as were most of the remaining 19 over the years. Three were never caught, and according to Northern Ireland police are no longer being actively pursued.

Any unionist hassled for comment by the press would feel obliged to condemn the Letterkenny bash, but most have managed to keep their heads down, leaving the prison officers to pitch in with most of the sound and fury. Ome unionist who couldn't resist sticking his oar in was Jeffrey Donaldson, surely one of the most deeply unpleasant politicians to emerge in a generation. But among the nonsense he spouted there was one sentence I agreed with: the anniversary celebration was, he said, "insensitive, inappropriate and totally unnecessary." It's regrettable, but I suppose inevitable, that nationalists sometimes feel a need to behave like loyalists.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Gareth
Date: 20 Sep 03 - 07:45 PM

Fionn. Stop trolling it wont help you sell any more bits of journalism. And I would prefer it if you did not try and make your living out of other people dying.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Hrothgar
Date: 21 Sep 03 - 05:34 AM

"Both sides" are not "equally to blame" for continuing political violence and bloodshed. Political violence and repression is NEVER that simple.

I agree, but I adopt the position that trying to prove who threw the first stone several hundred years ago, and using violence to support the case, puts both sides very firmly in the wrong. If you want to quibble over who might be more in the wrong, go for your life.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Sep 03 - 12:12 PM

It's surprising there doesn't seem to have been a movie made about it. No doubt that's to come. Of course to get it made, there'd have to be an (Irish) American brought in to organise things, like in Chicken Run...

When films like that get made, we'll know the war is over.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 21 Sep 03 - 02:17 PM

Gareth, Your Government gave free rein to the Loyalists to shoot innocent Catholics, yes, colluded with murderers for years to help them carry out their dirty work.
Please don`t preach to me about murderers, your Welsh butty you keep harping on about would have been safe and well if he would have stayed in his own wee English possesion. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Gareth
Date: 21 Sep 03 - 07:30 PM

Mmmm ! ard mhacha It seems to me that putting "loyalists" and British squadie on trial would confound that, but why spoil a good ledgend.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 22 Sep 03 - 05:13 AM

You can rest assured that collusion was rife from the early 70s.
Your attitude to what went on over here and your die-hard support for Bush and Blair puts you farther to the right than your wonderful leader Blair. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 22 Sep 03 - 05:19 AM

And do loOk in on John Pilger`s programme to-night on ITV AT 10-45, Pilger reveals the lies regarding the mad rush to war in Iraq. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: InOBU
Date: 22 Sep 03 - 08:26 AM

A chara ard mhacha:
I find it somewhat strange that the US drops a cluster bomb on an Iraqui market place and braggs about busting Barbie out of a hospital as if this was the great struggle for humanity that WWII was... and then folks get their nose out of joint over remembering an almost nonviolent break out from the most secure prison on earth.AND... Kev... I always thought the GREAT! movie should be the Joe Doherty break out, which has moments of high comidy, such as when the car would not start in front of Crumlin Road Jail, and Joe took off on foot, wearing a guards uniform... persued by plain clothes cops, through a loyalist neighborhood, and loyalists threw bricks at the cops thinking that they were the RA and that Joe was a real prison guard... But, every so often on mudcat, we have to do a reality check, folks who only know the story through the news or from the point of view of their uniforms must talk together, and we should try and not get sarcastic and angery with each other. After all, in every war the truth is the first and the most common casualty, so both sides need to go through the truth and reconciliation process. Fact is, that the Republican side also has to think about how Britain and the US fooled Republicans into fighting a war against the interest of the Irish people. To those on the ground and at the time, it seemed like the only way to stop torture and bring democracy to a police state under military rule, however, just like the US reacting the way Ben Laudin wishing, and ending American liberty and showing its self as a violent bully, or Ben Laudin acting as the US wanted, giving the US the excuse to end American civil liberties and act like a violent bully, etc. etc. etc. in a never ending cycle of revenge... we need to think of ways to break the script we have been following for generations. I am not pointing an acusitory finger at Republican violence out of context, or saying that both sides were wrong, England and NATO where with out a doupt a colonialist power bringing war to Ireland, but Irish people took the bait. Yes, I have been there, lost friends, and I know that it is easy to say the bait should not have been taken, however, in looking back, in the last line of the great song about Joe MacDonald, what's been won?
Slan, Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Sep 03 - 02:58 PM

All round the houses to get back to where we should have been thirty years ago...

But that's always the story, not just in Ireland.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Gareth
Date: 22 Sep 03 - 07:11 PM

Ard Mukker, I do luv your ability to comment on the contents of a TV program befor it is broadcast.

But as I said previous why let objectivity spoil a good ledgend.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Sep 03 - 07:30 PM

why let objectivity spoil a good legend

But that's a stick that points in both directions. There's a legend about the benevolent Empire as well...

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Sep 03 - 07:32 PM

And that last one was me with a missing cookie.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 07:23 AM

Gareth, hoping you seen the Pilger programme, as the Yanks say, scary, and I did read the preview before I seen the programme,
What a pity this programme cannot be seen in the US, Gareth do tell us all that this was lying propagenda.
Remember Blair approved of the US agression, this well researched Pilger programme exposed US lies and gave an insight into the "crazies" who are running the US at the moment, for the good of the world make sure that next year this fascist regime is voted out of office. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 07:28 AM

Type in ITV [JOHN PILGER] for information on the programme. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 07:30 AM

Sorry Google would help, ITV [JOHN PILGER]. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 10:51 AM

This might doe it - The journalism and films of John Pilger

Interesting to see the film clips of Colin Powell and Condaleeza Rice saying in 2001 and there was no possibility of Iraq posing any kind of threat, because they just didn't have the weaponry.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 01:59 PM

Yes McGrath, watching Powell and Rice emphasising that there was no way that Saddam had WMDs makes Bush and his cohorts outright liars.
As I said previously this was a frightening programme,I do hope the US electorate do the right thing for the world at large and get these "crazies" out. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 06:28 PM

One gleam of hope - they're all saying in the media how Bush is bound to win, because of all the money he can raise and spend, and all the press and the TV backing him over there.

But in Sweden they just had that referendum, and all the money and all the media, and all the main political parties loaded one way, and they still lost (even with a sympathy vote from that tragic murder of the lady in charge of the "Yes" campaign).

People can resist that brainwashing sometimes.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: Gareth
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 06:41 PM

Ard Mukker - It s not my practice to comment on programs I have not seen. Funny as it may seem to those whose minds are pre closed.

For your infpormation the last time I sitched the "idiots lantern" on was for 30 minutes last week - to watch the Simpsons.

Never mind I am sure that yet another ledged will grow.

BTW given your hatred of anything British could you confirm that you do not use the "British" National Health Service.

Pay UK income tax.

or expect to draw a UK pension ???

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 23 Sep 03 - 07:17 PM

"Both Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, and Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's closest adviser, made clear before September 11 2001 that Saddam Hussein was no threat - to America, Europe or the Middle East.

In Cairo, on February 24 2001, Powell said: "He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours."

This is the very opposite of what Bush and Blair said in public.
Powell even boasted that it was the US policy of "containment" that had effectively disarmed the Iraqi dictator - again the very opposite of what Blair said time and again. On May 15 2001, Powell went further and said that Saddam Hussein had not been able to "build his military back up or to develop weapons of mass destruction" for "the last 10 years". America, he said, had been successful in keeping him "in a box".

Two months later, Condoleezza Rice also described a weak, divided and militarily defenceless Iraq. "Saddam does not control the northern part of the country," she said. "We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."
http://pilger.carlton.com/print

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: InOBU
Date: 24 Sep 03 - 08:11 AM

My dear Gareth:
When addressing comments to fellows here, it would be appreciated not to make fun of folk's names. Hating things British is also not the issue here. I agree with much Ard Mhacha has said, and I am in no way anti British any more than I am anti American in my opposition to the unchecked militarism of the USA. I am quick to point out, that though I am anglo Irish, when I lived in west Kerry, I was not in west Britain, as I did in a recent post, that is not anti British, just accurate. The fact is I spend quite a lot of time in Wiltshire and England Scottland Wales and Ireland share a tremendous amount in our folk traditions. The fact is, that I spent time in the Northern counties during the worst of the fighting in the seventies. Mutual respect when we speak with each other is the only way to move forward together and peace begins with respect.
If you want to show Britain at its best, I'd begin with an appology to your friend here, and then continue the disscussion on the points raised. If you want to begin a thread, are you anti British? that is up to you.
Is mise, le meas
Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: GUEST,Wolfgang
Date: 24 Sep 03 - 09:23 AM

heric,

did you post to the wrong thread?

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 24 Sep 03 - 09:58 AM

It is not the first time this has happened on a Thread Wolfgang,just the usual wee bit of crossed-wires.
And as for poor oul Gareth he is an intellectual non TV watching genius,looking down his nose at us poor dim-wits, that job is still available Gareth you would fit in ideally in that Spin-Doctors post.
Larry find yourself privileged to be insulted by such an intelligent being, and he dosen`t watch TV, some spinner. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 24 Sep 03 - 12:04 PM

Yes, I did post to the wrong thread except that it was the full quotation from the comments that MGOH was referencing above, having seen the speakers on the John Pilger television program.

I was about to ask ard how he knew we wouldn't see it in the U.S., but then didn't bother.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 24 Sep 03 - 12:10 PM

That is I didn't bother becauase I realized he meant that particular (September 22) showing was not in the U.S. Sorry, back to Ireland.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Sep 03 - 12:15 PM

You might see some of it - unless I'm mistaken one of the people John Pilger interviewed was Wesley Clark, who was critical of the resort to war on Iraq, so I can imagine selected bits from the programme might surface, as a way of trying to make him seem unpatriotic.

Yeas, this thread is drifting around, as conversations about such matters do tend to sometimes.

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 25 Sep 03 - 07:28 PM

still posting to the wrong thread I offer you this on that:

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/268/wash/Bush_says_9_11_changed_his_ass:.shtml

Subject: RE: BS: Maze escape celebration - comment?
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 25 Sep 03 - 07:29 PM

funny file name from the Boston Globe