BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Epona
Date: 24 Jul 06 - 04:39 PM

Eh...201! :)

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Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jul 06 - 09:16 PM

Greetings Keith. To give you a better understanding of the people of Ulster you must look into it's history. What lies behind this new loyalist campaign, and what does it tell you Keith about how unionism is evolving in the current situation? In the first place, the symbolism of Ulster should not be missed. You are aware of the UVF's importation of German arms in 1914? One of those doing the heaving was South Belfast man called Patsy Cooper. Orange Order Grand Master Jocky Keenan was speaking at the press conference next day, was asked what he thought of Tommy Jordans participation? Bro Keenan replied that he wasn't aware of any paramilitary involvement. It must be assumed that Jocky didn't read the Whig, which the British was trying to ban from sale in Belfast at that time because of unflattering stories about the governments leadership. But still, even without the benefit of John Spellman's scandal sheet, the world and its dog know that Patsy Cooper was a leading member of the UVF. We shall return to Mr Cooper in due course Keith. Other figures in your charts Keith are not quite clear about paramilitary involvement in murders in Ireland. John McVicar of the Daily Mirror said: "The reality is that loyalist paramilitaries are part of the Protestant community. They along with a lot of other people were part of the conflict we have been involved in and they need to be part of the resolution. We have come out of 35 years of violence, things aren't going to change overnight and we need to influence everyone in our community positively and that includes loyalist paramilitaries." One of the principal spokesmen for the campaign is Willie Frazer of the group FAIR, which claims to speak for "real victims" – that is, Protestant victims of republican violence. Frazer stated that loyalist paramilitaries would be welcome at the October rally, providing they attended in a personal capacity. Under questioning, Frazer argued that the rally was all about Protestant victimhood and loyalists hadn't been killing Protestants, so that was all right then. Maybe Frazer's brass neck is inhibiting his peripheral vision – not only does he refuse to call on loyalists to end attacks on Catholics, or ethnic minorities for that matter, but he doesn't seem to have noticed that the UVF has killed four Protestants in recent months. Love Ulster, hate taigs What is the programme of Love Ulster? The special edition of the Shankill Mirror holds the key to this. One of the more eyecatching elements of the campaign has been a poster that abuses the memory of Pastor Martin Niemöller, imprisoned by the Nazis, a famous poem attributed to whom says, "First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a communist; Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a socialist; Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist; Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew; Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak out for me." The Shankill Mirror transmutes this to "In the 1970s they came for the B Specials – I did nothing; in the 1980s they came for the UDR – I did nothing; in the 1990s they came for the RUC – I did nothing; 2005, and they've come for the RIR – what can I do? Just say, 'Enough is enough!'" The rest of the paper is a brilliant exhibit of whinging and paranoia. "They" get everything. The job market is rigged against us by equality legislation – in particular, Protestant small businesses aren't free to employ only Protestants. We've lost the police. We can't march through areas where we aren't wanted any more. Any reforms – even the mildest ones – are concessions to terrorism. To the extent that Catholics even appear in Love Ulster literature, it is invariably as crazed gunmen whose sole ambition is to commit genocide against Protestants who never did them any wrong – or if they did, they deserved it. What is the programme? The programme is a return to the old Stormont, except they would do it right this time. No concessions. No restrictions on discrimination. It is no coincidence that Willie Frazer is a former election candidate for the Ulster Independence Movement, a small cult that specialises in spinning fantasies about the wee Orange utopia loyalists could have if they were free of British interference. The implicit demand for a return to an all-Protestant police force shows an acute understanding of the nature of the Northern statelet. The RUC played a double role, not just in repressing the Catholic minority, but in providing social employment for unskilled Protestants. This is why the 50/50 recruitment policy recommended in the Patten report and adopted in a watered-down form by the British – the age cohort for police recruitment is 50/50, after all – has been a persistent target of unionist wrath. In fact, there is a popular urban myth doing the rounds in middle-class unionist areas to the effect that a friend of a friend's son passed the police exam with flying colours, but didn't get a job because he was Protestant. The story usually ends with a senior officer taking the kid aside and saying that he would love to have him in the force, but this quota... The triple alliance The launch of Love Ulster has met with a cautious response from the two main unionist parties. However, there is little doubt that if the campaign picked up significant support they would jump on the bandwagon – some low-level DUP people are already involved. After all, the content of Love Ulster, from the whinging over minimal police reforms to the lying about levels of deprivation, derives directly from unionism's arsenal of grievances. And the 10-day loyalist riot in September merely underlined the close connections binding the unionist parties, the Orange Order and the paramilitaries – from the provocation of the Springfield Road march by the Orange, to the heavy involvement of the paramilitaries in the rioting, to the cover provided by respectable politicians in both the DUP and UUP. The triple alliance of the parties, the Orange and the paramilitaries has come to the fore on innumerable occasions in recent years. But, while the presence of bands with paramilitary links on Orange marches is plain to see, the constant apologetics for armed loyalism by respectable politicians, displaying their symbiotic relationship, is too often ignored. The Holy Cross affair in 1998 was a clear instance. The roots of Holy Cross lay in the expulsion of UDA members from the Lower Shankill by the UVF in a paramilitary feud. These UDA men then settled in the Glenbryn estate and sought to flex their muscles, their chosen vehicle being the mass intimidation of Catholic children walking to school. This action was defended – or, what amounts to the same thing, explained away – by politicians of both UUP and DUP. Chris McGimpsey, a supposed UUP "liberal", was prominent among those saying that the small Catholic schoolgirls walking to their school were provocative; the same Chris McGimpsey sees nothing provocative in Orangemen, accompanied by paramilitary flute bands, marching through Catholic areas. There have been other examples. The racist pogrom against the Chinese community in South Belfast in 2003-04 appears to have started as a dispute between the Donegall Road UVF and the local Chinese business community, who had put up some resistance to extortion demands. The UDA, not to be outdone, got stuck in as well, not just on the level of violence but with the production of the notorious "Yellow Invasion" leaflet circulated in Donegall Pass. There have been few charges and virtually no convictions resulting from the pogrom, with hardly anybody willing to blame the perpetrators and even anti-racist campaigners spinning the fantasy that English Nazis were responsible for racist attacks in loyalist-controlled areas. Again, the political wing of the triple alliance played its role. DUP councillor Ruth Patterson opined that residents of Donegall Pass felt the Protestant character of their area was under threat. How that was possible when the local Chinese population had gone from over forty families to under ten due to loyalist intimidation, she did not say. Meanwhile, liberal unionist poster boy Steven King argued that to blame loyalists was to smear the entire Protestant community, and speculated about whether the Chinese were entirely innocent. The racist pogrom was followed in short order by mass intimidation aimed at the Whitehall Square flats complex at the top of the UDA stronghold of Sandy Row. This culminated in several hundred people, including bands, marching on the flats in a clear UDA show of strength. The young population of the complex may include some Catholics – nobody knows its sectarian makeup, which infuriates the loyalists even more. The UDA's action was publicly defended by UUP liberal Michael McGimpsey, who claimed the paramilitary demonstration was a spontaneous expression of concern by Sandy Row residents. Furthermore, McGimpsey claimed that anyone who attributed a sectarian motivation to the intimidators was an anti-Protestant bigot. He sought to back up his position by recycling various urban myths – some wee woman told him a young lad on a flats balcony had shouted at her; somebody else claimed to have seen someone in a Celtic jersey on a balcony. This, on Planet McGimpsey, was proof positive of sustained republican provocation which had sparked off an understandable and moderate reaction by respectable Protestants. Sandy Row and the anti-Chinese pogrom are worth mentioning as they took place in the South Belfast fiefdom of Jackie McDonald, who is currently being built up as the acceptable face of the UDA. McDonald is said to be on first-name terms with Free State president Mary McAleese and regularly plays golf with her husband. More importantly, he is being heavily courted by both London and Dublin governments, to the extent that he could be described as British imperialism and Irish capital's favourite paramilitary. But as we have seen, touting of McDonald as a loyalist Mr Clean is some considerable way wide of the mark. It seems more likely that he is being built up because of his political usefulness than any intrinsic merits he might have. British policy and loyalism There have been a number of strands to British policy, and they have not always sat together harmoniously. For the last ten years, for instance, the Northern Ireland Office has been attempting to encourage the growth of a loyalist equivalent to Sinn Fein. This scheme has been almost a complete failure – the loyalist groups have never managed to create a political wing that even their own members would take seriously, let alone that significant numbers of people would support. In the early 1970s, during a time of massive sectarian polarisation, UDA-sponsored candidates in hardline areas like Sandy Row would routinely poll fewer votes than the UDA had members in the area. Even in the mid-1990s, huge amounts of sympathetic press coverage could not create a mass electoral base for the death squads. The few paramilitary-linked figures who were elected to local councils or Stormont were invariably people with a record of activism around bread-and-butter issues in deprived areas – candidates who were seen as simply paramilitary frontmen received derisory votes. But in recent years even this limited base has largely evaporated. The UDA has bowed to the inevitable and dissolved its front party, the UDP. The UVF-linked PUP has lost much of its support, and is rapidly succumbing to the Paisleyite tide. It was instructive that in the recent local elections, the DUP polled over two thirds of the vote on the Shankill Road while the PUP's Hughie Smyth, who once had the highest personal vote of any councillor in the North, could only scrape back to City Hall on DUP transfers. The mathematics only confirm the underlying political trend, that the programme of Paisley is now the programme of unionism as a whole. The PUP's fake "socialism" – so much ballyhooed by the more gormless elements of the far left – was always trumped in any case by its commitment to remaining part of the "unionist family", and, having provided the muscle for Trimble and got precious little in return, it is now somewhat grumpily adapting to the new Paisleyite dispensation. This is not to say that the loyalist paramilitary groups themselves, as distinct from their satellite parties, have not prospered under the Good Friday process. Both of the main groups, but particularly the UDA, have been in receipt of vast sums of British government money in the guise of community development. Meanwhile, the UDA and UVF have recruited massively, using the flute band culture to bring in an entire layer of youth (paramilitary-linked bands also forming a crucial part of the alliance with the Orange Order). They have extended their empires into small towns and villages with no history of paramilitary activity – most notably the UVF in North Antrim towns like Dervock, Bushmills and Ahoghill, which forms the immediate background to the recent sectarian pogrom in the area. People in these North Antrim towns might like to look at the heroin epidemic in nearby Ballymena as a harbinger of what the UVF's expansion is going to bring them. But while the British have aided the expansion of these organisations, this expansion also poses problems for them. The essential features of armed loyalism – bigotry, criminality and indiscriminate violence – have by no means abated over the past decade. As a result, the security apparatus has been preoccupied with managing loyalism. This has intersected with the need to either protect their assets within loyalism – or liquidate them if they go rogue. A definite pointer to British policy is the list of figures targeted by the Assets Recovery Agency. While the UDA's North Belfast boss Andre Shoukri flaunts his wealth despite never having worked a day in his life, the ARA's targets are marginal figures, dead men and people connected to the LVF. This last group is too small to be useful to the British, but significant and active enough to be an embarrassment, which would explain why the British are apparently happy enough to let the UVF wipe it out. The support being extended to the UDA may well flow from a "balance of terror" theory, according to which the UVF should be prevented from becoming the hegemonic loyalist group. It is worth pointing out that, in defiance of its own monitoring commission, the British government continues to recognise the UDA's non-existent ceasefire. Fall of the godfathers These military considerations, taken along with the fact that the loyalist groups are riddled with informers, help to shed some light on the sudden falls from grace of prominent figures in the murky world of paramilitarism. The late Billy Wright is a case in point. The charismatic Wright – mass murderer, drug dealer, born-again Christian, Orangeman and almost certainly a British agent – was responsible for the indiscriminate slaughter of dozens of Catholics in the Portadown area for many years. For most of this time he and his Mid-Ulster UVF appeared untouchable. Then, following the Good Friday Agreement, Wright denounced the peace process and split from the Shankill-based leadership of the UVF – who he described, incredibly, as "communists" – to form the small but vicious LVF. Wright expressed his support for the analysis of the DUP, who reciprocated by defending him against threats from the UVF. Following this, Wright was convicted of intimidation – which calls to mind Al Capone's imprisonment on tax evasion charges – and then assassinated in prison under dubious circumstances. Then there was Johnny Adair, UDA boss of the Shankill. Adair, like his friend Wright, was untouchable. Then in 1995 he was convicted of "directing terrorism", an offence specifically designed to put him behind bars. Quickly, however, he became useful to the British in their efforts to keep the UDA on side – he was visited in prison by secretary of state Mo Mowlam and freed in 1999. Eventually, however, he got to be too much of a loose cannon for the British. Coincidentally, he had also made many enemies by his megalomaniac attempt to make himself supreme leader of the UDA, expanding his empire by putting the Shoukri brothers in charge of North Belfast and cutting into other bosses' fiefdoms. This ended with the assassination of the UDA's East Antrim leader John Gregg. In 2003 the British returned him to prison, whereupon the UDA majority – now including the Shoukris, who were smart enough to see which way the wind was blowing – moved into the Shankill, kicked out Adair's family and closest associates, and took over his empire. Adair is now free again, but exiled in England. Most recently we have seen the UDA's murder of Jim Gray, formerly the organisation's leader in East Belfast for 14 years. The media coverage, in true Sunday World fashion, has concentrated on the flamboyant Gray's love of chunky gold jewellery and pastel knitwear. But there is much more to it than that. Gray, who was never convicted of any offence despite his very public role in the UDA, became a key figure in the Good Friday process. He made several trips to Stormont to meet successive British proconsuls, and fronted up a UDA PR exercise called the John Gregg Initiative. Then, in March 2005, he suddenly fell from grace and lost his position in the UDA. This was immediately followed by two noteworthy statements – one from Jackie McDonald stating that the UDA wouldn't tolerate criminality in the ranks, and another from the Assets Recovery Agency that they were investigating Gray. The ARA investigation was generally taken as a reason for his fall, but the other way around is a more likely sequence. Now Gray is dead, gunned down outside his home while apparently under 24-hour police surveillance. Why British strategy won't work Britain's immediate plans regarding the UDA are clear. Proconsul Hain, while announcing drastic cuts in the public sector in the North, has made it clear that big sums – £200 million has been mentioned – will be available to help loyalism "take the political road". The money is being dressed up as going to regenerate poverty-stricken loyalist areas, but it doesn't take a genius to read between the lines. The Provos have surrendered. The UDA will now be aided to legitimise its business interests, provided it can stop the more blatant criminality – such as its heavy dependence on drug dealing, pimping and protection rackets – while ridding itself of some of its more outré characters. Then if the UVF can be persuaded to follow suit, the North will be pacified. There will be lavish rewards for those who play ball. That's the plan. It won't work, for two reasons. First, it depends on the assumption that the UDA will clean itself up and stay on the straight and narrow. This is rather unlikely. Paradoxically, the Provos have been easier to buy off because they were less corrupt. Although they always had an element of corruption, this was relatively minor and subordinated to their political goals – the racket served the movement and not vice versa. So once the Provos had surrendered politically, the legitimisation of their assets and winding down of paramilitary structures – what is currently going on – was relatively straightforward. By contrast, criminality is so much part of the essence of the loyalist groups that the chances of them going straight are minimal. The more important point is linked to Britain's overall strategy. What do the British want? They want the North stabilised, but they don't want just any stability. They want to keep partition as well – this is also the programme of Dublin, hence the defeat of the Provos, who had no defence against Southern capital. They need to incorporate the Catholic middle class as a bulwark against a resurgence of anti-imperialist politics. But the nature of the Northern statelet means that any stabilisation must rest on unionism, as Britain's popular base in the North. This gives us the outline of British strategy since Sunningdale in 1973. The SDLP – both the party of the Catholic middle class and an instrument of the Dublin government – was always reliably on side, as was the NIO's front organisation, the small Alliance Party. The need was for a moderate unionism to cut a deal with the Catholic middle class. The trouble with that scenario is that unionism is not so much a political movement as a conspiracy to defend sectarian privilege. You can't have a moderate unionism for the same reason you can't have a liberal Pope. In the world of unionism the biggest bigot always wins. So we have had a succession of unlikely figures, from Brian Faulkner to David Trimble, painted up as great moderates only to be overthrown from the right. The impasse of unionism Now we have a situation where the DUP forms the leadership of unionism. This puts paid to the search for moderates who could "consolidate the centre". Instead, we have somewhat desperate talk about a "pragmatic" wing of the DUP – people like Peter Robinson and Nigel Dodds – who, unlike the arch-bigot Paisley, might be willing to do business with Catholics. This is a wild misreading of the situation. In the first place, Peter Robinson already had a chance to modernise when he, along with the late Harold McCusker MP and UUP officer Wee Frankie Millar (son of legendary Belfast councillor Big Frankie) produced the Task Force report in 1987. This document was suppressed by party leaders Jim Molyneaux and Ian Paisley, on the reasonable grounds that modernising unionism was a dead end. What we have we hold. Shortly afterwards, McCusker died, Millar left politics for journalism, and Robinson has never said another word about it. This is the point about accommodating Catholics. Catholics always had a place under the old Stormont, only a subordinate one. As Lord Kilclooney has said, Catholics could have rights but not equal rights. There can't be – as Love Ulster is demanding – a return to unalloyed supremacism because some crucial things have changed since 1967. Most crucially, the Catholic population is much more assertive and much larger. Unionism can't impose its will on a 45% minority as it could on a 30% minority. The more intelligent Paisleyites – Robinson and Dodds among them – recognise this, but don't have a solution. Britain's approach at the moment has been to hand the DUP various goodies that don't matter much in the scheme of things. Big Ian has been made a privy councillor and the DUP is getting seats in Blair's appointed House of Lords. The DUP is also getting extra seats on the Policing Board, an oversight body with few teeth but many opportunities for grandstanding. But this doesn't go anywhere towards the DUP programme. As DUP MP Gregory Campbell pointed out in an important statement, the DUP welcomed these goodies but wanted movement on crucial issues like parades, jobs and policing. Campbell's position could be translated as follows. Exempting Orange halls from rates is all very well, but we want the Parades Commission scrapped and the right to march through Catholic areas guaranteed. We want the Fair Employment Act scrapped and measures put in place to restore Protestant privilege in the job market. And extra seats on the Policing Board are fine, but what we really want is an end to 50/50 recruitment and a return to an all-Protestant police force. The impasse is clear. The DUP can't impose their programme on the British, and the British can't implement the DUP programme without endangering the stability they desperately want. But British policy depends on keeping their loyalist base loyal, which is why the post-Good Friday process keeps being shifted to the right. It is quite obvious that there can be no solution within this process. The defeat of reactionary unionism is the precondition for any kind of political progress that benefits working people. Keith you have cliamed here you will make a stand against republicianism and I like many other are grateful. GOD SAVE ULSTER AND OUR QUEEN.

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 03:43 AM

Perhaps my posts are too short.
I do argue against violent Republicanism, and I would argue against violent Loyalism too if anyone here proposed it.
But they don't.

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 03:57 AM

Tir
I pasted your url into my address box and it did not work.
I am no expert in IT.
I am not prepared to make further effort and doubt anyone else will.
You show contempt for forum users by leaving it like that.

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 03:58 AM

Paragraphs, Guest, paragraphs.

I am just a thick nome - can't read whole tracts without it being broken up. I think one or two others may be the same:-)

Tír Chonaill. I don't think Keith was complaining about the lack of a dynamic link. I think he is as computer literate as the next man. What he said was it is not a link - it is a file. Which it is. If you would care to look rather than just have a go at him whatever he does you will notice it ends '.zip' rather than '.htm' or '.html'.

I don't think I would download and open a file from someone I don't know and is obviously at odds with my postings either.

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 04:07 AM

Please Guest I too favour paragraphs.

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Divis Sweeney
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 04:27 AM

The price of fame can be high Keith. You seem to attract the wrong sort of fan ! I never read such a load of long winded crap in my life Guest.

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 05:17 AM

Greetings Keith. To give you a better understanding of the people of Ulster you must look into it's history.

What lies behind this new loyalist campaign, and what does it tell you Keith about how unionism is evolving in the current situation? In the first place, the symbolism of Ulster should not be missed. You are aware of the UVF's importation of German arms in 1914? One of those doing the heaving was South Belfast man called Patsy Cooper. Orange Order Grand Master Jocky Keenan was speaking at the press conference next day, was asked what he thought of Tommy Jordans participation? Bro Keenan replied that he wasn't aware of any paramilitary involvement. It must be assumed that Jocky didn't read the Whig, which the British was trying to ban from sale in Belfast at that time because of unflattering stories about the governments leadership. But still, even without the benefit of John Spellman's scandal sheet, the world and its dog know that Patsy Cooper was a leading member of the UVF. We shall return to Mr Cooper in due course Keith.


Other figures in your charts Keith are not quite clear about paramilitary involvement in murders in Ireland. John McVicar of the Daily Mirror said: "The reality is that loyalist paramilitaries are part of the Protestant community. They along with a lot of other people were part of the conflict we have been involved in and they need to be part of the resolution. We have come out of 35 years of violence, things aren't going to change overnight and we need to influence everyone in our community positively and that includes loyalist paramilitaries." One of the principal spokesmen for the campaign is Willie Frazer of the group FAIR, which claims to speak for "real victims" – that is, Protestant victims of republican violence. Frazer stated that loyalist paramilitaries would be welcome at the October rally, providing they attended in a personal capacity. Under questioning, Frazer argued that the rally was all about Protestant victimhood and loyalists hadn't been killing Protestants, so that was all right then. Maybe Frazer's brass neck is inhibiting his peripheral vision – not only does he refuse to call on loyalists to end attacks on Catholics, or ethnic minorities for that matter, but he doesn't seem to have noticed that the UVF has killed four Protestants in recent months.



Love Ulster, hate taigs What is the programme of Love Ulster? The special edition of the Shankill Mirror holds the key to this. One of the more eyecatching elements of the campaign has been a poster that abuses the memory of Pastor Martin Niemöller, imprisoned by the Nazis, a famous poem attributed to whom says, "First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a communist; Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a socialist; Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist; Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew; Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak out for me." The Shankill Mirror transmutes this to "In the 1970s they came for the B Specials – I did nothing; in the 1980s they came for the UDR – I did nothing; in the 1990s they came for the RUC – I did nothing; 2005, and they've come for the RIR – what can I do? Just say, 'Enough is enough!'" The rest of the paper is a brilliant exhibit of whinging and paranoia. "They" get everything. The job market is rigged against us by equality legislation – in particular, Protestant small businesses aren't free to employ only Protestants.



We've lost the police. We can't march through areas where we aren't wanted any more. Any reforms – even the mildest ones – are concessions to terrorism. To the extent that Catholics even appear in Love Ulster literature, it is invariably as crazed gunmen whose sole ambition is to commit genocide against Protestants who never did them any wrong – or if they did, they deserved it. What is the programme? The programme is a return to the old Stormont, except they would do it right this time. No concessions. No restrictions on discrimination. It is no coincidence that Willie Frazer is a former election candidate for the Ulster Independence Movement, a small cult that specialises in spinning fantasies about the wee Orange utopia loyalists could have if they were free of British interference. The implicit demand for a return to an all-Protestant police force shows an acute understanding of the nature of the Northern statelet.


The RUC played a double role, not just in repressing the Catholic minority, but in providing social employment for unskilled Protestants. This is why the 50/50 recruitment policy recommended in the Patten report and adopted in a watered-down form by the British – the age cohort for police recruitment is 50/50, after all – has been a persistent target of unionist wrath. In fact, there is a popular urban myth doing the rounds in middle-class unionist areas to the effect that a friend of a friend's son passed the police exam with flying colours, but didn't get a job because he was Protestant. The story usually ends with a senior officer taking the kid aside and saying that he would love to have him in the force, but this quota... The triple alliance The launch of Love Ulster has met with a cautious response from the two main unionist parties. However, there is little doubt that if the campaign picked up significant support they would jump on the bandwagon – some low-level DUP people are already involved. After all, the content of Love Ulster, from the whinging over minimal police reforms to the lying about levels of deprivation, derives directly from unionism's arsenal of grievances. And the 10-day loyalist riot in September merely underlined the close connections binding the unionist parties, the Orange Order and the paramilitaries – from the provocation of the Springfield Road march by the Orange, to the heavy involvement of the paramilitaries in the rioting, to the cover provided by respectable politicians in both the DUP and UUP.



The triple alliance of the parties, the Orange and the paramilitaries has come to the fore on innumerable occasions in recent years. But, while the presence of bands with paramilitary links on Orange marches is plain to see, the constant apologetics for armed loyalism by respectable politicians, displaying their symbiotic relationship, is too often ignored. The Holy Cross affair in 1998 was a clear instance. The roots of Holy Cross lay in the expulsion of UDA members from the Lower Shankill by the UVF in a paramilitary feud. These UDA men then settled in the Glenbryn estate and sought to flex their muscles, their chosen vehicle being the mass intimidation of Catholic children walking to school. This action was defended – or, what amounts to the same thing, explained away – by politicians of both UUP and DUP. Chris McGimpsey, a supposed UUP "liberal", was prominent among those saying that the small Catholic schoolgirls walking to their school were provocative; the same Chris McGimpsey sees nothing provocative in Orangemen, accompanied by paramilitary flute bands, marching through Catholic areas. There have been other examples. The racist pogrom against the Chinese community in South Belfast in 2003-04 appears to have started as a dispute between the Donegall Road UVF and the local Chinese business community, who had put up some resistance to extortion demands.


The UDA, not to be outdone, got stuck in as well, not just on the level of violence but with the production of the notorious "Yellow Invasion" leaflet circulated in Donegall Pass. There have been few charges and virtually no convictions resulting from the pogrom, with hardly anybody willing to blame the perpetrators and even anti-racist campaigners spinning the fantasy that English Nazis were responsible for racist attacks in loyalist-controlled areas. Again, the political wing of the triple alliance played its role. DUP councillor Ruth Patterson opined that residents of Donegall Pass felt the Protestant character of their area was under threat. How that was possible when the local Chinese population had gone from over forty families to under ten due to loyalist intimidation, she did not say. Meanwhile, liberal unionist poster boy Steven King argued that to blame loyalists was to smear the entire Protestant community, and speculated about whether the Chinese were entirely innocent.



The racist pogrom was followed in short order by mass intimidation aimed at the Whitehall Square flats complex at the top of the UDA stronghold of Sandy Row. This culminated in several hundred people, including bands, marching on the flats in a clear UDA show of strength. The young population of the complex may include some Catholics – nobody knows its sectarian makeup, which infuriates the loyalists even more. The UDA's action was publicly defended by UUP liberal Michael McGimpsey, who claimed the paramilitary demonstration was a spontaneous expression of concern by Sandy Row residents. Furthermore, McGimpsey claimed that anyone who attributed a sectarian motivation to the intimidators was an anti-Protestant bigot. He sought to back up his position by recycling various urban myths – some wee woman told him a young lad on a flats balcony had shouted at her; somebody else claimed to have seen someone in a Celtic jersey on a balcony. This, on Planet McGimpsey, was proof positive of sustained republican provocation which had sparked off an understandable and moderate reaction by respectable Protestants.



Sandy Row and the anti-Chinese pogrom are worth mentioning as they took place in the South Belfast fiefdom of Jackie McDonald, who is currently being built up as the acceptable face of the UDA. McDonald is said to be on first-name terms with Free State president Mary McAleese and regularly plays golf with her husband. More importantly, he is being heavily courted by both London and Dublin governments, to the extent that he could be described as British imperialism and Irish capital's favourite paramilitary. But as we have seen, touting of McDonald as a loyalist Mr Clean is some considerable way wide of the mark. It seems more likely that he is being built up because of his political usefulness than any intrinsic merits he might have. British policy and loyalism There have been a number of strands to British policy, and they have not always sat together harmoniously. For the last ten years, for instance, the Northern Ireland Office has been attempting to encourage the growth of a loyalist equivalent to Sinn Fein. This scheme has been almost a complete failure – the loyalist groups have never managed to create a political wing that even their own members would take seriously, let alone that significant numbers of people would support. In the early 1970s, during a time of massive sectarian polarisation, UDA-sponsored candidates in hardline areas like Sandy Row would routinely poll fewer votes than the UDA had members in the area. Even in the mid-1990s, huge amounts of sympathetic press coverage could not create a mass electoral base for the death squads.



The few paramilitary-linked figures who were elected to local councils or Stormont were invariably people with a record of activism around bread-and-butter issues in deprived areas – candidates who were seen as simply paramilitary frontmen received derisory votes. But in recent years even this limited base has largely evaporated. The UDA has bowed to the inevitable and dissolved its front party, the UDP. The UVF-linked PUP has lost much of its support, and is rapidly succumbing to the Paisleyite tide. It was instructive that in the recent local elections, the DUP polled over two thirds of the vote on the Shankill Road while the PUP's Hughie Smyth, who once had the highest personal vote of any councillor in the North, could only scrape back to City Hall on DUP transfers. The mathematics only confirm the underlying political trend, that the programme of Paisley is now the programme of unionism as a whole. The PUP's fake "socialism" – so much ballyhooed by the more gormless elements of the far left – was always trumped in any case by its commitment to remaining part of the "unionist family", and, having provided the muscle for Trimble and got precious little in return, it is now somewhat grumpily adapting to the new Paisleyite dispensation.



This is not to say that the loyalist paramilitary groups themselves, as distinct from their satellite parties, have not prospered under the Good Friday process. Both of the main groups, but particularly the UDA, have been in receipt of vast sums of British government money in the guise of community development. Meanwhile, the UDA and UVF have recruited massively, using the flute band culture to bring in an entire layer of youth (paramilitary-linked bands also forming a crucial part of the alliance with the Orange Order). They have extended their empires into small towns and villages with no history of paramilitary activity – most notably the UVF in North Antrim towns like Dervock, Bushmills and Ahoghill, which forms the immediate background to the recent sectarian pogrom in the area. People in these North Antrim towns might like to look at the heroin epidemic in nearby Ballymena as a harbinger of what the UVF's expansion is going to bring them. But while the British have aided the expansion of these organisations, this expansion also poses problems for them. The essential features of armed loyalism – bigotry, criminality and indiscriminate violence – have by no means abated over the past decade. As a result, the security apparatus has been preoccupied with managing loyalism.



This has intersected with the need to either protect their assets within loyalism – or liquidate them if they go rogue. A definite pointer to British policy is the list of figures targeted by the Assets Recovery Agency. While the UDA's North Belfast boss Andre Shoukri flaunts his wealth despite never having worked a day in his life, the ARA's targets are marginal figures, dead men and people connected to the LVF. This last group is too small to be useful to the British, but significant and active enough to be an embarrassment, which would explain why the British are apparently happy enough to let the UVF wipe it out. The support being extended to the UDA may well flow from a "balance of terror" theory, according to which the UVF should be prevented from becoming the hegemonic loyalist group. It is worth pointing out that, in defiance of its own monitoring commission, the British government continues to recognise the UDA's non-existent ceasefire.



Fall of the godfathers These military considerations, taken along with the fact that the loyalist groups are riddled with informers, help to shed some light on the sudden falls from grace of prominent figures in the murky world of paramilitarism. The late Billy Wright is a case in point. The charismatic Wright – mass murderer, drug dealer, born-again Christian, Orangeman and almost certainly a British agent – was responsible for the indiscriminate slaughter of dozens of Catholics in the Portadown area for many years. For most of this time he and his Mid-Ulster UVF appeared untouchable. Then, following the Good Friday Agreement, Wright denounced the peace process and split from the Shankill-based leadership of the UVF – who he described, incredibly, as "communists" – to form the small but vicious LVF. Wright expressed his support for the analysis of the DUP, who reciprocated by defending him against threats from the UVF.



Following this, Wright was convicted of intimidation – which calls to mind Al Capone's imprisonment on tax evasion charges – and then assassinated in prison under dubious circumstances. Then there was Johnny Adair, UDA boss of the Shankill. Adair, like his friend Wright, was untouchable. Then in 1995 he was convicted of "directing terrorism", an offence specifically designed to put him behind bars. Quickly, however, he became useful to the British in their efforts to keep the UDA on side – he was visited in prison by secretary of state Mo Mowlam and freed in 1999. Eventually, however, he got to be too much of a loose cannon for the British. Coincidentally, he had also made many enemies by his megalomaniac attempt to make himself supreme leader of the UDA, expanding his empire by putting the Shoukri brothers in charge of North Belfast and cutting into other bosses' fiefdoms. This ended with the assassination of the UDA's East Antrim leader John Gregg.



In 2003 the British returned him to prison, whereupon the UDA majority – now including the Shoukris, who were smart enough to see which way the wind was blowing – moved into the Shankill, kicked out Adair's family and closest associates, and took over his empire. Adair is now free again, but exiled in England. Most recently we have seen the UDA's murder of Jim Gray, formerly the organisation's leader in East Belfast for 14 years. The media coverage, in true Sunday World fashion, has concentrated on the flamboyant Gray's love of chunky gold jewellery and pastel knitwear. But there is much more to it than that. Gray, who was never convicted of any offence despite his very public role in the UDA, became a key figure in the Good Friday process. He made several trips to Stormont to meet successive British proconsuls, and fronted up a UDA PR exercise called the John Gregg Initiative. Then, in March 2005, he suddenly fell from grace and lost his position in the UDA. This was immediately followed by two noteworthy statements – one from Jackie McDonald stating that the UDA wouldn't tolerate criminality in the ranks, and another from the Assets Recovery Agency that they were investigating Gray.



The ARA investigation was generally taken as a reason for his fall, but the other way around is a more likely sequence. Now Gray is dead, gunned down outside his home while apparently under 24-hour police surveillance. Why British strategy won't work Britain's immediate plans regarding the UDA are clear. Proconsul Hain, while announcing drastic cuts in the public sector in the North, has made it clear that big sums – £200 million has been mentioned – will be available to help loyalism "take the political road". The money is being dressed up as going to regenerate poverty-stricken loyalist areas, but it doesn't take a genius to read between the lines. The Provos have surrendered. The UDA will now be aided to legitimise its business interests, provided it can stop the more blatant criminality – such as its heavy dependence on drug dealing, pimping and protection rackets – while ridding itself of some of its more outré characters. Then if the UVF can be persuaded to follow suit, the North will be pacified. There will be lavish rewards for those who play ball. That's the plan. It won't work, for two reasons. First, it depends on the assumption that the UDA will clean itself up and stay on the straight and narrow. This is rather unlikely. Paradoxically, the Provos have been easier to buy off because they were less corrupt. Although they always had an element of corruption, this was relatively minor and subordinated to their political goals – the racket served the movement and not vice versa. So once the Provos had surrendered politically, the legitimisation of their assets and winding down of paramilitary structures – what is currently going on – was relatively straightforward. By contrast, criminality is so much part of the essence of the loyalist groups that the chances of them going straight are minimal.



The more important point is linked to Britain's overall strategy. What do the British want? They want the North stabilised, but they don't want just any stability. They want to keep partition as well – this is also the programme of Dublin, hence the defeat of the Provos, who had no defence against Southern capital. They need to incorporate the Catholic middle class as a bulwark against a resurgence of anti-imperialist politics. But the nature of the Northern statelet means that any stabilisation must rest on unionism, as Britain's popular base in the North. This gives us the outline of British strategy since Sunningdale in 1973. The SDLP – both the party of the Catholic middle class and an instrument of the Dublin government – was always reliably on side, as was the NIO's front organisation, the small Alliance Party. The need was for a moderate unionism to cut a deal with the Catholic middle class. The trouble with that scenario is that unionism is not so much a political movement as a conspiracy to defend sectarian privilege.




You can't have a moderate unionism for the same reason you can't have a liberal Pope. In the world of unionism the biggest bigot always wins. So we have had a succession of unlikely figures, from Brian Faulkner to David Trimble, painted up as great moderates only to be overthrown from the right. The impasse of unionism Now we have a situation where the DUP forms the leadership of unionism. This puts paid to the search for moderates who could "consolidate the centre". Instead, we have somewhat desperate talk about a "pragmatic" wing of the DUP – people like Peter Robinson and Nigel Dodds – who, unlike the arch-bigot Paisley, might be willing to do business with Catholics. This is a wild misreading of the situation. In the first place, Peter Robinson already had a chance to modernise when he, along with the late Harold McCusker MP and UUP officer Wee Frankie Millar (son of legendary Belfast councillor Big Frankie) produced the Task Force report in 1987.



This document was suppressed by party leaders Jim Molyneaux and Ian Paisley, on the reasonable grounds that modernising unionism was a dead end. What we have we hold. Shortly afterwards, McCusker died, Millar left politics for journalism, and Robinson has never said another word about it. This is the point about accommodating Catholics. Catholics always had a place under the old Stormont, only a subordinate one. As Lord Kilclooney has said, Catholics could have rights but not equal rights. There can't be – as Love Ulster is demanding – a return to unalloyed supremacism because some crucial things have changed since 1967. Most crucially, the Catholic population is much more assertive and much larger. Unionism can't impose its will on a 45% minority as it could on a 30% minority. The more intelligent Paisleyites – Robinson and Dodds among them – recognise this, but don't have a solution. Britain's approach at the moment has been to hand the DUP various goodies that don't matter much in the scheme of things. Big Ian has been made a privy councillor and the DUP is getting seats in Blair's appointed House of Lords. The DUP is also getting extra seats on the Policing Board, an oversight body with few teeth but many opportunities for grandstanding. But this doesn't go anywhere towards the DUP programme.



As DUP MP Gregory Campbell pointed out in an important statement, the DUP welcomed these goodies but wanted movement on crucial issues like parades, jobs and policing. Campbell's position could be translated as follows. Exempting Orange halls from rates is all very well, but we want the Parades Commission scrapped and the right to march through Catholic areas guaranteed. We want the Fair Employment Act scrapped and measures put in place to restore Protestant privilege in the job market. And extra seats on the Policing Board are fine, but what we really want is an end to 50/50 recruitment and a return to an all-Protestant police force. The impasse is clear. The DUP can't impose their programme on the British, and the British can't implement the DUP programme without endangering the stability they desperately want. But British policy depends on keeping their loyalist base loyal, which is why the post-Good Friday process keeps being shifted to the right. It is quite obvious that there can be no solution within this process. The defeat of reactionary unionism is the precondition for any kind of political progress that benefits working people.


Keith you have cliamed here you will make a stand against republicianism and I like many other are grateful.


GOD SAVE ULSTER AND OUR QUEEN.

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 08:46 AM

sweeney,
Re Tex Banwell.
I have spoken to a man who was in the terrirorials with Tex in the early 50s. His regular army service was over by then.
Re your post 05.24 on 24th

"So why did he wear a Northern Ireland bar on his GSM ????
Did they just give it to him ?"
Completely false

Re your post 04.52 on 24th

"He was in the North of Ireland in the early seventies."
Completely false.

Your descents into dishonesty devalue your cause Sweeney.

You call Banwell a tosser, so you consider yourself a better man.
This is what the
New York Times said about Tex.
Make your own judgement.

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Divis Sweeney
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 09:17 AM

What you spoke to another terrirorial, that says it all !

Read below

Sergeant Keith D. Banwell

Tex Banwell joined the British Army and served with the Coldstream Guards with whom he saw action against the Pathans and Kashmiries,


BLA BLA BLA..........



Returning home, Banwell continued to serve in the army until during the 1970's, and was likely to have been amongst Britain's most senior parachutists. At the 25th anniversary of Arnhem in 1969, Banwell stood alongside present day paratroopers in a Dakota and jumped once more over Ginkel Heath, formerly DZ-Y. It was his 650th jump, and far from his last because he felt the experience of parachuting kept him "mentally alert". He donated his battle dress jacket to the Airborne Museum Hartenstein, where it is presently on display.

Did you read that Keith, BANWELL CONTINUED TO SERVE IN THE ARMY UNTIL DURING THE 1970'S.

Has this guy got it wrong ???
I can supply a link if you want to put him right ?

See he did well for himself after a lifetime in a profession only got to rank of Sergeant ! Christ my fathers two brothers who were in the Air force became senior officers in no time, not that their much of an example. In 1969 Banwell WHILE STILL A SERVING SOLDIER was awarded the B.E.M.

Dear dear Keith, how the army like yourself never seem to get the story right !


Do I consider myself a better man ? Of course I do. If you want to meet real hero's, you should be in my living room most nights !

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Divis Sweeney
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 09:21 AM

Lil' Kiwi so glad the DVD's about the British in Ireland have arrived with you. Now don't forget to let us know what you learned from them !
Always glad to spread the "Word of truth "

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 09:33 AM

He was with the Territorial Army up until the early seventies.
No full time service.
No active service.
No NI tour
No NI clasp.
All made up.
Keep digging.

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 09:57 AM

Here
is a link to the piece you quoted from, Sweeney.
It is the link that I gave in the original "I met a War Hero" thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: GUEST,Cornish
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 10:07 AM

This pathetic film should remain banned in the UK. It portrays the murdering, cowardly, scum IRA as good people. It does not tell the truth about the heroic Black & Tans who gave up their time to serve the King. We English should stick up for ourselves and not allow foreigners to take the blatant piss!

God Save The Queen.

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: ard mhacha
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 10:12 AM

The Guest that signs himself Cornish, and carries the flag for England is unlike some of the Cornishmen I have met, they resented being called English.

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: GUEST,Cornish
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 10:22 AM

It's my surname you idiot not where I'm from!

"ard mhacha" sounds like a shit shoveller from the arsehole of botswana!

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 10:48 AM

Cornish is not a real person.
Just someone trying to change the subject in a hurry.

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Divis Sweeney
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 10:52 AM

He was in the army, he wasn't in the army ! This gets better by the minute. Now your saying he was not a real soldier after all, half way through this great career he joined the weekenders! So why do they speak about forty years service in the army ?

Oh how they never get it right ! shouldn't be wearing a GSM ribbon then.

No need to dig Keith. Only time I will be digging is to help you out of that hole your in, YET AGAIN !

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Lil' Kiwi
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 11:05 AM

Yeah, thanks so much Divis! That's my weekend planned.

:-D

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: GUEST,Cornish
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 11:07 AM

Look, I got a bit angry there I am sorry. My granny lived in Cork. While my grandfather was serving with the 16th Irish Division Royal Munster Fusiliers fighting the Turks in the great war, an I.R.A. man was slipping her one. Her family was relieved then this man was killed in a gun battle with the tans. They through it was all over, sadly by this stage she had been introduced to another way of life and broke her fidelity to my grandfather and most of the local I.R.A. men were visiting her home at night. Her family prayed for the tans to rid them from the area, but they didn't. When my grandfather came home in December 1918, he was just no good to her anymore and as a broken man who served King and country in the war to end all wars. Sadly he had to listen to granny in the other room who ignored his screams to stop it, but no granny had got a taste for it. So please give understanding as to my dislike of the I.R.A.

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN, he couldn't save granny.

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Divis Sweeney
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 11:08 AM

You will enjoy watching the truth about what went on here, always glad to spread the truth !

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 11:11 AM

Divis, you know that I pulled up Keith when he made some points that I felt were untrue? Well, sorry, but having read the article I feel I must pull you up for the same. This guy does seem to be a war hero. He joined the Army in 1931. If we assume he was 16 then by the time he made his 650th jump alongside 'present day paratroopers' in 1969 he would have been 54 years old. Any service he made in the 70s would have been pretty much 'behind the lines'. Surely the comment 'alongside present day paras' also indicates his active service was finished by 1969?

By all means attack those who were responsible for the attrocities in NI. Blame the soldiers who perpetrated the terrible things against your family but targetting this bloke does seem a little unfair. To me anyway.

At the end of the day it is a detraction from the thread anyway. I don't know who started it but surely it is time to agree that some of the soldiers in Northern Ireland were a bad lot but this guy was not amongst them?

Or, as me mum said, 'you two pack it in or I'll knock yer heads together'. :-)

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 11:11 AM

I will explain in very very simple terms Sweeney.
Tex Banwell left the REGULAR army after the war and took a job with the Post Office.
And he joined the TERRITORIAL Army. This was a continuation of his service. He kept the same service number, but no more full time service.
His first Territorial unit was 11th Battalion Parachute Regt., and then 10th Battalion who he was with until about 1971.
Yes he was what you call a weekend wannabe soldier, just like Epona over there in the Guard.
Territorials were only concerned with conventional warfare training.
No connection at all with Northern Ireland.
You made all that up.
Why?

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Divis Sweeney
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 11:19 AM

Hi Dave all well at that end I hope ? Dave as no doubt you are aware, the British army arrived here in 1969 green as grass to urban warfare. The old school came over to keep them right and pulled the strings from behind the curtains. A waste of time Dave trying to explain these things to some as you know only to well.
Best wishes to the bride.
Divis.

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 11:31 AM

Yes, fine thanks, Divis. You have reminded me to post she is home and well on the 'Mrs is poorly' thread:-)

Do you really think that Mr Banwell was one of the ones 'pulling the strings'? I doubt it myself but you were there. I was not. I would be very surprised indeed if he was. If he is innocent of any crimes against you , your family and countrymen then surely you owe it to Keith to accept that some of your earlier comments may have been made in haste? As Keith once admitted the same to you on another thread? Surely to concede that you may have been wrong on a minor point only adds to the validity of your arguments on the major ones?

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: GUEST,Cornish
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 11:32 AM

This is a forum for blues & folk music not for IRA cowards

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: GUEST,Kenny
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 11:42 AM

Weren't blackandtans Scotch? Is this the reason to this day, all Irish men hate scotch people with all their hearts.

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 11:46 AM

No. Kenny. Scotch is Whiskey. Black and Tan is a mixture of stout and bitter.

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: mindblaster
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 11:46 AM

Scotch is a drink!

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Divis Sweeney
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 12:34 PM

Now Dave it's probably best left what we all know. Doubt someone who called me a murderer would accept anything I had to say.

There was a good point you brought up there in an earlier post about hero's. One man's hero Dave can be another mans villain. I grew up listening to bloody DFO's and DFC'S and bar crap, couple of tossers in my family too I am ashamed to say.

Not a week goes week in my life that at least one close friend calls down to visit and I look upon many of them as hero's. Doubt very much some here would, then again some would.

Ah it's down to views Dave, like a dog licking his balls, it's a matter of taste !

Glad the bride is home, health to both of you.

Divis.

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: GUEST,Cornish
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 12:40 PM

Sorry made a mistake there, meant to write,

This is a forum for blues & folk music and other topics such as my granny looking a bit of sawing.

My mind just wasn't with it, heavy headed today, was at a reunion dinner last night for Kincora Boys Home.

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: ard mhacha
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 12:50 PM

It is alright Cornish you are not the only limey idiot on this Site.

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: GUEST,Tír Chonaill
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 12:51 PM

The Hyperlink.... which could not be copied and pasted...
Being computer literate, in my eyes, pre-supposes literacy

I didn't post the .zip file link, Dave...
... you should open your eyes too... ;-)

Right-click the link, Keith, open it in a new window, and see where you brought the thrad off topic..., and don't be such a eejit

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 02:40 PM

Tir, that post of mine.
3 paragraphs.
Para 1 and 2 about Tans and IRA
Para 3 responding to Sweeney who had decided to post about his own experiences with the army

No thread creep from me then.

Sweeney, you have said AGAIN that I called you a murderer.
I deny using that word about you.
Am I mistaken or are you being dishonest?

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Wolfgang
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 02:45 PM

Zip-file in the context of the website (no tricks, just one click)

The mystery guest 24 Jul 06 - 09:57 AM wanted Keith to listen to a tape in which John Dignam admits working for the British at the end of an IRA interrogation (including torture) shortly before he was nutted. Doesn't make the intention of the poster much clearer for me.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Divis Sweeney
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 02:52 PM

Statement from British Government this after.

"One year on the IRA 'has ceased all activity'

The IRA announced an end to its armed campaign in July 2005
The IRA is no longer involved in any centrally organised criminality, the British and Irish governments believe.

Speaking after meeting Irish ministers, NI Secretary Peter Hain said cross-border intelligence indicated the IRA was living up to its commitments.

Mr Hain said individual ex IRA members may be involved in criminal activities, but there is criminal activity in every country in the world, these people can not be called the IRA. Political progress has been made.

However, the DUP's Nigel Dodds, a member of the Third Force said
"This latest assessment from the secretary of state lacks credibility and will be treated by the vast majority of people in NI as yet another ham-fisted attempt to bluff the community and its political representatives into establishing an executive including Sinn Fein." This party knows only one word "NO".


Mr Hain said "What there is not is organised crime by the IRA."
He added, the IRA are delivering on their commitments made last July, not just in respect of shutting down paramilitary activity but also shutting down criminality."

Irish Justice Minister Mr McDowell, who has been strongly critical of republicans in the past, backed Mr Hain's assessment.

Asked if he believed the IRA's war was now over following its declarations and decommissioning last summer, he said: "The Irish government and British government do believe it's over yes, based on the evidence we have."

BBC Northern Ireland political editor Mark Devenport said it was as firm a statement on IRA criminality as the two governments had made since the statement by the IRA last July.


The British and Irish governments have to put pressure on the DUP before the 24th November to reach agreement and then restore devolution.

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 02:53 PM

Errrr, would you explain exactly what you are on about, Tir Chonaill?

Earlier an un-named Guest posted a link of

http://cryptome.org/john-dignam.zip

Keith commented that that is a file, not a link. You then seemed to go off on one to have a go at Keith for being to thick to follow the link. Which was a .zip file that, as a professional computer consultant, I would not follow either.

I am now illeterate apparantly and unable to open my eyes. To prove that point tou provide a perfectly valid hyperlink of

http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=92760&messages=162#1781576

My expertise may be high availabilty Unix clusters rather than PCs and HTML but just who is not reading the thread here?

Divis - I still don't agree with your take on the soldier in question but I will bow to your more intimate knowledge of the situation. Is there not something you can give us to show that this guy was indeed a villain? If not don't worry. I am not going to fall out with you or Keith. We all need to get together in the pub for a good session on the music and craic:-)

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 03:09 PM

Dave, Sweeney can give you nothing because Tex Banwell never served in NI.

Tir's post came just after the Guest file post, but he was referring to his own much earlier posting which was supposed to substantiate his accusation of thread creep against me.

Clear now?

He has just posted a working link and    it shows I did not take thread off subject.
I expect he will apologise soon.

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Divis Sweeney
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 03:41 PM

Dave, Legal position, "Operational service personnal information still remains classified in Northern Ireland".

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Epona
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 05:20 PM

*sigh*

A wannabe soldier I am, Keith...all those years of training spent so I can show up a weekend here, a weekend there. But, the benefits are great! :)

E

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: GUEST,Martin.
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 05:27 PM

Keith that name was Dawson Bailie who condoned sectarianism.
Cheers

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 06:28 PM

OK, Divis, thanks. I think you may be posting accusations without being able to substantiate them but that is your prerogative. Anyone here could equaly claim they have information but cannot disclose the source because it is secret. At least I understand that the accusations against Mr Banwell are purely speculation but it would have been a lot easier if you had said so in the first place!

Anyhow - like I said before - it is only an aside in this context. I am sure no-one would have any objections if the discussion came back on track to the film in question. Talking of which I believe it was on at the Cornerstone in Manchester but I missed it:-( Anyone know if it is anywhere else nearby me?

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 06:32 PM

if anybody's still interested in the film - its coming to The Metro in Derby.

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 06:55 PM

Epona,
As a territorial I did some exchanges with National Guard.
Fort Knox KY and RI.
Fine people.
Had a great time.
Plenty of Territorials and National Guard earning their pay in the Gulf tonight.
Keith.

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Divis Sweeney
Date: 25 Jul 06 - 07:01 PM

Yawn

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: GUEST,Tír Chonaill
Date: 26 Jul 06 - 03:30 AM

Beg to differ, Keith....

Others noticed the creep at the time. Divis related the Tans' experience to his/our own.
Legitimitate enough in my eyes.

You produced the Straw Man.

Thread drift, Keith.

And you were the first one to do it.
You generally are.

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: GUEST,Tír Chonaill
Date: 26 Jul 06 - 03:41 AM

Keith - 25/07/ - 03.57:

Tir
I pasted your url into my address box and it did not work.
I am no expert in IT.
I am not prepared to make further effort and doubt anyone else will.
You show contempt for forum users by leaving it like that.

Dave: 25/06 - 03.58

I am just a thick nome - can't read whole tracts.... I don't think Keith was complaining about the lack of a dynamic link. I think he is as computer literate as the next man. What he said was it is not a link - it is a file. Which it is. If you would care to look rather than just have a go at him whatever he does you will notice it ends '.zip' rather than '.htm' or '.html'.

Dave: 25/06 - 02.53

Errrr, would you explain exactly what you are on about, Tir Chonaill?

Earlier an un-named Guest posted a link of

http://cryptome.org/john-dignam.zip

Keith commented that that is a file, not a link. You then seemed to go off on one to have a go at Keith for being to thick to follow the link. Which was a .zip file that, as a professional computer consultant, I would not follow either.


Good morning Dave.
How overworked are we, this fine day?

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: Divis Sweeney
Date: 26 Jul 06 - 03:44 AM

Tír Chonaill, Don't Hold Your Breath waiting for an admission ! You are of course right in what you in above post.

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: GUEST,Tír Chonaill
Date: 26 Jul 06 - 04:04 AM

Oh, I know Divis.

Admissions mean nothing to me when the facts are there and speak for themselves.

Keith also maintains that no-one ever calls for Loyalist violence to stop....
I have already made one comment about this up the thread a bit.
... and where did Tiocfaidh's thread calling for a petition, go to.....?

Rheumatic brain, if you ask me...

How on Earth is it possible to conduct a decent, serious conversation on this forum, when one spends most of ones' time putting Keith's collar on, and lead him through his 'little mistakes'

Subject: RE: BS: Ban on 'The Wind That Shakes The Barley'
From: GUEST,Tír Chonaill
Date: 26 Jul 06 - 04:08 AM

"...and leading him through his 'little mistakes'"
(just in case Keithh thought that last line was 'unintelligible')