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Anthony McIntyre's Blog, page 1162
February 14, 2018
Gleneaney House: The Trouble With Landlordism
Finnian O Donnell of People Before Profit Donegal and creator of Facebook page, No Bones About It, talks about how truly difficult it is to catch and expose a rogue landlord. Here he speaks from a personal capacity.
A few weeks back I received a text message from a friend of mine trying to get back on his feet. He sent me pictures of mold rising up behind a radiator and plaster peeling off the walls of a room. My Friend then told me of the state of the building in Letterkenny. He told me of the dire conditions he had to live in and informed me of the rogue landlord letting out the rooms of Gleneaney House. I was also informed of the lack of heating and hot water for the tenants of the building when he told me that the heating would only be turned twice a day for an hour and sometimes not at all. These rooms being rented out are previous hotel rooms and still contain a bedroom and bathroom and nothing more. All for 65 euro a week.
To help out my friend who was trying to get his life together and find some stability, I decided to post the pictures he sent me with a message explaining the situation to highlight this issue. To my surprise, we received many similar message and comments below the post. The same theme of mold, lack of hot water and heating, high rent, bullying and even theft by the rogue landlord of tenants possessions such as electric radiators kept popping up. One gentleman commented that he had to pay up to 200 euro a month on electricity bills.
The very next night, after the high exposure of the post, I got a late night call from my friend and he told me The landlord of the building, accompanied with two Garda Siochana, evicted him and left his belongings outside in the cold. The next morning I went to Gleneaney were my friend was holding a one man protest outside the building. He informed me of the situation and I took pictures of him at Gleneaney with his belongings still remaining outside. I then posted again on the PBP Donegal page. The two posts together had reached over 100,000 people in total. To highlight the issue even further PBP Donegal held a public protest outside Gleneaney House. We had managed to expose this rogue landlord and were confident that something was going to be done. We had used social media and people power out on the street to address this issue but still nothing was being done. It was all well and good posting on Facebook and shouting from a mega phone on the streets of Letterkenny however, more direct action was needed and we knew it.
Tumbleweeds come to mind
Myself and another member of PBP Donegal called local councillors and TD’s to see what they could do. I emailed local independent councillor Dessie Shiels and even Facebook messaged him four times to see if he could look into this matter and help out in anyway. No Reply. Local Sinn Fein councillor, Gerry Mc Monagle was also contacted. No Reply. Independent TD, Thomas Pringle was emailed and facebook messaged also. Yes you guessed it, No Reply.
I, along with another PBP Donegal member, called the local council office to see if any inspections could be done on Gleneaney. When I asked if I could talk to anyone about the council making an inspection of the premises, the lady on the phone told me that only current tenants can make a complaint about their residence and there was nothing I could do. The other PBP member was told the same. Due to the rogue landlord’s past and current behavior towards the tenants of Gleneaney House, those still residing in the building, who had privately messaged PBP Donegal, were too afraid to speak out in case they too were evicted immediately, leaving them with nowhere to go.
We were then left with two more options. Inform the Fireservice of Donegal to see if they could make an inspection of the place and call the RTB (Residential Tenancies Board) to check if the building was registered. I called the fire service and they informed me that I would Have to email them with a complaint. I did so but once again, No Reply.
Last resort
And so now we were clutching at straws here. We had exhausted any social media exposure through facebook, we had gathered the people and held a protest outside Gleneaney, we had informed time and time again the one TD and Councillors we thought would help us, we exhausted all avenues through the local council and local fireservice and still nothing has been done. Until maybe now.
After calling the RTB, I asked the gentleman on the phone if Gleneaney house was a registered tenancy. He informed me that unless the premises is under a different name, Gleneaney House would be in fact, not registered. The penalty for a non registered tenancy is 4,000 euro fine or 6 months in prison or both.
After the phone call with the RTB, I emailed the Registration Enforcement Section, filled in a referral form, sent it and have received an emailed that the RTB will ‘‘actively pursue the Landlord in question’’ . So, all we do now, is wait.
Questions to be asked?
This is why it is so difficult to catch a rogue landlord. When exposure through social media with over 100,000 views isn’t enough. When a public protest with over 30 people with placards and banners and mega phone speeches isn’t enough. When two members of PBP Donegal, calling on behalf of frightened tenants isn’t enough. When Councillors ignore your calls and the fire service doesn’t even reply a simple email isn’t enough then isn’t it about time we all realise that the current system doesn’t work for the people of our communities but rather protects those who profit from the poor and the vulnerable?
If the RTB do pursue Gleneaney House and expose its rotten corruption, It will have nothing to do with the local authorities because they done nothing to help. I fear that the full force of the law will not fall hard on these rogue landlords. No prison time for the corruption they continue to deal in, no change in how they treat their tenants. A few grand to pay to which they will sign off as loose change, no doubt.
Finnian O Domhnaill
is a political writer from Donegal, currently living in Derry. He is the creator of the political page No Bones About It.
[image error]
A few weeks back I received a text message from a friend of mine trying to get back on his feet. He sent me pictures of mold rising up behind a radiator and plaster peeling off the walls of a room. My Friend then told me of the state of the building in Letterkenny. He told me of the dire conditions he had to live in and informed me of the rogue landlord letting out the rooms of Gleneaney House. I was also informed of the lack of heating and hot water for the tenants of the building when he told me that the heating would only be turned twice a day for an hour and sometimes not at all. These rooms being rented out are previous hotel rooms and still contain a bedroom and bathroom and nothing more. All for 65 euro a week.
To help out my friend who was trying to get his life together and find some stability, I decided to post the pictures he sent me with a message explaining the situation to highlight this issue. To my surprise, we received many similar message and comments below the post. The same theme of mold, lack of hot water and heating, high rent, bullying and even theft by the rogue landlord of tenants possessions such as electric radiators kept popping up. One gentleman commented that he had to pay up to 200 euro a month on electricity bills.
The very next night, after the high exposure of the post, I got a late night call from my friend and he told me The landlord of the building, accompanied with two Garda Siochana, evicted him and left his belongings outside in the cold. The next morning I went to Gleneaney were my friend was holding a one man protest outside the building. He informed me of the situation and I took pictures of him at Gleneaney with his belongings still remaining outside. I then posted again on the PBP Donegal page. The two posts together had reached over 100,000 people in total. To highlight the issue even further PBP Donegal held a public protest outside Gleneaney House. We had managed to expose this rogue landlord and were confident that something was going to be done. We had used social media and people power out on the street to address this issue but still nothing was being done. It was all well and good posting on Facebook and shouting from a mega phone on the streets of Letterkenny however, more direct action was needed and we knew it.
Tumbleweeds come to mind
Myself and another member of PBP Donegal called local councillors and TD’s to see what they could do. I emailed local independent councillor Dessie Shiels and even Facebook messaged him four times to see if he could look into this matter and help out in anyway. No Reply. Local Sinn Fein councillor, Gerry Mc Monagle was also contacted. No Reply. Independent TD, Thomas Pringle was emailed and facebook messaged also. Yes you guessed it, No Reply.
I, along with another PBP Donegal member, called the local council office to see if any inspections could be done on Gleneaney. When I asked if I could talk to anyone about the council making an inspection of the premises, the lady on the phone told me that only current tenants can make a complaint about their residence and there was nothing I could do. The other PBP member was told the same. Due to the rogue landlord’s past and current behavior towards the tenants of Gleneaney House, those still residing in the building, who had privately messaged PBP Donegal, were too afraid to speak out in case they too were evicted immediately, leaving them with nowhere to go.
We were then left with two more options. Inform the Fireservice of Donegal to see if they could make an inspection of the place and call the RTB (Residential Tenancies Board) to check if the building was registered. I called the fire service and they informed me that I would Have to email them with a complaint. I did so but once again, No Reply.
Last resort
And so now we were clutching at straws here. We had exhausted any social media exposure through facebook, we had gathered the people and held a protest outside Gleneaney, we had informed time and time again the one TD and Councillors we thought would help us, we exhausted all avenues through the local council and local fireservice and still nothing has been done. Until maybe now.
After calling the RTB, I asked the gentleman on the phone if Gleneaney house was a registered tenancy. He informed me that unless the premises is under a different name, Gleneaney House would be in fact, not registered. The penalty for a non registered tenancy is 4,000 euro fine or 6 months in prison or both.
After the phone call with the RTB, I emailed the Registration Enforcement Section, filled in a referral form, sent it and have received an emailed that the RTB will ‘‘actively pursue the Landlord in question’’ . So, all we do now, is wait.
Questions to be asked?
This is why it is so difficult to catch a rogue landlord. When exposure through social media with over 100,000 views isn’t enough. When a public protest with over 30 people with placards and banners and mega phone speeches isn’t enough. When two members of PBP Donegal, calling on behalf of frightened tenants isn’t enough. When Councillors ignore your calls and the fire service doesn’t even reply a simple email isn’t enough then isn’t it about time we all realise that the current system doesn’t work for the people of our communities but rather protects those who profit from the poor and the vulnerable?
If the RTB do pursue Gleneaney House and expose its rotten corruption, It will have nothing to do with the local authorities because they done nothing to help. I fear that the full force of the law will not fall hard on these rogue landlords. No prison time for the corruption they continue to deal in, no change in how they treat their tenants. A few grand to pay to which they will sign off as loose change, no doubt.
Finnian O Domhnaill
is a political writer from Donegal, currently living in Derry. He is the creator of the political page No Bones About It.[image error]
Gleneaney House: The Trouble With Lanndlordism
Finnian O Donnell of People Before Profit Donegal and creator of Facebook page, No Bones About It, talks about how truly difficult it is to catch and expose a rogue landlord. Here he speaks from a personal capacity.
A few weeks back I received a text message from a friend of mine trying to get back on his feet. He sent me pictures of mold rising up behind a radiator and plaster peeling off the walls of a room. My Friend then told me of the state of the building in Letterkenny. He told me of the dire conditions he had to live in and informed me of the rogue landlord letting out the rooms of Gleneaney House. I was also informed of the lack of heating and hot water for the tenants of the building when he told me that the heating would only be turned twice a day for an hour and sometimes not at all. These rooms being rented out are previous hotel rooms and still contain a bedroom and bathroom and nothing more. All for 65 euro a week.
To help out my friend who was trying to get his life together and find some stability, I decided to post the pictures he sent me with a message explaining the situation to highlight this issue. To my surprise, we received many similar message and comments below the post. The same theme of mold, lack of hot water and heating, high rent, bullying and even theft by the rogue landlord of tenants possessions such as electric radiators kept popping up. One gentleman commented that he had to pay up to 200 euro a month on electricity bills.
The very next night, after the high exposure of the post, I got a late night call from my friend and he told me The landlord of the building, accompanied with two Garda Siochana, evicted him and left his belongings outside in the cold. The next morning I went to Gleneaney were my friend was holding a one man protest outside the building. He informed me of the situation and I took pictures of him at Gleneaney with his belongings still remaining outside. I then posted again on the PBP Donegal page. The two posts together had reached over 100,000 people in total. To highlight the issue even further PBP Donegal held a public protest outside Gleneaney House. We had managed to expose this rogue landlord and were confident that something was going to be done. We had used social media and people power out on the street to address this issue but still nothing was being done. It was all well and good posting on Facebook and shouting from a mega phone on the streets of Letterkenny however, more direct action was needed and we knew it.
Tumbleweeds come to mind
Myself and another member of PBP Donegal called local councillors and TD’s to see what they could do. I emailed local independent councillor Dessie Shiels and even Facebook messaged him four times to see if he could look into this matter and help out in anyway. No Reply. Local Sinn Fein councillor, Gerry Mc Monagle was also contacted. No Reply. Independent TD, Thomas Pringle was emailed and facebook messaged also. Yes you guessed it, No Reply.
I, along with another PBP Donegal member, called the local council office to see if any inspections could be done on Gleneaney. When I asked if I could talk to anyone about the council making an inspection of the premises, the lady on the phone told me that only current tenants can make a complaint about their residence and there was nothing I could do. The other PBP member was told the same. Due to the rogue landlord’s past and current behavior towards the tenants of Gleneaney House, those still residing in the building, who had privately messaged PBP Donegal, were too afraid to speak out in case they too were evicted immediately, leaving them with nowhere to go.
We were then left with two more options. Inform the Fireservice of Donegal to see if they could make an inspection of the place and call the RTB (Residential Tenancies Board) to check if the building was registered. I called the fire service and they informed me that I would Have to email them with a complaint. I did so but once again, No Reply.
Last resort
And so now we were clutching at straws here. We had exhausted any social media exposure through facebook, we had gathered the people and held a protest outside Gleneaney, we had informed time and time again the one TD and Councillors we thought would help us, we exhausted all avenues through the local council and local fireservice and still nothing has been done. Until maybe now.
After calling the RTB, I asked the gentleman on the phone if Gleneaney house was a registered tenancy. He informed me that unless the premises is under a different name, Gleneaney House would be in fact, not registered. The penalty for a non registered tenancy is 4,000 euro fine or 6 months in prison or both.
After the phone call with the RTB, I emailed the Registration Enforcement Section, filled in a referral form, sent it and have received an emailed that the RTB will ‘‘actively pursue the Landlord in question’’ . So, all we do now, is wait.
Questions to be asked?
This is why it is so difficult to catch a rogue landlord. When exposure through social media with over 100,000 views isn’t enough. When a public protest with over 30 people with placards and banners and mega phone speeches isn’t enough. When two members of PBP Donegal, calling on behalf of frightened tenants isn’t enough. When Councillors ignore your calls and the fire service doesn’t even reply a simple email isn’t enough then isn’t it about time we all realise that the current system doesn’t work for the people of our communities but rather protects those who profit from the poor and the vulnerable?
If the RTB do pursue Gleneaney House and expose its rotten corruption, It will have nothing to do with the local authorities because they done nothing to help. I fear that the full force of the law will not fall hard on these rogue landlords. No prison time for the corruption they continue to deal in, no change in how they treat their tenants. A few grand to pay to which they will sign off as loose change, no doubt.
Finnian O Domhnaill
is a political writer from Donegal, currently living in Derry. He is the creator of the political page No Bones About It.
[image error]
A few weeks back I received a text message from a friend of mine trying to get back on his feet. He sent me pictures of mold rising up behind a radiator and plaster peeling off the walls of a room. My Friend then told me of the state of the building in Letterkenny. He told me of the dire conditions he had to live in and informed me of the rogue landlord letting out the rooms of Gleneaney House. I was also informed of the lack of heating and hot water for the tenants of the building when he told me that the heating would only be turned twice a day for an hour and sometimes not at all. These rooms being rented out are previous hotel rooms and still contain a bedroom and bathroom and nothing more. All for 65 euro a week.
To help out my friend who was trying to get his life together and find some stability, I decided to post the pictures he sent me with a message explaining the situation to highlight this issue. To my surprise, we received many similar message and comments below the post. The same theme of mold, lack of hot water and heating, high rent, bullying and even theft by the rogue landlord of tenants possessions such as electric radiators kept popping up. One gentleman commented that he had to pay up to 200 euro a month on electricity bills.
The very next night, after the high exposure of the post, I got a late night call from my friend and he told me The landlord of the building, accompanied with two Garda Siochana, evicted him and left his belongings outside in the cold. The next morning I went to Gleneaney were my friend was holding a one man protest outside the building. He informed me of the situation and I took pictures of him at Gleneaney with his belongings still remaining outside. I then posted again on the PBP Donegal page. The two posts together had reached over 100,000 people in total. To highlight the issue even further PBP Donegal held a public protest outside Gleneaney House. We had managed to expose this rogue landlord and were confident that something was going to be done. We had used social media and people power out on the street to address this issue but still nothing was being done. It was all well and good posting on Facebook and shouting from a mega phone on the streets of Letterkenny however, more direct action was needed and we knew it.
Tumbleweeds come to mind
Myself and another member of PBP Donegal called local councillors and TD’s to see what they could do. I emailed local independent councillor Dessie Shiels and even Facebook messaged him four times to see if he could look into this matter and help out in anyway. No Reply. Local Sinn Fein councillor, Gerry Mc Monagle was also contacted. No Reply. Independent TD, Thomas Pringle was emailed and facebook messaged also. Yes you guessed it, No Reply.
I, along with another PBP Donegal member, called the local council office to see if any inspections could be done on Gleneaney. When I asked if I could talk to anyone about the council making an inspection of the premises, the lady on the phone told me that only current tenants can make a complaint about their residence and there was nothing I could do. The other PBP member was told the same. Due to the rogue landlord’s past and current behavior towards the tenants of Gleneaney House, those still residing in the building, who had privately messaged PBP Donegal, were too afraid to speak out in case they too were evicted immediately, leaving them with nowhere to go.
We were then left with two more options. Inform the Fireservice of Donegal to see if they could make an inspection of the place and call the RTB (Residential Tenancies Board) to check if the building was registered. I called the fire service and they informed me that I would Have to email them with a complaint. I did so but once again, No Reply.
Last resort
And so now we were clutching at straws here. We had exhausted any social media exposure through facebook, we had gathered the people and held a protest outside Gleneaney, we had informed time and time again the one TD and Councillors we thought would help us, we exhausted all avenues through the local council and local fireservice and still nothing has been done. Until maybe now.
After calling the RTB, I asked the gentleman on the phone if Gleneaney house was a registered tenancy. He informed me that unless the premises is under a different name, Gleneaney House would be in fact, not registered. The penalty for a non registered tenancy is 4,000 euro fine or 6 months in prison or both.
After the phone call with the RTB, I emailed the Registration Enforcement Section, filled in a referral form, sent it and have received an emailed that the RTB will ‘‘actively pursue the Landlord in question’’ . So, all we do now, is wait.
Questions to be asked?
This is why it is so difficult to catch a rogue landlord. When exposure through social media with over 100,000 views isn’t enough. When a public protest with over 30 people with placards and banners and mega phone speeches isn’t enough. When two members of PBP Donegal, calling on behalf of frightened tenants isn’t enough. When Councillors ignore your calls and the fire service doesn’t even reply a simple email isn’t enough then isn’t it about time we all realise that the current system doesn’t work for the people of our communities but rather protects those who profit from the poor and the vulnerable?
If the RTB do pursue Gleneaney House and expose its rotten corruption, It will have nothing to do with the local authorities because they done nothing to help. I fear that the full force of the law will not fall hard on these rogue landlords. No prison time for the corruption they continue to deal in, no change in how they treat their tenants. A few grand to pay to which they will sign off as loose change, no doubt.
Finnian O Domhnaill
is a political writer from Donegal, currently living in Derry. He is the creator of the political page No Bones About It.[image error]
February 13, 2018
Bibi's Son Or: Three Men In A Car
The Uri Avnery Column thinks much explaining is needed in the case of Ya'ir Netanyahu.
Yet here I am, writing about Ya'ir, damn it. Can't resist.
And perhaps it is really more than a matter of gossip. Perhaps it is something that we cannot ignore.
It Is all about a conversation between three young man in a car, some two years ago.
One of the young men was Ya'ir, the eldest of the two sons of the Prime Minister.
Ya'ir is named after the leader of the "Stern Gang", whose real name was Abraham Stern. The original Ya'ir split from the Irgun underground in 1940, when Britain stood alone against Nazi Germany. While the Irgun stopped its actions against the British government for the time being, Stern demanded the very opposite: exploit the moment in order to get the British out of Palestine. He was shot by the British police.
The modern Ya'ir and his two friends were on a drunken tour of Tel Aviv strip-tease joints, an appellation which often seems to be a polite way of describing a brothel.
Somebody took the trouble to record the conversation of the young men – the sons of the Prime Minister and two of the richest "tycoons" in the country.
This recording has now surfaced. Since the publication, hardly anyone in Israel is talking about anything else.
According to the recording, Ya'ir demanded from of his friend, Nir Maimon, 400 shekels (about 100 dollars), in order to visit a prostitute. When the friend refused, Ya'ir exclaimed: "My father gave your father a concession worth twenty billion dollars, and you refuse to give me 400 shekels?"
The concession in question concerns the rich gas fields out in the sea near Israel's shores.
In an especially disgusting display of his utter contempt for the female sex, Ya'ir also offered to provide all his friends with the sexual services of his ex-girlfriend.
This Recording raises a whole pile of questions, each more unpleasant than the next.
First of all: who made it? Apart from Ya'ir and his two pals, there were only two persons present; the driver of the car and a bodyguard.
This raises some more questions. First, why is the 26-year old man provided with bodyguards at all, and for a tour of strip-tease joints in particular?
Ya'ir has no official function. No son or daughter of any former prime minister has ever been provided with bodyguards. No known danger threatens this particular son. So why must I pay for one?
Second, what about the driver? Ya'ir was riding in a government car, driven by a government driver. Why? What right has he to a government car and to a government driver, in general - and in particular for such an escapade?
The episode has drawn the attention of the public to this son of privilege.
Who is Ya'ir Netanyahu? What does he do for a living? The simple answer: Nothing.
He has no profession. He has no job. He lives in the state-owned official residence in Jerusalem and eats at the state's expense.
What about his record? The only service he ever performed was as a soldier at the office of the army spokesman – not much risk of meeting flying bullets there. You need a lot of pull to land such a cozy job in the army.
Every reader can ask himself or herself: where was he or she when they were 26 years old?
Speaking for myself, at that age I had behind me several years of service in the Irgun underground, a year of continual fighting in a renowned army commando unit, a battle wound, and the beginning of my career as the editor-in-chief of a belligerent news magazine. I have earned my living since the age of 15. That is not something special to be proud of – many young people of my generation have the same past (except the journalistic part, of course.)
Still, This part of the story can be explained by the character of this particular young man. Can a parent be held responsible for the character of his offspring?
Like many politicians, Netanyahu had no time for his children. It's the mother who bears most of the responsibility.
Sarah Netanyahu, known as "Sarah'le", is generally disliked. A former airplane stewardess, who "caught" Binyamin at an airport duty-free shop and became his third wife, is a haughty and quarrelsome person, who is in perpetual conflict with her government-paid household personnel. Some of these quarrels reach the courts.
So this is all a family affair, except that it raises some profound political questions.
What is the social setting of the Prime Minister, himself the son of a poor university professor and a government employee for almost all his life?
His offspring consorts with the sons of the country's richest peoples, who are enriching themselves with the active help of the Prime Minister, - Netanyahu influences the government funding of big projects. At the moment, the police are conducting at least four separate investigations into Netanyahu's personal economic affairs.
Practically all of Netanyahu's personal associates and friends are under police investigation. His closest friend, lawyer and relative is under investigation concerning the acquisition of immensely expensive German-made submarines. The navy claims that it does not need all of them.
In his private life, Netanyahu is being investigated for receiving for a long time cases of the most expensive Cuban cigars from super-rich "friends", for whom he provided some services. Sarah'le is investigated for receiving, on demand, a regular supply of very expensive pink champagne from another billionaire, whom she also asked to buy her jewelry.
This Entire atmosphere of public and private corruption at the top of the state is very much removed from our past. It is something new, reflecting the Netanyahu era.
One could not even imagine anything like this in the times of David Ben-Gurion. His son, Amos, was implicated in some affairs which my magazine exposed, but nothing even remotely resembling this.
Menachem Begin lived for many years as an MK in the same two-room apartment where he had hidden as the most wanted terrorist in British Palestine. Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres all lived in modest circumstances.
Public humor calls Netanyahu "king" and even "emperor" and speaks of the "royal family". Why?
One reason is certainly the time factor. Netanyahu is now in his fourth term of office. That is much too much.
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, as Lord Acton remarked. One can replace "absolute" with "long-term".
A person in power is surrounded by temptations, flatterers, corruptors, and as time goes by, his resistance wanes. That, alas, is human.
After the endless presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a relatively honest and effective chief executive, the American people did something extremely wise: it limited a president to two terms. I also have come to the conclusion that eight years is exactly right.
(That applies to myself, too. I was a Member of Parliament for ten years. In retrospect I have drawn the conclusion that eight years should have been enough. During my last two years I was less enthusiastic, less combative)
I Don't hate Binyamin Netanyahu, as many Israelis do. He does not really interest me as a person. But I believe that he is a danger to the future of Israel. His obsession with clinging to power makes him sell out our national interests to interest groups, not just to billionaires but also to the corrupt religious establishment and many others.
Such a man is unable to make peace, even if he wanted to. Making peace demands strength of character, like taking the risk of being overthrown. Such audacity does not even enter Netanyahu's mind.
Tell me who your son is, and I'll tell you who you are.
Uri Avnery is a veteran Israeli peace activist. He writes @ Gush Shalom
Yet here I am, writing about Ya'ir, damn it. Can't resist.
And perhaps it is really more than a matter of gossip. Perhaps it is something that we cannot ignore.
It Is all about a conversation between three young man in a car, some two years ago.
One of the young men was Ya'ir, the eldest of the two sons of the Prime Minister.
Ya'ir is named after the leader of the "Stern Gang", whose real name was Abraham Stern. The original Ya'ir split from the Irgun underground in 1940, when Britain stood alone against Nazi Germany. While the Irgun stopped its actions against the British government for the time being, Stern demanded the very opposite: exploit the moment in order to get the British out of Palestine. He was shot by the British police.
The modern Ya'ir and his two friends were on a drunken tour of Tel Aviv strip-tease joints, an appellation which often seems to be a polite way of describing a brothel.
Somebody took the trouble to record the conversation of the young men – the sons of the Prime Minister and two of the richest "tycoons" in the country.
This recording has now surfaced. Since the publication, hardly anyone in Israel is talking about anything else.
According to the recording, Ya'ir demanded from of his friend, Nir Maimon, 400 shekels (about 100 dollars), in order to visit a prostitute. When the friend refused, Ya'ir exclaimed: "My father gave your father a concession worth twenty billion dollars, and you refuse to give me 400 shekels?"
The concession in question concerns the rich gas fields out in the sea near Israel's shores.
In an especially disgusting display of his utter contempt for the female sex, Ya'ir also offered to provide all his friends with the sexual services of his ex-girlfriend.
This Recording raises a whole pile of questions, each more unpleasant than the next.
First of all: who made it? Apart from Ya'ir and his two pals, there were only two persons present; the driver of the car and a bodyguard.
This raises some more questions. First, why is the 26-year old man provided with bodyguards at all, and for a tour of strip-tease joints in particular?
Ya'ir has no official function. No son or daughter of any former prime minister has ever been provided with bodyguards. No known danger threatens this particular son. So why must I pay for one?
Second, what about the driver? Ya'ir was riding in a government car, driven by a government driver. Why? What right has he to a government car and to a government driver, in general - and in particular for such an escapade?
The episode has drawn the attention of the public to this son of privilege.
Who is Ya'ir Netanyahu? What does he do for a living? The simple answer: Nothing.
He has no profession. He has no job. He lives in the state-owned official residence in Jerusalem and eats at the state's expense.
What about his record? The only service he ever performed was as a soldier at the office of the army spokesman – not much risk of meeting flying bullets there. You need a lot of pull to land such a cozy job in the army.
Every reader can ask himself or herself: where was he or she when they were 26 years old?
Speaking for myself, at that age I had behind me several years of service in the Irgun underground, a year of continual fighting in a renowned army commando unit, a battle wound, and the beginning of my career as the editor-in-chief of a belligerent news magazine. I have earned my living since the age of 15. That is not something special to be proud of – many young people of my generation have the same past (except the journalistic part, of course.)
Still, This part of the story can be explained by the character of this particular young man. Can a parent be held responsible for the character of his offspring?
Like many politicians, Netanyahu had no time for his children. It's the mother who bears most of the responsibility.
Sarah Netanyahu, known as "Sarah'le", is generally disliked. A former airplane stewardess, who "caught" Binyamin at an airport duty-free shop and became his third wife, is a haughty and quarrelsome person, who is in perpetual conflict with her government-paid household personnel. Some of these quarrels reach the courts.
So this is all a family affair, except that it raises some profound political questions.
What is the social setting of the Prime Minister, himself the son of a poor university professor and a government employee for almost all his life?
His offspring consorts with the sons of the country's richest peoples, who are enriching themselves with the active help of the Prime Minister, - Netanyahu influences the government funding of big projects. At the moment, the police are conducting at least four separate investigations into Netanyahu's personal economic affairs.
Practically all of Netanyahu's personal associates and friends are under police investigation. His closest friend, lawyer and relative is under investigation concerning the acquisition of immensely expensive German-made submarines. The navy claims that it does not need all of them.
In his private life, Netanyahu is being investigated for receiving for a long time cases of the most expensive Cuban cigars from super-rich "friends", for whom he provided some services. Sarah'le is investigated for receiving, on demand, a regular supply of very expensive pink champagne from another billionaire, whom she also asked to buy her jewelry.
This Entire atmosphere of public and private corruption at the top of the state is very much removed from our past. It is something new, reflecting the Netanyahu era.
One could not even imagine anything like this in the times of David Ben-Gurion. His son, Amos, was implicated in some affairs which my magazine exposed, but nothing even remotely resembling this.
Menachem Begin lived for many years as an MK in the same two-room apartment where he had hidden as the most wanted terrorist in British Palestine. Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres all lived in modest circumstances.
Public humor calls Netanyahu "king" and even "emperor" and speaks of the "royal family". Why?
One reason is certainly the time factor. Netanyahu is now in his fourth term of office. That is much too much.
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, as Lord Acton remarked. One can replace "absolute" with "long-term".
A person in power is surrounded by temptations, flatterers, corruptors, and as time goes by, his resistance wanes. That, alas, is human.
After the endless presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a relatively honest and effective chief executive, the American people did something extremely wise: it limited a president to two terms. I also have come to the conclusion that eight years is exactly right.
(That applies to myself, too. I was a Member of Parliament for ten years. In retrospect I have drawn the conclusion that eight years should have been enough. During my last two years I was less enthusiastic, less combative)
I Don't hate Binyamin Netanyahu, as many Israelis do. He does not really interest me as a person. But I believe that he is a danger to the future of Israel. His obsession with clinging to power makes him sell out our national interests to interest groups, not just to billionaires but also to the corrupt religious establishment and many others.
Such a man is unable to make peace, even if he wanted to. Making peace demands strength of character, like taking the risk of being overthrown. Such audacity does not even enter Netanyahu's mind.
Tell me who your son is, and I'll tell you who you are.
Uri Avnery is a veteran Israeli peace activist. He writes @ Gush Shalom
Empty Platitudes
Mick Hall protests that:
A gesture towards the victims of the Grenfell tower fire would have been nice, instead we got empty platitudes from Britain's royal family.
No room at the palace for victims of Grenfell tower fire. While some ordinary folk with a spare bedroom took in homeless young people for a night or two over Christmas the English queen and her offspring cried crocodile tears for the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire. While many of the survivors families are still stuck in hotel rooms, one would have thought the least the royal family could do was offer them a room or two in one of their many homes over the Christmas period for a spot of R&R over the holiday period.
Charles Windsor the heir to the throne has Clarence House as his official London residence along with his wife, son Harry and his family.
Highgrove House near Tetbury, Gloucestershire is his 'family home' where he lives with his wife the so called Duchess of Cornwall.
Birkhall in Scotland is another residence of the Prince of Wales and his wife. The former home of the Monarch's mother on the Balmoral estate was once described it as a ‘little big house’. Not big enough it seems to put up a family of Grenfell survivors over Christmas.
Llwynywermod, near Llandovery in Carmarthenshire is yet another one of this overhoused couples many 'homes.' Why this man needs so many only he can say, but one thing is certain despite his exalted status like the rest of us who have a roof over our heads, he can only live in one home at a time.
All of the homes mentioned above, along with Buckingham palace stood empty this Christmas as Betsy and her brood spend Christmas and the New Year at Sandringham House. The Monarch's grace and favor country estate in Norfolk.
By the way his mother apparently has 52 bedrooms in her London palace, but there was no room at her inn either.
If the royal family truly cared they would have understood just how difficult a Christmas this was for many who survived the Grenfell fire, and offered them the run of their unoccupied homes.
After all they made much of the trauma they felt when Windsor Castle, one of their many homes burnt down in 1992.
I could go on but I see little point as the monarchy is clearly part of the problem, it sits at the pinnacle of the British class system in all its wretchedness, democratic deficit, class prejudice, unfairness, and minority privilege. It's time the British people created a democratic republic and placed this weird and over paid family into the dustbin of history.
It would hardly be a surprise as the fabled dustbin is where so many of the Windsor's relations ended up after being rejected by those they once lorded over.
Mick Hall blogs @ Organized Rage.
Follow Mick Hall on Twitter @organizedrage
A gesture towards the victims of the Grenfell tower fire would have been nice, instead we got empty platitudes from Britain's royal family.
No room at the palace for victims of Grenfell tower fire. While some ordinary folk with a spare bedroom took in homeless young people for a night or two over Christmas the English queen and her offspring cried crocodile tears for the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire. While many of the survivors families are still stuck in hotel rooms, one would have thought the least the royal family could do was offer them a room or two in one of their many homes over the Christmas period for a spot of R&R over the holiday period.Charles Windsor the heir to the throne has Clarence House as his official London residence along with his wife, son Harry and his family.
Highgrove House near Tetbury, Gloucestershire is his 'family home' where he lives with his wife the so called Duchess of Cornwall.
Birkhall in Scotland is another residence of the Prince of Wales and his wife. The former home of the Monarch's mother on the Balmoral estate was once described it as a ‘little big house’. Not big enough it seems to put up a family of Grenfell survivors over Christmas.
Llwynywermod, near Llandovery in Carmarthenshire is yet another one of this overhoused couples many 'homes.' Why this man needs so many only he can say, but one thing is certain despite his exalted status like the rest of us who have a roof over our heads, he can only live in one home at a time.
All of the homes mentioned above, along with Buckingham palace stood empty this Christmas as Betsy and her brood spend Christmas and the New Year at Sandringham House. The Monarch's grace and favor country estate in Norfolk.
By the way his mother apparently has 52 bedrooms in her London palace, but there was no room at her inn either.
If the royal family truly cared they would have understood just how difficult a Christmas this was for many who survived the Grenfell fire, and offered them the run of their unoccupied homes.
After all they made much of the trauma they felt when Windsor Castle, one of their many homes burnt down in 1992.
I could go on but I see little point as the monarchy is clearly part of the problem, it sits at the pinnacle of the British class system in all its wretchedness, democratic deficit, class prejudice, unfairness, and minority privilege. It's time the British people created a democratic republic and placed this weird and over paid family into the dustbin of history.
It would hardly be a surprise as the fabled dustbin is where so many of the Windsor's relations ended up after being rejected by those they once lorded over.
Mick Hall blogs @ Organized Rage.Follow Mick Hall on Twitter @organizedrage
Republicanism, Sovereignty and the Right to Life.
Anne Mc Closkey, MB, makes a case for maintaining the 8th Amendment.
A Labour Party delegation visited local pro-abortion advocacy groups last week to offer help and support to bring we backward paddies into the bright new world they enjoy, where an abortion takes place every three minutes, one in five pregnancies are deliberately ended, and 90% of those with Down’s syndrome are “terminated”. These policies have cost the NHS 0.6 billion pounds, yes that’s 600,000,000 in the last decade, almost all of which was paid to private providers.
And where are the Republican voices protesting at this shameful denial of self-determination? Obediently silent, that’s where. Of course New Republicanism actively welcomes this. Their zeal for abortion means they can countenance even such a blatant insult to their precious Executive without protest. There are many who historically have voted for SF who are deeply uncomfortable with their position on this issue. But the Party is paramount, dissent is not tolerated, no votes of conscience will be allowed. It’s a far cry from the republicanism I was reared with.
Of course, this is not about the health and safety of women. Abortions are legally and appropriately carried out in every hospital in the land, when required, as part of appropriate medical care for women.
The laws on this island have historically been based on a particular vision of the common good, which places a high value on personal freedom, while limiting the deliberate ending of innocent human life. Protecting both women and their unborn children as far as humanly possible is not backward or regressive, but compassionate, ethical and hopeful. In the six counties, the lack of abortion on demand has saved the lives of 100,000 people. These are our friends, colleagues, family members, neighbours. It is a dangerous fallacy to measure rights or progress by our ability to end the lives of our unborn children. Choice must always balance individual autonomy with the rights of others.
The arbitrary selection of who is worthy of life, the reduction of the preborn child to offal, sex-selective foeticide, the weeding out of those who may have disabilities, or are “chromosomally challenged”, this, it seems is the ethos which should prevail when Ireland takes its place among the nations of the earth, and Robert Emmett’s epitaph can be written.
What is the point of having national self-determination, if we discard the values which have shaped us as a nation and as a people, and follow slavishly in the ways of the coloniser? Was this worth one life, not to mention the thousands who have given everything?
Surely the essence of republicanism should be to protect human dignity by whatever means are necessary. This obviously requires change to the current social order, but progressive change, not the culture of death. Irish women and men deserve better.
Our vision and objective should be to cherish all of the children of the nation equally, according to our own genius and traditions. We should not be ashamed of what our people suffered so much for. And if political republicanism moves away from this, then it leaves many of us behind.
Anne Mc Closkey works as a GP in Derry. Lifelong republican and community activist, mother and grandmother, stood as Independent candidate in 2016 Assembly election, polling over 3k 1st preference votes, founder member of Cherish all the Children Equally, a republican progressive organisation founded to give pro-life socialists and Republicans a voice and to campaign against repeal of the constitutional right to life in 8th amendment.
A Labour Party delegation visited local pro-abortion advocacy groups last week to offer help and support to bring we backward paddies into the bright new world they enjoy, where an abortion takes place every three minutes, one in five pregnancies are deliberately ended, and 90% of those with Down’s syndrome are “terminated”. These policies have cost the NHS 0.6 billion pounds, yes that’s 600,000,000 in the last decade, almost all of which was paid to private providers.
And where are the Republican voices protesting at this shameful denial of self-determination? Obediently silent, that’s where. Of course New Republicanism actively welcomes this. Their zeal for abortion means they can countenance even such a blatant insult to their precious Executive without protest. There are many who historically have voted for SF who are deeply uncomfortable with their position on this issue. But the Party is paramount, dissent is not tolerated, no votes of conscience will be allowed. It’s a far cry from the republicanism I was reared with.
Of course, this is not about the health and safety of women. Abortions are legally and appropriately carried out in every hospital in the land, when required, as part of appropriate medical care for women.
The laws on this island have historically been based on a particular vision of the common good, which places a high value on personal freedom, while limiting the deliberate ending of innocent human life. Protecting both women and their unborn children as far as humanly possible is not backward or regressive, but compassionate, ethical and hopeful. In the six counties, the lack of abortion on demand has saved the lives of 100,000 people. These are our friends, colleagues, family members, neighbours. It is a dangerous fallacy to measure rights or progress by our ability to end the lives of our unborn children. Choice must always balance individual autonomy with the rights of others.
The arbitrary selection of who is worthy of life, the reduction of the preborn child to offal, sex-selective foeticide, the weeding out of those who may have disabilities, or are “chromosomally challenged”, this, it seems is the ethos which should prevail when Ireland takes its place among the nations of the earth, and Robert Emmett’s epitaph can be written.
What is the point of having national self-determination, if we discard the values which have shaped us as a nation and as a people, and follow slavishly in the ways of the coloniser? Was this worth one life, not to mention the thousands who have given everything?
Surely the essence of republicanism should be to protect human dignity by whatever means are necessary. This obviously requires change to the current social order, but progressive change, not the culture of death. Irish women and men deserve better.
Our vision and objective should be to cherish all of the children of the nation equally, according to our own genius and traditions. We should not be ashamed of what our people suffered so much for. And if political republicanism moves away from this, then it leaves many of us behind.
Anne Mc Closkey works as a GP in Derry. Lifelong republican and community activist, mother and grandmother, stood as Independent candidate in 2016 Assembly election, polling over 3k 1st preference votes, founder member of Cherish all the Children Equally, a republican progressive organisation founded to give pro-life socialists and Republicans a voice and to campaign against repeal of the constitutional right to life in 8th amendment.
February 12, 2018
The Summer That Changed Everything
Mick Hall writes about a documentary he recently watched:
The Summer That Changed Everything and exposed the treachery of three Labour MP's.
It's not often we get to see Labour MP's who have plotted and schemed against the Corbyn leadership in all their ignominy, but David Modell's documentary film broadcast on BBC2 was a gem. (watch it above) Inadvertently it showed these MP's as shallow, out of touch with their constituents and much of the nation at large. It also displayed why the BBC and filmmakers like Modell are taken in by the chatter within the Westminster bubble.
The decision of Lucy Powell, Ruth Cadbury, and Stephen Kinnock to trash the Corbyn leadership and refuse to have him on their election leaflets was replicated across the UK by some of the party's centre right candidates. It was sad to see Sarah Champion a decent woman and MP echoing this rancid mood in the documentary.
In my own constituency during the general election campaign the candidate refused to have Corbyn's name on his campaign literature, a senior member of the constituency party was overheard aping the MSM by slagging Diane Abbott off, and before the manifesto was released another told a campaign meeting "Jeremy Corbyn's economic policies were deluded."
When a member pointed this out he was smeared as being divisive, not a thought was given to how he and other supporters of Corbyn might consider such behavior as in itself extremely divisive.
Despite all this, and a candidate who was not popular in parts of the constituency, Labour came within 345 votes of winning the seat after Momentum flooded the constituency with their activists.
But I digress.
There are scenes in the film which almost take your breath away, at the beginning Stephen Kinnock tells Modell that Corbyn will have to take “a long, hard look in the mirror.” After the exit poll was announced he was left speechless. When he regained his composure and was ready to talk he was firmly told by his wife what to say to the waiting media.
Which basically boiled down to whatever you do, just don't mention Jeremy. Given Kinnock had spent much of the campaign slagging Jeremy off to the same journalists one could almost see him go weak at the knees. He had nothing prepared as the speech in his pocket was about telling Jeremy to take a hard look at himself and resign. What a pitiful man, like father like son.
Next up was Lucy Powell, who is also seen in the film pouring out bile about Corbyn. When the election exit poll came in she seemed in a state of shock but her face like Kinnock's told exactly how she felt. All she could say was "Oh Wow" which told us all we needed to know about her politics.
Both expected a poor result for Corbyn Labour and they couldn't hide their disappointment. Despite their bluster they clearly preferred a strong Tory victory as they saw it as the only way to remove Corbyn and further advance their careers.
For the film maker Modell the penny finally began to drop. It was Corbyn's personality, and Momentums energy which helped get the Labour vote out. It was their activists enthusiasm on the doorstep which convinced millions to vote for Corbyn Labour. Not enough for sure but enough to make Jeremy Corbyn's position as Party leader unshakable.
On a visit to Momentum’s HQ, Modell was surprised to learn the group’s Facebook page had 16 million likes. He clearly preferred to listen to gossip and bile instead of checking out Momentums web site.
As Daisy Wyatt wrote on iNews daily Briefing:
Mick Hall blogs @ Organized Rage.
Follow Mick Hall on Twitter @organizedrage
The Summer That Changed Everything and exposed the treachery of three Labour MP's.
It's not often we get to see Labour MP's who have plotted and schemed against the Corbyn leadership in all their ignominy, but David Modell's documentary film broadcast on BBC2 was a gem. (watch it above) Inadvertently it showed these MP's as shallow, out of touch with their constituents and much of the nation at large. It also displayed why the BBC and filmmakers like Modell are taken in by the chatter within the Westminster bubble.
The decision of Lucy Powell, Ruth Cadbury, and Stephen Kinnock to trash the Corbyn leadership and refuse to have him on their election leaflets was replicated across the UK by some of the party's centre right candidates. It was sad to see Sarah Champion a decent woman and MP echoing this rancid mood in the documentary.
In my own constituency during the general election campaign the candidate refused to have Corbyn's name on his campaign literature, a senior member of the constituency party was overheard aping the MSM by slagging Diane Abbott off, and before the manifesto was released another told a campaign meeting "Jeremy Corbyn's economic policies were deluded."
When a member pointed this out he was smeared as being divisive, not a thought was given to how he and other supporters of Corbyn might consider such behavior as in itself extremely divisive.
Despite all this, and a candidate who was not popular in parts of the constituency, Labour came within 345 votes of winning the seat after Momentum flooded the constituency with their activists.
But I digress.
There are scenes in the film which almost take your breath away, at the beginning Stephen Kinnock tells Modell that Corbyn will have to take “a long, hard look in the mirror.” After the exit poll was announced he was left speechless. When he regained his composure and was ready to talk he was firmly told by his wife what to say to the waiting media.
Which basically boiled down to whatever you do, just don't mention Jeremy. Given Kinnock had spent much of the campaign slagging Jeremy off to the same journalists one could almost see him go weak at the knees. He had nothing prepared as the speech in his pocket was about telling Jeremy to take a hard look at himself and resign. What a pitiful man, like father like son.
Next up was Lucy Powell, who is also seen in the film pouring out bile about Corbyn. When the election exit poll came in she seemed in a state of shock but her face like Kinnock's told exactly how she felt. All she could say was "Oh Wow" which told us all we needed to know about her politics.
Both expected a poor result for Corbyn Labour and they couldn't hide their disappointment. Despite their bluster they clearly preferred a strong Tory victory as they saw it as the only way to remove Corbyn and further advance their careers.
For the film maker Modell the penny finally began to drop. It was Corbyn's personality, and Momentums energy which helped get the Labour vote out. It was their activists enthusiasm on the doorstep which convinced millions to vote for Corbyn Labour. Not enough for sure but enough to make Jeremy Corbyn's position as Party leader unshakable.
On a visit to Momentum’s HQ, Modell was surprised to learn the group’s Facebook page had 16 million likes. He clearly preferred to listen to gossip and bile instead of checking out Momentums web site.
As Daisy Wyatt wrote on iNews daily Briefing:
To not understand how social media “won” the election for Labour is to fail to grasp how Corbyn has won a groundswell of support among the most marginalised, who feel Facebook has given them a voice.
Mick Hall blogs @ Organized Rage.Follow Mick Hall on Twitter @organizedrage
Spiritual Duty
Evangelical Christians must re-establish themselves as the Moral Majority in Ireland because the Churches’ current ‘head in the sand’ attitude is in danger of dumping evangelical Christianity into the category of ‘voiceless minority’ on this island. Controversial Unionist commentator and evangelical Christian, Dr John Coulter, uses his Fearless Flying Column today to outline how Christians can fight back.
It is the spiritual duty of all true Evangelical Christian denominations across Ireland to copy the Irish and American Civil Rights Movements and mobilise their members and worshippers to get as many believers involved in the political process.
Evangelical Christians across Ireland better get organised politically otherwise the increasingly liberal and secular society will have them as an isolated and virtually voiceless minority by the end of the decade.
Unfortunately, modern day Christianity is so divided theologically, and denominations - such as Irish Catholicism - have had their faith badly tarnished by the activities of convicted clergy. Convicted paedophile priests found guilty by the courts of heinous crimes of clerical sex abuse of children have fuelled the defamatory stereotype that anyone wishing to enter holy orders is a pervert.
Likewise, the Kincora Boys Home scandals of the 1980s fuelled the perception that certain Hell fire Bible classes were merely grooming sessions for rapists and child abusers who preyed on, rather that prayed with, vulnerable young males.
There was some hope in the months following the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in April 1998 that evangelical Christians could assist with the rebuilding process in Ireland, and that Christian Churches could be to the fore in any peace and reconciliation process.
Two decades ago during research for a book on the links between Orangeism and Loyalism, I uncovered plans by key members of the fundamentalist Independent Orange Order to launch a new umbrella group, to be known as The Caleb Foundation (after the Old Testament Israelite spy, Caleb).
When word leaked out that I planned to brand this new group as nothing more than a clever recruiting front for the Independent Orange Order and basically the ‘No’ camp in Unionism at prayer, the late George Dawson - then grand master of the Independents - took steps to get the book stopped a matter of weeks before publication.
According to a Caleb insider I interviewed at the time in 1998, the organisation was originally intended to mobilise the smaller fundamentalist denominations within Protestantism against the Evangelical Prayer Breakfast Movement.
That Prayer Breakfast Movement in the 1990s saw Protestants and Catholic meet together over breakfast and the evangelical Christians - particularly those known as ‘saved’ or ‘born again’ believers - would share their testimonies of how Christ saved them spiritually. The fact these evangelicals dared to invite Catholics to these events infuriated fundamentalists, especially from the Rev Ian Paisley-formed Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, which often organised pickets outside the venues where the Evangelical Prayer Breakfasts were held.
Mind you, when I saw those lined up in the protests, I often wondered that their yapping had nothing to do with any perceived ecumenism, but the fact that Ulster Unionist politicians and mainstream Orange Order members were among the Prayer Breakfast participants.
1998 was an historic year in the conflict. April had seen the signing of the Good Friday Agreement; the ensuing referendum gave overwhelming backing to the agreement across Ireland, north and south.
While most within Sinn Fein and the SDLP backed the Belfast Agreement, Unionism was badly split into clearly defined yes and no camps. Shocked by the extent of support for the agreement among unionism, the DUP and its anti-agreement allies in the split UUP mounted a massive ‘No’ campaign to gain as many MLAs as possible in the first June Assembly elections.
To rally support within sections of Protestantism, it had to involve the Churches. As far as I was concerned, The Caleb Foundation was not about marshalling support against the Prayer Breakfast Movement, but about pushing the ‘No’ agenda among Christians.
A few weeks after Dawson brought my book to a grinding halt, Caleb was formally launched - with Dawson as its inaugural chairman. Dawson later went on to become a DUP MLA for East Antrim before succumbing to cancer. At one time, Caleb was boasted that it spoke for some 200,000 Evangelical Christians in Northern Ireland - enough, in my maths, to get quite a sizeable lobby of MLAs elected to the Assembly.
But Caleb was later to be rocked by the conviction by a court of one of its leading spokesmen for the sexual offence of voyerism. That same person had also held posts within the equally fundamentalist pressure group, the Evangelical Protestant Society and the Independent Orange Order.
Since that person’s conviction, Caleb’s public influence has waned. This means there is now a significant gap in Evangelical Christianity for a major group to rally support among Christians to come out and vote for candidates who still adhere to Biblical principles.
As the political cancer of liberalism steadily gains ground with Christian Churches and unionist parties, I have often wondered if a time is steadily approaching when Evangelical Christians will have to form their own political party to defend Christian morality, beliefs, expression of Christian views and Biblical standards.
In the Republic, once the best known bastion of Catholicism outside the Vatican, the twin evils of secularism and pluralism have romped to victory. Attendance at the traditional Mass has dropped dramatically; the Irish Bishops have already lost the same-sex marriage vote, and this year’s referendum on abortion looks like becoming a clear victory for the pro-choice lobby.
While the concept of an Irish Christian Party may sound like a good way forward on paper, such are the theological divisions - not just between Catholicism and Protestantism - but even within the broad Evangelical Christian movement in general, that I very much doubt if a Christian party would ever get off the ground. Probably the first item on the agenda at its inaugural meeting would be ‘the theological argument and split’!
So what is my Plan B? Rather than form a new party, what is needed is a Momentum-style pressure group to mobilise as many Christians as possible to register to vote - and actually make it their spiritual duty to go to the polling booths on election day.
Unfortunately over the years in Northern Ireland, too many Christians have instead indulged in the luxury of theological infighting on dress codes and rules for women, which translation of the Bible is correct, sex education, and forms of worship.
Perhaps the Church really needs to take note of the words of Jesus Himself in the New Testament text of St Matthew Chapter 7, verse 3: “And why beholds thou mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye.”
In practical terms, does the Church need to sort itself out before it goes pontificating as to how we should address society’s ills and challenges?
Probably the biggest scourge I have come across in my 40 years in journalism, especially during my time in the tabloids, has been the seemingly unchallenged danger posed by the Judgemental Tubthumpers, dubbed the JTs.
These people are better known as the church gossips, who spew out their bile about their fellow Christians, irrespective if they have any legal basis for their gossip. To JTs, the laws of defamation simply go out the window. These JTs don’t care who they hurt as a result of their gossip and in some cases, such JTs are the best advertisement for atheism which I have come across in those four decades in journalism.
If I adopted a so-called ‘JT approach’ in journalism, namely spewing out defamatory stories about people with no legal or ethical research or checking, I’d soon have the courts, police and press standards organisation down upon me like a ton of bricks. So how do the JTs still get away with their often defamatory gossip if we are now supposedly living in an increasingly secular society?
Perhaps the first step we should take in to have defamation legislation in Northern Ireland which protects ordinary folk from the defamatory rants of the JTs? That’s the Biblical ‘beam’ we as an evangelical Christian community need to address first.
Maybe if we got a few JTs convicted in the courts because of their defamatory gossip, that would be a start? Then again, has the tabloid media - of whatever format - a moral obligation in the public interest to ‘name and shame’ as many of these JTs as possible? Or would that be considered as trial by media, or trial by social media?
One indisputable fact is paramount - evangelical Christians across Ireland need to get their act in gear, and soon, otherwise Christians will not only become a minority on the island, but a muted minority. Political mobilisation of evangelical Christianity is essential - but do they join all parties and influence from inside, or one single party such as the DUP, or take the ultimate step and form an Irish Christian Party? Time to ponder is needed, but that time is short.
John Coulter is a unionist political commentator and former Blanket columnist.
John Coulter is also author of ‘ An Sais Glas: (The Green Sash): The Road to National Republicanism’, which is available on Amazon Kindle.
Follow John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
It is the spiritual duty of all true Evangelical Christian denominations across Ireland to copy the Irish and American Civil Rights Movements and mobilise their members and worshippers to get as many believers involved in the political process.
Evangelical Christians across Ireland better get organised politically otherwise the increasingly liberal and secular society will have them as an isolated and virtually voiceless minority by the end of the decade.
Unfortunately, modern day Christianity is so divided theologically, and denominations - such as Irish Catholicism - have had their faith badly tarnished by the activities of convicted clergy. Convicted paedophile priests found guilty by the courts of heinous crimes of clerical sex abuse of children have fuelled the defamatory stereotype that anyone wishing to enter holy orders is a pervert.
Likewise, the Kincora Boys Home scandals of the 1980s fuelled the perception that certain Hell fire Bible classes were merely grooming sessions for rapists and child abusers who preyed on, rather that prayed with, vulnerable young males.
There was some hope in the months following the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in April 1998 that evangelical Christians could assist with the rebuilding process in Ireland, and that Christian Churches could be to the fore in any peace and reconciliation process.
Two decades ago during research for a book on the links between Orangeism and Loyalism, I uncovered plans by key members of the fundamentalist Independent Orange Order to launch a new umbrella group, to be known as The Caleb Foundation (after the Old Testament Israelite spy, Caleb).
When word leaked out that I planned to brand this new group as nothing more than a clever recruiting front for the Independent Orange Order and basically the ‘No’ camp in Unionism at prayer, the late George Dawson - then grand master of the Independents - took steps to get the book stopped a matter of weeks before publication.
According to a Caleb insider I interviewed at the time in 1998, the organisation was originally intended to mobilise the smaller fundamentalist denominations within Protestantism against the Evangelical Prayer Breakfast Movement.
That Prayer Breakfast Movement in the 1990s saw Protestants and Catholic meet together over breakfast and the evangelical Christians - particularly those known as ‘saved’ or ‘born again’ believers - would share their testimonies of how Christ saved them spiritually. The fact these evangelicals dared to invite Catholics to these events infuriated fundamentalists, especially from the Rev Ian Paisley-formed Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, which often organised pickets outside the venues where the Evangelical Prayer Breakfasts were held.
Mind you, when I saw those lined up in the protests, I often wondered that their yapping had nothing to do with any perceived ecumenism, but the fact that Ulster Unionist politicians and mainstream Orange Order members were among the Prayer Breakfast participants.
1998 was an historic year in the conflict. April had seen the signing of the Good Friday Agreement; the ensuing referendum gave overwhelming backing to the agreement across Ireland, north and south.
While most within Sinn Fein and the SDLP backed the Belfast Agreement, Unionism was badly split into clearly defined yes and no camps. Shocked by the extent of support for the agreement among unionism, the DUP and its anti-agreement allies in the split UUP mounted a massive ‘No’ campaign to gain as many MLAs as possible in the first June Assembly elections.
To rally support within sections of Protestantism, it had to involve the Churches. As far as I was concerned, The Caleb Foundation was not about marshalling support against the Prayer Breakfast Movement, but about pushing the ‘No’ agenda among Christians.
A few weeks after Dawson brought my book to a grinding halt, Caleb was formally launched - with Dawson as its inaugural chairman. Dawson later went on to become a DUP MLA for East Antrim before succumbing to cancer. At one time, Caleb was boasted that it spoke for some 200,000 Evangelical Christians in Northern Ireland - enough, in my maths, to get quite a sizeable lobby of MLAs elected to the Assembly.
But Caleb was later to be rocked by the conviction by a court of one of its leading spokesmen for the sexual offence of voyerism. That same person had also held posts within the equally fundamentalist pressure group, the Evangelical Protestant Society and the Independent Orange Order.
Since that person’s conviction, Caleb’s public influence has waned. This means there is now a significant gap in Evangelical Christianity for a major group to rally support among Christians to come out and vote for candidates who still adhere to Biblical principles.
As the political cancer of liberalism steadily gains ground with Christian Churches and unionist parties, I have often wondered if a time is steadily approaching when Evangelical Christians will have to form their own political party to defend Christian morality, beliefs, expression of Christian views and Biblical standards.
In the Republic, once the best known bastion of Catholicism outside the Vatican, the twin evils of secularism and pluralism have romped to victory. Attendance at the traditional Mass has dropped dramatically; the Irish Bishops have already lost the same-sex marriage vote, and this year’s referendum on abortion looks like becoming a clear victory for the pro-choice lobby.
While the concept of an Irish Christian Party may sound like a good way forward on paper, such are the theological divisions - not just between Catholicism and Protestantism - but even within the broad Evangelical Christian movement in general, that I very much doubt if a Christian party would ever get off the ground. Probably the first item on the agenda at its inaugural meeting would be ‘the theological argument and split’!
So what is my Plan B? Rather than form a new party, what is needed is a Momentum-style pressure group to mobilise as many Christians as possible to register to vote - and actually make it their spiritual duty to go to the polling booths on election day.
Unfortunately over the years in Northern Ireland, too many Christians have instead indulged in the luxury of theological infighting on dress codes and rules for women, which translation of the Bible is correct, sex education, and forms of worship.
Perhaps the Church really needs to take note of the words of Jesus Himself in the New Testament text of St Matthew Chapter 7, verse 3: “And why beholds thou mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye.”
In practical terms, does the Church need to sort itself out before it goes pontificating as to how we should address society’s ills and challenges?
Probably the biggest scourge I have come across in my 40 years in journalism, especially during my time in the tabloids, has been the seemingly unchallenged danger posed by the Judgemental Tubthumpers, dubbed the JTs.
These people are better known as the church gossips, who spew out their bile about their fellow Christians, irrespective if they have any legal basis for their gossip. To JTs, the laws of defamation simply go out the window. These JTs don’t care who they hurt as a result of their gossip and in some cases, such JTs are the best advertisement for atheism which I have come across in those four decades in journalism.
If I adopted a so-called ‘JT approach’ in journalism, namely spewing out defamatory stories about people with no legal or ethical research or checking, I’d soon have the courts, police and press standards organisation down upon me like a ton of bricks. So how do the JTs still get away with their often defamatory gossip if we are now supposedly living in an increasingly secular society?
Perhaps the first step we should take in to have defamation legislation in Northern Ireland which protects ordinary folk from the defamatory rants of the JTs? That’s the Biblical ‘beam’ we as an evangelical Christian community need to address first.
Maybe if we got a few JTs convicted in the courts because of their defamatory gossip, that would be a start? Then again, has the tabloid media - of whatever format - a moral obligation in the public interest to ‘name and shame’ as many of these JTs as possible? Or would that be considered as trial by media, or trial by social media?
One indisputable fact is paramount - evangelical Christians across Ireland need to get their act in gear, and soon, otherwise Christians will not only become a minority on the island, but a muted minority. Political mobilisation of evangelical Christianity is essential - but do they join all parties and influence from inside, or one single party such as the DUP, or take the ultimate step and form an Irish Christian Party? Time to ponder is needed, but that time is short.
John Coulter is a unionist political commentator and former Blanket columnist. John Coulter is also author of ‘ An Sais Glas: (The Green Sash): The Road to National Republicanism’, which is available on Amazon Kindle.
Follow John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
February 11, 2018
Gerry Adams's IRA Years
Anthony McIntyre with the full version of his piece on the martial politician, Gerry Adams, that featured in the Irish Times on Friday, entitled:
Gerry Adams’s IRA years: An insider’s account
In asserting to the BBC’s Andrew Marr that his struggle for a united Ireland was not a failure, the soon to be former Sinn Fein president, Gerry Adams, made a highly implausible claim: the target had not been missed as Sinn Fein had bagged half a million votes … and still counting.
Success having many parents and failure an orphan, it is perhaps not surprising that Gerry Adams would seek to adopt something that might be loosely called success even if the goalposts had to be moved right off the pitch. As the Provisional IRA’s strategic primus inter pares, it is bitter pill for the Alpha and Omega of armed struggle to swallow that the IRA’s campaign considerably underachieved. Sinn Fein now fully embraces the British terms for unity, only by the consent of a majority in the North: by implication, a stark repudiation of the IRA methodology of coercion.
Better known publicly in 1970 for his letters as a Sinn Fein cumann PRO, protesting British Army harassment, Adams was nevertheless assiduously developing his tactical nous within the ranks of the Ballymurphy IRA where he was the local commander. In a calculated bid to build up a reservoir of community resentment that would morph into support for a revitalised IRA, he smothered the impulse of armed IRA volunteers to engage British troops during serious rioting over Orange marches.
It was the type of tactical ingenuity that would repeat itself a year later when the second battalion of the Belfast IRA, which he now commanded, orchestrated a bombing campaign against military and police installations in a bid to force Stormont’s hand on internment. The calculation was that the draconian measure might be introduced long before RUC Special Branch mastered the intelligence terrain. As anticipated, internment was an intelligence debacle with most senior IRA personnel and the bulk of volunteers evading the dragnet. Its one-sided application followed by torture in Palace Barracks and other holding centres, so enraged the nationalist community that the IRA found a surplus of eager youth from which to recruit. Already it was clear that the strategic intelligence of the IRA was coming to reside within the circles peopled by Adams and his coterie.
With the removal through arrest of Billy McKee as Belfast brigade commander, his replacement, Joe Cahill was a figure who valued the advice of Adams in a way that McKee was reluctant to, making the second battalion even more influential. Arrested in March 1972, Adams’ June release from internment was secured only after the new leadership of the second battalion made it clear that there would be no ceasefire if he was not freed to take part in negotiations. That Belfast was now becoming the power house of the Provisional IRA was to be seen in the presence of three Belfast IRA leaders in the six-man delegation that travelled to London for talks with the British secretary of state for the North, William Whitelaw. On the return journey to Ireland, despite chief of staff Sean MacStiofain preferring a prolonged truce, the Belfast delegation decided that it would be broken, as it duly was.
On his release from internment in June Adams had moved into the Belfast Brigade adjutant slot, a position he held at the time of the Bloody Friday bombings the following month. The first of the disappearances also began in June when Joe Lynsky a Belfast Brigade intelligence operative was killed and secretly buried. More such acts would follow and while the smoking gun was never found in the hand of Adams, his handpicked squad, colloquially referred to within the IRA as “the Unknowns,” was tasked with this most sensitive and heinous of tasks. The three people who accompanied Jean McConville as she stood trembling at her secret grave side were members of the Unknowns, including the man who led the group and answered directly to Adams. Prominent IRA figures, Brendan Hughes and Dolours Price both now deceased, were firm in their contention that their military commander, Adams, was the architect of the disappeared as well as being the IRA leader who took the bombing campaign to London. By now, with the departure of Seamus Twomey to GHQ staff in October 1972, Gerry Adams was the Belfast Brigade commander.
It was while in charge of the Belfast IRA, that he won the unalloyed admiration of the people who worked closely with him. Despite being on a British Army shoot on sight list, and billeted outside West Belfast in the evenings, each morning saw him travel into the heart of the constituency he would later become a Member of Parliament for, “to run the war.” One colleague who later turned out to be an implacable opponent observed that whatever attributes he lacked, “courage did not figure amongst them. He took serious risks.”
Running concurrent with much of this, Adams was registering his implacable opposition to IRA sectarian assassinations. Scathing of the Orr Brothers killings in North Belfast during the truce, he underwent an estrangement from the man responsible. His pragmatism would later kick in when he placed the same figure at the heart of his security entourage. This opposition to the targeting of Protestant civilians came to the fore later in 1976 when, from within the prison, Adams fumed at the Kingsmill massacre of ten workmen.
On release from prison in early 1977, a vehement critic of the 1975 IRA ceasefire, he went almost immediately to meet Seamus Twomey, by now serving a second term as chief of staff, with his plans for a long war. This was a military strategic vision for the most part put together by the late Pat Ward. When Twomey was arrested towards the end of 1977 Adams moved into the vacant chief of staff spot. His tenure came to be defined by the La Mon bomb attack which saw twelve Protestant civilians incinerated. The event brought his chief of staff spell to a close as he was arrested the following morning. There is no reason to think that Adams personally ordered the attack or knew about it. The most that can be said is that the operation was part of a wider incendiary grill bomb campaign approved by the army council of which Adams was a member. The former senior SAS officer Clive Fairweather told me over drinks in Edinburgh many years later that while he felt that Adams, in terms of ability, had no equal, his first instinct after La Mon was to shoot him.
Released from prison six months later, his return to the army council was delayed due to there being no vacancy. Martin McGuinness was IRA chief of staff and Adams soon became his adjutant general, a position he was to retain until the Assembly elections of 1982 by which time he had long since recovered his seat on the army council. It was an important period for the IRA and cemented the credentials of its increasingly northern leadership. Major operations like the killing of Lord Mountbatten and the Narrow Water attack on the same day in 1979 which claimed the lives of eighteen British forces personnel, signalled the military acumen of the Long War leadership that had resolutely positioned itself against any form of ceasefire.
It was also during his time as adjutant general that the hunger strikes occurred. Adams developed a practice that would become most pronounced during the peace process. the authority of the army council was gradually usurped as its power incrementally haemorrhaged to committees managed by Adams. Richard O’Rawe has persuasively demonstrated that the offer to end the hunger strike which Danny Morrison claims to have “described to the hunger strikers, including Joe McDonnell”, was rejected by the Adams committee and the prisoner’s acceptance overruled.
Adams retained the adjutant general portfolio until the Northern assembly elections at the end of 1982. The IRA decided that its members holding elected office could not at the same time hold down “army briefs.” This did not affect either Adams nor McGuinness in respect of their army council roles. But it did bring to a close his hands on day to day management of the IRA organisation.
At this point the balance of power in the army council was 4-3 with those not enamoured with the electoral strategy in the ascendancy. That changed courtesy of the RUC’s supergrasses strategy. The arrest of Ivor Bell and subsequent detention in prison for six weeks was according to British security strategists the key moment in the ultimate defeat of the IRA campaign. With shifting allegiances Adams now had five in favour of the electoral strategy. With the side-lining of Bell and others inside two years, substantive obstacles to the emergence of a peace process had been removed.
From that point on Gerry Adam’s position on the army council remained for the most part secure up until 2005 when the IRA announced an end to its war. The one serious challenge to his hegemony from those who went on to form the Real IRA was averted by a unanimous decision by the army council in February 1996 to end the ceasefire it had declared two years earlier. The result was the devastation of Canary Wharf.
Even though Manchester in the same year would be subject to a similar attack, there was only one direction in which the Provisional Republican Movement was headed, the road of peace. The IRA’s key military strategist was now its foremost political strategist. As a leading British security figure observed, the Titanic had indeed truly been turned in a bathtub.
Anthony McIntyre blogs @ The Pensive Quill.
Follow Anthony McIntyre on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre
Gerry Adams’s IRA years: An insider’s account
In asserting to the BBC’s Andrew Marr that his struggle for a united Ireland was not a failure, the soon to be former Sinn Fein president, Gerry Adams, made a highly implausible claim: the target had not been missed as Sinn Fein had bagged half a million votes … and still counting.
Success having many parents and failure an orphan, it is perhaps not surprising that Gerry Adams would seek to adopt something that might be loosely called success even if the goalposts had to be moved right off the pitch. As the Provisional IRA’s strategic primus inter pares, it is bitter pill for the Alpha and Omega of armed struggle to swallow that the IRA’s campaign considerably underachieved. Sinn Fein now fully embraces the British terms for unity, only by the consent of a majority in the North: by implication, a stark repudiation of the IRA methodology of coercion.
Better known publicly in 1970 for his letters as a Sinn Fein cumann PRO, protesting British Army harassment, Adams was nevertheless assiduously developing his tactical nous within the ranks of the Ballymurphy IRA where he was the local commander. In a calculated bid to build up a reservoir of community resentment that would morph into support for a revitalised IRA, he smothered the impulse of armed IRA volunteers to engage British troops during serious rioting over Orange marches.
It was the type of tactical ingenuity that would repeat itself a year later when the second battalion of the Belfast IRA, which he now commanded, orchestrated a bombing campaign against military and police installations in a bid to force Stormont’s hand on internment. The calculation was that the draconian measure might be introduced long before RUC Special Branch mastered the intelligence terrain. As anticipated, internment was an intelligence debacle with most senior IRA personnel and the bulk of volunteers evading the dragnet. Its one-sided application followed by torture in Palace Barracks and other holding centres, so enraged the nationalist community that the IRA found a surplus of eager youth from which to recruit. Already it was clear that the strategic intelligence of the IRA was coming to reside within the circles peopled by Adams and his coterie.
With the removal through arrest of Billy McKee as Belfast brigade commander, his replacement, Joe Cahill was a figure who valued the advice of Adams in a way that McKee was reluctant to, making the second battalion even more influential. Arrested in March 1972, Adams’ June release from internment was secured only after the new leadership of the second battalion made it clear that there would be no ceasefire if he was not freed to take part in negotiations. That Belfast was now becoming the power house of the Provisional IRA was to be seen in the presence of three Belfast IRA leaders in the six-man delegation that travelled to London for talks with the British secretary of state for the North, William Whitelaw. On the return journey to Ireland, despite chief of staff Sean MacStiofain preferring a prolonged truce, the Belfast delegation decided that it would be broken, as it duly was.
On his release from internment in June Adams had moved into the Belfast Brigade adjutant slot, a position he held at the time of the Bloody Friday bombings the following month. The first of the disappearances also began in June when Joe Lynsky a Belfast Brigade intelligence operative was killed and secretly buried. More such acts would follow and while the smoking gun was never found in the hand of Adams, his handpicked squad, colloquially referred to within the IRA as “the Unknowns,” was tasked with this most sensitive and heinous of tasks. The three people who accompanied Jean McConville as she stood trembling at her secret grave side were members of the Unknowns, including the man who led the group and answered directly to Adams. Prominent IRA figures, Brendan Hughes and Dolours Price both now deceased, were firm in their contention that their military commander, Adams, was the architect of the disappeared as well as being the IRA leader who took the bombing campaign to London. By now, with the departure of Seamus Twomey to GHQ staff in October 1972, Gerry Adams was the Belfast Brigade commander.
It was while in charge of the Belfast IRA, that he won the unalloyed admiration of the people who worked closely with him. Despite being on a British Army shoot on sight list, and billeted outside West Belfast in the evenings, each morning saw him travel into the heart of the constituency he would later become a Member of Parliament for, “to run the war.” One colleague who later turned out to be an implacable opponent observed that whatever attributes he lacked, “courage did not figure amongst them. He took serious risks.”
Running concurrent with much of this, Adams was registering his implacable opposition to IRA sectarian assassinations. Scathing of the Orr Brothers killings in North Belfast during the truce, he underwent an estrangement from the man responsible. His pragmatism would later kick in when he placed the same figure at the heart of his security entourage. This opposition to the targeting of Protestant civilians came to the fore later in 1976 when, from within the prison, Adams fumed at the Kingsmill massacre of ten workmen.
On release from prison in early 1977, a vehement critic of the 1975 IRA ceasefire, he went almost immediately to meet Seamus Twomey, by now serving a second term as chief of staff, with his plans for a long war. This was a military strategic vision for the most part put together by the late Pat Ward. When Twomey was arrested towards the end of 1977 Adams moved into the vacant chief of staff spot. His tenure came to be defined by the La Mon bomb attack which saw twelve Protestant civilians incinerated. The event brought his chief of staff spell to a close as he was arrested the following morning. There is no reason to think that Adams personally ordered the attack or knew about it. The most that can be said is that the operation was part of a wider incendiary grill bomb campaign approved by the army council of which Adams was a member. The former senior SAS officer Clive Fairweather told me over drinks in Edinburgh many years later that while he felt that Adams, in terms of ability, had no equal, his first instinct after La Mon was to shoot him.
Released from prison six months later, his return to the army council was delayed due to there being no vacancy. Martin McGuinness was IRA chief of staff and Adams soon became his adjutant general, a position he was to retain until the Assembly elections of 1982 by which time he had long since recovered his seat on the army council. It was an important period for the IRA and cemented the credentials of its increasingly northern leadership. Major operations like the killing of Lord Mountbatten and the Narrow Water attack on the same day in 1979 which claimed the lives of eighteen British forces personnel, signalled the military acumen of the Long War leadership that had resolutely positioned itself against any form of ceasefire.
It was also during his time as adjutant general that the hunger strikes occurred. Adams developed a practice that would become most pronounced during the peace process. the authority of the army council was gradually usurped as its power incrementally haemorrhaged to committees managed by Adams. Richard O’Rawe has persuasively demonstrated that the offer to end the hunger strike which Danny Morrison claims to have “described to the hunger strikers, including Joe McDonnell”, was rejected by the Adams committee and the prisoner’s acceptance overruled.
Adams retained the adjutant general portfolio until the Northern assembly elections at the end of 1982. The IRA decided that its members holding elected office could not at the same time hold down “army briefs.” This did not affect either Adams nor McGuinness in respect of their army council roles. But it did bring to a close his hands on day to day management of the IRA organisation.
At this point the balance of power in the army council was 4-3 with those not enamoured with the electoral strategy in the ascendancy. That changed courtesy of the RUC’s supergrasses strategy. The arrest of Ivor Bell and subsequent detention in prison for six weeks was according to British security strategists the key moment in the ultimate defeat of the IRA campaign. With shifting allegiances Adams now had five in favour of the electoral strategy. With the side-lining of Bell and others inside two years, substantive obstacles to the emergence of a peace process had been removed.
From that point on Gerry Adam’s position on the army council remained for the most part secure up until 2005 when the IRA announced an end to its war. The one serious challenge to his hegemony from those who went on to form the Real IRA was averted by a unanimous decision by the army council in February 1996 to end the ceasefire it had declared two years earlier. The result was the devastation of Canary Wharf.
Even though Manchester in the same year would be subject to a similar attack, there was only one direction in which the Provisional Republican Movement was headed, the road of peace. The IRA’s key military strategist was now its foremost political strategist. As a leading British security figure observed, the Titanic had indeed truly been turned in a bathtub.
Anthony McIntyre blogs @ The Pensive Quill.Follow Anthony McIntyre on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre
Sex Crimes Expert Is Going To Chile To Investigate Bishop
Lena M writing in Atheist Republic thinks that Pope Francei has joined the long list of Catholic pontiffs who have shown contempt for victims of clerical sex abuse.
Photo Credits: Wikimedia
After Pope Francis insulted the victim of sexual harassment during his visit to Chile, he is now sending the Vatican’s most respected sex crimes expert to Chile to investigate Bishop Juan Barros. “The day someone brings me proof against Bishop Barros, then I will talk,” Francis said at the time. “But there is not one single piece of evidence. It is all slander. Is that clear?”
After this papal statement even one of his closest advisers, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, publicly rebuked him for his treatment of victims and tried to set him straight. Francis later apologized for having demanded proof of victims, but stood by his belief that the accusations against the bishop were “calumny”.
The Vatican said on January 30 that Maltese Bishop Charles Scicluna would travel to Chile “to listen to those who have expressed the desire to provide elements” about the case of Bishop Juan Barros.
“As if I could have taken a selfie or a photo while Karadima abused me and others and Juan Barros stood by watching it all,” Cruz, Barros’ most vocal accuser, tweeted Jan. 19. “We hope the pope reacted based on the sentiments of the faithful, more than media pressure, but he did it,” said a statement from Juan Carlos Claret, spokesman of the Osorno laity group.
Fernando Karadima, the country's most notorious priest, was found guilty of sexually abusing minors and psychological abuse in Chile in February 2011 after several years of a Catholic canonical investigation. He was sent to a "life of prayer and penitence" and to "lifelong prohibition from the public exercise of any ministerial act, particularly confession and the spiritual guidance of any category of persons."
In 2015, after Karadima was sanctioned, Barros and two other Karadima-trained bishops were supposed to resign and take a year-long sabbatical, according to letter obtained by The Associated Press. Francis put a stop to that plan and decided to appoint a protégé of Karadima, Bishop Juan Barros, as bishop of the southern city of Osorno regardless of the allegations of Karadima’s victims that Barros and other priests were aware of his perversions but did nothing.
As Promoter of Justice, Scicluna was credited with constructing the 2010 universal norms that extended the Church's statutes of limitations on reporting cases of sexual abuse and expanded the category of ecclesial crimes to include sexual misconduct with a disabled adult and possession of child pornography. He was also instrumental in finally bringing to justice Latin America’s most notorious pedophile, the Rev. Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legion of Christ.
Maybe after Scicluna’s visit Pope will have enough evidence to believe in the stories of the victims and to investigate with more dedication those responsible for sex crimes in the church.
Follow Atheist Republic on Twitter @AtheistRepublic
Photo Credits: WikimediaAfter Pope Francis insulted the victim of sexual harassment during his visit to Chile, he is now sending the Vatican’s most respected sex crimes expert to Chile to investigate Bishop Juan Barros. “The day someone brings me proof against Bishop Barros, then I will talk,” Francis said at the time. “But there is not one single piece of evidence. It is all slander. Is that clear?”
After this papal statement even one of his closest advisers, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, publicly rebuked him for his treatment of victims and tried to set him straight. Francis later apologized for having demanded proof of victims, but stood by his belief that the accusations against the bishop were “calumny”.
The Vatican said on January 30 that Maltese Bishop Charles Scicluna would travel to Chile “to listen to those who have expressed the desire to provide elements” about the case of Bishop Juan Barros.
“As if I could have taken a selfie or a photo while Karadima abused me and others and Juan Barros stood by watching it all,” Cruz, Barros’ most vocal accuser, tweeted Jan. 19. “We hope the pope reacted based on the sentiments of the faithful, more than media pressure, but he did it,” said a statement from Juan Carlos Claret, spokesman of the Osorno laity group.
Fernando Karadima, the country's most notorious priest, was found guilty of sexually abusing minors and psychological abuse in Chile in February 2011 after several years of a Catholic canonical investigation. He was sent to a "life of prayer and penitence" and to "lifelong prohibition from the public exercise of any ministerial act, particularly confession and the spiritual guidance of any category of persons."
In 2015, after Karadima was sanctioned, Barros and two other Karadima-trained bishops were supposed to resign and take a year-long sabbatical, according to letter obtained by The Associated Press. Francis put a stop to that plan and decided to appoint a protégé of Karadima, Bishop Juan Barros, as bishop of the southern city of Osorno regardless of the allegations of Karadima’s victims that Barros and other priests were aware of his perversions but did nothing.
As Promoter of Justice, Scicluna was credited with constructing the 2010 universal norms that extended the Church's statutes of limitations on reporting cases of sexual abuse and expanded the category of ecclesial crimes to include sexual misconduct with a disabled adult and possession of child pornography. He was also instrumental in finally bringing to justice Latin America’s most notorious pedophile, the Rev. Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legion of Christ.
Maybe after Scicluna’s visit Pope will have enough evidence to believe in the stories of the victims and to investigate with more dedication those responsible for sex crimes in the church.
Follow Atheist Republic on Twitter @AtheistRepublic
February 10, 2018
Sidelined
From last month via The Transcripts Martin Galvin speaks to Joe Barr, the National Organiser for the revolutionary Irish Republican party, Saoradh, via telephone from Doire, about Saoradh’s decision not to support or attend this year’s Bloody Sunday March for Justice which is to be held a week from Sunday on the 28th of January.
Joe Barr RFÉ 20 January 2018 Radio Free Éireann
WBAI 99.5FM Pacifica Radio
New York City
(begins time stamp ~ 26:44) Audio Player
Martin: And with us on the line I believe we have Joe Barr from Doire and Saoradh.
Joe: Yep.
Martin: Joe, are you with us?
Joe: Yeah, I’m with you, Martin. How’s it going there?
Martin: Doing the best. We were having trouble reaching you. I was just getting nervous for a second. Okay. Joe, we had – John and I just spoke a little bit about the Bloody Sunday March and how your group, Saoradh, is going to have a demonstration not next Sunday but on Saturday.
Joe: Yes.
Martin: I just want to re-introduce you to our audience: Last time you were on you had actually been in New York on a work situation, you were picked up by the FBI, they questioned you about Saoradh and you then got sent home and basically you lost your job as a result. You’re now working in the Doire office of Saoradh. Joe, why is it that you joined Saoradh? (Martin spells Saoradh) There are a lot of movements where you can be a Republican today and it’s a lot safer and politically and financially advantageous – why did you choose to join Saoradh?
Joe: Well the reason I joined Saoradh was I was invited to the initial talks about two and a half years ago now. Saoradh’s made up by a number of, you know, Republicans who were part of different organisations before, like myself – I was a member of the 32 County Sovereignty Movement – groups were invited to talks. As the talks progressed, the more I learned, the more I listened to the views, the ideals and what way people wanted our party to progress. I thought that this was the party for me.
Martin: Okay. Joe, now you’re located in Doire. I’m sure that going to Bloody Sunday Marches was very important to you – an important part of your becoming a Republican and had a big influence on you. You’ve attended many of them. What is it about this year that made you take a decision that you wouldn’t attend this year?
Joe: Right well, to be honest now, it’s not just what went on this year – the last number of years Republicans, not just Saoradh but I also know other Republican groups, have felt that they’re being sidelined, that they’re being put to the back. Essentially, people believe that the Bloody Sunday Committee, the Bloody Sunday March, has been hijacked by a political organisation called People Before Profit – I’m not too sure if your listeners are aware of that group?
Bloody Sunday March for Justice 2018 Poster
Source: Bloody Sunday March for Justice
Joe: Yeah, yeah – that would be them, that would be them. So, we’ve just noticed – like I’ll give you and example: Last year, some march organisers were telling Republican groups to get to the back of the march, telling them they weren’t wanted at the front and they had to go to the back. So this is what was going on last year and then this year what happened – I’m sure that you’ve seen the poster which was put out. The poster is, to be honest I find it disgraceful, some of the things that’s on the poster and they expect Republicans to fall in behind…
Martin: …Right. John McDonagh read the poster out and I noticed too, for example: John Brady’s name is on it. Lorna Brady, his sister, who was on this programme some years back, right after John’s death, she actually said that she would not be involved in it and the John Brady Memorial Band from Strabane said that they are withdrawing – that’s some of the groups that are not going to be involved. And I know one of the controversies – Tony Taylor from Doire, who I know – his wife, people had requested that his wife be allowed to speak because Tony Taylor is interned-by-licence, as they call it – the licence was just revoked, secret evidence is used to keep him there, he doesn’t know how long he’s going to be involved, in prison, and the Bloody Sunday March itself in 1972 was against internment and the internees were just shot down so there was a request to have Tony Taylor from Doire, from the city, have his wife speak against his internment and that apparently was turned down and that was something else that led to controversy.
Internment Clock as of 20 January 2018
Source: freetonytaylor.com
Joe: Yeah, and again, that was last year. Lorraine (Tony’s wife) you know she wanted to address the crowd.
I believe it was coming up to the first year anniversary of Tony’s internment, and approaches were made to the Bloody Sunday Committee and the approach was turned down. Now, coming into this year now, we have Neil Hegarty who is also interned. Neil was just released after doing five years in prison in December. He wasn’t out twenty-four hours before he had his licence revoked and taken straight back into prison.
Martin: Okay. And alright, so next week you’re going to have, on Saturday – and I’ve made this point: It’s not directly to conflict with the Bloody Sunday March – next week Saoradh is going to have a protest. What exactly – but that’s on Saturday, not Sunday, to conflict with the Bloody Sunday – what are you going to do?
Source: Irish Republican News 9 December 2017
To read full story click here
Joe: So next Saturday at quarter to two we’re going to have a wreath laying ceremony at the Bloody Sunday Monument and then after that we’re going to have a white line anti-internment rally/picket at the Free Derry Corner between two and three – so that’s to highlight the on-going internment of Neil Hegarty and also Tony Taylor.
Martin: Yeah. Now I just, I wanted to ask you: How important was the Bloody Sunday March to you growing up? You know, as a Republican?
Joe: Bloody Sunday was a, it’s – it’s to any young Doire man, to any young Doire woman, the Bloody Sunday March is something that you just know, you know? It’s like Christmas, straight after Christmas, you’ve got, you know, Bloody Sunday, do you understand? It’s just an event that happens every year that you’re just used to getting prepared for – this decision, you know, we didn’t come to this decision lightly. There was a lot of talk and a lot of discussions with all our local members, not just in Doire but across the country, but it was felt that there was no way we could march this year with what was written on that poster.
Martin: How many years – how long have you been attending Bloody Sunday Marches?
Joe: So, I’m twenty-nine now so I started going whenever I went to secondary school when I was eleven, so eleven or twelve, so that’s about seventeen-eighteen years – that’s how many I’ve been going.
Martin: Alright. What would it take to get you and Saoradh back in the Bloody Sunday March next year?
Joe: Well, we would like to see the march going back to, you know, what is was set up for – it’s remembering the Bloody Sunday victims. It’s highlighting the fact that those victims did not get justice. An apology was never enough. And we also want to highlight, you know, Republican issues/local issues. We understand that, you know, that there’s things going on internationally…
Martin: …Hello?
Joe: …but we want to highlight our issues and get our message out.
Martin: Okay. Alright now, if people want information about Saoradh and I’m going to spell that again for our audience. (Martin spells Saoradh)
Joe: (Joe spells Saoradh)
Martin: Right. How would they get it?
Saoradh Contact Details, saoradh.ie - Facebook - Twitter
Joe: Okay, so you can find us at www.saoradh.ie . You can also find us on Facebook, Saoradh – The Unfinished Revolution – and if you’d like to find our specific Doire office, which is the headquarters for Saoradh – it’s Junior McDaid House on Facebook.
Martin: Okay. So if they’re in Doire, if any of our listeners visit the office, you can get information on the website or on Facebook.
Joe: Yes.
Martin: Joe, we want to thank you for coming on with us and we hope that things work out for next year. We will try again to have somebody from the committee to give us their position, their thinking, but this was such, there’s so many people who feel that strongly – just the same way, articulated the view that you’ve articulated so well that we wanted to air it on WBAI Radio Free Éireann. Alright. Thank you, Joe.
Joe: Martin, no problem. Bye-Bye now. (ends time stamp ~ 35:12)
Joe Barr RFÉ 20 January 2018 Radio Free Éireann
WBAI 99.5FM Pacifica Radio
New York City
(begins time stamp ~ 26:44) Audio Player
Martin: And with us on the line I believe we have Joe Barr from Doire and Saoradh.
Joe: Yep.
Martin: Joe, are you with us?
Joe: Yeah, I’m with you, Martin. How’s it going there?
Martin: Doing the best. We were having trouble reaching you. I was just getting nervous for a second. Okay. Joe, we had – John and I just spoke a little bit about the Bloody Sunday March and how your group, Saoradh, is going to have a demonstration not next Sunday but on Saturday.
Joe: Yes.
Martin: I just want to re-introduce you to our audience: Last time you were on you had actually been in New York on a work situation, you were picked up by the FBI, they questioned you about Saoradh and you then got sent home and basically you lost your job as a result. You’re now working in the Doire office of Saoradh. Joe, why is it that you joined Saoradh? (Martin spells Saoradh) There are a lot of movements where you can be a Republican today and it’s a lot safer and politically and financially advantageous – why did you choose to join Saoradh?
Joe: Well the reason I joined Saoradh was I was invited to the initial talks about two and a half years ago now. Saoradh’s made up by a number of, you know, Republicans who were part of different organisations before, like myself – I was a member of the 32 County Sovereignty Movement – groups were invited to talks. As the talks progressed, the more I learned, the more I listened to the views, the ideals and what way people wanted our party to progress. I thought that this was the party for me.
Martin: Okay. Joe, now you’re located in Doire. I’m sure that going to Bloody Sunday Marches was very important to you – an important part of your becoming a Republican and had a big influence on you. You’ve attended many of them. What is it about this year that made you take a decision that you wouldn’t attend this year?
Joe: Right well, to be honest now, it’s not just what went on this year – the last number of years Republicans, not just Saoradh but I also know other Republican groups, have felt that they’re being sidelined, that they’re being put to the back. Essentially, people believe that the Bloody Sunday Committee, the Bloody Sunday March, has been hijacked by a political organisation called People Before Profit – I’m not too sure if your listeners are aware of that group?
Bloody Sunday March for Justice 2018 PosterSource: Bloody Sunday March for Justice
Joe: Yeah, yeah – that would be them, that would be them. So, we’ve just noticed – like I’ll give you and example: Last year, some march organisers were telling Republican groups to get to the back of the march, telling them they weren’t wanted at the front and they had to go to the back. So this is what was going on last year and then this year what happened – I’m sure that you’ve seen the poster which was put out. The poster is, to be honest I find it disgraceful, some of the things that’s on the poster and they expect Republicans to fall in behind…
Martin: …Right. John McDonagh read the poster out and I noticed too, for example: John Brady’s name is on it. Lorna Brady, his sister, who was on this programme some years back, right after John’s death, she actually said that she would not be involved in it and the John Brady Memorial Band from Strabane said that they are withdrawing – that’s some of the groups that are not going to be involved. And I know one of the controversies – Tony Taylor from Doire, who I know – his wife, people had requested that his wife be allowed to speak because Tony Taylor is interned-by-licence, as they call it – the licence was just revoked, secret evidence is used to keep him there, he doesn’t know how long he’s going to be involved, in prison, and the Bloody Sunday March itself in 1972 was against internment and the internees were just shot down so there was a request to have Tony Taylor from Doire, from the city, have his wife speak against his internment and that apparently was turned down and that was something else that led to controversy.
Internment Clock as of 20 January 2018Source: freetonytaylor.com
Joe: Yeah, and again, that was last year. Lorraine (Tony’s wife) you know she wanted to address the crowd.
I believe it was coming up to the first year anniversary of Tony’s internment, and approaches were made to the Bloody Sunday Committee and the approach was turned down. Now, coming into this year now, we have Neil Hegarty who is also interned. Neil was just released after doing five years in prison in December. He wasn’t out twenty-four hours before he had his licence revoked and taken straight back into prison.
Martin: Okay. And alright, so next week you’re going to have, on Saturday – and I’ve made this point: It’s not directly to conflict with the Bloody Sunday March – next week Saoradh is going to have a protest. What exactly – but that’s on Saturday, not Sunday, to conflict with the Bloody Sunday – what are you going to do?
Source: Irish Republican News 9 December 2017To read full story click here
Joe: So next Saturday at quarter to two we’re going to have a wreath laying ceremony at the Bloody Sunday Monument and then after that we’re going to have a white line anti-internment rally/picket at the Free Derry Corner between two and three – so that’s to highlight the on-going internment of Neil Hegarty and also Tony Taylor.
Martin: Yeah. Now I just, I wanted to ask you: How important was the Bloody Sunday March to you growing up? You know, as a Republican?
Joe: Bloody Sunday was a, it’s – it’s to any young Doire man, to any young Doire woman, the Bloody Sunday March is something that you just know, you know? It’s like Christmas, straight after Christmas, you’ve got, you know, Bloody Sunday, do you understand? It’s just an event that happens every year that you’re just used to getting prepared for – this decision, you know, we didn’t come to this decision lightly. There was a lot of talk and a lot of discussions with all our local members, not just in Doire but across the country, but it was felt that there was no way we could march this year with what was written on that poster.
Martin: How many years – how long have you been attending Bloody Sunday Marches?
Joe: So, I’m twenty-nine now so I started going whenever I went to secondary school when I was eleven, so eleven or twelve, so that’s about seventeen-eighteen years – that’s how many I’ve been going.
Martin: Alright. What would it take to get you and Saoradh back in the Bloody Sunday March next year?
Joe: Well, we would like to see the march going back to, you know, what is was set up for – it’s remembering the Bloody Sunday victims. It’s highlighting the fact that those victims did not get justice. An apology was never enough. And we also want to highlight, you know, Republican issues/local issues. We understand that, you know, that there’s things going on internationally…
Martin: …Hello?
Joe: …but we want to highlight our issues and get our message out.
Martin: Okay. Alright now, if people want information about Saoradh and I’m going to spell that again for our audience. (Martin spells Saoradh)
Joe: (Joe spells Saoradh)
Martin: Right. How would they get it?
Saoradh Contact Details, saoradh.ie - Facebook - Twitter Joe: Okay, so you can find us at www.saoradh.ie . You can also find us on Facebook, Saoradh – The Unfinished Revolution – and if you’d like to find our specific Doire office, which is the headquarters for Saoradh – it’s Junior McDaid House on Facebook.
Martin: Okay. So if they’re in Doire, if any of our listeners visit the office, you can get information on the website or on Facebook.
Joe: Yes.
Martin: Joe, we want to thank you for coming on with us and we hope that things work out for next year. We will try again to have somebody from the committee to give us their position, their thinking, but this was such, there’s so many people who feel that strongly – just the same way, articulated the view that you’ve articulated so well that we wanted to air it on WBAI Radio Free Éireann. Alright. Thank you, Joe.
Joe: Martin, no problem. Bye-Bye now. (ends time stamp ~ 35:12)
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