janfebmar wrote: » Francie, you lost the argument yet again. Russell was on board the German submarine in a time of war. He was a leader in the IRA. The Germans at the time were not taking people for Disneyland type pleasure trips out in to the Atlantic. We said he collaborated, and collaborate is what he did or attempt to do.
FrancieBrady wrote: » Sure, I have lost the 'argument' to somebody who wants to fastidiously ignore more blatant collaboration than trying to take advantage.
FrancieBrady wrote: » Come on blanch...I asked you for specific examples of HOW he did this. 'Bluster' and rethoric doesn't count.
blanch152 wrote: » Francie, are you seriously defending Sean Russell's Nazi collaboration and the SF/IRA Army Council alliance with Nazi Germany? Saying that it is bluster and rhetoric and doesn't count is a complete cop-out.
FrancieBrady wrote: » I am asking you to point to something specific he did to 'collaborate' with what the Nazi'z were doing. You can't because it doesn't exist. Once again, in a effort to deflect from more serious collaboration and appeasement you guys are reduced to pointing at a misguided move by an Irish republican. The British and Irish hat doffers can hero worship a plethora of empire builders and their various campaigns of genocide and brutality because they did well in a war, but an Irish republican making a wrong and ill informed opportunistic dalliance renders everything he did wrong. Typical hypocrisy yet again. *Personally I think Russell was a misguided fool in respect of his daliance with the Germans btw.
Deleted User wrote: » What you "imagine" is irrelevant, when by signing the Anglo-German Naval Agreement in June 1935 the British did, in fact, treacherously stab the French in the back and breached their own commitments, given two months earlier in the Stresa Front. 30 pieces of silver. It was this unilateral British state alliance with Nazi Germany which was key to Mussolini's subsequent decision to make his own deal with Nazi Germany. That they don't teach you this in the post-WW 2 whitewashing of British collaboration does not negate its veracity.
blanch152 wrote: » Misguided move by an Irish republican? That is like saying Mussolini was fooled by Hitler. Like so many other republicans, Russell was driven by a blind hatred of the other side that made the poor judgment inevitable. You can only excuse the misguided decision if you castigate the motivation and mentality of the man.
blanch152 wrote: » Misguided move by an Irish republican? That is like saying Mussolini was fooled by Hitler.
blanch152 wrote: » Like so many other republicans, Russell was driven by a blind hatred of the other side that made the poor judgment inevitable.
RobMc59 wrote: » the vast majority of Irish people are`nt interested in these type of extremist republican crackpot conspiracy theories so probably best to keep it for the saoradh fanboy appreciation website.:rolleyes:
Deleted User wrote: » How come when the British collaborated with Nazi Germany they were "fooled" but when Mussolini, who only began collaborating with Nazi Germany after the British Empire, did it's something worse than "fooled"? You wouldn't be biased there, would you? Sort of like all those British capitalists and Christians who were driven by a blind hatred of atheistic, private property hating communism and therefore viewed the private property loving capitalist Nazis as a greater good and accordingly appeasement/collaboration with Nazi Germany was a very popular policy in Britain until 1939? Or is that 1930s context a bit too close to the bone?
blanch152 wrote: » Let us be blunt here, the British misguidedly didn't challenge Nazi Germany enough, ditto the US.
Somehow equating that to support for Hitler right to the end from the IRA Army Council is more than a little disingenuous.
The posters who defend Sean Russell need to take a long hard look at what they are saying.
blanch152 wrote: » Let us be blunt here, the British misguidedly didn't challenge Nazi Germany enough, ditto the US. Somehow equating that to support for Hitler right to the end from the IRA Army Council is more than a little disingenuous. The posters who defend Sean Russell need to take a long hard look at what they are saying.
blanch152 wrote: » Let us be blunt here, the British misguidedly didn't challenge Nazi Germany enough, ditto the US. Somehow equating that to support for Hitler right to the end from the IRA Army Council is more than a little disingenuous.
blanch152 wrote: » The posters who defend Sean Russell need to take a long hard look at what they are saying.
FrancieBrady wrote: » Who is 'defending' Sean Russell though. Putting what he did into context is not defending him. I think what he did was foolish and wrong headed. Was it 'collaboration with what the Nazi's were doing', get a grip please, it was simply the age old maxim 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' in operation. Same thing allowed the British and Americans to side with despots when it suited them too, only to turn them into the enemy later. No doubt if the UK's Brexit goes to their plans, pastures of plenty etc etc Leo Varadkar will be painted as a 'collaborator with the evil EU' by the Mark Francois's of this world. They have already started doing it.
Deleted User wrote: » "Misguidedly" is a very benign interpretation, when the 1930s context was a choice between fascism and communism. They chose to side with the fascists, because at least private property, trade and religion would have a better chance. The irony that both Stalin and Mussolini at various stages in the 1930s wanted to stop Nazi Germany but Britain, whose economy was struggling, wanted to appease it very rarely gets a mention in the British understanding of the 1930s. Choosing to appease Nazi Germany was a conscious, political and economic choice by Britain. That it backfired does indeed make it 'misguided' in the same way that Mussolini's choice was also 'misguided' when it backfired. Not exactly the whole truth in either case. Nobody here, least of all left-wing republicans, is defending a right-wing republican like Seán Russell; although plenty of people here will always refuse to allow the British to spin this "We heroically stood up to the Nazis while Russell collaborated" selectivity which omits 6 years of the British themselves collaborating with Nazi Germany. Brazen stuff. That distinction should be obvious. There is no comparison between what a virtual nobody like Russell allegedly did and what your entire, then very powerful, state did. None. The Russell thing only serves to give you delusions about your actual historical role and paint the feckless Irish as the traditional bogey of the poor, upstanding principled British heroically saving everybody. No change, in other words. Never a word, either, for the John Avery and other indisputably Nazi-supporting British fascists - who were far more numerous than were Irish fascists. So, why is that? Russell is a mere deflection from Britain's 6 years plus of collaborating with Nazi Germany, and you think we can't see it. The Germans, for all their faults, are infinitely more honourable about facing up to their Nazi past than the British are about facing up to their imperialist past. Always seeking scapegoats. Hopefully the impending humbling of British nationalism that is Brexit will finally sort that out.
blanch152 wrote: » FrancieBrady wrote: » Who is 'defending' Sean Russell though. Putting what he did into context is not defending him. I think what he did was foolish and wrong headed. Was it 'collaboration with what the Nazi's were doing', get a grip please, it was simply the age old maxim 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' in operation. Same thing allowed the British and Americans to side with despots when it suited them too, only to turn them into the enemy later. No doubt if the UK's Brexit goes to their plans, pastures of plenty etc etc Leo Varadkar will be painted as a 'collaborator with the evil EU' by the Mark Francois's of this world. They have already started doing it. Sean Russell and the IRA Army Council never reneged on their alliance with the Germans. Long after the rest of the world was sickened, it was kept going. Says it all.
blanch152 wrote: » Sean Russell and the IRA Army Council never reneged on their alliance with the Germans. Long after the rest of the world was sickened, it was kept going. Says it all.
In 1933 the IRA’s newspaper An Phoblacht had condemned ‘Hitlerism’ as a ‘disease’. After the Nazis came to power the paper attacked those ‘rather foolish people’ in Ireland who praised Hitler. It criticised anti-Semitism and drew attention to the similarity between the Blueshirts in Ireland and fascists elsewhere in Europe. An Phoblacht reviewed the Brown Book of the Hitler Terror and explained how under Nazism ‘Jews are murdered or hounded’ and ‘bloody coercion’ imposed on the German people. That the Nazis had banned rival political parties, murdered socialists and jailed thousands of their opponents was taken as evidence that the ‘Fascist state is a collection of human chattels at the disposal of tyrants’. Reports from the underground German Social Democratic Party were also published in the paper. Therefore any IRA member who cared to read his own organisation’s newspaper during those years would have been aware of the nature of Nazi Germany. Part of the key to understanding the pro-Nazi drift of the IRA in 1940 is the nature of the political struggles within the organisation during the previous decade.
FrancieBrady wrote: » This is another lie. There were no doubt republicans who were ambigious about their support of the Germans, as we have seen there were many across Europe who did. In 1933 An Phoblacht was saying this:https://www.historyireland.com/20th-century-contemporary-history/oh-heres-to-adolph-hitler-the-ira-and-the-nazis/ As usual your attack dog style lacks any contextual reference or nuance.
blanch152 wrote: » Once again you might want to park the unseeing rage and look at what real Irish people like myself are saying.
Fionn1952 wrote: » So those who disagree with you aren't real Irish people, Blanch? 'What some Irish people like myself are saying' would've been a better way to phrase that otherwise.
blanch152 wrote: » Fionn1952 wrote: » So those who disagree with you aren't real Irish people, Blanch? 'What some Irish people like myself are saying' would've been a better way to phrase that otherwise. Fair enough, good point, but I was responding to someone who was calling me British.
blanch152 wrote: » That predates the alliance with Nazi Germany and the declaration of war on the UK. Only proves my point.
FrancieBrady wrote: » So can you show that it was anything more than the position of a few IRA people? Understanding to that it was the view of a lot of people who had no connection to the IRA? In other words the context of the time, a time when the British and Americans were officially appeasing the German's who were blatantly flouting the terms of the Treaty.
blanch152 wrote: » From your own link, next time read it in full, before feverishly sticking it up:
No doubt a section of the IRA would have realised their mistake and resisted. Certainly among the internees in the Curragh there were those who came to the conclusion that German imperialism represented a graver threat to Irish freedom than British. Other sections of Irish society would have collaborated too, of course, and the European experience suggests that many of the great and the good would have found reason to do so. But, unlike these hypothetical collaborators, the IRA actually wanted a German invasion and was in a position for a period to physically assist one. That is the central problem that many still refuse to face up to.
FrancieBrady wrote: » No doubt you missed this in your feverishness. Context blanch. Up to 2000 IRA members where interned during the period. The writer is wrong, many have 'faced up' to what happened, quite simply, any overview of the period shows that many different people and governments were trying to take advantage or were appeasing and collaborating. History unfortunately doesn't support the oft expressed theory that the British were the good ones of this period. What they did, or failed to do had far more profound effect than what a few IRA members said they would do. What you and janfebmar are furiously trying to deflect from.
blanch152 wrote: » Francie, for once just say that you are disgusted with the statements and actions of the IRA Army Council in 1940 and the support and assistance that was extended to Nazi Germany by the IRA and its members. We can then just leave it there. Your refusal to ever criticise any republican anywhere beyond "misguided" is more than tiresome at this stage.
FrancieBrady wrote: » :D:D And we get writ large what blanch152 has dedicated himself to. Which bit of 'misguided' or 'I think what he did was foolish and wrong headed' are you not getting?
blanch152 wrote: » Foolish, misguided? Those are words of excusing and explaining. They are not adequate or appropriate for the actions.
blanch152 wrote: » assuming that because I don't agree with what the IRA did, I am somehow not Irish.... Not all of us Irish subscribe to the blind glorification of the republican cause...
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