Truthvader wrote: » Honestly no. It is absolutely beyond me why or how any normal human being could vote for or support anything connected to Sinn Fein/ IRA. But as you and thousands like you demonstrate time and again you have no problem with the murders and thievery
markodaly wrote: » Maybe you should, you may learn something. Doesnt answer the question. What is SF's position on it?
Michelle O'Neill wrote: “I made it very clear that I supported the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ international agreement.”
FrancieBrady wrote: » The 'community' that lives in fear, but still elects COnor Murphy over and over again with a massive vote. Have you never stopped to think about that one? Can you rationalise it for us?
Truthvader wrote: » Two words Paul. Quinn.
FrancieBrady wrote: » I never typed in 'Gerry Adams Murderer' in my life.
If you used google for anything other than your bias youmight have come across this, in which the Chinese more or less admit to gilding the lily and the politician's involve spell out their positions. Nice try mark...but the story died on you.https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/china-removes-statement-on-ni-leaders-respect-for-hong-kong-security-laws-39443514.html
Superfoods wrote: » I know for certainty you never lived anywhere close to the border during the troubles At the moment you just seem to be fishing for information then replaying it back. Look at the last few posts when someone mentioned anything about the troubles, next post if from you with a little "story" You support Sinn Fein and are clearly passionate about them. You must have read every single book/article on them. Why bother making up stories? they have a murky past. Trying to hide that won't change it. Making out the PIRA was the local good guy is laughable, majority where psycopaths that had no issues hurting or killing people for no reason than the person was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Remember the Shankill bombing, they knew the target was not in chip shop, they walked in and seen children/women etc. This was not a remote bomb. These people are now seemingly your best mate down the pub?
FrancieBrady wrote: » Intimidation of witnesses is a targetted and individual thing. I have several times now said it goes on and went on. But we are talking about the trope of 'communities living in fear, then and now'. STILL not a single example of one given.
SafeSurfer wrote: » Maybe you could explain why parents not living in fear would deliver their children to be shot?
FrancieBrady wrote: » Well list these things then for us, tell us WHAT YOU KNOW with such certainty: 1. How many 'informers' can you actually name? 2. How many sexual abusers can you name? You won't name any of these communities 'living in fear, then and now', maybe you will share 1, and 2, above.
markodaly wrote: » ...and the classic Francie response to SF criticism. Post up a photo of Leo, as if that is an argument. Are you still sore about the fact that when you type in "Gerry Adams murderer" that one gets 1.5 million hits? Maybe that is because Gerry who was never in the IRA Adams did indeed order the murder of people. Anyway, getting back on topic. So what is SF's position on Hong Kong, seeing as one of their MEP's abstained in bringing China to the International Criminal Court of their illegal clamdown in Hong Kong and MoN's fawning to China in a recent video call?
jm08 wrote: » No. Not at all. Criminal gangs and Mafia would be wiped out in a few days if British Army troops were after them. When internment was introduced about 2,000 people were interned without trial.
SafeSurfer wrote: » Yet again with the selective certainty and willingness to “hazard a guess” that your experiences reflect everyone else’s experience. Yet your opinion on questions hat you don’t want to answer remains “I don’t know”.
SafeSurfer wrote: » Yet again with the selective certainty and willingness to “hazard a guess” that your experiences reflect everyone else’s experience. Yet your opinion on questions hat you don’t want to answer remains “I don’t know”. Why would anyone fear a “good republican” like Slab Murphy with his own personal Underground torture chamber. A man who testified against him in court ended up dead with a spike driven through his face a few months later. But of course you are right Francie, no one in the community or any other community was afraid of Slab and his ilk because that is your opinion and that alone “fulfills the requirement of proof” for the “myth” of informers in the IRA, the “myth” of IRA sexual abuse and now the “myth” of fear of these violent figures. Well done Francie. Well done.
markodaly wrote: » Would say the same about Criminal gangs? Or the Mafia?
FrancieBrady wrote: » The guy on the right in this picture doesn't seem to be too keen to offend either. McManus explained why he abstained (MEPS abstain all the time, check out some of the abstentions of whatever MEP you support, a paper like the Sindo would have no bother making juicy inferences I bet. )
FrancieBrady wrote: » Intimidation of witnesses happens everywhere and is not unique to NI or border areas. It is targeted and specific. I'm sorry but that doesn't fulfil the requirement of proof for tropes like 'communities living in fear of an overlord' Again loads of elasticity with the reality of a given situation...in my town and I would hazard a guess it was the same in most small towns, all businesses would close at a funeral cortege passed...regardless of creed or status. I and others have never claimed there was 'no fear', of course there was fear. What I am contesting is that there were widespread communities living in fear of IRA overlords. There wasn't and there is certainly next to none now. If you locked horns with the British, Loyalists or the IRA, yes you could and would pay the price if you crossed them. But the reality is as pointed out by people here that lived through it and who still live in these communities that people got on with life. Again...your and others inability to name 'these communities living in fear' is striking and telling. Tropes are important to those who wish to tout an agenda. Not unlike the fantastic theories about Adam's nefariousness is the preposterous idea that these communities 'living in fear' are going into the secrecy of the ballot box electing the very people accused of intimidating them to public office, over and over again. Bizarre again.
markodaly wrote: » Whatabout... Whatabout... Whatabout... Whatabout... ...and no, fear and intimidation of witnesss by ex paramilitary terrorits dont happen everywhere.
markodaly wrote: » They dont want to offend China?
jm08 wrote: » The only way the PIRA could operate the way they did was because they had the support of the community.
SafeSurfer wrote: » In my experience it is the same in communities on the border. If you witnessed an assault on the street after a nightclub and learned the attacker was from a local ra family you would keep your mouth shut. Why? Out of respect? No, out of fear.
A Sinn Féin MEP abstained on a European Parliament vote condemning Hong Kong's controversial new security laws - in a move that puts a fresh spotlight on the party's relationship with China. Midlands North West MEP Chris MacManus argued the resolution did not manage to "strike a balance between recognising China's sovereignty and raising valid concerns"
SafeSurfer wrote: » We had and have a special criminal court precisely because citizens were and are in fear of illegal organisations Like the IRA, Limerick drug gangs, Kinahan cartel. If there was no fear there would be no need for the court. The IRA intimated witnesses, look at the Jerry Mc Cabe case for one. In my experience it is the same in communities on the border. If you witnessed an assault on the street after a nightclub and learned the attacker was from a local ra family you would keep your mouth shut. Why? Out of respect? No, out of fear. When “a volunteers” funeral cortège passed through the town local businesses were “requested” to close their premises by some friendly local “activists”. Of course they always did. Again not out of respect but out of fear. Like anything else one gets used to fear and it becomes so normal as to be hardly noticed but the fear, like in communities in areas in Dublin and Limerick, is there none the less. If you dismiss the idea that families and communities in Northern Ireland lived in fear I would recommend the award winning documentary “A Mother Brings Her Som To Be Shot” The title is pretty self explanatory. I would also recommend reading professor Liam Kennedy’s report “They Shoot Children Don’t They”. Which catalogues more than 500 children shot or beaten by paramilitaries, including the IRA, many of them coordinated through the offices of Sinn Fein, during the troubles. Professor Kennedy stated “Northern Ireland was "a blackspot for the abuse of children in a form that had no parallel elsewhere in western Europe" I think it is fair to say that there were communities in Northern Ireland living in fear during the troubles and to this day.
FrancieBrady wrote: » Again, why can you not deal with what was actually said? I grew up in fairly close contact to the Irish army and the British army...who had masters. They didn't have 'overlords' either. So communities all over northern Ireland and along the border (including mine apparently) lived in fear of IRA overlord's but you cannot name any? Speaks for itself as a lazy trope. I remember talking to an American tourist here in my town (she was a student journalist believe it or not) she nearly fainted when I suggested we go across the border one evening to an event in Newtownbutler...she had been led to believe from what she had been reading that bullets would be almost whizzing past her ear in open warfare.
FrancieBrady wrote: » I walked through that checkpoint so many times hitching home from Letterkenny. A particularly intimidating one as was the Aughnacloy one on the other side. Especially after Aidan McAnespie was shot from the turret. The feeling that somebody was training a rifle sight on your back was hard to shirk.
joeguevara wrote: » I remember driving through strabane regularly as a kid as my father was from NW Donegal. Absolutely scared sh1tless on that bridge with the BA stops.
nigeldaniel wrote: » Yip, I noticed the SF sneaky regard for commy China and the suppressant of democracy. The irony is there not the Sf and its cohorts will ever admit to it. I bet Sf would do the same in Ireland if they had half the chance.
