Taoiseach shocked and dismayed at Sinn Fein TDs tweet on IRA attacks

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

@Blanch did you watch the video yet? You can skip to 6 minutes in if you haven't ten minutes to spare.

You and anyone else defending the RUC / British Army scumbags and attacking those who resisted them have no leg to stand on if you refuse to comment on why everything kicked off in Northern Ireland to begin with. The people in this video were peacefully protesting against electoral, housing and employment discrimination and demanding an end to it. What followed is the specific catalyst for the entire thirty year conflict which immediately followed.

Nothing to say?

]

I am not defending any scumbags, stop putting words in my mouth.

As for the video, I lived through the 1970s and 1980s, I don't need to watch any video reinterpreting my experiences.

blanch152 wrote: »

But he didn't say that it is great about gay rights being achieved, he said that the then Taoiseach could do what he liked in bed, drawing attention in an inappropriate way to the then Taoiseach's sexual orientation, low-level dog-whistle homophobia.

Let's hope he does the decent thing and apologises to the Tanaiste.






Glad to see that the excuses of this morning have now been dropped. We were told it was about getting up early in the morning, now it is about gay rights.

The brass neck of this posting is incredible.

Ok...it's clear you aren't going to give the man's perfectly reasonable explanation any consideration.
The mob's mind is made up, we are desperate for a scalp and some deflection. Basically, what we have here, is a man who is noted for standing up for gay and lesbian rights, who backed every campaign to gain them when others where denying them, has suddenly turned homophobic in a tweet.

A tweet that nobody turned a blind eye to three years ago or since until somebody was sent to trawl his posts for anything that might make up for not getting him in his first insensitive tweet.

blanch152 wrote: »

I am not defending any scumbags, stop putting words in my mouth.

As for the video, I lived through the 1970s and 1980s, I don't need to watch any video reinterpreting my experiences.

You did, though. Your earlier post on the subject:

blanch152 wrote: »

That bit in bold simply isn't true. For a start, there were many actions that the Crown Forces took that were protecting people, many of them risked their lives (e.g. Warrenpoint) for the security and safety of ordinary people. Yes, there were things that they did that were wrong, and they should be rightly condemned for those, but the vast majority of their actions were in defence of law and order. Secondly, they were a legitimate democratically accepted security force. Northern Ireland is and was British by virtue of the democratic will of the people of Northern Ireland. That makes them very different to the IRA who had no democratic legitimacy (unless you believe the fable of a history back to 1919).

None of that excuses Bloody Sunday or Finucane or any other wrong.

This is blatantly untrue and that's what I'm asking you to address. There were not merely "things that they did wrong", the organisations to their very core were built around the priority of protecting the Loyalist/Protestant stranglehold on power and violently suppressing everyone who tried to agitate against this through peaceful protest. This is the direct reason the Troubles began. If those protest marches hadn't been baton charged by the c*nts who comprised the majority of the RUC, not just "a few bad apples", there would have been no thirty year conflict and certainly not one as bloody as what ultimately occurred.

The RUC as an organisation was a sectarian, British equivalent of the KKK. It's as simple as that. Any and all attacks against either it or the British Army which were subsequent to the events depicted in that video were a legitimate response to state-sponsored police brutality and apartheid.

They fundamentally deserved every single bullet or bomb thrown their way after behaving like this, again not as individuals but as an entire organisation. It was rotten and scummy to its very core. Your narrative that it was primarily good, ordinary cops is absolute bullsh!t - it was a paramilitary force whose primary goal was to maintain the system of oppression against the nationalist population. This applies even more so to any element of the British Army which subsequently got involved in the conflict. The entire organisations made themselves fair game for violent resistance after violently putting down a peaceful protest march. Had every RUC station in Northern Ireland been firebombed the following morning, it would have been justified.

rdwight wrote: »

Stanley's response to a gay party leader being elected is to make a gratuitous reference to sexual activity and Francie et al are deaf to the dog whistle.

Essentially this.

Amirani wrote: »

Look, I've no skin in the game here in the stupid arguments blanch and you seem to have constantly. I have been involved in LGBT campaigning for a long time, and have witnessed and been subjected to various slurs and off-handed comments that are then sometimes dressed up as not being homophobic.

I don't expect you to understand what it's like. It might just be "faux outrage" to you, but making comments about what somebody does in bed when they are gay is a comment with homophobic roots, and is disparaging. It's such a common trope, from lots of people, Stanley is hardly the first and won't be the last. Fine if you don't consider it to be such, but the majority of people in the LGBT community would rather such insinuations not be made.

I've no problem giving him the benefit of the doubt that he didn't mean it to be a homophobic attack, but it's not something that should be said.

Again, I am taking what the man said himself into account: He meant it as 'Great that gay rights have been achieved, what about etc etc'.

If you want his scalp over that, fair enough, go ahead. I think it would do a dis-service to those fighting against genuine homophobia as a lot of the (no offence to you or any genuine campaigners) faux outrage woke stuff does.

I have no doubt if those people go after him they'll get their man. But there you go.

rdwight wrote: »

Stanley's response to a gay party leader being elected is to make a gratuitous reference to sexual activity and Francie et al are deaf to the dog whistle.

'Gratuitous reference to sexual activity'??? OMG!! Someone mentioned SEX.

You sound like Mary whitehouse.

FrancieBrady wrote: »

'Gratuitous reference to sexual activity'??? OMG!! Someone mentioned SEX.

You sound like Mary whitehouse.

This is the problem. Posters like you and Bowie think it is funny to refer to Mary Whitehouse in this context, or quote the loyalist who called Varadkar an Indian, or adopt a username for a laugh.

It just isn't funny, it is offensive.

You might call it "faux outrage woke stuff" and probably claim that it is locker-room banter or some such but it is not, it is low-level dog-whistle racism and homophobia and unacceptable.

blanch152 wrote: »

I am beginning to understand why so many young people are voting Sinn Fein if they have been convinced as you clearly have been by what is essentially propaganda.

Young peoples' support for Sinn Fein has nothing whatsoever to do with the Troubles, I 100% guarantee you this beyond a flicker of a doubt. It's about the cost of living. Every poll taken in the last two years has reflected as much, so you don't have to take my word for it. It has literally nothing to do with Northern Ireland, for young people in the Republic self-preservation has massively eclipsed any other issues.

On a different note, your callous attitude to human life as displayed in your last sentence is shocking and disappointing, especially for someone who claims to support human rights. The right attitude in the 1960s and 1970s was taken by John Hume and Seamus Mallon who were the ones who had the vast support of the nationalist population.

I absolutely do not have a callous attitude to human life. I do have a callous attitude to the lives specifically of the willing, complicit agents of an apartheid regime. They can rot in hell as far as I'm concerned.

Would you describe Michael Collins as having a callous attitude to human life? How about Dev? How about Nelson Mandela? How about any number of historical figures who fought against oppression by targeting the organisations enforcing that oppression?

The RUC and Trouble-era British Army as organisations were beyond redemption. They marked themselves out as valid targets by choosing to enforce an apartheid regime and to stand with those responsible for discrimination and repression. Any such organisation is a legitimate target in a time of war.

blanch152 wrote: »

This is the problem. Posters like you and Bowie think it is funny to refer to Mary Whitehouse in this context, or quote the loyalist who called Varadkar an Indian, or adopt a username for a laugh.

It just isn't funny, it is offensive.

You might call it "faux outrage woke stuff" and probably claim that it is locker-room banter or some such but it is not, it is low-level dog-whistle racism and homophobia and unacceptable.

Mentioning Mary Whitehouse is 'offensive'?

The man said it wasn't, and gave a reasonable explanation of what he intended. He is not apologising for it.

Over to whoever wants to take the next step, I suppose. I have, as I said, no doubt if the faux outrage mob get going they'll get their man.

Amirani wrote: »

I don't think it's a resigning matter, it's a small ambiguous comment. Much of the fanfare is people trying to drag a bit more out of the previous Twitter story.

That said, his comments in relation to it were quite odd. Why not acknowledge that the Tweet may have been misconstrued, explain what he meant (the getting up early thing) and then say that he had no intention or would not make homophobic remarks?

Instead he starts talking about freedom of speech and how his track record for gay rights speaks for itself? Really could've handled this better.

He did say short tweets can be mis-interpreted.

Mr Stanley said that short tweets can be “misinterpreted”.

“’Yippee’ meant I celebrate the fact we got so far in terms of the rights for gay people.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/brian-stanley-says-he-has-nothing-to-apologise-for-over-2017-tweet-1.4426553#.X8jYyDBjg0U.twitter

rdwight wrote: »

I'm beginning to get the same feeling I get watching a Trump press conference. Next, you'll be asking me to prove that Stanley's tweet wasn't at least partially a reference to the "early risers" quote.

This is even though he himself said (in the the article you linked to) that he was referring to gay rights. In defending his tweet he made no reference to the "early risers" quote.

Stop digging Francie

I said I know that. I said I accept that it was nothing to do with the 'early risers'.
I said that it could be made to be about the early risers remark too.

I.E. I was wrong initially.

Seriously, how dumb is the average Sinn Fein TD? Brian Stanley is 62, uses text speak, can't string a sentence together and not only does he hold views that are both homophobic and sympathetic to terrorists, he's so intellectually vapid (read: stupid) that he doesn't even know better than to spout those views all over Twitter. :rolleyes:

What does Mary Lou do? Absolutely nothing. A zero-tolerance policy from her on issues relating to terrorism sympathisers might do something to make people like me ever consider voting for them. But she's happy to stick with the votes of gullible nationalists and not go beyond that base.

I'm in my early 30s and desperate to buy a house like half the country, but how people think SF will do anything to improve their lives is totally beyond me. Look at the moral and intellectual calibre of this shower of fools.

They are just a complete embarrassment.

In fairness before we even get to the homophobic bit, I don’t want anyone in the dail that tweets “yippee 4 d Tory”

Stanley has been a Town Councillor then Councilor then TD since 1999, what other job had he? no mention of it in his election leaflets from 2011 https://irishelectionliterature.com/2011/03/01/leaflet-from-brian-stanley-sinn-fein-laois-offaly-2011-ge/