You’re probably familiar with the notion of pathetic fallacy, where Nature seems to reflect what’s happening with humankind. You’re feeling miserable and the rain is pissing down, you’re feeling top of the world, Ma, and the sun is glinting off car windows. Pathetic fallacy has almost as many exceptions as verifications, but it’s worth pointing out that as I type on this election day, the sun is dominating the sky and birdies are singing their little chests out. Maybe we’ll have a high turn-out at the voting booths.
But briefly, a return to the televised leaders’ debate. I know I’ve blogged on it already but I should have given far more weight to the treatment of the victims’ issue. Declan Morgan, who has in his favour the fact that he served time in St Columb’s in Derry, and against him the fact that he feels it necessary to lug around a ‘Sir’ before his name: the Lord Chief Justice has been pushing for inquests on people who were killed in the Trouhles decades ago. It is good that he should do so; it is beyond words that the loved ones have been denied an inquest to date. But they’ll have to wait at least a little longer, because the woman who has been made the centre of the DUP election campaign and who talks about ‘my candidates’ has blocked inquest progress. The reason she’s done so is not that she doesn’t feel for victims – as she might have mentioned once or twice, she’s one herself – but that most of the inquests would be into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of those killed by state forces.Can you credit that? I think the birdsong has suddenly grown silent and the sun has hid his face in shame.
But back to the election. What’s the biggest threat to democracy in general and today’s election in particular? That’s easy: apathy. The belief that none of the above (as I think Billy may have said) match your needs. It would take me several paragraphs to say what I think of voting abstention. Suffice to say that older people tend to vote and younger people tend not to bother, rich people tend to vote and poor people tend not to bother. So those with least to lose vote and those with most to lose don’t.Smart.
There are several possible answers to this ghastly state of affairs (we’ll be lucky to hit 50% voter turn-out today), including online voting and /or compulsory voting. But until voting is treated like seat-belt wearing – do it, like it or not – or like smoking and/or drunk-driving – public opinion pushes people to do the right thing – then the problem of voter turn-out will remain. That said, politicians could and should do far, far more in the way of town-hall meetings throughout their tenure, not just in the mouth of elections.
On a sweet-weather day like today, you could probably come up with lorry-loads of reasons for not spending five minutes in a voting centre. Ditch them and do the right thing. Please. I’m begging. Either you help decide what happens next in this twisted green corner or someone else will decide it for you. We’ve had enough of the latter; let’s all put our shoulders behind what happens next.
And if “none of the above” suits your needs then join a party that nearly does and pick your leaders and vote on policy. None of our parties have so many members that you won’t make a difference.
Change, choice and conflict
“God above is in charge of the weather and we can’t do anything about it”
Science, religion, fossil fuels and combustion engines featured in Danny Healy Rae’s Dáil Éireann contribution yesterday. He doesn’t believe in climate change. The TD’s thoughts will no doubt find favour throughout Ireland and its islands as many fossils continue to say no to change throughout the country.
Independent TD’s are being courted to support yet another right wing administration in the 26 counties, the same TD’s who obtained mandates to remove the Fine Gael and Irish Labour Party administration from office. What did the electorate vote for in the 26 counties? What will the electorate vote for in the six counties? Will it be change for the better or no change. It would appear that no change is the order of the day given the possibility of the return of a Fine Gael minority administration in the former and status quo in the latter?
The number of people sleeping rough in Dublin has increased by 12 per cent in five months, despite the provision of almost 500 new emergency beds in the last six months. A count was conducted on April 24th, the night of the census and just over a month before the withdrawal of all “cold weather emergency beds” on May 30th. On the night of the count, 4,262 emergency beds were occupied in the capital, including those occupied by about 1,800 children the most recent figures for homeless children in Dublin – for March 21st-27th – showed there were 1,723 in 839 families.
An Garda Síochána have confirmed the excavation of a garden in Dublin in search of the remains of two babies who were allegedly killed a number of years ago. In a separate incident and unrelated incident, the remains of a baby girl were discovered in a recycling facility yesterday. Patients wait for medical treatment on trolleys as families wait for inquests throughout the country and some elected representatives try to tell us,
“We can’t do anything about it.”
Fortunately, as Mr Dylan pointed out,
“ Your old road is rapidly agin’/Please get out of the new one/If you can’t lend your hand/For the times they are a-changin”
Voting has to be made compulsory. Too many people, a good few from sheer laziness, do not vote, and then have the gall to complain about politicians when they have it in their power to hire or fire said persons.
When you think of the struggle in this place and in other places for one man one vote and the very right to vote itself, it is not only criminally stupid not to do so, but it is also an insult to those who struggled hard and sacrificed much to gain that right.
For those of us down here in the Free Southern Stateen, Esteemed Blogmeister, the fact that the election is taking place in Norneverland on a Thursday has a special significance.
For those of us, that is, for whom The Unionist Times fulfills a dual function in the Necessary Room. That would be the smallest room on the premises to which one invariably repairs after the daily edition has plopped through the letter box and down on to the old Axminster in the hallway.
The dual function pertains firstly to the reading of that august organ in a seated position, and secondly, to the subsequent, erm, disposal of same in the old Armitage and Shanks. The second function is habitually carried out in a standing position.
And of course, the Man who is Thursday also, coincidentally, happens to be the McCannditate who will be the cynosure of all sore eyes south of the Black Sow’s Dyke.
The outcome of the election in Londonderry will have our tender sensibilities on tenterhooks till the results are revealed.
Will The Man who is Thursday morph into The Man who was Thursday ?
Now, why Eamonn (for it is he !) should, by mutual consent with TUT, have opted for a Thursday in which to have his, erm, killer of a column published is not entirely surprising. One has but to give the most superficial of glances at the novel with nearly the same name to dig the reason, to twig the decision.
Now, during the campaign leading up the election the McCanndidate has selflessly handed over the care of his surgical operation to his locum and, erm, fellow liberal unionist (small u), one Newton Emerson. At first, one was apprehensive. Would the grand old tradish of dispatching the Shinners to the Sin Bin be maintained?
That apprehension was misplaced. The tradish has not only been maintained but – it would be inaccurate to say it has been surpassed –but it has been, at the very least, embellished. Take this very Thursday’s topic, for instance, the topic that has not gone away you know: the d-word.
Let’s start at the bottom line of what The Newt had to write today:
-But which one’s more likely to deliver unity – McGuinness working with unionists or Adams insulting them from the South? The answer to that looks black and white.
Now while there are those who would consider starting with the bottom line to be akin to setting about things, erm, arsewise, nonetheless this is the way to approach today’s piece, perhaps the only way. Move further back up to this passage:
-The Sinn Fein President is almost literally making a Southern arse out of himself.
Thus, does The Newt In one decisive vowel movement free the a-word from all restraints. All citizens of Constipation Nation will be indebted to The Newt for this courageous act of linguistic liberation, and by extension, to the McCanndiate for mentoring him. And in such as a way as to allow him to be (gulp) the best Sin Binner of the Shinners as he could be.
And without diluting his own distinctive cultural heritage as a M.O.P.E.. by one whit, chit or jot: Most Oppressed Prod Ever.
-One of the main protagonists of the Troubles has turned out to be, as we say in these parts, a clampett.
Now, in one’s Southern innocence one has no idea what a clampett is (will one have to wait till it is, erm, released by a Maor Trachta?) Though one suspects, by the toin, oops, tone of the sentence that it may well be the polar opposite of, say, a curcuddochy.
Time was when The Unionist Times used to hire a special train (The Orange Blossom Special?) to ferry all its staff, leaving only its least dispensable members behind, the tealady and the toilet clearer, to cover the festivities of the Twalfth for the benefit of the isolationist Southies. This always resulted in a four page splash of celebratory prose and posed photogaphs in a special edition of TUT called the TOOT/ The Orange Order Times.
Nowadays, the mountain comes to Muhammad: botom line, it’s cheaper. And so the likes of The Newt get to toot their flute to their hearts’ contents and, erm, pence.
Of course, it was obvious that the McCanndiate was going to give the crooked finger to The Newt. It was simply a case of both of them taking turns to warm their arses on the Arsenal Bench.
The Prophet of the Profit before People scameroony is, of course, St. Arsene Wenger. In his McCannonistion address The Man who is Thursday outlined Arsene’s litany of qualifications for sainthood: common decency and uncommon incorruptibility , that sort of thingy.
Somewhere, alas, the reference to the putative saint’s nice little earner of nine million squids a year, got lost between the Bogside and the Thursday’s edish of The Unionist Times.
Electronic, not unlike electioneering communications, shur, you couldn’t be up to them.
Not for naught is St. Arsene, the patron saint of cold-blooded creatures with a charisma deficit, known by his gun-ho admirers as The Salamander Man. Nor for naught was The Newt specially handpicked by the McCanndidate to be his locum.
For the newt , is it not, a (gasp) semi-aquatic amphibian member of the family Salamandridae ? With the capacity to produce toxins in its anti-shinner, oops, skin secretions. And with a liberal propensity to be drawn to the Reptile Enlosure sur Thames, where the writ of Elizardbeth doth run.
To conclude, by a commodious vicus of recirculation, to the novel: The Man who was Thursday. This book , which was published in 1908, features two central characters, Syme, an undercover anti-anarchist copper and Gregory, an anarchistic poet who maintains that the most poetic of all human creations is the time table for the London Underground. One of the latter’s stations, incidentally, is Highbury, the home of (gulp) The Arsenal.
The central council of the Anarchists consists of seven men, each of whom is named after a day in the week. There is a vancancy for the position of – Thursday. Syme submits his name for (gasp) election. Turns out all, or nearly all the days of the anarchistic week, are, erm, undercover if not underground coppers.
A case of Syme old Syme old, you might say.
The sublimely elegant author of the novel, GK Chesterton, was a Prodestant when he penned this thriller, but later famously converted (some in TUT might say, perverted to Papacy). He attended the Eucharistic Congress of 1932 in the Phoenix Park when his seat had to infamously consist of two seats cobbled together to accommodate the tubbiness of his blubbery frame.
There may be a precedent for the McCanndidate here: in the much to be desired event of his winning a seat today, he could well have it and his other seat as The Man who is Thursday cobbled together in such a way to accommodate his commonly decent, erm, parole du jour, Arsenal-supporting arse.
Alternatively, if this is not possible, then there is a tailor-made substitute in the salary-scaly shape of The Newt. This,in turn, would mean the automatic deletion of the novel’s subtitle.
The full title of the novel, btw, is; The Man who was Thursday: A Nightmare.
PS The novel inspired another Collins, the one named Michael, with the idea ‘if you don’t seem to be hiding nobody hunts you out’.
In modern parlance: ‘hiding in plain shyte, oops, sight’. Blame it on the liberation of the a-word !
PPS The Perkin say: Geruup off yer arses, guys and dolls, and – rock the boat !
–
Jude, I read that report on ‘our’ first minister’s decision to block the progress of historical inquests, on the grounds that it might expose some members of the armed forces as murderers.
It wasn’t the lack of uproar in the media that surprised me, but the fact that it just seemed to be the accepted norm by Sinn Fein and the SDLP.
There just didn’t seem to be a complaint from anyone by the sheer acceptance that murder by any group of people should not be investigated. Nobody was thinking: ‘murder is murder, is murder’!
Had the leader of any other country in the world made such a bigoted decision as Arlene did, world opprobrium would have been brought down on their heads, but in N Ireland, well, that’s what the DUP do – shamelessly.
I think SF didn’t want it stirred pre-election, because you’d have people jumping out of undergrowth and accusing M McG of all sorts (cf his Irish Presidential campaign)
That would make sense. In the wake of the Hillsborough verdict though, I can’t help but feel the ground shifting somewhat when it comes to historical inquests here. Amal Clooney representing ‘the hooded men’ will guarantee even greater media attention for British state murder, torture, collusion and human rights abuses in Ireland.
I suspect in part, Foster has moved to block historical inquests because guilty verdicts will shatter all Unionist self-delusion when it comes to just what went on here. Which won’t be at all good for an already weakened and hugely insecure Unionist mindset. Hmmm…
surely you have a right not to vote if thats your choice,if you went in to a restaurant and dont like anything on the menu you dont like it simple as that same as a ballot paper if you dont like whos on it.as for making it compulsory what would the parties who have democratic in their name do.
billy
It is part of the deal of enjoying the benefits of society. We should also take responsibility for how that society is run.
If you want to opt out and go live in the woods, I would say fine you don’t have to vote.
Basically we are all in it together.
As long as there is a ‘none of the above’ option on the ballot paper I think we should all be expected to take 15 minutes and take part.
I didn’t know the First Minister had the power to block inquests? And what was the reasons for this? and does Martin McGuinness have the same power? Well considering the FM & DFM roles are basically equal I’m assuming he does. You can imagine the reaction if Martin stopped an inquest into the killing of an RUC man by the IRA, couldn’t you?
My mother is a victim. She was shot in the head by a rubber bullet whilst holding my sister who was only a few weeks old. Thankfully she survived and my sister was unhurt due to my mother falling against my aunt. My mother was in hospital for weeks and still suffers severe headaches. Arlenes heroes in the RUC were responsible. No one was ever convicted and, to my knowledge, even questioned. As I mentioned before my mother’s childhood friend, 11 year old Francis Rowntree, was murdered by the British Army. Again by Arlenes heroes and where numerous towns and cities in the North have monuments dedicated to their so called “bravery”.
Unionism, just like the British Government, cant afford for the truth to come out about collusion and murders committed by the British Army and their “Allies” (as quoted from intelligence documents) in the UVF/UDA to be exposed. The reality is Arlene doesn’t consider anyone injured/murdered by State forces to be a victim. Tom Elliot, I believe, said something similar before he won the Fermanagh/South Tyrone seat. Tom said something to the effect only the victims of the IRA are the “true victims”. So its not surprising Arlene has blocked inquests.
I agree voting is important Jude and everyone should be out voting (that includes you Billy) but I honestly don’t see the current political framework, the Good Friday Agreement, St Andrews, etc as being anything more than a sticking plaster. Its just not working and its certainly NOT a final settlement which some deluded people, particularly some Unionists, like to proclaim. Something like Sinn Fein becoming First Minister or Nationalists becoming the majority on more councils will cause Unionism to bring the whole house down.
TEN SHORT CONCISE REASONS, WHY I, AS A REPUBLICAN, NEVER VOTED FOR $INN £EIN.
1. Republicans they are not. Collaborators with the British they are. Many are ex -Touts.
2. Gerry Adams is a compulsive liar and an arrogant paedophile enabler.
3. Money and nepotism have become the norm, with the connivance of a ‘United Ireland’ mantra to facilitate this.
4. Their ‘henchmen’ still parasitically govern by fear, many republican working class areas.
5. McGuinness genuflects sickeningly to his ‘paymasters’ and owners.
6. Their ‘Economic Policies’ are COMPLETE Bollocks and unworkable in an all Ireland context.
7. Abortion is Murder.
8. Gay marriage and LGBT promotion wrecks the cohesion of the family unit and encourages complacent incremental degeneracy.
9. Immigration and the EU zionist funded project, negates national and ethnic identity and dilutes the value of labour.
10. men died whilst SF LIED. And 3,500 others needlessly- for a ‘United Ireland’ that THEY knew would never happen through so called ‘armed struggle’. But they continued.
In short Jude, I voted for no-one and suspect that the lies of Sinn Fein may have perhaps ironically created a group of ‘self disenfranchised’ disenchanted Republicans – who having learned the lessons of past republican converts to the lure of the ‘MoneyGod’ – have been doomed to witness it yet again.
Right tr – now we know what and who you’re against. Now what are you for – what do you propose to further republican ends?
Hardly matters Jude, since any concoction of a ‘United Ireland’ will ultimately take the form of another western ‘Goldman Sachs’ democracy -‘ united’ as debt slaves to the ‘chosen ones’ who own the money and the media. Or did you not hear of Gerry Adams’ recent meeting with Lloyd Blankfein where he was instructed on how to be compliant?
Perhaps this was the cryptic message in his recent ‘N’ tweet.
Well said for the most part
I think this particular election cycle will be a watershed for various reasons and will mark a defining point for the North. If nationalist apathy kicks in and there is no improvement in the nationalist vote, despite declining unionist/protestant population, then SF have run their course and its time for all republicans of any hue to reassess a better solution to move forward.
I believe nationalist/republican apathy is primarily due to the pointlessness of Stormont, its nothing but a large council with not real power to effect change. Obviously Unionists will jump upon this claiming victory that is supposedly in support of the status-quo. And I tend to agree with them, simply because SF are not rocking the boat or going on the attack. They have gone from ‘hard line republicans’ to ‘soft line establishment’. I did take time to vote, but know its ultimately pointless.
THERE IS A THIRD WAY – JUST BREAK THE STATE THROUGH NOT TAKING PART!
If there are significant numbers republicans/dissident call them what you will, then why don’t they take a leaf outta SF’s Westminster book and stand in the Stormont elections (But Abstain From Stormont). I think this would be an important message that Stormont will never work, and never can. Perhaps SF should even consider it if they are truly trying to force the national question.
But ultimately the main issue here is ‘modernity’. The republican ideals laid out a century ago are no longer viable in an ever shrinking global market where Ireland/NI are in a union of sorts with UK/Europe/USA, those republican politics and leftist ideals cannot develop or flourish in a vacuum.
Even if the country was united tomorrow morning, we would still be under control of the UK/Europe/USA. So what exactly are republicans trying to achieve? As a republican myself, I cant help but feel that its probably time travel, to which our unionist brethren have mastered as its 1690 every year!