Yep. 100% pure Irish Beef 
I thought I made it clear that I was referring to the SDMB members who had posted on this topic when I posted last. I thought there was a obvious bias in the former posts - YMMV.
I think people would have to have lived here though to see the impact that the ‘troubles’ can have on daily life. How would you feel if your child came home from school bruised and bloody because she didn’t know the answer to the question ‘Are you a Catholic Buddhist or a Protestant Buddhist?’ Or if you woke up one sunday morning to find a massive bomb, surrounded by petrol bombs, planted outside your back door?
Even with everything that has happened, though, I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. It might seem like a contradiction, but the ordinary people here are the friendliest in the world IMO. Complete strangers will stop and chat to you in the street - something I’ve never seen anywhere else. I could do without the political posturing and the ridiculous parades, though.
I have read the history books too - I learned a very different view of Irish history when I was at boarding school in the South than what I had learned in the North. Having studied History at university, I think that the truth is found somewhere in between the extreme views. And, as I said before, I was involved with the civil rights movement at the beginning. I am still a pacifist and an advocate of equal rights for everyone in NI.
I never said they did - I said that the border is de facto, and no matter how arbitrary it was during its inception, it’s there now, and any political considerations have to take place treating it as a fact. Otherwise the political process will crumble, because the Unionists will retreat from negotiation.
Well, the latest step in the peace process is yet another SNAFU (all that follows is my interpretation).
The IRA hinted at total decomissioning before Christmas. Decomissioning was a prerequisite for the power sharing assembly to be reinstated.
Ian Paisley said there should be photographic evidence of this (despite there being independent observers) because he wanted to see the IRA “humiliated”.
Because of this, the IRA have refused to supply photographic evidence.
So Paisley has refused to cooperate.
So the historic agreement that was expected for this evening has been put on indefinite hold.
FFS, they’re like petulant little children. I’d like to get their heads and bang them together, then make them sit on opposite ends of the naughty step at the entrance to Stormont wearing dunce’s caps. “If you can’t play nicely, then you’re not allowed to play at all”.
What else do you expect from Paisley? Ever since I first saw him in the 60’s - holding a hate-fest in the grounds of the city hall, I have had serious doubts about the man’s sanity. He doesn’t want to come to an agreement, IMO, because if he did he would have to sit down with the other parties and actually take part in government, instead of just bitching all the time, and preaching fear and hatred. I hate the thought of him ever being First Minister here - he isn’t interested in peace, he’s only interested in fomenting hatred and divisiveness.
I doubt if banging their heads together would do any good - and I don’t think Blair has the courage to try. Would you like to volunteer?
Paisley has been at it throughout this whole process. He knew perfectly well, as indeed did the Governments, that photographs would not be acceptable to the IRA. That’s exactly why he’s demanding them. If he got them you can bet he’d find another reason to get out of the agreement.
I advocate immediate research into a bionic implant capable of receiving input from the optic nerve of a catholic priest chosen to witness the decomissioning and storing it in a buffering substrate capable of being removed and linked solely to the optic nerve of the Reverend Paisley, transmitting the image, and then destructing upon removal.
Paisley and the IRA are a bunch of fucking children.
Except it is not the IRA holding up the deal. Photographs are wanted only for Protestant gloating and as has been said - it’s just Paisley’s excuse not to deal. Provide photographs and he’d find another excuse. This is all about one community wanting to exclude another from as much political and economic equality as they can possibly get away with
Which is where we came in with the Civil Rights movement in the sixties and gerry-mandered constituencies, protestant-only jobs and a police force of bigots who doubled up as armed terrorists on the side.
While I agree Paisley is being a total arse, and a photograph was not part of the original deal, it’s also merely a wish on the Republican side not to lose face that’s preventing a photograph not being presented.
De Chastalain’s going to be there. It’s at a secret location, but it’s not top secret. Let him take a snapshot. Then the IRA issues a statement:
“We have issued a photograph of the proceedings, in response to Mr Paisley’s unreasonable demand. This is not a capitulation, but a final concession, that goes above and beyond the requirements framed in the areement. This indicates not our humiliation, but our overwhelming commitment to the process.”
Badoom-tish, Paisley looks even more of a twat, the RA gain some kudos, and the peace process can go ahead (until Paisley’s next bullshit, at which time the British government can tell him to go fuck himself).
Well then, call his bluff, surely? If weapons have indeed been decomissioned by, say, pouring concrete into a bunker in front of reliable witnesses, I struggle to understand how a photograph of the cement mixer is any more or less ‘humiliating’ than the headline “IRA weapons bunker filled with concrete in front of reliable witnesses”?
For Christ’s sake, photons are being captured after reflecting off inanimate objects . Give Paisley his pornographic photos as well as his pornographic literature and start governing.
My post being addressed to tagos, of course.
And I should add that the decommissioning is an enormously brave and dignified move by the IRA in the first place - nothing should take away from that.
And when he then refuses to deal, what card will the IRA have left to play?
He’s not looking for a photograph of the cement mixer. He’s looking for a whole series of photos which he can parade in front of his supporters as a symbol of his, yes his triumph over republicanism. There is absolutely no other purpose for those photos. If republicans were to demand Paisley allow himself to be similarly humiliated, would anyone expect him to agree? I doubt it.
Don’t forget, too, that the easier it is for unionists to portray this as an IRA surrender, the more attractive the dissident groups will be for grassroots republicans who, take my word for it, are already having an extremely difficult time accepting this deal as it is.
And that is a very good point.
They will have proved to the world what an intransigent bigot he is beyond all doubt.
And your warning is indeed noteworthy, which is why the IRA could make that single photo of the cement mixer atop the half-full bunker one of victory, with all kinds of slogans, flags and symbology included in the frame, perhaps with the words “here’s your gratuitous porn, Reverend. Now let us, together, govern our people.”
But yes, I understand the reluctance to give the old fool his way.
That is a truly beautiful idea
Is there anything in the idea that the NI politicians have become so enamoured of being in the limelight that they find it hard to come to an agreement. It will, after all, remove them from the front pages.
Maybe the poisonous old witch did actually get something right when she talked about “the oxygen of publicity”
I don’t think there is any doubt anyway.
T’would be nice. But, as already noted, he’s asking for a lot more than one photo.
Well on the republican side, at least, it isn’t the politicians who’ve found it hard to reach agreement, it’s the soldiers.
If anything an agreement would only help Sinn Féin stay in the limelight as it would increase their electoral prospects, on both sides of the border.
I was thinking more on the lines of day to day running of the country after an agreement. You know the sort of thing where the politicians get on with politics and nobody gives a damm (that wouldn’t be front page news) unless they put up the price of beer and fags (that might).
I have a question about the photos Paisely wants. How long has that been a demand? I thought I heard something years ago about somebody wanting photos of something. Though that could have been wholly unrelated. Has that demand been on the table for awhile now, or am I thinking of something else?
Paisley has said umpteen times that he will not sit down with Sinn Fein, so I think that this photographic evidence business is just the first step in his plan. As soon as he achieves it, he’ll find something else to ‘renegotiate’ in the GFA.
He says he wants apologies from the IRA, and “These people have to repent their evil deeds and show they have repented,” - but I have never once heard him apologise for his physical attacks on civil rights marchers, or on gay activists, abortion clinics etc. If there is going to be public repentance, surely, to mean anything, it should come from all parties involved - otherwise, to people who remember his behavior in the 60’s and 70’s, he is just showing himself to be a grade A hypocrite.