Post by Wasp on Mar 12, 2008 22:02:28 GMT
Sunday, March 09, 2008 - Edited by Pat Leahy
There are many things to like about the Sinn Fein ard fheis. For a start, the party brings the fight right to the enemy’s doorstep in the heart of Dublin 4: the RDS location is just a stone’s throw (and don’t think somebody hasn’t thought about it in precisely those terms) away from the British embassy and conveniently adjacent to the period piles housing the fat cats of Ballsbridge, Sandymount and Donnybrook.
Other things to like include: 1) It finishes early, and 2) There are actual debates, rather than parades of speeches scripted by party headquarters. Last weekend, those debates were as spirited as is now customary. The Friday night exchanges on whether to retain the commitment to establishing a socialist republic was a high-point.
After impassioned pleas about the necessity and inevitability of the workers’ paradise - honestly, some of it wouldn’t be out of place under the gentle, but firm, leadership of Uncle Joe Stalin - delegates voted overwhelmingly in favour of retaining the commitment in the party’s constitution. As one delegate put it confidently:
‘‘The socialist republic is going to happen.” Yes, but will it be before they invent the everlasting gobstopper?
Another motion exhorted the party to ‘‘refrain from using the language of ‘Brits Out’”, as they try to reach out to our unionist brethren. This was a step too far for many delegates. One speaker prefaced his remarks by observing
‘‘I don’t mind English people . . .’’which drew guffaws from the audience, but for him, abandoning the slogan was a step too far. ‘‘It is an important unique selling point for Sinn Fein,” he argued, before concluding by shouting ‘‘Brits Out!”, to the biggest cheer of the evening.
* Danish MEP Jens-Peter Bonde addressed the Forum on Europe last week, although, his appearance was curiously scheduled to take place at the same time as Dick Roche and Dermot Ahern’s press conference to launch the government‘s Lisbon Treaty legislation.
Bonde is an opponent of the treaty, and has been driving Euro-wallahs of various hues in Brussels bonkers for years. A few years ago, while visiting the AOB headquarters in Brussels, a delegation of Irish journalists had occasion to be dining with a number of Irish MEPs in the run-up to the second Nice Treaty vote.
Bonde had issued an invitation to Irish journalists to attend his office for a meeting to hear an alternative view of the treaty. One of their number sent word of Bonde’s invitation around the tables. ‘‘Will you give him a message for me?” enquired one of our MEPs. Certainly, replied the journalist.
‘‘Will you tell him that I said he’s a fucking bollix!” Such are the debates which take place when our European Parliamentarians meet.
* So farewell then, William F Buckley, conservative commentator, editor, author and campaigner. The man who can fairly claim to be the intellectual founder of modern American conservatism died recently in Stamford, aged 82. Odd as it may now seem to the young folk, the United States used to be a place where the dominant political creed was liberalism, grounded by the New Deal and finding modern expression in the Great Society and the civil rights crusade.
Vietnam and the 1960s undermined it from within, but Buckley and his intellectual disciples gave the public an alternative - the modern conservatism that married the belief in a government that interfered as little as possible, with the traditional east coast republicanism that wanted to make the world safe for business.
The real trick was creating an alliance between this emerging new force and old-style southern religious conservatism. In doing so, they changed the political map of America. But Buckey was much more than just a political writer and thinker.
His memoir described a ludicrously overscheduled existence as magazine editor, columnist, TV host, speechmaker, sailor, raconteur, and bon vivant. (Yes, the comparisons to AOB are manifold.)
There is a wonderful moment in which the President of the United States is trying to reach him by phone. Buckley, busy, says he’ll have to call him back. Happens around here all the time with the Bert.
There are many things to like about the Sinn Fein ard fheis. For a start, the party brings the fight right to the enemy’s doorstep in the heart of Dublin 4: the RDS location is just a stone’s throw (and don’t think somebody hasn’t thought about it in precisely those terms) away from the British embassy and conveniently adjacent to the period piles housing the fat cats of Ballsbridge, Sandymount and Donnybrook.
Other things to like include: 1) It finishes early, and 2) There are actual debates, rather than parades of speeches scripted by party headquarters. Last weekend, those debates were as spirited as is now customary. The Friday night exchanges on whether to retain the commitment to establishing a socialist republic was a high-point.
After impassioned pleas about the necessity and inevitability of the workers’ paradise - honestly, some of it wouldn’t be out of place under the gentle, but firm, leadership of Uncle Joe Stalin - delegates voted overwhelmingly in favour of retaining the commitment in the party’s constitution. As one delegate put it confidently:
‘‘The socialist republic is going to happen.” Yes, but will it be before they invent the everlasting gobstopper?
Another motion exhorted the party to ‘‘refrain from using the language of ‘Brits Out’”, as they try to reach out to our unionist brethren. This was a step too far for many delegates. One speaker prefaced his remarks by observing
‘‘I don’t mind English people . . .’’which drew guffaws from the audience, but for him, abandoning the slogan was a step too far. ‘‘It is an important unique selling point for Sinn Fein,” he argued, before concluding by shouting ‘‘Brits Out!”, to the biggest cheer of the evening.
* Danish MEP Jens-Peter Bonde addressed the Forum on Europe last week, although, his appearance was curiously scheduled to take place at the same time as Dick Roche and Dermot Ahern’s press conference to launch the government‘s Lisbon Treaty legislation.
Bonde is an opponent of the treaty, and has been driving Euro-wallahs of various hues in Brussels bonkers for years. A few years ago, while visiting the AOB headquarters in Brussels, a delegation of Irish journalists had occasion to be dining with a number of Irish MEPs in the run-up to the second Nice Treaty vote.
Bonde had issued an invitation to Irish journalists to attend his office for a meeting to hear an alternative view of the treaty. One of their number sent word of Bonde’s invitation around the tables. ‘‘Will you give him a message for me?” enquired one of our MEPs. Certainly, replied the journalist.
‘‘Will you tell him that I said he’s a fucking bollix!” Such are the debates which take place when our European Parliamentarians meet.
* So farewell then, William F Buckley, conservative commentator, editor, author and campaigner. The man who can fairly claim to be the intellectual founder of modern American conservatism died recently in Stamford, aged 82. Odd as it may now seem to the young folk, the United States used to be a place where the dominant political creed was liberalism, grounded by the New Deal and finding modern expression in the Great Society and the civil rights crusade.
Vietnam and the 1960s undermined it from within, but Buckley and his intellectual disciples gave the public an alternative - the modern conservatism that married the belief in a government that interfered as little as possible, with the traditional east coast republicanism that wanted to make the world safe for business.
The real trick was creating an alliance between this emerging new force and old-style southern religious conservatism. In doing so, they changed the political map of America. But Buckey was much more than just a political writer and thinker.
His memoir described a ludicrously overscheduled existence as magazine editor, columnist, TV host, speechmaker, sailor, raconteur, and bon vivant. (Yes, the comparisons to AOB are manifold.)
There is a wonderful moment in which the President of the United States is trying to reach him by phone. Buckley, busy, says he’ll have to call him back. Happens around here all the time with the Bert.
I just got in from a few pints with some english mates and spent the night talking about football mainly, and about English identity in todays Britian, I still believe in the phrase "brits out". I never want to see a british soldier on my streets again. No one from London, Merseyside or Yorkshire should ever have to walk through the Falls road again with a gun in their hand.