Patrick Finucane

[butchersapron]

'look past'. As i said, pre-political.

I did warn you all about this one years ago mind.

 

[ViolentPanda]

How am I being 'patriotic' by saying I'm unwilling to condemn those on one side of the conflict and exonerate those on the other?

I don't give a fuck how long your country has been occupied for, if your response is to attack innocent civilians then you, and your cause, can get to fuck.

Most causes that need fighting for are born of, and die in blood. That's the state of the world as-it-is, and while avoidance of conflict is noble, it's unfortunately very rarely a solution to any political impasse or blockage.
I'm also surprised that you don't appreciate that your position, relativist and judgemental as it is, and based on stereotype as much as fact, is similar to the position taken by the loyalists, the republicans and the British army: People who do X are the enemy.

 

[butchersapron]

Most causes that need fighting for are born of, and die in blood. That's the state of the world as-it-is, and while avoidance of conflict is noble, it's unfortunately very rarely a solution to any political impasse or blockage.
I'm also surprised that you don't appreciate that your position, relativist and judgemental as it is, and based on stereotype as much as fact, is similar to the position taken by the loyalists, the republicans and the British army: People who do X are the enemy.

Exactly,it's pre-political. It's moralism of the purest type. Worthless.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I think it's facile to compare two such vastly different situations in this way so there you go.

The only true difference is in the volume, and in what the state is allowed to get away with. Fundamentally the issue is the same: Repression of a part of the population on the basis of their non-conformity to state-established norms. The same old story that's played out in every single colonial adventure by any power throughout history.

 

[nino_savatte]

I suspect he means a majority of the population of mainland Britain.

I thought he was but I wasn't entirely sure.

 

[nino_savatte]

Ok yeah, I guess you could say the comparison was laughable. I prefer facile though.

Any crumb of comfort, eh?

 

[ViolentPanda]

No, but I'm not so naive as to think that they don't happen or that a state which is under attack will never consider them justified or necessary. The question of whether Finucane deserved what he got is irrelevant, as he's just as dead either way. What I don't understand is this singling out of his death in particular as one that was unacceptable.

Whether Finucane "got what he deserved", and the arguments, preconceptions and prejudices that informed Finucane's murder are highly relevant, as they are with regard to any politically-motivated murder. They tell us what one side to a conflict considered to be permissible in pursuit of state policy, and to an extent, why.

 

[nino_savatte]

No, but I'm not so naive as to think that they don't happen or that a state which is under attack will never consider them justified or necessary. The question of whether Finucane deserved what he got is irrelevant, as he's just as dead either way. What I don't understand is this singling out of his death in particular as one that was unacceptable.

No, it isn't "irrelevant" because it points to a much wider use of state-sponsored murder by proxy.

 

[ViolentPanda]

It refers specifically to the bombing of 'innocent civilians'... and neither britain nor the US were ever even occupied by the german army - whose civilians they bombed to death in their thousands.

Hundreds of thousands, given that since the curtain came down, we've had more accurate counts on volume of dead from those German cities and locales that were behind it, whereas most of our textbook counts were based on Bomber Command extrapolations from post-bombing aerial photography.

 

[SpookyFrank]

I'm also surprised that you don't appreciate that your position, relativist and judgemental as it is, and based on stereotype as much as fact, is similar to the position taken by the loyalists, the republicans and the British army: People who do X are the enemy.

I do appreciate that, I just feel that my position (admittedly a simplistic one) whereby 'X' is 'killing civillians' is objectively more sensible than a position whereby 'X' is just one or other different version of 'being the wrong sort of person'.

 

[ViolentPanda]

What I see is a failure to look past the horror of this particular killing and realise that every death in the troubles was 'extra judicial', with the possible exception of hunger striking prisoners.

While we as individuals may base our politics on what we would "like to be the case", we have to operate in the here and now of the state and its laws, and in doing so to accept that to the state and its' supporters, no killing carried out by and for the state was "extra-judicial", as the state retains the monopoly on "legitimate" and legitimated violence up to and including killing.

How many public inquiries did the IRA hold into deaths which they were responsible for?

Conversely, on could ask why the British state has held inquiries, and question why they take place now, rather than then (with the exception of Widgery, which was both a state stitch-up and arguably conducted by a man already in the throes of dementia), as well as what the PIRA would have to gain from such an inquiry, measured against what the British state sees itself as able to gain from its own inquiries.

What chance for closure can the families of their victims ever hope for? Not to say that another half-arsed investigation by the British establishment gets them off the hook, but for me there's a double standard at work here, and it seems to be founded in a level of sympathy for the IRA that I just can't comprehend.

It's not sympathy, it's most often an appraisal of facts rather than the fiction and rhetoric inspired by locking the conflict into a simplistic binary opposition of forces and ideas.

 

[SpookyFrank]

The only difference is in the volume, and in what the state is allowed to get away with. Fundamentally the issue is the same: Repression of a part of the population on the basis of their non-conformity to state-established norms. The same old story that's played out in every single colonial adventure by any power throughout history.

I wonder what would've become of the Northern Irish protestants if the IRA had achieved their goal of making Ulster part of the republic.

Another thing we'll never know is what life might've been like in the six counties if the troubles hadn't happened, or if they hadn't taken such a violent course.

As for Palestine, I really don't think the difference between that and Northern Ireland is simply a matter of numbers. Repression is one thing, genocide quite another.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I do appreciate that, I just feel that my position (admittedly a simplistic one) whereby 'X' is 'killing civillians' is objectively more sensible than a position whereby 'X' is just one or other different version of 'being the wrong sort of person'.

Which kind of misses the point that to all of you your position is legitimated by your preconceptions as to what is or isn't "right" or "good". In other words, the "objective" position is subjective. It can't not be subjective, because it's informed in each case (including yours) by beliefs: That all killing is wrong, or that some killing is legitimate. Great ideals, but hardly the pragmatics of modern human existence.

 

[butchersapron]

I wonder what would've become of the Northern Irish protestants if the IRA had achieved their goal of making Ulster part of the republic.

Another thing we'll never know is what life might've been like in the six counties if the troubles hadn't happened, or if they hadn't taken such a violent course.

As for Palestine, I really don't think the difference between that and Northern Ireland is simply a matter of numbers. Repression is one thing, genocide quite another.

And never the twain shall meet (aside from you being wrong about your example of genocide)

 

[frogwoman]

Why do you think the troubles happened?

 

[Deareg]

I wonder what would've become of the Northern Irish protestants if the IRA had achieved their goal of making Ulster part of the republic.

Just look to the 26 counties to see what would happen.

 

[SpookyFrank]

It's not sympathy, it's most often an appraisal of facts rather than the fiction and rhetoric inspired by locking the conflict into a simplistic binary opposition of forces and ideas.

Appraisal of facts is always subjective. I haven't seen any evidence of it on this thread, but in the past I've seen urbanites claiming that the troubles were above all a class conflict. That's a simplistic and binary view. Not wrong as such, just incomplete. I may have a simplistic view but it's not binary, if anything it's even simpler than that, just a venn diagram consisting of one big circle labelled 'cunts'.

If I've mostly been talking about the republicans it's simply because nobody else has and I don't like the idea of letting them off the hook, nor do I like the idea of the ideology behind a murder being seen as more important than the murder itself. You can argue the toss over motivations and justifications, but dead is dead no matter whose side you're on.

 

[butchersapron]

Appraisal of facts is always subjective. I haven't seen any evidence of it on this thread, but in the past I've seen urbanites claiming that the troubles were above all a class conflict. That's a simplistic and binary view. Not wrong as such, just incomplete. I may have a simplistic view but it's not binary, if anything it's even simpler than that, just a venn diagram consisting of one big circle labelled 'cunts'.

Post examples of people on here saying this. I've never seen anyone arguing anything like that.

Your analysis is just that venn diagram.

 

[SpookyFrank]

And never the twain shall meet (aside from you being wrong about your example of genocide)

Yes I'm aware that repression and genocide are not unrelated. But nor are they the same, any more than beating someone up is the same as killing them.

 

[butchersapron]

Yes I'm aware that repression and genocide are not unrelated. But nor are they the same, any more than beating someone up is the same as killing them.

Are you talking to people in your head?

 

[SpookyFrank]

Your analysis is just that venn diagram.

Well yes, that's what I said. Simplistic doesn't have to mean wrong though. Nuance is all very well but you can have too much of good thing.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Are you talking to people in your head?

Don't be daft. We can't both be figments of each other's imaginations.

 

[butchersapron]

Well yes, that's what I said. Simplistic doesn't have to mean wrong though. Nuance is all very well but you can have too much of good thing.

It's not what you said. You suggested that other people think in such simplistic terms, ignoring any subtlety or nuance in their posts then posted a big fat worthless example of what you thought that you were condemning.

 

[butchersapron]

Don't be daft. We can't both be figments of each other's imaginations.

I'm real, so are the problems that this case throws up.That you can only deal with them via disconnected unsupported anathema says all we need to know abut how rooted any politics you might engage in actually is.

 

[SpookyFrank]

It's not what you said. You suggested that other people think in such simplistic terms, ignoring any subtlety or nuance i their posts then posted a big fat worthless example of what you thought that you were condemning.

I wasn't condemning simplistic analysis (turkeys voting for christmas springs to mind) I was condemning binary analysis, whereby we think of everything in terms of X vs Y and one of the two is somehow better or more justified than the other.

 

[butchersapron]

I wasn't condemning simplistic analysis (turkeys voting for christmas springs to mind) I was condemning binary analysis, whereby we think of everything in terms of X vs Y and one of the two is somehow better or more justified than the other.

And then offered a great example of it.

Is there actually something wrong with you?

(edit: cue franks response: if thinking killing innocent people is wrong then i'm guilty)

 

[SpookyFrank]

I'm real, so are the problems that this case throws up.That you can only deal with them via disconnected unsupported anathema says all we need to know abut how rooted any politics you might engage in actually is.

You're entitled to your opinion of course, but this thread is not about me. As always I'm happy for people to challenge any points I make, I just react badly to personal abuse and other non-sequiturs.

 

[butchersapron]

You're entitled to your opinion of course, but this thread is not about me. As always I'm happy for people to challenge any points I make, I just react badly to personal abuse and other non-sequiturs.

Oh good lord, frank is hurt. Hence his shit views. This is pre-teen never mind pre-political.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Is there actually something wrong with you?

What kind of a stupid question is that? Have you ever met anyone who didn't have something wrong with them?

No matter how many flaws I may have, I still take comfort from the fact that I'm not you. In fact if you didn't exist I might have to invent you.

 

[butchersapron]

Appraisal of facts is always subjective. I haven't seen any evidence of it on this thread, but in the past I've seen urbanites claiming that the troubles were above all a class conflict. That's a simplistic and binary view. Not wrong as such, just incomplete. I may have a simplistic view but it's not binary, if anything it's even simpler than that, just a venn diagram consisting of one big circle labelled 'cunts'.

Any examples yet?