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Friday, May 12, 2006

James Connolly R.I.P.

Today, 12th May, is the 90th anniversary of the execution of James Connolly, the great Irish socialist. For those who are unaware of the part Connolly played in the fight for Irish independence and for a better, more humane world--here's some biographical detail.
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/james_connolly.htm
“If you remove the English Army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle., unless you set about the organization of the Socialist Republic your efforts will be in vain. England will still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial and individualist institutions she has planted in this country and watered with the tears of our mothers and the blood of our martyrs”. -
James Connolly, from Socialism and Nationalism in Shan Van Vocht, January 1897

How sad Connolly would be to see the Ireland of today- a country which has sold its soul to modern, cut-throat capitalism and where both British and Irish capitalists exploit the people.

9 comments:

Miguel said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Peter Nolan said...

Yeah, we should model ourselves on communist Hungary, run by its Russian quislings. Ye big eejit.

Neil Clark said...

I'm not saying Ireland should model itself on any other country. Just that it should reject the rule of neo-liberalism and money power. If you live in Ireland, surely you will honest enough to admit that greed and the cult of materialism is helping to destroy all that was best about Irish society?

Peter Nolan said...

Yeah, I remember life before the Celtic Tiger. That ould neoliberalism pretty quickly dispatched the economic stagnation that saw 20% of the workforce unemployed, all four of my siblings working abroad, half of my school classmates facing unemployment on graduation. Yeah, there was plenty of religion, alcoholism and misery then.

Why don't you go back to fellating dictators - that's much more amusing?

Neil Clark said...

What 'dictators' would they be Peter?
Please don't mention Milosevic (three times democratically elected in a country where 21 political parties existed); Lukashenko, recently re-elected with massive popular support or Hugo Chavez, who has been given the thumbs up eight times by the Venezuelan people? Or are you using 'dictator' in the 'leaders who Peter Nolan doesn't approve of' sense of the word?

Peter Nolan said...

Neil, persistance does not translate into rigour.

Narrowing it down to Milosevic alone, I'll be happy to refer you to, oh, say, Michael Ignatieff, Timothy Garton Ash and my compatriot Samantha Powers for an introduction to his criminality at home and abroad. Let's start off with the books, "A Problem from Hell", "History of the Present" and "Virtual War".

Neil Clark said...

Would that be the the same Timothy Garton- Ash who in his Guardian column of 4th May wrote:

"One of the supremely ludicrous moments in recent European history came in 1991, when Jacques Poos hurried to inform the Slovenes, then trying to break away from Slobodan Milosevic's Yugoslavia, that small countries had no future in Europe".

Slobodan Milosevic was not the leader of Yugoslavia 1991- Ante Markovic was. Garton-Ash's article has since been amended on the Guardian website. http://www.guardian.co.uk/corrections/story/0,,1768986,00.html

Neil Clark said...

And on the subject of books on recent Balkan history- this one is not a bad one to start with.
http://www.michaelparenti.org/ToKillANation.html

Peter Nolan said...

Really?

Anyway, back to the substantive point - TGA is wrong because....

That's what journalism is supposed to be about. Shouldn't it be the same for blogging?