banana

Anyone else spot the 'do***ent released after 30 year rule' story that
UK General Hackett (famous for writing an idiotic 'third world war'
scenario) was in contact with the IRA leadership and 'advised' his
contact not to car-bomb Whitehall?

Dig that word 'advised'. 'Advised' on a convenient time to explode the
car bomb, more like.

<http://news.google.com/news?q=hackett+ira>

Elite members respect each other on the basis of how much power they
have got, which is indirectly or directly - and in this case very
directly - power over 'their' proletarians. This was admitted in reports
of the Hackett-IRA contact, i.e. that the IRA leadership should be
respected by the UK leadership because of the low likelihood of a
significant erosion in the former's power over its 'own' proletarians. A
century beforehand the ancestors of the same 'people', sitting in the
same London gentlemen's clubs, made similar considerations in relation
to say India or South Africa. Same ****ing story in many places.

But more than that, nationalism in the North of Ireland was BUILT UP as
an alternative to an upsurge of radicalism in the important few years
after 1968. (Just as in some areas, trade unionism was consciously built
up by the rulers). No, it's not about what happened or didn't happen in
the 17th century or the 13th century or whatever. In 1968 there was a
great upsurge, especially in Derry, that CANNOT properly be 'reduced' to
a 'civil rights movement'. The practical 'reduction' of it to that might
be classed as a first defeat, paving the way for the subsequent
imposition of nationalism. The 'Bloody Sunday' slaughter of 1972 - in
which the British army killed a dozen people in the streets - appears
even more obscene when one realises that it WORKED. It was part of a
cool, calm, collected long-term strategy. (The same applies to 911 BTW).
That a little - a very little - of what happened subsequently can
probably be classified as 'blowback' is not the main point. The main
point is that proletarians ate shit.

Just think of the problems of getting together to discuss stuff from
anything similar to a revolutionary (anti-clerical, anti-State,
anti-nationalist) point of view in, say, Belfast or Derry in, say, 1975.
No ****ing picnic!

Shit previously wrapped up in right-wing and often far-right-wing,
clerical-reactionary packaging was repackaged as left-wing (well, to
certain audiences anyway), and down the mouths it went.

A few years after 1972, some sort of 'left nationalism' was also built
up, albeit to a lesser extent and with less bloodshed, in Scotland.
Sadly, the force of the radical movements in both northern Ireland and
Scotland proved very EASY for the rulers to break using these means. It
is not a nice observation to make, but it is a true observation. A
radical movement that doesn't advance, bites the dust. The 'gentlemen'
in the gentlemen's clubs sweated a bit in May 1968 and even in 1972 what
with the dockers and miners, but by 1974 they must have grinned all the
way through as the car bombs went off in Dublin and Monaghan.

In the subsequent years, it would not have been in the interests of the
UK elite at all, were the IRA elite to have lost control over 'its'
proletarians. Not that that was, by then, close to happening. The key
points are that the capitalist system has a unified nature, and there is
only one 'path' towards getting rid of it: the movement of proletarian
autonomy, outside and against political mediation and representation -
whether that mediation and representation is 'offered' by civilian
'political' leaderships, militaristic 'armed struggle' elites,
'specialised enforcers' of the sort used by the mafia when taking over
unions in the US, or the 'opinion formers' of militant activism. When
making a comment favourable to Gerry Adams, the supposed 'anti-elitist'
John Barker seems to have ignored this entirely:

<http://www.christiebooks.com/html/publishersnotes/bendyfore.html>

--
banana "The thing I hate about you, Rowntree, is the way you
give Coca-Cola to your s***, and your best teddy-bear to
Oxfam, and expect us to lick your frigid fingers for the
rest of your frigid life." (Mick Travis, 'If...', 1968)