The Cheshire Cat called Commonwealth

Posted by Jim on April 28, 2018

by Jude Collins (judecollins.com)

The British Empire is a bit like the Cheshire cat in Lewis Carroll’s
Alice in Wonderland: over the years it has faded until all you’re left
with is a bland smile.

First we had the British Empire red in tooth and claw, sailing across
the globe in search of countries to plunder, taking in of course Ireland
but also India, the Caribbean, Egypt, South Africa Malaya, Iran and
Kenya. Among others. Where the native population tried to resist this
takeover, they were met with barbarous cruelty and suppression.

Then we had the British Empire and Commonwealth, which suggested an
Empire, yes, but an Empire where there was cooperation and pooling of
resources rather than seizure by the strong. Then we had the British
Commonwealth, which diplomatically dropped the E-word. And finally a
couple of weeks back we had the Commonwealth meeting in London under the
aegis of QE2, who told the assembled leaders of countries from all
around the world that she was giving up being the head of this outfit
and it was her “sincere wish” that her son Charles replace her.

The Commonwealth Charter of 2012 declares that each member Commonwealth
nation is equal, regardless of size or wealth. But since QE2 is the Head
of the Commonwealth, her “wish” has been respected and Charles has
become head honcho of the international club.

Now that the UK is staggering out of the EU, some people have begun to
talk about great future prospects of Commonwealth trade. Those of us
with longer memories will recall that in 1973 Britain made a conscious
decision to turn its back on the Commonwealth and join what was then the
European Economic Community (EEC). If the once-jilted Commonwealth is a
gleaming trade possibility, how come arch-Brexiteers like Boris Johnson
and Nigel Farage haven’t been bleating about it rather than emerging
giants like Brazil and China as trading partners?

You’ll get people – usually unionist – who’ll tell you that it would be
in the south of Ireland’s interests if it were to re-join the
Commonwealth. The snag with that is that the average southern citizen
would rather chop off his/her nose and stir-fry it than re-join the
Commonwealth club. Not all of them, of course. If you searched really
hard you’d probably find as many as fourteen Commonwealth fans in the
twenty-six counties who would like nothing better than toasting the
health of Her Maj and to periodically getting stuck into some haute
cuisine. But the overwhelming majority of southerners would prefer to
urge us nordies to accept our present state and not be forever
nyammering about it, while they steer well clear of any Commonwealth.

Many of the Commonwealth leaders couldn’t tell you what the Commonwealth
is for, but I think I can.

The Commonwealth exists as a visible sign of good relations between
Britain and those countries it was wont to loot and pillage. You see
them smiling and chatting on your TV screen and you say “Such
cordiality! Verily, the British Empire can’t have been that bad – look
at how friendly everybody is now.” So an unspoken version of imperial
history is offered – happy natives loving their Queen, all friends now
and sure weren’t we all friends all along, apart from some unfortunate
misunderstandings in the dim past. The Commonwealth= the Empire without
blood and tears.

The Commonwealth also gives QE2 and her successor somewhere to go on
state visits, where the local people perform traditional dances and the
queen smiles and wears white gloves.

And I suppose you could argue the case that the Commonwealth provides
living proof that Stockholm syndrome can apply at an international as
well as a local level. Britain performed some pretty disgusting acts
against its colonies over the decades, yet here we have the heads of the
states where that disgusting stuff was practiced, getting up to toast
Her Majesty and getting a bit misty-eyed as they all sing “God Save The
Queen”.

Alternatively, you could see these periodic junkets as a toothless
many-headed bulldog, gnawing its way through course after course of rich
food, with the promise that under Charles’s leadership, a hundred
similar junkets will be held in coming days.

SINN FEIN ACCUSED OF ‘POLITICAL OPPRESSION’

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The PSNI have taken to using saws and battering rams in raids on the
homes of republican activists in Derry following appeals by Sinn Fein
for “tangible action” against armed groups in the city.

The front doors of two Saoradh members were wrecked and the main offices
of the nascent political party were subjected to a lightning PSNI raid.
The incidents have sharply escalated a war of words between Saoradh and
Sinn Fein, with Saoradh accusing local Sinn Fein representatives of
directing “political oppression”.

Raymond McCartney, a senior Sinn Fein figure in Derry, has urged the
PSNI to take “tangible action on the ground” against those he described
as “paramilitaries” and involved in crime. It was understood he was
referring to the ‘new IRA’, an armed group which has links to Saoradh
but which has been largely dormant in recent months.

Tensions have been increasing in the city which lies within five miles
of the border and which is certain to undergo some level of
remilitarisation following Brexit, making it a potential site for
renewed conflict. McCartney, a former Assembly member spoke out
following a meeting in Derry with the Independent Reporting Commission,
an MI5-linked body tasked with tackling breakaway IRA and loyalist
groups.

Saoradh representative Paddy Gallagher said his party and its Derry HQ
was now bearing the direct brunt of a campaign of repression.

“For the second time in a matter of weeks Junior McDaid House has been
targeted in heavy handed raids by Crown Forces after calls by [Sinn Fein
councillor] Kevin Campbell and Raymond McCartney,” he said.

“The blame for raids on the national office of Saoradh and subsequent
raids of activists homes lay solely with those in Sinn Fein who call for
them to happen.”

Saoradh posted a video on Facebook of the PSNI sawing through the door
of a party member who they said was on holidays. In another incident, a
Saoradh member was seized by a PSNI ‘rapid entry’ unit after they
wrecked his front door using a battering ram.

“As is normal practice for British Crown Forces, the republican was
dragged from his home, trailed to Musgrave interrogation unit, harassed
for a number of hours and subsequently released without charge,” Saoradh
said. “As a result of this intimidation the republican had to be
temporarily released from the interrogation unit to seek medical
assistance before being returned.”

They said that a family member of the victim who attemped to contact
Kevin Campbell about the incident on Facebook had been ‘blocked’ by the
Sinn Fein councillor.

Paddy Gallagher protested the use of new “rapid entry” warrants which
the PSNI have said are required to “preserve evidence”.

“This is despite the fact that activists are being seized in relation to
incidents that has happened almost two years ago and the so called
evidence the Crown Forces take are children’s laptops and mobile
phones,” Mr Gallagher said.

“A policy of targeting the family members of republican activists is
under way. The criminalisation policy put in place by former republicans
cannot and will not go unchallenged.”

On Friday, Raymond McCartney said he condemned the raids and warned that
local children have been “traumatised”.

“Policing with the community demands good leadership and proper
judgement,” he said.

“In recent house searches and arrest operations, the ramrodding and
cutting through front doors runs counter to this. People, and in
particular children, are left traumatised.

“Leadership and judgement were lacking on these occasions. Questions
arise as to in whose interest does this style of policing suit.”

McDonald ends Derry name campaign with one word

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McDonald ends Derry name campaign with one word

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald has provoked outrage among
republicans after she deliberately used the plantation name
“Londonderry” for Derry at an event in the city on Wednesday.

In a promotional video released on social media following a visit to the
city, Ms McDonald said: “We have had an engagement with young people
with interests across Derry, or Londonderry, and it has been a really
wonderful conversation and one that we need to build on because we have
to live respectfully together and we know we can do that.”

The video clip was recorded after Ms McDonald met a Presbyterian
minister and members of his congregation on Wednesday. Rev David Latimer
is seen nodding enthusiastically as she says “Londonderry”.

After posting the video, Ms McDonald explained: “I’m well aware of the
history of Derry and Donegal. I used the term to reflect the fact that
we had a dialogue — a really good one — with people who see things
differently to us.”

But the controversy has confirmed hat the party has returned to a policy
of ‘unionist outreach’, for years the hallmark of Sinn Fein’s
powersharing arrangement with unionists at Stormont.

However, the DUP quickly dismissed what it said was an attempt to
reprise Sinn Fein’s “charm offensive”. Speaking on BBC’s Talkback
programme, senior DUP figure Nelson McCausland accused Ms McDonald of
being “disingenuous”.

He said: “There has been a Sinn Fein attempt at unionist engagement, a
charm offensive towards unionists for more than a decade. But we still
get situations such as Sinn Fein’s defence of McCreesh Park in Newry
[named after a 1981 hunger striker], or what happened with Barry
McElduff [who resigned after making an embarrassing video clip
referencing an IRA attack].

“It makes it very clear to me that there is a lack of sincerity about
this talk of unionist reconciliation and engagement.”

There has been no formal criticism of the ‘Londonderry’ stance by Sinn
Fein’s political opponents. Saoradh spokespersons were said to be
unable to comment as the party was struggling with this week’s wave of
police raids and arrests.

Individual republicans accused the Sinn Fein leadership of an attempt to
grab headlines at the expense of the campaign to remove the colonial
prefix ‘London’ from the city’s already anglicised name.

Former eirigi election candidate Padraic Mac Coitir said that
‘Londonderry’ is a “disgusting word” and referred to the city by its
Gaelic spelling, Doire.

“Mary Lou McDonald isn’t the only SF member to use that disgusting word
for Doire. During the blanket protest, some men from Doire were refused
letters and visits ’cause they wouldn’t use that word. Shame on anyone
claiming to be republican using it,” he said.

He described the outreach campaign as “appeasement”. “It’s never
reciprocated by unionists,” he said, adding: “They [Sinn Fein] are
taking the middle class vote from the SDLP”.

Former internee Mickey Donnelly, one of the ‘Hooded Men’, claimed former
republican prisoners were turning against the new party leader who
joined Sinn Fein in the aftermath of the Good Friday peace deal.

“I’ve never heard any republican use ‘Londonderry’,” he said. “Indeed,
no one in the nationalist community, including SDLP people, uses it. The
ex-prisoners I’ve spoken to are shocked and outraged. Mary Lou’s lack of
republican credentials is showing.”

One Fianna Fail cumann tweeted that “the mask has slipped”. The party’s
branch in Cashel, County Tipperary, wrote: “Now we know how republican
Mary Lou actually is.”

Sinn Fein’s own supporters showed a mixed response, with some
criticising what it described as the party’s ‘Stockholm Syndrome’, and
contrasting it with the refusal of unionists to give legal recognition
to the Irish language. Some younger Sinn Fein members expressed strong
support, with one Irish speaker vowing to go by an Anglicised version of
his name.

Sinn Fein activist Catherine Nelson said Mary-Lou McDonald’s approach is
“nothing new” and gave the example of the late former deputy first
minister Martin McGuinness shaking hands with the English queen in 2012.

“I also said ‘Northern Ireland’ once in an interview and the journalist
was taken aback, but it doesn’t make me any less republican to say it,”
she said.

“How do we make unionists feel welcome if we don’t use some of the
language that makes them feel comfortable?”

Paul Ryan fires Irish Catholic Jesuit priest as House Chaplin to please anti-Catholics

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Outgoing House Chaplain Father Patrick J. ConroyC-SPAN

Speaker Paul Ryan turned his back on his own Catholic faith in order fire Chaplin Fr. Pat Conroy to please anti-Catholic zealots in his own party.

There is no other explanation for what Ryan did, given that the Jesuit priest, a very popular figure in the chamber, had broken no laws. He was only the second Catholic chaplain in US history and the first among the 60 House chaplains who have served to be fired.

The Irish have a name for those who do the bidding of the English or in this case the anti-Catholic forces, It’s “gombeen man,” the one who did the foreigner’s dirty work to enrich himself, as the ancestral relative of Famine emigrants.

Paul Ryan. Photo: Gage Skidmore

Gombeen Ryan, himself a Catholic, has disgraced himself with this firing. Let’s hope the door doesn’t hit him in the backside on his way out. Supporting everything about the Trump agenda like an obedient lickspittle is one thing. Partaking in anti-Catholic activity is another.

The Hill newspaper put it bluntly:

“Suspicions among Catholic Democrats that Conroy’s Catholicism played a role were bolstered Thursday night, when Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.), a Southern Baptist Minister who heads the Republican Study Committee, promoted the notion that Conroy’s replacement should have a family — a stipulation that would eliminate Catholic priests and nuns.”

“I’m looking for somebody who has a little age, that has adult children, that kind of can connect with the bulk of the body here, Republicans and Democrats who are going through, back home the wife, the family,” said Walker who is leading the search committee for the new chaplain.

 

Irish Catholic and fellow Republican Congressman Peter King was quick to criticize the Ryan move:

“I saw people walk up to him all the time, sit down with him. So I never heard any of these complaints before,” King told reporters after the meeting. Ryan “just said he received so many complaints from members of the House about the lack of chaplain services. I never heard one of them. I’m not the Speaker, but I never heard [them].”

It seems Gombeen Ryan, as he has throughout his benighted career as Speaker, buckled under pressure from the anti-Catholic and anti-Jesuit southern cabal.

Fr. Patrick J. Conroy

House Democratic Caucus Chairman Joe Crowley from Queens, New York said Ryan’s move was “reprehensible.”

“That Conroy is the first chaplain of the House of Representatives to be fired in the history of the United States is just outrageous,” he says.

Conroy is the 60th House chaplain in US history, He told The New York Times that “Catholic members on both sides are furious.”  Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly blames “anti-Catholic sentiment” for the ouster, though Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong says the speaker is a proud Catholic and the charge is “false and outrageous.”

A number of politicians had told Ryan they wanted someone who did more “spiritual counseling,” according to Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), who attended the meeting.

Ryan agreed, he told the members.

Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) claimed Ryan said the dismissal was not done for any politician reasons, but because it was just “time for a change.”

Some Democrats believe a prayer  Father Conroy gave that was perceived as critical of the GOP tax law was the signal for GOP right-wingers to act. No doubt Jesus reincarnated would be too liberal for the southern folk.

Conroy also dared to pray that lawmakers would help “the least among us.”

He prayed to St. Nicholas, “who fed the hungry, brought hope to the imprisoned, gave comfort to the lost.”

He asked the politicians to serve other people in their need” and “to pray for the unemployed.”

Obviously, this was heathen stuff to the Baptist right so they resolved to get rid of him.

And the little green gombeen did their bidding one more time.

Irish Radio Network USA

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