I don't mean at all to be disrespectful to your country and the pain the Irish endured because of the English. What I meant to say is that British cultural structures and institutions were actually good for countries like India, Africa, Argentina, Cuba, Indonesia etc. For instance in India, English culture brought them the teachings of Adam Smith, and this made India incredibly productive. India's political system owes much to the institutions put in place by the British. They built courts, universities, administrative agencies, it opened a world to India with greater possibilities. But at the same time, a rapidly growing European economy needed to gather resources. I'm not saying the British or Americans were Saints in their treatment of all people, but what I am saying is that many owe much to the institutions put in place by the British. And for that I'm grateful. God bless
I agree. I think many of the elections in Western democracies (and others) are more of an illusion to give voters the impression to be able to have an influence on politics. But this leads me to a question which I would like to ask an American for a long time. I have read only a little about how elections work in the US. I know that there are other parties than republicans and democrats. But they do not seem to matter. Do you get a ballot paper on which also one of this other parties could get your vote? Why does it seem to be impossible for that little parties to grow and to get relevant? I read Jackzokay is Irish. Maybe someone else could answer
The other party's lack the money to make a difference. Our elections here in the U.S. are costly. So special interest's like big banks and big corporations lead the candidates towards a 2 party system only.
Ok. I know that candidates have to generate donations to finance their election campaigns. But how does your ballot paper look like? In Germany you get a list of about 10 parties and you mark one of them to vote for them. On this list there are small parties that are far away from having a chance to get enough votes for being relevant. Only theoretically they could get enough votes.. Couldn´t you vote for the smaller parties beside the fact they can´t finance an election campaign?
It is precisely as Byron says. To even make it on to the televised debate floor a candidate must poll favorably and when they do not because polls are incredibly easy to influence they are not invited. Their message is then not heard in relation to the other candidates and they are effectively shut out even though they will make it on the ballot come election time.
On our ballots are listed several candidates so the choice is there so yes this is possible but not likely simply because these candidates will not receive national coverage via the MSM. With the advent of social media also there is incredible pressure placed on people to support the leading candidates only. There are companies which deliberately target places such as message boards to shill for their candidate as well. Add to this the relentless drum beat of the MSM who tells us what to think. We were told in the US in no uncertain terms that Hillary Clinton would become the next President by several of the MSM outlets and that Donald Trump had no chance of being elected remember.
I can't speak for other nationalities, and how they experienced British 'rule'. Furthermore I certainly do not wish to confuse modern day politics with historical facts; the modern-day British involvement in Ireland is very different to what it was historically. There is a fairness now. In fact, many Catholics have reverted to being anti-christian. And Sinn Fein, the main 'Catholic' party here in the north are so anti-christian it's incredible. However, this does not change the facts historically. The British flag was called the butchers apron. They massacred us by the thousand. They evicted us from our land and from our properties. They starved us. Enslaved us. Robbed us. Hated and attacked our catholicism and call this was done across centuries. They brought nothing positive, Byron. They forced my ancestors into immigration. Why do you think so many Irish Americans populate America today? We left by the million. I can't imagine it being any different in other countries. And I know you mean no harm, but it's naive to make the statements you make without any real knowledge of what they did. My grandparents told tales of the butchery. But the facts are there for research. Go and look at the slaughter of Drogheda for example. That incident is one of many, many atrocities. Cromwell and others were murderers. God save the queen is an oft quoted slogan. Today I actually see the point of the monarchy. The income they bring to London is great. And I hold no grudge. But historically the slogan is bitter in the extreme. Very bitter indeed. Offensive, in fact. There are many here who still hate the British because they know what they did. I am not one of those. But I do not presume to know the actions of the British in other countries. They may well have behaved as they did in Ireland. As a footnote; I am so ashamed of being Irish, because of the catastrophic loss of faith and the embracing of secularism in irish society that today I have a British passport (we can have either here in northern ireland you see). God bless...
I think nearly all governing bodies it can be said have committed their fair share of these tragedies down through the ages. More so when they have forsaken God and put man in His place.
The British savagery toward the Irish was particularly diabolical though. My grandmother whose family came to the US in the 1840's had not a good word to say for them and she was two generations removed from Ireland. When you read the accounts it reminds me of the venom of Hitler toward the Jews. How could supposedly civilized people behave that way? The mystery of iniquity. All the unknown Irish martyrs who died to keep the Faith must be praying hard for Ireland now. Heaven must weep at what has happened to Catholic Ireland.
And during the American Civil War the North committed atrocities as well. Most of their evil actions are never mentioned. The South was starved and burned to the ground. It took more than a century to get Dixie back on its feet. We all have painful past histories of government abuses that our own families never forget. But we go on and move forward by the grace of God. I'm not naive enough to realize that governments don't do horrible things, but I am wise enough to know that the sin of governments, like the Union's injustices, brought blessings to the South. One of the most important blessings was freeing the slaves.
“Britain’s dirty war in Ireland, waged throughout the course of the Troubles, marked an especial low point in the country’s sordid colonial history. It is a history that has come back into focus with the explosive revelations contained in declassified state documents from the 1980s, made public by the Government of the Irish Republic in Dublin under the country’s thirty-year rule governing the release of state documents. Said papers confirm that in 1987 the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), one of the oldest and most notorious of the various loyalist/Protestant paramilitary organizations that were engaged in sectarian violence in the province during the Troubles, wrote to the then Irish Prime Minister Charles Haughey in Dublin, informing him that in 1985 they were approached by Britain’s domestic intelligence service, MI5, with a request to assassinate him. We learn that in the letter the UVF told Mr Haughey, “In 1985 we were approached by a MI5 officer attached to the NIO (Northern Ireland Office) and based in Lisburn, AlexJones was his supposed name. He asked us to execute you.” The letter subsequently goes on to allege that Britain’s MI5 supplied the group with information such as pictures of Haughey’s home, his private yacht, and details of the vehicles he travelled in. The UVF refused follow through on MI5’s request, telling Mr Haughey, “We have no love for you but we are not going to carry out work for the Dirty Tricks Department of the British...” https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/01/03/britains-dirty-war-in-ireland-revisited/ Or, as the old saying goes: “the reason the Sun never set on the British Empire, is because God would never trust the English in the dark.”
But, getting back to the general subject of this thread, I fear that there is currently a push on for a war with Iran. I hope Trump does not make the mistake of going down this road. A recent article sums up how I feel about the latest developments in Iran: US Empire Is Running The Same Script With Iran That It Ran With Libya, Syria Two weeks ago a memo was leaked from inside the Trump administration showing how Secretary of State and DC neophyte Rex Tillerson was coached on how the US empire uses human rights as a pretense on which to attack and undermine noncompliant governments. Politico reports:The May 17 memo reads like a crash course for a businessman-turned-diplomat, and its conclusion offers a starkly realist vision: that the US should use human rights as a club against its adversaries, like Iran, China and North Korea, while giving a pass to repressive allies like the Philippines, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. 'Allies should be treated differently — and better — than adversaries. Otherwise, we end up with more adversaries, and fewer allies,' argued the memo, written by Tillerson’s influential policy aide, Brian Hook.With what would be perfect comedic timing if it weren’t so frightening, Iran erupted in protests which have been ongoing for the last four days, and the western empire is suddenly expressing deep, bipartisan concern about the human rights of those protesters. So we all know what this song and dance is code for. Any evil can be justified in the name of “human rights.” In October we learned from a former Qatari prime minister that there was a massive push from the US and its allies to topple the Syrian government from the very beginning of the protests which began in that country in 2011 as part of the so-called Arab Spring. This revelation came in the same week The Intercept finally released NSA documents confirming that foreign governments were in direct control of the “rebels” who began attacking Syria following those 2011 protests. The fretting over human rights has occurred throughout the entirety of the Syrian war, even as the governments publicly decrying human rights abuses were secretly arming and training terrorist factions to murder, rape and pillage their way across the country. We’ve seen it over and over again. In Libya, western interventionism was justified under the pretense of defending human rights when the goal was actually regime change. In Ukraine, empire loyalists played cheerleader for the protests in Kiev when the goal was actually regime change. And who could ever forget the poor oppressed people of Iraq who will surely greet the invaders as liberators? In 2007 retired four-star General Wesley Clark appeared on Democracy Now and said that about ten days after 9/11 he learned that the Pentagon was already making plans for a completely unjustified invasion of Iraq, and that he was shown a memo featuring a plan to “take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.” So it’s an established fact that the neocons have had Iran in their crosshairs for a good long time. This is all coming off the back of the nonstop CIA/CNN narrative being advanced that Iran is a top perpetrator of state-sponsored terrorism, which is just plain false. I have a lot of Trump-supporting followers, and I would like to stress to them that the group of intelligence veterans who authored this memo about Iran is the same group who released a memo dismantling the bogus Russiagate narrative; these are good people and you can trust them. I encourage you to read it. Trump is lying when he says Iran is “the Number One State of Sponsored Terror.” This is the same exact script they run over and over and over again, and people are falling for it again like Charlie Brown and the football. It is nonsensical to believe things asserted by the US intelligence and defense agencies on blind faith at this point, especially when they are clearly working to manufacture support for interventionism in a key strategic location. In a post-Iraq invasion world, nothing but the most intense skepticism of such behavior is acceptable. Luckily, because a full scale invasion of Iran would be far more costly and deadly than the invasion of Iraq, support for this will need to be manufactured not just in America but within an entire coalition of its allies. This will be extremely difficult to do, but by God they are trying. Please keep your skepticism cranked up to eleven on this Iran stuff, dear reader, and be very loudly vocal about it. My Trump-supporting readers especially, I implore you to think critically about all this and look closely at the similarities between the anti-Iran agenda and the other interventions I know you oppose. Together we can kill this narrative and spare ourselves another senseless middle eastern bloodbath. http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/arc...cript-with-iran-that-it-ran-with-libya-syria/
Steve, Alternative parties are on the ballot. There have been times that I have been unfavorable toward both Republican and Democrat and have chosen in principle to vote for Conservative , Constitution, or Right-to-Life Party candidates. Our system is basically two-party and has been since the philosophical split developed between Adams and Hamilton on one side (Federalists) and Jefferson on the other (Anti-Federalists) around 1800. In his farewell speech in 1796 as he departed office, Washington strongly advised to avoid party politics. Safe in the Refuge of the Immaculate Heart!
I hear you loud and clear. I am hoping for a covert operation when dealing with Iran, as well as, a partnership with Russia against the Mullahs. I never supported the McCain war against Syria, but abolishing ISIS and Hezbollah/Al Qaeda should be done with the cooperation of both Russia and Assad. Leaving that region to deal with their own, is no longer a viable conclusion a la Rand Paul. We have nuclear weapons today, and technology so advanced that any of these crazies can use against us. China is there now building bases. We can't just leave that region, unfortunately. But we need a better foreign policy rather than Obama's handing Iran billions. I know that in the past Neo Con thinking was to keep Iran in the dark ages with the Mullahs. That no longer is working.
If China by 2030 will have a better Navy than the U.S., then we must do something quick, without losing our heads.
Steve, Just to bring us to the current party setup, The Anti-Federalists became the Democrats, the Federalists eventually morphed into the Whig Party (which became anti-Catholic in the 1840s). After the Mexican-American War the Whigs withered in the 1850s. The Republican Party was created in 1856 and presented Lincoln as their candidate in 1860. Douglas was the Democratic candidate. However, the southern Democrats did not believe Douglas defended the cotton interests (thus slavery) sufficiently, so a second Democrat, Breckinridge, was put on the ballot. This split ensured the election of Lincoln which precipitated the formation of the Confederacy. Since the Civil War, the Democrats and Republicans have remained the dominant parties. Safe in the Father's Arms!
Richard, this is an interesting article. It was an open secret that so called moderate rebels were supported by Western forces. Without this support, they probably would not have had any chance. At the beginning of the conflict one could read how rebel-fighters were smuggled to syria via turkey. They were radical islamists from Afgahnistan, Chechnya and other areas. One of the problems by this was that none of this fighters could be called moderate, all were radical jihadists. And with that also Isis and groupings like the Al-Nusra-Front (another name for Al-Qaida) was feeded with fighters and weapons. One could tell a lot more about this issue. Your articel mentioned the Qatari minister. His statements verified former reports. Mario, thank you very much for this historical excursus! I will use it as a starting point for further researches about the historical aspects
Richard, I am not too sure about the author of this article that you posted. She made some good points but she offered no solution to the slaughter of innocent people, both Christians and Muslims, at the hands of terrorists throughout the Middle East and the world. I am not saying that there is an easy solution to the current terrorist situation and I pray that we don't repeat the mistakes that we made in the past but I don't believe that the current administration has adopted the plans of the neocons who have preceded them as Caitlin Johnstone does. The article appears to be anti-Trump, she called the President a liar for saying Iran is “the Number One State of Sponsored Terror.” but then who is supporting the terrorists? I think that most Middle East countries; most of the world for that matter, agrees with this statement. In addition, she just penned the following - Trump Isn’t Another Hitler. He’s Another Obama http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/?author=Caitlin+Johnstone She discusses how the US is supplying Ukraine with some more weapons, hopefully this will save lives. They have already lost 10,000 people since late 2013. So if not this, what is the solution for the Ukraine? I wish I had some ideas to offer. I don't think that any country, their leader or their military, should be anxious to go to war but my country, the USA and my current President, Donald Trump, have been left with the mess of their predecessors. I am not saying this is an excuse but all of the blame should not fall on President Trump if any of the current crisis in the world explode in the near future. I wish I knew what the answer was but does Ms. Johnstone have any good ideas besides her attempt to taint voters from reelecting the president in 3 years? Is there a better candidate waiting in the wings somewhere, where was he or she in 2016? I don't expect you to have the answers either but have you ever blamed Russia for anything?
