Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 r_squared wrote:

 jhe90 wrote:
We have no other choice. Its pretty much set.

We voted. We put so much on this.
We have to pull that trigger.

For good or ill this road is set.

Nothing is ever set in stone, but if there was a magic anti-Brexit button to get out of this I think it would have been hammered flat by now.

There'll be no last minute legal challenge, no last minute ejector seat. We're in it now. Bit of a gakker really.

There was a legal challenge. The debate and vote was the last minute button to call this thing off. That passed without a single delay.
The lords amendments failed and the original motion passed.

Corbyns whip pretty much passes it solidly and clearly into law and queen has signed it off as a legal activation permission.

I assume she's seething at how easily it got through and she's running out of bluffs. Will she just fall on her sword and trigger a GE, or will she actually trigger it? She's rich enough to not care either way, so this is all about ego and power.

If you frame everything May has done from the point of view of someone who's determined to stall for as long as possible in the hope of finding a way out it just seems to make fit.

I'm almost tempted to say that passing it uninterrupted was a master stroke by Corybn as it'll havd denied May a few weeks of oosturing, in that he's calling her bluff now. But that's maybe a bit paranoid and cynical of me.

Edit: i can't spell on a phone.

I honestly think she will trigger A50 because right now. All UK positioning and open statement has basicalt made it we do it or we look stupid.

We push to brink, go so against Europe and then... Stop.
Whatever happens we gotta keep moving forward now.
There is no way back. We gone too far.

Martin McGuinness has passed away.

One wonders what this might mean for Northern Ireland.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
On Brexit?

I was and always will be firmly Remain, for a wide variety of reasons.

But I also except we could do alright outside of Europe. But far from convinced the current shower of gaks are the right people to get that job done.

What we need to see, should things go fully Tits up is the blame being passed onto the right people. The god awful far right press and their xenophobia machine. The millionaire tax exiles pulling strings in the name of racism. The vicious small mindedness that is the spawn of blaming decades of poor governance on the poor or the migrant.

We can't allow the Daily Heil, Express or The Scum to pass the blame on any longer.

Could you please refrain from Godwinning every post you make? Its really immature and becoming tiresome to hear your talking about the Nazi Daily Mail every day... Its not funny and its not witty, its a childish played out cliche.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Martin McGuinness has passed away.

One wonders what this might mean for Northern Ireland.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
On Brexit?

I was and always will be firmly Remain, for a wide variety of reasons.

But I also except we could do alright outside of Europe. But far from convinced the current shower of gaks are the right people to get that job done.

What we need to see, should things go fully Tits up is the blame being passed onto the right people. The god awful far right press and their xenophobia machine. The millionaire tax exiles pulling strings in the name of racism. The vicious small mindedness that is the spawn of blaming decades of poor governance on the poor or the migrant.

We can't allow the Daily Heil, Express or The Scum to pass the blame on any longer.

Hopefully, when Rupert Murdoch dies, in the near future, the media may swing back from his political manipulations. Time is on our side, not his.

However, much as I dislike these papers other people like them, and read them in public. Like the yellow and black stripes of a wasp the paper acts as a natural deterrent against others to engage with, or antagonise them.
You only have yourself to blame if you give them a metaphorical prod with a stick.

I like it better as Daily Heil. More accurate than its claimed name.

I knew McGuiness wasn't long for this world. When I saw him giving his resignation I thought that is a dying man. It was alarming.

 Ian Sturrock wrote:
I like it better as Daily Heil. More accurate than its claimed name.

The Daily Fail is also acceptable to without being Godwined.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Could you please refrain from Godwinning every post you make? Its really immature and becoming tiresome to hear your talking about the Nazi Daily Mail every day... Its not funny and its not witty, its a childish played out cliche.

And precious little has changed....

 Future War Cultist wrote:
I knew McGuiness wasn't long for this world. When I saw him giving his resignation I thought that is a dying man. It was alarming.

Yep, I thought he looked pretty knackered. TBF it's easy to forget that he was only 4 years shy of 70, and the political world has a way of aging and beating people down.
Even so, he looked ill, I wasn't all that surprised when I heard he'd died.

I shan't shed any tears for McGuinness. I lost my bookshop, and very nearly my business partner, to the Manchester bomb!

Still, I have to give him my grudging respect for his willingness to recognise that it was time to stop fighting and work towards peace.

For McGuinness I'll say what I said about Paisley. Why couldn't they do what they did 30 years before? Why was it only OK to start talking when they'd have all the power in the future governments? Nah, change or not, he's got blood on his hands. I can't stand the Shiners...and if my family knew that they'd disown me.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
For McGuinness I'll say what I said about Paisley. Why couldn't they do what they did 30 years before?

Because they couldn't?

People don't start killing people for political reasons for fun, they do it because they think its the only way for their particular ideology to 'win'. Once political violence has started it will only stop when its proponents no longer believe that it is the best way to fulfill their aims, or if their aims change, and when that happens you will eventually get the Good Friday Agreement (or similar). Supposedly Martin McGuinness turned towards politics when he realised that the IRA simply couldn't beat the British Army.

Sectarianism in Ireland has very deep roots.

One of the interesting fallouts from brexit has been Northern Ireland. I used to think that it would be unionist forever more but the formerly unassailable lead of the unionist parties has been shaken to the extent that broadly republican parties aren't that far behind in terms of vote share.

What happens if there is a hard border?
What happens if the republican vote over takes the unionist vote?
What happens when Scotland becomes independent and one of the central supports of Ulster unionism is fundamentally broken?

It's entirely possible that there will be a united Ireland within my lifetime and that's something that I would never had expected even a year ago.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Could you please refrain from Godwinning every post you make? Its really immature and becoming tiresome to hear your talking about the Nazi Daily Mail every day... Its not funny and its not witty, its a childish played out cliche.

The thing is that with some papers like the Daily Fail and Sunday Distress are using rhetoric that has eerie and worrying echoes of 1930's Germany (e.g. Enemies of the People etc). Although there is not an inevitability that we will go in the same direction there is the same loathing of migrants in part of society, the same blame for the woes we now face, the same type of populist words being used to 'rally' some of the populace. This isn't the doomsaying of a few anymore; more and more academics are pointing out the similarities.

In other news inflation has massively spiked in February to the point it is outstripping the *average* wage growth which is a direct result of Brexit. This is also unlikely to be the only jump. We still haven't had a full year since the referendum so it is likely that further rises are on the way. Unfortunately this will almost certainly hit the poorest and those in poverty the worst.

 Whirlwind wrote:

The thing is that with some papers like the Daily Fail and Sunday Distress are using rhetoric that has eerie and worrying echoes of 1930's Germany (e.g. Enemies of the People etc). Although there is not an inevitability that we will go in the same direction there is the same loathing of migrants in part of society, the same blame for the woes we now face, the same type of populist words being used to 'rally' some of the populace. This isn't the doomsaying of a few anymore; more and more academics are pointing out the similarities.

It's remarkably easy to compare anything to anything when you go fishing for 'historical facts' to bully into a context for comparison to contemporary times.

For example, I read an academic article the other day comparing Lord Fisher of the pre-war Admiralty's approach to other officers to contemporary issues in HR. The bloke writing it had never even so much as gone and looked at the Fisher papers at Cambridge University, but it was amazing just how many circumstantial facts he managed to shove together in setting out his narrative.

Comparing Britain right now to interwar Germany is about as historically accurate as Trump's referencing of the 'Great' America he wants to go back to.

Inflation in practical terms has been increasing more than wages for some time. Official figures are kept down by the inclusion of white goods and other items that are getting cheaper. But the cost of food, fuel and many common essentials have long been going up which is why so many people find their wages don't cover the bills any more. Wages have been pinched for years.

They've been artificially holding down interest rates for ages, ever since the housing bubble due to fears of mass repossessions. It's not specifically a Brexit thing that inflation now stands proud of wages, though it's made it more prominent.

I work as a teacher, my dad worked in for a local council. I don't recall wage increases of much more than 1% in well over a decade. I recall him going on strike for getting about 0.5% about 15 years ago, and that was supposed to be the good old times under Blair.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
Could you please refrain from Godwinning every post you make? Its really immature and becoming tiresome to hear your talking about the Nazi Daily Mail every day... Its not funny and its not witty, its a childish played out cliche.

I agree. Got to be honest here, but stuff like that or using the phrase "so-called" is one of those things that automatically deducts points from the argument in question. Not a fan of any of the tabloids but if you feel you have to use terms like that rather than letting your counter argument stand on it's own merits, it weakens it IMO.

snippet from an interview with May :




It's a noble enough goal/desire...



uh huh.


https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/jul/27/uk-joins-greece-at-bottom-of-wage-growth-league-tuc-oecd

Britain has suffered a bigger fall in real wages since the financial crisis than any other advanced country apart from Greece, research shows.

A report by the TUC, published on Wednesday, shows that real earnings have declined more than 10% since the credit crunch began in 2007, leaving the UK equal bottom in a league table of wages growth.

Using data from the OECD’s recent employment outlook, the TUC found that over the same 2007-2015 period, real wages grew in Poland by 23%, in Germany by 14%, and in France by 11%. Across the OECD, real wages increased by an average of 6.7%.

The TUC found that between 2007 and 2015 in the UK, real wages – income from work adjusted for inflation – fell by 10.4%. That drop was equalled only by Greece in a list of 29 countries in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

 Ketara wrote:

Comparing Britain right now to interwar Germany is about as historically accurate as Trump's referencing of the 'Great' America he wants to go back to.

Indeed. But it's interesting to see the same tactics used after so many years, just to gain more voters/followers to their party.

History is here so that we don't repeat the same mistakes. It's not the same situation, true. But some tactics are really the same. And the fact they are used many years after, in a different situation, doesn't make it more acceptable now.

 Ketara wrote:

It's remarkably easy to compare anything to anything when you go fishing for 'historical facts' to bully into a context for comparison to contemporary times.

For example, I read an academic article the other day comparing Lord Fisher of the pre-war Admiralty's approach to other officers to contemporary issues in HR. The bloke writing it had never even so much as gone and looked at the Fisher papers at Cambridge University, but it was amazing just how many circumstantial facts he managed to shove together in setting out his narrative.

Comparing Britain right now to interwar Germany is about as historically accurate as Trump's referencing of the 'Great' America he wants to go back to.

There are however significant generic similarities that shouldn't be ignored. Germany in the 1930's is not the DUK in 2017, however some of the rhetoric is similar, some the issues similar, some of the people exploiting public anger are similar. If we fail to recognise the warning signs then we are destined to repeat the same mistakes. No country becomes fascist overnight, none makes a specific decision, it is a path that is taken step by step. Humans by nature are similar, they act in similar ways therefore similar results can occur if left unchecked, our base instincts haven't changed in the last 100 years. Yes we can take the back seat historical perspective of not making comparisons but not learning the lessons of the past is a dangerous path and *if* we end up following that path future generations might question why we didn't see it, why we let it happen when we surely saw the sign posts?

 Whirlwind wrote:

There are however significant generic similarities that shouldn't be ignored.

There are a gajillion and one generic similarities ranging from the fact that you're looking at two scenarios involving landmasses in Europe, to the fact neither country is operating primarily on a barter system.

Which ones you choose to 'not ignore' are entirely contingent upon whatever predetermined reading you feel like making upon a given scenario.

If we fail to recognise the warning signs then we are destined to repeat the same mistakes.

It's arrogance to assume you can affect the march of events to that degree. You think that not only can you select the 'relevant' warning signs from history, you think that doing so will somehow permit the aversion or mitigation of some great unknowable event in the future? Real life does not work like Noah's Ark.

Yes we can take the back seat historical perspective of not making comparisons but not learning the lessons of the past is a dangerous path and *if* we end up following that path future generations might question why we didn't see it, why we let it happen when we surely saw the sign posts?

The problem is that your grand 'lessons' in causation are nothing more than the regurgitated, fallible, and inaccurate interpretations of other people that you happen to have stumbled across in your brief blink of an eye on this planet. Who in turn spend their lives finding out that they are wrong. I'm in the middle of revising about half a chapter of William McNeill's 'Pursuit of Power', an extremely well regarded general history over the last few decades. Take a dozen people like me, and McNeill may well be disproved in his entirety. The minute you move beyond basic 'facts' in history into 'general' histories which measure cause and effect through many factors over a prolonged period, you're moving purely into the realms of the unknown and guesswork.

To take one of those histories (or even a selection of them) and then try to measure your interpretation of what was in them against a contemporary scenario where you don't even have the benefit of hindsight (I can read cabinet meetings from the 40's, but not the ones right now) is just impossible. You're deceiving yourself into thinking that you recognise some sort of discernible pattern from the morass of past events, and that you can somehow use that pattern as a general verifiable rule to determine contemporary events in the same way as mathematics.


Example. When Britain went to war in 1914, there was jubilation on the streets of Britain. Everyone was convinced that the war was a jolly good thing and would be over by Christmas. We can take this fact and trace it back to all the pugnacious newspaper articles talking about war with Germany, and extract a general trend about how the media can contribute towards the outbreak of war and national stupidity in supporting it (or jingoism, to use the popular word).

That means that we can now take that as an example of the dangers of the press whipping up the frenzy of the masses and stop future slaughter being unleashed! Hurrah for our amazing interpretative skills! Trebles all round!


Except: Did any of that really happen?

New research is questioning whether or not the average man actually even cared, let alone was happy. Quantitative examination of journals and letters from the time seems to imply that nobody was too happy about it. The pictures showing the revelry in London are regarded as potentially being isolated events. Perhaps it was a class thing? The working classes were barely literate at the time. How do we know what they really thought? There's no way of studying the level of influence publications of the time had over them. We also know now that British military command didn't think it would be over by Christmas. Who else was questioning that supposed fact? It is possible that the entire general understanding of the public reaction at that point in time is wrong.


So which of them is true? Is either? And given that, where does our grand little theory above stand when it comes to being applied to real life?

Now take that sort of confusion, multiply it by twenty, and you begin to see why making an 'interpretation' of the events leading to the rise of Nazi Germany and trying to extract causative rules we can apply to contemporary scenarios is as flawed an approach as farming ducks for potatoes.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Future War Cultist wrote:
For McGuinness I'll say what I said about Paisley. Why couldn't they do what they did 30 years before?

Because they couldn't?

People don't start killing people for political reasons for fun, they do it because they think its the only way for their particular ideology to 'win'. Once political violence has started it will only stop when its proponents no longer believe that it is the best way to fulfill their aims, or if their aims change, and when that happens you will eventually get the Good Friday Agreement (or similar). Supposedly Martin McGuinness turned towards politics when he realised that the IRA simply couldn't beat the British Army.

Sectarianism in Ireland has very deep roots.

One of the interesting fallouts from brexit has been Northern Ireland. I used to think that it would be unionist forever more but the formerly unassailable lead of the unionist parties has been shaken to the extent that broadly republican parties aren't that far behind in terms of vote share.

What happens if there is a hard border?
What happens if the republican vote over takes the unionist vote?
What happens when Scotland becomes independent and one of the central supports of Ulster unionism is fundamentally broken?

It's entirely possible that there will be a united Ireland within my lifetime and that's something that I would never had expected even a year ago.

All the more important that Martin McGuinness' true contribution to his country is what's focussed on, and not his horrific past.

Whilst his good acts by no means excuse his bad, he needs to be held up as a true and accurate example that violence gets you nowhere. When he invested in the peace process, it all more-or-less came together - and however fragile, Ireland has had a predominately peaceful time since.

Sadly, it's all too easy for the organised criminals masquerading as national heroes on both sides to use his passing to kick stuff off. So we need to focus on the good he did. That needs to be his legacy.

Well, remember this. Catholics here (like me) had it bad before the end of the 60s. There's absolutely no doubt about that. But black people in America had it far worse. And Dr. King's movement managed to achieve so much without resorting to violence. I know about the Black Panthers but they were no where near as prolific as the IRA. The situation now is far from perfect but it's improved massively. Why couldn't they do the same?

EDIT:

I know things aren't as simple as this but I still wonder why it had to be bombs and bullets.

Aaaaand the gutter press headlines naturally focus on his distant past.

What an absolute shower.

 Future War Cultist wrote:

I know things aren't as simple as this but I still wonder why it had to be bombs and bullets.

Because there has been armed sectarian conflict, or at least conflict with a strong sectarian element, in Ireland for centuries. The IRA and its forebearers were well used to using violence to further their aims and violence was readily used against them.

Historically, peaceful and political protests against British rule we ineffective or made short term gains that were quickly rolled back. It was the Easter Rising that finally made Irish independence possible after decades of campaigns for 'Home rule' that went basically nowhere.

Bombs and bullets were all but inevitable given this context.

If nothing else the peace process, and Martin McGuinness, has broken that chain of violence.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Aaaaand the gutter press headlines naturally focus on his distant past.

What an absolute shower.

Did you actually expect them to do anything else?

Not when there's profit to be made keeping people stupid and afraid, no.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
...All the more important that Martin McGuinness' true contribution to his country is what's focussed on, and not his horrific past.

Whilst his good acts by no means excuse his bad, he needs to be held up as a true and accurate example that violence gets you nowhere. When he invested in the peace process, it all more-or-less came together - and however fragile, Ireland has had a predominately peaceful time since.

Sadly, it's all too easy for the organised criminals masquerading as national heroes on both sides to use his passing to kick stuff off. So we need to focus on the good he did. That needs to be his legacy.

McGuiness' reputation and credibility was pivotal in the peace process. I am convinced that it would have struggled to get going without his taking part and convincing the more militant republicans to give politics a real chance.
Fortunately, the horrendous practices of the past that ignited the troubles no longer exist, the environment is completely different and it is highly unlikely that the scale of conflict would return.
Brexit will certainly complicate matters, but people are invested in peace at the moment. Most of my protestant family that still live over there are not happy at all about Brexit and now the possibility of Irish reunification, but they're not about to take to the streets or plant bombs to stop it. But they're probably not representative of everyone.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Aaaaand the gutter press headlines naturally focus on his distant past.

What an absolute shower.

Yeah, but it's not really surprising really. He was absolutely loathed, and even after all these years the actions of the IRA have resonated in people's minds. My mum and grandad couldn't stand to even see his face on the TV, even to this day he would evoke quite a virulent reaction in both of them which involved the only time I have ever heard my mother swear out loud.

Myself I can be a bit more dispassionate about it as being born in the 70s, I was too young to remember the height of the troubles, but I certainly remember bomb threats, army patrols and the feeling of threat whilst living in Belfast until we eventually left for England.
I still went back 2 or 3 times a year for holidays and to see family and cousins, and generally it wasn't too bad. By the time of the peace process though, things had changed, and now it's like a completely different world.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Aaaaand the gutter press headlines naturally focus on his distant past.

What an absolute shower.

Considering he went to his grave without ever acknowledging his role in the violent activities of the IRA nor revealed any knowledge he has of the locations of the IRA's victims and their remains so they can be returned to their families...why shouldn't the media focus on his past? You don't get a pass on all the nasty stuff you did earlier in life just because you stopped doing it and changed tactics.

The guy didn't give up violence and engage in the peace process out of some moral redemption and renunciation of violence, he did it because he realised it was the only way to achieve his political objectives. If he believed the peace process wouldn't get him what he wanted, he would have continued with the IRA.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Aaaaand the gutter press headlines naturally focus on his distant past.

What an absolute shower.

Considering he went to his grave without ever acknowledging his role in the violent activities of the IRA nor revealed any knowledge he has of the locations of the IRA's victims and their remains so they can be returned to their families...why shouldn't the media focus on his past? You don't get a pass on all the nasty stuff you did earlier in life just because you stopped doing it and changed tactics.

The guy didn't give up violence and engage in the peace process out of some moral redemption and renunciation of violence, he did it because he realised it was the only way to achieve his political objectives. If he believed the peace process wouldn't get him what he wanted, he would have continued with the IRA.

Well also post 2001. Being a terrorist became very very unpopular, granted was berfore but the stigma grew post that date.
So that made the idea of a second war and support... A unlikely and non effectives option if it ever was to return. With current thing armound it. And laws. Its got alot more hardened than ever against them.

Back to Ireland. Yes. He never revealed where thr missing where, If he knew the locations doing so could have saved alot of pain for alot of families.
Secondly. Much as his role in peace is noted. His role in the war is also noted, and not forgotten as they both are linked, both are one and the same man.