Irish Time

Friday, November 22, 2013

A PENSIVE QUILL A SNIVELING 'LEFTIE'





Having failed because of stalinist censorship in the pensive quill, to engage a former irish republican in reconciliatory debate, I offer these two articlesand video as evidence of the flip side of fascism.

"
GIVE US BARABBAS

‘No more inquests and no more prosecutions with respect to Troubles-related deaths.’ John Larkin 

The North’s Attorney General has plunged into the turbulent waters of the area's conflict strewn past where dangerous currents, their sensors activated by the sound of a fresh idea punctuating stale environs, still threaten to pull a career under. In acting as he did John Larkin has shown more fortitude than most, in particular the political class which has been dipping its toe into the muck for the best part of 15 years, and pulling it back out even faster. The political sentinels have demonstrated with unremitting consistency how not to turn at every turning point, in those memorable words, never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

In arguing that a line should be drawn under the past Larkin now finds himself somewhat isolated, discursively at least whatever else may be going on in the undergrowth. The political parties see some advantage in collectively distancing themselves from his comments, while the victims’ lobby, for whom any embracive outcome of substance is not within the gift of society, feels as unfulfilled as ever. For those left to grieve, loss is a vacuum that simply cannot be filled.

The victims' lobby has emotive reason to find the proposal anathema, but the political class should desist from the displays of mock horror it has acted out for constituency consumption. It has long known that the system does not work yet, in a rare show of unity, has clamoured to ensure it stays in place while paying lip service to the need for change.  Barra McGrory, albeit less bluntly than Larkin, previously tried to steer the debate in a similar direction so there is no room for the vacuous claim that it came out of left field. As Director of Public Prosecutions he is not an insignificant figure. Upton Sinclair’s biting quip easily sums up the politicians: ‘it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.’

Larkin has simply proposed placing a STOP signal in front of a vehicle already stalled, calling for ‘a halt to all probes into offences carried out before the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998’ on the largely functional grounds that they are subject to the law of diminishing returns.

No imprimatur from a Harvard law professor is needed in order for this conclusion to pass muster. The countless victims still demanding redress illustrate the current deficiency better than anything else.

John Larkin has made the right call in terms of prosecutions. Not because his proposal approaches any notion of perfect justice: far from it. He proposes not the ideal outcome but the optimum one in terms of what is achievable within the constrained range of possibilities presently available in the North. There is no shortage of irony in a lawyer having to remind politicians of Otto Von Bismark's timeless pearl that often 'politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best.'

Although I have a dog in the fight due to the Boston College affair, which alone is sufficient to make me thoroughly indisposed towards prosecutions, my views on a prosecutorial role in respect of the past were formed prior to the Boston archive becoming a hotly fought over issue. Reflecting on the Saville Inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday I commentedthat:

Although there are enough who think for genuine reasons that prosecutions should result from the Saville findings I am not convinced there is any point in journeying down that path. A crucially damning verdict would be a simple, concise, unequivocal declaration from the British government that the act was mass murder, that the Widgery Report was a whitewash and that the British government behaviour after the event made it, at the very least, an accomplice after the fact, responsible for covering up and perverting the course of justice. That would be much more beneficial than some woolly verdict of unlawful killing or manslaughter which is probably the only outcome from court proceedings.

Nothing since has emerged that would lead to a change of heart. Prosecutions have been a one way process, a weapon of legitimation employed by the British state against non state combatants designed to absolve it, implicate its opponents and distance itself from ‘lethal allies.

The continued insistence on prosecutions from whatever quarter is made in the sure knowledge of the seriously limiting effect it will impose on wider truth recovery. It raises suspicions that much of it is deliberately designed to inhibit the emergence of anything other than a controlled circumscribed truth; to so refine and rarify truth through legalese that its value to society will be severely diminished. Politicians wielding the stick of retribution are prone to poke the eye of revelation, so that society in general and victims in particular, will see less rather than more.

John Larkin has outlined a method that if stringent in both its application and oversight procedure, has the potential to unlock more truth than is likely to see the light of day under any other set of proposals. As a rule uncomfortable truth will generally come out in spite of us rather than because of us. Larkin in opting to spite us, has charted a potential course towards that moment best described by psychiatrist, Dr Philip McGarry, ‘when the denials, the half-truths and the lies will no longer, in essence, cut the mustard.’
Still they shout 'No, not him! Give us Barabbas.' "

The End thanks be to God


These Sniveling ‘Lefties’
What A Sorry State Of Affairs 


By William Bowles
November 21, 2013 "Information Clearing House -  I have been involved with left-wing politics in one guise or another pretty much my entire life and I have to admit to getting an awful lot of stuff wrong, largely because rather than thinking things through properly for myself, I listened to the ‘authority’, to those who allegedly know best.
Contrary to popular belief, I’ve gotten more radical as I’ve gotten older and as just as willing to consider new ideas, new approaches, perhaps due to my 19th century ‘liberal’ arts education that encouraged us to explore wherever our fancy took us, (though it has to be said that much depended on the quality/interest/encouragement of the lecturers we had and a pretty motley but interesting crew it was).
All of this by way of a run-in to this Mother Agnes Mariam affair that once again reveals the bankrupt nature of left political activity in this country (and elsewhere in the ‘developed’ world).
If I remember correctly, Mother Agnes came to our attention back in September when she  blew the lid on the chemical weapons attack in Ghouta, incurring the wrath of the Western media as she contradicted the story then being peddled, that it was Assad wot did it.
The International Institute for Peace, Justice and Human Rights (ISTEAMS) has just published a comprehensive report on the chemical attack in the Damascus suburb of East Ghouta. The document is called The Chemical Attacks on East Ghouta to Justify Military Right to Protect Intervention in Syria. With video clips and the evidence provided by witnesses to support the conclusions, the report has been submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council and spread among foreign diplomats. 
The author is ISTEAMS President and International Coordinator Mother Agnes Mariam of the Cross (el-Salib), the Mother Superior of the Monastery of St. James the Mutilated (Syria). A fearless faithful, she has been collecting the evidence related to bloody events in the conflict zone since the very start of Syrian rebellion: the militants running rampant, the staged fakes and instances of one-sided highlighting of the events in Syria by Western media… ‘East Ghouta: False Flag Chemical Attack‘ By  Nikolai MALISHEVSKI | 28.09.2013, Strategic Culture Foundation
So Stop the War have organised (yet another) conference and Mother Agnes got invited (and as it turns out, the only person speaking who had actually experienced Syria first-hand!) and a couple of rogues, Jeremy Scahill activist journalist and Owen Jones of the Independent newspaper, refused to attend if Mother Agnes was on the platform, on the grounds that Mother Agnes was an apologist for ‘mass murderer’ Assad. No proof was offered for this opinion, nor has any emerged since then as far as I know that Mother Agnes is an ‘apologist’ for the Assad regime. In any case, isn’t Owens the pot calling the kettle black?
Owen Jones…is a paid-up member of a UK…[Labour]…party that played a lead role in no less than genocide; in an act of military and economic aggression on Iraq totally against International Law, not to mention morality. He sits beside these politicians and pleads with leftist thinkers to join them and “change them from within”. — ‘Owen Jones & Mother Agnes. A lesson on conciliatory “leftists”’ By Phil Greaves
In any case Mother Agnes disinvited herself from the affair but the smell left by Scahill and Jones remains. Frankly, I think it’s outrageous that two people and one of them an employee of the corporate press, and the other a US journalist/writer, can dictate who should and should not appear at a public meeting organised by the left in the shape of the Stop the War Coalition!
I mean like what kind of threat is it if these two buffoons didn’t pitch? Who is likely to miss their presence? And shame on STW for caving in on this, once again revealing the bankrupt and utterly dishonest nature of the ‘left’.
I know I keep banging on about this but once more into the breach…when is the left here (and elsewhere) going to jettison its imperialist baggage? What does it take? Why is it that we are always, I mean always telling the rest of the world what to do?
Therein lies the imperialist core at the heart of the left, more commonly known as the ‘White Man’s Burden’. Apparently running the planet and its people is hard to give up even for those who claim to be anti-imperialist.
Mother Agnes’ biggest ‘sin’ was calling the ‘rebels’ murderers and exposing the Ghouta gas attack, and after all it was the ‘rebels’ that torched her monastery so perhaps she’s biased. But by the same token and in spite of this she has mediated meetings with all sides in the conflict even those she condemns as murderers. And what if she does support Assad? So what? What if she thinks Assad is preferable to mass murder? She’s not alone in thinking that in Syria.
What these sniveling ‘lefties’ want is everybody, everywhere toeing the Western lefty line. It’s all or nothing apparently. Essentially the Western left is saying, ‘What we need is a real revolutionary running Syria not Assad the phony anti-imperialist and until he comes along, we support bombing you into democracy’.
Now Assad’s credentials may or may not be up to the mark, this is not the point. It’s the idea that we, that is the miniscule Western left decides on the fates of others. It’s outrageous!
So it’s alright to rain bombs on Syria, Libya or wherever, if the pres ain’t Che Guevarra, seems to be the cry of many on the left. More chickenshit opportunism. But this attitude has a pedigree, it didn’t just happen. For as long as other countries have been having revolutions, we have been dismantling them in our critiques and more shamefully, in our actions, like effectively censoring Mother Agnes because two men objected.
Surely the lesson here is for us to keep our noses out of other country’s business and doing something about our own fucked up situation instead. Lost in shuffle are the fate of millions while we debate whether or not to support a country that’s getting hammered by the Empire, whether by proxy or direct intervention. I’m ashamed to be part of a left that even entertains these backward and reactionary views, never mind acting on them. What a sorry state of affairs.
Visit Bills website -  www.williambowles.info 
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DrS· 1 day ago
The ME region will no doubt continue to be a major mess.

Instability and volatility are everywhere in the region. No doubt, Israel and Saudi Arabia are being very combative and provocative.

In the Western world citizens need to realize and understand this observation: "A democracy is always TEMPORARY in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government."

At the present time, democracy does not exist in the Western world.

It is currently on LIFE SUPPORTS including Canada under the Harper government. Ugh!

All nations have moved from bondage to faith; from faith to greater courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence to into bondage/SLAVERY.

We witness the Age of Lawlessness and the New World Order.

Can it get any worse when ideologically driven individuals have it in for all citizens of this world!?!?!

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Fitzhenrymac· 1 day ago
Which Sniveling ‘Lefties’ Mr Bowles?
Which chickenshit opportunists?

Be specific Jones and Scarhill. Don't demonize the whole STW (Stop the War Coalition) of diverse groups, some left, some religious, some philosophical, some nationalist, some liberal, by using the same language as the right wing mass media. (You also show a strong American influence in your choice of words.)

Your article shows a sad lack of research that would have given you the confidence to say, as Mother Agnes did, that the multicultural, secular socialist Syria was not so bad. (Perhaps not as good as Libya was and which you wrote far more authoritatively about) You would also have found out that Agnes has been reported in the media since at least March 2012 when she and other Syrian Christians warned that non-Arabs had been traveling around Syria trying to garner support for an insurrection and when Christians said no, threatening them.

If you had bothered to visit the STW website you would have found that Scahill was their keynote speaker and a link to a statement by Mother Agnes. http://stopwar.org.uk/mother_agnes.pdf

I agree, Scahill and Jones were out of line. They were probably influenced by their publishers and employers. Scahill is just about to release a documentary film. I would have loved you to have produced an expose of Scahill or Jones being a mole. That would have been worth the read.

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htfd· 1 day ago
This does have a rather odd order to it, doesn't.

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anne johnson· 1 day ago
No, Mr Bowles. Don't ask people to turn a blind eye to the attacks on Syria.
Surely we want Stop the War to take a clear lead in exposing our lying media. Not another conference or march up another hill only to go down again. And let's all take action to stop the war machine's destruction of other countries - not threatening us in any way.
But what can you expect from a Labour Party/Trotskyist-led organisation!

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tael· 1 day ago
Left??? What left? Lets take a very long look in the mirror, shall we..

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Cassandra· 1 day ago
A writer and 'soi-disant' long-time leftist who doesn't know how to spell Che's name? Seems odd.

In fact, seems like a "tell."

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dahszil· 1 day ago
refreshing criticism. thank you William Bowles.

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marcus· 1 day ago
Bravo, Bowles. Your disgust at the Cruise Missile-enabling fake "left'' is a relief from the treacherous wolves in sheep clothing who give more destructive & effective support to the CIIA frame-up liars & mass murderers than the open rightwingers do by perverting labels like "left", "socialist'' ''progressive'' & ''alternative'' to spew the same lies & demonizations that are spewed by CNN, FOX, & the Stae Dept. against Gaddafi, Assad, & every leader who disobeys the CIA, using the same hypocritical "humanitarian" pretext for bombing hundreds of thousands of people to ''save them''. I first learned that the CIA prefers to peddle its lies through fake "left" frauds when I confronted those 'progressive' jackals in the 1960's even before the revelations that they were covertly run & funded by the CIA, when the covertly funded "Socialist" Party youth group L.I.D. infiltrated & tried to split & wreck our "unconditional U.S.withdrawal" anti-Vietnam war group by trying to impose their "don't withdraw; negotiate" (!?) slogan & peddling the counterpart of today's demonization against Assad, against the NLF Vietnamese patriots. Search: "Democracy Now:-Valued Cheerleader for War & Imperialism" , " 'Progressive' Journalism's Legacy of Deceit" , "CIA Foundation 'Left' Gatekeepers"

,

'''alternative" & "progressive" as a disguise for their

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Giorg Soros· 20 hours ago
LEFTIES ON THE MOVE:http://www.geotimes.ge/index.php?m=home&newsi...
RIGHTIES ON THE MOVE:
The Tea Party of USA was actually started by the Big Pharmacy lobby[ies] PhRMA to block REIMPORTATION of U.S. medical drugs back into USA --at much lower prices-- for the benefit of the American people. The original tea party was a strategy of the big PhRMA to disallow Americans from buying the mountains of drugs they need, at reasonable re-imported lower prices, by bringing BACK HOME the drugs made in USA --that are sold in Europe at much cheaper prices-- and selling them to American consumers and patients at much low prices than the corporate asking price in the 50 states. The social engineers of the elite hidden societies, along with US intel agencies, got plenty of media fools to brand this cesspool of re-importantion blockers – as a radical wing of the Republican Party. They are in fact "shillers" against big government "socialist-commie" health funding. The tragic end result is a big statistical pie slice of geriatrics and pensioners who were hoodwinked into protesting in the streets –fatuously AGAINST their own BEST interests, in the favor of much higher costs in health and drug care. Sarah Palin became their face of change. Much as Obama became an alternative face of change. What has changed?

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Doug Diggler· 20 hours ago
This pretty much proves that Jeremy Scahill is really a Left Gatekeeper if not a wholly bought establishment shill. Which would explain why his film about Afghanistan contains not iota about its model, the Phoenix Program of the VIetnam War.

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socialite· 14 hours ago
Some if not a lot of these so-called lefties supported the Imperialist destruction of Libya! Racist and anti-Arab and pro-Israel.Democracy Now gave continous coverage of the deadly, counterrevolution that murdered hundreds of Africans living and working in Libya.Chomsky in the forfront.Socialist Worker's Party also cheering on imperialist aggression against Libya. I agree with the author , opinion about the U.S. left. It's our way or the high way.How do you follow a revolutionary party that have yet to liberate the working class in facist U.S. Scahill and Jones could learn a great deal about leading a revolution from Assad.But they won't because he's not white.
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Some if not a lot of these so-called lefties supported the Imperialist destruction of Libya! Racist and anti-Arab and pro-Israel.Democracy Now gave continous coverage of the deadly, counterrevolution that murdered hundreds of Africans living and working in Libya.Chomsky in the forfront.Socialist Worker's Party also cheering on imperialist aggression against Libya. I agree with the author , opinion about the U.S. left. It's our way or the high way.How do you follow a revolutionary party that have yet to liberate the working class in facist U.S. Scahill and Jones could learn a great deal about leading a revolution from Assad.But they won't because he's not white.
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