SpabSFW
02-21-2004, 01:13 PM
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/opinion/story.jsp?story=492981
Ireland's message to US Skull and Bones squad should be: Butt Out!
By Eamonn McCann
featureseditor@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
19 February 2004
So the DUP reckons John Kerry a dangerous radical with a sneaking regard for "Irish terrorism."
By the same token, nationalist leaders see him as a fine fellow who might well be more sympathetic to their cause than the current White House incumbent.
Not that anybody will be injured in a rush to endorse the Massachusetts senator at this stage.
After all, Bush is still marginally odds-on to win his first presidential poll in November. And even if he loses, he might still stay President. Stealing elections must come easier the second time around.
And none of our nationalist chieftains will risk alienating any possible US President. Kerry's people angered the DUP in making their pitch for the Irish-American vote on Tuesday with a statement critical of Bush for allegedly pushing the "Irish peace process" down the White House agenda.
Naturally, Bush supporters issued instant rebuttals. Hadn't Dubya repeatedly dispatched his envoy and advocate of an "American Empire," Richard Haass, to jolly the Irish peace processors along?
...
Who should we be rooting for, then? Should those who support the balanced sectarianism of the Belfast Agreement back Kerry and all who are out for a more one-sided set-up hitch their hopes on four more years of the Texas draft-dodger?
What, actually, is the difference between the two front-runners? Well, both men attended Yale University and were members of the elite and secretive Skull and Bones Club.
Perhaps the club is no more than a closed arena for silly ritual. But it's odd that, apart from confirming that they remain members, neither man is willing to discuss the practices or purposes of the outfit.
The American investigative journalist Sam Smith suggested this week that Skull and Bones is "infantile, elitist, misogynist, anti-democratic and secret," and that its purpose is "the mutual support and protection of its members as they make their way into the upper ranks of American society."
Kerry, says Smith, "has retained a close enough relationship to the organisation to have sought new members from among his young acquaintances."
Membership of Skull and Bones is not all that the two men share. Kerry has come across as a critic of the Iraq war. But he voted for it.
Ambivalence seems to be a feature of his attitude to Iraq wars. He voted against the Congressional resolution backing the assault on Iraq in 1990, then went rapidly into reverse when it looked like Bush senior had toppled Saddam, before finally reverting to his original position when the Bush victory turned out less than clear-cut.
His own office could hardly keep up. At one point they were simultaneously sending out letters advocating both positions.
On the campaign trail, Kerry has attacked the draconian Patriot Act. "We are a nation of laws and liberties, not of a knock in the night." But he voted for that, too.
He voted for Clinton's welfare "reforms" which kicked millions of poor Americans off welfare, and enthusiastically supported the repulsive Effective Death Penalty Act. We could go on and on.
Bush versus Kerry will be win-win for the super-rich who really run America.
Behind the tattered curtain of democracy, the election will be a party for the elite, to which mere voters will not be invited.
Anybody who imagines that either of these men has a principled or even a sentimental attachment to a particular settlement in Ireland is deluded.
They care not a jot for us and have nothing to offer us. When they interfere in our affairs they should be told to butt out.
Ireland's message to US Skull and Bones squad should be: Butt Out!
By Eamonn McCann
featureseditor@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
19 February 2004
So the DUP reckons John Kerry a dangerous radical with a sneaking regard for "Irish terrorism."
By the same token, nationalist leaders see him as a fine fellow who might well be more sympathetic to their cause than the current White House incumbent.
Not that anybody will be injured in a rush to endorse the Massachusetts senator at this stage.
After all, Bush is still marginally odds-on to win his first presidential poll in November. And even if he loses, he might still stay President. Stealing elections must come easier the second time around.
And none of our nationalist chieftains will risk alienating any possible US President. Kerry's people angered the DUP in making their pitch for the Irish-American vote on Tuesday with a statement critical of Bush for allegedly pushing the "Irish peace process" down the White House agenda.
Naturally, Bush supporters issued instant rebuttals. Hadn't Dubya repeatedly dispatched his envoy and advocate of an "American Empire," Richard Haass, to jolly the Irish peace processors along?
...
Who should we be rooting for, then? Should those who support the balanced sectarianism of the Belfast Agreement back Kerry and all who are out for a more one-sided set-up hitch their hopes on four more years of the Texas draft-dodger?
What, actually, is the difference between the two front-runners? Well, both men attended Yale University and were members of the elite and secretive Skull and Bones Club.
Perhaps the club is no more than a closed arena for silly ritual. But it's odd that, apart from confirming that they remain members, neither man is willing to discuss the practices or purposes of the outfit.
The American investigative journalist Sam Smith suggested this week that Skull and Bones is "infantile, elitist, misogynist, anti-democratic and secret," and that its purpose is "the mutual support and protection of its members as they make their way into the upper ranks of American society."
Kerry, says Smith, "has retained a close enough relationship to the organisation to have sought new members from among his young acquaintances."
Membership of Skull and Bones is not all that the two men share. Kerry has come across as a critic of the Iraq war. But he voted for it.
Ambivalence seems to be a feature of his attitude to Iraq wars. He voted against the Congressional resolution backing the assault on Iraq in 1990, then went rapidly into reverse when it looked like Bush senior had toppled Saddam, before finally reverting to his original position when the Bush victory turned out less than clear-cut.
His own office could hardly keep up. At one point they were simultaneously sending out letters advocating both positions.
On the campaign trail, Kerry has attacked the draconian Patriot Act. "We are a nation of laws and liberties, not of a knock in the night." But he voted for that, too.
He voted for Clinton's welfare "reforms" which kicked millions of poor Americans off welfare, and enthusiastically supported the repulsive Effective Death Penalty Act. We could go on and on.
Bush versus Kerry will be win-win for the super-rich who really run America.
Behind the tattered curtain of democracy, the election will be a party for the elite, to which mere voters will not be invited.
Anybody who imagines that either of these men has a principled or even a sentimental attachment to a particular settlement in Ireland is deluded.
They care not a jot for us and have nothing to offer us. When they interfere in our affairs they should be told to butt out.