It is possible to be more than one thing at once. I can be an Irish nationalist in favour of a strong military and also be in favour of joining some kind of alliance.
On the military, it is frustrating to see military capabilities and neutrality conflated. They are separate issues and should be treated as such.
The Republic should build up its army, navy and air "corps." It needs radars, jets, drones, anti-drone defences, missiles and so on. Think Taiwan.
It needs to pay more to soldiers and sailors, and to make the military an attractive career option. Either that, or introduce some kind of compulsory service.
The military alliance is trickier. Do you want to join NATO when the president of the largest power (by far) is a Russian agent? And when the head of NATO is some deluded Dutch eejit with "daddy" issues?
Then there is the question of what our current "neutrality" looks like. Has it ever been defined by anyone? Aren't we in some Nordic battle groups already? And NATO's so-called Partnership for Peace? So yes, a little honesty would go a long way.
Finally, your jibes. I am sure jeering at nationalists is fun — and beside the point. Nevertheless, your sneering might get you a column in the Irish Times some day. God knows, south Dublin needs more sneerers.
My final paragraph was a little too snarky there so I apologize.
It is just that we started the culture wars in Ireland long before anyone else.
It was all started, as far as I can determine, by the likes of Conor Cruise O'Brien and his toxic attitude to (the) North(ern) (of) Ireland (pick your poison). That would be in the 1970s for readers not familiar with him.
This culture war turned into an infantile argument that can be reduced to: pan-Nationalist Front = big bad terrorists while the Unionists and British are poor unfortunate blameless souls.
In short, it's the sort of thing I can overpay to read in the Irish Times.
This fuzzy logic has led to an abandonment of critical thinking and the inability to analyse problems and figure out solutions.
l'm reading this from what became an Irish-Catholic bastion in the Upper Midwest of the States, and thinking: there's some lesson, or warning in this for us, here, as our importance to The System declines by the decade. We (well, not me or my four remaining friends) but We think that if we raise up Old Glory, sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic with hands on hearts and 'think' in the right manner with sufficient praise for those who've seized power, that we will be beneficently rewarded with a middle-class life. And a very large pickup truck with a very big engine sufficient to tow a very large boat for recreation for which we have no spare time. But, no...
We are just nodes in a very large system of extraction; nay, even more, a colonial plantation system that exceeds our borders, and our local, county, state and federal systems of governance, too. A system that lets us pretend, too, that we deserve all this proud glory in exchange for our fealty. And now, over the past fifty years since I've been paying attention, to what is it that we give our oaths, our fealty, our attention in looks, and 'likes', and clicks and swipes? It turns out to be, I think, that very thing which that inconvenient troublemaker from Nazareth, amongst others, warned, and here's the quiz: What is it that which one cannot serve both? The Almighty and _________* (fill in the blank).
Thanks very much for this awareness raising. I've got some deadfall oak and ash to finish cutting, splitting and rikking up in the shed. Winter'll come back with a vengeance.
Tim Long, Just Up the Hill from Lock 15
*It's the all-consuming dark spirit of Modern Capital; aka: Mammon
It is possible to be more than one thing at once. I can be an Irish nationalist in favour of a strong military and also be in favour of joining some kind of alliance.
On the military, it is frustrating to see military capabilities and neutrality conflated. They are separate issues and should be treated as such.
The Republic should build up its army, navy and air "corps." It needs radars, jets, drones, anti-drone defences, missiles and so on. Think Taiwan.
It needs to pay more to soldiers and sailors, and to make the military an attractive career option. Either that, or introduce some kind of compulsory service.
The military alliance is trickier. Do you want to join NATO when the president of the largest power (by far) is a Russian agent? And when the head of NATO is some deluded Dutch eejit with "daddy" issues?
Then there is the question of what our current "neutrality" looks like. Has it ever been defined by anyone? Aren't we in some Nordic battle groups already? And NATO's so-called Partnership for Peace? So yes, a little honesty would go a long way.
Finally, your jibes. I am sure jeering at nationalists is fun — and beside the point. Nevertheless, your sneering might get you a column in the Irish Times some day. God knows, south Dublin needs more sneerers.
My final paragraph was a little too snarky there so I apologize.
It is just that we started the culture wars in Ireland long before anyone else.
It was all started, as far as I can determine, by the likes of Conor Cruise O'Brien and his toxic attitude to (the) North(ern) (of) Ireland (pick your poison). That would be in the 1970s for readers not familiar with him.
This culture war turned into an infantile argument that can be reduced to: pan-Nationalist Front = big bad terrorists while the Unionists and British are poor unfortunate blameless souls.
In short, it's the sort of thing I can overpay to read in the Irish Times.
This fuzzy logic has led to an abandonment of critical thinking and the inability to analyse problems and figure out solutions.
l'm reading this from what became an Irish-Catholic bastion in the Upper Midwest of the States, and thinking: there's some lesson, or warning in this for us, here, as our importance to The System declines by the decade. We (well, not me or my four remaining friends) but We think that if we raise up Old Glory, sing the Battle Hymn of the Republic with hands on hearts and 'think' in the right manner with sufficient praise for those who've seized power, that we will be beneficently rewarded with a middle-class life. And a very large pickup truck with a very big engine sufficient to tow a very large boat for recreation for which we have no spare time. But, no...
We are just nodes in a very large system of extraction; nay, even more, a colonial plantation system that exceeds our borders, and our local, county, state and federal systems of governance, too. A system that lets us pretend, too, that we deserve all this proud glory in exchange for our fealty. And now, over the past fifty years since I've been paying attention, to what is it that we give our oaths, our fealty, our attention in looks, and 'likes', and clicks and swipes? It turns out to be, I think, that very thing which that inconvenient troublemaker from Nazareth, amongst others, warned, and here's the quiz: What is it that which one cannot serve both? The Almighty and _________* (fill in the blank).
Thanks very much for this awareness raising. I've got some deadfall oak and ash to finish cutting, splitting and rikking up in the shed. Winter'll come back with a vengeance.
Tim Long, Just Up the Hill from Lock 15
*It's the all-consuming dark spirit of Modern Capital; aka: Mammon
Well written and carefully argued. If only such logical clarity of thought was more common in the political sphere.
You said it Colin. Tull's clarity is exceptional and deserves far greater National readership.
100% correct assessment. Now we need leadership in the Dail instead of hyper local gombeenism.