Sunday 5 October 2008

40th anniversary of police attack on civil rights marchers



TODAY is the 40th anniversary of the vicious attack by state paramilitary police on peaceful civil rights marchers in Derry City, in the North of Ireland, in 1968.

'Northern Ireland' is an artificial statelet carved out of the nine counties of Ulster in 1921 and made up of six counties with an in-built unionist (pro-British) majority to guard against any momentum towards reunification with the rest of Ireland and British withdrawal. It was, as unionists boasted, "A Protestant state for a Protestant people," (i.e. pro-British people).

In 1968, drawing their inspiration from student protests around the world but particularly from Martin Luther King and the black civil rights movement in the USA, marchers took to the streets to end unionist state discrimination against Catholics.

Speaking today in Derry City at a rally to mark the anniversary, Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness, a former commander in the Irish Republican Army and now the joint First Minister in the power-sharing government in the North of Ireland, said:

"Forty years ago on the streets of this city, men and women from different backgrounds, from different generations, from different political roots came together as equals and we demanded our rights.

"Some unionist voices courageously spoke out. They knew what was happening was wrong and that the writing was on the wall for unionist misrule. But political unionism wasn't listening. They weren't interested in change.


• Unionism controlled the parliament
• Unionism controlled the cabinet;
• Unionism controlled the police force;
• Unionism controlled the justice system;
• Unionism dominated business and controlled local government;
• Unionism dictated housing policy and allocation.

"And unionism would try and cling to all of this and use violence and intimidation in defence of its interests."

On 5th October 1968, the Royal Ulster Constabulary viciously batoned peaceful civil rights marchers who had been singing We Shall Overcome. But this wasn't Alabama or Kent State University; this was part of the United Kingdom, supposedly under the control of and answerable to the 'Mother of Parliaments' in Westminster.

London had turned a blind eye to almost 50 years of government-approved and enforced sectarian discrimination against Catholic citizens. On 5th October, though, the eyes of the world were opened when TV cameras caught the state police in action.

Things would never be the same again.

Sarah Palin's 'terrorist pals'


SARAH PALIN has sunk to new lows in claiming that Barack Obama 'pals with terrorists' because a former member of the Vietnam War-era US Weather Underground supported Obama's first run for public office 13 years ago.

Leaving aside the fact that you can't stop people from supporting you, Sarah Plain conveniently overlooks the fact that her party leader, George W Bush, renewed diplomatic relations with Libya o
nly two years ago. Only last month, Condi Rice visited the 'pariah state' and met Moammar Gaddafi, whom former President Reagan once labelled "this mad dog of the Middle East".

Does Sarah Palin think Dubya and Condi now 'pal with (former) terrorists'?

I think we should be told.


***

Story from RTÉ News:
http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/1005/uselection.html


Palin says Obama pals with terrorists

The US Republican vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, has accused Democratic candidate Barack Obama of being pals with terrorists.

With the Republicans trailing in the polls a month before the Presidential election, Ms Palin said the time had come to take the gloves off.

Speaking yesterday at a fundraiser in Colorado, Ms Palin told supporters Senator Obama 'is someone who sees America it seems as being so imperfect that he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.'

Her comment referred to William Ayers, who supported Barack Obama's first run for public office in 1995.

The relationship between Senator Obama and William Ayers, a member of the radical 1960s group the Weathermen that committed bombings on the Pentagon and the Capitol, was highlighted in The New York Times yesterday.

Governor Palin's sharp jab is in step with recent Republican campaign statements that the McCain camp plans to launch a fierce assault on Barack Obama with the presidential election only 30 days away.

The Obama campaign described the attack as 'desperate and false.'

'Governor Palin's comments, while offensive, are not surprising, given the McCain campaign's statement this morning that they would be launching Swiftboat-like attacks in hopes of deflecting attention from the nation's economic ills,' said Obama-Biden spokesman Hari Sevugan.

'What's clear is that John McCain and Sarah Palin would rather spend their time tearing down Barack Obama than laying out a plan to build up our economy,' he said.