Letters: 10 - 17 Sept 2008

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Letters from Irish Voice readers

Letters: 10 - 17 Sept 2008

September 10, 2008

McCain’s No Maverick

AS predictable as the morning sun, the GOP High Priests of Character Assassination (Karl Rove’s acolytes!) are back.

The first phase was straight up lies spread by right wing talk shows and blogs. You know – madrassas, Barack is a Muslim, Michelle hates whitey.

Phase two started with those ads John McCain finds so hilarious. The goal is to turn strengths into weaknesses.

Remember the Swift Boat lies about war hero John Kerry? This year’s edition targets Barack Obama’s popularity and ability to connect with people.

He’s popular the same way Paris Hilton is popular. Ha ha. He’s a good talker, but not good enough to be “The One.” Tee-hee. This is funny like schoolyard bullies tormenting the kids who are good at math.

If these campaign commercials are affecting people’s opinions more than the actual issues, this country is in more trouble than I thought. (For example an recent Irish Voice letter writer has already swallowed McCain’s lie that Obama is “first and foremost a celebrity!”)

I don’t need a commercial to tell me that with McCain as president, we will be involved in endless wars in faraway places. That strategy didn’t work for the Roman Empire, and it won’t work for us either.

Finally, one thing McCain is not, and that’s a maverick Republican different from George W. Bush. His views coincide exactly with Bush’s on indefinite war in Iraq and probable war in Iran, on privatizing Social Security and gutting Medicare, on continuing tax breaks for the very wealthy, and on supporting torture, unwarranted wiretapping and other egregious erosions of our constitutional rights.

In fact, during the past seven years McCain has voted with Bush over 90% of the time!

James V. Burke
Sayreville, New Jersey

God Bless America

IT was so uplifting to read John Spain’s column in last week’s issue on his wonderful holiday at the Jersey Shore.

I had just returned from an amazing adventure through Yellowstone National Park, Mt. Rushmore, Little Big Horn, etc. I had the same feeling. We live in an extraordinary country. Thank God for those people who fly our flag proudly.

It seems we are viewed by Europeans, in general, in a negative light, but when it comes from your native land it hurts a little more.

I emigrated from the west of Ireland 50 years ago and am so proud to call myself an American and to see my children and grandchildren grow up in this amazing country.

Mary Fee
Woodside, New York

Sore Winner

HIP, hip, hooray.

Hip, hip, hooray.

Hip, hip, hooray.

Oops. These were not the words I heard at Gaelic Park on Sunday, August 31 after the New York Ladies GAA final.

Whatever happened to sportsmanship from the winning captain while accepting the trophy and acknowledging the endeavors of the losing team?

Mary Maguire of Cavan Ladies did her team no justice by her rant after accepting the trophy, to the horror and boos of the crowd in attendance.

She should be ashamed of herself, and she should issue an apology to the New York Ladies GAA and all the girls who play week in, week out at Gaelic Park.

Liam McGonigle
Yonkers, New York

Republican Thugs Strike

THIS marching season saw the national socialist Republicans venting their racist hatred of all things British and Protestant. The Shinners’ big lie is to blame their victims; nothing new there.

Now for a few inconvenient truths. Republican fascists attempted a number of abductions in South Belfast.

On July 11 a young man was bundled into a car as he walked along Sandy Row. As he fought and finally escaped, the abductors shouted a barrage of sectarian abuse. An elderly woman was subjected to a similar attempted abduction.

Fenian hoods in their natural state? The balaclava is slipping bhoys, eh? Your true sectarian colors come out.

The Gaelic sport of attacking and burning Orange halls went on as usual. There was a ferocious, orchestrated Republican attack on Donegall Road.

One Protestant man was stabbed through the head with a sword and is now blind in one eye. Another was repeatedly stabbed in the abdomen. And in the village over 150 heavily armed Catholics bearing swords, serrated iron bars, knives, sticks and golf clubs set upon a 12-year-old boy, leaving him with multiple injuries including broken ribs.

The Whiterock Orange parade was also the subject of vicious Republican hatred. The parade was greeted by jeering Republican brown shirt “silent protestors” on the Upper Springfield Road. The road is not exclusively Catholic by the way.

These protestors faced the marchers as they exited the Mackies site and hurled countless anti-Protestant racist and defamatory slogans. A Republican waving a Tricolor butcher’s apron was heard screaming disgusting, foul mouthed profanities.

IRA rent a mobs are nothing new, tramping to various areas of Ulster from Belfast to offend. They demand tolerance but show none to us.

We expect no better, because Catholics have no respect for Protestant culture or people, full stop! Republican gangsters can attack our parades like white racists did in the deep south, they can burn and vandalize with hateful Republican slogans our orange/black/Apprentice Boys halls and our churches, bomb and murder us in cold blood, seek to use the laws of the land against us, but we aren’t going away you know. Over 35 years of Republican ethnic cleansing proved that.

And now the time has come for the forever leaders of Sinn Fein/IRA to be sent to the Hague, and their ignorant “Irish” American zombie followers who supplied money and guns to the Fenian death squads should be in prison as well. At minimum they should be sued in the international criminal court.

The victims of Sinn Fein/IRA cowards have a new saying now — our day will come. Remember this Fenian bhoys. You will never crush Protestantism or our British heritage and culture, not now, not ever.

And you will never be allowed to airbrush your war crimes from history, here or in Ulster.

John Gregg
Pleasantville, New York

GIs Against War

I AM both a resident of the Jersey Shore and a Vietnam Veteran. In “Wild About the Jersey Shore,” in last week’s issue, John Spain describes American GIs and their families, noting, “They are the ones who make the sacrifice every day, as they worry about their kids in uniform. They have more integrity than all the anti-war academics put together.”

Does Mr. Spain actually imagine that GIs, their families and “anti-war academics” are somehow mutually exclusive? If so, he would be quite surprised to learn that presidential campaign contributions from the American servicemen and women deployed over seas are running six to one for Barack Obama over John McCain. Furthermore, anti-war Republican Ron Paul is their second biggest recipient.

Mr. Spain notes, “Iraq may have turned into a longer battle then anyone foresaw.” First of all, millions (including Colin Powell) foresaw and warned President Bush of the consequences.

Secondly, would it be okay if the war ended after 3,500 GIs were killed instead of over 4,000? Slogans are merely cheap appeals to emotion.

In the real world, however, the best way we can support the troops is to bring them home to their families.

John O’Donnell
Brick, New Jersey

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