The Blanket

The Blanket - A Journal of Protest & Dissent

Thanks and Goodbye

 

Diarmuid Fogarty • 30 October 2004

I would never have dreamt that I would read a pro-Bush article in any magazine that dedicated itself to the Irish republican cause. Having just read Patrick Hurley's invective, I plan to read no more of your magazine.

I can understand things like this being published in the letters section. I can understand things like this being published with an immediate rebuttal. What I can't understand is how you can let this Hurley publish his propaganda and let it go unchecked, three days before the US Presidential Election. I can only conclude that you are deeper in debt to the Yanks than I could have imagined before.

My republicanism is built on international solidarity with the oppressed around the world. It doesn't buy into the idiotic lie that we are sold that the war against the Iraqi people is a war against terror. It doesn't buy into the myth that Reagan is to be thanked for ending State Capitalism in the USSR and it most certainly doesn't buy into the myth that the illegal invasion of the USA into Vietnam was in anyway an honourable cause.

I have no more time for Kerry than I do for Bush, but I will say that in my opinion, Kerry was right to do what he could in order to end the Vietnamese war. Hurley's warbling about the thousands that died in communist purges after the U$A was brought to its knees in Vietnam is risible. History shows us that this was not the truth at all, but if we took this amadhan at face value, the blame for those thousands of deaths would also have to be laid at the feet of the U$A -- the country which started the war and which destabilised a perfectly good government.

This disgusting Plastic Paddy writes about how US soldiers lives are sacred and the price (to date, mark you) of 700 yankee lives is worth it. That an Irish republican journal sees fit to peddle this fascistic pornography brings your cause into disrepute. Equally sacred, Hurley, were the lives of the 100 000 Iraqis who have been murdered by your imperial stormtroopers. Far more sacred were the lives of the half a million under-5s that died as a direct result of your country's policy before the war. However, you're right to say that the 700 coffins draped in the Stars and Stripes are fairly inconsequential -- I, for one, lose absolutely no sleep over them and wonder when we will begin to see them being shipped back to the Land of the Braves in larger batches.

The Blanket has sunk to a low previously unthinkable. You have published this crude, ill-informed piece of right wing drivel despite its inaccuracies, despite the fact that it heaps praise on the UK government for standing shoulder to shoulder with its imperial boss and despite the fact that it glorifies the violence of the oppressor.

I'm going back to An Phoblacht - for all their failings, this nonsense would never have been published. I hope you send a copy of this to Hurley. Tell him that the 3000 dead the Yanks lost on 11 Sept were pretty inconsequential to the many millions of dead that lie buried in mass graves as a result of the meddling of his government in other people's business. Tell him that Malcolm X was right when he talked about the chickens coming home to roost. And tell him that as long as there are people even half as ignorant as he appears to be, the U$A can count on burying a lot more of its dead.




 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Blanket - A Journal of Protest & Dissent



 

 

All censorships exist to prevent any one from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently the first condition of progress is the removal of censorships.
- George Bernard Shaw



Index: Current Articles



31 October 2004

Other Articles From This Issue:

Blanket Interview: Hugh Orde
Carrie Twomey & Anthony McIntyre

The Convict and the Cop
Suzanne Breen

Thanks and Goodbye
Diarmuid Fogarty

In Response to: John Kerry, the Wrong Choice
Saerbhreathach Mac Toirdealbhaigh

The True Face of a One-Eyed Jack
Richard Wallace

Hurley's Twisted View
Lonnie Painter

Three More Votes for Kerry-Edwards
Kristi Kline

Your Silence Will Not Protect You
Joanne Dunlop

The Orange Order: Personification of anti-Catholic Bigotry
Father Sean Mc Manus

Double Standards and Curious Silences
Paul de Rooij


29 October 2004

Questioning Collusion
Mick Hall

Mary Kelly’s Protest ‘An Act of Passive Resistance’
Ruairi O Bradaigh

Death and the Pool
Anthony McIntyre

John Kerry: The Wrong Choice on November 2nd
Patrick Hurley

The Emerging Case for a Single State in Palestine
Todd May

The Clash Thesis: A Failing Ideology?
M. Shahid Alam

 

 

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