It's quite stunning how unnuanced any conversation about "the troubles" in the north remains.

Its almost always through the prism of the desired intended impact the conversation will have on specific parties today & very little about set of circumstances of the time.
As someone who grew up in that hyper-violence, the cold clinical political calculations in the conversation today seem to want to avoid engaging with the reality that a civil rights movement was brutally suppressed by a sectarian state carved out post partial independence.
Its entirely possible to not have supported the PIRA campaign, but also understand the set of circumstances of why some people resorted to up arms in the context of the time. The air of authoritarianism existed both north and south. The culture of violence did too.
And sit that alongside the decades-long untangling to remove organised murder from the streets.

That was a bunch of work, regardless on your stance on the GFA. But I don't sense much literacy around that in 'the discourse' today.
What is much stronger is the desire to rewrite history into a particular uncontested form. Which if you are paying attention is precisely what genuine non-sectarian post-conflict society is *not* about.

Indeed in mimics aspects of unionism in a sectarian state.
Twitter is a terrible place to try and flesh some of my thoughts on this. Though that's never stopped anyone before I suppose.
I'll come at it another way. From 1972-78 a gang responsible for the murder of over 120 people was run & protected by the official organs of the state and British security. They picked off our rural communities in the murder triangle deliberately targetting non-republicans.
My parents used to put opened wedding presents of sheets and blankets over the top of my cot for fear of the windows being blown in by a car bomb, or gunshot. Youth workers used to blackout windows in the parish hall during kids band practice so as to lessen the risk of attack.
Helicopters would drop soldiers in the field behind the house and they would tramp up the fields into the garden, often kicking the shit out of flowers. They regularly sighted machine guns as we queued for primary school bus. Some would taunt about neighbours killed.
I'm 6 or 7
This raises something valuable. I wouldn't say what's going on is lazy journalism, but the news cycle and rote practice and work pressure seem to make the unnuanced call-response stuff on radio and TV the easier journalism. Aside from implicit bias.

For clarity I mean the converasation about the north in the south.

Its only growing up in the north gave me any expectation of adults in the room when it came to mediatised political conversations :)

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More from @soundmigration

8 Dec
Heres Hermann Kelly @hermannkelly on SF's 'immigration policy'

"The party of touts and louts in Sinn Fein, you gotta laugh, they present themselves as a nationalist party. Their immigration policy is basically Brits out, Chinese in"

This guy is a racist organiser full stop.
Hermann Kelly @hermannkelly moves on to the antisemitic conspiracy theory 'cultural marxism'
Says SF's 'cultural marxism' is stolen from the Workers Party andhe's neither were really republican.

Without a hint of irony hes saying all this to an ex squaddie.

Racism writ large
Hermann Kelly @hermannkelly then making a direct connection between abortion and immigration. A very public stance in the American far-right, and Christian fundamentalism generally.

Both underpinned by a founding concept of white supremacy and fear of 'white genocide'
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Vodafone out across all of Dublin.

Sort it out, this is too regular for it to be normal @VodafoneIreland


This @VodafoneIreland outage is growing by the minute.

Cork seems to be out now too.
Outage is all over
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He's mates with another American migrant Brendan Keane, who was involved in pushing hate against - you guessed it - other migrants who they deem 'not Irish'



It's worth saying that 'Irish' is a term of convenience when they actually mean 'white like me'
My tweet earlier wasnt random. This guy is an active member of Hermann Kellys Irish Freedom Party.

A racist anti-migrant astroturf group.

A group that was involved in direct provision protests against people and families seeking state protection

They are busy tonight. Image
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A few points here.
These are violence and death threat posted on SM yesterday by fascists. This is not abnormal at this stage.

I choose to do some of this work identifably. Others prefer otherwise for lots of reasons. Those choices take precedent over on demand media access.
When we take the security of individuals seriously, or desire of people to not engage with media, it's normal that people filming will be asked about it. There are very real security risks for us. They take priority over unthinkingly speaking politely to everyone with a camera.
Do I support journalists feeling threatened? No.

Would I like journalist to be aware of the dynamics in these situations? Yes

Would I like the framing of yesterday to not be dullard horseshoe 'anti fascism is as bad as fascism'? That's not in my gift.
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"We have nothing to fear but fear itself" says the leader of the NP.

In the middle of a global pandemic.

#LetIrelandLive
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24 Aug
1/ MINI THREAD: Its easy to look at the wing nut reactionaries who have gracefully rolled into a rabbit hole, and who delight in the micro-celebrity that comes with that. Such as being aghast at Una McGurk and her power over peoples lives.
2/ But a media-cycle reaction doesnt address the structural nature of problems of IPAT or - pulling back to the wider picture - the entire process around state protection.
3/ Or pulling back further, the political and institutional forces which over time have shaped Ireland's response to both international obligations and the less technocractic concept of solidarity with people(s) seeking protection.
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