In a war of words created by British Stalinist type censorship on Irish issues by Indymedia Ireland, the following is a sample from a recent discussion in Ireland on the matter, titled Up Your's Indymedia on Irish Nationalism
[Yes, look at the unpleasant anti-Irish attitudes coming to the fore now they don't get their way:
"so what does this mean are we a nation of racist wankers or are we just stewpit"
Childish, peurile statement. Blatant immaturity
"Historically it was Irish people who were among the most murderous and bloodthirsty footsoldiers of european colonialism"
One small concession to sanity and now the Irish are suddenly painted in such as way that they must have made the Third Reich look like a Sunday School choir. Funny, I can't seem to remember when the Irish Empire was rampaging around the world wielding death and destruction
"Thats cos Ireland is rife with right wing catholic guilt ridden idiots"
If it weren't for the peurile ad hominem"idiots" attack, I would simply respond - "If only!" :
"True a sad day for Ireland"
Yes, citizenship has been tightened up a tiny bit. What a calamity has befallen us :roll:
Not to worry though, it won't stop us being swamped by foreigners in the long run :
"But remember we have prisons, an arms industry, a battered but still very powerful clergy, and the most corrupt mafia like power structure in the EU"
Irish prisons? What sort of barbarous people lock up dangerous criminals? :o Arms factories? My God, we still have a clergy too!!!??
Are we living in the 17th century or something? Where is Robbespierre when you need him?! Obviously Cromwell didn't do his job well enough... :wink:
"Respect and love to all people from everywhere who come to live in Ireland"
But not, it seems, any respect or love for the Irish already living there.
"No Borders No Nations No Deportations"
This one mantra probably sums up their foul, poisonous creed better than I ever could. No loyalty to anything but their own selfish desire to lead a wasted, disappated life of moral squalor. No pride in heritage, no feelings of honour in their nationhood, their history, their people, nothing.
A vapid, empty, souless people.} Comment by - Milesian Contra Mundum}
Most of the few progressives left in Ireland agree, that its was a great idea when, Independent Media Centre, first opened up its website to the Seattle protests in 1999. The website happened after years of alternative media activism. The IMC included "open newswire," an experiment to allow everyone to be a reporter, if they wanted to get involved. The IMC project now however is facing serious problems, particularly in Ireland, which if not addressed by supporters, will eventually destroy the liberating idea, that once was Indymedia in places like Ireland particularly.
Liam O'Flaherty a famous Irish novelist and short story writer, was a major figure in the Irish Renaissance. He was born on the island village of Gort na gCapall, on the Aran Islands in County Galway. Like many people in Ireland, Liam belonged to that illustrious and respectable Irish class, the people of no property. In other words he was born into abject poverty. Liam spoke the Irish language but he was to put it mildly, discouraged by British occupation from doing so or to be more precise, he was generally censored like Indymedia Ireland today tend to do, with Irish writers from that same class of no property of Irish people dis-empowered, who are trying to find their voice in their own country and abroad.
As a result of encountering the same type of censorship that exists with Indymedia Ireland today, Liam O'Flaherty wrote an article titled -
The Irish Censorship which was published in U.S.in 1932 but again like Indymedia Ireland today was banned in Ireland. Here is that article;
The Irish Censorship
During the Eucharistic Congress recently held in Dublin, I was staying in a small Kerry town. It has a population of two thousand people and fifty-three public houses. Like almost every other Irish provincial town, it is incredibly dirty and sordid to look upon. In the long back street inhabited by the proletariat I came across human excrement at every second step. There was no vestige of culture in the place. The three local priests were sour and secretive fellows, who confined their activities to the prevention of fornication, dancing and reading. The only pastime permitted to the males was drinking in the fifty-three public houses. The females wandered about with a hungry expression in their eyes. Shortly after my arrival, the priests of the diocese held a mass dinner at my hotel, to devise ways and means for getting me out of the county, as a menace to faith and morals; but without any success.
Then the Eucharistic Congress came along and the populace, exalted by some extraordinary fanaticism, decorated the town with bunting. In the proletarian slum, several altars were erected in the open air. Around these altars some people recited the rosary at night, while others played accordians, danced and drank stout.
However, no attempt was made to remove the dung from the streets, nor any fraction of the dirt which desecrated the walls of the houses and the floors of the taverns. I walked up and down the town, pointing from the bunting to the pavement and saying: "Bunting, dung. Dung, bunting." It was considered sacrilegious.
Unclean offal of any sort, whether in my neighbourhood or in the minds of people with whom I have association, is strongly distasteful to me. So is poverty, ungracious tyranny and ignoble suffering. In my work I have been forced in honesty to hold up a mirror to life as I found it in my country. And, of necessity, the mirror shows the dung about the pretty altars. So a censorship has been imposed upon my work, since it is considered sacrilegious by the Irish Church that I should object to the sordid filth around the altars.
The tyranny of the Irish Church and its associate parasites, the upstart bourgeoisie, the last posthumous child from the wrinkled womb of European capitalism, maintains itself by the culture of dung, superstition and ignoble poverty among the masses. And the censorship of literature was imposed, lest men like me could teach the Irish masses that contact with dung is demoralizing, that ignorance is ignoble and that poverty, instead of being a passport to Heaven, makes this pretty earth a monotonous Hell. The soutaned bullies of the Lord, fortressed in their dung-encrusted towns, hurl the accusation of sexual indecency at any book that might plant the desire for civilization and freedom in the breasts of their wretched victims.
So they have set up a censorship of books in Ireland, and now at Irish ports, whose sole export is porter and men of genius, imported literature which is the product of Irish genius is seized and burned as dangerous contraband. And so tortured Ireland, which a few years ago asked for and received the sympathy of the world's intellectuals, now shows herself as a surly, sick bitch biting the hand that fed her.
But it's not true of Ireland, nor of the mass of Irishmen and Irishwomen. Slaves cannot be blamed for the vices of their masters. I am censored and abhorred by the illiterate ruffians who control Irish life at present. There is hardly a single newspaper in Ireland that would dare print anything I write. There is hardly a bookshop in Ireland that would dare show my books in its windows. There is hardly a library that would not be suppressed for having my books on its shelves. Outside Dublin not a single organization would dare ask me to address them. Yet I claim that Ireland is the only country where I feel of any consequence as a writer. It is the only country where I feel the youth and freshness of Spring among the people, where I feel at one with my mates, where I sing with their singing and weep with their weeping, where I feel that I am a good workman doing a useful job and honored for my craft.
Ireland is no land of barbarians and there are no people in the world who love art and beauty more than the Irish. But alas! Our little island has been stricken with a triple mange of friars, gombeen men and poverty. The soutaned witch-doctors have spread terror among our simple folk and, as one goes through the country, it is pathetic to meet in every little town and village timid, whispering individuals who say, "It's terrible here. I can't get anything to read on account of the priests. Have you got any of your books you could lend me?" In the same way, I was told by an eminent London publisher that he receives bundles of letters from sexually-starved Irishwomen, asking for bawdy books. Booklegging may soon become on a small scale quite as profitable as the prohibition of alcohol made bootlegging in America.
Bawdy books! Bawdy houses! Booze! On these three forms of vulgar entertainment there seemed to be no censorship whatsoever during during the Eucharistic Congress in Dublin. The town was wide open all night and every night. Then the mob went back home to purify themselves by scratching their backs against hair shirts. The militant puritans in Ireland have, in my opinion, staged their last great parade. Before very long they'll be all hurled into the clean Atlantic, together with their censorship, their dung, their bawdy books, their bawdy houses and their black booze. Then we can once more in Ireland have wine and love and poetry; become a people famed, as of old, "for beauty and amorousness."
___
The International Media Collective network, has a statement of international principles, which unfortunately in Ireland's case, is clearly not being adhered to, most certainly in spirit. The general orientation of IMC internationally, has allowed the network in certain instances, to be hijacked by Government agencies, secret services and right wingers, disguised as liberals in various forms of
AstroTurfing(see link for details in Rebels YELL article censored by Indymedia Ireland), which has harmed Indymedia's credibility, functionality and reputation certainly in Ireland along with its massive daily censorship, particularly of authentic indiginous Irish voices of the people of no property.
Irish free speech advocates have been constantly met with the argument from Indymedia Ireland, that their website should not provide any space for right wing or racist views, as an excuse for their massive censorship. The racists they say have their own websites and they do not need to use their limited resources to promote offensive views. Which is all well and good but free speech means exactly that, free speech for everyone no matter how obnoxious their views which can be easily balanced by truth tellers. People can choose to ignore or tolerate, just some of the many choices of a non-fascist society. In Ireland's case though their stated reasons are regarded generally as a poor excuse for a particularly pro-British, counter-revolutionary, reactionary agenda. Recently, particularly high-profile scandals, unmasking undercover Britsh agents, have seriously affected the reputation of Indymedia Ireland, see link;
SCANDAL OF UNDERCOVER BRITISH COPS AND INDYMEDIA IRELAND
The Indymedia project is truly a noble one which has enormous human progress potential. It obviously needs a major overhaul as its Irish example demonstrates clearly. It would be a shame, simply because of a few bad apples to throw out the baby with bathwater in our efforts to clean it up and allow indigenous peoples and cultures such as the Irish have their valid voices in their own lands, along with it being the only possible source of non corporate media.
Below is just a small sample of the outrage and anger caused by Indymedia censorship in Ireland.
"There is a certain amount of satisfaction seeing Indymedia targeted by "activists"
It was obvious that their censorship couldn't go un-noticed for long.
Especially when their "technical experts" don't even know how to hide deleted articles from simple search engine queries - Milesian Contra Mundum
There is a certain car crash comedy dimension to those online clowns.....
I think I'd miss if they every went down... - West
Get over to Indymedia now!
Rotten bastards are deleting messages already - Liam Ó Loinsigh
Get over to Indymedia now!
I really don't know, why you bother wasting your time with that shower of pricks. - Old Believer
Which is to put it bluntly a load of old bollocks as my mum used to say. I responded in a fairly restrained manner considering the bile that was burning the back of my throat.
What a load of hippy pish. There is an organizational hierarchy within the ‘creative spontaneity’ or whatever drivel you want to call it.This is mostly made up of those people who have the cash and spare time to be able to
Actually, that comment will be removed, because it's editorial policy at Indymedia to not allow posters comment about their editorial policy (i.e. censorship).
These people are clinically insane, and I wouldn't waste my energy on them. - Liam Ó Loinsigh
What exactly is Indymedia? Could someone explain? - Sláinge Óg
Re: Place your bets! Indymedia and censorship
In theory, a place for the Left, antiwar, alternatives etc to discuss the world and put forward their opinions. In reality, an SWP talking shop full of hypocrisy (especially in regard to free speech), anti-Christian and anti-Irish racism, and some of the most bizarre characters you'll ever have the displeasure to meet. - Ciotog
Old Believer
Get over to Indymedia now!
I must say their censorship would make comrade stalin proud, They can't stomach even the slighest criticism of their warped agenda.
Re: Get over to Indymedia now!
Anyone know where these Indymedia bastards have their Dublin offices? - Liam Ó Loinsigh
:Don't think anyone knows where their offices are. For such a supposedly pro free speech organisation, they are remarkably secretive, and very keen on silencing those who don't agree with their warped view on society.- Liam Ó Loinsigh
I think they've identified some of our IPs, so our messages are deleted.
Indymedia is centered on an open publishing process that allows anybody to contribute
Re: Place your bets! Indymedia and censorship
That's a joke, lad. They're trying to mislead you. I promise you that if you made an article not fitting into the far-left Trotsykist ethos, it would be savaged by a hippy pot-smoker and then deleted post-haste by the moderators. Opposing viewpoints are not welcome in Lala-land. - Ciotog
Haha, I know it probbaly is. They meant to say,
Indymedia is centered on an open publishing process that allows anybody to contribute AS LONG AS YOU AGREE WITH US, OR WOULD LIKE TO CONVEY A SIMILIAR POINT.. - Sláinge Óg
You've hit the nail on the head Slainge; that's exactly the way it is at Indymedia. Go there yourself and start reading threads. - Ciotog
The folks at Indymedia are, by majority, mental. I wouldn't touch that site with a barge pole in fear of contracting some sort of brain fever. - Bona Na Croin
I wouldn’t usually waste my time at indymedia - don’t rate it at all.
Comment by Beano
Indymedia.ie censorship
Filed under: an príomhbhóthar
Has anyone else tried to post an article or comment on an article at Indymedia.ie lately only to find that the editorial staff deletes it almost immediately?
If so, I would like to hear from you here as a comment or via email.
Thanks,
micheailin
And duly deleted by the Indymedia police. Honestly, some people have no sense of humour. - Joe Taxpayer"
P.S I will submit this article later to Indymedia in Ireland, UK, London and Scotland if they are tree to form , Indymedia Ireland is the only one who will censors it, which is particularly galling for Irish people all over the world who suffer from draconian censorship daily, since the foundation of their British compliant scum state. All of the leading writers in Ireland from James Joyce, Patrick Kavanagh, Flann O'Brien, Beckett, Liam O'Flaherty, etc., have been banned and censored
