Paisley, Contemptible creature and enemy of Protestant working class.

international | miscellaneous | opinion/analysis

Wednesday September 17, 2014 01:56

by john throne - Facts for working people

Paisley, Contemptible creature

Claiming to stand for the Protestant working class Paisley was in fact their enemy

I was born into a small farmer family in Donegal. It had strong belief in the Orange Order. My uncle who brought me up was what was termed at a "Worshipful District Master" of this organization. I was being groomed to follow in his footsteps but that did not work out. However that is another story. As part of this grooming when I was around 12 years old I found myself in the home of a well off Protestant farmer and merchant. My uncle was collecting a donation from him for a new banner for his Orange Lodge. The farmer merchant was not a member of the Orange Order. He let others do his dirty work for him. Without hesitation he handed over a check for the new banner. I did not realize then I was watching one class finance an organization to represent its interests. Anyway this man asked my uncle had he seen what was going on in the US. He said:"have you seen what is going on over in America, W. Them black boys,(these were his words) they are trying to get up. If they ever get up they will never get them put down again." This was a conscious member of the upper class. He then went on: "And if they get up W. these boys here of ours might want up too. And not only them Catholics but our own kind as well. That is the importance of your organization W. of the Order. It teaches the Protestant worker, our own kind his place. If they were ever to get the notion that they could run things this would be bad. That is why your organization is so important. To keep the Protestant worker in his place" These words live with me to this day.

I remembered them again when Paisley died. What a contemptible creature and enemy of the working class and especially the Protestant working class. He saw his job as to keep them down, keep them subservient to the sectarian capitalist system that ruled and exploited them. Take one example. When the civil rights movement developed one of its aims was to end the situation in the North where the more property you had the more votes you had in local elections. This was clear discrimination against the Catholic working class in particular as they had less property. But it was also discrimination against the Protestant working class. The Protestant working class who had no proper were also discriminated against by this system. You never heard Paisley saying anything about that. The mass civil rights movement ended this unequal voting system. It won one person one vote for all. If my memory serves me right this resulted in up to 150,000 Protestants getting equality in the local elections voting system. Paisley did not win this for Protestant workers. The civil rights movement which he at every turn about tried to crush won it. What a contemptible creature.

Paisley's other role to was to keep the working class divided. in this way he undermined the wages and conditions of all workers, protestant and Catholic. I celebrate that he is no longer with us.

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Comments (2 of 2)

Paisley. An enemy of the working class Protestant and Catholic

Wed Sep 17, 2014 20:29

I should add to my comment on Paisley the contemptible creature that the other damage he did to the Protestant working class was that he continually whipped up sectarianism and pushed tens of thousands of Protestant workers and youth into para military organizations. Many of these ended up dead or in prison. But Paisley was always very careful to make sure he himself was never in danger. His jail times were carefully staged events. As I say what a contemptible creature. And what contemptible creatures are those who are now saying he was not a bad man and those who sat with him and are sitting with his party in government. Sean Throne.

Amnesia.....

by Jedword

Tue Sep 30, 2014 00:02

Here here John.
As someone so aptly put it, Paisley rolled many snowballs but threw very few of them himself.
How he managed to sit in those interviews and lie through his teeth, denying many of the things he said and did was bile-raisingly laughable.
I remember sitting in the front room years ago, wracked in fear, as he spoke on the TV and encouraged armed thugs to take to the streets and burn us and our neighbours from our homes.
Its sicking now to hear people actually hail him as a man of peace. I mean WTF. Have people here developed some sort of mass amnesia?
They should go and look at the news archives from the 60s and 70s to see just how evil this man was.
What next - Adolph Hitler hailed for his work promoting Jewish rights and given several tourism and travel awards for introduced Holiday Camps across Europe? Pure hypocrisy.
Mind you, selective amnesia seems to happen across the board - Mr Adams for example seems to have developed chronic Alzheimers and forgotten whole chapters of his past, especially being the CNC of a certain armed military organisation. And the soon to be adorned Lord Bogside - Marty McGuinness seems to have forgotten a lot of his past too, not to mention his convictions.

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Paisley, Contemptible creature and enemy of Protestant working class.

Comments (2 of 2)