LetsGetAlongerists With Attitude

Here’s a strange thing.
Over on Slugger O’Toole, “Alan” posted a promo for a Platform for Change event at the end of November.
And it gave a welcome opportunity for PFCs many critics (ok theres usually just two of us) to engage in some gentle ribbing of the leading LetsGetAlongerist, elitist academic “think tank”.
But this time a few extra people joined in…giving the thread a longevity. It would normally have.
Platform for Change people are a bit like the British Royal Family. They are above politics and only talk to their peers.
So a pleasant surprise that one of their leading members got a.bit pissed off at the snide remarks about a wonderful organisation like PFC. Its a bit like “Princess Anne” turning on a journalist.
My point that PFC people are unelectable might be underscored by the fact that the PFC person is currently a member of the Green Party…having left the only slightly more risible Labour NI folks a year or so ago.
The vaguely LetsGetAlongerist nature of PFC underscored by the support of a poster who has been in the Alliance Party, Conservative Party and back again with Alliance….although he might since have left.
The last PFC event on Integrated Education was a bit of a damp squib. And I wonder if the tide has finally turned against LetsGetAlongerism…Slugger has tended to promote PFC, Ecumenism, Conflict Resolution and daft cross-border nonsense.
So I wonder if the intemperate (to me) comments of the PFC person on Slugger is an indication that their sense of entitlement is being de-railed a bit.
I wonder did they try and get a meeting with Richard Haass and get turned down or have they stopped getting invites to meet NIO ministers and civil servants?
When I first used the term “LetsGetAlongerists” in 2010, I meant it purely as a statement of fact that it represents a dubious philosophy based on nothing other than getting along in a homogenous and liberal unionist Norn Iron.
There might well be a crisis in LetsGetAlongerism. They have been under the radar a long time and the Alliance Party, the leading PARTY POLITICAL advocates of LetsGetALongerism is now a little toxic because of its role as the client of DUP-Sinn Fein at Stormont. And of course the political field is now just a little too crowded with NI21 launching in the summer….competing with Alliance, Greens, Conservatives and Labour NI (not that Labour NI is a serious political party).
People have adopted it as an insult….fair enough.
And now embrace the insult as a badge of honour.
And now seem to have “attitude”
I await the first group of letsGetAlongerist rappers.

8 Responses to LetsGetAlongerists With Attitude

Rory Carr says:

October 29, 2013 at 7:12 am

I’ll go along with that.

- fitzjameshorse says:
  
  October 29, 2013 at 7:17 am
  
  Aye…I think A few years ago, they had big ideas about themselves but they are just another busted flush.
  
boondock says:

October 29, 2013 at 11:13 am

I remember you and Jenny having a bit of banter on another site not to long ago lol

http://ansionnachfionn.com/2013/01/18/jenny-muir-quits-the-british-labour-grouping-in-the-north/#comments

‘When FJH can manage a coherent comment, I’ll reply in kind’

Ouch with comments like that she should be a bit more thick skinned to some of the mild comments over on slugger

- fitzjameshorse says:
  
  October 29, 2013 at 12:10 pm
  
  Boondock….thanks for that link.
  I had completely forgotten about it.
  Actually I thought I was pretty coherent…for once.
  
  About being “thick skinned” …its not something that letsgetalongerists have needed to be. Of course I condemn utterly the disgraceful attacks on the Alliance Party. But one of the strange things about that was their bewilderment that they had been singled out. Letsgetalongerists operate under the radar.
  The Alliance problem was in part….that they felt entitled to say things and do things on “Flegs” without any comeback.
  Parties like SDLP, SF, DUP and UUP are used to physical attack.
  
  Its the same on Slugger. Gladys the Ecumenist, Alan the PFC proxy and Pollak the cross-border guy all get to use Slugger to advertise and promote a LetsGetAlongerist agenda. Generally speaking when Turgon and/or I weigh in …they have the good sense not to engage with us. Wee are beneath them.
  But Pollak threw a fantastic hissy fit once which was brilliant. And Mick actually had him as some kind of protected species.
  
  Maybe Jenny is angling for protected species category.
  
Séamas Ó Sionnaigh (An Sionnach Fionn) says:

October 29, 2013 at 4:09 pm

I had to look that one up, FJH. In fairness I thought it was a fairly robust discussion in the Comments under the post, well made by all sides. The end of Jenny Muir’s Comment was more than a little bit over-the-top, certainly not “courageous” and more than a little bit self-entitled (as in how dare you hold a contrary opinion to mine and worse, voice it!). I’m sure she regrets it. We’ve all blown off a little bit of steam online and then regretted it afterwards. I know I have 😉

Then again, as Boondock points out, you two have, ahem, history… 😛

- fitzjameshorse says:
  
  October 29, 2013 at 4:47 pm
  
  No…Comrade Stalin of all people offering a tissue is laughable and the “courageous” comment was just bizarre. I thought I was remarkably restrained.
  The massed ranks of Conflict Resolutionists dont usually engage as they are far too civilised.
  Id actually forgotten Id ever engaged with her once before.
  
Dub says:

October 30, 2013 at 12:47 am

“Turgon and/ or I”… Wow, how cosy. I thought there was no equivalence between Unionism/Loyalism and Nationalism/Republicanism? Yet here you are claiming some kind of equivalence between yourself and a bigot

Wow.

And I thought your attack on McIntyre was equally malodorous….

- fitzjameshorse says:
  
  October 30, 2013 at 1:07 am
  
  Well there ya go.