No reply from Slugger O’Toole about my “yellow card” on their anti-republican, anti-SDLP message board.
To his credit, Alan …the acceptable face of Sluggerdom has put a comment on my Facebook that my comment “was deemed dismissive and did not engage…”
Hardly the point…I would have thought.
I am a fairly mainstream-nationalist-republican and while I cant claim to speak for anyone, I would have assumed that my comment is not that different from the view that most people voting SDLP or Sinn Fein would express.
So no surprise that this is a view that Slugger O’Toole does not want to hear.
Can it be a surprise that an Association of ex-RUC members see themselves as victims of the Peace Process…they held the line, did the counter-terrorism thing, their actions and collusion were covered up by spooks and British politicians and they dont want to be accountable.
What exactly is the purpose of engaging with that viewpoint. The viewpoint of “Yesterday’s Men” as I called.
If “Yesterday’s Men” is perjorative then getting called a “Fenian Bastard” by some of the people wearing RUC uniform in the 1970s was certainly worse.
But then nobody got called that where LetsGetAlongerists lived.

And yesterday’s statement has a curious follow up when the Attorney General John Larkin, no less….considers we should draw a line under Troubles-related deaths…rubber-stamping the de facto amnesty we have had since the Good Friday Agreement.

Of course Sinn Fein will publicly state that this means victims of state murder will not get Justice.
And DUP will publicly state that this means that victims of the IRA murder will not get Justice.
But of course privately they will be glad to move on.
And even the RUC Old Boys Club will breathe a sigh of relief.

Now Alan thats what I call being “excessively dismissive”.
The Peace Process survives.
Gin and Tonics all round.

Yet something is still not quite right about that “yellow card”.
Whodunnit?
Well…Alan to his credit has at least explained (not very convincingly) so I tend to rule him out.
But consulting Paddy Powers to get “odds” on the other runners.

Mick Fealty….surely not. He did after all request Facebook friendship over the weekend. And he wouldn’t do that to a buddy.

Sheldon Cooper….well I daresay he has a floppy disc, listing his mortal enemies. And I would be devastated if I am not on the list.

Dimbleby….well he doesn’t seem to like me (and Im glad).

Quintin Forward….is he even a Slugger Moderator? Probably more likely to avoid me…or has he taken offence at me chasing him round the Armagh City Hotel (SDLP Conference 2012) just to get a blurred photograph?

Doctor Doctor Mac PhD….a new Slugger name but promoted to moderate? Surely not.

And hopefully not one of those nice Platform for Change people? Or maybe it was just an over-enthusiastic student intern.

Talking of Platform for Change, it is extremely unlikely that I can attend.