Sunday, June 27, 2010
5 AM. Watching “Michael Collins” last night, it was so obvious what a dead-end street political violence is — and yet in the absence of that violence, nothing changed, no power adjustments were made, for centuries. And it isn’t like those centuries weren’t filled with violence of their own. It wasn’t until the English people were sick of it — in the wake of World War I — and broke, and unable to steel themselves to further effort, that it finally stopped, and then as soon as it did, the Irish started killing each other. And when that stopped they had 40 years to get their breath and started all over again in the 60s and kept on till the 90s, and probably we haven’t really seen the end of it yet. Seems like there’s always a next round being called.