Atheist Peace Campaigner
(unsigned)
We edited these letters to make them readable. |
From:
To: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Subject: Atheist campaigner at risk, please help
Date: Sunday, February 18, 2001 5:41 PM
Dear sir or madam, I am writing to you because I am in trouble and maybe you can help me. I have divided this Email into two parts, please read on and you will see what my problem is, thank you.
Part one:
This is a long story and it deals with the reasons for the IRA cease-fire. Let me start by saying that I have been a peace campaigner for more than 20 years, but now I am in trouble with some nasty people because of my radical ideas. I come from an Irish background but I live in England, I was born here but I lived in Ireland for about 20 years. I had to move back here in 1995 because of intimidation from Irish republicans, I will explain the reason for the intimidation shortly.
I have always been a keen observer of the political scene [both in Ireland and Britain] and I try to educate myself about the history of the troubled relationship between Ireland and Britain so that I can better understand the attitudes of modern times. Irish people are always [rightly, in my view] criticizing Britain for it's bloody history and what was done to other countries and so on, but what the Irish don't want to hear is that Ireland is just as guilty as Britain. It's an uncomfortable fact for many Irish people, but whenever the British army was looking for recruits, they never had any shortage of volunteers from the Emerald Isle.
So this image that Irish Republicans like to propagate of "poor innocent little Ireland" is totally false, Irish people are just human beings like everybody else. In the early 1990s, I sent letters to several MPs advising them that they should pass this information to the security services so that these basic facts could be pointed out to the IRA and I did hear much later that the IRA had stormed out of a secret meeting with British government representatives, you don't have to be a genius to work out why.
Then in the spring of 1993, I thought why not use my idea as weapon? So I phoned the Northern Ireland office in Belfast and I said every time a bomb goes off, contact should be made with some of the many IRA support groups so as to re-educate them using these basic facts of history, the results have been nothing short of spectacular. Support for the IRA has plummeted, especially in America where they do much of their fundraising, that is why we now have a cease-fire peace process.
So what is my problem? Well, in short, the IRA found out what I did and ruined my life, so I had to get out of Ireland. When I got back here again, I wrote several letters to the then prime minister John Major asking him to help me, but he just ignored me. So I was delighted when Blair got in because I thought he would not be so much of a puppet like Major was and that he would not be so inclined to listen to the men in suits whispering in his ear, but Blair is having his strings pulled, just like Major. The men in suits don't like my radical politics, so they are blocking any help from getting to me, despite the fact that I am of more use to this country than the whole lot of them put together.
That's why I am writing this e-mail, I don't want a massive campaign of publicity, but maybe some of you good people could contact Blair and ask him, on my behalf, for a written denial of what I have written in this e mail. He doesn't have to reveal any state secrets, just say"Dear mr. hallinan, your claims about the peace process and the part you played in it are completely false, signed tony blair" If what I say is a load of rubbish, then me being in possession of such a letter shouldn't frighten him at all. But if my story is true, then such a letter would be political dynamite, because it would be proof of the real Tony Blair, the callous, uncaring, self serving, hypocritical Tony Blair. So I am asking some good person out there to contact Blair and challenge him to give me that letter and if he won't, why not?
And please be aware of the urgency of this case, I have debts running out of control, a car [i.e., my living] which is in desperate need of repair, partly because of vandalism by Irish Republicans. Does Anybody Care??? I have had my life destroyed by these scumbags because of what I did, I risked my life to make life better for you in Britain and now I am in trouble, so I am asking you to return the favour and help me.
Lastly I would ask for complete confidentiality for obvious reasons, I don't want to end up like Salman Rushdie.
Thank you for anything you can do for me.
Part two: Have you noticed how the American Republican and British Conservative parties are becoming more liberal? If you look at it, Republican and Conservative social policies have been moving away from conservativism since the mid 90s. Have you been wondering about the reason for this liberalisation? Have you been wondering why the party hierarchies has been desperately trying to sideline the Bible thumpers and make them seem extreme, so much so that one of the biggest Bible thumpers of all, Pat Buchanan, has left the party he loved, the Republican party he had been a member of for decades?
Well the answer is blackmail!!! This is a strategy that was adopted by powerful and influential people in Britain and America in the mid 90s.
So how are these powerful people using the blackmail strategy against religious people involved in politics? Well, many intellectuals have known for quite some time how vulnerable the Christian religion is against philosophical attack, especially the Catholic Church. The Catholics have been busily constructing their tower of hypocrisy for hundreds of years and now it is standing, like a giant pack of cards, just waiting for some inquisitive person to ask a few questions and bring it tumbling down.
For example, white Christians could be asked "if Jesus had been born black in africa, would you be a Christian?" (not that Christianity is the only racist religion, after all if you go to Africa the gods look African, if you go to Asia the gods look Asian and so on, but that's another story).
And they are always going on about the "evil" of abortion, so a good question for them is "if you're so against abortion, why do you worship a god who does abortions?" After all, when somebody dies, the Bible says "god has called him". This means that god himself is the biggest abortion doctor of all time and not only does he do abortions, he also kills newborn babies, toddlers, teenagers and older people as well.
Here's another good one: If god wants us all to be happy, why did he give us the capacity to feel pain? The Bible is so full of contradictions and hypocrisy, the potential for mischief making is enormous. What is happening is that powerful people have been threatening to send copies of these questions to every atheist group in both countries. I know all this because it was my idea. In 1994 I wrote an anonymous letter to President Clinton advising him to adopt this very strategy. I did all this for a safer world, because I cared, but now nobody seems to care about me.
From: "Positive Atheism Magazine" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
To:
Subject: Re: Atheist campaigner at risk,please help
Date: Sunday, February 18, 2001 8:51 PM
The question is not do we care but what can we do? When the need for national identity is met through membership in this or that church, both the nationalities and the churches suffer. Would that Greece could use her history as a focus for national identity. Would that Erin adopt her tendency for producing the best writers and poets as the focus of her national identity. All they want, in this respect, is to be able to define their own values as people groups and avoid having the larger global community inflict its values on them.
But there's even more to it than that, because the religions are being used as pawns in a giant territorial struggle. Loyalism to the religion is the litmus test for which side you're on, and even atheists express loyalty to this or that church just because of the political struggle. I doubt the Irish are any more or less superstitious than the rest of the world, but you wouldn't know this to hear the churches invoked as tokens of party loyalty.
But then the question is what might happen, internally, to Ireland if Britain left her to solve these problems herself? Would there be genocide on a scale of which what we see today is but a foretaste?
As for your question, I must admit that your letter is difficult to read, and I don't really understand what, specifically, you are asking. If you could clarify the main essence of your point and briefly express your question, I could try to provide more detailed thought on the matter. You would also make it easier to solicit help from the public if you make the point easier to grasp. Not all of us are very good at understanding complex problems.
Cliff Walker
"Positive Atheism" Magazine
Five years of service to
people with no reason to believe
From:
To: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Subject: Re: Atheist campaigner at risk, please help
Date: Sunday, February 18, 2001 11:37 PM
I'm sorry, you are in America. I really meant to target British groups and individuals with that Email, so that they would write to Blair and ask him for a written denial, because I think Blair might pay more attention if he thinks he will lose votes because of this sordid little affair. I know you can't do anything, but thank you for your intelligent and thoughtful message.
Peace and joy.
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