Indo:'Splitters' = neocons+spuccers+trots+you?

[Citizen]

There was something not quite right. It took me a while after reading this page-long article by the admirable Dr Miriam Hederman-O'Brien in the Irish Independent to realise why something felt odd about the piece.

There are two things that stand out:

- the first is that the article itself does not propose even one reason to vote for the Lisbon treaty, yet the writer assumes fondly that it will pass. It is a good concise survey of the formal history of the EC from its founding treaties to the present day. It says absolutely nothing about what the Lisbon treaty would change, whether for good or ill. The underlying assumption seems to be that EC/EU treaties are Good Things and therefore this latest EU treaty must be a Good Thing.

- the second is the headline: Why now become 'splitters' after knocking on the door for so long? I doubt if it was written by Dr Hederman-O'Brien, and I wonder if the headline writer had read her article as there is no obvious connection between it and the headline.

The word 'splitters' appears nowhere in the piece.

What does the word mean? A quick google show that it was used by the Chinese Communist Party as a term of grave criticism of enemies of party unity. See this Fordham document for example.

Dissenting from a proposed Constitutional amendment on the Lisbon treaty now qualifies us as 'splitters' in the eyes of the Irish Independent. I will write that title once more - the Irish Independent. Still can't quite believe it.

Does someone in Independent Newspapers really want to go down that road? Is 'splitters' now to be the collective D4 noun embracing spuc-ers, neocons and trotskyites and all who think this treaty process is an anti-democratic mess?

[Universal_001]

There was something not quite right. It took me a while after reading this page-long article by the admirable Dr Miriam Hederman-O'Brien in the Irish Independent to realise why something felt odd about the piece.

There are two things that stand out:

- the first is that the article itself does not propose even one reason to vote for the Lisbon treaty, yet the writer assumes fondly that it will pass. It is a good concise survey of the formal history of the EC from its founding treaties to the present day. It says absolutely nothing about what the Lisbon treaty would change, whether for good or ill. The underlying assumption seems to be that EC/EU treaties are Good Things and therefore this latest EU treaty must be a Good Thing.

- the second is the headline: Why now become 'splitters' after knocking on the door for so long? I doubt if it was written by Dr Hederman-O'Brien, and I wonder if the headline writer had read her article as there is no obvious connection between it and the headline.

The word 'splitters' appears nowhere in the piece.

What does the word mean? A quick google show that it was used by the Chinese Communist Party as a term of grave criticism of enemies of party unity. See this Fordham document for example.

Dissenting from a proposed Constitutional amendment on the Lisbon treaty now qualifies us as 'splitters' in the eyes of the Irish Independent. I will write that title once more - the Irish Independent. Still can't quite believe it.

Does someone in Independent Newspapers really want to go down that road? Is 'splitters' now to be the collective D4 noun embracing spuc-ers, neocons and trotskyites and all who think this treaty process is an anti-democratic mess?

You can't beleive it really?
Have you not read the indo before?

Its been trash for a while now, it's not a recent thing

[Citizen]

That a national newspaper can gratuitously brand approximately half of the voting citizens using a term favoured in Mao's PRC which struck terror into the hearts of those it was applied to? No I have real trouble believing my own eyes here.

[Universal_001]

That a national newspaper can gratuitously brand approximately half of the voting citizens using a term favoured in Mao's PRC which struck terror into the hearts of those it was applied to? No I have real trouble believing my own eyes here.

Read the Daily Mail then, or worse still, the STAR, you'll realize the market is full of utter trash and this type of thing happens alot.

[Citizen]

Thanks. I think I will stick to Peadar Ó Broin's annotated Lisbon treaty and the Beano in future...