The politics here are a disgrace. The people are way ahead of the politicians. We need normal political parties here and a healthy opposition to keep them in check and balance. We do not want an ultra-nationalist party and an ultra-Loyalist party as the two main parties. That is suicide. The rest of the political parties have no real impact either. They would be better off disbanding and forming one main integrated opposition party to show the people that such an inclusive party can exist here. The only thing keeping them from doing this is self-interest. They are a total waste of the taxpayers money and as much as an obstacle to normality in this country as the two main parties.

As Chomsky said about Christianity in general ;
Christianity started as a religion of the oppressed, caring for the sick and down-trodden, speaking out against the establishment and the rich etc
to being a religion of the establishment and the oppressor when they joined Constantine and the Roman Empire in the 4th century. They have remained there ever since.

The headline should read ; We will copy police at London riots.
It's no secret the PSNI have been consulting with the English Police force.
As usual this paper refuses to tackle the real root causes of rioting.
Most of the rioters are between the ages of 18-25. This is also the case in Ardoyne over parades. Most of them are unemployed and local community leaders have no influence on them. In many cases on both sides, local paramilitary leaders have no influence either.
Also true on both sides is that many of them are being influenced by extremists like dissident Republicans and rogue elements of the UVF who cannot get much support from anywhere else.
The last time I looked there were over a million unemployed 18-25 yr olds in the UK with no training opportunities, no access to higher education and only a handful of fiercely fought over minimum waged jobs to be had. We are told by the government that they want to reduce long-term unemployment yet they continue with their failed austerity without growth policy including taking away any chance young people have of bettering themselves by making it as hard as possible for them to enter mainstream society and progressing.
It is no different in England. The truth is that neo-liberal economics is producing an army of disillusioned and angry young men with no escape route to anything better.
It doesn't matter what is going on around local politics because it is the same story in Northern Ireland, The UK and right across Europe.
The politicians meanwhile are more concerned with lowering corporation tax for the richest in society and promoting N.I as a low-wage economy with the lowest wages in the UK and handing millions of taxpayers money to N.Irish companies to relocate to China through Invest N.I.
But let's focus on flags.

This coming from a person who was at the heart of the UK economy for a couple of decades. A personal friend of Bernanke in the US yet somehow they never saw the financial crisis coming apparently.
As head of the central bank he was responsible for the entire money supply to all banks.
He was one of the major causes of the recession and is now swarming around the country making his final speeches like a US President at the end of their second term and nobody listens to them only the gullible and ignorant.

This newspaper is as bad, running campaigns for the business community, as if that will sort the flag issue out and we will all live happily ever after.
People are dripping with money here after Christmas aren't they ?
I don't see the Telegraph running campaigns to stop the closure of the Housing Executive, schools or hospitals, forced upon us by the kind of neo-liberal economics Mr King was so keen to administer. Are there any journalists left at this paper ? You could look up the word balance.

That's right. We are all afraid of change but it must happen if we are to provide our children with a future in this country.
Many of our brightest kids are leaving here after their education because the status-quo is not providing for them.
Many are leaving to be educated somewhere else altogether.
Whether a shared future or a United Ireland, it doesn't matter, integration is essential either way.

Not all interface areas are like Ardoyne. There are other areas where part- access through dividing walls has already been allowed gradually. These are the things we need to build on.

I am not in any way suggesting putting kids in the firing line of sectarianism. The Holy Cross fiasco is a good example what happens when there are Catholic only schools. Had the school been totally integrated and maybe better placed there would have been no trouble. I am in no way defending the terrible things that those children had to experience.

All countries in the world are not the same. Every one has to treated as an individual. No other country has experienced what we did and most other civilised countries haven't had a bloody past between Catholics and Protestants. We do and it continues.

You have offered no logical alternative as a pathway to integration yourself only rejection. We have all had enough of that over the years.

Now its clear you're just talking rubbish.

It isn't happening at home in the Loyalist and Nationalist Ghettos we have created here over the last half century. It needs to be forced upon them if its not happening.

Unless kids are brought up together and educated from an early age it will always be the same at home.

Integrated schools need to built right on the interface areas and then eventually the walls can come down.

Educating kids together now will produce a much healthier and integrated society for generations to come. Going to school together, playing sports together and socialising in the evenings together is what needs to happen if we are serious about a shared future.

If you want them taught about religion it can still be taught in integrated schools once or twice a week like any other subject. There is no justification for a Catholic only school

Compromise is a two way street..

The Labour party receive a lot of their funding now from corporations. They were queuing up to give Blair donations and buy policies and Blair nearly broke their arm for it.

The notion of a United Ireland is ludicrous under the current state of affairs at Stormont. I do not believe either of the two main parties will deliver it or are capable of getting close to it.
These two tribal warlords may have laid down their arms to which I am very grateful but they are still very much at war with each other politically.
I do not believe they are capable of achieving even a shared future ( I mean a real one ) let alone a United Ireland.
The story is no better on the ground in Nationalist and Loyalist working class areas as recent events have shown not to mention the dividing walls in Belfast.
Would a United Ireland simply be a continuation of a divided North where Catholic and Protestant school children remain segregated for their entire childhoods ?
Would that not be the old ill-thought-out Unionist state after partition reversed ? That sounds more like revenge by Sinn Fein rather than a shared future as they want to run the U.I they are proposing.
Until we have a tried and tested shared, fully integrated N.I that has had many years to prove itself mature enough will the people of Northern Ireland even begin to consider who they are better off with.

" Of course not. Im suggesting that none of those things has anything to do with religious education. Which is why they don't occur in the many other countries around the world that have religious education."

You are proposing continuing segregation and keeping our children apart for their entire childhoods under a United Ireland. You haven't proposed anything to end this.

" Id suggest that integrating education will have no effect on segregated housing while there are sectarian parades and intimidating flags in housing estates, none of which is related to religious education "

Flags/symbols and parades can be resolved when there is mutually agreed policy on both for all of N.I. The politicians have failed to deliver this which needs done ASAP.
This does not alter the fact that our children are separated for their entire childhoods and to suggest that by resolving the flags and parades issue will miraculously bring about integrated housing is living in cloud cuckoo land.
If you are serious about integration you need to set out a pragmatic framework and a realistic and logical way of getting there. You haven't done any of these which suggests you are not really serious.