I can’t pretend not to have been disappointed by the Clackmannanshire result, especially as I am here with some wonderful people who have put months and years of their lives into campaigning heart and soul.
But the count was fascinating. Professional Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem politicians working and socialising together and dressing the same. Tory ladies in pillar box red clothes and Lib Dem councillors in Labour Party rosettes. All braying and congratulating each other in the same voices, and looking smug and very happy together.
We are not winning tonight’s battle at the moment, but the battle lines have now become clearly defined between the single establishment of the media and all the political parties, and almost half the people – so far who want an alternative political structure. This is a stage in a process, and in its clarity and scale a major advance.
“Peoples views are changed by listening to them and engaging with what they are saying not by insulting them.”
Typical of Resident Dissident who has never changed his views on anything. People’s views are changed by a biased media, by threats of losing pensions, having no currency in their pockets, losing their jobs because Scottish businesses and banks threatened to take them south of the border.
I respect the vote. At least now we know. Looks like the workers’ movement is well and truly dead there as here. Resident Dissident who claims to be Labour has no idea about its origins and thinks Labour is what Tony Blair and Gordon Brown turned it into – another Tory party. We have to work harder for a grass-roots movement. The only way now is for the dollar to fall flat on its face.
YouKnow
Thank you… Great post.
the thing about this is …i just don’t know ..i spent ages last night putting facts to people… they come back at me after a fast google…ok so it not thousands of jobs..ect ect.
and then then today nothing…back to Robot stage….heart breaking
What a disappointment.
Shows that Scotland is a country divided.
Those that votes No deserve all we are going to get. Those who voted Yes, don’t.
It was the BBC (in Scotland) wot won it
Craig
We know the result, but I’d really like to know who had the greatest number of rosettes and balloons.
Yes, I know this will be misinterpreted to suggest I supported the NO vote, but that is not true. It’s just that I tried to point out that people behave differently in public and in a crowd than they do in a polling booth.
To those complaining abut media bias, you are correct, of course, but have to recognise that the burden always falls on those who promote change to overcome such bias. Often, such a momentous change as was being proposed would require far greater than a 50%+1 vote. For the YES campaign to not even make that pretty low bar is actually quite a poor show.
If true independence were available, I would be truly sad.
The other issue is that the establishment will now take revenge on Scotland, so watch out!
Commiserations to the losers but I think this will come to be seen as the right result and sets in motion the outcome that I think most Scots wanted in the first place – devo max.
Scotland is not brave.
Disapointing but Definitely more interesting times lie ahead for the UK!
As Craig said this is but one stage in a longer process.
We’ll get there đ
You Know My Name,
Excellent post.
John Edwards 7.38am
Excellent post too.
“Typical of Resident Dissident who has never changed his views on anything.”
I thought somebody would have picked up on this with something like “No he only changes his . . .” Answers please.
Resident Dissident,
Some really poor posts as per.
I guess you must be proud though…being a resident dissident on a blog dedicated to human rights and the prevention of global torture.
Go shill somewhere else you thin hollow individual.
I am relieved that Scotland has voted not to split the country. David Cameron has won the biggest gamble of his political life. What a knuckle-biting night it must have been in No. 10. I am happy for him. Now he and the other politicians will have to deliver on the promises they made on greater powers to the Scottish parliament.
“I guess you must be proud thoughâŠbeing a resident dissident on a blog dedicated to human rights and the prevention of global torture.”
LOL! Is that what it is?
No one wants devo-max, I’ve never heard of anything so fucking stupid in my life as this devo-max crap. From yet another wishy-washy troll that has surfaced on this blog only in the last few weeks, mumbling profound inanities. Stick your pretendy devo-max ‘Tom’. To hell with your and their promises, no-one even payed any attention to them, knowing it was an insult to our intelligence written on a steamed-up window, lies built on a mountain of past betrayals. And in line with BetterCompletelyFucked’s pattern of projecting their faults and failings, their crimes and their intentions onto the Yes campaign, onto the SNP and on to Alex Salmond, all the threats of things they said would result from independence, will now happen without it, with savagery. Old-age pensions, the singlemost component of welfare spending will be the first thing cut to the bone, sanctioned and made conditional. Thankfully a lifetime of chronic ill-health means I’ll not be around to require it. Within weeks no-one will even admit to having voted no.
My heartfelt commiserations, there must be many who feel gutted today, its called the blues. It will marr your brains for days to come and I have found in the past that physical exhultation will ease the mind.
Get out the axe and see to the coming winters firewood…..
build a yes cairn to remember the campaign……
go swimming in the sea, let the current play with you and step ashore refreshed, nakered and in a completely different place to where you jumped in…….
Keep up the same positive feeling, many people have met each other for the first time, connections have been forged, so there is something to work with…….priceless.
ah, well….
Larry Levin,
45% are đ
Watch this movement grow UK-wide-and beyond.
Something was begun in Scotland and its way above and beyond traditional party political lines and ideologies.
This will terrify the Establishment,mark my words.
Something entirely new is blossoming.
Commiserations to all the Yes crew – not just the SNP by any means. I don’t think there’s any point in alleging rigging – though the Clacks count certainly raised huge questions (Margaret McNeil @ 0312). Perhaps some lessons have been learned:
1. The cheerfully brash SNP campaigning style – posters and workers everywhere, positivity throughout – generates a misleading picture of the likelihood of a win. I’ve seen this before, and feared it during this campaign, but consciously forbore to say so. Don’t believe your own propaganda.
2. There are plenty of disaffected Labour voters out there. It’s solidarity with principles the Party used to hold that keeps them on side. Until they notice that universal brotherhood means strength only for international parasites, they’ll stay there.
3. One outcome of this is already showing: airtime for Farage. He is currently the only UK politician favouring UK federalism (odd, since he despises European federalism, but who said politicians were consistent). There is a future for a UK wide grouping, not necessarily a formal party, which accepts federalism without Farage’s other Essex-man baggage. This is the only solution to the West Lothian Question, which Cameron is showing every sign already of monumentally misunderstanding.
I await with interest any proposals from old Unionist leftwingers for rehabilitating unified opposition to the bankers’ paradise we currently enjoy UK-wide. Half of what was disputed yesterday was the notion of independence for its own sake. But half of it was about the marginalisation, not only of the majority of Scots, but everyone not employed at Canary Wharf. That hasn’t gone away. The UK backlash needs to begin. Will it?
Anon1,
Run along now little troll,your line manager wants you to pat his tummy.
And I think you’d do that too-for a little pay rise,or something…
Speaking of Julian this BiBiCee/NWO stooge has filmed a discussion with him. In the studio afterwards, he was talking to the presenter (one of the lightweights) about Julian as if Julian was some sort of zoo exhibit – for instance his skin colour and demeanour. Bastards.
Julian Assange on Google and his ‘difficult situation’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29258834
3.34 mins
Julian Assange on Google and his ‘difficult situation’
18 September 2014
‘Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has spoken out about his continued self-imprisonment at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.
Mr Assange sought refuge at the embassy in June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to face questioning over alleged sexual offences.
He said it was a “difficult situation for a national security reporter” but “in some ways there are benefits”.
The BBC’s John Simpson talked to Mr Assange about his new book on Google, which he claims working alongside the US government.’
Something else suggested by my 20/20 hindsight:
Older voters, and women were targeted by No, and with good reason. Pensioners and people in insecure employment, with strained budgets, are not the demographic to welcome a seismic shift in their conditions unless they get some very realistic assurances that things won’t get even worse. And this was a key omission from the Yes campaign. The damage was not sufficiently mitigated by the inclusion of young, idealistic voters. A difficult PR problem, and probably an even harder policy hurdle.
A well deserved defeat for Yes. They have batted off endless questions about the currency and the EU. This site has been part of that refusal to deal honestly with those questions. There are lessons here. You cannot spin as Yes has tried and hope to win. Salmond out!
I note that the results of the polls were broadly supported by the results – if anything, they underestimated the victory fot the ‘No’ vote. The fact that a majority voted ‘Yes’ in Glasgow (plus the greater excitement in the ‘Yes’ campaign) partly explains why the atmosphere there as reported by Craig was at odds with the polls.
“The election was rigged”
No, the people spoke and the result is a bummer. The establishment are a hard nut to crack because when push comes to shove they are able to utilize all of the propaganda at their disposal and people buy it time after time.
I’ve come to the conclusion that people are inherently conservative and frightened of change. If ever there was the opportunity for a revolutionary shift in the political discourse then the Scottish referendum was it. Ultimately, the Scots blew a fantastic opportunity.
You cannot spin as Yes has tried and hope to win. Salmond out!
Calm down, Dear. And contemplate this:
http://www.thedrum.com/news/2014/09/03/nearly-two-thirds-scots-agency-bosses-plan-vote-no-scottish-independence-referendum
“Watch this movement grow UK-wide-and beyond.
Something was begun in Scotland and its way above and beyond traditional party political lines and ideologies.
This will terrify the Establishment,mark my words.
Something entirely new is blossoming.”
Nah, I don’t buy it. The establishment will re-group. I for one, don’t understand how the Scots could have possibly fallen for the establishment propaganda.
“I for one, donât understand how the Scots could have possibly fallen for the establishment propaganda.”
Me neither. I thought they were more canny than that. Perhaps Glasgow can go it alone and get rid of Trident.
“Weâll get there :-)”
No you won’t. You just cannot accept that the Scots are as inherently conservative and frightened of change as anybody else. The problem is that when push finally came to shove, the Scots showed their true colours. Scotland the brave. Scotland the cowards, more like.
Let me just say as a Englishman I have nothing but respect and a very high regard for the Scottish people. I did not want you to leave the Union.I understand however there must be a lot of disappointed people in Scotland today, like a death in the family you will get over it. What we all need now is a fight to free us ALL from the corrupt party system in Westminster. To be free of the EU, NATO (The Attack dog of the West), UN. To be able to issue are own money free of the Private Central Banks,Reintroduce the Bradbury Pound, reject Agenda 21, the New World Order and the push for a World Government.
Anyway the best of luck to all Scottish People.
This by Gilad Atzmon:
Is the fact that half of the Scots want to split from Britain and the news that hundreds of young Muslim Brits are fighting with Jihadi militant groups in Syria connected?
Of course they are. These two social phenomena are intrinsically linked, yet in the intellectual desert in which we live, no one dares to address the subject. The boundaries of our curiosity are limited by our deference to political correctness and Zionist sensitivities.
From a political perspective, Jihadi enthusiasm amongst young Western Muslims is an outcome of the emergence of tribalism in the West; but isnât the call for Scottish independence driven by a similar tribal urge? From both a philosophical and dialectic perspective, Jihadi identification and the Scottish call for independence are the antithesis of the New Left and its corrosive Identity (ID) politics that have been spread in our midst for too long.
In the last five decades we have witnessed a relentless attack on nationalism and patriotic values. These attacks are commonly associated with the âNew Leftâ and have been led in large part by the Jewish intelligencia. It was the Frankfurt Schoolâs thesis on Authoritarian Personality (Adorno & co) and Wilhelm Reichâs take on âMass Conservatismâ that suggested that there was something wrong, dangerous and even vile to be found among the masses and their âreactionistâ political orientation. Contemporary Left cosmopolitan icon Noam Chomsky has been calling for the abolishment of borders and states (except, of course, the Jewish State* for many years. Chomsky is proudly hostile to patriotism and nationalism. Yet we must examine the alternative offered by Chomsky, The Frankfurt School, The New Left and The Guardian â the media outlet that enthusiastically disseminates these ideas.
For reasons that I have discussed numerous times, the New âLeftâ and the Jewish intelligencia have vigorously advocated the replacement of the national patriotic discourse with ID politics. In practice, this was intended to break the cohesiveness of the working class and the national bond and replace it with a score of marginal and sectarian discourses. The Left that once claimed to be a universal voice for the working people was hijacked. It became the mouthpiece of ID groups, most of them defined by biology (gender, skin color and race), sexual preferences (LGBT) and even religion (Jews only).
The outcome has been devastating. ID politics that initially purported to promote authentic thinking ended up promoting the opposite. It dismantled authenticity and replaced it with âIdentification.â Instead of being who we really are (John, Sue, Nahida or Abraham) weâve been trained to identify with group ideology. We adopted a new manner of speech. We convey our thoughts âas aâ; âas a Jew,â âas a woman,â âas a gay,â âas a black,â instead of expressing our own and very personal authentic feelings and beliefs as we experience them in an unmediated existential mode.
In practice, we have replaced authenticity with detachment, alienation and mimicry. Instead of celebrating Being in the most existential manner we learned to pre-mediate what being a âwomanâ, âJewâ, âblackâ, âgayâ should sound like. We learned to envisage what our identification âmay entailâ and to react as our identification demands. What I describe above is the practical result of the âforgetfulness of Being,â a term coined by the great German philosopher Martin Heidegger. But it is at this point that tribal awareness; nationalism and patriotism are reinvigorated and seem to be gaining ground.
In order to explain this shift, l would like first to examine the case presented by Zionism, Israel and Jewish progressive politics.
Those who attend progressive meetings become accustomed to the righteous Jewish manner of speech. Many Jews launch their speeches with the âas a Jewâ clichĂ©. Needless to mention, neither I nor any other scholar of Jewish ID politics have ever managed to figure out what this clichĂ© means. The reason is that it doesnât mean a thing.
For years I have asked many Jews to address this question and havenât received a sound reply. The âas a Jewâ seems to convey a meaningful logos, but in practice it is used to block critical discussion of the emptiness of the notion of Jewish progressive ID. In truth, there is no Jewish value system and as the great Israeli philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz observed in the 1970s, there is no such a thing as âJewish ethics.â The Jew is expected to follow Mitzvoth and laws (halakha) instead of acting upon his ethical judgment. The conclusion is devastating â âas a Jewâ is an empty e_xpression. It is a deceptive mode used to convey an image of a Jewish ethical heritage that doesnât exist.
This is where Zionism and Israel intervene. They offer the Jew an opportunity to rid himself of the sham of clichĂ©s and offer a glimpse of authentic redemption. Zionism and Israel say to the young Diaspora Jew â instead of speaking âas a Jewâ why donât you just âBe a Jew?â â take the first El Al flight, come to Israel, join the IDF, learn how to drive a tank. By the time your transformation is complete you will be able âto pour your wrath on the Goyimâ in the name of the Jewish people and in accordance with Jewish heritage (as the Zionist interpret this heritage).
Whether we like it or not, Israel and Zionism give meaning to Jewishness.
The Zionist call is very appealing to young Diaspora Jews (American, British, French, Australian). The IDF is saturated with lone soldiers who arrived in the âpromised landâ just to wear the uniform and serve their people.
Israel and Zionism provide an authentic patriotic answer to the anti-patriotic mode that has become the voice of the New Left.
ISIS and other Jihadi groups offer the young Muslim a similar product. Instead of talking âas a Muslim,â a statement that means very little within a consumerist, materialist, multi cultural society, the Islamic State and other Jihadi organizations offer their young Western followers the opportunity to Be a proper Muslim. Instead of participating in the inauthentic âas aâ game, ISIS calls on its followers to participate in a holy war, the ultimate form of true spiritual fulfillment.
It would be foolish to tag ISIS Western combatants as âbad Muslimsâ or âevil fundamentalistsâ while turning a blind eye to the rising popularity of Jihadi culture within Muslim communities in the region and in the West. I recommend that we examine the popularity of ISIS amongst young Muslims in the light of the popularity of the Zionist cause within Western Jewish communities. I canât see why a young British Muslim fighting in Iraq is worse than a Jewish British citizen serving in the IDF and ruining the lives of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
The rise of nationalism and tribalism is prevalent throughout Europe and much of the world. This week Britain is on the verge of breaking up. Half of the Scots prefer to split from the Kingdom. What is going on in Scotland is a repetition of the same pattern. Instead of subscribing to a watery meaningless British âcollectivism;â Scotland, as a unifying symbolic bond has much more to offer its people.
To sum up, it seems that the attempt by the New Left to weaken the Nation state by promoting ID politics has backfired. It has led toward a sharp rise of tribal orientation and local patriotism. This reading may also help us to grasp the historical failures of the New Left and its mentors at the Frankfurt School. As we know, the masses never joined the Left. The promised revolution never occurred either. And the reason is plain: real working people didnât have cause to impersonate working people â they were the working people.
The Leftâs advocacy of mimicry was not without its benefits. It brought itself some popularity amongst middle class Guardian readers and progressive Jews. But the current outburst of tribalism suggests that our society is changing direction. Society may never be the same, and this may be a very positive occurrence.
*In a complete contradiction of his opposition to nation State, Chomsky actually oppose the One State Solution in Palestine, he prefers the Two States in accordance with âInternational Lawâ.
Ba’al Zevul
Nice link, thanks. But Yes were the spinners in this campaign – and we see the result.