Moving On For Social Justice 398


The referendum result is the loss of a chance to dispute the hegemony of the neo-con corporate elite in the international world. My heart is still bursting with pride that 45% of Scots – a people devoid of political autonomy for three hundred years – had the nerve, intellect and will to see through the avalanche of propaganda from the entire mainstream media, political establishment, banking sector and corporate world. I met numerous voters who had received letters from their employers – including Diageo, BP, RNS and many others – telling them to vote No or their job was in danger. I met the old lady in Dundee who was told by the Labour Party that independent Scotland would flood the country with immigrants, and a Romanian building worker in Edinburgh who had been told by the Labour Party that Independent Scotland would deport all East Europeans.

Yesterday the Daily Telegraph, Daily Express and Daily Mirror in Scotland all had precisely the same full page photo on their front cover – not a startling news snap, but an arty concoction of male silhouettes and union and Scottish flags. The Mirror had photoshopped it to remove the blue from the union jack, but it was the same distinctive photo. There could be no more stark example of the fake diversity of the mainstream media.

Just as the Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem parties have been startlingly shown up as precisely the same creatures of corporate masters offering no policy differences whatsoever, merely a false tribalism. As they partied together at Better Together last night – the only party in the whole of Scotland, at which everybody present lives very, very well at taxpayers’ expense – it was impossible to tell which brand of Tory was which.

Keeping the popular momentum going, keeping all those wonderful people I met and spoke to engaged in trying to engineer a different society, is going to be a hard struggle. But we always knew that. The goal of independence must remain as a powerful unifying factor.

Through media onslaught people were convinced that a No vote was a vote for Devo Max. Actually after a fortnight of pontificating it will fall off the news agenda of the mainstream. Nothing significant will happen. The Westminster view is that we can have any powers we want at our glorified council in Scotland as long as we still don’t get the revenue from oil or whisky – and still provide cannon fodder for neo-con wars abroad, house Trident and are subject to draconian Westminster imposed attacks on civil liberties.

Anyway the dress rehearsal is over. At the next referendum – which is only five years away, after the UK has voted to leave the EU – we will not be putting forward Salmond’s Independence Lite, (I am not criticising, he carried it superhumanly far). We will be proposing a fully independent Scottish Republic, out of NATO, with its own currency, sweeping land reform to give Scotland’s land back to its people, nationalisation of railways and public utilities, a genuine minimum wage you can live on, a humane benefits system and strict regulation and controls on banks and bankers.

I am eating an excellent lunch and looking forward to it.


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398 thoughts on “Moving On For Social Justice

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  • Tim

    If Alex Salmond was robbed, then why is he not saying so? Even on the SNP’s own website. Or was he, to follow the logic of Ben’s bout fixing theory, paid to take a dive?

  • Ben E. Geserit Muad'Dib Further Confounding Gender Speculators

    “With less than two weeks to go before the independence vote on 18 September, Scotland on Sunday has learned that a formal complaint is to be made by Labour to the returning officer at East Ayrshire Council after activists discovered that at least four children in the area aged between three and 11 have received polling cards.

    It has raised concerns that with a tight result expected in the referendum it could leave the system open to fraudulent votes being cast.

    The issue came to light because parents raised concerns with Labour party volunteers who were out canvassing support for a No vote.

    However, fears have been raised that the problem is far greater in East Ayrshire and could be an indication of what is happening across Scotland.

    A similar issue was uncovered at the European Parliament elections last year in East Ayrshire but appears not to have been resolved.

    The revelation has echoes of the problems which beset the 1979 devolution referendum, in which some dead people were given the vote, undermining public confidence in the result which did not meet the threshold set by the Callaghan government for creating a Scottish Parliament.”

    http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/scottish-independence-vote-rigging-fears-1-3533762

  • fred

    @Clark

    You really are a nasty little shit. We showed you northern hospitality and you repaid it with southern arrogance and conceit.

    Yes I have been banned from forums because I support the Palestinian cause, I’m proud of it.

    The people of Scotland have voted, it was a fair referendum, they chose the union and what the people of Scotland want I want and if you don’t like it then you can just fuck off back to England.

    Now did you want me to go into details about why you were asked to leave?

  • Fedup

    Fred admitted to me directly that a fair proportion of his comments are intended to wind up his opponents.

    But why?

    What is the point of that?

    Clark why did you choose phorm?

    O/T do you have details of BrianFujisan? (email etc.)

  • Tim

    Ben – that looks like evidence that the vote was being rigged by “yes” supporters. Labour were campaigning for “no”. Local authorities in Scotland are in many cases run by the SNP

  • Ben E. Geserit Muad'Dib Further Confounding Gender Speculators

    Tim; The Republicans use the same tactic to disguise their voter suppression.

    It’s a tactic. Why would they seek an investigation when they won. I welcome it, warts and all. Let the chips fall where they may.

    I think it’s a bluff, however. More scare tactics.

  • Tony M

    What Ruth has written looks absolutely correct and perceptive, I even seen a strapline on the BBC before the results were even all in saying ‘… settles the matter for a generation’ it’s despicable. I should point out to Ruth that along with Fred, Habbaduk, and Anon1, Resident Dissident/ESLO, Kempe and others are amongst our nastiest trolls, which Craig thinks add something to the discussion. I would list them all but really the blog owner Craig Murray or the moderator, Mr/Ms X or the admin screen them out or should list them in a permanent, sometimes updated sidebar, as a warning and for the guidance of new readers, not to engage with them, which advice I too heed most of the time, but sometimes they exceed even my vast patience and pacific outlook.

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) !

    David Cameron has often been accused of being an idiot on this blog.

    Habbabkuk says : you’ve got to hand it to him, he’s a brilliant political operator!

    It’s win-win all the way!

    Firstly, he takes the gamble of granting a referendum and wins, thereby defanging Mr Salmond & Co. and boosting his status with his party.

    Secondly, he offers more powers for Scotland and at the same time correctly links this to a simultaneous revision of the constitutional settlement for the other components of the UK, including taking the West Lothian question off the table once and for all (something long overdue, but made essential now if Scotland is to get more devolved powers).

    So either the Scottish Nats or the Labour party is shafted : if the overall settlement goes through, Labour loses the benefit of the West Lothian phenomenon and will not form the next govt (or, indeed any govt. in the foreseeable future); if it does not, thanks to Labour opposition to taking the West Lothian question off the table, then Scotland does not get greater devolved powers and Labour, not the Conservatives, gets the blame.

    Genius!

  • Tim

    Ben -surely this is one election where voter suppression has not been an issue. Scotland May be many things, but it ain’t Tom Lehrer’s “y’all and shut my mouth land”

  • Ben E. Geserit Muad'Dib Further Confounding Gender Speculators

    Voter suppression; ballot rigging…same smell Tim

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) !

    Tony M

    “What Ruth has written looks absolutely correct and perceptive..”

    ________________________

    No doubt it LOOKS correct and perceptive to a loonie like yourself.

    But it SOUNDS like the disappointed ravings of a seriously disturbed person to any normal person.

    Which is the effect sought by any provocateur (give-away comment: MI5 fiddling around with the ballot boxes “at the dead of night” 🙂 )

  • John Goss

    ” I should point out to Ruth that along with Fred, Habbaduk, and Anon1, Resident Dissident/ESLO, Kempe and others are amongst our nastiest trolls, which Craig thinks add something to the discussion.”

    They do add to the discussion in a subtractive way.

  • fred

    “Looks like it’s only the Unionists causing trouble, Fred”

    What are you telling me for.

    I’m the one who has consistently argued against all Nationalism, all sectarianism, all tribalism.

    Tell the people who have been inciting the hatred, you won’t have far to look.

  • Peacewisher

    I am surprised that Alex Salmond has slipped away so quietly. He was an absolute hero about Iraq in 2003, saying things that even Kofi Annan was reluctant to put into words. Maybe he also said things about the latest “coalition of the wiling” that annoyed The Imperial Masters. Very disappointed also that the ex-libdem leader has today been so dismissive of independence.

    He doesn’t look well. Remember what happened to Neil Kinnock after the 1992 election?

  • Tony M

    Yeah right Tim because three year olds are obviously Independence supporters, which by the way isn’t the same thing as the SNP, but the distinction would be lost on you. I’m sure they’d have reported it to whoever happened to come to the door.

    In 1979 many dead people were counted as against devolution, but the pro-devolution cause won that referendum, with an absolute majority, that’s democracy for you, its works just fine when it produces the result the establishment desires and when it doesn’t they ignore the result for nearly 20 years until the Council of Europe and EU threatens to throw them out, for in their view the UK, was not and it still isn’t the least bit democratic.

    We live in fascistic dictatorship, have never known anything else, democracy for the people of these islands is but a daydream, the actual reality we face is a nightmare, but all pretence is gone, the mailed fist over-exposed and they can no longer even fool some of the people some of the time.

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) !

    “Remember what happened to Neil Kinnock after the 1992 election?”
    ______________

    No. Do remind us.

  • Tony M

    The tyranny of your beliefs, troll Fred, is far worse than any nationalism, sectarianism or tribalism, more so still as it’s self-inflicted, you’re in a prison of your own mind. Your philosophy is a mirror image of the chosen ones tribal ghettoes built from the inside.

  • Ben E. Geserit Muad'Dib Further Confounding Gender Speculators

    This reminds me of early Jimmy Hoffa. He had to hire the Mafia to act as enforcers against police and thugs.

    http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/top-stories/sdl-stand-off-with-yes-supporters-in-george-square-1-3547573

    “There was a stand off in the early evening when the Unionists sang “Rule Britannia” drowning out the sound of the Yes campaigners “Flower of Scotland”.

    Police moved in to break up the two groups, and two lines of police separating the two different groups.

    One female Yes supporter said: “They started to throw the flares at us, and we were shouting back at them to try and stop them from intimidating us. Then they started to charge, throwing bottles at us and we ran off.

    “One guy who was behind me was jumped on by them and they started punching him. I can’t believe this; it’s been a peaceful. This was just hooliganism.”

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) !

    Tony M

    “The tyranny of your beliefs, troll Fred, is far worse than any nationalism..etc..etc..”

    _______________________

    Would you mind summarizing Fred’s beliefs for me, Tony?

    Succinctly as is your wont and in good English if possible.

    Thanks!

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) !

    Fred

    From your good friend Tony M, the provocateur

    “Your philosophy is a mirror image of the chosen ones tribal ghettoes built from the inside.”

    ______________

    They always manage to get the Jews into it somehow, don’t they. 🙂

  • fred

    “The tyranny of your beliefs, troll Fred, is far worse than any nationalism, sectarianism or tribalism, more so still as it’s self-inflicted, you’re in a prison of your own mind. Your philosophy is a mirror image of the chosen ones tribal ghettoes built from the inside.”

    We’ve had the referendum, the people of Scotland chose their future for themselves.

    I don’t believe there is any chance of any serious voter fraud but if anyone does then please by all means contact the police.

    Now we can move forwards together united for a better Scotland or have a civil war.

    I get the feeling you are angling for the latter.

  • Peacewisher

    Tonight’s scenes reminded me of the fascists in Kiev. And now the “Yes” newspaper office on fire reminding me of Odessa. OK. I know these are mindless violent drunken fools… but a very worrying state of affairs.

  • Ben E. Geserit Muad'Dib Further Confounding Gender Speculators

    At least you had paper ballots. Diebold?

    But those folks shuffling and dealing from the bottom of the deck……have to go.

    RECOUNT ! Funny I haven’t even seen that suggested in print.

  • Ishmael

    “I’m the one who has consistently argued against all Nationalism, all sectarianism, all tribalism.”

    In that case you should have supported independence. It’s the British wannabe empire who are the leading nationalists, who think they should control other cultures.

    I don’t get how some can’t see it. This attitude that some should control others is all about a superior nationalist identity.

    I believe nationalism is the plunge of racism. A fake identity, total fantasy. But for a region to control it’s own area doesn’t have to be nationalist. On the other hand those who want to control others is a de-facto nationalist stance.

    Ps, Obviously there was going to be SOME Scottish nationalists of the worse kind, but the reality of that existed more in the heads of those who wanted it to be true, or who perhaps can only see what they truly are. So for them it was about who it the best, etc, etc.

  • Tony M

    It is on the previous page, and the one before and the one before that, going back yonks:”I don’t like nationalism”. Succinct enough to embroider on a handkerchief. It is applied pejoratively to all peoples (except Britnat extremists, the ones who do the peculiar waves) the world over without nuance or any scrutiny of the actual case or cause, it falls down when things like details, facts or thought is required, so these are ignored. As you both now are.

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