This blog is severely hampered by flu. I hate flu. In a globe-trotting life I have had a number of illnesses that became life threatening – peritonitis, typhoid, cholera, cerebral malaria, pulmonary embolism, pulmonary hypertension (thankfully misdiagnosed) severe arrhythmia. I was once declared dead and awoken by a cockroach eating my nostril as I lay naked on a corpse trolley in Kaduna. I refuse to die because of the thought of the people – Jack Straw, Islam Karimov, Alisher Usmanov, Tony Blair, John Reid etc – whose day I know would be momentarily brightened by news of my demise. But for sustained misery and feeling really, really awful and uncomfortable, a week with the flu, while not nearly as dangerous, is pretty well as unpleasant, at least to me.
As I lie in a sweaty bed, my thought are perhaps unsurprisingly not happy and light. I am paying keen attention to all the proposals for how to move forward the Independence movement after that check, and am struck by all the calls to reach out to No voters and bring them in.
I have no idea how to reach out to No voters because I find the majority of them stupid beyond my understanding. This is not because they desired an end result different to that I desired. That is a perfectly legitimate choice. It is because, by voting No, they are going to get an end result which is not what they wanted at all, and that was very obvious. Asking me to reach out to these unbelievably thick people is like asking me to go for a drive with someone who, against my advice, drove the wrong way down a motorway, causing a lot of people to get hurt as a result.
Through their No vote they are going to get five more years of Tory rule – which most of them absolutely did not want. And it is going to be Tory rule that lurches further and further to the right. It seems no proposition was too right wing to be applauded to the rafters by the Tory Conference.
Tax cuts for the rich. Benefit cuts for the poor. Openly declared government in the interests of multinational corporations. Censorship of the internet and severe restrictions on freedom of speech. The government intercepting all communications. Even more detention without trial. Permanent war in the Middle East. Leaving the European Convention on Human Rights and in consequence the Council of Europe – the first country to leave the body set up in 1946 to prevent the rise again in Europe of just the sort of proto-fascist measures the Tories wish to impose. To be followed by leaving the European Union.
All of these are direct consequences for Scotland of the No vote. This is much more profound than the entirely predictable and immediate dishonouring of the pledges on Devo-Max by Cameron, Clegg, Miliband and Brown. Brown’s call for a petition to request him to work for what he assured the electorate was already “a done deal” is beyond contempt. It should do for his reputation what the tuition fee betrayal did for Nick Clegg.
Frankly I have no interest in any devolution measures that do not give Scotland control of its oil and whisky revenues, and those are not on offer. But there were people who voted No – 23% of No voters them according to Ashcroft – because they wanted the promised pretend “powers”. Well, you are not going to get those either.
Mostly, of course, those stupid No voters acted under the crass assumption, against all modern precedent, that the opposition could win a general election from a position of just 2 per cent ahead, eight months out. And the even more incredible belief that the Labour Party was still in some significant way different from the Conservative Party.
The consequences of what is coming will fall disproportionately on the poor, with even greater escalation of the UK’s astonishing wealth gap. There will be still more damage to the social fabric that Scots hold dear.
Now there are hard-hearted right wingers in Scotland, in the Tory Party and the leadership of the Labour Party, who wanted everything that is coming in terms of neo-con policy prescription. Those No voters who are wealthy and successful and want to get ahead further on the backs of the poor, made the correct intellectual choice to achieve their ends. They are deeply unpleasant sociopaths, but they are not stupid.
But those No voters who voted No because they believed a fair and caring society was achievable within the present structures of the UK, are so stupid I am astonished that their cerebral cortex can transmit a signal that sparks respiration. They are probably not capable of ever noticing their error.
I am not going to reach out to you, No voter. You are either evil, or quite extraordinarily thick. You will forever be a long way beneath my notice. This will be the last thought I ever give you. To quote a great line from Casablanca:
Peter Lorre: You despise me, don’t you Rick?
Humphrey Bogart: If I gave you any thought, I probably would.
I’m with Leslie above. I didn’t vote no because I’m stupid or evil. I voted no because I knew what was coming with more of Westminster, but the yes campaign failed to answer the basic question of what would happen, and where the necessary reserves would be coming from in an 18 month timescale, to support the economy in the event of no currency union. That, and being sick of hearing the word scaremongering every time I asked a simple challenging question.
________________________________
Andrew
Tell me Andrew what question didn’t the SNP answer on independence, they even produced a lengthy whitepaper with answers.
And at every turn the press media and unionist politicians tried to discredit it, tell me Andrew did Westminster answer every question for you on whats going to happen in a future Scotland,under the union.
OK, RoS, today the shelling was/is being done by Ukrainians. The airport isn’t completely under rebel control because it has a huge underground shelter, and a lot of foreign fighters are apparently trapped there. This might explain:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlRSYau5wLU
You are incorrect, as usual. No voters were not thick or stupid. They were and are decent people with an ability to spot a con when they see it. The Yes campaign failed to make the case. And they failed because they daren’t answer the questions about independence – especially on the currency and the EU. Your inability to calmly look at why Yes lost will doom you to further disappointment. Your abuse of No voters is no substitute for intelligent analysis. The onus was on Yes to make a convincing case for independence. Their campaign was not convincing enough. But let’s put it down to the flu and loser-talk.
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Leslie
A con you say, well look who’s conning Scots now look who’s dragging their heels on promised MEANINGFUL powers, it wasn’t a con did you even read the whitepaper, the union really does have shills and useful idiots at it beckon call.
As for the EU question Cameron asked just about every EU politician to say they’d oppose Scotland joining the EU most refused as they knew it was wrong.
Now the case as you say is years of austerity lack of fiscal growth, less jobs a war that’s costing £3 million quid a day, a new fleet of nuclear subs new planes, for the two aircraft carriers, Scotland’s assets heading south, but wait we’ll get new £100 billion Trident missiles, and more food banks well done Leslie.
Most terminally ill people do tend to die quite quickly. That’s what”terminally ill” usually means – that they don’t recover but die instead.
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Habb
Yes you stupid c*nt but they didn’t need to die in poverty waiting for their benefit, those poor souls had enough to worry about without getting f*cked over by Westminster, you stupid cold and heartless pr*ck.
Aye-VERY well done Leslie!
You’re a very proud Scot, i’ll warrant??
OK, RoS, today the shelling was/is being done by Ukrainians. The airport isn’t completely under rebel control because it has a huge underground shelter, and a lot of foreign fighters are apparently trapped there. This might explain:
__________________________________
Thanks for the link Peacewisher, it sheds a wee bit more light on it.
“I hope it was rigged, and they throw the book at Davidson et al”
Either way it wouldn’t have affected the outcome but if anyone has broken the law they should of course be prosecuted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKihNnw8B_c#t=33
Hey I know this is off topic but I was wondering if you knew of any
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The Israeli regime’s top commander has threatened to stage a military operation in Lebanon similar to the regime’s recent onslaught on the Gaza Strip, which killed over 2,000 people.
In his first remarks after Israel’s 50-day military aggression against Gaza, the regime’s army Chief of Staff Benny Gantz said on Saturday that “we know to do in Lebanon what we did in Gaza.”
He made the remarks in an interview with Israeli daily, Yedioth Aharonoth, boasting that Israel was ready to pay the price.
The Israeli regime unleashed military attacks on Gaza in early July.
More than 2,130 Palestinians lost their lives and some 11,000 were injured during the Israeli onslaught as health officials in Gaza reported that the victims included 578 children and nearly 260 women.
_________________________________
It would appear the genocidal maniacs are threatening to attack Lebanon.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/10/04/381050/israel-gen-threatens-lebanon-with-war/
writeon
Firstly you have been greatly missed, do come back more often.
You misunderstand me; I describe the result as a “check”. It has merely delayed independence by under a decade. I have no doubt it is coming in my lifetime.
The hardcore right wing unionists will remain unionists. The non right wing ones I call “stupid” – I believe accurately – who believed the propaganda, will come over to independence out of disillusion and despair under the next Tory government. Just don’t expect me to be smiling. “You stupid bastards, look what you did” will by my words of welcome.
RoS, Unfortunately it’s a regular part of Israels regional bullying.They stated quite categorically last time round that the would bomb Lebabnon back into the stoneage and when they were finished that’s what quite a bit of it resembled.Just as in Libya and Iraq, they bombed civilian infrastructure first and their calling card when Hezbollah finally kicked them out was to cover southern Lebanon in around 2 million bomblets from cluster bombs.I believe that the UK had supplied Israel with cluster munitions.
Genocidal is an apt description.Fascist bully’s fits the bill too.
Did Vitaly Klitchko, now mayor of Kiev, spend too long in the boxing ring.
http://www.ntv.ru/novosti/1228660/
A journalist from a Ukrainian channel asked him how often he saw his family and where his wife was. Vitaly Klitschko forgot where his wife was and gave three different answers. First he seriously said she was “Everywhere” not as a joke which would have been a slick answer. Then he said that she had gone to Germany. After thinking for a moment he declared that his wife could be found in the very place where he is himself.
As Georgy Ivanov, of aristocratic ancestry who was very much opposed to the Soviet Stalinist Russia, and is by far my favourite Russian poet, wrote of the wild beasts in his allegorical prose-poem ‘Распад атома’ (Breakdown of an Atom):
“. . . жизнь уходит, зима приближается.”
Simply translated it means: “. . . life is going out, winter is coming.”
https://www.facebook.com/beaur.fabrice/photos/a.243811902357194.57442.169434716461580/734925223245857/?type=1&theater
Enjoyable read Craig, got to disagree though, in my opinion, the majority of the no voters could be accused of being politically lazy and afraid to come out of their cozy little comfort zones, a reaction and feeling made stronger by the scaremongering campaigning by the better together team, some of whom have openly said they think that is what turned the outcome, i cant bring myself to think my fellow countrymen and woman voted this way because they are thick, i prefer to think they voted this way because they are shitebags..
Anon1
5 Oct, 2014 – 1:43 pm
If I post the following:
“The ECHR long ago surpassed its original purpose and has become, in the words of one academic, “A ravening monster that, without the slightest legitimacy, overrules scores of national laws and regulations”.
Then it would appear that, yes, I agree with that.
Well Anon1 I did really expect some sort of reasoning from you.
And you haven’t supplied a reference for the quote.
Did you just make it up?
Avigdor Lieberman has called Swedens Ambassador in Tel Aviv to an urgent meeting tomorrow.He reckons that if Sweden are interested in the Middle East then they should concentrate where there is mass murder going on and leave the Palestinian issues for later.
He seems to have conveniently forgotten that 2,200 civilians were mass murdered in Israels last onslaught,mainly women and children,
Mr Scorgie
“Well Anon1 I did really expect some sort of reasoning from you.
And you haven’t supplied a reference for the quote.”
______________________
That might just be because Abon1 remembers your reaction when, upon your request, I supplied you with a reference for something I’d written. When I asked you about the reference subsequently, you replied “I couldn’t be arsed to read it”.
So you actively ask people for references and then don’t read them.
Remember that, Doug?
You don’t expect to be taken seriously, do you?
RepublicOfSyntheticOutrage
“Most terminally ill people do tend to die quite quickly. That’s what”terminally ill” usually means – that they don’t recover but die instead.
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Habb
Yes you stupid c*nt but they didn’t need to die in poverty waiting for their benefit, those poor souls had enough to worry about without getting f*cked over by Westminster, you stupid cold and heartless pr*ck.”
________________________
Drop the synthetic outrage, there’s a good chap. You don’t fool me and I suspect you fool no one else either. That’s because you’re just a provocateur.
You said (at 16h26):
“I really hope you’re proud of yourself Fred, 10.600 sick and terminally ill died in or around the six weeks mark after having their benefits denied,”
and now you say that they “died in poverty”.
Can you back that one up, RepublicOfWildRavinngs? References please for the poverty, as your friend Mr Scorgie might say.
Or as I might say, put up or shut up, Provocateur!
Mr Scorgie
“Well Anon1 I did really expect some sort of reasoning from you.
And you haven’t supplied a reference for the quote.
Did you just make it up?”
____________________
Experience on this blog shows, Mr Scorgie, that you and your fellow-Eminence Mr Goss need help from no one when it comes to making things up.
You are a grandmaster in fibbing.
The important thing in life is to have a friend. It helps, if you are a really shy bloke, like me..and when you meet her…she is even shyer than you…and you are both a little bit embarrassed and you fall in love instantly..and of course it takes time…and you have lost your job..and have been offered one in London…and you accept…and you just know that if you go…
So you both cry your hearts out..knowing this is the final time…
You then realise wtf are you doing you stupid twat???
And you phone them up…on the Monday morning and tell them No
I am staying on the dole in Manchester…
I ain’t coming without my girl.
Tony
That might just be because Abon1 remembers your reaction when, upon your request, I supplied you with a reference for something I’d written. When I asked you about the reference subsequently, you replied “I couldn’t be arsed to read it”.
So you actively ask people for references and then don’t read them.
Remember that, Doug?
You don’t expect to be taken seriously, do you?
________________________
Habb
After your rather cold and heartless reply with regards to terminally ill people, how could anyone take you seriously, are you IDS in disguise.
I think it’s fairly logical to see the false accusation of murdering 300 + airline passengers placed on Russia by the whole UK establishment, then the continued support of Islamic terrorism in the Middle East by USUKIS and a simultaneous public show of armed opposition to ISIS, – as symptoms of manic lying by the Tory / LibDem government.
Thatcher reptile spawn have turned out to be far worse than their dam, with the cult of dick-waving managerialism coming out of feminism, the cult of spying infecting the heart of religion, the cult of warmongering lies in support of virulent neo-con Zionism.
The true blame lies heavily on Nick Clegg for putting personal ambition over common sense in getting the unelectable Tories back into power again.
If I was a Scotsman I would have guessed that these Tory liars would have stitched up Independent Scotland if Independence had come into being under their reign.
Craig, please be patient and apologise for calling the NO voters stupid. They were saying no to being spiked by the Thatcher spawn. Why do you think anyone in their right mind will ever vote for these loonies ever again?
Get rid of idiot snake Clegg, get rid of crocodile Cameron, bring in Europe to check the ballotboxes of the general election, and try for independence at a more congenial moment in time. You may need New Labour in future as a friend.
RoS
Why do you play with the polystyrene packaging in the living room?
Please please leave the HablessFuck alone.
Drop the synthetic outrage, there’s a good chap. You don’t fool me and I suspect you fool no one else either. That’s because you’re just a provocateur.
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Habb
Synthetic outrage, what a piss poor reply, no nobody fools a cold fish like you do they now, how do you know they died in poverty, that’s usually what happens when you’re on benefits and the PTB stop them you inane git, otherwise they wouldn’t be on benefits in the first place.
So in the last six weeks or so of their live instead of trying to rest and try not to worry too much,the exact opposite is occurring,you really are dickhead.
Why do you play with the polystyrene packaging in the living room?
Please please leave the HablessFuck alone.
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Guano
You are right I should know better, I should put the packaging in the trash.
Find a handy dumpster, out on the sidewalk?
They didn’t say…you can bring her too…You accepted our offer of a job in London and you have turned us down???..You will never get another job in the computer industry again…You are wasted mate…
But I wasn’t that bothered cos, whilst I was on the dole, spending most of the time alone…I got to work…and I worked really hard..I was about to launch my own computer business..having written two games in machine code…
And the job I had applied for a year previously whilst I was employed..came up again…and I applied for it again…
So how could I possibly turn it down…
They even paid for a flat (well more than half the cost) just over the bridge…and full relocation expenses…
I mean Fuck Me….
So I said Yes…
Invited my girlfriend down…to see the squirrels and Deer in Richmond Park…
She said YES
Don’t say Yes Too Soon…If You are Any Good.
We are Still Here
Tony & Wife.
xx
“Argentina’s President Cristina Kirchner charged in an emotional address that domestic and US interests were pushing to topple her government, and could even kill her.
Domestic business interests “are trying to bring down the government, with international (US) help,” she said.
Kirchner said that on her recent visit to Pope Francis — a fellow Argentine whose help she has sought in Argentina’s ongoing debt default row — police warned her about supposed plots against her by Islamic State activists.
“So, if something happens to me, don’t look to the Mideast, look north” to the United States, Kirchner said at Government House.
– Don’t believe US:” Kirchner –
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/us-could-topple-my-government-and-kill-me-argentina-president-cristina-kirchner/
After the vote
The Secretary of the Bloggers Union
Had leaflets distributed in Sauchiehall Street
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
It is quite note worthy how many of those who profess a believe in socialism on this blog have not raised a whisper in protest about Craig’s profoundly unsocialist view of the Scottish people. Socialists do not show such contempt for the views of ordinary people how disagree with them – by definition they have to have some respect for society.
He’s back, unabashed on this Gossamer thread.
Written by writeon at 4:20 pm before we went to the pub
Rick’s quip is amusing, but facile, as these things often are. Craig’s bitterness is undertandable, but over-indulgent. That so many people are fearful and misled, willing to follow leaders that lead them in the wrong direction, and influenced by a malignant media; isn’t an convincing argument for washing one’s hands of them and abandoning them to their fate because they deserve it, on the contrary, it should be a spur to even greater efforts to explain how they have been misled.
In fact after the clear betrayals that have occurred with such inappropriate haste, there is a great opportunity to capitalize on this defeat and build an even stronger base for the future. The world isn’t fair and one has to understand that and compensate.
Craig is sick and tired, not the best place to begin a sober and realistic analysis of a defeat in battle. That’s all it is, after all, defeat in a battle. The outcome of the war is far from decided or over. It’s just begun and the historic trend is firmly in favour of the nationalists as older people leave the stage and younger people move onto it, younger people with defferent values and perspectives on the world.
If Craig hasn’t got the stomach for the fight any longer and is so ready to cast so many people into the arms of the unionists with a contemptuous shrug, then he should just stand aside next time and let younger people take over, though, I think once he’s recovered fully he’ll reconsider his not particularly constructive or helpful outburst.
Leaders, regardless of what they feel inside, are supposed to inspire their troops, not tell them the battle’s lost beforehand. Every time one has to beleive one is going to win, or don’t bother. One of my ancestors supposedly said that absolutely nothing in life compared to taking part in a cavalry charge at full gallop and crashing into the enemy. That feeling and rush was why he went to war. Winning was marvelous but even if one lost a battle or a skermish, at least one had been in that fantastic charge, and that’s what really counted.
Top Man. I wish I could write like that…that was fuckin’ wonderful..You have inspired me..I try not to break my promises.
Tony xx