(continued)
Breastplate
Reply to Hatey McHateface
7 days ago
We’ve just heard how Maccabi Tel Aviv fans jeered through a minutes silence, chanted “fuck all Arabs” “there are no schools in Gaza because we’ve killed all the kids” and violently rampaged through Amsterdam attacking Dutch citizens.
Western media had already reported this but then completely changed the narrative to the poor Jewish fans being exposed to anti-Semitic behaviour.
This is the MSM peddling known lies.
These become useful tools to people like yourself to bolster their jingoistic and racist world view.
People with a generalised hatred of particular groups expose much more about themselves than they would care to acknowledge.
Racism and lack of intellect are far too often common bedfellows.
TURABDIN
7 days ago
Michael the Scot, a «pioneer of science» many may never have heard of:
Priest, hebraist, arabist, mathematician, physicist, alchemist.
Alf Baird
Reply to TURABDIN
7 days ago
Scotland has produced many philosophers and intellectuals who have given us theories and contributions to knowledge:
link to salvo-cor.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh
Reply to TURABDIN
6 days ago
It is certainly worth reminding ourselves of the historic cultural and intellectual riches of Scotland.
Regarding music I would highly recommend the book by D. JAMES ROSS entitled MUSICK FYNE: ROBERT CARTER AND THE ART OF MUSIC IN SIXTEENTH CENTURY SCOTLAND (The Mercat Press, Edinburgh, 1993).
Regarding philosophy as such, I recommend:
‘PHILOSOPHY AND POLITICS IN LATER STUART SCOTLAND: Neo-Stoicism, Culture and Ideology in an Age of Crisis, 1540-1690’, by DAVID ALLAN (Tuckwell Press, East Linton, Scotland, 2000).
Above all, I recommend any publications by ALEXANDER BROADIE, among which:
A HISTORY OF SCOTTISH PHILOSOPHY, by ALEXANDER BROADIE (Edinburgh University Press, 2009, 2010)
THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT: THE HISTORICAL AGE OF THE HISTORICAL NATION, by ALEXANDER BROADIE, (Birlinn, 2007, 2012)
AGREEABLE CONNEXIONS: SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT LINKS WITH FRANCE, by ALEXANDER BROADIE, (Birlinn, 2012)
THE SHADOW OF SCOTUS: PHILOSOPHY AND FAITH IN PRE-REFORMATION SCOTLAND, by ALEXANDER BROADIE, (T&T Clark, Edinburgh,1995).
Professor Broadie convincingly argues that John Duns Scotus was the posthumous influence in the framing of the Declaration of the Clergy 1310 and the Declaration of Arbroath 1320.
Broadie also says:
“HUGH MACDIARMID coined the slogan ‘Back to Dunbar’ as a rallying cry, hoping to persuade us to look back beyond Burns and the Enlightenment to the works of William Dunbar and the other poets of the Pre-Reformation period. In the light of work done recently on John Mair and his circle, and with MacDiarmid’s slogan in mind, GEORGE DAVIE (G. E. Davie, The Crisis of the Democratic Intellect) has coined the slogan ‘Back to John Mair’ as a rallying cry, hoping to persuade us to look back beyond Hume and the Enlightenment to the works of Mair and his colleagues.”
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh
Reply to TURABDIN
6 days ago
Further quotes from Alexander Broadie, with MICHAEL SCOT getting mention:
« I believe him [JOHN DUNS SCOTUS (c. 1266–1308)] to be Scotland’s greatest philosopher, yet, as I have indicated, there are also other philosophers from Pre-Reformation Scotland, and very few know of their existence. I am speaking here of one of the best-kept secrets of Scottish culture. […] One in particular whose existence we should at least note here is RICHARD SCOT (c. 1123–73), who is usually referred to, with French pronunciation, as Richard de St Victor.
« […] Intermediate in time between Richard Scot and Duns Scotus was their compatriot MICHAEL SCOT (died c. 1236), who was an important link in the chain of transmission of Aristotle’s works from the Muslim world, via Spain, to the Christian West. In addition, with the help of Spanish-Jewish colleagues Michael Scot made translations into Latin of Arabic commentaries, in particular those of Averroes, on Aristotle.
« [.…] One thinker whose work has never received due attention is the twelfth-century abbot of Dryburgh, ADAM SCOT, many of whose writings are extant, even if not available in recent editions.[…] Richard Scot spent his working life in Paris, and Michael Scot spent much of his in Toledo, Bologna, and as astrologer to the court of Frederick II of Sicily. […] JOHN IRELAND (c. 1440–95) (Mirror of Wisdom), was one of a large number of Scots at the University of Paris.
« In the later 1470s that contingent was joined by JAMES LIDDELL (d. prob. after 1519) from Aberdeen. He graduated with a master’s degree in 1483, and in the following year began to teach at Paris. In 1495, the year of the founding of a university in his home town, he became the first-ever Scot to have a book of his printed in his own lifetime. Given my belief that the Scots are a nation of philosophers, I find it peculiarly appropriate that that first-ever book by a Scot printed in his own lifetime was a work on philosophy.
« […] The topic of Liddell’s book was a popular one among Scottish philosophers, several of whom, in the generation after Liddell, wrote substantial treatises. The authors of those treatises were all members of the circle of JOHN MAIR. Born near Haddington c. 1467, Mair was a student at the University of Paris, rising to become Professor of Theology there. He quickly acquired a Europe-wide reputation as a teacher, theologian, philosopher and logician. […] He was a colleague of Erasmus at Paris, and his lectures there were attended not only by Loyola and Vitoria as already mentioned, but also by Buchanan, Rabelais, Calvin and Vives. We are speaking therefore of a thinker pre-eminent in his day.
« All agree that poets made a priceless contribution to our literary canon during the century or so following the founding of Scotland’s first university. The period is the age of the makars, the lowland poets, ROBERT HENRYSON, WILLIAM DUNBAR, GAVIN DOUGLAS, and others. In his ‘Lament for the Makaris’ Dunbar names many poets whose works are now lost. But in any case the extant poetical writings of the period are of sufficient quantity and quality to stamp the age with a distinctive character. Historical judgment on this matter has been very unfair. I do not mean in the least—how could I?—to be stinting about the magnificence, the magisterial presence, of the poetry of that age when I say that the overwhelming emphasis which has been placed on the poetical achievements of the fifteenth—and early-sixteenth—century Scottish literary heritage promotes a distorted image of that heritage. I believe the poetical achievement to have been fully matched by the Scottish philosophers who were contemporaries of the poets, though the writings of the philosophers disappeared into near oblivion and are only now being rescued. »
(Extracts from: THE SHADOW OF SCOTUS: PHILOSOPHY AND FAITH IN PRE-REFORMATION SCOTLAND, by ALEXANDER BROADIE (T&T Clark Ltd, Edinburgh, 1995).
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh
Reply to TURABDIN
6 days ago
With all due respect to SALVO, I have always been skeptical of constitutional “popular sovereignty” being indigenously rooted in the Highland clan system. Whatever the merits or demerits of the latter (and I myself would be wary of a stultifying tribalism), I think SALVO’s view fails to glimpse, let alone encompass, the sophisticated heritage of European philosophical thought which preceded the marginalization of Irish and Scottish Gaeldom. For instance, the Renaissance of Charlemagne involved a great many speakers of Lingua Scottorum (Common Gaelic). Foremost among the latter was the brilliant (and even yet increasingly influential) Irishman JOHANNES SCOTTUS ERIUGENA (800-877), in whom both Hegel and Heidegger found nourishment. A line of anti-authoritarian thought in Eriugena landed him in serious trouble with the ecclesiastical establishment and seems self-evidently relevant to our focus on constitutional sovereignty. Eriugena writes:
“For authority proceeds from true reason, but reason certainly does not proceed from authority. For every authority which is not upheld by true reason is seen to be weak, whereas true reason is kept firm and immutable by her own powers and does not require to be confirmed by the assent of any authority.” (De Divisione Naturae, Bk. 1, ch. 69)
Another, even more obvious and comprehensively documented taproot thinker was George Buchanan (1506-1582).
Buchanan was a Gaelic-speaker from Killearn on Lochlomondside. His high-class Latin writings on popular sovereignty influenced the American Revolution. But his radical views certainly did not spring fully-formed from the heather. Whether he read the Latin of Eriugena I have no idea, but like Eriugena, he certainly read classical writers deeply. The following are just a few relevant extracts from the book mentioned in a previous comment, ie David Allan’s PHILOSOPHY AND POLITICS IN LATER STUART SCOTLAND. Buchanan’s interest in Stoicism features strongly:
« George Buchanan [mentor to Montaigne] brooks large in any survey of neo-Latin literature, in a European as well as merely in a Scottish context. […] But Buchanan’s modern reputation arises chiefly from his Latin prose compositions, intellectual achievements which comfortably make him ‘by far the most radical of the Calvinist revolutionaries’; and these certainly do bear upon the Scottish encounter with neo-Stoicism. For whilst drawing together several older strands of political thought and subsequently giving rise to a deeply troubling libertarian tradition which was to have ramifications far into the modern period, Buchanan’s famous treatises also built prodigiously upon Stoical precedent. In doing so, they revealed just how fruitful could be the impulse within neo-classical authorship to promote a keener interest in certain aspects of Roman philosophical tradition.
« Nowhere was this connection more far-reaching than in the De jure regni apud Scotos dialogus (1579), the notorious tract which on its publication was dedicated by Buchanan, with characteristic lack of tact, to his own long-suffering pupil, the young James VI. The disturbing thrust of this text, essentially that tyrannical kings may legitimately be deposed by ther subjects, possessed an acute local topicality neither unintended by is author nor lost on his perplexed Scottish contemporaries. After all, the king’s mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, had been removed by her aristocratic enemies in just such circumstances – and Buchanan’s work itself was probably drafted in the later 1560s, in the immediate aftermath of this revolutionary event. Its eventual publication was also no coincidence of timing, for, by the later 1570s, her son too needed to be reminded of his dependence upon the support of his own politically-ambitious Protestant nobility.
« Such was the immediate context in which Buchanan’s explosive De jure regni first burst upon the public scene. Yet underlying its theory of resistance was a notion of popular sovereignty, of an elective Scottish monarchy dependent upon the consent of the political community, which, like the near-simultaneous claims of François Hotman in France (the Francogallia had in fact appeared in 1573), had very specific roots in ancient Roman philosophy. Indeed, in the form that Buchanan himself employed it, this idea was plucked straight from an impeccably learned classical text, Cicero’s De inventione.
« Pasquier, a liberal Catholic and admirer of Montaigne, promulgated a confident revisionism inserting arguments for governmental restraint and accountability culled from his own attentive reading of Cicero and Tacitus. François Hotman, Alciati’s successor at Bourges and a man of stronger Huguenot sympathies, advanced in Francogallia (1573) a theory of popular sovereignty and a right to resist tyranny indebted to his intimate knowledge of the legal and constitutional history of the Roman republic. Nowhere, perhaps, was the Stoical preoccupation with the timeless ethical and legal questions of public life rendered more significant in the second half of the sixteenth century than in furnishing the embattled Calvinists of Northern Europe with reputable arguments for active resistance to their autocratic persecutors.
« Buchanan also saw, secondly, that his didactic purposes required a rather fuller account of constitutional history. Not only would this help reinforce his somewhat questionable claim that Scottish kingship was elective in character. It would also provide the convincing details, which only a sustained analysis of real political action over time could hope to yield, of those particular aspects of monarchy which were to be admired and those which were at all costs to be avoided. These pressing requirements, too, were traceable directly back to the Stoical origins of Buchanan’s political thought. And soon after the publication of the De jure regni they gave rise to a final published work, an almost equally contentious prose tract, the Rerum Scoticarum historia (1582). A tendentious Latin history of the Scottish people and their government down the ages, this has become another key text to students of British and European political thought, further underlining how important was Buchanan’s achievement, most visibly seen in these two majestic late prose works, in introducing certain Roman philosophical ideas into sixteenth-century Scottish literature. (p50)
« Neither Buchanan’s importance in the development of neo-Latin poetic culture nor his specific influence in the expeditious transfer of philosophical Stoicism to his homeland can ever be overstated… Such connections also mark Buchanan out as the single Scottish author situated nearest to the cultural and physical centre of Europe’s gathering Stoic revival. »
~ Extracts from ‘PHILOSOPHY AND POLITICS IN LATER STUART SCOTLAND: Neo-Stoicism, Culture and Ideology in an Age of Crisis, 1540-1690’, by DAVID ALLAN (Tuckwell Press, East Linton, Scotland, 2000).
Confused
7 days ago
“Isn’t it a great thing that the good guys won every war in history, then wrote up honest accounts of it afterwards?”
– where would we be, otherwise?
we now have more of the anglo state religion, worship of the mythic past, washing yourself clean in the blood of your victims and dupes at the cenotaph; a country that has no future will spend its time living in the past.
I love the framing of these events, men who “gave their lives” (duped, coerced), in “conflicts”; a conflict is like an act of God, a random thing which just happened and we had to deal with it, but when you look at the wars and their causes, it really means : WARS WE STARTED. And it was all for “freedom”, which usually means – PROFIT, greed, LOOTING other peoples wealth.
a more accurate ceremony would go :
LET’S ALL LAUGH AT THE POOR DICKS WHO LOST EVERYTHING, IN WARS WE STARTED, JUST SO WE COULD MAKE EVEN MORE MONEY … ha ha ha … na na na
The anglo is a pirate, a thief and a murderer; the yank his tribute act. Don’t be fooled.
All served up with a sauce of hypocrisy; with the anglo – every accusation is a confession, every utterance a lie – “its alright when we do it” – “we are the good guys, honest”
gore vidal once said of his country, america – “we are always being attacked … then ending up with more territory”
– echoes good old britain, minding its own business, ending up with a quarter of the globe
we make a religion of pissing on the dead
Ian Brotherhood
Reply to Confused
7 days ago
A ‘different’ way to mark Remembrance Day might be to have our leaders assembled in a cinema where they’re shown All Quiet On The Western Front (the latest version). But the viewers at home don’t see what’s onscreen – instead we get close-ups of our leaders’ faces throughout.
Young Lochinvar
Reply to Ian Brotherhood
7 days ago
I think Kiplings – A Dead Statesman – captures it simply and best:
I could not dig, I dared not rob,
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue,
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among,
Mine angry and defrauded young?
Mia
6 days ago
According to the National, yet another two SNP politicians, one of them still an active councillor, saw appropriate to use time, while paid by the Scottish taxpayer, to campaign for the Democrats in USA.
And they say it as if it was something to be proud of.
” AT 7am on the day of the US election, ex-SNP MP Anne McLaughlin and SNP councillor Graham Campbell boarded a bus full of Democrats in Washington DC”
Published in “The National”, on Sunday 10 November 2024.
This is starting to look beyond active interference in other country’s democratic process and beyond incestuous (politically speaking), actually.
So we elect in Scotland individuals to represent our interests and work for us and instead, they travel to the USA to campaign for a political party in USA that has absolutely nothing to do with us. Talk about foreign interference.
The immediate question that springs to mind is: have the American democrats done the same by reciprocating and “campaigning” for their pals at election time in Scotland? How many of them have been directly interfering in our democratic processes and since when? Have the USA’s democrats and the USA’s deep state had anything to do with the conspiracy against Mr Salmond?
WTF is this? Is there any political party in Scotland at all that is not so far up the arse of USA’s Democrat party and USA’s deep state that they can still see the light and remember what their actual job is?
I am utterly disgusted by this two sided interference, actually and seriously wonder if it is USA’s deep state who has been governing Scotland since the political fraud took over in November 2014.
Alf Baird
Reply to Mia
6 days ago
Neo-Imperialism vs Nationalism is a global cultural battle.
The SNP (and other western countries Neo-Liberal leaderships) discarded nationalism in favour of neo-imperialism. Which explains why we are now saddled with the voodoo of woke and gender identity ideology instead of being an independent nation, and we remain exploited by external capitalism.
We have known since Roman times, if not before, that nations and hence national cultures, and yes, Nationalism and national identities, are the only ‘bulwark against Imperialism’ (Edward Said).
Nations therefore need to get their acts together to reject Neo-Imperialism. This means to put their own people and their own nation first, and to reject imposed and hence imperialistic cultural ideologies.
Southernbystander
Reply to Jay
6 days ago
It is odd that the obvious link between nationalism and imperialism is routinely ignored by Alf. Most imperialism is actually an extension of forms of nationalism. Neo-imperialism is a usefully vague term if you want to set up a battle between it and nationalism rather than show more concern about the clear causal links between the two.
Robert Hughes
Reply to Southernbystander
6 days ago
Tell that to the peoples of India , Africa , Vietnam , and every other country that threw-off the yoke of Colonial Imperialism . The only way these countries were able to achieve their Liberation was by creating a strong , unifying sense of National Identity , and winning the argument that they would be much better off taking back control of their own land and all the riches and resources therein . Q.E.D
Southernbystander
Reply to Robert Hughes
6 days ago
Not QED because those imperialists were plainly driven by nationalism too. How one actions the nationalist spirit varies but it can be as a form of aggression or defence against aggression. It cold be seen as a vicious circle. British nationalism (bad, imperialist) is oft cited on here in opposition to the Scottish variety (good and a defence against the Brit invaders). One could make very similar arguments for the history of R****a and several Eastern European countries.
Robert Hughes
Reply to Southernbystander
6 days ago
They may have been ” plainly driven by nationalism ” – at least they told themselves they were ; in reality they were driven by greed and the will-to-power involved in invading and taking over other countries : unless you’re trying to say , eg the * British * Empire was motivated by purely altruistic impulses , y’know , the myth of bringing * Civilisation * to the poor , benighted primitives
As James says …..Scotland has not the least interest in imposing it’s culture/value systems on anyone else . Scottish Nationalism has one goal and one goal only – the reclaiming of our status as an Independent Nation . Nothing more . Nothing less.
sarah
6 days ago
@ Mia at 13.44: “Anne McLaughlin and Graham Campbell boarded a bus full of Democrats…”
That must have been a nice change for them. The SNP circles the pair move in haven’t seen a democrat since 2014.
And how thrilled the USA Democrats must have been to have Graham Campbell in their midst. If ever there was a determined, capable, hard-working campaigner… er, no, it doesn’t fit, does it?
sarah
6 days ago
O/T Alex Salmond’s memorial service is to be on St Andrew’s Day in St Giles cathedral. I like the sound of that – a suitable place for the first person ever who has obtained a vote on the Union for the whole people of Scotland. No-one has done more or could do better than that.
Young Lochinvar
Reply to Republicofscotland
6 days ago
It seems to be a ready made billet for the politicos regardless of their CVs and history.
The SNP are a Devolutionist disgrace riding roughshod over their voters actual will..
Special place in hell and all that.
Meantime SHE who shall not be named is floating about making engagements for this and next year seemingly without a care in the world.
As SHE is still a person of interest in a quality polis Toshan investigation is that not a piece of misplaced over confidence or is it a case if insider knowledge insight??
Hmmmm..
Regardless, no matter “pals” wi’ Val SHE is now toxic and burnt toast to the independence supporting electorate..
Tick tock.
Dan
6 days ago
Over 5 hours of footage from Revive – Land Reform event in Perth.
There is some interesting stuff if you can thole wading through it all.
For me stand outs seemed to be the younger ones.
First session:
Dr Ruth Tingay, Raptor Persecution UK unfortunately highlighting yet more weak policy from Scottish Administration of Devolved Powers in the recently passed Act which looks to have allowed shooting estate legals to find loopholes.
Second session:
Pretty sure it’s Dr Josh Doble, Policy Manager for Community Land Scotland in green top of who seems well informed and good communicator.
Third session:
Copper haired Jenny Barlow, Estate Manager at Tarras Valley Nature Reserve also delivering an excellent segment on Langholm Community buyout.
An enthusiastic Robin McAlpine and Andy Wightman also adding to the mix and worth a view.
Horsebox Mike summing up was just meh whatevs, you’ve had over a decade to do something but achieved next to fuck all, and plenty folk leave and not hanging about to hear what he was saying.
Bottom line is that the past two land reform acts haven’t delivered any meaningful change due to lack of political will.
Tinto Chiel
Reply to Dan
6 days ago
Thanks for all that, Dan.
As far as the land question is concerned, the Scottish “Government” now seems extremely “relaxed” about the landed gentry. Remember the infamous photo of Wishart and Swinney hobnobbing with them in the deli in Dunkeld on the same day as Sturgeon’s infamous hoisting of the independence white flag in January 2020? I would call it the Benny Higgins Effect.
That was the day I finally realised the truth about the SNP.
It’s amazing how so many government acts have these strange loopholes which allow them to be undermined, be they on tax, land ownership or wild life protection.
You’d almost think it was deliberate.
Dan
Reply to Tinto Chiel
5 days ago
Sheesh Tinto! Jist one sensible response to a Land Reform post (with multiple potential points to pick up and discuss) on the most read Scottish political site…
I was out living and working on the land this sunny afternoon, looking out across the fields, woods, and hills, when I took a break from the tools whilst reviving an old tractor.
What came to mind as I mulled over the splendid autumn view, is that after getting cleaned up decent and spending over 5 hours getting a numb arse at the Revive event listening to around a dozen or so folk on the stage (many of whom will be getting paid for their jobs) asking the audience to engage with their online consultations so they can be more informed; It struck me that why are the audience the ones that have to make all the running for no remuneration for all the time it takes to submit information.
There were over 400 folk* in the audience, I think it’s safe to say that the accrued knowledge and life experiences of the audience is likely far greater than that of a small panel of folk.
Why are the panel not taking the lead and getting off their arses to come and speak to and learn from the individuals that have lived on and worked the land in ecologically and environmentally sound ways for decades.
Many of the older folk that have the knowledge and skillsets learnt and developed over decades do not have the time and energy, nor slick talk, nor IT skills to convey their highly valuable insights through online portals to those that want to create policies on such subjects.
Do these policymakers think they are some kind of unique trail blazers with this revive stuff? Many folk have actually been quietly getting on with living sustainable existences for decades.
I was asked to go to the event by someone who needed a companion because they’re having a hard time and lack confidence, but they still wanted to attend.
This person has already transformed a baron area of Scottish hillside into a fertile food producing bio-diverse haven.
They have experience and a proven a method that worked decades ago.
I visited the site a month or so back and came home with two of the biggest most tasty and juicy pears I have ever seen or eaten. The tree was absolutely hanging with fruits but I was on my motorbike so could only stick one in each pocket.
Unfortunately the individual after all they have done is currently being evicted from the site because the excessively landed have the power and the poor still have no lawyers…
It surprises me and I think it’s a major failing, that many of these paid policymakers aren’t actively seeking out and asking unique individuals that have already lived the life and walked the walk on this land way more than those that just talk the talk.
I simply don’t have time, energy, or communication skills to submit reams of useful accrued information to numerous groups that will undoubtedly filter it down or manipulate it to suit their own objectives. I don’t have time available because I am too busy dealing with many of the negatives of useless organisations and badly formed and rolled out policies and initiatives.
*It was remarked that the number of people in the hall was approximately the same number as that who own half of Scotland’s land.
Tinto Chiel
Reply to Dan
5 days ago
It’s quite dreadful that an innovative and skilful tenant can be evicted so easily but that’s the reality of the land situation in Scotland, I suppose.
Meanwhile, Danish billionaire Anders Povlsen now owns 220,000 acres in Scotland spread over 13 estates. Ironically, in Denmark a foreigner cannot own even one hectare of land, one of about a thousand reasons why independence is essential for Scotland, including the ability to control unbridled immigration.
As for your point about the undoubted practical expertise of local people, I doubt the many middle-class academics on panels and advisory bodies value the rural community much and probably think they have all the theoretical answers, although I can’t include the speakers at the Land Reform event since I wasn’t there.
Does the absence of Graeme McCormick at your event mean his Annual Ground Rent proposals are now dead in the water?
Dan
Reply to Tinto Chiel
5 days ago
Graeme was in the audience! Either by luck or mistake he got his hands on the microphone during one of the questions from the audience times, and let rip that what was being discussed was putting the cart before the horse, and went on to mention land taxation along the lines of his AGR proposal.
Seems to be a lot of faffing about and prevaricating on why things can’t be done because we don’t know who actually owns the land due to the smoke and mirrors methods utilised by landowners, companies, trusts, offshored or whatever.
His proposal blows all that stalling out the water because the land exists, and if we implement a land taxation system then owners will need to come forward and identify what they own or forfeit it.
Yak about property rights and ECHR rules came into play, but it was pointed out that Scottish Parliament have in the past already gone through supposed issues that were contrary to ECHR and won, for things like minimum pricing for alcohol. It’s just that there isn’t the political will with this crop of lame as grifters.
There were 3 MSPs contributing, Rhoda Grant Labour and Mairi Gougeon SNP by vid link, and Ariane Burgess in da house for Scottish Green Party. First 2 were boring uninspiring magnolia waffleyak, Ariane was just painful to listen to or follow what she was even on about with her machine gun wordspattering delivery.
This is all in the 5 hour vid.
Some almost comedy moments, “Off with their heads” was one response uttered from the audience on how to deal with arsey landowners.
Now I love my animals and wildlife, but I almost had a stroke when a pic of a beaver came up on the screen during Kirsty Jenkins’ segment.
She was taking about wild animals needing agency, not just as a collective but as individuals! Getting ahead of ourselves a bit seeing as Scots humans that will deliver this animal agency haven’t had agency ourselves in the form of a democratically elected government we voted for since the middle of last century!
I do get where she was coming from, but how could you ever begin to accurately represent the wonts and needs of beavers or any other wild animals as individuals or as a collective. They don’t even speak or enfranchised to get the vote! I was minded to shout “No representation without taxation!” but didn’t want to get caught on camera getting huckled out the venue.
Of course developing muckle rodent communication methods could be yet another taxpayer funded grift for yet another group to study and suck up more taxpayer funded gravy, but I suspect that may just be a road to far during these times of prolonged austerity.
I’d like to think there might be a smart enlightened beaver somewhere that could rise to a position of power and influence in the Scottish beaver world, and it might then say:
“Hey fellow brothers and sisters, maybe calm the fuck doon a bit on the shagging, procreation, and wanton destruction of quite so many trees and causing all manner of other issues. The humans (and particularly that cunt Dan that is always busy dealing with the endless shit you cause) are going to end up having to cull us unless you all chill the fuck out. Chew some rocks to keep your teeth a reasonable size instead of gnawing and dropping all the planet saving trees the taxpayer paid for.”
Young Lochinvar
5 days ago
I see the hardcore qwerties and coven cauldron stirrer Sturgeonites on the National are giving it a resounding yippee-Kay- ye on SHE who shouldn’t be nameds decision to stand for election at 2026.
Fuckwits, one and all, what does she have to do, burn their houses down before they realise she’s not who they dream she is?
Brahan Seer time; she’s toxic burnt toast now and the sooner her and her army of qwerty deviants, Politico cuckoos and parasitic winning team hangers-on are gone the better.
Better still; wind up the SNP as a self imposed disaster and move over (in the unlikely event they have any real interest Scotland Independence) and give other parties actually serious about it a go.
Or,
Are they just going to be as bad and we the people need to take matters into our own hands as having been let down by the political “class”..
Just asking..
Robert Hughes
Reply to Young Lochinvar
5 days ago
Rejoice ! Nikla has thrown her Ascot-On-Lady’s-Day flamboyant hat into the ring and fully intends to lose * her * Govanhill seat for Labour .
We can only imagine the backstage maneuvering going on as the Recently Slung vie for a place on the Flying ScotsThey/Them Gravy Express Train .
Republicofscotland
5 days ago
Flynn wants to take even big sups from the taxpayers gravy train. get the SNP and Greens out in 2026.
“Stephen Flynn has put himself forward to become an SNP MSP at the Holyrood election in 2026.
But the Nationalist leader at Westminster has said he does not plan to quit his current job as an MP if he’s successful.”
Astonished
4 days ago
The captured nuSNP will do nothing until Sturgeon, Somerville and the rest of the cabal are gone.
And there isn’t a single nuSNP MSP brave enough to stand up and protect the children.
Shame on them.
Lorna Campbell
Reply to Astonished
2 days ago
These girls will suffer appalling skeletal damage as they approach menopause, and, probably, well before that. Was reading the other day about corsets in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Post mortem of young women who died mysteriously showed spinal damage, broken ribs and punctured lungs. Eventually, that information led to the abandonment of such restraints. This delusion is so deep-rooted that not even medical information appears to stop it, not when schools promote it.
The hatred of the female, misogyny, is so profound that it borders on the insane, if not actually the very definition of mass insanity, just as we are witnessing in Afghanistan. The adult male paraphiliacs and fetishists have deliberately and cold-bloodedly used these young women and mutilated children as their human shield to pretend that threat are actually suffering from a form of ‘gender dysphoria’. Where sexual perversion and/or money are concerned, nothing stands in the way, not even sanity.
Confused by all this
4 days ago
All nusnp MSP’s fitted their spine and tongue binders when she/her took over and have been wearing them proudly ever since. Any dissent will only occur on loss of their gravy bus seat in 2026.
Shug
4 days ago
What gets me is the unionists in the parliament are not kicking this ball straight into the face of Swinney.
Why are they not challenging his government and indeed why are the SNP members around him not realising they are not challenging what is obviously wrong because they can see how it will land with the public.
Swinney will be tared with promoting or protecting the wrong just as he be will be tared for redacting the truth and being involved in the cover up of perjury and conspiracy to pervert the cours of justice.
A good chap brought down by the company he keeps and his inability to do the right thing.
twathater
Reply to Shug
4 days ago
WHIT? a good man , a fucking corrupt ,spineless, deviant and pervert supporting piece of faeces, nae wonder Scotland is in the state it’s in , there are still TOO MANY ex snp supporters and members grieving at the loss of their perty, what will it take for you people to realise that you’ve been used and abused by these scum
FFS how much money have you given to these LIARS and TR@ ITORS who have abused YOUR trust and made OUR COUNTRY a laughing stock
WHAT has spineless swinney ever done to make OUR lives better , even his first round of leadership had to be saved by Salmond because he was grossly incompetent , he is comparable to slippers pishfart both of them are clowns
I support independence unreservedly BUT I DESPISE political parties and lying troughing incompetent politicians , and the snp is infested with them
John C
4 days ago
A friends daughter (transman even though she’s 5 foot and clearly female) used binders before she had surgery. She has chronic back pain to the extent she needs sticks to walk.
She’s 24. Her body is wrecked, also as she’s on testosterone her system is also wrecked. I saw them both last week. He looked shattered and she’s incredibly surly so I can only imagine the hell he’s being put under.
It was LGBT Youth Scotland who helped her on this path of increasing disability not to mention her lifespan has decreased. Nobody will be held accountable when in a sane world LGBTYS members should be facing prison for abuse. My hope is some eventually do.
Reply to Mark Beggan
3 days ago
I work in a secondary school in a poor area. Trans is non existent. There are boys with long hair and girls with short without it being an issue.
The kids regard firstly as old hat but they have notice those who claim Trans status are attention seekers. They have sympathy for their plight but nothing else.
Trans is on borrowed time.
Lorna Campbell
Reply to Muscleguy
2 days ago
Indeed, Muscleguy, the younger ones do not adhere to this rubbish, and kids in working-class areas have more to worry about than delusions when the reality for them can be so much worse. Middle-class virtue signalling and mass social contagion married to deep-rooted delusion and/or neurodiverse conditions or abuse.
Ruby
4 days ago
Why has all this gone so far? Is it because most people like Alistair Campbell didn’t think it was an issue of any importance and women weren’t worth listening to?
Alastair Campbell is in the spotlight over women’s rights concerns and his, er, ignorance of the whole matter.
In a recent podcast episode, Campbell spent much time opining on the trans issue – first expressing surprise at how much gender ideology concerns were cutting through with voters before confessing himself that the pod’s dynamic duo had been advised by former diplomat James Rubin: ‘You guys don’t get just how big this woke thing is.’
JK Rowling said
‘All it took was some men to explain to Alastair what women have been telling him for years.’
I noticed quite a few months ago that men BTL on Wings didn’t get it.
Do they get it now or not yet?
Lorna Campbell
Reply to Ruby
2 days ago
Nailed it, Ruby. Too many men just do not get it or refuse to get it because the last thing that they want to engage with is the problems faced by women and children. It makes my blood boil because I know I would understand immediately if something similar were happening to men and boys.
These men are just ignorant or stupid or both, but the paraphiliac/fetishist men are the real cause of all this – they and their enablers, the sexologists like Ray Blanchard and J. Michael Bailey, and, of course, the money men behind them all.
Many men are notorious for not listening to female voices; they switch off when we speak or write, as men Kellie Jay Keen-Minshull has had to admit. I listened to a ‘trans’ woman recently who actually said: “I suddenly became stupid and the object of male bullying overnight after my transition”. Welcome to our world, mate.
It is probably the human race’s biggest tragedy and the one that will lead to our demise: the utter stupidity of not listening to half the human race. Not sucking up or anything, but the REV has always got it – and not just got it, but gets right to the marrow of it every time.
moixx
Reply to Lorna Campbell
22 hours ago
“…the REV has always got it – and not just got it, but gets right to the marrow of it every time.”
Very true. And it’s really important “to get to the marrow of it” because then the reader isn’t in any doubt what the writer is actually saying. If an article leaves you with more questions than answers, it’s maybe not doing a very good job.
For example, in his latest article Robin McAlpine examines the issues facing ‘the left’ and how to address them:
In it he acknowledges that:
“Identity politics is the gift that keeps giving to the right.”
Fair enough. But then he also says:
“I’m not saying this means the left needs to give up on trans-friendly policy…”
and also:
“On the contrary, I’m saying that whatever we want to do, we only do it if our mission connects with a lot of people.
If our mission is identity, we will keep paying the prices, because most people don’t want an identity-focussed mission, they want a life.”
Perhaps the aim of his article is more to ‘stimulate debate’ than provide answers. But at the same time he does give his own opinions, like when he says “The ‘progressive’ era must end.”.
What I’d really like to see from Robin McAlpine is his own ideas on what he means by “trans-friendly policy” and how he thinks it can be included without also continuing to be “the gift that keeps giving to the right”. From his article I suspect that he does ‘get it’ and has realised that it can’t be done, but maybe feels it would be too ‘authoritarian’ to say so without qualifying his position. Personally I think it needs to be said unequivocally and as often as possible and by as many people as possible.
Dan
Reply to Ruby
3 hours ago
“I noticed quite a few months ago that men BTL on Wings didn’t get it.
Do they get it now or not yet?”
Trying to rewrite history there… Name the blokes you are stating that don’t get it rather than falling into a trolling modus similar to the utterer of “the usual suspects”.
I’d proffer that pretty much all the blokes commenting btl on Wings completely get it and have done for many years, but are damned if they do and damned if they don’t state anything.
Because if they say nothing then the likes of you jump in stating they don’t get it and need to do more, and if they do say something then they are butting in to women’s issues with their male opinions.
You tried to instigate division of the sexes on the subject over this matter a few months back. You spent ages searching bloke’s posts to find snippets of text you could strip of context to twist and troll folk. It was so fucking obvious to many.
The commenters above can suck up to Rev all you like about him being on the money. But he and yourselves were nowhere to be seen in offering any support to the gender critical women that left male dominated Alba Party and actually stepped up to stand as independent candidates in the recent GE to try to begin to right the wrongs you all so regularly complain about.
So enjoy the lack of discussion on here now, because it was inevitably going to fall off a cliff with the relentless attempts to troll and cause division rather than build consensus.
The site also promotes the idea that “there’s nothing going on in Scottish politics” so why bother.
Plus the recent crap site “upgrade” makes following comment trails harder, with the addition of a shitey facebook style like or dislike function that shows just how pathetically small the site’s readership or reader engagement now is.
Alf Baird
Reply to Alistair
4 days ago
In colonial societies the elite is made up of two main groups (Memmi):
1. the colonizer/se***er, and;
2. the more culturally/language assimilated native, tending toward the bourgeoisie and privately educated who mimic and adopt the values of the colonizer in order to maintain their privileged position.
Hence there exists in a colony a cultural division of labour (Hechter) favouring the colonizer culture, language and values, and discriminating against the native, and his/her culture and language resulting in socio-linguistic prejudice and institutionalised racism.
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
Lorna Campbell
4 days ago
It’s the politicians’ hard drives that require to be examined, along with the heads of these idiots who fall for this utter bilge water.
I do not believe for one nanosecond that any of them except for the terminally insane believe in this nonsense, so what are they getting out of it?
The SNP and all the Unionist parties, the Greens, too. What are they getting out of it? Each of the parties is riddled with psychopaths and, probably, sadistic (s)peedos – oh, and drooling, idiot females who cannot think independently. Nothing else explains this stuff.
That it is a social contagion is so obvious, it is painful, but is it not the job of politicians to break these contagions when and where they arise?
The real problem is that Stonewall captured every public (and most private, too, now) sphere. Posts were established for those who make money out of the misery of others, and they become self-producing.
Sadism is the overriding factor. People abound in all the ‘trans’ groups, and among the politicians, who are sadists and who gain the greatest pleasure from the physical and mental torture of others, but mainly innocent children and teens. Sexual sadism. Foot-binding was sexual, too, aa well as ‘keeping women in their place’.
Among the parents are Munchausen’s by proxy individuals. All these mental illnesses would once have been seen for what they are, but, because they are wrapped up in ‘be kind’ and virtue-signalling self-righteousness, they pass under the radar.
The people who promoted that in that school are sadists who get enjoyment from torturing young girls. Maybe we should be looking at the simple explanations: sadism, deep-rooted sexual deviance, greed, keeping themselves relevant, circular jobs for the boys and girls, and last, but not least, the intoxicating power that it gives them, warped and stunted as they are, over others.
Jay
Reply to Lorna Campbell
4 days ago
”What are they getting out of it?”
The reasons which you set out seem eminently reasonable but someone, somewhere, pointed out that the QT (etc) policies are guaranteed, eventually, to provoke an adverse reaction and discredit the promoters including ostensible Scots Nats. That thesis also seems very plausible.
It seems clear-enough that British Agents have a record of tolerating appalling treatment of children and it could be inferred) employing abusers. Maybe that is a template.
Have we heard the name kincora?
Lorna Campbell
Reply to Jay
4 days ago
Jay, I would agree with both you and Alf, except that this kind of colonialism is male on female, in the main, the oldest colonialism on the planet, and England is just as much in thrall to this life-ending bilge water as anyone else – not quite as far down the rabbit hole as Scotland, and might make hay while the sun shines vis-a-vis Scotland, but the security services are not the root of this particular evil – and evil it is.
Jay
Reply to Lorna Campbell
3 days ago
Lorna, I agree with all your comments. The key concept is ‘power’, so far as I can see. The expropriating of it and its structuring and abuse create a parallel between colonialism/imperialism and patriarchal social systems.
‘Evil’ is not really part of my thinking but the word serves well to emphasise the appalling abuse perpetrated against immature persons.
The motivations of the more powerful people involved is nearly incomprehensible to me.
Lorna Campbell
Reply to Jay
1 hour ago
‘Evil’ is the only word that sums up what is happening, in my opinion. As for the very powerful, when you have exhausted all other means of stimulation for your jaded palate, children and animals are the last citadels to fall before your sadism and madness.
Listened to a police chap who was part of a vice operation. He stated that it was his belief that these people are addicts very much in the mould of other types of addictions, and they required ever more and ever greater stimulation to achieve the same level of satisfaction.
He also believed that many ‘paedophiles’ are not real paedophiles, but men, usually, who required the boundaries to be pushed to the absolute limits because the internet indulges every fantasy. They lived lives, he believed, of such over-indulgence that they had lost all moral core. I think power also operates in the same way, as does wealth.
willie
4 days ago
And meanwhile in the big world the ex prime minister is declaring that if president elect Trump decides to cut funding to Ukraine there will be nothing for it but British troops to go into Ukraine.
Seems like with all Sir Keir’s tax rises, benefit cuts, and the lurking plans to reintroduce conscription for all eighteen year olds it looks like Scotland has something else to give.
And give handsomely the Scots did in two world wars. Slaughtered in proportionally greater numbers than their English counterparts Scotland gave greatly of its sons. No different really from gas, oil, wind energy, a base for England’s nuclear submarine fleet, or the advanced reactor at Dounreay that the English government couldn’t get further from Scotland, Scotland has much to give. Just resources, to be taken and used, and we accept it.
And meanwhile our independence party in the pretend parliament in Edinburgh wastes it’s time on trans gender woke nonsense.
Ah how the donkeys bray the bray of the gormless. More glass beads for them.
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh
Reply to willie
4 days ago
From Tom Devine’s book The Scottish Nation 1700-2000:
“Of the 157 battalions which comprised the British Expeditionary Force, 22 were Scottish regiments […] The human losses were enormous and unprecedented. Of the 557,000 Scots who enlisted in all services, 26.4 percent lost their lives. This compares with an average death rate of 11.8 percent for the rest of the British army between 1914 and 1918. Of all the combatant nations, only the Serbs and the Turks had higher per capita mortality rates, but this was primarily because of disease in the trenches rather than a direct result of losses in battle. The main reason for the higher-than-average casualties among the Scottish soldiers was that they were regarded as excellent, aggressive shock troops who could be depended upon to lead the line in the first hours of battle.” (The Scottish Nation 1700-2000, by T.M. Devine. Published by Allen Lane The Penguin Press 1999. Page 309)
Tinto Chiel
Reply to Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh
4 days ago
Yes, an apposite quotation, that. Furthermore, Scotland’s War Losses by Duncan Duff (1947) gives a fuller picture of how Scottish troops were deployed and the disproportionate losses they suffered. The author was a ex-Cameronian and spent years researching the subject.
The book is quite hard to get nowadays, although it occasionally turns up in second-hand bookshops or even on A____n. The Electric Scotland website used to publish it but I was unable to find it there recently.
A taste of it can be had by the following quotation (page 57): “Scotland has never been regarded as an equal partner in the Union, but rather as a subject province, a reservoir of manpower which might be exploited to provide colonial pioneers and fighting men”.
Breeks
Reply to Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh
4 days ago
I wonder how the current war in Eastern Europe compares, with regards to casualties.
The wanton nature of the propaganda and wilful disinformation makes it incredibly difficult to calculate losses accurately, and the disparities between estimates are unhelpful to say the least.
However, if we take an estimated size of the “U” army as around 2.2 million men, then a death rate of (say) 25% is over half a million men, and some estimates put “U” losses considerably higher.
There are in fairness reports of comparable “R” losses, but results on the ground make this doubtful. There is a very clear victor emerging from the conflict, but even emphatic victory has a price.
Only history will reveal the true casualties, (maybe), but the loss of so many young men looks very ominous for “U”, and I suspect losses may even exceed World War casualty rates. This war has been catastrophic for “U”, with virtually nothing to show for countless billions sent in military aid except a lost generation.
The “R” forces have made mistakes, they have been ambushed when they were reckless or incompetent, and did at times surrender the initiative, Kursk in particular. But the same could be said for the Battle of the Bulge in 1944; all it achieved was a squandering of resources which hastened inevitable defeat.
I don’t wish to demean the casualties in any way, but for me, one of the most grotesque and unsettling features of the war has been brazen dishonesty of the Western media reporting lie after lie, after lie. Disgusting. Get these bastards in a dock. They have blood on their hands.
Robert Hughes
Reply to Breeks
4 days ago
” I don’t wish to demean the casualties in any way, but for me, one of the most grotesque and unsettling features of the war has been brazen dishonesty of the Western media reporting lie after lie, after lie. Disgusting. ” .
I couldn’t agree more , B .
And they’re still doing it .
When going to some of the ( honest ) podcasts I follow , on the sidebar there are * news * items by such paragons of truthful information as ,eg The Sun ; Times ; Mail as well as obviously Kiev produced items ; needlessly to say I never watch them , or , if I’m curious to see exactly what’s being said I may watch the first few minutes . Their titles , alone , are instantly recognisable as fiction
It truly is the most brain-crushingly crude/stupid and demonstrably lying garbage imaginable .
According to which , U are on the verge of totally destroying R ; P***n is cowering in a bunker pleading for mercy and the R Army is crumbling like sand castles in the rain . It truly is the stuff of adolescent comic book heroes fantasy . It would be laughable if it wasn’t the case that whilst such emetic propaganda is still being spewed-out on West MSM 1000s of human beings are still dying horrific deaths – and for what ; so the human filth that instigated this carnage , and who reside nowhere near the frontlines of death can save face , claim some kind of * victory * , deny the reality of absolute , abject defeat .
?Their mission to collapse the P***n Gov was insane from it’s inception , a product of supreme arrogance , and now , after the hubris comes the nemesis .
A spectacular , self-inflicted explosion of West stupidity has blown-up/away the credibility of N.A.T.O ; the equally gung-ho for slaughter E.U and every Western Gov that from day one joined the chorus of hypocritical outrage and refused , still refusing , to acknowledge that , like every other country – R has legitimate security concerns , and , rightly , it perceived , the US promoted expansion of NATO up to it’s border as a direct threat & provocation .
U.S toy – NATO , by it’s bad faith and wilful ignorance ( of others’ concerns ) has * achieved * the exact opposite of what it intended .
On the subject of how the entire West MSM is merely the propaganda wing of the array of despicable Govs ,focused on the really disgusting distortion of reality re the * trouble * in Amsterdam recently , Jonathan Cook , as ever , tells the truth and exposes the cowards in MSM who also know the truth but refuse to broadcast it for reasons we know all too clearly
link to jonathancook.substack.com
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh
Reply to Campbell Clansman
4 days ago
Your pedantry is sinister (and indeed rather sickening) in its evasion of substantive issues of such consequence. The key facts of course are:
1) James Wolfe was present at Culloden,
2) James Wolfe was in command over Highlanders in Canada,
3) the earlier posted words are indeed those of James Wolfe.
A few supportive references out of the many available (but of course you presumably know all this already):
« On June 9, 1751 in Banff, Scotland, [James Wolfe] was replying to a letter from a distressed friend in North America. … Wolfe spoke from experience. Just five years earlier, the upcoming and well-connected major serving at Culloden had witnessed the ferocity of the last Highland charge on British soil and had been on outpost duties ever since. Wolfe was convinced that the Highlanders, with whom he now played hide and seek in the Highlands, would make excellent irregulars to combat the Indians in the wilds of New Scotland. “I should imagine that two or three independent Highland companies might be of use,” he wrote. “They are hardy, intrepid, accustomed to a rough country, and no great mischief if they fall.” [Wolfe to Rickson, June 9, 1751, Banff, quoted in Beckles Wilson, The Life and Letters of James Wolfe (London: William Heineman, 1909), 139] »
(Ian McCulloch, Canadian Forces College, 2008)
——-
« In 1744 he [James Wolfe] was appointed captain in the 4th Foot and in 1745 he returned to England with the army withdrawn to deal with Prince Charles Edward’s invasion. In January 1746 he was present at the Hanoverian defeat at Falkirk (which inspired Duncan Ban Macintyre to compose his famous song). He was shortly afterwards made aide-de-camp to Lieutenant-General Henry Hawley. In this capacity he took part in the battle of Culloden (16 April 1746), and may or may not have refused to obey an order from William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, to shoot a wounded Highlander. Wolfe died due to fatal wounds received at the battle of the Plains of Abraham (1759) »
(‘General Wolfe at the Battle of Culloden 1746’, by Carmichael Watson, 2010)
——-
Another relevant snippet:
« The number of Highland Scots in the British Army in North America during the French and Indian War was significant — about a quarter of the force and a third of the officer corps. And they took a wildly disproportionate number of casualties. The Army’s casualty rate was 9 percent; the Highland Regiments 32 percent. »
(The Shock Troops Of The Empire, Jim Cornelius, 2021)
Robert Hughes
4 days ago
This , ie the subject of this WOS post , is how the Unionists will take control of Holyrood . That it is being promoted/financed by the SNPGov , without even a murmur of criticism by the rest of SNP shitebags , indicates to me that this is intentional .
The final , definitive destruction of the former ” Party of Independence ” is almost complete .
The fact that Labour and the other * main * Parties are just as bad is neither here nor there – the SNP are in government – have been for many years – a will carry the can for unleashing this harmful lunacy .
And deserve everything that’s heading their way
Republicofscotland
4 days ago
Utterly disgraceful – concerned parents should remove their children from this school immediately.
Meanwhile another treacherous troughing SNP b*stard wants his snout back into the gravy trough.
GET THE SNP AND GREENS OUT.
“A veteran SNP MSP who was forced to resign from the Scottish Government following an expenses scandal is hoping to stand again at the next Holyrood election.
Michael Matheson is understood to have submitted his application to party bosses ahead of a deadline this week. A decision on whether he will be approved as a candidate will be made next year.”
Garavelli Princip
Reply to Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh
2 days ago
I’m with Trump on this (never thought I would write those words). Except for one thing: The ‘gender insanity’ as with all the ‘woke’ and other identity politics bollocks is NOT “left wing”. It is the antithesis of Left Wing.
It was a ploy dreamed up by right-wing think tanks to re-channel the righteous and justified anger of the victims of neoliberalism away from the true-source of their discontent – the mega-rich plutocracy that funds these very same think-tanks.
It was based on the post-structuralist ‘philosophies’ of the likes of Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jean Baudrillard and Gilles Deleuze – mainly apostate Marxists who rejected class-based analysis and invented such nonsense as “there is no objective truth” – and that “nothing is real and nothing can be verified”.
These new-found beliefs – which were seized upon by the Plutocrat apologists did not make them poor!
Thus, the meaning of ‘Progressive’ was re-directed away from class-based (socialist) collective action towards identity-based so-called ‘progressive’ action that drove the challenges away from the true proper target of justified anger- the plutocratic oligarchs and their bought-and-paid-for pseudo academic apologists – and instead sought to channel discontent towards introspective ‘self-realisation’.
Hence alphabet soup, science-denial (that suits the fossil-fuel lobby) and biological absurdity, that plays into the interests of Big Pharma that is rapidly running out of lucrative drug-targets for real disease. New ‘diseases’ (such as those ‘requiring’ gender-reassignment need therefore to be invented (I write as an academic biologist).
Trump is either being used, (or is playing a sly game). This is not a fight for the “little-man” – it is rather a proxy battle between two competing wings of the ruling class, Big Finance and Capital. On the one side Wall Street and the old Corporate monolith (who supported Harris and the Democrats who live in their non-reality based belief system – see above ) and on the other the Cryptocurrency disrupters and the tech oligarchs – who broadly support Trump. Hence Musk, Bezos et al supporting Trump.
In the end only the ruling class wins, and ordinary people on both sides of the Atlantic remain fucked ( and possibly immolated ny thermonuclear war and/or climate disaster.
We need somehow to get back to objective reality.
I doubt we can!
Robert Hughes
Reply to Garavelli Princip
2 days ago
Excellent post , GP .
You’ll have noticed how the ” Progressives ” are now getting EVERYTHING wrong . In the U.S & Europe the adherents of that ideology – ” Progressive Politics ” – are consistently making the wrong choices , backing the wrong causes and getting their arses kicked for their harmful uselessness .
Check the dafties in SNP/Labour n the rest jumping on the ” Trump must be defeated ” Prog bandwagon n then having to eat crow when the horse they backed was exposed as a donkey .
Their once silver moon is definitely waning . But what’s waxing may be a black moon of Trumpian Hyper-Capitalism : and no real interest in making the World more peaceful & healthy . Just switching their Theatre of Operations to wherever they think their main interest ( ie Capital ) lies .
” In the end only the ruling class wins, and ordinary people on both sides of the Atlantic remain fucked…”
Absolutely .
Republicofscotland
2 days ago
So Grangemouth Refinery will close on May next year – Scotland – a country rich in oil and gas and it won’t have a refinery – slowly but surely the Scottish government (SNP), are reducing Scotland to a region of the UK, our Mayor Swinney, has already accepted role his in the UK, and Westminster will be very pleased at that.
wull
Reply to Republicofscotland
2 days ago
Couldn’t the Scottish Government find a way to take the refinery over? Even by a compulsory purchase order. Not to run it themselves, which would be totally beyond their highly limited capacities. Even only to keep it in good nick, for potential future use. Even if an attempt to take it over finally failed, or is bound to do so, the publicity it would generate would highlight the seriousness of the issue. That in itself would do a lot of good for the cause of independence, demonstrating why it is both necessary and pressingly urgent that we govern ourselves.
OK – I forgot that the current Scottish Government, that is the SNP, has no interest whatsoever in gaining independence, or in highlighting any such issue. Which pro-independence party will pose the question, and take the matter up?
Alternatively, have some pride. Forget linking independence to oil revenues, or any other particular source of wealth. Start wanting freedom for its own sake, and for our own self-respect. That might be better for everyone. It would even save England from its own folly of continuing to consider itself ‘a great nation’, of great importance on the world scene, when it is obviously neither of these. Your time is up, John Bull, bring in the rowing boat.
Republicofscotland
Reply to wull
2 days ago
The SNP don’t actually give a toss – though to fool the masses they use prepped speeches and sound bites – that come across as though they care, and the foreign media in Scotland broadcasts that right into your front room.
All the matters to the SNP is staying in power – making a good living – and keeping the status quo in place, oh and implementing their own policies and agendas.
The last decade has clearly shown us this.
Graf Midgehunter
Reply to wull
2 days ago
Wull.
“Couldn’t the Scottish Government find a way to take the refinery over?”
—————-
Yes Wull they could. There are many ways to do that. Some easier, some more difficult.
But, but, but the SG/SNP has no intention or interest in doing so.
You can have the finest arguments at your disposal, but, if the government of Scotland consists of knee-crawlers to London, then anything you ask for will be strangled at the beginning.
Republicofscotland
2 days ago
Meanwhile one of the Mayor of Scotland’s SNP sidekicks “Health Minister” Neil Gray has apologised for his jaunts in ministerial cars (paid for by the taxpayer) to footie matches – Gray even admitted taking a family member in the cars to the footie matches.
Gray added, taking family members to the footie matches in the same car – didn’t cost any extra to the taxpayer – phew! that makes it perfectly alright then.
Come back Michael Matheson – all is forgiven.
Get these troughing treacherous b*stars out of office come voting time.
Neil Gray apologises for ‘giving impression’ of acting more like a football fan than minister
sarah
2 days ago
O/T. Several different items have shown that despite our politicians, there are some reasons not to despair about our cause.
1. Eva Comrie wrote yesterday “There will be a Summit”. She was talking about the desire for independence, the need for it, and the uselessness of our politicians. So I take it that there is to be a meeting of the various independence campaigning organisations. It can’t happen soon enough.
2. Liberation Scotland signatures have increased by several thousand recently.
3.Ewen Kennedy’s article “Some Comments on the Treaty of Union” [on Barrhead Boy and others] is a clear statement of how he views the legal status of the Union. Happily he does think that a route to independence does lie through the UN via the international law on the right of self-determination. The 2014 referendum was useful in that it was yet another example of the UK recognising that Scotland has a right of self-determination.
Republicofscotland
1 day ago
Don’t expect the Mayor Scotland (Swinney) or his Vichy government or the Fifth Columnist parties at Holyrood to even mention this let alone kick up a fuss about it.
The Yanks and Westminster can do whatever they like in Scotland with almost impunity – and Scots will take it.
“THE US Navy is set to base spy aircraft in Scotland, triggering alarm with campaigners.
The move represents a first since the Cold War, with Poseidon P-8A anti-submarine aircraft soon to be based at RAF Lossiemouth in Moray.”
US Navy to base spy aircraft in Scotland for first time since Cold War | The National
Republicofscotland
1 day ago
What a fuckin surreal world we live in when the king of England turns up to visit a food bank in England in a half – a – million pounds bulletproof Bentley – and he then proceeds to take a tour of the food bank.
This scrounging b*stard has never know any form of hardship and he never will – to think Scots are helping to pay for his, and his parasitic family’s upkeep – whilst thousands of Scots kids go hungry – its a f*ckin disgrace.
Dr Iain Overton (@iainoverton): “How one should arrive at any food bank.” | nitter.poast.org
twathater
Reply to Republicofscotland
10 hours ago
What would be KARMA is for one of the disgruntled staff being made redundant to become a whistleblower to EXPOSE the CORRUPTION and LIES that has been taking place over the last 10 years of Sturgeon’s, Yuseless, and Swinneys incompetence and mismanagement , one of the first things that they could expose is WHERE is the £600,000+ money that was donated and ringfenced for a independence referendum
Another avenue of interest is WHERE is ALL the very EXPENSIVE technical equipment and computer systems that cost a fortune, who bought them ,how were they paid for, who used them and where are they now
I would presume that the redundant employees would only be paid the bare redundancy terms and conditions which in this day and age is meagre and insulting , I would not like to be looking for employment in the current economic climate or paying a mortgage on a newly purchased home that was bought on the basis of ongoing employment promised at interview, and having the added burden of the most expensive energy costs in Europe especially in winter in Scotland
TBQH I would feel extremely outraged at the thought of being made redundant through no fault of my own , especially when the clowns and imbeciles that caused my misery were still being paid £70,000+ for causing the collapse of the membership and their fees which paid my salary, IF these clowns and imbeciles had done what the voters had wanted them to do INDEPENDENCE, instead of wandering aimlessly down deviant and perverted avenues ,I would still be gainfully employed and comfortable
Instead I will be unemployed and suffering extreme hardship and probably cannot not pay my mortgage whilst the hierarchy can go out and purchase £100,000+ motorhomes , expensive high end cars ,driving lessons and a 2 car family, holiday homes abroad and additional homes in Scotland
I would feel very aggrieved that having kept loyal and silent on the whole mismanagement of what was a very successful ,popular and rewarding political party that THEIR incompetence LIES and stupidity has led me to become unemployed,frightened of the future, and possible bankrupcy
REVENGE is a dish best served COLD.
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