I have no sympathy at all for anybody who voted No on the grounds of the pledges by Brown, Miliband, Cameron and Clegg about constitutional change, and is now whingeing about the blatant dishonour of those pledges. I cannot understand how anybody could be so stupid as to have believed them, and yet have a brain capable of sparking respiration.
Labour is interested in losing no influence of Scottish Labour MPs on any UK or English matters. It wants greater powers to English metropolitan councils which are controlled by Labour – because that will give Labour careerists more jobs and access to contracts. Those are Labours “constitutional reform” goals. The Conservatives “constitutional reform” goals are to keep Scotland’s tax on oil revenues and tax on whisky coming to Westminster, while loading greater responsibilities but no more money on the Scottish parliament, and stopping Scottish MPs voting on English matters thus guaranteeing conservative apparatchiks continued jobs and access to contracts.
Both Tories and Labour want to keep the appalling corrupt and undemocratic House of Lords for its jobs for apparatchiks, access to contracts etc.
Nobody cares what the Lib Dems think anyway.
I ask again – what did you expect?
This is the collective wisdom of Andy Myles and myself, over an excellent mackerel breakfast at Nom De Plume.
Baal
Sure it’s easy to spout stuff about self important yet indulgent socialists. Had nothing to do with what I am trying to say.
An attempt to produce a national newspaper in the market place will fail. They always have before. Any such attempt is fighting on the enemies terms and will fail.
Also a small professional media class will always be subject to the distortions that corrupt the current class.
Sure you want to win over the 55% who still suck up the establishment media. Well isn’t that transition well under way with blogs. I see nothing a national newspaper can add to the current format of blogs and donations buttons.
Why not build on this diversity of opinion rtather than run in the opposite direction that has failed people for so long. The idea of capturing the current popular pollitical involvement with an outdated centralised, corrupted model is ridiculous.
That was satire Mary? For once I wish diplomats were this honest. It would be refreshing.
‘I’m not some kind of* dreamy hippey’
But better at visual stuff than writing.
Ishmael
“Mostley “community projects” just got 45% of Scotlad to vote for indipendence.”
Exactly!!
Republic of Scotland writes:
‘Jack Straw putting forward a proposal, albeit opinion, that now No has won the referendum, there should be no more Scottish independence referendums ever again, straw wants the same format as say India and the USA, that secession should be illegal.’
———————————————
Hmmm. Wouldn’t you need another referendum to pass a proposal like that?
More than half of the Scots who can actually be bothered to vote did not want independence. Fight(back) them? Don’t be absurd They’re your countrymen. Find the best possible way of persuading then otherwise.
It’s not negativity to point out that the best possible way does not consist of a volunteer community radio station. And that thinking bigger is not necessarily selling out to the machine.
If it seems to you ‘it took a lot of independence, action and confidence to do what people did in Scotland’, I fully agree. It also took a lot of hot air and wishful thinking, admit it. Forget that. Carry on with the independence, action and confidence, and focus it on getting a coherent message across to the half that couldn’t hear it.
Ishmael
“Thinking about it, What’s govenment partys but large community projects…?”
For me the word “large” is the key. Large requires management, bureaucracy, centralisation. Large empowers the few and becomes a focus of competition for power in itself.
Ishmael
“I’m not some kind “dream hippey””
Don’t worry. Neither am I mate. As Baal well knows. He threw that sub-standard paragraph in just to reinforce his nasty reputation. Don’t be offended.
I was just thinking, you don’t do these things knowing you will ‘win’. I don’t care of you do start something (though id be glad to input)…
I’v got to do something anyway, and I will do more stuff because it matters to me. I could care less nowadays considering overall aims and effects. Maybe we can’t ‘save the world’ but we can help ourselves and some around us.
There are tons of respected project people started. And I hold many in the highest regard having benefited enormously from them. In fact I think we all have. Mabye they are the only kind of action that got us any rights and freedoms.
Baal
“And that thinking bigger is not necessarily selling out to the machine.”
Yes it is exactly that. It is playing by the rules of the enemy.
Decentralised non-professionals have empowered the Scottish revolution so far. Why try to divert that power into an old, centralised, outdated model that has always failed before?
Phil:
An attempt to produce a national newspaper in the market place will fail.
Yes. We’re not talking about a newspaper, though. Newspapers are a well-known declining sector. Internet startups are difficult but can succeed. Online retailing is carving big holes in the traditional sector – you’re selling a product. Sorry about the marketing bollocks, I hate it too, but this is how the faceless mob you are trying to convince buys its groceries, its opinions, its vehicles…branding and exposure.
Also a small professional media class will always be subject to the distortions that corrupt the current class.
Pay them enough and you can distort them any way you like. They’re whores for hire. Not that that matters unduly – there’s plenty of talented unknowns out there, just dying for a start. In something credible that looks better on their CVs than the Auchtermuchty Community Arts Project. The uni media departments are pumping them out, poor things. They don’t want to stack shelves for ever.
Sure you want to win over the 55% who still suck up the establishment media. Well isn’t that transition well under way with blogs. I see nothing a national newspaper can add to the current format of blogs and donations buttons.
No. Blogs preach to the converted, of whatever faith. The unconverted are playing [insert current mindless video game here] or trolling blogs of the opposite opinion. No conversions take place. For newspapers, see above.
Why not build on this diversity of opinion
Good idea. This can be a forum for people to knock each others’ ideas down and maintain their diversity of opinion. Or one in which the diversity is eroded, bit by bit, reasonably ethically, even, until people start joining the independence camp.
Your choice. I’m English. Over and out.
PS –
Decentralised non-professionals have empowered the Scottish revolution so far.
I’m sure Alec Salmond would be very hurt to hear himself described thus. My belief is that the possibility of independence would have crashed and burned in Blair’s first term if he hadn’t stepped up to the plate. BTW calling it a revolution isn’t going to make you many friends among the Scottish businesses you will need to recreate the economy, either. Get real. Get cynical. Get crafty. Real world out.
Baal
Come on. I thought you were smarter than resorting to meaningless claims to represent the “real world” as an argument.
You seem to have such fixed ideas ba’al, you seem to have everything well mapped out.
Narrow thinking to enlarge the big idea you must have about yourself? How about answering (directly) some of the replies rather than starting you own pontification again.
You seem just like a politician, off on your own track to avoid addressing points made. Seems stupid coming here with such an outlook. Clearly your ideas aren’t growing or changing.
Ангрысоба
21 Sep, 2014 – 3:28 am
“I very much disagree with just about everything Mary posts, and to call her politics bonkers is probably too kind…”
————————————————
Ангрысоба, I agree very much with what Mary has to say (although not everything) so perhaps that puts me in the same category as “politically bonkers” but, as we know here. trolls never explain in detail what they mean or back up what they say.
Perhaps you can explain what you mean by”…to call her politics bonkers is probably too kind…” when other posters here may have similar political ideas?
Baal
“I’m sure Alec Salmond would be very hurt to hear himself described thus.”
Salmond himself does not even make the claims for him that you do. He seemingly proudly acknowledges the diversity of the yes campaign.
Semms to me Life is pretty fluid, more so for the ones telling us what we can do and how things will be. They often have very few rules. But insist, time and again the rigid nature of things.
It’s not so, it’s never been so. Some maybe truly feel they know, but all they see is what’s in there head about it. An ordered perception that obviously corresponds to the labels they put on everything.
But anyone with eyes open can see reality, and the gaping holes in reasoning. We all have them. It’s just some obviously don’t think they do. Maybe they feel they should rule the world or something.
Mr Scorgie (to Angrysoba)
“Perhaps you can explain what you mean by”…to call her politics bonkers is probably too kind…” when other posters here may have similar political ideas?”
__________________
Well, one easy example would be the way in which she appears to judge every political (and public) figure by whether she believes they are raving Zionists as she might put it. Or even by whether they believe that the State of Israel has the right to exist.
There again anyone remotely familiar with the modus operandi of the these supremacist trolls, can discern these simply from their monikers!
The hive mentality that these supremacists trolls have been weaned in, yields the standard preamble of “angry”. Funny that seventy years after the event and many millions of the Arab dead these “angry” cretins are out to avenge the fabled wrong the had befallen the other members of the tribe, in the way, way, way past!
Throughout the transactions on this blog and elsewhere these miscreants are afforded exceptional leniency and wide latitudes for their racist, supremacist drivel, that somehow is also supported by the so called “liberal” (UK definition and not the US epithet) contributors, whom in turn will blissfully go on to attacking the Muslims for their (perceived) religious “imperatives” without any irony.
The pernicious racism poisoning this blog and the rest of the media is never the point of any debate, so long as the “Jews” are not attacked ll is well, and no racism has been committed.
Such is the “sane” outlook, so long Jews are praised and celebrated in every given moment, those genuflecting have a free get of jail card to assail the blacks, browns, the Muslims, sure in the knowledge that they will not be classed as racists!
And another (albeit minor) example – but indicative of her mindset – is the way sge characterises the Royals as parasites because they never do an honest day’s work (as she would probably put it – perhaps has even put it) but then bitches on when Prince Harry gets a job with air-sea rescue (“he’s stealing some one else’s job, bwahahaha”)
This is the current day version of the “inquisition”!
No longer any question with respect to belief in trinity is the subject of the inquisition, but the belief in; “State of Israel has the right to exist”.
And a third, more general example – also indicative of her mindset – is when she said that she loved the British but hated their institutions, politicians ans the way British society works – without of course ever suggesting better alternatives……
Bwahahaha, etc…
Fedup
You seem upset, but, like Mary so often, you have not made your position clear in your “comment”.
So you believe Israel has the right to exist?
(NB to Mr Scurgie – please let Fedup answer for himself for once! 🙂 )
As per 1948 borders only!
Without any of the nuclear, thermonuclear ie atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs, or having the tonnes of free ordnance, and all the weapons systems that can be freely afforded to that entity by its bought and paid for corrupt supporters!
Television and radio, for most people are used, even by thinking, switched on people, to temporarily switch themselves off, for entertainment, for comedy for drama. I never watch TV hardly, and never to live radio, but to mp3 encodes of programs downloaded from usenet, timeshifted, sometimes a few days, sometimes stuff from decades past. It has become impossible for me, no doubt for many others now to switch off in that way. I used to be a fan of Radio 4’s output, comedy programs and the odd Afternoon or Friday/Saturday Play, but not any more, not for some time, as even the comedy, even amongst the alternative or slightly radical figures, is tightly constrained and the plays too just propounding tired orthodoxies. Schoolyard jibes, the News Quiz is an example, the panels packed with with reactionary right-wing gits, three to one demoralised, depressed Jeremy Hardy or Mark Steel. The three to one ratio is exactly how political discussions are held on Scottish political matters, three unionists, to one independence supporter, who is shouted down by the other three and by the inquisitor conducting the charade.
Even if there were political pro-democracy, pro-independence outlets, few, even among the committed, would make or could find the time to listen to them, the tightly-controlled media we have did not get where they are today by admitting rivals or rival views to the club. Either we decentralise the BBC, or abolish it, it is the problem in Scotland. When I said earlier about the young-old argument in voting patterns, it is a reasonable assumption to make, though theres no concrete evidence, but a flaky poll and on the understanding that the older people were scared witless with no justification, by the BBC news output.
I pity England’s voters they have even less choice between three parties all joined at the hip, none of us have democracy, and the chances of attaining it are receding.
Bit of a rambling post, I’m cooking dinner and have to bolt, so apologies for any typos and stuff, I haven’t read through it and must go.
Do you believe in
trinityzionistan’s right to ….?Pathetic!
“Even if there were political pro-democracy, pro-independence outlets, ”
The two would be mutually exclusive.
We had a ballot, the majority were anti-independence, they couldn’t be both.
The nice thing about being a Socialist Rather Than a Dictator is That You Socialise and Meet Other People who sometimes have completely different views and you talk to them face to face and find some common ground..and sometimes it is really funny…sometimes you want to hit each other at first glance and first reaction..but you communicate and wind each other up..you are playing a game..to score brownie points…was I even funnier than him at portraying the real base issue..whatever it is..we get to the core of the issue and make examples of it..as funny as you can get….And instead of Fighting We Can’t Stop Laughing..and I say Can Buy You a Drink Mate…He Says…Nah Mate Please..Please….Have Mine
What Would You Like?
Tony
P William not the psycho Harry took the pilot’s job.
Desist from discussing me as if I am invisible. In any case nobody is the least interested in your opinion. What you think of me is irrelevant and off topic.
It’s never been relevant to the topic what you think of Charles Crawford – so please lay off that in future too