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.
Thanks for reminding us of the troughing Ba’al and RoS, todays news is that a survey of the student union regards their current voting preferences found that the 50% that voted for them in 2010, has now shrunk to 5%.
Good
The NUS poll places the Lib Dems firmly in fourth place with half as many votes as the Greens would receive, they tie with the Conservatives on 10 %, which is encouraging.
Further, the real double blow is that their own membership is leaving them for the Greens, accroding to the Independent survey some 12% with another 9% joining UKIP, bless.
times are changing down south….:)
“Ad nausseum Fred, ad nauseum, you are the biggest nationalist here and you can’t see it.”
Fuck off
I got good news for you Fred, I will be assisting any Independent candidate that dares to stand against the scum you supported, so fuck you ten times, laddie, bend over you waste of space.
Nevermind.
The Lib/Dems are in Glasgow till Wednesday, they’re an arrogant bunch of tossers, I’ve seen them in the hotel the Crown Plaza,drinking into the wee small hours as I drive by.
I also heard that Beaker aka Danny Alexander may make a play for leadership if the 2015 GE pushes their vote way down.
Also apparently a security guard, was sacked for asking Nick Clegg for his pass.
True, Ba’al, humans don’t work that way, not if the state is allowed to engineer them to its liking.
Not ever, for any length of time. (Re?)-read Animal Farm. When “the people” become a state, the scum rises to the top once more, and agreed rights evaporate. The scum may be different scum, but they rise similarly, by dispensing with principle. And the scum will always be with us – assertive, confident, not too bothered by skirting any laws going if that gets them what they want, and sufficiently shallow to regard making money as an end in itself. Eton’s full of them. And so is Pentonville.
I wish I thought differently.
Manuka honey is good for the flu. Take a spoonful every few hours. Get well soon Craig.
@Bird Poop, aka, Guano
Canspeccy
“Lying hate speech”
It takes one to know one.
That’s a childish response with no logical force whatever.
The fact is, in calling me a racial supremacist, Tony M engaged in lying hate speech. That is to say his assertion was a lie, as is evident from the fact that, like you, he has no evidence whatever, and it is a thoroughly hateful lie.
Think about it: where does all your own lying hate speech originates from?
Perhaps you and Tony M are the same person, or the same semi-intelligent meme-bot. Certainly you engage in the same hateful lies.
But you do give a clear idea of the character of Craig Murray and his blog. Murray going so far, in this post to engage in crude irrrational hate speech directed at people who don’t agree with him on the desirability of Scotch “independence,” which actually means Scotch subservience to the globalist institutions, including the EU and NATO.
We have an oxbridge alliance of the biggest liars and manipulators known to man, accusing their biggers and betters around the world of crimes, while they themselves use every devious means to pursue their disgusting outdated imperialism.
Scottish voters apparently voted for them. They are the same as them.
So now you’re upping the ante and calling the majority of Scots, the people who voted for maintenance of the Union, worse than Nazis.
It’s not worth arguing about. It’s just pathetic.
But here’s the reason I say, as someone with as much right as Craig Murray to call myself Scottish, why Scotland should remain part of the UK.
The real struggle is to escape the grip of the globalist bastards who wish to destroy every nation state and subordinate the people of Scotland and everywhere else to globalist institutions. But then Craig Murray is a globalist, so it would be crazy to expect any sense on the subject of national independence here.
“Fred’ I know you picked up jury-pools as candidate selectors. Any thoughts?”
I suggested them for a second chamber, a replacement for the House of Lords which would just be there to prevent unreasonable, undemocratic or unconstitutional laws being passed.
In Britain there is a legal term “The Man on the Clapham Omnibus” which refers to a fictitious normal, reasonable sane average person. They would be there not to pass legislation or govern the state but just represent the interests of the man on the Clapham omnibus.
Fred
Does your master Henry Dunbar know you frequent independence themed blogs such as Craig’s, if he did he’d give you the finger across the throat routine, you’re a naughty boy Fred.
Here’s another of your buddies Fred enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aK21p8NEL8Y
” would just be there to prevent unreasonable, undemocratic or unconstitutional laws being passed.”
So they would have a kind of filibuster power? Wouldn’t those folks have to be educated in some way. I don’t want a plumber fixing my electrical issue.
Israeli government promotes rape advocate as expert on Palestinians
___________________________
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in the United States for the UN General Assembly on Sunday, the Israeli government press office emailed journalists a list of supposed experts to contact on various issues related to his visit.
All those listed hail from the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University, a hotbed of right wing nationalism in Israeli academia.
Appearing twice on the Israeli government-approved list is Mordechai Kedar, a professor of Arabic literature at Bar-Ilan University who recently advocated for the Israeli army to use rape as a tool of war.
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/israeli-government-promotes-rape-advocate-expert-palestinians
Fred, usually I don’t stoop to address vile spammers like you but your foul mouth is really too objectionable. You should be banned. I really try not to notice your infantile low and rude ad hominem attacks but sometimes unfortunately my eyes catch the odd expletive and I find myself wondering how anyone can have such low self esteem to shamelessly use such bad language. You should be ashamed of yourself. You are really beneath contempt. I doubt you have any love in your sad life or even any friends. I hope Craig will ban you for your foul mouthed rants. The word cretin springs to mind, and describes your lack of vocabulary adequately. You have nothing to teach except by default, how NOT to write posts.
Although the Referendum had a stellar turnout, wasn’t that unusual? People (voters) should feel empowered, but the apathy in the US is due to a feeling their vote doesn’t matter. Every vote matters. They need to have congress with the workings of the process before they will feel any ownership.
“I got good news for you Fred, I will be assisting any Independent candidate that dares to stand against the scum you supported, so fuck you ten times, laddie, bend over you waste of space.”
All I supported was the wishes of the majority of Scots. The people of Scotland.
“Fred, usually I don’t stoop to address vile spammers like you but your foul mouth is really too objectionable. You should be banned. I really try not to notice your infantile low and rude ad hominem attacks but sometimes unfortunately my eyes catch the odd expletive and I find myself wondering how anyone can have such low self esteem to shamelessly use such bad language. You should be ashamed of yourself. You are really beneath contempt. I doubt you have any love in your sad life or even any friends. I hope Craig will ban you for your foul mouthed rants. The word cretin springs to mind, and describes your lack of vocabulary adequately. You have nothing to teach except by default, how NOT to write posts.”
Fuck off and die retard.
The headlines are full of news about Ebola, and there’s a very valid reason for that. The illness presents in a gruesome, bloody fashion best suited for a horror movie. But while America’s attention is on a disease in which there is only ONE confirmed case in the country, there have been 538 cases of Enterovirus D68, 5 deaths, and 10 cases of paralysis.
The enterovirus is an illness that is passed on like the flu or the common cold, and there are millions of cases per year, according to CDC estimates. However, there are hundreds of strains and this one – EV-D68 – is incredibly virulent.
Last week in New Jersey, a little boy died suddenly, with no previous signs of being ill. He just went to bed and never got up. A week later, an autopsy confirmed that he had died from Enterovirus D-68. This went all but unnoticed by the media as the nation focused on the single case of Ebola in Dallas.
_______________________________
I hadn’t heard of his virus until now.
http://www.theorganicprepper.ca/are-we-worrying-about-the-wrong-virus-10052014
“So they would have a kind of filibuster power? Wouldn’t those folks have to be educated in some way. I don’t want a plumber fixing my electrical issue.”
They would be able to veto any laws they considered were not in the interests of the state. They wouldn’t need to be particularly well educated, they would be there to represent the average man. They would be assisted and advised by professional civil servants. Not being able to pass laws, only prevent them with the backing of the people, they wouldn’t be able to do any damage, just prevent damage being done.
” just prevent damage being done.”
Sometimes vetoes do damage. The middle-men (civil servant advisors) would be advising as to procedure/protocols or giving advice on the proposed legislation’s merits/demerits?
“All I supported was the wishes of the majority of Scots. The people of Scotland.”
Thanks to MBC and others here, we know that this suport came from many elderly, other immigrants to Scotland, scared witless by Gordy, Ed, Nick and Dave, not just you. Those who could not see past their genetically ingrained voting habits the political party system instilled in them.
There was nothing nationalist about a vote for Independence, nothing at all, not to say that in future this might change after the display of the political parties all agreeing with each other, how twee, now they are at each others throat until May next year.
The blether of devo max will disappear in media trivia and non sensical electioneering, will be no more. Promised fluff has the tendency to take to the wind and by god it is blowing today.
Pepe; Nothing new but an interesting read.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175903/tomgram%3A_pepe_escobar%2C_new_silk_roads_and_an_alternate_eurasian_century/#more
Divide and Isolate
So how does full spectrum dominance apply when two actual competitor powers, Russia and China, begin to make their presences felt? Washington’s approach to each — in Ukraine and in Asian waters — might be thought of as divide and isolate.
In order to keep the Pacific Ocean as a classic “American lake,” the Obama administration has been “pivoting” back to Asia for several years now. This has involved only modest military moves, but an immodest attempt to pit Chinese nationalism against the Japanese variety, while strengthening alliances and relations across Southeast Asia with a focus on South China Sea energy disputes. At the same time, it has moved to lock a future trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), in place.
In Russia’s western borderlands, the Obama administration has stoked the embers of regime change in Kiev into flames (fanned by local cheerleaders Poland and the Baltic nations) and into what clearly looked, to Vladimir Putin and Russia’s leadership, like an existential threat to Moscow. Unlike the U.S., whose sphere of influence (and military bases) are global, Russia was not to retain any significant influence in its former near abroad, which, when it comes to Kiev, is not for most Russians, “abroad” at all.
re the intelligence or otherwise of no voters. A practising psychiatrist I am acquainted with, has, over many years of interviews and countless experiences of patients, has concluded that about two thirds of the population are simply incapable of analytical thought and have never really managed to think in ways other than concrete or the lowest levels of abstraction.
I am sure the no vote and yes vote distributions do not map directly to thick and evil and clever and good but it would be interesting to find out, if such a thing was possible. (I am sure it is but it would be such a herculean labour that no-one could be bothered.)
Interestingly, the issue refuses to die.Last night I listened to a group of central belt ex labour supporters spitting fury at the role of the Labour party and Brown in particular. It will be interesting to see what happens in 2015 but it would be pleasing to see a humiliation for Brown and the Labour party. If labour collapses in Scotland, and Ukip forces a Tory lurch to the right , and UKip is confined to seats around Essex,Norfolk, Kent and Lincolnshire and a few odds and ends, it creates a scenario where there is a deep division in England as well as between Scotland and England. Of course i is hard to see where previous Lib dem voters are going to vote (certainly not lib dem ).
It is possible that fault lines will develop in places other than Scotland. Will Mancunians, or Liverpudlians, for instance, be happy to be ruled by a Tory party so far to the right? The Yorkshire / Lancashire area is very populous (approx 20million) .
In Scotland we need to be alert to the alternatives to Labour, which has been revealed as a ‘policy free/talent free zone’-or at least, policy that is markedly different to the Tories except in a few details of gender and social issue politics.
The issues that keep being submerged in this whole debate are the issues of the environment, and developing coherent policies related to the environemt.
The Labour and Tory parties are pure greenwash guff parties.The evidence of their inadequacy in relation to the environment is palpable.This is a great weakness for them. If, along with some more SNP MPs, a few Green MPs were elected in Scotland, it might move the divisions that undoubtedly exist, on to more steady ground, and might contribute to a more enlightened development of left thinking.
Regarding IQ’s of the average person, it should be noted that such tests do not include intuition in their categories probably because it is difficult to measure. The juries I’ve served on are composed of a good cross-section of the population, and good sense is a commonality with regard to ferreting out the truth of a situation.
I don’t think their passivity or lack of interest is due to intelligence, but boredom and apathy because they don’t see how to change things. Ignorance is a bigger problem than intelligence.
“Sometimes vetoes do damage. The middle-men (civil servant advisors) would be advising as to procedure/protocols or giving advice on the proposed legislation’s merits/demerits?”
They would be to advise if there were grounds to veto a legislation or not and to ensure all was fully understood including the implications. The democratic process means that those the people elect are responsible for passing the laws, the second chamber would be there to prevent a government side stepping the democratic process.
“I was once declared dead and awoken by a cockroach eating my nostril as I lay naked on a corpse trolley in Kaduna.”
Ah, we share an experience, Craig! Though I missed out on the cockroach, and it happened in Amman.
“They would be to advise if there were grounds to veto a legislation or not and to ensure all was fully understood including the implication”
I’m not sure that is the best fire-wall against bad legislation. I can see that would be better than the current situation, but it seems funny bizness always finds a way to end-run for special interests to massage the advisor to leave out some bad implications or include speculative forays into the good ones. If it were to work, there would have to be prohibitions against the ‘Revolving Door’ going from public service to private industry, at the least.
Kempe, thanks for that. And apologies to Tony Booth. It must have been some other scouse git as died.
Ba’al agree that Blair is a wannabe thesp, and would probably have done well at it. He has (had) a good memory and could pretty well read something and memorise it from the get go. The only thing that is too unconvincing for him to be a good actor is his sincerity, which has the thickness of clingfilm.
And the transparency of clingfilm!
“I’m not sure that is the best fire-wall against bad legislation. I can see that would be better than the current situation, but it seems funny bizness always finds a way to end-run for special interests to massage the advisor to leave out some bad implications or include speculative forays into the good ones. If it were to work, there would have to be prohibitions against the ‘Revolving Door’ going from public service to private industry, at the least.”
Such provisions would be matters for the constitution not the second chamber.
They would be judges, they wouldn’t make the laws or enforce them, just decide if they were constitutional or not. If the man on the Clapham omnibus would consider it reasonable.
“They would be judges, they wouldn’t make the laws or enforce them, just decide if they were constitutional or not”
The advisors? If so, they must already have legal training. Lawyers could be drafted for public service the same as Clapham members as in the jury selection process. But it would seem they needed constitutional specialists if they are to determine such. Would that be a large pool?
It seems lawyers are a necessary evil. Lawyers who are good enough to have that specialty would seem to inhabit the upper class. Severe penalties for not excusing themselves when they have a vested interest in the outcome would also have to come through Legislators. The system would have to undergo a lot of reforms to make this work. Is it workable?
@Ben
The problem with constitutions is that they have to be future proof so there has to be provision for politicians to change them and if the politicians can change them they aint worth the paper they are written on. For a state to be safe they need both a constitution and an independent body of people who are not politicians to administer it. The only reasonably safe, fair and democratic way of choosing those people as far as I can see is by lot as we do with juries.