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.
Marburg is similar to ebola. The outbreak in Uganda complicates the mutative possibilities.
http://www.china.org.cn/world/Off_the_Wire/2014-10/05/content_33686011.htm
“oh and Fred is his back up mouth piece.”
Fuck off and die Nazi Holocaust denying scum.
Fred
You have now become our little English pet on this site. You are the parrot in the corner which repeats obscenities ad infinitum when spoken to. They have no effect on anyone except as a source of amusement. And that is why they wind you up.
It is an airborne affliction.
http://www.msdsonline.com/resources/msds-resources/free-safety-data-sheet-index/marburg-virus.aspx
“Fred
You have now become our little English pet on this site. You are the parrot in the corner which repeats obscenities ad infinitum when spoken to. They have no effect on anyone except as a source of amusement. And that is why they wind you up.”
Fuck off and die retard.
Israeli Press reporting the Dallas ebola victim has succumbed.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/305795#.VDF3-SgcWFL
Habb
Here’s one for you, you are indeed a “Useful Idiot.”
http://chrisspivey.org/useful-idiots/
Fred And now I’m smiling in amusement.
I may start on a camera later. I’v a new carpet that won’t hide every piece that goes astray. Joy of joys.
Later people.
“Fred And now I’m smiling in amusement.”
So fuck off and die smiling then retard.
Craig
You might be right that those people are stupid because they believed a bunch of politicians. You speak from a position of wisdom having believed in the LibDems not that long ago. Maybe you could show a little understanding.
Get well soon.
Ron
MBC 5 Oct, 2014 – 9:50 am
I Just found a blog called Wake Up Scotland where apparently intelligent people like Carol Craig believe that a progressive Scotland with worthwhile additional powers is actually achievable through the good offices of the Labour Party.
Carol Craig married to Alf Young an ex Labour party researcher. and a journo for the glasgow Herald in the 90’s and early 2000’s…..
Maybe that explains why she thinks the Labour party will save us!…. Alternativelly Alf Young wrote the guff!!
Craig
You are incorrect, as usual. No voters were not thick or stupid. They were and are decent people with an ability to spot a con when they see it. The Yes campaign failed to make the case. And they failed because they daren’t answer the questions about independence – especially on the currency and the EU. Your inability to calmly look at why Yes lost will doom you to further disappointment. Your abuse of No voters is no substitute for intelligent analysis. The onus was on Yes to make a convincing case for independence. Their campaign was not convincing enough. But let’s put it down to the flu and loser-talk.
Labour Party in Scotland are fucked,completely fucked.
Only themselves to blame;what they smugly thought was canny politicking in the Referendum was,in fact,the plotting of their own demise.Good riddance.
I fully expect Jim Murphy to join the Tories,or anyone,if it ties in with his grotesquely unprincipled ambition.
ISIS threatened the United States, and the allies to spread the Ebola virus, within those states, if continues to wage war on the organization inside Syria and Iraq.
ISIS explained that among the viruses that its members can “synthesize and produce” are “Ebola and Corona”. ISIS also said,
followers and soldiers of the Islamic State are mostly suicide bombers and all of them are ready not only to carry Ebola, but to drink Ebola if they were asked to carry and spread it in the United States. This is not difficult but we need a decision from the leaders jihadist.
_________________________________
Now the US government is scaremongering, to its own people via its US backed rebels, in order to make Big Pharma a huge profit from phoney Ebola vaccines, and the shills and useful idiots will make sure it happens.
http://govtslaves.info/isis-plans-sending-muslims-infected-ebola-america-infect-kill-americans/
Major US corporate cartels are reportedly geared to become the main beneficiaries of the so-called US-led coalition against the ISIL Takfiri terrorists.
According the LA Times, giant military contractor Raytheon has won a new deal to provide the US military with more Tomahawk cruise missiles that could be fired into Iraq and Syria.
As the US military is expected to go on a spending spree, all major arms contractors are trading near all-time records on the stock market with their share prices constantly on the rise.
Other US weapons manufacturers are also set to benefit from the war on ISIL in the long run, as they produce most of the vehicles now being used by the Takfiri group.
As ISIL vehicles are mostly US-manufactured cars looted from Iraq, analysts predict that firms such as Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman will be awarded contracts in the future to provide the Iraqi army with a whole new collection of vehicles.
The potential financial windfall for the US military firms comes amid the Pentagon’s call for more diverse war tactics against the ISIL.
____________________________
Makes me wonder how much UK contractors to the war movement are making, and how much the politicians who lobbied for them, got as commission.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/10/04/380993/us-firms-reaping-benefit-of-war-on-isil/
ZMAPP isn’t it. CDC just this morning stated that it sometimes exacerbates the disease, although transient improvement occurs as in this case.
http://www.naturalnews.com/046669_Ebola_ZMapp_experimental_drug.html
I fully expect Jim Murphy to join the Tories,or anyone,if it ties in with his grotesquely unprincipled ambition.
_______________________________
Jives
I really really detest Jim Murphy, the expenses bumping b*stard.
Ebola; just in time for the Hajj.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29461229
The Western media went into supercilious mode this week over evidence of atrocities and mass graves in eastern Ukraine committed by the Kiev regime.
Rather than dealing with disturbing facts that point to the Western-backed regime’s culpability in war crimes, Western media tried instead to divert the focus by claiming that «pro-Kremlin» Russian news outlets were guilty of crude propaganda.
Britain’s Daily Telegraph – a repository for Western intelligence – claimed that Russia was «distorting facts» over the discovery last week of mass graves near Donetsk city…
The Telegraph headline ran: Facts distorted as Moscow claims hundreds of bodies discovered in Ukrainian ‘mass graves’
__________________________________
More and more folk are beginning to realise the press cannot be trusted.
http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2014/10/04/510339-spinning-in-the-grave-western-media-dig-dirt-to-cover-kievs-atrocities/
Police in Scotland will formally investigate allegations that anti-Scottish independence campaigners breached electoral law during the referendum held on September 18.
“We can confirm that Crown counsel has instructed Police Scotland to commence an investigation into alleged breaches of Schedule 7, Paragraph 7, of the Scottish Independence Referendum Act 2013,” a statement issued on Saturday by the Crown Office, Scotland’s prosecution service reads.
The allegations relate to comments made by Ruth Davidson, a Member of the Scottish Parliament and leader of the Scottish Conservatives, in which she appeared to know the general results of postal votes arising from “sample opening” of ballot boxes.
_________________________________
I hope it was rigged, and they throw the book at Davidson et al
http://en.ria.ru/politics/20141004/193657670/British-Politicians-To-Face-Criminal-Investigation-Over-Scottish.html
@RoS: Ukraine-media telling outrageous lies but I believe this is the truth about what is happening at Donetsk airport:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HckcY_hSbjs
“They visited you in those days. Today you have to be sick between the hours of 8.30 am and 7 pm Monday to Friday. Outside those hours and it is inconvenient for you, if not life-threatening. I know my doctor plays golf and I don’t begrudge him that, though I’ve never seen him at Cocks Moor Woods municipal course.”
___________________
Is this the NHS sundry Eminences and Useful Idiots are always telling us is the best in the world and which the govt is seeking to destroy through “privatisation”?
Just askin’!
@RoS: Ukraine-media telling outrageous lies but I believe this is the truth about what is happening at Donetsk airport:
___________________________
Peacewisher
It looks like the war has broken into smaller factions with different goals, but looking at that video, who can really say who’s shelling who.
Habbabkuk,
I can’t believe your line manager passed that spectacularly stupid post.
Put your teeth in as well,it’s gibberish.
Craig,
I’m with Leslie above. I didn’t vote no because I’m stupid or evil. I voted no because I knew what was coming with more of Westminster, but the yes campaign failed to answer the basic question of what would happen, and where the necessary reserves would be coming from in an 18 month timescale, to support the economy in the event of no currency union. That, and being sick of hearing the word scaremongering every time I asked a simple challenging question.
That indicated a lack of critical thinking on the party of the yes campaigners. Your, and others, ability to not understand the weaknesses in the yes campaign is why it faltered at the end, if you ask me.
On a more personal note, I’ve learned a fair amount from your blog, but will no longer be following what you write if you’re so stupid as to think 55% of the voting electorate are stupid or evil.
So long,
Andy
RepublicOfHolocaustDreams
“I really hope you’re proud of yourself Fred, 10.600 sick and terminally ill died in or around the six weeks mark after having their benefits denied,”
___________________
You’re really not very good at this are you, dear Sock Puppet, Holocaust Denier and provocateur.
Most terminally ill people do tend to die quite quickly. That’s what”terminally ill” usually means – that they don’t recover but die instead.
Dictionary recommended!
Well Craig, reach out we must. God knows how, but I reckon the SNP has to do the leading, and it must act politically.
Craig,
I’m with Leslie above. I didn’t vote no because I’m stupid or evil. I voted no because I knew what was coming with more of Westminster,
Well Andrew, if you voted no because you knew what was coming with more of westminster, it only serves to reinforce my own, and Craig’s opinions that the likes of you MUST indeed, be thick?
Is “Republicofscotland” seeking to take over the rôle of “Mary” as the most assiduous and prolific cutter-and-paster on this blog?
He is certainly up there with her as far as inanity is concerned.
Just observin’!
*******************
La vita è bellissima, life is great!