I was about to go into my box at the Lyceum Theatre last night when I received a text that there was a pro-independence demo on at Holyrood. So I abandoned my hosts (I did not feel quite as bad about this as I had stood for pre-theatre supper), fled the theatre and positively jogged down to parliament. I passed most of the demonstrators leaving on their way home, saltires draped over shoulders and Guido masks on top of heads. But there were still a few hundred there when I arrived, listening to unpractised speakers telling their very real stories: the independence cause continues to be a genuinely popular movement. One young demonstrator told me how proud they had been as they marched down the Royal Mile, with pedestrians homeward bound after a day’s work spontaneously stepping off the pavement to join the march, and the bars emptying. I then watched the fireworks bursting over Edinburgh.
I said a while back that if we won independence, I would move back to Scotland. Well, independence is now so inevitable I am indeed moving back, and have been flat-hunting. This is now an Edinburgh blog, and I hope from this weekend will have its Edinburgh home.
Lewes has been much in the news lately. Yesterday they were going to burn an effigy of Alex Salmond, and then didn’t. It is a conundrum why a town which genuinely retains the most radical popular political traditions in England, also is the most fervent place of practice of the reactionary art of catholic effigy burning. They vary this now by burning protestants, too. Cameron and Clegg have been done. I think my fellow Scottish Nationalists who got very upset about the potential Salmond burning were perhaps overreacting. The mistake of the members of the Lewes Waterloo Society was to fail to realise that Salmond is not merely another self-serving member of the political class; the selection was not based on race.
The tradition of burning Guy Fawkes reflects the undeniable fact that there used to be a genuine popular enthusiasm for parliament, which was seen as a bastion against Papal despotism, even long before the large majority of the population had a vote. Nowadays Parliament has become a very different kind of symbol. It symbolises an highly oppressive, authoritarian, narrow political class which shamelessly makes money at our expense, while furthering the interests of vast corporations which enforce the low wage economy and astonishing, ever growing, wealth gap.
The natural instincts of most people today lie with the man who tried to blow up parliament.
It is truly remarkable that, while the BBC and rest of the mainstream media gave hour by hour coverage of the democracy movement protests in Hong Kong, there was virtually no coverage of the violent and brutal treatment, over days, of the Occupy Democracy protest in Parliament Square in London. Nor any mention that there was far less democracy in Hong Kong under British rule than Chinese.
In Lewes, I once spoke to a flourishing political society which claims a direct descent from one founded by Thomas Paine himself- a vivid reminder to us in Scotland that there is a native radical tradition in Southern England, deep underground and waiting to be rediscovered. Lewes also has as its MP Norman Baker, one of the most decent men in politics, who recently resigned as a junior minister over the government’s entirely illogical “war on drugs” – illogical not least because of the drug habits of so many MPs. My current host, Hugh Kerr, when an MEP once made a speech in the European Parliament where he pointed out that many members were voting against drug liberalisation with whom he had personally participated in drug taking. An example of the excessive honesty that led to Hugh being forced out of the Labour Party.
Norman Baker was the subject of many vicious pieces in the mainstream media following his resignation. The crime of daring to think outside the box on drugs, and even worse crime of disagreeing with right wing nutjob and media darling Theresa May, meant that Baker had to be thoroughly monstored. But the most disgraceful and cowardly of all these attacks came from the Guardian of state stooge Alan Rusbridger. This is simply an appalling piece of journalism.
I have met Norman Baker a couple of times, and had a very entertaining conversation with him about Murder in Samarkand on Lewes railway station. The subject of UFO’s never came up. Indeed, if you google “Norman Baker, UFO” you get hundreds of media stories, all of them put out following Baker’s resignation and very evidently put about by Theresa May, for whom the Guardian is but a sounding board. In fact Norman Baker did once suggest in parliament that UFO cases deserved proper official investigation, which seems a perfectly rational view – and as the British government has, over decades, amassed thousands of files on UFO sightings, a view clearly widely held.
Baker’s other great sin is to believe David Kelly was murdered. Well, I think it is very probable indeed that David Kelly was murdered, and so, I suspect, do a very large percentage of the population. If the establishment is truly so confident that David Kelly was not murdered, it is remarkable that they refuse to have an inquest and allow a jury to decide the question in the normal way.
Norman Baker’s true crime was not to be a fully paid up member of the political class. He had never been a special adviser or political assistant. he had some hinterland, other interests, and did not confine his thinking within the tiny sphere of neo-con orthodoxy beyond which the corporate media will declare you a nutter. Politicians must all look the same, and Theresa May and Nigel Farage are now the only acceptable templates.
RepublicOfWildLongings
Well, you’re right, I should have used the expression “the Original Trolls” to describe the coterie which has been on here for years – probably from the beginning – and whose sole purpose appears to be to discredit Craig and his blog in the eyes of the man on the Clapham Omnibus (“by his “friends” shall you judge him”).
________________
BTW – I don’t remember seeing a “Republicofscotland” in the first couple of years after my arrival on here. So either you are newer than I am, or you were posting under a different moniker. If the latter, what was your previous moniker?
DonnyHolocaustDenierFriend
“Why don’T you just cut and paste the piece Habbacopy with § # et al, and then we’ll be done with this Hamas charter crap?”
__________________
Tut tut, Donny – you call Hamas’s Charter “crap”? Hamas’s founding document, which sets outs its aims and objectives and attempts to justify them?
Your Hamas friends will not be happy with you.
Doug , Netanyahu has made clear on more than one occasion that the goal is to take all of the land and leave nothing for the Palestinians.No 2 state solution,no 1 state solution.
They teach their kids that the land was empty when they arrived in their boats from Europe.
Louise Zulu
“PS: I too was on the march on the 5th Nov. keeping hope for social democracy alive.
glad to have you home with us and taking part.”
______________________-
You already had your democracy, dearie – it was called the referendum.
Get over it.
Does that make me a HamasCharter denier too? § please !!!!!!
Where did the Holocaustdenier crap come from Habbaanothertry?
You equate being pissed off at Israel and their fascist racist methods as somehow having an effect on the way I regard Hitler’s atrocities.Tut tut f’n tut.
Saddam was elected albeit with a little more coercion. So is the mere fact of having the population vote an indication of democracy?
Such a conclusion is suspect on it’s face or arse as appropriate.
Congratulations Craig.
What fun you can have with parliamentary privilege!
I am sure they will be delighted to see you at westminster.
“German Politicians are US Puppets,” says Udo Ufkotte, former reporter for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and author of recent German best seller Gekaufte Journalisten (Purchased Journalists).
Q: You mentioned that Germany is still concealing the fact that in March of 1988, the regime of Saddam Hussein – at the time a Western ally – committed an act of genocide in a Kurdish city near the Iranian border, using chemical weapons manufactured in Germany. Can it be true that in all these years not a single newspaper, even an opposition paper, has written about that?
UU: No, they did write about it, but it took them a year to do so! I photographed Iranians who had been poisoned by German chemical weapons under the eyes of the US, but that was not supposed to be made public. At that time, the Iraqis, Germans, and Americans were celebrating their “final” victory over the Iranians. I found it ghoulish that in Baghdad they were celebrating the fact that they had jointly gassed human beings. I suffered greatly from the gas – later I got cancer. I did everything I could to record what had happened there, hoping that it would prompt an international outcry. But no one ever published it. Instead everyone celebrated their victory. To this day I ask myself why it’s no problem for German chancellors to travel to Israel and go down on their knees and ask the Jews for forgiveness for gassing them, but then the Iranians killed by German gas are just second-class citizens? Have you ever heard of a German chancellor apologizing for that in Tehran? We can see that German politicians are nothing more than puppets of the US. They should obediently do as Washington tells them. We continue to be a US colony, a banana republic, and not a free country.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/german-politicians-are-us-puppets-german-journalists-are-urged-to-bias-their-writings-in-favor-of-the-us/5412731
Welcome home Craig.
From the Preamble to the Hamas Charter:
“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it”
And a little more :
“The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and
kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the
rocks and trees will cry out: ‘O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind
me, come and kill him.”
(from Article 7)
And yet more:
“The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all the kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that. Palestine is an Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Moslem generations until Judgement Day.”
(from Article 11)
Fancy some more fragrant prose, DonnyDarkThoughts?
Better still , read the whole thing yourself – ut’s still their Charter!
From the ever eloquent Ben, a mlst profound “thought”:
“Saddam was elected albeit with a little more coercion. So is the mere fact of having the population vote an indication of democracy?”
Conflation in order to mislead : Saddam’s elections were not democratic.
Elections in the West and the USA are.
Make yourself useful for once and tell us something about the recent mid-term US elections, Ben, and offer us your thoughts on the significance of their outcome for internal and external US policy and actions.
Thanks.
The Hamas Charter respects the Old Testament.
Exodus 32;
7 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt. 8 They have been quick to turn away from what I commanded them and have made themselves an idol cast in the shape of a calf. They have bowed down to it and sacrificed to it and have said, ‘These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.’
9 “I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses, “and they are a stiff-necked people. 10 Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”
Matthew 3:9
I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham
Now that Israeli’s have returned to making the Golden Calf to the discredit of their heritage, i think Hamas declaring that trees and stones will not protect them is spot on.
” Ben, and offer us your thoughts on the significance of their outcome for internal and external US policy and actions.”
You ask a question from a comment that has the answer. There is no significance under the present decrepit and corrupt system.
All zionist apologist point to Hamas solely, ignoring the fact that hamas is not an entity but a partner in a mutual coalition.
Those zioniss apologist who want to differentiate, divide and rule, also want to eradicate all Palestinians, shutting Gaza off and attacking the third most important mosque in the history of Islam, because that’s the aim of the Sisi Netanyahu axis, to let the Palestinian fester in the rain, back to the same old harassment, life in concentration camp made from rubble, DU munition scrap, injured people freezing in tents, that’s what these apologist support when they refuse to talk, just wag their fat little fingers at emaciated bodies and traumatised eyes.
Gaza is part of a Palestinian State that was much bigger under the original UN plans, a base to start from. Fatah and Hamas are united and East Jerusalem, again, it once was all of Jerusalem, is part of Palestine, a recognised UN demand which the Zionist apologists here also deny and obfuscate with their pompous diversionary tactics.
be gone Beelzebub!
So where is the bit about Jews ? Driving them into the sea ? Educate me Habbateach.My 1st aquaintance with the Habbacharter,…sorry menat Hamas Charter of course
Don’t worry Habbateach I will read the charter.It sounds “sound” to me so far.
Israel is an experiment, a construction, a fascist entity, a failed state… so if it is destroyed and replaced by something more fair, not racist,accomodates all religions,then it’s good…. oder was?
“Saddam was elected albeit with a little more coercion. So is the mere fact of having the population vote an indication of democracy?”
Are you suggesting the Scottish government wasn’t democratically elected?
Habbabkuk (la vita è bella) http://www.pinterest.com/pin/93168286016388301/
Israel spawned Hamas.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB123275572295011847
They probably wrote the charter too.
Have they ever set fire to an effigy of Blair in Lewes?
~~~
‘Make him pay
I find it hard to believe that Blair is “lobbying” Israel in any real sense. That is because Blair has long been part of a lobby that supports Israel, rather than pressing for an end to its criminal behavior.
As a newly-elected member of Parliament in 1983, Blair joined Labour Friends of Israel, a Zionist group within his political party.
He has professed his love for Israel ever since then. Last year, he called Shimon Peres— a fellow war criminal who approved an infamous attack on a UN shelter in Lebanon— one of Israel’s “great thinkers.”
Tony Blair’s office is funded by three main donors. Between 2007 and 2013, the US provided it with $13.5 million. The European Commission was in second place with almost $10 million; Norway third with $3.7 million.
Blair isn’t paid for his job as “peace envoy” — his formal title is “quartet representative” as he belongs to a club comprising of the US, the European Union, the UN and Russia. Yet he does have his meals and accommodation covered.
For much of that period, Blair stayed in the American Colony, a luxurious hotel in occupied East Jerusalem.
Like many others, I find it obscene that a man who helped launch the invasion of Iraq masquerades as a peace envoy. Even if Blair isn’t drawing a salary for that work, it is unacceptable that he can still dine at the taxpayer’s expense.
I agree fully with the campaign to have Blair sacked as “peace envoy” — indeed, I have gone further and tried to arrest him for war crimes. Once he is sacked, he should be required to reimburse us for every cent that was spent on his food and lodging.
If that happens, then the pulse of progress will genuinely beat a little faster.’
Tony Blair enables Israeli raids in the West Bank
David Cronin
11/05/2014
Link
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/david-cronin/tony-blair-enables-israeli-raids-west-bank
“Are you suggesting the Scottish government wasn’t democratically elected?”
You’re reaching, Fred
” So is the mere fact of having the population vote an indication of democracy?” That was my point, but then again, how many nations actually enjoy a functional democracy? I suggest that the US has an overt democracy undermined by a covert plutocracy which makes it no democracy at all.
From 7.30 till now there have been almost 30 comments. Nobody goes out to the cinema, theatre, opera or ballet because nobody can afford the tickets. Thank God we can make our own entertainment on here. And this would be entertaining if it wasn’t so serious.
Protestors against police brutality in Rennes, France, were broken up by the use of police brutality.
Catalonia wants to separate from the rest of Spain and there have been mega demonstrations in Barcelona before tomorrow’s referendum votes for autonomy. Spain has called the referendum illegal and will not recognise the results.
I know wicked used to mean something bad but now means something good. Who can give me the current meaning of the word democracy?
“You’re reaching, Fred”
You did seem to be suggesting that elections in Scotland aren’t democratic.
“You did seem to be suggesting that elections in Scotland aren’t democratic.”
Well then let that be the definition of democracy John seeks.
If your ideology wins, it’s democratic.
Habbagansl, you have the temerity to belittle someone who at least answers.
Let’s have a look at your answers to date !
How many Israeli’S has Hamas actually killed ?
How many innocent Palestinians has Israel killed in retaliation ?
How many Israeli’s have died from choking on olives ?
Can’t be that difficult Habbagansl.
This is all totally off topic – but – it gives much food for thought about how the world operates and how the oppressed have responded to/against imperial pressure:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Q4wPgRRe2I
“ This documentary still subscribes to the accidental view of history and promotes a watered down version of motive, intent and involvement. It portrays all questionable CIA activities as merely unfortunate blunders due simply to lack of foresight, poor planning, incompetence, and a means to an end mentality. A true student of history and researcher of these topics knows this to not only be false, but the exact opposite of the truth. This documentary still subscribes to the accidental view of history and promotes a watered down version of motive, intent and involvement. It portrays all questionable CIA activities as merely unfortunate blunders due simply to lack of foresight, poor planning, incompetence, and a means to an end mentality. A true student of history and researcher of these topics knows this to not only be false, but the exact opposite of the truth.”
And then there are those who assist global justice and progress:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFaNrCe-U0o
The soon-to-be-published Chilcot report is expected to contain damning evidence surrounding how Blair and Bush jointly engaged in a rush to war to topple Saddam Hussein in the face of warnings of the risks of triggering sectarian divisions across the region.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/27/citizens-arrest-tony-blair-iraq-syria-twiggy-garcia
A redacted Chilcot report will not make the taking facile.
I can blab to surround Blair with orphaned, disabled and disfigured Iraq children. Yet like shooting the breeze for ten long years the iron was never in the fire. Right now silence; there is nothing to report…