I have been in Cruden Bay the last few days, where Nadira had been for some time shooting a film she has both written and produced. It is a short drama, a harrowing tale of torture victims who have applied for political asylum in the UK and are now in immigration detention on the “fast track”. The script is based on numerous interviews with genuine torture victims, refugees, lawyers, NGOs and policemen. One of the things the film does is highlight the work of Medical Justice, who do quite amazing work.
The film now enters post-production and I will keep you informed.
It was a bit weird to be in Peterhead in December enjoying the warm breeze. I recall some years ago wondering whether the effects of climate change would really become indisputable during my lifetime. I think I have my answer.
The last thread on the SNP caused a very interesting debate, before it eventually declined into the usual suspects banging on about Freemasons etc. I took from those comments this contribution from Peter A Bell, which is quite thoughtful, apart from the lazy device of starting by stating an argument I had not actually made and then attributing it to me and characterising it as ludicrous. The rest is worth engaging with though, and when I get recovered a bit I shall engage with it. Meantime, fill your boots.
Of all the ridiculous conspiracy theories that roil in the minds of those with a taste for such nonsense few are more ludicrous than the notion that the Scottish National Party is actively engaged in thwarting the aspirations of those who would see Scotland’s rightful constitutional status restored. A pleasing reverie might be one in which these conspiracy theorists are locked in a room with those who just as fervently insist that the SNP is obsessively focused on the constitutional question to the exclusion of all else – there to beat the folly out of one another with rolled-up copies of their comic-book version of the world.
Reality comprises the grey-scale vastness between these two simplistic extremes.
Here is the news! The campaign for independence can proceed in a variety of ways. Some of those ways are more subtle than a chant of, “What do we want? Independence! When do we want it? NOW!”. The independence campaign was undoubtedly much more fun when it was such a distant prospect that we didn’t have to concern ourselves to much about the niceties of the process of becoming independent. It was all so easy when independence was below a far horizon and it was sufficient that we were headed in the right general direction. It’s all got al lot more complicated now that we are close enough for small course correction to matter.
Almost as laughable as the notion of the SNP having abandoned its commitment to independence is the idea that, having successfully navigated to within sight of our destination, we should now start questioning the party’s suitability for the task of completing the journey. Not that anybody has any sensible suggestions as to who might take up the role at this late date. Apparently, we must doubt the SNP simply because we can.
It’s all too easy to imagine Craig Murray as part of a committee inspecting the almost completed artwork on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and debating whether Michelangelo is the right man to finish the job. After all, he doesn’t seem as excited about the job as he was four years ago, talking more now about the practicalities of the task rather than the grand vision. There’s bound to be some enthusiastic youngsters who are itching to have a go!
The practicalities of becoming independent matter. They matter in a way that they didn’t really when I first engaged with the independence campaign half a century ago. The world has moved on. Things have changed. Not the least of these changes is that the British establishment is now engaged with the campaign as well. We are no longer just fighting for something. We are fighting against a massively powerful force utterly determined to preserve its power and status.
The ground on which the constitutional battle is being fought has also changed. In many ways, to the advantage of the independence campaign. Tactics must be adjusted accordingly. Never losing sight of the fact that the battle has to be won within the territory of the British political system. We need to fight clever every bit as much as we need to fight hard.
That is what the SNP is doing. It is fighting clever. Within the context of the British political system, size matters. Electoral clout is important. A massive mandate is a mighty weapon. The SNP must work to gain and hold this mandate in both the Holyrood and the Westminster arenas. It has a dual role as both the party of government and the political arm of the independence movement. It has to succeed in both roles. More than that. It has to succeed on a grand scale. If it is to be the lever which prises the millstone of the British state off Scotland’s back, the SNP needs exceptional political power. The kind of power which, to be perfectly frank, we would be sensibly cautious about handing to any political party. Needs must when necessity drives.
We have to put our trust in the SNP for the simple reason that there is nobody else. The people of Scotland have, by the exercise of their democratic power, chosen the SNP as their agents. There is unprecedented agreement that the SNP is best placed to defend and advance Scotland’s interests. There is not the same consensus about what those interests are. The party must seek to satisfy both those who are committed to independence and those who are not yet persuaded, even though they are happy to accept the party in its administrative role. There is no other party in a position to do this. Quite simply, there is no path to independence on any reasonable time-scale which does not have the SNP taking a lead role.
Once we reconcile ourselves to this hard fact of realpolitik, we start to see the SNP’s manoeuvrings in a different light. If the SNP group at Westminster appears to be “settling in”, maybe it’s because that’s how they have to appear in order to be effective. Bear in mind that they are struggling against the Westminster elite’s quite blatant efforts to sideline and exclude them. Vociferous protests and flashmob-style walk-outs might be great theatre. But does this not simply play into the narrative that the unionist parties and their friends in the media want to create?
As the Scottish Parliament elections loom, is it not appropriate for the SNP to be talking about the reasons voters should continue to trust them to run the country, rather than conforming to the unionist caricature of a single-issue protest party?
If the SNP isn’t saying much about a second independence referendum is that not because that particular ball is now at our feet? Has Nicola Sturgeon not made it abundantly clear that she wants the campaign for another referendum to be lead by the people rather than the politicians?
There is more than a bit of intellectual posturing about sniping at the SNP for supposedly abandoning the fight for independence. The party may not be perfect. But there is no rational reason to doubt its commitment to bringing Scotland’s government home. The lack of any justification makes this look like criticism for its own sake. I have to ask, what’s the point?
… or beautifully desolate. Or both. 🙂
How can one not agree to Peter’s strategic thinking, it should be debated. Does strategy emanate from all levels of the SNP? a good idea one should add.
What would it mean to be an Independent Scotland within a European Union, given there was a vote backing such concept. How would this work visa-vis a Brexit?
How would an Independent Scotland develop its own renewable energy potentials and how could it assist or lead together with others in the EU towards a third industrial revolution?, already in full swing in China.
How would Scotland fare living on its own chitty, would it be a wise move to carry international commitments in foreign countries, agree with decisions that are not mandated by one’s voters, stay in NATO, or would it be the right opportunity to join those in the EU who would like to develop a more European peace and defence force?
I would argue that a definitive decision to remove Trident already indicates that the SNP would lean towards a new solution for defence in the EU at large and Scotland as a vital part of it.
But who know what 4 years at the trough will mean for policies, tactics and living with the Bullington boys.
Thank you Vronsky. Beautiful place. I have corrected the spelling. The study of history however makes you less dogmatic about these things. Moray, for example, was more often spelt Murray right until the late 19th century. I have a map on my wall from 1862 which shows Murray and the Murray Firth. The surname and the place name are identical (I don’t mean they sound the same, I mean they are the same word). Andrew Murray, victor of Stirling Bridge, was of course spelt in his time Andrew de Moray. Yet for some reason orthodoxy eventually settled on Moray for the place and Murray for the name. I have no doubt at all I could find a number of different spellings of Cruden Bay with a little research!
On the other hand, The SNP Scottish Government imposing swingeing cuts on multiple public services and continuing with an entirely politically-motivated freeze on Council Tax emphatically is NOT what the majority of people living in Scotland want or need and it is totally unnecessary. Public services already had been cut to the bone before 2008. People voted for the SNP in large part because they did NOT want to see this type of thing continue. People with skills and experinece are losing their jobs, here, in Scotland, for no good reason.
What do you think happened to Babylon?
What about other civilisations whose remnants we find today scattered across the various deserts on the planet? Did these civilisations one day upped stick and disappear into the setting sun?
Climate is not a constant, it is always changing! Only fact remains, we are far too busy replacing the same methods of fear and loathing that have evolved from the hell fire and brimstone to “climate change” and “terrorism”.
Fact that you are being told to pay up even more for some phony baloney linkage that is tying up the human activity to the fate of the planet, that in turn literally is presented as yet more of commodityfications in the guise of “carbon trading” that is to regulate the growth of the developing nations and supposedly curb the appetite of the developed nations appetite for decadence.
Snap out of it, you have lived a half century which is not long by any of the Terran standards, stop helping the carpetbaggers and the deceitful banksters spread their religion of greed for few, and hardship for many. All the while suppressing real progress of any sorts due to the weird and wonderful artificial shortages and scarcities.
There has to be a better way, we all know that, but when any and all possibility of change are suppressed, thwarted, and stopped there can only be one expected outcome; end of the intransigent civilisation.
What do you mean? Babylon was not destroyed by climate change. It was replaced by Seleucia, which was better situated for international trade (and subsequently Ctesiphon and Baghdad). Though there were some environmental factors such as salinisation of the soil, and movement of the Euphrates bed.
In fact I can’t think of any ancient civilisation that was destroyed by climate change. Cities were located in deserts, Palmyra for example, because their main function was trade, and not agriculture. When the trade stopped, so did the city.
Independence is treason
Well said Peter Bell, and good on you Craig for posting this. Yup, Peter’s piece says it for me. We just need to get on with it, and see all the arguments being deployed to give your second vote to other pro independence parties as a luxury that will have to wait till after Indy. After all who gains if the vote is split and the SNP are diminished. Certainly not the cause of Scottish Independence.
Until we gain Independence, it’s Not Politics as Usual
Novel notion of building cities in the desert! How the city dwellers were fed and watered?
Trade is between cities and towns hence better situated is an amalgam of modern and ancient kind of summing up the apples, pears and oranges!
I reiterate further commodityfication of production with pre and post production charges are designed to keep a level playing field in an inherently precipitous economic background to maintain the status quo that favours the white collar gangsters posing as banksters.
Indus Valley civilization?
Peter Bell writes well and gives a good arguement, in which amongst other things he says this:
“… The world has moved on. Things have changed. Not the least of these changes is that the British establishment is now engaged with the campaign as well. We are no longer just fighting for something. We are fighting against a massively powerful force utterly determined to preserve its power and status.
The ground on which the constitutional battle is being fought has also changed. In many ways, to the advantage of the independence campaign. Tactics must be adjusted accordingly. Never losing sight of the fact that the battle has to be won within the territory of the British political system. We need to fight clever every bit as much as we need to fight hard.”
______________________
To that I would say that Westminster is totally corrupt and rotten, and nothing short of a massive (and peaceful) revolution will change this. Storming the barricades is not going to happen anytime soon, and thus the SNP are wasting their time fighting “within the territory of the British political system”.
I’m sure folks north of the border remember this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Glasgow_International_Airport_attack
At the time it was often labelled “the doctor’s plot”, because most of the participants were NHS doctors who had some connection to Iraq. They were obviously prepared to give their lives to carry out their plot, but these people weren’t in any shape or form suicide bombers. Their actions were quite plainly motivated by the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the ensuing mayhem.
Just recently Parliament has voted for further military action in the Middle East (that is, if they can find anything left to bomb in Syria), helping to ramp-up direct military confrontation with Russia, in what is already a quite lunatic/dangerous situation. Not widely reported is that Britain is also putting troops into Libya:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/rival-regimes-in-libya-sign-agreement-in-morocco-paving-the-way-for-western-troop-deployments/5497078
I could go on and on with this, but to cut a long story short, Westminster has become a neo-con lunatic asylum. If the SNP are genuine they should stop engaging with the lunatics, and should do a better job of informing the people of Scotland of what’s going on in this world.
If the SNP are willing/able to do this, independence will be a breeze.
The SNP’s goal has not been independence for Scotland it has been power for themselves. They have been power grabbing not only from Westminster but from the rest of Scotland. They have brought the entire police force under their command and armed them. They have taken power from the councils and robbed them of cash. They are taking control of schools and colleges. They have so bullied and intimidated the media few dare speak against them for fear of a baying mob outside their premises. They want to centralise and micro manage everything including our children. Typical nationalists in other words.
In the rest of Britain power is being devolved to the regions here it is being devolved to the SNP leadership and it goes no further.
The Fertile Crescent did not used to be a desert, nor actually did the Sahara. Indus Valley Civilisation, yes, same thing. Complex, though, was it grazing, cutting down trees, water table depletion, or what? Humans do impact on the environment, one way or another and in fact all ways.
RobG, yes, I know. Of course, the launch of an illegal war and the even longer period, before and afterwards, of the destruction of Iraq, was an massive crime against humanity.
The irony is that all these wannabee Jihadists who drive cars into airports and pop bombs into their socks, condoms and Y-fronts and who stab random commuters and swallow TNT and spit DDT and whatever banal crap they think represents rebellion actually are doing nothing more than furthering the agenda of NATO/SAUDI/GCC and the imperial ambition of Our Dearly Beloved Rulers. They are useful dupes.
To use a Giyane-like metaphor (forgive me, Giyane), while Prince Andrew perches atop one end of the Saudi King’s 24 carat gold personal proctoscope, these numpties crouch at the other, yelling God’s Name as though it were a conduit to their very own ultimate orgasm.
Sorry for that foetid, William Buckley-style image, which is likely to be the diametric opposite of the beauteous vista of Cruden Bay.
It was a bit weird to be in Peterhead in December enjoying the warm breeze. I recall some years ago wondering whether the effects of climate change would really become indisputable during my lifetime. I think I have my answer.
That’s the trouble with political discourse: it is dominated by loons who understand virtually nothing of which they speak!
The temperature anomaly this autumn peaked at 0.4 C above the 1981-2010 mean, which is not surprising as this is an el nino year. The last el nino was in 1998 and the temperature anomaly peaked then at 0.75 C above the 1981-2010 mean. So actually no evidence of a warming trend over the last 30 odd years, certainly no indisputable evidence of global warming.
But maybe I misunderstand you. Perhaps you mean the evidence of no warming is indisputable, which is open to debate but is more reasonable than what you most probably mean.
Of all the ridiculous conspiracy theories that roil in the minds of those with a taste for such nonsense few are more ludicrous than the notion that the Scottish National Party is actively engaged in thwarting the aspirations of those who would see Scotland’s rightful constitutional status restored
LOL. What the SNP is actively engaged in is assimilating Scotland within the NWO via the EU and NATO in the undemocratic councils over which it will have no significant influence whatsoever.
Peter Bell writes ‘Has Nicola Sturgeon not made it abundantly clear that she wants the campaign for another referendum to be (sic) lead by the people rather than the politicians?’
It’s true that the YES Movement was vastly responsible for turning something like 27% support for Independence into 45% (if we are to believe that the referendum was cleanly fought and there was no gerrymandering with the postal votes etc). The YES Movement was, indeed, led by the people and brought about the closest thing to a peaceful revolution in these islands.
So is Nicola asking us to revive the YES Movement to do the job for her while the SNP gets busily on managing Scottish capitalism? Scotland is putting its trust in the hands of the SNP … for what? As an empty gesture of defiance while remaining prisoner to our southern masters? And what are politicians for if not to inspire and lead?
2016 will see the SNP achieve political heights undreamed of. Nicola will have the span of the next Holyrood parliament to attain the dream before the window slams shut. During that time the SNP should be doing everything it can to help initiate and inspire a people’s Indy2 if that is the route Nicola wishes us to take. Scotland’s ‘velvet revolution’ will only take place when there is a dialogue between its people and their political leaders.
This proctoscope thing, is it ventilated? Or is it like those films of WW2 long range artillery, compressing into the barrel to absorb the force of the explosion? Does His Highness allow it to be used by ordinary footsodliers? Does Prince Charles also have one?
Suhayl, you’re quite correct to point out the horrendous stuff that went on in Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion.
Craig won’t like me using the term ‘false flag’, but if you’re alluding to that with regard to the 2007 attack on Glasgow airport, I think it was a real attack, not least because the media didn’t know how to handle it.
Compare that to some recent terror incidents, in which the full media bandwagon is rolled out immediately. This was particularly apparent with last month’s Paris attacks; well, you know the rest of it.
Late last night in the previous thread I posted two YouTube links, concerning the corruption and immorality of Bush senior and Bush junior. These were news items, one dating back to 2005, the other going way back to the 1990s. What particularly struck me about these news reports was how free and open they were. Now, a decade later, you’d never get that in today’s MSM, which is now totally closed-down and controlled.
I shall resist the usual stuff about ‘Orwellian’, but will just that that it pertains to my previous post, that if the SNP are genuine they should tell the Scottish people what is really going on.
CanSpeccy
You have deviated , in 2 comments , into sense. What has come over you?
Q. what do you think will be the effect on Germany of 1 million Syrians arriving there this year. A/ A very bad thing . B/ No noticeable effect. C/ A very good thing D/ The best piece of political peacemaking in a generation, worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize for Angela Merkel and her circle?
Giyane, one suspects that it largely is anaerobic.
Prince Charles may well have been presented with one. 24 carat, naturally, honed into shape by the mouths of 30,000 Filipino slaves, in the traditional manner rested upon a purple velvet cushion carried by a Horse Guard. he is likely to have received it as a fond polo gift from one or other of the Great and Useless Sheikhs whose sole purpose in this life and the next is to project Farangi power colonoscopically through a faecal transplant of nativist delusion.
As you can tell, today I am in a state of visceral rage.
Of course, we all know that Can Speccy loves (im)migrants to Devon, since they tend to consume all the clotted cream and return the “indigenous” Paleolithic population to a In the Year of Our Lord, 1935 AD state of slim yet appealing fecund, naturist, volley-balling health.
“…a Nobel Peace Prize for Angela Merkel and her circle?”
Giyane, you are a very naughty man.
🙂
Rory Winter
“led by the people” is surely one of those Cameronesque political predictions meaning that when the SNP conforms fully to NWO requirements, independence will drift into existence on a wave of false, artificially created, auspicious circumstances, such as a rise in oil price, an agreement on trident and a volley of vote fiddling the YES way?
Politicians know the art of making you starve a little, like a falcon you want to hunt prey.
@Fred
They have so bullied and intimidated the media few dare speak against them for fear of a baying mob outside their premises.
Utter horseshit Fred. Alan Cochrane, David Torrance, Deerin, Katie Grant, Gardham, Simon Johnson, Alan Roden, and many others in the MSM do not even try and hide their hatred of the SNP. You are bullshitting on a epic scale.
RobG, the thing that it doesn’t have to be false-flag every time – once set in motion, the dynamic becomes self-perpetuating. If one engages enough numpties, to paraphrase that over-played song, they’re “doin’ it for themselves…” And from the point of view of the Masters of War, that is the beauty, and the terror.
Oh, watch out – taken out of context, writing that that last sentence might get one arrested these days.
As you can tell, today I am in a state of visceral rage.
Well that must mean I’m in one every day. Actually when you know you are in the right about something you enter into a state of Buddhist kingly ease or the relaxed position at the end of the Muslim prayer called attahiyat :
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=nzqK8dDCM0UC&pg=PA91&lpg=PA91&dq=buddhist+kingly+ease&source=bl&ots=1yhuDOJ6Ot&sig=wfBj7SbUe-cPdQ9idZ8XUk0MFgw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwifkbWugu7JAhUGVxQKHRz5BT0Q6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=buddhist%20kingly%20ease&f=false
https://www.facebook.com/surahs.hadith/posts/567922836621339
Do “royalty” ever experience certainty of faith? Why do they need to crucify boys who demonstrate against their savage rule or to spy on every citizen of the world?
Giyane… cosmic. Huu!
Suhayl
BTW what is the significance of GCC? Having googled it, are you in such a state of atenuated rage that the dealings of Girton County Council Cricket Club are somehow inter twined in your mind with the satanic doings of the NWO neo-cons?
“Utter horseshit Fred. Alan Cochrane, David Torrance, Deerin, Katie Grant, Gardham, Simon Johnson, Alan Roden, and many others in the MSM do not even try and hide their hatred of the SNP. You are bullshitting on a epic scale.”
It’s the media’s job to hold the government to account.
All political parties get criticised in the media but only one sends goons round to the studios to intimidate them.
People who hate truth see truth as hatred.
Fred said: “It’s the media’s job to hold the government to account.”
But the media are now completely controlled by the government (mostly Washington).
Nous avons un problème, non ?
What’s going on now makes the STASI look like boy scouts.