Those vile cybernats
Posted on
August 13, 2012 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We mean cyberBritNats, of course. Last night’s Olympic closing ceremony brought a charming collection of positive Unionists out of the woodwork with moving, heartfelt words of British unity such as these. We’re choking up a little even now as we type.
We trust that the good Lord Foulkes is fair aglow with pride today. With friends like these at stake, who could possibly doubt that Scotland is better together in the Union?
There’s some more on my website, although many are the same as above. I got asked by at least two people to delete abusive tweets they had posted directed at Alex Salmond – fair enough, the tweeters were very young but hopefully they learn and realise what can happen to a tweet and what it can make you look like when you press ‘send’. Well done on posting these for maximum exposure.
Hi Ray. Yeah, I swiped the “fat mongo” one from you. (And thanks to you have also noticed that tweets can be directly embedded, though too late to do it for this piece.) Have added a link to National Collective to the blogroll this morning.
I think Lord Foulkes will know, as any stalwart son or daughter of the Empire will know, that these people are CyberScotNats seeking to defame and drag into the mud the glorious subjects of Her Britannic Majesty!
Disgraceful!
If all it takes is a big celebrity show and lots of fieworks to make them think that it’s better to stay with the union, then give them a mars bar and a tin of irn bru and pack them off south ! They’ll love the bargain they just got and the rest of Scotland is so much better off !
I began to lose all faith in humanity last night as you re-Tweeted these. So, thanks for that! 😉
You can bet your bottom dollar that if these Tweets were from Scottish nationalists they’d be all over the MSM by now and CyberUnionist in Chief Foulkes would, as you say, be apoplectic.
This is the vile side of nationalism (you know, the God-given one that loves the Queen and is the right and natural order of things, and not the evil separatist kind that must be crushed at all costs in the name of Her Majesty and democracy and the Spice Girls). They show just how many people believe the MSM lie that it’s “Salmond’s referendum”, as if AS got to where he is through some kind of dictatorial rampage and not through the ballot box.
Personally, i’m delighted with these responses…shows that the Independence movement is creating a stir.
Obviously the level of debate on Twitter needs to up It’s game just a tad!
What’s that about pride Rev? does that not come before a fall…….
I detect a loyalist element in many of these comments which are obviously tweeted by hateful, bigoted and deranged people. I hope that these disgusting tweets will be investigated by the police and the knuckledraggers brought to justice.
Following the links back to the person’s profile, it was amazing how many “Rangersfamily”, WATP, “Rangers till I die” were on their profiles.
Given the abuse Mr Salmond got for talking to HMRC on their club’s behalf, you would think they would show a smidgeon of gratitude
I can’t help wondering how young some of these posters are and if they might change their views when they start thinking for themselves.
As for the older generation, we are seeing cries of existential anger across the board (not just in this motley selection). Indies have always had to fight for their identity, but suddenly people who have always taken Britishness for granted are seeing it questioned, not by some fringe group they can ignore, but by the very existence of a democratically elected majority SNP government. They see it as a personal attack on their core identity. That is why the social union stuff and keeping the queen will be so powerful. The politics changes but the core identity is not so threatened.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The Unionist campaign is desperate. The only real emotional pull of The Union appears to be mostly from the likes of the Orange Order. An organisation who have more in common with the Ku Klux Klan than with mainstream opinion.
Compare that with our concept of Cybernat:
http://wingsland.podgamer.com/weekend-essay-cybernats-are-made-not-born/
Sad wee people, never mind, they’ll be back to school soon and maybe even learn something!
Many lessons t be learned for the Commonwealth Games!
Wonder how good it will feel being British the next 50 weeks……110% worse I imagine. Just wait till Boris is PM :O)
It’s interesting that at a time of huge national pride some people were so bitter that they had to tweet abusive comments about Alex Salmond.
It is however, the answer to anyone who criticises “cybernates” (meaning Scottish ones) in the future.
No one would deny that London pulled a good Olympics out of the hat. And with the billions that were spent, so should they.
They brag that everything was ready on time and on budget, although the village did miss “on time” by a few days and the budget was £3 billion. They say that they spent £9 billion, but that doesn’t include security, which they apparently forgot about in the original budget. Some estimates put the total cost at around £20 billion, some as little as £13 billion. But whatever, it most surely was not delivered on budget.
All that said, I wouldn’t want to take away from their success.
And team GB got their home bounce too and won more medals than they had expected, although quite a lot of these medals were Scottish.
I just can’t see what it is that makes people like the ones above so ashamed to be Scottish and so sure that their country couldn’t make it on its own without the wisdom and statesmanship of the likes of Cameron to guide it, and the financial acumen of Osborne, King and Barclays to pay the way.
<Tris shakes head in bewilderment>
Off topic (more or less), anyone hoping for a viable English nationalist movement to take some of the strain is going to be disappointed I’m afraid; a truly nutty piece in the Speccy:
‘Is Gordon Brown a Scottish Nationalist?’
http://tinyurl.com/cequjqa
GUFFAW! I wonder how the majority of these, erm, correspondents will feel once the schools go back. Saturday’s 2-2 draw in Peterhead must’ve hurt more than we realised. This is their 15 minutes: let them show the world all they are.
Talking of thuggery…..
Interesting piece here – http://www.nuj.org.uk/innerPagenuj.html?docid=2608
Direct result of the ID/IF interview perhaps?
It gives me a lovely warm feeling of security to know that people of such loyalty and intellectual capacity are defending the Union.
Slightly o/t,
Just posted this on the bittertogether website:
It seems to me your table highlights how poor training facilities msut be in Scotland i.e. most Scottish atheletes live in England to be closer to their training facility. Not much of an advert for the union I’m afraid!
We might be too poor, we might be too wee but we are not too stupid to understand that our athletes have to leave the country of their birth to access decent training facilities. Just another union dividend!
To those ‘contributors’ above:
Your use of adjectives such as fat, racist and stupid; various configurations of the verb ‘to fuck’ and nouns such as cunt, toad, wanker, fucker, mongo, fat arse and prick to abuse Scotland’s First Minister and, by association, all of those who aspire to an independent Scotland does not a great case for your Better Together campaign make – the opposite, in fact. Apart from showing your ignorance of the entire debate, you sound awfully afraid: what are you so scared of?
Looking at some of those twitter accounts is just depressing. It’s the 21st century and there are kids being brought up full of hate for anything that’s not the UVF, Orange Order, RFC and The Queen. Buckfast British and proud.
And so we have the verdict of the hard of thinking that a sporting event and group hugs are going to solve the social, economic and political problems of the UK. Wonder how they’ll feel when they have to pay for prescription charges or their granny can’t get on the bus because she can’t afford to. Wonder how they’ll feel about paying for NHS treatment or how they’ll protest when yet another Tory government is voted in and decides to reclaim powers from Holyrood. Perhaps they’ll cheer as tuition fees are introduced across the board and divide education along the lines of haves and have nots.
Sometimes you can only shake your head and move on.
When your Better Together campaign is a massive fail…….bring out the Spice Girls for a bit of tub thumping Britishness. Marvelous!
Serious question. Post independence, what do you do with these people? Does our education system need to be looked at?
Lesson 1 – Swindling your Queen’s revenue out of out tens of millions of pounds is probably not the best way to profess one’s loyalty.
Hey folks.
I have snuck around these boards for a while, enjoying the reading and the debate.
I just found the tweets depressing, I was reading them while following twitter to provide some level of entertainment during the closing ceremony(since the ceremony itself wasn’t really doing that part). What was telling for me, as a former blue nose (but now with little interest in football) was, as many other posters mentioned, the profiles of many of the tweeters. However I followed one conversation between two tweeters and they both used the phrase ‘But my Dad says’ about independence and Salmond in particular.
I felt like punching my own face off so I couldn’t read anymore.
It is this kind of dead end thinking that Westminster and a Labour hegemony in Scotland has bred. Narrow views inherited down generations, just so sad. Hopefully facts and education will help over the next few years. But like so many things the best way to tackle what is a mass failing of our young people is without Westminster and hopefully a multiple party system where there is some honesty and not one eye on the Lords or a cushy directorship.
Boaby
This issue should be in the MSM but Magnus and his mates will never do it as these recalcitrants sadly make up most of their dwindling readership.
Alex Tomo coming in scared the establishment on matters Rangers as he came in with an untarnished clean slate.
In my view he made more sense than the cabal combined.
When will Cameron suggest scrapping Scotland at the Commonwealth Games and have a GB team there as well?
He cannot have Scots standing on their own two feet as it will cause problems in terms of boosting self esteem.
Throw in Lawrie hopefully holing the winning putt at the Ryder Cup for Team EU and he will have real issues with the too wee too poor and too stupid argument.
And will the Rangers tweeters want a Team GB team or a Scottish one in Glasgow? Hard for them to pick I think on that one as they cannot fly their beloved Union Jack and few own a Scotland flag.
It looks like most are either 14 years old or Rangers fans or both.
Dear me, Is this the twitter voice of the union?
Hopefully this little bit of news will help. Looking longer term much more will of course need to be done, at least this is the start of a process to enable youngsters to have a better outlook and have some humanity in their life decisions.
ttp://www.newsnetscotland.com/index.php/scottish-news/in-brief/5577-funding-announced-to-tackle-bigotry
“Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs Roseanna Cunningham today announced funding will be given to two projects working to eradicate bigotry and hatred in Scotland.”
Welcome Boabyfett…
Slightly worried your after Juan Solo
The flush of triumphilism – then everything goes back to normal and most folk will have forgotten it by september.
These yahoos keep mouthing off with their Oi Oi Saveloy attitude and Salmond keeps his powder dry till when the real campaign begins.
We really need to get out of this Union, we really do.
Quite telling of the mentality of the Twits who post these comments, that they consider some-one’s personal features to be synonymous with their politics. Those of us who have constantly sought to keep Cybernattery on a more polite level have seldom seen such obscene posts like this from the very worst of those who claim to espouse independence. Will Foulkes and Co cringe when reading the above? I fear not. He will probably revel in the fact that he has so many staunch followers of his Unionist cause.
Elsewhere: The NO to Independence campaigners gloat how Scots have to leave their native land in order to become Olympians. Their flawed logic seems to be that Scotland’s lack of training facilities is a good thing.
They also conveniently forget that they have, for generations, presided over that sorry state of affairs.
http://bettertogether.net/blog/entry/scotland-and-team-gb
A few folk have brought up the fact that several (many?) of these tweeters may just be 14 year olds. Personally, I don’t see that as a valid excuse, mainly because I would have been embarrassed to have tweeted this sort of badly-spelt rubbish when I was 10, but also because I think if we pass off this sort of ignorance as just being due to youthful ignorance, we allow it to fester. How many bigoted adult The Rangers fans learnt their charming ways while growing up? The answer: all of them.
And another thing to consider: if the voting age for the referendum does indeed get reduced to 16, how many of these 14 year olds will be allowed to vote, their heads having been filled by their parents’ reactionary nonsense…?
You’re never too young to learn the truth! (Except about Christmas)
My my… and so literate too.
I was horrified at the attack on Alex Salmond, Scotland and her people by some Tweeters last night, this unprovoked attack by some was uncalled for, actually wondering if it was instigated by an unknown hand. Making excuses is ok however the inherent ‘hatred’ there has common denominators it is fear, bigotry,ignorance. Dare I say lack of vocabulary going by some of the language the tweeters used. To address this, education and investigation to see how some parents have if these are young people warped their minds to such an extent to cause this abuse, what could it lead to later I am afraid to ask . If indeed this is because they are ‘orange’ or rangers supporters then I am afraid we need to proscribe any organisation that promotes such vile hatred.
This is a minority writing of about a few dozen bairns. If you want the popular opinion go to much supported pro-indy daftlimmy. Lots of athletes bored out of their heads listening to mimed acts and has-beens. Like he wrote, this stuff was the level of Benidorm hotel and cruise ship acts. It was the Brits last swan song. It was awful.
Juan Solo – Serious question. Post independence, what do you do with these people? Does our education system need to be looked at?
Yes it does. I was at a Nordic Horizons meeting on the Finnish Education system recently – something that stuck in my mind was that almost a third of Finnish children get some sort of ‘special needs’ help – and that includes kids from ‘difficult’ backgrounds. Presentation at http://www.chrissmithonline.co.uk/files/scotland-parliament-2012.pdf
Doug Daniel
You have form for this sort of bigotry.
Tarring Rangers Fans and indeed Protestants in general as subnormal entities, taught to hate from an early age by their parents bears no relation to fact.
I wouldn’t say that all RC’s are bigots, because of some of the comments on Celtic fan sites. Nor should you yourself imply that all Rangers Fans or Protestants are bigoted because a few clowns make repulsive comments about politicians on other sites.
You do yourself no favours at all with this sort of stuff.
I come from a Protestant background, support Rangers and have voted SNP for many years and I’m not alone.
Give it a rest.
“Tarring Rangers Fans and indeed Protestants in general as subnormal entities, taught to hate from an early age by their parents”
He didn’t actually say that, though. He said:
“How many bigoted adult The Rangers fans learnt their charming ways while growing up? The answer: all of them.”
The important part of that sentence is “bigoted adult The Rangers fans”. It specifies with precision who is being referred to in the rest of the sentence – namely, bigoted Rangers fans. That is, the subset of Rangers fans who are bigoted. It does NOT say that all Rangers fans are bigoted. It says that of the ones who ARE, they all learned to be that way while growing up.
(A statement which in itself isn’t necessarily 100% true, but will be in the vast majority of cases.)
Decent Rangers fans undoubtedly have an unfortunate image problem on account of the far more vociferous retard section of the club’s support. The only way to change that is for the decent ones to drown the bigots out, and slap them down. Ignoring them just leads people to conclude that you share their views, either explicitly or tacitly, and that they are the majority of Ibrox inhabitants – an assumption which may or may not be true but certainly doesn’t lack supporting evidence.
Mr Briggs
I know Aberdeen fan Doug Daniel can speak for himself, but I read a lot of these tweets last night, and, as I said earlier, I checked their profiles.
A considerable proportion of them were fans of the ex-team Rangers current team The Rangers.
Now, I was raised as a member of the Kirk, my father followed Rangers, I however do not,. And it is the ingrained idiocy of both sides of the Glasgow footballing divide that keep me away from them
However, Rangers fans are more likely to be pro-Union in their statements, and an awful lot of them were coming out with this guff last night
I agree that these tweets are odious, but at the risk of repeating myself from a previous post, I would point out that their tone and attitude is little different from what has been deemed acceptable within the Scottish Parliament, especially at FMQs.
On first inspection it seems worse because of the use of certain words or phrases which we find unacceptable in polite society. But are the tweeters really showing any less disrespect for the First Minister than does, say, Johann Lamont? At least they only tweet their comments. She does it on national television for the whole world to see. Again, are they saying anything different at the end of the day, from what the likes of Douglas Alexander is saying? No, they’re just saying much the same thing, but in a less acceptable way.
Yes, some of the attitudes probably come from their parents – indeed, I’m sure that Douglas Alexander’s probably come from his, too. The point is that a poor example is being set at the top – low standards are being accepted within the Scottish Parliament itself and within certain newspapers and are not being challenged enough there, where they should be.
Like everyone else, I find the tweets appalling, but is it right to condemn the kids on the one hand whilst at the same time accepting public displays of name calling and innuendo from those at the top?
I fear for poor Lee Forsyth. He doesn’t strike me as once of life’s thinkers.
I don’t twitter, now I know why, is there a moderation policy? Whether or not they are young is one thing but has anyone else been following the Guardian articles on Olympics and the 2014 vote over the last couple of weeks?
They may be more polite but the same sentiment pervades each article, the most recent is from Severin C; Team GeeBee is so great that A Salmond is crying in a corner somewhere, as a YES voter but not SNP member, it strikes me the Better Together bunch and their pals are already cranking up the vitriol towards anyone who dares to be a YES voter.
Then of course there’s the I Davidson outburst, I can only hope the debate can be raised above the level of playground bullying we are currently witnessing from Twitterers, a ‘liberal values’ newsapaper and politicians.
In a couple of weeks when the medals are forgotten and it’s all got to be paid for I’m sure all the triumphalism will soon disappear. As for the tweeters there’s not much to worry about. They’ve got to find their way to a polling station in 2014 and then work out what to do once they’re in there.
Jeannie, you might be right. The poisonous tone in the Scottish Parliament has been particularly bad in recent years as the total lack of respect, pointless rudeness and pettiness from the unionist members comes to the fore. Others are likely to imitate or follow that lead if they see the leaders of their chosen party behaving in such a manner and making it seem okay or reasonable somehow. Likewise I think the pathetic behaviour of the Scottish media is also setting a very bad example and tone for the public conversation on politics and the independence issue.
Surely there are parliamentary rules. Why doesn’t the presiding officer enforce them?
Actually Jeanie,
although it should not be necessary, I wonder if Tricia Marwick should make an announcement prior to Parliament reconvening, regarding standards .
O/T but on a similar thing,The Wallace letters are being promoted,what do you think historians,far less the people will think of transcripts of the Scottish Parliament in years to come where the ‘leader of the opposition’ in a fine moment of statesmanship recommended ‘a cup o tea and chocolate wafer at wee Ecks hoose ?
Exactly, Molly and others. You’re absolutely right – these people represent us to the world, not only in the present but for posterity. Yet their behaviour is exclusively focused on short-term results. Oh wad some powr the giftie gie them….
I wonder what would happen if we all wrote to the Presiding Officer?
What has happened to the Unionists? Have they become triumphalistic or what? I got my head bit off today by my boss when two of us discussed the Referendum in two years time. ‘Your British. End of story’ to which my reply was ‘Yes, I’m British because I live in Britain’, but in my head, I could hear myself say ‘But I’m Scots first.’
Later on while driving home, and listening to BBC Scotland, one of the commentators spoke to a Reporter in London, and asked them how London was feeling today. ‘Down and deflated.’ and that was when the penny dropped. All these vile postings at the top of this blog are from a point when people are just coming off a great time. A bit like being on a 5 star holiday, and you know it is just great. Then youcome home, and before you know it, it’s Monday, rainy, and you’re chasing your tail. In other words, the good times are over, and we are all back in the land of reality.
In 6 weeks time, no one will really have the good feel factor from the Olympics anymore. Wait till the economy crashes once more, or another Bank has commited money laundering, or the crisis in Syria really kicks in.
I’m a Nationalist, and I will admit. I did enjoy the Jubilee (I like the Royal Family even though they are so privileged that their mindset is in LaLa Land), and I did enjoy the Olympics. I can understand why there was lot of flag waving, and why some people feel very proud to British. But in no way, has this feel good factor from the summer going to stop me from voting Independence. And I think all those postings above…these folk are probably very depressed today, and probably can’t understand why…
On another point, I work in IT, so I do understand how technology works, unlike the knuckle draggers at the start of the blog (unbelievable some of the postings). Most of these if handed to the police would be termed as Racist and highly abusive. I think these people have no idea how far they have crossed the line and broken the law. An opinion is one thing, but downright racist abuse should not be tolerated.
I tell my daughter never to post anything on twitter, and when she is on Facebook, to keep her opinions to herself. I think as time goes by, that a lot of people could find themselves in hot waterm, all because they didn’t know where to draw the line when making an ‘opinion’ !!
Rev
I’ve commented on Daniel’s postings in the past and I’m afraid it’s pretty distasteful stuff he churns out from time to time.
God knows there are some dreadful people posting on Rangers sites and on other football sites also.
Daniel sees no fault from his side, whatever that may be, but he really should learn to see all sides of the debate and not just from his own rather narrow perspective.
Hopefully on my part I am never guilty of that.
These Twitters must love Tory rule from Westmidden, even after David Cameroon called them ‘TW*TS’.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jul/29/david-cameron-apology-radio-twitter
Here’s another from
Labour voters for Scottish Independence
Evening folks, another complete the sentence number here,
“To regain the initiative, Scottish Labour have to…”
A post from the delightful Michael Mawdsley “shoot all of the above.”
And off we go to Mike’s FB page and there in his likes is Rangers fitba club. Think how angry they will all be if they don’t get promoted from the 3rd Div!
http://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/393824353964422/
Post ALL insults from the Brit nats in this site: CyberBrits – the online record of Brit nat slurs and bile
Then point the Brit nats ub the direction of this page and say, have a read.
@ David Briggs,
So, if you stop defending the indefensible then……
____________________________________
It takes two to tango. And Celtic and Rangers have been at it for years.
What has, interestingly, come out of the current fracas, or liquidation, has been a few people who are not compromised by that circus.
I had never heard of Turnbull Hutton, nor Alex Thompson.
For various reasons shining a light into darkness appears to require courage. Why is that?
Your point about being a Rangers supporter and an SNP voter is well made. How do you explain the idiotic comments in the post?
Obviously they only represent themselves, but they appear to be a damn site more of them than there are of you.
I don’t subscribe to Twitter, but I take it they have a facility for reporting all of the offending comments.
What is it with Rabid Aberdeen fans who jump immediately to Rangers fans = Anti Christ…..almost without fail every unionist/independence argument comes down to football. If your looking for prejudice and bigotry some of you folks on the good side of that argument need to have a look in the mirror and ask yourself what really is driving you. Hatred of Rangers or love of Scotland or maybe just a bit of both.
This Unionist campaign to win hearts and minds has got a few rough edges, has it not?
I think I’ll stay with the YES camp.
Douglas Clark
Why should I personally have to explain them?
I would far rather that the debate stayed political without the added baggage of football and religion.
However people from both sides will keep posting their tripe and generating more heat than common sense.
I’m content to support Independence for Scotland, but cringe at some of the posts that appear on internet Forums that have basically nothing to do with what should be our common aim.
If they divide us they will rule us ………….don’t assist in the process.
So many of these twits have got it bang on. I’m glad they’re Brittish too.
As for the closing ceremony, I thought it was brilliant. It summed up modern Brittain in a nutshell.
A relic from the past ressurected to take money off foreigners and give it to those who don’t really need it (The Spice girls!) And Jessie J or whatever she’s called, it’s all about the money. Not looking after the sick, or the elderly, not creating jobs for the young, it’s all about the money.
How true.
Really, most of what’s in these posts is just the twitter version of the old-fashioned Scottish Cringe. Should we be surprised by what we read? No, we’ve all grown up in this country and we know that some of our fellow citizens live with a huge weight of shame perched on their shoulders. That so many of us have survived three hundred years of this toxic union without suffering from this condition is the miracle. We will win, we always do.
I hope this is not going down the Hitler was a vegetarian route therefore….
Just because a lot of venal unionists support the Huns (and who else would they support, HMFC being owned by foreigners;-)) it doesn’t mean all Currant Buns are scum – except for Gordon Durie, obviously.
Let’s keep it clean, at least on the pro side
cheers
charlie
Hilarious!
This stuff is perfect. If I was in the business of advising Nationalist folks, I’d be forwarding summaries of these tweets and others like them to any undecided or pro-union friends and relatives. Then I’d simply ask them two questions – ‘what do you think these people are trying to defend?’ and ‘Is that what you want too?’ This stuff is just mass hysteria brought on by fear and doubt. They know the Olympics effect will die off soon enough, and leave nothing lasting north of Luton, and they know that after the Olympics and the Jubilee, they’re running low on ammo.
So far as the Salmond attacks go, this is just how people like that react to a politician they can’t control or beat. I doubt they believe what they argue, or even remember what they tweeted – it’s just pure id stuff. If you want a good example, the case of Jack Layton of Canada’s NDP is a good one – the developed some success over a series of elections, growing the kind of response Salmond gets. Then, with the 2011 election, his party goes from 37 to 103 seats, despite Layton fighting cancer and a dodgy hip. Regardless of the health issues, the fact that the NDP had become a serious threat saw a rise in the ferocity of the attacks on Layton – people were scared, and a charismatic politician had seriously upset the status quo. Suddenly Layton was a real threat.
And when he died of cancer just three months after the historic election, he was almost-spontaneously sanctified – suddenly Jack was a Canadian political saint. Some of that beatification came from the people who were so violently anti-Jack before his death. It’s just mob stuff, and the turnaround was surreal – after his death, you could find absolutely no-one who would hear a bad word against him.
And if Alec Salmond were to drop dead of a heart attack tomorrow, I bet we’d see the same thing.
I for one am looking forward to urinating on Alex Salmond’s grave whoever wins the independence vote.