And finally… #3
Posted on
January 26, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
There wouldn’t be many people left in the No campaign if these were the rules.
So remember, folks – calling someone a Nazi isn’t political debate. Nazis weren’t comical figures of fun. That sort of poison is “sick abuse and gutter politics”, and must be stamped on if we’re ever to raise the level of debate.
(Another nugget from the Scottish Political Archive.)
I think that we should contemporise the good Lord Robertson and call him Lord Naw Naw.
To be fair to Labour, anyone who uses the Nazi jibe should be stamped on forthwith.
OT, and it may have been mentioned elsewhere, but Kevin McKenna is continuing in a fine vein of form.
I no longer get upset by the MSM. The “Dear Leader” pish peddled by Alan Cochrane (and Anas Sarwar’s elected dictatorship) is an insult to democracy, but embarrasses him more than anyone else.
Their bullets will run dry. Let them fire them and do the rebuttal in the final 6 months. To use the football analogy – you don’t win the league in September!
I remember the Monklands by-election. Jim Murphy was standing with a megaphone and saw me getting off an SNP truck. We had previously been colleagues (cannot bring myself to use the term Comrade in relation to him!) in the Labour Party but I had finally left it during the poll tax campaign. Through the megaohone he shouts “When did you join the Nazis?”. He was lucky that there were two others there that led me away having just been hospitalised by the BNP the previous month…
But what amuses me is how they can refer to the Secretary General of NATO as humane…
Really we have to have the Godwins Law discussion… in 2013… The Only Good Scotland is a Independent Scotland. Dont forget how not so Great Britan became that way. No were not friends, the English are tyrants and thives of land, history, and culture.
I’ve already posted enough for one night, so, apologies to anyone who sees my name cropping up yet again and is thinking ‘oh FFS, what is this guy’s problem..?.’
My problem is George Robertson. He represents everything I most hate about ‘politics’. I was politically dormant, neutered, whatever-you-want-to-call-it, until George Robertson became the Sec-Gen of NATO. I remember seeing him in a press conference when Belgrade was being bombed. Harold Pinter had managed to secure a BBC position, allowing him to legitimately question Robertson, Jamie Shea, or whatever other mouthpieces.
Pinter asked a question. Robertson, after digesting who he was talking to, gathered himself together and said ‘Ah, Mister Pinter, I didn’t realise you’d changed occupations.’ That’s not a verbatim quote, but pretty close, and the tone he used was just appalling.
Pinter was always, to me, someone to look up to, admire. His work was on the curriculum when I was in Secondary school, and that was in the mid-70’s. To hear him being patronised by that c-c-c-character was one of the most infuriating things I’ve ever witnessed.
Robertson is a living-fossil – he has many questions to answer over his involvement in NATO, and other matters closer to home. If he shows the slightest inclination to become involved in this referendum debate, he should be made aware, in no uncertain terms, cross-party, that he is not welcome.
A couple of years ago I came across Robertson on Islay, specifically in the “Holy Cow” bistro in Bowmore. He didn’t know me from Adam but I new him. Our gazes touched and he new I knew him for what he was.
He looked away knowing my contempt.
@Dracul
I think, like most people, that you misunderstand what Godwin’s law actually is.
I also think that you need to stop been a racist cock.
Ah Mr Robertson, that dedicated man of the people; their representative in the House of Commons, until he got the chance to take a seat in the House of Lords and get himself a top job in Brussels, that is.
At which point he jumped at the chance of becoming an aristocrat and ditched his constituents like they were white hot and smelly.
he’s a bit of a joke really. But, it’s Labour in general that makes me laugh. I mean, how many times are they going to scream at the SNP for doing things they have done themselves. Before they come out with something like the poster you feature, would it not be an idea to look round the office and ask: “Any of our guys ever made any connection between the SNP and dictators or Nazis?”
It really is quite frightening how inept they are.
I don’t remember it but then though I was interested in the Devolution referendum, politics left me cold. Much more interested in bringing up my kids and earning a crust. Party Politics still leave me cold really, I just want to see them open again in Scotland, not closed doors in Westminster. Looking it up, apparently that slur was in retaliation for someone from Labour calling Alex Salmond “Alex in Wonderland”.
It’s insulting, it’s pathetic and it’s disgraceful, whichever side does it.
Sorry if that doesn’t follow any party line.
Dracul
Here’s me thinkin’ we’re looking forward. We’re trying to create an inclusive society.
“The enemies of Scottish Nationalism are not the English, for they were ever a great and generous folk, quick to respond when justice calls. Our real enemies are among us, born without imagination.”
RBC Graham
It seems odd that our correpondent didn’t add, or simply missed the ‘a’ at the end of their name. Is this an attempt to get us all tarred as mad bigots? Y’know, being quoted as the genuine view of a typical ‘Yes’ voter?
Just asking.
Does seem a bit ‘out there’ DC. I don’t think I’ve ever come across anyone in the campaign personally who hates anything other than social inequality and jaffa cake theft from the canteen.
Anyone who steals the jaffa cakes should be hunted down and thrashed wi nettles.
OT, but here is a story to stir things up…
link to heraldscotland.com–
No comments allowed.
Also OT, but this story doesn’t really stack up for me. Can anyone more familiar with cross border energy subsidies confirm any of this?
link to heraldscotland.com
@Seasick Dave
Trying your link again:
link to heraldscotland.com
Aye, seems the knives are oot for Matheson.
@dracul
What is a ‘thive’?
That posting looks, judging by the poor spelling and poor syntax, to be the work of someone with an age of around 16.
Yes campaign have issued this in response to a poll in the Sunday Times:
link to yesscotland.net
Yes 34 No 47 Und 19
Godwin’sLaw merely states states “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1”
There is nothing in that about the discussion being over.
This is particularly true in threads discussing the causes and conduct of WW2
@Marcia
Further evidence that the No has peaked and is slipping down again after briefly pushing above 50% in the autumn of last year (following the Yes climbing ahead of the No post SNP win). The trend is back to don’t know, which is to be expected. A good sign; those who panicked and thought ‘no’ are now deciding to give it more thought…
A majority of Scots are not prepared to vote for the union with 7 in 10 wanting independence or all but (Devo Max). That’s all we need to know right now.
Tris
At which point he jumped at the chance of becoming an aristocrat
The thought of George Robertson being discribed as an aristocrat has to be the funniest thing I’ve heard all week. Thanks for the laugh.
@Laura
Not so far fetched – m’Lord Robertson has the look of a Habsburg about him, I’ve always thought. Particularly that of Carlos II (euphemistically referred to as the ‘bewitched’ or ‘spellbound’, rather than ‘congenital idiot’).
link to en.wikipedia.org
SS
The voting intention for Holyrood in that poll is
SNP 45 Lab 33 Con 13 LD 5 Others 5. Why are LD so high?
Erchie, you’re right that Godwin’s Law itself does not say anything about the discussion being over, but there is a well known and well understood corollary to the law which says exactly that. As wikipedia notes: “there is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress. The coupling of this corollary with the initial statement of the law proves every threaded discussion to be finite in length.[6] This principle is itself frequently referred to as Godwin’s law.“
As I can’t edit the post re voting intention, it relates to the Constituency vote.
@Marcia
Very nice poll. SNP still on what they got in May 2011.
‘Attack Salmond / the SNP’ is a useless tactic. Would only work if the SNP actually were really crap and not the decent government the are.
The negative unionist campaign is working, slowly, just not in the way they intended.
Poll good news, though not surprising. I do wish the YES website would put the actual results as Marcia has, rather than just “Poll: Swing of just 7% would put Yes ahead”.
Give the figures, give the facts, give the flaming figures. They speak for themselves, they don’t need spin, even if it isn’t spin, it just looks like it. So annoying.
I can see now why ken900 kept just posting the figures in Guardian articles.
the List vote in the same poll with the changes from 2011
Regional vote:
SNP 44% (nc)
Labour 31% (+5)
Con 12% (nc)
Greens 6% (+2)
Lib Dem 5% (nc)
Others 3%
Seems BT/MSM lies are having an effect though:
“It found 60% of voters agree an independent Scotland would not automatically become a member of the European Union.
Almost half (49%) agree independence would cost Scotland many defence jobs.
Alex Salmond has suggested a healthy outlook for North Sea oil revenues, which would help balance the books of an independent Scotland, but more Scots than not agree with claims the oil is running out (46%).
The poll found that 40% agree with the No camp that the SNP plan would leave Scotland with “little say over interest rates and spending levels” while 26% disagreed and 34% were unsure.
With Scots indicating they would have to expect to be £500 a year better off to back independence in the 2014 referendum, there is further bad news for the nationalists.
Asked whether an independent Scotland would be financially worse off than the rest of the Britain, 40% said it would be while 37% said it would not and 23% are unsure.”
link to realradio-scotland.co.uk
Ah, that’ll be the former Gen Sec of NATO George ‘Bomber’ Robertson the killer of thousands of Serb and Iraqi civilians, or how he called it “soft bombing” as non-military buildings and infrastructure were targeted. Another New Labour blood-thirsty maniac who loves the idea of projecting power. Now a Lordy and dirctor of several large companies including Cable and Wireless, as a reward for all the ‘good work’. What a price to pay for ambition, power and entitlement, and can anyone tell me what legacy our comrade left behind for the good people of Hamilton South constituency? … no? Thought not.
@AndrewFraeGovan
So with the question about better off, directly linked to a vote for Independence, there’s just a 3% gap between YES and NO – and the realradio thinks that’s BAD news for the YES campaign?
I remember Jim Murphy’s “sewer rats” jibe at the SNP, and thinking to myself that the guy was an unpleasant, smear merchant. Nothing that has happened since has changed my mind on that….Alex Neil’s “Lord Haw-Haw” jibe at Robertson was stupid as well (even if Robertson is a horrible character).
MacWhirter on Sunday Politics, the Irish response reported.
@Dadsarmy
It seems so obviously to me that we would be hugely better off in virtually every respect with independence. It puzzles me that so many of us still can’t see it. Scales will fall eventually I hope.
Just watched Sunday Politics. I was amazed to see Alastair Darling unwittingly destroy his own argument that we are better together by (almost hysterically) painting a picture of a future UK as an economic basket case. It obviously didn’t occur to him that some of us would then wonder why on earth he was advocating that Scotland remain a part of it.
It would be great if someone more IT-competent than myself could reproduce it as a clip as it’s a bit of a gift.
Thank you Major – remarkable resemblance!
@dads
Considering Pacific Quay’s penchant for running stories/reports directly from Sunday Politics, tonight’s Reporting Scotland should be interesting.
@Marcia: Panelbase poll is good news for Greens. Plenty of fuss about UKIP maybe sneaking the 6th MEP’s job, but the Lib Dems would lose their seat to the Greens on that basis. And the SGP does better at Euro elections than at Holyrood.
Hole bender, yes, but they never cite the extrapolations, which are custom rather than a ‘Law’
And sometimes tcomps parisons are apt, like Disabled Rights protesters contrasting rhetoric in the press with Nazi posters quantifying the disabled as burdens on the state
Sometimes those comparisons are apt