Better Together leaked posters #6
Posted on
June 26, 2012 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
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A tall tale
Wee Books
Video
Probably a robbery
Transphobia
“War is Peace”
How appropriate that Rev Stu’s graphic and the No Campaign launch were on June 25th which was George Orwell’s birthday.
link to en.wikipedia.org
Bloody hell Rev,
We’re struggling to keep up with you here!
But if you’re open to more suggestions, how about:
Scottish poverty
British welfare
Scottish inequality
British millionaires
Scottish workers
British labour laws
Not quite off topic but I urge everyone to watch this latest effort from the Bitter Together No campaign. Please watch it, it’s pure comedy gold. It features Ryan, described as a “Student-Glasgow”. I dread to think what subject Ryan is studying, but it’s probably better for the reputation of Scottish higher education that we don’t know. They cannot be serious but, tragically, they are!
link to youotube.com
Ryan seems to have an obsession with “wee sausage rolls”. If I could obtain Ryan’s address I’d like to send him three items through the post, nothing malicious though.
The first thing would be a wee sausage roll. The second thing would be a cheque for £30,000 post-dated to the UK Treasury for 2015 (Ryan looks and sounds like a fresher). The third item would be a card attached to the cheque. On the card I’d write the following words:
Dear Ryan,
Just think, if we were really ‘better together’ this would be a real grown-up’s cheque that you’d have to send to your beloved British Treasury to pay for your education. But you’re lucky to have a government in Scotland that believes that it, rather than George Osborne or Ed Balls, is better equipped to make the grown-up decisions about the financing of Scotland’s education, among many other things. How unfortunate that you weren’t gracious enough to acknowledge this in your video. Feel free to stick the cheque in yer wee sausage roll Ryan, or any other convenient orifice you may deem to be appropriate. But remember, if you vote No in 2014, then for Scotland’s student population, one day soon, this will be a real cheque, so you might want to keep it in a handy place, just in case future generations of Scottish students have to live with the consequences of your No vote in 2014.
Yours fraternally,
Yes, Yes, Yes.
I see you’re being subjected to some manufactured outrage from a caricature posting as CaronMLindsay.
If these people weren’t real they would be amusing. Does everyone in Scottish politics have “hysterical stridency” set to 11?
I’ve had my own personal condemnation from Willie Rennie too. How exciting.
link to scotlibdems.org.uk
I also got called a “faceless, nameless cybernat” by some pico-witted Lib Dem, even though my name’s right there on the post.
Ooh the Twitter “outrage” this has caused!
There’s a dangerous attitude in the UK, permeated by the mainstream media, that if you dare to attack the wars in Iraq/Afghan you are in fact attacking “our boys”. The reality that you are defending our servicemen and women from being killed and maimed in illegal and immoral wars is not lost on those in the LidDem-Labservatives, it’s just their pseudo-fascist way of deflecting criticism from the conflict.
Keep it up Stu, this is the best blog on the web right now.
To think that the name of England, under no political necessity, but for a war as frivolous as ever was waged in the history of man, should be associated with consequences such as these … remember that the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan, among the winter snows, is as inviolable in the eye of Almighty God, as can be your own.
Willie Rennie, standing next to a podium that says “strong liberal values” appears to have a different view. Perhaps he’d like to slip in a quick condemnation of the GOM for belittling the role of our proud armed forces in some warped attempt to score political points.
“These narrow nationalists are trying to portray the English as warmongers who don’t care about lives lost in battle” Willie Rennie
Odd, but either he is saying we are run by England or he is trying to imply that Westminster is England, or he is trying to distance Westminster from the outcome of declaring war on other nations.
In any instance he is morally and factually wrong.
To be criticised by Willie Rennie (truly the dimmest of the many unimpressive Holyrood leaders the Parliament has ‘enjoyed’ since opening, and a man who makes Tavish Scott look like an intellectual powerhouse) is a real honour – enjoy your minor notoriety while it lasts.
“To be criticised by Willie Rennie (truly the dimmest of the many unimpressive Holyrood leaders the Parliament has ‘enjoyed’ since opening, and a man who makes Tavish Scott look like an intellectual powerhouse) is a real honour – enjoy your minor notoriety while it lasts.”
I shall, but happily it seems to have fizzled out already. I still semi-expect someone from the SNP to officially condemn it as some stage, because if they don’t the No parties will – irony of ironies – use it to score political points, by saying “SNP refuse to condemn evil cybernat”. But I’ve coped with a lot worse than this over the years.
Hope you don’t mind Rev, but I’ve been linking to your FANTASTIC pics on Scottish Independence site.
I think the wider the audience these “posters” get the better.
Keep up the excellent work!
ALBA gu BRATH!
“Hope you don’t mind Rev, but I’ve been linking to your FANTASTIC pics on Scottish Independence site.
I think the wider the audience these “posters” get the better.”
Absolutely. Go nuts with ’em.
Rennie is a prime muppet. Being attacked by his rapier intellect must be like being licked to death by a moth.
Troops aren’t dying protecting their country, they die advancing a morally repugnant geo-political aim. Troops do as they are instructed. It’s that or court martial. They don’t all sit down in the mess and decide if a conflict is intended to defend loved ones back home and only then go into battle if the answer is yes. They do what politicians tell the generals to tell them to do.
The British army is a tool of empire – just take a tour round the barracks museum at Edinburgh Castle for the evidence – the sooner Scots troops are out of it the better.
Nicely done, Rev Stu. Nothing like some crocodile tears and manufactured outrage from the opposition to spice up an afternoon.
Love their logic:
Their sending off (or supporting those who do) of young men and women to die = Supposedly all fine and they never mention it themselves (we can only assume they are glad the soldiers are dead as they aren’t complaining or changing their support).
Highlighting that people have died tragically early and rightfully pointing out this would not happen this way post indy = SHOCK! HORROR! TEARS!
So really, they are happy to see young men and women die, but just not for you to mention it or that they supported it in the past and for it to continue. If someone was responsible for sending people to their death for dubious reasons I think the first thing to do is I’d withdraw my support.
Your arrogance is astonishing. You’re trying to turn this into *you* being victimised by people saying that they think the use of this image is distasteful? Breathtaking.
Let’s make one thing clear: that is an image of British soldiers’ remains being repatriated in July 2009. Most are from 2 Rifles, others are from other brigades, all are based in England, Wales or Northern Ireland. Every one of them is mourned by family and friends, many of whom are also pictured in that shot.
This is not an image of “Scotland’s soldiers, Britain’s wars”. It is an image of soldiers from across the United Kingdom who lost their lives in conflict, and many of the people who still today feel their loss. For you to put it into use, without permission, in a distorted attack on the Better Together campaign is a terrible error of judgement.
And you have already been condemned by many from the SNP as well as other parties, many who support independence as well as many who support the UK.
This sort of tasteless, thoughtless campaigning might gain you plaudits from people who already share your distorted view of the UK, but it will only serve to turn others from the aim of independence.
I know that independence is supported by many honourable Scots. You are not one of them. You are an arrogant, thoughtless, self-indulgent idiot who thrives on the cheap thrill of stirring upset online. You’re the sort of person who calls himself “we” on blogposts to make it appear that this site is something other than a personal project from a bitter man.
I asked you earlier to take this image down. I’m asking you again. Please take it down.
“And you have already been condemned by many from the SNP as well as other parties, many who support independence as well as many who support the UK.”
Many? I’ve seen two from independence/SNP supporters. Got a list? I’ve lost one Twitter follower (in a net gain of several) and you’re the only person who’s come on here to complain. My Twitter feed is full of support, so are my DMs, and most importantly of all I asked my mum if she thought it was out of line and she said “No, more power to you, son”. (And my mum isn’t slow to pick me up on anything she doesn’t like. I have no idea who she votes for, just by the by.) So frankly, YOUR hardly-impartial opinion can go interfere with itself. Your credibility as an honest witness is zero.
“I asked you earlier to take this image down.”
No, you ordered me to, while insulting me. (As you’ve just done again above.) Do you find that often works?
Where did I claim to be “victimised”, incidentally?
Oh, and it’s barely worth wasting my breath addressing this, but:
“This is not an image of “Scotland’s soldiers, Britain’s wars”. It is an image of soldiers from across the United Kingdom”
Nobody claimed it was a picture of Scottish soldiers. It’s a picture of the coffins of British soldiers from a British war that Scotland wouldn’t have been involved in had it been independent. The theme, like that of all the posters, is that BritNats like yourself WANT Scotland’s soldiers involved in Britain’s wars – that is, that you think the two things are “Better Together”. You want to put Scottish soldiers in that tragic, awful picture. I don’t.
Please ignore the sanctimonious claptrap above – great series of images.
You must be doing something right to prick those solipsistic hand-wringers.
The real obscenity is the pointless war, the pointless deaths and the damage wrought (the hand-wringers are supine in front of the state propaganda) – using an image from it, is appropriate and justified.
To attack your use of the image – is to side with the warmongers.
I ask you to keep this image up on your site and make more.
Why does the image upset you Duncan?
Is it because the Labour party is directly responsible for those bodies? War isn’t a game.
I fully support Stu highliting the fact that those deaths were avoidable, and your faux upset says more about you.
Feel free to quote me as one of those horrible socialist (remember what that is?) cyber ‘nats’.
Oh dear they don’t like the TRUTH getting out!
Well I guess they’d better get used to it, there’s going to be a heck of a lot more like this.
Unlike the Bitter Together crowd we only deal with TRUTH! We don’t take too kindly to be lied to by the Dependence Brigade! If they haven’t realised that yet then they’d better sit and listen cause in the words of the Carpenters:
link to youtube.com
Great to see the famous nationalist positivity in action. Keep it up – this level of bile and hatred will have people flocking to the Yes campaign in ones and twos!
“Great to see the famous nationalist positivity in action. Keep it up – this level of bile and hatred”
“I don’t want to see our soldiers killed” doesn’t seem especially bilious or hateful to me, and I’m not sure I quite grasp why you see it that way.
Duncan – I find your reaction fascinating, at a number of levels. However lets start with my position, and I’m speaking as someone who has a very close family member now home after two tours in Afghanistan with the Rifle Brigade, and home safe and well I’m delighted to say. That’s on top of another two close family members who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, and are now also home say and well. However all career military, all who knew the risks and all who relatively dutifully went where they were told.
Now thats no great comfort when waiting at home, as my families spouses were, for that dreaded call, but it was as they say “their job”. But for me looking on from the outside, it was pretty clear that “their job” was to do the dirty end of politics, and in the case of Iraq, the very dirty end of politics. A professional army in a distant foreign war is a political tool pure and simple. As always evidence otherwise is welcome.
Yet….
So thats what I find remarkable about the “deification” of casualties of these wars. No criticism is allowed, they died for the greater glory, etc etc, And leaving aside the fact that your post above could have come from the pages of the Mail or Torygraph, let me tell you as a family member of soldiers who came home, I’m pretty comfortable with the image above. Of course my boys came home, and not knowing your personal circumstances you may have relative who never came home, and as a result of that find the image above personally difficult. If so you have my sympathies and apologies.
But if not, and taking forward your argument that the discussion of deaths for political ends is completely inappropriate, I’m fascinated in your fellow traveller Murdo Fraser MSP’s campaign to dual the A9, where he uses stats, names and crash data to further his political campaign to accelerate the dualling of that trunk road. Now living the North Highlands as I do, I’m all for it, and in fact I suspect have a significantly greater chance of dying in a smash on the A9 that I do in dying from any by product of the war on terror, but surely you would agree that Murdo’s use of deaths on the A9, and the P&J’s and Daily Records pictures of the victims funerals is as reprehensible as the Rev’s use of the picture above?
Now you may argue – and I’m sure you will – that there is no link between the two, and an accidental death in road smash is completely different to someone losing there life in the service of their country. Fine, I respect that – but agree to differ – but I’d argue that the causes of both these deaths is ultimately politics, so tell me why its OK to use one example to further a political point, and not the other?
And if its not politics to choose to fight a foreign war, and to vote to build an Edinburgh Trams project rather than dual the A9 – when you know that not doing A saves lives, and doing B saves lives, than what is it?
Duncan,
You’re clearly an angry young man. But you lose any respect that people may have for your opinion on this issue when it’s recalled that you, and others like you in Scotland, campaigned vigorously for the return of the Labour government that took our soldiers into these wars. And make no mistake, these were political wars, however your party tried to spin them both during and after the events that took us into these wars.
And please don’t tell me that you and your party (as opposed to your government) were against the wars. All that that means is that you and your party were happy to trade off the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans in order to keep your party in power. Well you won’t get any medals for that son. And there are many people in Scotland as well as elsewhere who, like me, will never, ever, forgive your party and your government for these atrocities.
Similarly, these funerals have been politicised by the British political parties. There’s nothing uniquely British about this incidentally. All nationalists, not just British nationalists, do this. This is one of the reasons why Benedict Anderson, in his classic study of nationalism, Imagined Communities, referred to such occasions as one of the “twin fatalities” of nationalism – that is, for the nationalist, there is no greater sacrifice that individuals can make for their country than to give their lives for it.
I remember a few years ago that the Labour MP at Westminster used his ten minutes speech to read out the names of the British casualties in Iraq, regretting the fact that it took him all of 10 minutes to do so. I wonder how long Paul Flynn would need to read out the names of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan victims of the British and Americans, including the tens of thousands of children who were either killed or horribly maimed by British and American bombs. They, too, have families and loved ones but, of course, they’re not British and they’re ‘over there’, so we’re spared the inconvenience, not to mention the shame, of having to recall their names, even if we knew them.
If you really want something to be shocked about, I suggest that Stuart posts a photograph of those American soldiers, those steadfast British allies, who urinated on the corpses of their Afghan victims. Now that really would be something to get outraged about.
I find it surreal that Labour folk on here are defending illegal wars and (on another thread) are pro nuclear.
Whatever happened to the Labour party? And to think they used to call US Tartan Tories! 🙂
@John Ruddy,
“Great to see the famous nationalist positivity in action. Keep it up – this level of bile and hatred will have people flocking to the Yes campaign in ones and twos”.
As you prove here, Scottish Labour don’t do comedy, at least not intentionally.
“Bile and hatred”? As opposed to what? Your party’s sanitised version of events, devised to anaesthetise the Scottish population into supporting the ‘honour’ of British wars? As the late Bill Hicks once said, “When did we reach this stage in our civilisation, when these guys just breeze out in front of us and announce, ‘Hi, we’re the military and we demand your respect’. Jesus Christ! These guys are fuckin murderers”.
As for winning over a few more converts to the Yes campaign? Mebbes aye etc. But, far better that, than to witness the unedifying spectacle of Scottish Labour scurrying behind the coat-tails of their Westminster Tory allies to secure a No vote in 2014.
@ Duncan Hothersal
Hi Duncie! Y’alright there? Good, good.
Y’see, when I read yer post there and I wiz pishin’ masel laughin’ at yer wee pretendy outrage ‘n’ that, I kindae hud a wee think, ye know, tha’ “Christ, mehbe this guy’s wan eh they trolls that pretends thur someone when thur no'”. Know whit ah mean’n’ all tha’, aye? Cus, ye know, there’s you abusin’ the guy whose blog yer on wi’ stuff like,”…You are an arrogant, thoughtless, self-indulgent idiot who thrives on the cheap thrill of stirring upset online.” An’ here’s me thinkin’ “Fucks sake, wait a wee minute here, that’s no’ right, is it?” Cus this blog’s owner’s good enough tae let ye post here, right? An’ ye come oot wi’ that! Fuckin’ bad news that is, by the way. So, anyways like, ahm like tha’, “Let’s type this abuser’s name intae Google an’ see whit we get”, eh? An’ fuck me wi’ a six-fit barbed-wire pole, but there ye are wi yer ain blog’n’at! An’ here’s me thinkin’ “Cheeky prick, pilin’ intae someone else’s blog aw moothy and full o’ shite!” Know whit ah mean?
Anyways like, while’m there, ah took a wee look roond tae see whit ye’ve got tae say fur yersel”n’at. An’ whit dae ah see? Well nuhin’ tae want tae come back again tae, fuck that fur a caper! But anyways up, I get it noo why ye wer’ aw fuckin’ up yersel and hoity-toity in yer post, eh. Yer a big Labour fan ah see, a “member’, no less. An’ an Embra “Labour activist” tae boot. Fuckin’ hell! Your the boy, eh!
So, ye say yer Labour, aye? But, ho’d oan. How kin ye be ‘just’ Labour? Ah thought yous lot wer’ aw joined thegither wi’ the Conservatives and Lib. Dems. an”at, ur ye no’? So, come oan, get a grip. Git tha’ wee blog o’ yours fixed up, eh! It looks pure gash the noo wi’ stuff like “Labour activist” on it, does it no’? That’s just you tellin’ mince pies, man. Oh, aye, it is! It should be an Embra “Lab/Con/Lib.Dem activist”, of course. Noo tha’ yez are aw mates thegither tryin’ tae do Scotland doon an’ don’ want us tae be independent, ‘n’tha’, eh.
Oh, an’ by the way, did ye go tae see aw yer mates at tha’ No campaign launch thing thother day there? Ye did? Aye, good on ye! Cannae beat it bein’ thegither wi’ aw yer Conservative and Lib. Dem mates, sure ye cannae? Especially wi’ you bein’ aw big and fuckin’ shouty for Labour, ‘n”at, eh. Pure mental time, eh!
Oh, an’ before ah go, whit are ye doin’ bein’ aw fuckin’ greetin’ faced an’ askin’ the guy fae this blog tae take doon an image fae his ain blog fur? Huv ye no manners, fur chris’sake? If it wiz ma blog ahd be tellin’ ye tae get it right up ye and tae sling yer fuckin’ hook aw the way back tae Embra an’ yer Con/Lib.Dem mates… But it’s no’ ma blog, so ah willnae!
Anyways, Duncie, it’s been pure brilliant rappin’ wi’ ye, man, so it has! An’ keep yer pure funny wee pretendy outrages goin’, won’t ye no’?
Duncan, you roaring great slimy toad, you’re at it again with your blatant dishonesty and hypocrisy – tell me, do you condemn Labour and the rest for the deaths of these people and withdraw your support from the unionist parties that spur on these untimely ends or do you continue to cheer on the deaths of this segment of UK’s youth? How many people of other countries have to die to satiate your and your chosen party’s lust for foriegn wars and blood? Make your stand, stick to your supposed morals or end your pathetic crocodile tears and false outrage as it does not stand to the hypocrisy of happily allowing the deaths of the people you claim to be so protective of.
How many (and how many more?) deaths do you need to cover yourself and your party with glory? How many more dead people can you sweep under the Party’s rug without a twinge of conscience?
Until you clean the blood off your hands and end your daily active support for the killing then you’ve no right to lecture anyone about respect for the dead.
Your like a PETA activist lecturing people on animal rights while wearing a fur coat and eating a Big Mac.
I cannot add much to the eloquent comments already posted.
However, as anyone with any hint of decency must realise, the only reprehensible thing about this entire issue is the complicit acceptance of those who will support parties and Governments who made the twisted decision to put these soldiers in harms way based on a tissue of misrepresentation, spin and downright lies. Politicians who sit on their hands at the time, then wring them in mock grief later must take the major share of the blame but those that continue to support them are accessories after the fact and one can’t help but think that the outpouring of rage today by some is a form of self-loathing when confronted with a ‘truth’.
Those in power who then politicise the repatriations of the fallen to further their own agenda – demonising insurgents/terrorists/rebels and deifying our own dead who, along with hundreds of thousands of innocents, are among their hapless victims – are the very worst of us and must be challenged at every turn.
It is indeed fortunate for us in the Independence movement that our politicians were universally against these illegal, imperial wars whilst all those who support them are on the other side of the debate. It is unfortunate if that fact makes people like Duncan (who I know did not personally support the war) uncomfortable. So be it. He (and we) should be uncomfortable and should use that discomfort to try and ensure our leaders do not commit such atrocities again.
That is what Stuart is trying to do and I salute him for it. All of us must try to secure independence for our nation as the best (though never guaranteed) means of ensuring our countrymen never have to die for the pursuit of oil, regime change or American favours.
Hey Duncan!
Look at this and see if your’e still proud of your war.
link to collateralmurder.com
Watch it to the end you arsehole .
Seeing as how you get so high and mighty Duncan, perhaps you might like to explain this.
link to dailymail.co.uk
Now I don’t know about you Duncan, but this would appear to be a wee bit serious. From accounts it looks like your dear leader, Tony, was so intent on going to war that apart from the 45 minute scaremongering lie he made in the House of Commons, he denied the Labour cabinet FULL access to ALL the facts!
Oh by the way, did uncle Tone ever get done for lying in the House of Commons? No I thought not.
@Richie,
Thankyou for this link. You’re wasting your time with the likes of Duncan and John Ruddy, but these videos should be essential viewing for every decent Labour voter in Scotland. This is what Scottish Labour has done to us.
Quotation from US soldier Ethan McCord on his service in Iraq:
“We were told by our battalion commander to kill every motherfucker on the street”.
Welcome to the world of Scottish Labour’s moral compass. Outrage at the use of a still photograph of the funeral cortege of British soldiers. Silence and collusion with the British state in its attempt to cover-up the atrocities committed by British and American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
@ Duncan Hothersal
Oh, the outrage!
Tony Blair took us to war against an evil dictator and now he works for one link to guardian.co.uk
It pretty much sums up Labour’s values for me.
I usually ignore Duncan and the nonsense he talks but on this subject I shall bite.
Duncan,
I will keep this brief. It is people like you that sent these boys to die. It is people like me that are the boys that die.
I wonder how many friends, family and colleagues at your local labour branch have sat in a room with a young mother crying her heart out, holding her small child after hearing the news her husband was dead.
I wonder if your heart races every time you hear news of another death in Afghanistan until you find out if they are one of your friends or brothers or cousins or husbands.
It is Muppets like you that send boys to die, it is the people you campaign for, the people you support.
Your outrage means nothing to us with military families. We feel it everyday at the loss of our loved ones.
Duncan Hothersall, the moral compass of the internet. Boldly traipsing Twitter, looking for excuses to convey mock outrage at nationalists, all in the name of showing us all how morally superior he is.
24 hours before this, it was me that was on the receiving end of a Duncan Hothersall sermon. My crime? Cracking a cheap joke which was more Francie & Josie than Frankie Boyle.
Observe the offending tweet, replying to the umpteenth journalist asking where Charles Kennedy was on the BetterTogether launch event: link to twitter.com
Of course, we then find out that Charlie had a sick family member, something that even journalists had no idea about (hence their tweets), never mind ordinary sarky members of the public like moi. But no! Our plucky moral crusader sees this terrible wrong and decides he must chastise this evil, knuckle-dragging cybernat:
link to twitter.com
Duncan’s moral crusades are typical of the sort of behaviour that puts people off politics. It’s not cheap gags, throwaway comments or posters that use shocking images to make a point (although you can hardly call coffins a shocking sight) that make people come to the conclusion that politicians are “all the same”; it’s people who try to stifle debate, enforce their morals on everyone else, and generally force everyone to walk on eggshells, scared to say anything out of turn for fear of incurring the wrath of the moralising mob. This is why we have a complete dearth of political talent these days, with politicians having to scrutinise every single word they say before they utter it, culminating in the strange creature Ed Miliband, who will go into an interview and parrot the same pre-determined line in six barely-differently-worded forms.
Nobody has a right to avoid being offended, and Duncan Hothersall certainly doesn’t have the right to lecture people on Twitter and DEMAND that they take things down, just because he has decided to become the self-appointed arbiter of what is and isn’t offensive. And anyone who saw the exchange between Duncan and RevStu will know that he certainly DID demand, not ask.
Urgh. This is going to be a very long and laborious campaign if we’re going to have to put up with this sort of shite for over two years. Can people not grow up a bit and stop this childish mock outrage? It’s dull.
In the words of the late Hunter S. Thompson: “Politics is the art of controlling your environment. Anybody who thinks ‘it doesn’t matter who’s President’ has never been sent off to die in a vicious, stupid War on the other side of the World. That is when you will wish you had voted”. This is politics at its most blunt – which is why people don’t like it – and you’re standing in the right place.
How easy it is to turn this into an argument about the rights and wrongs of wars, and futility of these deaths. How easy to slag me off as if I were defending war and this poster were attacking it. But what a barefaced lie that is.
This poster is about independence. It is an attack on the Better Together campaign, one of a series of posters with that one aim. It isn’t a moral argument against war, it is an opportunistic sideswipe about constitutional politics. And it uses an image of dead soldiers inappropriately.
There is justified anger here about the war and the deaths that resulted. But the implicit suggestion that independence would end wars is a shameful lie, and the opportunistic abuse of a picture of dead soldiers and their grieving families remains a shameful act.
Stuart is not trying to “ensure our leaders do not commit such atrocities again”. He is putting together a series of posters about independence without caring who is hurt by them. Anyone defending him as a peace campaigner and condemning me as a warmonger has simply not thought it through.
“But the implicit suggestion that independence would end wars is a shameful lie”
Once again, in desperation at the poverty of your position on arguments that have been made, you attack ones that haven’t. Of course independence wouldn’t end wars. As I note in my piece of last night on Willie Rennie, all three London-based parties back the “war” in Afghanistan. Independence would end Scottish participation in wars like Afghanistan and Iraq, and that’s all we have the power to achieve.
Never thought I’d say it, but I agree with Duncan – this poster is a really nasty piece of cynical negative campaigning.
Duncan – I’m not sure that you have answered my question above, but you clearly agree that this image was used to make a political point, albeit one that you disagree with. So – and lets just ignore that fact that I’m the only person who commented on this thread who has a family connection to the War in Afghanistan, and quite happy with the use of the image – what is unique about a photo of a funeral cortege of British soldiers that makes it so beyond the pale that you demand its instant removal.
Would it have been OK if cortege was US? French? Italian? Australian? Or if had been of Taliban casualties, or civilian victims of friendly fire?
Or to return to a previous point, why is it OK to refer to tragic deaths on say the A9, or innocent victims of Ayrshire knife crime to make a political point, as Tory and Labour MSP’s do on a regular basis, but not military deaths in a politically inspired foreign war?
Note that Duncan is still the cheerleader for these foreign wars and killing of children that ensues from it. He slithers past any questions on these issues and continues to cheer on his party endlessly.
How many dead children do you and your party need, Duncan? How many innocent deaths at their hands do you need before you withdraw your support?
Why do you think that dead soldiers and civillians and especially children are okay – and even worthy of supporting the group that caused – it but a blog image critical of those responsible for the wars that killed them is worth your pouring of outrage? Are you so morally repugnant that you see no fault with the idea of so many deaths or are you such a lickspittle and fanatic of your party that you dare not acknowledge any faults even when they result in so many tragic deaths?
Rev Stu
I hope you don’t mind, but I wanted to post one of my favourite poems by Wilfred Owen. Dulce et decorum est. It touched me as a very young man when at school, and is emblematic of all I despise about the politicization of war, and the meaningless death of so many of our soldiers.
DULCE ET DECORUM EST
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares(2) we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest(3) began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots(4)
Of tired, outstripped(5) Five-Nines(6) that dropped behind.
Gas!(7) Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets(8) just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime(9) . . .
Dim, through the misty panes(10) and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering,(11) choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud(12)
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest(13)
To children ardent(14) for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Tearlach,
I have no problem *referring* to deaths to argue for changes in policy. But if someone used pictures of the funeral corteges of people who died on the A9 to make an argument for dualling I would condemn it in the same terms.
“I have no problem *referring* to deaths to argue for changes in policy. But if someone used pictures of the funeral corteges of people who died on the A9 to make an argument for dualling I would condemn it in the same terms.”
What an utterly extraordinary position. It’s okay to describe something with words, but not with a picture? Does that make the soldiers somehow less dead? I’m reasonably sure it’s their death itself that their families mind, rather than which method people use to refer to it.
Duncan,
It is vaguely amusing that the last post that I can see on Labour Hame is mine. It is awaiting moderation.
It says:
“The Rescue Squad,
I was really worried about his absence.
You say Duncan is back. But has he come back as invisible? Where is his his pithy comment on this thread. I have really missed the ‘adoring fan’.”
So, since April, there has been no discussion allowed on posts on a site you were supposed to be a major voice on.
It is frankly ironic that you come here with a half thought out case and make a complete utter fool of youself.
Anyway, you have really fallen for the dark side of the unionist case.
Aplinal,
Regarding your post on ‘DULCE ET DECORUM EST’, by Wilfrid Owen.
Aside from being especially relevant to this debate, there is in fact a rather cruel irony for the NO campaign unionists.
The NO campaign was launched this week in the new business school of Edinburgh Napier University, which is located on the old Craiglockhart estate, near Morningside, Edinburgh. During the first world war, the buildings on this estate served as a military hospital. Wilfred Owen stayed there for a period around 1917 (?), and it is believed he wrote the first draft of his poem, ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ whilst staying in the Craiglockhart ‘shell shock’ hospital, Edinburgh.
The poem was penned on the very site where Darling and the other BritNats launched the NO campaign this week.
As an aside, I think Edinburgh Napier University now have a collection of Owen works from that period, in Edinburgh, at Craiglockhart, as part of the war poets collection.
Maybe somebody else will have more detail.
I didn’t realise Richard Littlejohn had such a prominent position with the lib dems. Fake outrage is one of the cheapest tools in a politician’s arsenal.
The image is not disrespectful – it’s certainly provocative, but where exactly is it written that we’re supposed to sanitize what it is the Union costs Scotland? I suspect what genuine upset this causes is due to the fact that it strikes all kind of raw nerves.
Of course, we then find out that Charlie had a sick family member, something that even journalists had no idea about (hence their tweets), never mind ordinary sarky members of the public like moi. But no! Our plucky moral crusader sees this terrible wrong and decides he must chastise this evil, knuckle-dragging cybernat.
Reminds me a lot of the recent incident when Alex Salmond didn’t attend something he was expected to attend, and the unionists went into meltdown about how he was running away or something, and then it turned out he’d had to go to a family funeral.
Once that was revealed the journalists mostly had the decency to back off with the criticism, but several of the unionist cheerleaders started to question whose funeral it was and was it just a cover story, or suggest barely practical ways he could have done both (although without actually sleeping for about 48 hours as far as I could make out).
Exactly Morag, it’s yet another example of something being bad when nationalists do it, but fine and dandy when unionists do it. It’s tiresome, and it does nothing to elevate the level of debate.
A more recent example, Morag, of the dependency parties’ hypocrisy is the Dalai Lama and the Dundee’s Lord Provost.
Even Caron Lindsay got in on that one.
Morag, don’t forget one of the opposition suggesting that they hoped his dad would die too so he’d have to go to another funeral and so get him out of the way (you can be sure this wouldn’t be out of the news or FMQ forever if it had been the SNP that said it). Tasteful as always, these unionists. They dont’ seem to notice their own hypocrisy…
…DO YOU, DUNCAN? The lad who supports the parties who are killing soldiers and civillians in foreign wars but rages and boils over in outrage about someone simply mentioning it happening online or even disagreeing with the idea of Scotland’s people being caught up in it and possibly being killed too. How dare someone try to save human lives when Duncan is about!
Oh Duncan. You’ve made an utter fool of yourself here. You’ve dug the pit deep. The icing on the cake is you emulating Tony Blair and co. by sliming and slithering your way through the comments to make ever more foolish and weak attacks against Rev. Stu that only make you look bad, while blatantly avoiding any and all comments to simply shout your piece and then scuttle off back under your rock until you think up another. You are pathetic.