I’ve always been obsessed, in cultural terms, with pivot points: the precise moments at which something significant changes irreversibly.
They can be a goal that ushers in a football team’s golden era – for me, Alex McLeish putting Aberdeen level in the 1982 Scottish Cup final. They can be a twist in a movie, like (first example that comes to mind) the shocking revelation of the bad guy in LA Confidential. They can spring out of nowhere, like the latter, or be something that was visibly on the way but finally crystallises, like the former.
In May 2016, this site published one of the most unfortunately prescient articles in its history. It didn’t actually use the words “woke” or “cancelled”, which weren’t yet in common parlance, but its purpose was very much to warn of the puritan, censorious, hyper-intolerant and catastrophically destructive culture they came to embody.
At the time Nicola Sturgeon had only been First Minister for a year and a half and there were few signs that she was that movement’s commander – or, those inclined to a more charitable outlook than us might posit, its prisoner. It would be two more years before she detonated the bomb that really shattered the unity of the Yes movement when she attempted to fit up Alex Salmond over fake allegations of sexual assaults.
But last night and this morning I was struck by an unexpected pang of pity for the fanatical, fundamentalist Twitler Youth rainbow stormtroopers who make up Sturgeon’s ideological frontline. Sympathy for the little devils, you might say.
And since it’s a somewhat rare feeling, it seemed worth a little exploration.
Just for a little bit of fun. This is actual footage of North Korean TV news (source: NK News) from today, but I thought it deserved a more moving soundtrack.
When the Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts died last month, the first of their songs that popped into my head, for no particular reason, was “Under My Thumb”, a mildly controversial 1966 album track the band never released as a single in the West.
Its most infamous place in history, though, is this.
Until Watts’ death I was only very broadly aware of the events at Altamont Speedway in 1969, a free festival at a racetrack near San Francisco at which four people died in scenes of malevolent chaos and which is widely regarded as the grim headstone of the hippy era.
But on seeing the extraordinary footage above for the first time on the day of Watts’ death – taken from “Gimme Shelter”, notionally the official movie of the show, although the first two-thirds of it are actually a mundane travelogue of the preceding tour dates – I did some proper reading up on it.
And as I did, a horribly familiar feeling started to unfold.
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Vibecoding A Better World: “NHS SQUANDERING MILLIONS ON SEX-SWAP SURGERIES NHS England has spent over £5 million this past year on mastectomies for gender-confused…” Nov 6, 00:00
Hatey McHateface on Vibecoding A Better World: “There’s plenty of speculation that Harris intends to stand for nomination as presidential candidate for 2028. So if you’re opening…” Nov 5, 23:49
100%Yes on Vibecoding A Better World: “Sarah the colonizer portrays its self to be a pillar of law and order, the people of these Island know…” Nov 5, 23:47
Frank Gillougley on Vibecoding A Better World: “Meanwhile in news elsewhere, a fifteen thousand pound ‘pay rise’ for holyrood committee conveners (to chair a meeting of useless…” Nov 5, 23:02
Hatey McHateface on Vibecoding A Better World: “Scottish bank notes? Most Londoners won’t touch the things.” Nov 5, 22:24
sarah on Vibecoding A Better World: “Further dubious shenanigans against Craig Murray. He is staying in London in order to attend the Supreme court hearings about…” Nov 5, 21:46
100%Yes on Vibecoding A Better World: “Well done Professor Alf Baird joined by Editor Laura Webster, Robin McAlpine was a complete waste of time and came…” Nov 5, 21:23
Hatey McHateface on Vibecoding A Better World: “Listened to the news today, sam? UK economy mysteriously doing better than many in the EU, especially France. Best not…” Nov 5, 20:27
Aidan on Vibecoding A Better World: “Yes look at this whole slavery reparations debate. All completely made in Beijing,” Nov 5, 19:47
Aidan on Vibecoding A Better World: “For once Sarah is right – it is ridiculously and obviously illegal for a crowdfunding website to simply seize donations,…” Nov 5, 19:38
sam on Vibecoding A Better World: “I don’t know what you mean when you say a deliberately bungled Brexit deal. Clarify, please? The loss to Scotland’s…” Nov 5, 19:17
Hatey McHateface on Vibecoding A Better World: “Ah c’moan noo, Spartan. Surely you’re not in a pet because I had the temerity to correct the mistake in…” Nov 5, 18:47
Spartan 117 on Vibecoding A Better World: “No it didn’t Alf, I don’t want the M25 omniclusterfuckpermashambles ruling over us either, as I’ve repeatedly said (despite some…” Nov 5, 17:34
Alf Baird on Vibecoding A Better World: ““I have zero desire to be ruled by a foreign despotic power” Whit aboot bein ruled by imperial England-as-UK these…” Nov 5, 15:06
Captain Caveman on Vibecoding A Better World: ““The west decided to virtue signal by leaving ours in the ground so that even as we buy every gram…” Nov 5, 15:00
Hatey McHateface on Vibecoding A Better World: ““those lusting after violence and death” I assume that’s what an AI would have corrected your post to if you’d…” Nov 5, 14:52
Hatey McHateface on Vibecoding A Better World: ““Maybe the Chinese have it right after all” I was recently reading about the Chinese colonisation of Africa. They ply…” Nov 5, 14:31
Holymacmoses on Vibecoding A Better World: “I love Claude – it and I are doing a criticism of The Master of Ballantrae – it’s very good…” Nov 5, 13:19
Spartan 117 on Vibecoding A Better World: “I’ll also add, before the inevitable howls of outrage, I will not cheer against the government, I have zero desire…” Nov 5, 13:09
Spartan 117 on Vibecoding A Better World: “Anyone thinking conscription will be successfully implemented across the UK is completely delusional, never mind just with new mums. If…” Nov 5, 13:01
willie on Vibecoding A Better World: “Here is an extract in a report about the possibility of future conscription. “Should gender equality conscription be introduced in…” Nov 5, 12:33
Captain Caveman on Vibecoding A Better World: “Umm, you do realise the whole “beardy bloke” thing is a product of the Left and in Scotland’s specific case,…” Nov 5, 12:33
Bilbo on Vibecoding A Better World: “Sounds like the deranged rantings of a beardy bloke in a dress. Okay, Unionist mugs, who’s bird is it?” Nov 5, 12:12
Captain Caveman on Vibecoding A Better World: ““The consequences are far more serious for a colonized people” Well, it was always a dead cert that you would…” Nov 5, 11:55
Aidan on Vibecoding A Better World: “Once you realise how much time government machinery spends: – entertaining legacy media organisations; versus – making effective long term…” Nov 5, 11:44
Alf Baird on Vibecoding A Better World: ““So what’s your excuse” Only once you get with the colonial vibe can you begin to decolonize the mind, Hatey;…” Nov 5, 11:14
Spartan 117 on Vibecoding A Better World: “It’s what happens when politics becomes an industry and a career in itself rather than a service. Qualifications are meaningless…” Nov 5, 10:39
Hatey McHateface on Vibecoding A Better World: ““so long as a people remain subject to territorial alienation there is no ‘democracy’” So true, Alf. I mind fine,…” Nov 5, 10:38
Alf Baird on Vibecoding A Better World: ““Our democracy has produced this rotten “inverse meritocracy” system, at least as far as the Left is concerned. It’s all…” Nov 5, 10:07
Captain Caveman on Vibecoding A Better World: “” I’d also question – loudly – why on earth a Liberian with a philosophy degree is trusted with dictating…” Nov 5, 09:30
