Governing For Beginners
My first ever real experience of politics was playing Dictator.
Originally written by Don Priestley for the Sinclair ZX81 in 1982, it was a simple text-based game which subsequently came to other formats including the Commodore 64, BBC Micro, Elan Enterprise and the ZX Spectrum, which is where I encountered it.
(Its legacy very much lives on in modern games like Reigns, incidentally.)
It installs you as the new despotic ruler of a banana republic called Ritimba, located “somewhere vaguely equatorial” – it could most reasonably be interpreted as either Central/South America or Africa – which is home to various interest groups, including rebel guerrillas who may or may not be linked to the neighbouring country of Leftoto.
You start off with the country in pretty good shape after your coup, with almost uniform support across the board.
Your objective is to rule and survive for as long as possible without being assassinated or killed in a revolution, by balancing the demands of conflicting groups like peasants and landowners, with the assistance (or not) of the military and the secret police.
But rather than explain the entire plot, let’s see a game play out.
And if you play Dictator for a while, you quickly work out the best strategy, which is summed up by this frame in Garth Ennis’ brilliant and highly popular comic book (and subsequently a TV series) Preacher, depicting a resignation letter to unlikely disfigured pop star Arseface from his manager, Lt. Col Gene Sergeant.
(Don’t say we’re not bringing you culture today.)
To save you deciphering all that ornate handwritten text, the end reads:
“I shall leave you with some words of wisdom that my dear old Pappy left for me: Fuck ’em for all they’re worth and run like hell, Gene.”
The game of Dictator in the above video is an unusually successful one, with the unseen player managing to hold on in office for an impressive 18 months, scoring a total of 91 points.
But that’s not the best way to play Dictator. The actual optimal strategy is this:
(1) On your first turn, go to the “IMPROVE YOUR CHANCES” menu and dump half the contents of Ritimba’s treasury into your personal Swiss bank account. (You don’t get to select the amount, it’s always half.)
(2) On your second turn, buy the escape helicopter for $120,000.
(3) And that’s basically that. From then on, just try to survive as best you can, grab as much short-term cash as possible (including aid from the Russians and Americans) until one or other group revolts, at which point you take no chances and scarper in your chopper.
You won’t stay in office anywhere near as long that way, but you’ll score a lot better, as demonstrated by my short and eventful reign here.
Because what Dictator depicts is that Ritimba, in common with almost every country on Earth today, can’t actually afford to run itself.
No matter how well-intentioned you set out, the numbers just kill you. The population are fickle, remembering only the last thing you did for them. You can give the peasants a national health service, free education and union rights, but introduce conscription to please the army and they’ll forget all that and your popularity will plunge.
Here, for example, by refusing to spend $120,000 on an irrigation system, we’ve upset the Landowners AND the Peasants, who are now in an unlikely revolutionary alliance against us (signified by the “A” – no one group can ever revolt by itself).
(Of course, it’s the plebs who have to put their lives on the line.)
But all that 120 grand would have done was buy you another month, maybe two. It’s a really bad return for such a large outlay. Much better to pick on the foreigners.
That lets you stick more cash into your Swiss bank account, until the inevitable day arrives (on this occasion just five months into your rule).
Now, you might get lucky and crush the revolt, at which point it’s wise to exact a bloody revenge to ensure the revolutionaries are too weak to try again.
[sound of machine guns]
But you shouldn’t take that risk at all.
As soon as things get hairy, you should haul ass out of there and live out the rest of your life in feather-bedded luxury (maybe with a lovely consultancy gig in business or the third sector or even writing novels). That’s where you get the big points.
And readers, while Dictator is a very rudimentary game in coding terms and came out more than 40 years ago, it actually painted a pretty accurate picture in 1982 and nothing much has changed since. Countries still run at a loss, and you can never please everyone. It’s a fundamentally impossible job, you have to sacrifice every principle very early on, the public are ungrateful bastards even if you try to be nice, and if you try to crush them they’ll eventually shoot you.
That’s why every governing party gives in to corruption the moment it achieves power (or even earlier), and why you should never expect anything else from them. All you can do to keep them even slightly honest is stay alert, take matters into your own hands and keep reminding them who they’re supposed to work for.
That takes time, effort and money, and is also why they try to take away your freedoms any chance they get, on any old excuse.
And why they want to shut down anywhere you might gather and talk about it.
That’s an impulse that spans the political spectrum, but Labour has been especially prone to it, this century in particular.
Because the interests of politicians and the people are almost always in direct conflict, and they’re bothering to conceal it less and less. (Our theory is that the rot really started in 2009 with the expenses scandal, when they collectively realised how much they could get away with by just brazening things out, but that’s another article.)
The obvious (and rational) outcome of that is that people turn to a “screw the lot of you” entity, whether that be a political party or something more sinister. The electorate is getting angrier and angrier, and the more contempt they see parties holding them in the worse it gets.
The mainstream parties in both Scotland and the UK may well already be beyond the point of salvation. But if their voters and members can’t persuade them to see sense soon, they may all find themselves wishing they’d bought escape helicopters on their first day in office, and deciding that the only way out is to kill you instead.
So be careful who you vote for, readers, and try to have a better reason than that they’re “your” team. They’re not, and it isn’t a game.
Digital ID was the whole point (or at least a very large part of the whole point) of the C*vID exercise.
But a lot of people cheered on the Diktatorz imposing it because they believed these rulers suddenly loved them and just wanted to keep them safe while the global financial system was teetering coincidentally in the background.
Someone previously cheered a certain leader on for having a cardboard box to put babies in and defended her from criticism. Then that person decided the baby box leader wasn’t so grand after all.
Keep up the good work digging, learning and advancing.
Stu.
Very astute analyses to the position the politicians have reached mentally.
The other side of that coin, Is if you let them off with the first stages being implicated we are all dead men/women walking anyway,
For it fails to take into account that that is their direction of long term goal anyway,
Murder by another name,
Your dead if you do and dead if don’t do anything.
So do you die trying or give up and wait for the minutes on the clock to tick by until you are murdered,
Its a sore point, self preservation at all costs or to roll over and let someone else make the decision and chose your time of death for you,
Most of the wealthy believe their are to many people on this planet, however fail to note they are also on this planet,
Extermination has no friend until the second last man standing is no longer useful.
Thank you, Rev – another clear explanation and description of the current state of our existence.
Direct democracy would improve things. The politicians and establishment could no longer make rules to suit themselves.
This is one of the topics that Salvo is trying to tell people about. It was a key part of Scotland’s public life before 1707. Every session of parliament ended with an invitation for anyone to come forward if their own, or the wider public’s, rights had been harmed by the parliament. So the politicians could not get away with what they currently do.
We could have this system restored if the right people were elected to Holyrood in May. People who are standing in order to get Scotland out of the Union and to put power back where it belongs, in the hands of Scotland’s people. Those people are the Liberate Scotland candidates, chiefly.
There needs to be a major campaigning effort to spread the word about the political reality as described by the Rev, and the solution.
Today’s court case is about freedom to express opinions that the established politicians don’t want expressed. Peter A Bell’s article today suggests that there will be more bad news on this topic tomorrow. So get to work everyone. Talk to people on this topic while you can before you get arrested.
STV facebook has reported the purpose of the case and the supporters attending. That is something – though some of the comments are depressing.
Thanks Sarah
There is a short story on the STV news site here:
link to news.stv.tv
There was a gathering outside with a protest for Gaza then some of us watched the livestream from outside the court building.
Afterwards Craig Murray addressed a brief positive message to the assembled crowd.
It went better than it could have.
A judgement as to whether the proceedings can err.. proceed should be handed down relatively quickly.
😉
“This is one of the topics that Salvo is trying to tell people about. It was a key part of Scotland’s public life before 1707. Every session of parliament ended with an invitation for anyone to come forward if their own, or the wider public’s, rights had been harmed by the parliament. So the politicians could not get away with what they currently do.”
As I have asked before when you assert this, please give me even one example of this actually happening. You haven’t been able to. So either the entire population of Scotland was satisfied with every session of parliament (as unlikely then as now)or what you claim to have been “a key part of Scotland’s public life before 1707” obviously wasn’t.
But if you can give me an example, I’ll happily retract this comment.
At this time, ordinary people were not even allowed to vote in the first place, and
Here you go again, you’re the grandly named ‘factchecker’, go and fucking check! If you find nothing strap some balls on and call it out for a big dirty lie.
Yes because that’s how it works Dave, someone makes an outlandish and unevidenced claim and it’s other people’s responsibility to go out and disprove it . .
I posted a reply to Sarah yesterday:
link to wingsoverscotland.com
but it has not appeared.
It was not controversial.
It contained only 1 link, to a non controversial news item.
Admins, what is going on?
I agree, Sarah, direct democracy as happens in Switzerland, with local referendums on anything of note. None (one hopes) of the ordure that has passed recently would have made it through the scrutiny.
Does or will fear of dying prevent you dying,
If that was the decision you allowed someone else to make, out of fear of opposing them in case they kill you has to hold a logic of balance somewhere.
How about we all accept it….if we get to inject the leathal dosage to the politicians, scientists, doctors and the super wealthy first that came to the conclusion… their are to many people on this planet.
That would end the useless leeches of the planet and create a big reduction of people on the planet,
Not wise all being on the same water supply is it?
I’d never seen that film and am now in a somewhat traumatised state. I knew Tony Blair was evil and not just because I always found him creepy but what is even more worrying, we don’t seem to have learned anything from recent history and are now in the course of reliving it.
Could be the explanation is a lot simpler.
When so many people are now dependent on sucking at the swollen teats of the state, it could be that the people running the state feel justified in telling their helpless dependents to STFU and do as they are told.
A nation of independent citizens can easily tell its government to behave. A nation relying on the state for the roof over their heads and the food on their tables, less so.
Plenty of ordinary people are salivating to get their hands on a Universal Basic Income. They will then live from cradle to grave, never putting anything in, building only the muscles that will allow them to keep their hands out for freebies for an entire lifetime.
These people had better learn to uncomplainingly conform first.
The usual wretched, calow, shallow right-wing drivel from you.
Want to bet I can spell callow?
£20 says I can.
I’m afraid this post, at least, is not drivel. What the state funds, the state controls. We are all headed for a very bad time, unless things change in a big way.
It’s not right wing to expect citizens to contribute to the state.
“From each according to their ability…” Karl Marx.
Aye, the end of empires is always a bit messy and the sheets on their death beds very often need a guid clean efter thae pass awa due tae aw the shite they leave ahint thersels.
It’s mair than likely aw the nonsense we see aboot us are signs of empires soukin in thair last breiths.
The end is nigh… for a couple of dodgy auld empires anyway.
The British yin is a wee bit further oan (better fire up the washing machine) than the American yin, but no by much.
Here is how empires ALWAYS end their days without exception (apparently), in seven easy steps, from Rome to London to Washington they all follow the same pattern as they swagger and then stumble and then fall… and then slowly crawl intae their deathbeds fir tae tak thair final breith … hooray!
Signs an Empire is Juist Aboot Deid
1. An undisciplined and over extended military – CHECK
2. The conspicuous display of wealth – CHECK
3. A massive disparity between rich and poor – CHECK
4. A desire (or necessity) to live off a bloated state – CHECK
5. An obsession with sex – CHECK (not all bad news then!)
6. The rise of the celebrity chef (seriously) – CHECK
7. The debasement of the empire’s currency – CHECK
Ten generations (roond aboot), 250 year, is the lifespan of yer average empire.
Don’t take my word for it… check out “THE FATE OF EMPIRES” by Sir John Glubb (1897-1986).
It’s America’s 250th anniversary this year… let’s see if Glubb is right.
I wonder… does Trump play the fiddle at aw – and does he have a good view of Washington from the Whitehouse.
“check out “THE FATE OF EMPIRES” by Sir John Glubb”
Ooo Northy, fit are ye like, eh?
Quoting an Inglis chap like him, who wrote always in the lying language of the coloniser.
Sir John Glubb says this about the citizens at the heart of once great empires that are in their death throes:
“The citizens of such a nation will no longer make an effort to save themselves, because they are not convinced that anything in life is worth saving.”
Could this be true of the colonised, also?
Could the Scots have been reduced to this belief after 300 years of being doun-hauden?
This World feels a bit hopeless right now. As if the Earth itself were suffering a depression and is joyless and drained of all colour.
Glubb Pasha an aw.
Hi, Northy. Cheer up. The dancers from the Bolshy ballet will soon be in town. Serge Trooserov and Irene Tumbelova. The last time they danced Ms Tumbelova fell into the orchestra pit. Again.
At once the orchestra ceased playing and the entire string section rushed to lift the plucky ballerina on stage. The ballet was The Hunchback Horse and the horse, on appearing on stage, became frightened and deposited a large merde at which the conductor remarked,”Ah, a critic”.
My missus is as ancient as you and her sight is not as it was. She asked me about the start of a sentence in the letter from a friend she was reading . “I can’t quite make it out. Is that an “i” or an “o”? The sentence began, “I’m sorry to tell you your brother has sh*t himself.”
link to atlasobscura.com
Aye, Northy, turn that frown upside down. Things could be a lot worse.
Check out the article on BBC Online about the blonde temptress recruiting/deluding poor saps into fighting for the Orcs. $2,500 a month and 10 day’s training before they are thrown into the line against the most efficient and effective military in the world today.
Bin bags for body parts and cadavers are included. That’s a lot of bin bags – they had to bag up 25,000 dis-assembled corpses just last month!
Anyhoo, there’s a list of the shithole countries of the world the Orcs are recruiting in and praise be – Scotland is not on it.
So chin up.
Aye the BBC, a beacon of truth and light…they tell us your mates are winning too. You’ll be pleased.
I am pleased, Dave, very pleased.
My mates may or may not be winning, but so far, they’re not losing either.
That’ll be too subtle for you to grasp. Better for you if you go to one of your donkey sites and look at the pictures.
But first, the money you owe me. Dig deep!
Aww diddums, poor wee Hatey you’re upset.
Just think of the long range missile the UK Government has decided to invent for your pals, the latest and greatest absolute next big ‘game changer’ and that’ll put the smile back on your face.
Happy days, sunny uplands. Don’t be sad wee Hatey, don’t cry. There there…
I am thinking about it, Dave, and I am smiling. It’s good news.
You could play a part too. Even rocket scientists sometimes block the bog with bangers and mash. There’s certain to be a bog cleaning opportunity that would suit you to a T.
I’ll have a word on your behalf.
Want to bet £20 you can spell ‘swallow,’ as in donkey spunk? I bet you can.
Want to bet I’m smart enough to attach a reply to the post I’m replying to?
Another £20 says I am.
The real bets, right now, are on which saddo has been banned and had to go to all the effort of constructing a new, tissue paper thin, alter ego.
So he can continue to broadcast his pathetic inadequacy to an uncaring world.
Get a life. Make something useful of yourself. Research assisted dying at the sharp end. Mind and report back how it went.
You’ll know all about assisted death at the sharp end being a Bandera fanboy.
It just occurred to me that you should have called yourself Adolf McHateface. It’d gain you a greater respect amongst the UK government and its Azov guests. And when you’d become Commandant Adolf McHateface you’d positively sparkle!
Who’d be Hatey?
PS I’ll bet £20 you’ll never mention Stepan Bandera.
“You’ll know all about assisted death at the sharp end”
Er, naw, Mastermind Dave. If I was at the assisted death sharp end, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be deid. Gedditttt?
“being a Stepan Bandera fanboy”
See what I did there, Mastermind D? Now you owe me £20. Bet you another £20 you’re a grippy cant and won’t pay up, as well as being congenitally thick.
That’s pathetic! Calm down, throw something out your pram instead.
I still have my ZX Spectrum with added full size keyboard, 64K expansion pack and printer. I will have to get it out again sometime before my son inherits it. 🙂
There is always emulation, this being the best way to use your telly now that they only broadcast pish. Why watch Strictly Celebrity Sewing on Ice when you could be playing Rainbow Islands or something from the comfort of your armchair, eh? 🙂
You can’t even make the SNP membership see sense on Independence never mind anything else. The SNP and its membership is a lost cause and both the SNP and its membership isn’t worth saving.
But remember, never forget, the biggest single block of votes in the coming election WILL BE FOR THE SNP.
Swinney & Company can depend on that.
Calls for an “immediate” general election are set to be debated by MPs after more than 1 million people signed a petition.
If I was Starmer I’d jump at the chance to have a general election just to pass the buck to reform and let them screw it up.
He been PM and he’s know what a poisoned chalice he’s been left from the Tory’s. The UK is riddled in debt and everything keeps going up in price even on Amazon they have raised there prices over the last couple of months by 100%.
There couldn’t be a better time for Scotland to be Independent but the SNP just isn’t interested in the cause of Independence.
John Swinney had a perfect opportunity to point out the simulaties between Denmark owning Greenland and England owning Scotland and yet he and the National and the writers of the National including ginger-pop silent.
As of 2025, concerning debt to GDP ratios, four EU countries were in a worse state than the UK.
Looking at this metric, the outlier is Denmark, which not only had an exceptionally low national debt, it was unique in having pushed its debt DOWN over the previous decade.
If I was Danish, I’d be insisting my country turn itself into the new Norway by holding onto Greenland and “drill, baby, drill”.
Then if I was 20 years younger, I’d emigrate to Denmark.
As for Amazon, boycott the cants. TBQFH, it mystifies me that any True, Sovereign Scot would ever touch them and their Chinese tat with a bargepole.
Interesting comparison between Denmark and its colony Greenland and England and its colony Scotland.
Funny old world really. Both Greenland and Scotland have immense resources- land, sea, strategic location, resources of oil, gas, renewable, aggregates and small populations.
|Wouldn’t it be so interesting if the Donald took a strategic interest in his maternal homeland by passing the faded busted flush that is England.
Its maybe not so daft. Personal predilections and strategic interests could well coincide. Indeed, given the Donald’s personal connection with Scotland, and the fact that on a number of occasions he’s dissed Starmer preferring to go to Scotland displaying Scotland and not the Union Jack flag, and causing Starmer to have to scurry up to Scotland for a meet, Domnhull Mor could turn things on their head.
Scotland wants autonomy, Scotland has the goodies, the Pres’s mother came from Scotland, so maybe something of personal and strategic interest – whilst making a point to the Brits who tried, and are still trying to undermine the Donal and his administration. ( Think Starmer sending an election team to undermine the Trump campaign, think the BBC stitching together fake news, and also what we don’t know – and theres grounds for a bit of payback for fun)
But I digress this Tuesday morning. Just had a grim laugh of the reports about the defence secretary blimp that is John Healey who has just said he would like to have a team go in to Russia and abduct President Putin and bring him to justice.
Delusional talk from a faded nation sliding down the world’s index of economic outputs with the attendant slide in UK living standards, Healey’s bullshit caused me a grim laugh as we live in the fabled Great British Golden Era.
He’ll be telling us our best years lie ahead – like better together. Off for some cool aid now and to tuen up the heating and dance!
This year will see the 100,000th killing, by assisted death, in Canada since the regime voted for it in 2016.
That would equate to 175,000 killings in UK.
Frightening.
We don’t need an online game to prove that politicians always look out for themselves first, the public later.
They’ve been enriching themselves for the past 2,500 years, back to the ancient Athenian direct democracy. They’ll also be that way for the next 2,500 years.
The only practical response is to limit the power of government to take our money and run our lives. Big government is just a license to steal, for those who run the government. If the politicians have less tax money to steal, and less power to extract favors from those they regulate, the better for all of us.
Get some vitamin D into you Rev..
“ Get some vitamin D into you Rev..”
=========
An ye can tak the boay oot o video gemmes, aiblins ye cannae tak video gemmes oot o the boay
It’ll be interesting to see which accounts aren’t posting given the current internet blackout in Iran. “Geri” certainly springs to mind, I wonder how much others . .
Ah, c’moan noo, Aidan.
I miss “Geri” more than just about any other poster on BTL.
With some of her posts she could achieve a level of unconscious comedic genius that would have me choking on my porridge.
And there was always the tantalising suspicion that such bone-dense stupidity could not be genuine. That actually it was conscious, that somebody was faking it, and of course, that raised the intriguing follow on questions: Who, and Why?
Hopefully she will return soon.
Frankly speaking, I “fkn” miss “Geri” about as much as piles.
Her continued, protracted absence from posting 10+ items per day can doubtless be “fkn” explained by that person’s busy social life, as I believe has been previously intimated.
She’ll be back, it’s only those protesting against the regime that are getting hurt.
I like a good conspiracy theory as much as the next tube, but I’m just not seeing how this one works. Maybe break it down a bit for us, eh? 🙂
There’s still hope for Scotland’s Oil, but first Scotland has to rid itself of the zealots in power who have legislated for it to stay in the ground:
link to unherd.com
There should be hope for Scotland’s Coal too. It’s needed for steel production, which is the basis for on-shoring and localising the mass-production industries that bring not only jobs and prosperity, but the political leeway to adopt policies that would directly benefit Scots.
Up to and including Independence, if that is what Scots want.
For the election in May, all Scots should be seriously thinking about binning the politicians who have chosen the virtue signalling and luxury beliefs that have impoverished many of the people they claim to represent.
@ ALF BAIRD @ FEARGHAS MAC FHIONNLAIGH & others
SCOTLAND is immeasurably greater than the sum of its disparate, often contending, elements; the fabled antisyzygy reins.
A country that has had kings called David, Alexander, Constantine and James, that most fiery tempered apostle, and the likes of, inter alia, the polemical contenders Buchanan & Win3et, qhua kentna the leid o the inglis, has chutzpah gu leòir.
Should one day it chooses to awaken from its «rêveries» it should not go unnoticed.
Ver venturum esse….as the «twa afoirmencionat» Latinists might say.
TURABDIN. Excellent. Rich texture of reference. Please do keep posting with confidence.
Thanks…i use a spell checker for my English….definitely has a mind of its own…should be reign…choose…quha
My latest musing is that so called AI when finally refined to be trustworthy could be a lifesaver for endangered languages, a vast store of phonology, dialect, lexis, usage, word formation, development etc. It is being used for Maori and my own native tongue.
The appliance of neuroscience, mathematics and political will.
Get that right and the sky is not the limit.
“A country that has had kings called David, Alexander, Constantine and James”
=========
A formidable four names.
It has also had a trio of proper Charlies.
How fortunate then that we narrowly avoided a fourth in 1745/46.
Although, technically, that would have disrupted the numbering somewhat.
One wonders where the nation’s religious leaders are in the Rev’s revolutionary framework; more often than not to be seen in keeping an oppressive elite in place, no matter whether Iran, the House of Lords, or Scotland:
link to barrheadboy.com
“to seek a worthier vision of Scotland… without which we perish as a nation” – Rev William Storrar.
Indeed, Alf.
And this… taken from your ‘letter’:
“I would therefore argue that the national Church no longer fights the peoples’ cause, which is to remove oppression, to end inequality, and to ensure the peoples’ rights are upheld, which are moral imperatives.
If we do not appreciate or understand the ‘colonial condition’ of Scots and Scotland, which is “a scourge”, or what independence really means (i.e. decolonisation), then we will surely be unable to find the only remedy – liberation.”
An excellent guest post of yours on the barrheadboy website, Alf.
Hmmmm….Once there was a «Universal Church» and then there appeared national forms of the thing which then set about oppressing the former Universal entity and any dissent within their own ranks.
That’s progress or is it just a wilderness of mindgaming.
«Freedom» may come at the expense of someone elses liberty.
Speaking out, many a fool has rushed into that mode.
The esteemed Professor peddling his pish on yet another blog. Religion in the western world has had it’s day. People are no longer as gullible as they were, although some do have a blind spot when it comes to politics. Religion can be best described in 3 words-Fear, Money and Power. Fear for the masses, money and power for those at the top.
The World would be a far better place without any religion.
“The World would be a far better place without any religion.”
Aye, maybe so, but judging by world events it would appear this Earth is a far worse place without God.
“Religion in the western world has had it’s day”
Oh dear, Chas. Oh deary deary me.
We’re into the end times of a period of unparalleled prosperity, leisure and material comfort. There was no need for our traditional religion while we all had it so good. Now we are on the inexorable downward slope, our traditional religion will experience a resurgence.
In fact, there’s plenty of evidence this is already happening. Do some research.
Then there’s the religion of many of our new comers. The so-called religion of peace.
You will mock that, or stand face-to-face with one of its believers and call its validity into question at your mortal peril.
Finally, of course, there’s what I call a manifestation of religion – the absolute iron-clad belief in something without a shred of evidence, supported only by blind faith.
Every second post on Wings BTL is a religious one on this measure!
The motto of Comhairle Nan Eilean Siar (Western Isles Council) is:
“ÀRDAICHIDH FÌREANTACHD CINNEACH”
That is the Gaelic version of the Bible verse:
“Righteousness exalts a nation” (Proverbs 14:34)
“LET GLASGOW FLOURISH”, is an abbreviation of its full historical version:
“Lord let Glasgow flourish through the preaching of Thy word and praising of Thy name.”
Glasgow University’s motto, carved in stone, is:
“VIA, VERITAS, VITA”.
Those are words of Christ in John’s Gospel (14:6):
“Ego sum Via, et Veritas, et Vita.”
“I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”
“Is mise an t-Slighe, an Fhìrinn, agus a’ Bheatha”
Excellent article, Alf.
“keeping an oppressive elite in place” aye, rather than keeping them in THEIR place.
THE COURAGE OF IRAN’S WOMEN PUTS WESTERNERS TO SHAME
by JOANNA WILLIAMS
« Throughout this recent wave of protest, mass displays of solidarity from the West’s activist class have been notable only by their absence. Greta Thunberg, vocal in criticising Israel, seemingly has nothing to say about the killing of women in Iran. The same is true of Dawn French, Olivia Colman, Nicola Coughlan, Paloma Faith, Juliette Binoche… the list goes on and on. Celebrities queued up to sign petitions, pen open letters, make TikToks and join protests critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza. Students established protest camps on posh university lawns and hundreds of thousands of people marched through Britain’s city centres week after week, purportedly in solidarity with Palestinians. But when it comes to supporting Iranian women? Silence. »
link to spiked-online.com
Québec commentator Normand Lester has an audio podcast series tracing the endemic focus on violence in American culture. In this episode he focuses on ultra-violent TV, Film, and Video Games:
NORMAND LESTER: LA CULTURE LA PLUS VIOLENTE AU MONDE
Season 1, Episode 2 –
« Les États-Unis fournissent la plupart des divertissements dans le monde, que ce soit au cinéma, à la télévision ou dans les jeux vidéo. Et la violence domine largement ces industries, en glorifiant effusions de sang, brutalité et sadisme. Normand Lester continue son récit des États-Unis de Donald Trump, en y abordant la question de la violence, l’un des éléments dominants de la culture populaire américaine actuelle. »
link to podcasts.apple.com
NOTE RE PODCAST: Clicking on the small speech bubble “quotation mark” symbol at bottom right of the podcast screen activates a very helpful scrolling transcript with currently spoken words being bolded in white.
ça se cache en pleine vue….on s’y accoutume drôlement vite.
hides in plain sight, odd how quickly you get used to it…
with the righteousness of the gun, America smites the foe, be it school kids you dont like, the neighbors or just weirdo foreigners not playing according to US rules.
Truly America is chosen, though for what is open to much rumination.
“Truly America is chosen, though for what is open to much rumination.”
Being an artificial imperial construct that systematically obliterated and/or subordinated native peoples and cultures, America lacks the roots or civilized values of an authentic national culture.
Imperialism is about invasion and domination of nations and obliteration of national cultures, which is what we see, including here in Scotland.
“Truly America is chosen, though for what”
Blethers, Alf.
Just ask any of the tens of millions of illegals the ICE boys are trying to grapple with.
It’ll take just one of them only 2 minutes to tell you why they chose America.
More on NORMAND LESTER…
Interspersed in this 2013 archive footage from our 2014 Referendum campaign is portentous feedback from two Québéc referendum veterans NORMAND LESTER (author: ‘Le Livre noir du Canada Anglais / ‘The Black Book of English Canada’) and ROBIN PHILPOT (author: ‘Le référendum volé’ / ‘The Stolen Referendum’).
Pierre Trudeau (father of Justin) and the Canadian government lied, scaremongered, and illegally funded their way to a Federal win (of less than 1%). The anglophone media played its part well. A key factor was relentless doomsaying regarding currency and pensions. There were (unfulfilled) promises of more powers for Québec if it voted no.
Here also the mystery of the Cameron’s “love-bombing” farce is solved. It is evident that London closely studied the cynically successful Canadian script and carefully implemented the Trudeau formula.
I have set the link to start at the first contribution from Norman Lester (4 mins 41 secs):
THE MAKE BELIEVERS – A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT MEDIA BIAS (Oct 2013)
youtu.be/aX1hNW_bzAI?si=GBSxW8dsZbJMu9Md&t=281
Hopefully this link to Referendum campaign footage is direct:
link to youtube.com
Did you say Helicopter or book deals?
In reply to my question for Sarah, DaveL says:
13 January, 2026 at 11:51 am
Here you go again, you’re the grandly named ‘factchecker’, go and fucking check! If you find nothing strap some balls on and call it out for a big dirty lie.
Thanks for the polite advice., DaveL. Very helpful.
Actually, I would not dream of calling Sarah a liar. I think she is sincere in what she writes. I believe she is simply misinformed, and am inviting her to justify her claim with some evidence.
So far, she has been unable to do so.
Unable? It could be she chooses for whatever reason not to engage. What research have you undertaken that makes you believe that the claim is misinformation?
Simply because you can’t get a reply to your constant wheedling isn’t good enough.
“DaveL”
Give up son !
Your attempts at trolling are pathetic !
…and you’re no comedian but I’m still laughing at you…’son’.
Well, I did study history at a Scottish university. At the time Sarah is talking about, pre-1707, “direct democracy” as she describes it would have been impossible in a practical sense because of the isolation of many communities. Thousands of crofters, for example, had no way of expressing their opinion about anything, even if they somehow knew what decisions were being taken. Newspapers generally did not exist to provide that information in the first place.
Democracy as we know it, ie one person, one vote, did not exist at all in Scottish governance, far less in a “direct”sense. Unless you were a male property owner, you had no vote and thus your opinion did not count.
But I again invite Sarah to provide evidence to the contrary.
“Well, I did study history at a Scottish university. At the time Sarah is talking about, pre-1707…”
Hard to believe, that would make you around 340 years old or more; but if you say so…
1707 is around one hour before I usually start my denner.
On a school day. Weekends are less predictable.
“Are we there yet?”
You tell us, James.
Surely the UN must be back at work by now? We’re half way through January, FFS!
James isn’t going to the UN Hatey, there is no chance they’ll give an ESTA or a visa to someone like him.
Caledonian Antisyzygy (from Greek, syzygy meaning alignment), or the “Scottish disjunction”, is a term coined by the Scottish literary critic George Gregory Smith (1865 – 1932).
Smith’s idea of dueling polarities within a single entity was directed at what he perceived as a trait of Scottish authors whereby their literature battled between realism and the supernatural.
It’s unlikely Smith would have suspected that this trait, this sort of split-personality, he observed in the Scots (not a common phenomenon among peoples) was the result of the imperial colonisation of Scotland and her people made into a fowk whose psyche is cruelly torn atween twa maisters… forcing them to settle on one or the other or go mad.
Realism and the supernatural might well have been the literary manifestations made apparent in the work of Scots authors representing the forced imposition of an alien English culture on Scotland creating an inevitable confusion in the minds of Scots.
RLS probably gave Smith the idea in his 1886 novella “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”.
I see Jekyll as the intellectual, kind and generous Scots and the witless abomination that is the barbaric Hyde as the English… I’m sure that’s how Stevenson saw it, too.
THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE
by Robert Louis Stevenson
1. STORY OF THE DOOR
« Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary and yet somehow lovable. At friendly meetings, and when the wine was to his taste, something eminently human beaconed from his eye; something indeed which never found its way into his talk, but which spoke not only in these silent symbols of the after-dinner face, but more often and loudly in the acts of his life. »
CAS ADUAIN AN DR JEKYLL AGUS MHR HYDE
Robert Louis Stevenson a scríobh.
Conall Ceárnach a d’aistrigh go Gaeilge.
(Evertype, Dundee, 2014)
1. SCÉAL AN DORAIS
« Duine ab ea Mr Utterson, dliodóir, a raibh dúrghnúis air nach lastaí choíche le meangadh gáire. Is é a bhíodh go tur, gannbhriathrach, cúthail ina chaint; cúlánta i dtaobh mothúchán; bhí sé tanaí, caol ard, tirim, fadálach; ach ina dhiaidh sin bhí sé grámhar. Ag cruinnithe cairde, agus nuair a bhíodh an fion ar a thoil, lonraíodh féith na daonnachta ina dhá shúil; rud éigin nár léir choíche ina chuid cainte, rud a nochtaí ní hamháin sna comharthai ciúine ar a cheannaithe tar éis dinnéar a chaitheamh dó, ach níos minice agus níos treise i ngníomhartha a bheatha. »
FEY CASE O DR JEKYLL AN MR HYDE
By Robert Louis Stevenson, translated into North-East Scots by Sheena Blackhall
First edition, 2018. Illustrations by Mathew Staunton. Dundee: Evertype.
ISBN 978-1-78201-226-9 (paperback).
« Horrifeein tale o fleg that’ll bumbaze an dumfouner its readers. Haud awa frae the licht settins o’t that ye’ve seen in films an gaither yer virr tae gyang intae the psychological grue o Jekyll and Hyde. It’s in Lunnon that the buik is supposedly set, bit ilkie page is drookit in the oorie air o Embro-far Robert Louis Stevenson wis born. Is’t a Freudian fable, a morality parable, or a sexual allegory? It’s up tae yersel tae decide. »
« He’d in his haun a wechty cane, wi which he wis ficherin; bit he spakk niver a wird, a seemed tae lippen wi an ill grippit-in roose. An syne aa o a suddenty he brakk oot in a muckle flame o fury, stampin wi his fit, furlin the cane, an carryin on (as the maidie telt it like a gyte body. The auld cheil tuik a step back, wi the luik o ane verra much bumbazed an a bittickie hurt; an at thon Mr Hyde brakk ooto aa bouns an cloored him tae the yird. An neist meenit, wi ape-like roose, he wis trampin his victim unner fit an dingin doon a heeze o dunts, unner which the banes wir loodly brukken a the corp lowpit on the roadwey. »
link to evertype.com
“I’m sure that’s how Stevenson saw it, too”
Naw, you’re nae.
You’ve found a good way to keep warm though, Northie. Pants semi-permanently on fire.
What a great piece of journalism, Rev. Absolutely spot on, too. The thing is, we think – or many do – that, here, ins Scotland, inn the UK, in Europe, in the West, nothing will ever change and we will never have to face military coups, political coups and insurrection. Too many believe that this fake democracy (it’s probably as good as it gets) will last forever – or, at least a thousand years, like the Third Reich.
What we have – the political system and social system – was honed over many years of blood-letting and uprisings, and it really, really is the best we can expect. Upset that delicate balance of interests, and it all goes pear-shaped for everyone, but particularly for the traditionally weakest members of society – women, children, animals. Have been saying this forever and a day to the supremely stupid women who think that ‘being kind’ is a two-way street. It ain’t, ladies, it really, really ain’t.
The strong despise the weak and sadism and psychopathy ensure that, when systems are overturned, the lives of those at the bottom of the heap will become intolerable. We see it everywhere where law and order and human decency has broken down into cruelty at a political level. Afghanistan is the perfect example of this sadistic, psychopathic cruelty which is taken to a new level in modern times.
None of us is exempt from either practising it or from being on its receiving end. Not one of us – if things start to disintegrate here, as they will unless we start to recognize the reality of what we are up against. Taking to the streets to protest on behalf of two genocides which are downright nonsense: the Palestinian ‘genocide’ where more Palestinians exist in Gaza than existed before the recent ‘Intifada’; and the ‘trans’ genocide which must qualify as the epitome of mental illness and paranoia. Being kind – and utterly wrong – will be seen, in hindsight, as a slow and pernicious form of suicidal empathy that destroyed the West. What will take the place of the fake democracies? What do you think? The Rev has spelled it out in no uncertain terms for the moronic ones who refuse to believe that white is not black. Better the Devil you know applies here.
A great post, Lorna.
There are some hopeful signs that people are starting to face reality once again. Wilful ignorance ran out of road with Biden in the USA. Here, we’re a few years behind as always. Our wilful ignorance will end when Starmer’s Labour replacement, whoever that might be, finally and spectacularly fails.
It’s gonna be bumpy till then, but we’ll get there.
This is superb. Thank you!
Seems that after enquiry new naval tug boats for Faslane are not now going to be buit in China.
But where will the RN Faslane be built. Well that’s a secret that neither the MoD nor their private procurement companies Serco and Damen will answer save for the MoD confirming that they will be built outside the UK.
Utterly outrageous that these Faslane boats are being built abroad. Why could they not be built locally on the Clyde to benefit local jobs and the local economy.
Listed here under is link to a UK Defence Journal article on the matter.
link to archive.ph
Maybe one of our well paid elected Clydeside area representatives such as Douglas McCallister MP, or Jackie Baillie MSP, or Brendan O’Hara MP Stuart McMillan MSP or in fact any others of them elected great and good would maybe deign to raise a question about this.
Dictator!
Not even close to being a patch on “Junta” by West End Games, the best evening of double crossing, and back stabbing you can possibly have.
Well bar an SNP leadership election.
Plus you get to have a coup d’état, and line your Swiss bank account with lots of money.
For a game it really does imitate SNP run Scotland very well.
Even down to being set in a banana republic!
This is absolutely excellent. Enjoyed every word.
Big government, Socialist (and SNP and Labour and Greenie) style, might make sense to people who actually believe that politicians prioritize public interests over their own self-interests; to people who actually believe that politicians are honest and efficient; to people who believe that their lives will be better if government runs their lives.
Raise your hand if you actually believe this.
Assisted murder bill. Glasgow. 36% of nurses are. Christian. Rest not correctly reported but it makes Jesus the majority. Stick your assisted murder up up your arsehole. Incredible article.
Stop the bill
Stop digital ID
Stop Juryless trials
And god bless life and Jesus the living son of God Amen thank you for the article enjoyed.
Does any one listen to this guy “David McGuinness” he’s asking James Kelly ” James I want to interview so my So my 3,500 viewers become aware of you and subscribe to you.”.
So I replied as James didn’t “It would help if you had a basic understanding of how D’Hondt system worked. James needs all the help and donations he can get.”.
How this David McGuinness can call himself a Indy supporter and still want to vote for the SNP is beyond me.
John Swinney’s Indy plan will never deliver Indy, it only stops it in its tracks with so many facets. So it sounds like the whole SNP membership has signed up to listen to David McGuinness on Youtube and he really does want to help James Kelly, good for him James needs all the help he can get and money.
So in 2026 John the masterful geniuses of all time fails to get a majority in 7.05.26. The plan hasn’t work and it won’t, here comes 2031 because lets remember the plan the SNP has sets out is only for Holyrood so when it doesn’t work in 2031 here comes 2036. When is it going to DAWN on the likes of David McGuinness and the rest of the SNP membership that the SNP is using these individuals and Independence isn’t going to happen until the SNP is STOPPED and removed from office or by the dawn of the dead the SNP membership do something about it?
Chagos islanders are seeking reparations from the UK over Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to give away their homeland.
Starmers stated its up to Denmark 1st and then Greenland 2nd no mention of Inuits to decide Greenland fate.
The policy from the UKG/English on Denmark and Greenland didn’t apply to Chagos, did it.
The term “Claim of Right” refers to two significant historical documents in Scotland: the Claim of Right Act 1689 and the Claim of Right 1989.
Claim of Right Act 1689
Purpose: This act was passed by the Convention of the Estates in Scotland during the Glorious Revolution. It confirmed the succession of William II and Mary II to the Scottish throne.
Key Points:
It declared that King James VII had forfeited the throne due to his actions against the laws and constitution of Scotland.
The act emphasized the rights of subjects to petition the King and the necessity of frequent parliamentary sessions.
It is a foundational document in both Scottish and UK constitutional law.
Claim of Right 1989
Purpose: This document was created by the Campaign for a Scottish Assembly, asserting the sovereignty of the Scottish people.
Key Points:
It was signed by a majority of Scottish MPs and civic organizations, excluding the Conservative Party and the Scottish National Party.
The document acknowledged the right of the Scottish people to determine their form of government.
Although it has no legal force, it has been referenced in political discussions regarding Scottish sovereignty.
Significance
Both documents play crucial roles in the evolution of Scottish governance and constitutional law. The 1689 act established parliamentary supremacy, while the 1989 declaration highlighted the ongoing quest for Scottish self-determination.
So why aren’t we just rejecting England as our government if we have this right under the claim of right.
Notice how the commenters who endlessly refer to the “1689 Claim of Right” never actually set for the full text of the “Claim?”
There’s a reason for that–the actual “Claim” text would be laughed at today, being just an anti-Catholic screed. For example, the “Claim” labels as Crimes the “printing of popish books,” “imploying papists [Catholics]” and “allowing [Catholic] mass to be publickly said.”
If you believe the “Claim” is a fundamental part of the “Scottish Constitution” (which does not exist and never has existed, but that’s another story) then you must accept that said “Constitution” bans Catholics from holding political office. You can’t promote the “Claim” as fundamental law and then disclaim 99% of what it actually says.
And this “Claim” wasn’t written by, let alone passed by, any representative elected body.
There is a need by people in general to regain there focus from events further afield to the circumstances of there own lot. As the reason of multiple conflicts, confusion, laws and Chaos for everyone around the world is to dissipate focus from ones own doorstep.
To become victims of worldly events keeps no one occupied in what happens to their own nation while those mechanisms are deliberate cogs of confusion inserted for the purpose of division and disputes.
To claim that we have to care about others everywhere weakens all nations, all people as those planned cogs of chaos take effect to distract from the the Country we live in.
The psychology of the elite, wealthy, politicians and governments is to confuse the people
They rely on creating and feeding the people multiple problems at once.
Feed garbage in, and garbage comes out as a result.
We no longer focus on our own people, our own nation our own Sovereignty around the world,
That is the phyops of psychology in modern warfare, it is as much about the mind as it is about weapons.
And no one has experienced this suppression of the mind games over three hundred centuries than Scotland,
We should learn from experience how this warfare is played, how the mind of distracted confused people fed multiple false pieces of information breaks down and divides a nations history and Country,
Everyone and every Country that has become or fallen for this is its victim and only the very top governance will win,
People have to re- focus and make wins one Country at a time.
Yes James, we are indeed products of our environment. As colonialism ‘is based on psychology’ (Cesaire) this means that in a colonial environment the people will have colonised minds:
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
One of the unforeseen damage control that all nations in Britain can play a part in is for the people to work together for once,
Free Scotland and you automatically free the other nations within Britain from the insanity of present day Global politics and global control.
Because today it is no longer the old roll being played out of England verses Scotland,
It is Britain verses Global control while Britain is is a unit.
British Governance verses the people of Britain while it is a unit.
If Britain is no longer united as a unit all else falls by way of the control from outside the isles of Britain,
Borders are returned, laws are returned, governance is returned and becomes more accountable to the people within their own borders.
The people working together in joint agreement could end the problems that governments of diversity have set up for controlling the people of the four nations.
That are being set up one against the other for global control and satisfaction alone.
We know there will be a kick back from those attempting ultimate control over the four nations, but its a case now for the people all over Britain to relieve them of the control they have been invading into Britain as a unit,
It is time for four separate nations to regain their own border control, to regain their laws that keep them safe, to save their governments and justice systems from diversity and inclusion ideology.
It will take a lot of reasoning before all four nations can see the long term benefits to themselves and their nation,
But making the correct choice is the difference between retaining your nation or not.
Alf Baird,
Indeed, looking at the whole chaotic events in Britain alone we can see that all the four nations in Britain are undergoing what Scotland has under gone for centuries,
Suppression and oppression. Ramped up and on steroids for quickening of control of people,
Yes we would save Scotland from this nonsense, but Ireland, England and Wales could save themselves at the same time.
Because they also would become independent from global control, have their own borders and laws returned.
Surely for once the people of Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales must work together and prevent the divisions sewn by government rhetoric to prevent them thriving to come to an end,
Controlling the mind of the people and stealing away the Sovereignty of people has and is reaching new heights in Britain when you cancel elections in England and rig them in Scotland.
I have observed how a two party system has almost destroyed Britain and Scotland now I wonder how a one party system like Reform in the future could complete the control, if they too changed or failed to follow manifestos, or if they become infiltrated by globalists, as the SNP and labour have.
The people do need to wake up and think together how to save-guard their nations. At the same time, as time has limitations for all of us,
Britain as a unit entity is a easy target to control by outsiders, out side laws interfering and Global diversity ideology.
Personally it occurs to myself there is one quick solution to end the controlled nonsense that can have beneficial results for Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales,
To regain control for all four nations correlated at the same time.
The people need to agree that they control and remain within only their own borders and laws applying to themselves,
If one or other nation is attacked from outside the Islands then four nations come together to protect the Island against invasion filtering through to their nation,
It does not have to be as complicated as governments have made it, we are an Island after all,
Sometimes we have to see the bigger picture, but prevent ourselves from seeing so far that the distance is to far to hold a distinct vision at all.
Some one once spoke to me, very highly of his old neighbour in terms I could relate too. Saying of him, he,
“Is Aware of everything that goes on around him in the rest of the World, and can hold a conversation on any topic you choose, even although he has never been farther than his own door step,”
If only we were all blessed with a learned mind and openness to all events but remained faithful our own doorstep
I have been watching that Russian oil tanker seized in the Moray Firth for the last day at least off and on from my living room. You cant miss it.
The NAZI Trump must have buyers for the oil because as sure as hell it has nothing to do with sanctions against his boss Putin.
My doorstep is in Scotland,
However that does not mean that I am blind to how the Governance in Britain in general on both sides of the border wether Westminster parliament or Scotlands pretendy parliament are not any longer holding any reverence for the mostly long term indigenous people.
And the synchronised efforts being played out to shut down the people and close down their options for the future,
The good cop / bad cop of politics is no choice because one is as bad as the other,
And what it would be like to live next door to a Country that is full on to diversity and inclusion, woke gender-ology, appalling two tier justice systems.
Is not for the faint hearted.or a police force that may have gone rogue,
Scotlands needs independence quickly , and lately I have observed that it would be a big plus if England actually recognised and woke up to the fact it needs to gain independence from Britains governance of global diversity and inclusion as much as Scotland,
For both being independent nations are beneficial to both nations to prevent global ideology and prevent both Countries from being consumed by treaties that the people did not agree to and are paying the price for.
Four individual nations with there own borders and laws is even more difficult for Global ideology to control,
A entirely different re-set button agenda than the ones they had planned for Britain.
By all the auld gods! What an avalanche of memories there! Haha.
I still have the ZX81 in the attic with the shoogly memory & ‘graphics’ packs and the wee printer. The tapes should still be there too, and in amongst all that lot will be Dictator.
You’ve made my day.
P.S I forgot to add – Get that fuckin Yank NAZI Boat out of the Moray Firth