In remembrance
Posted on
November 13, 2016 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
I haven’t worn a poppy in 20-odd years, for my own reasons.
But this chilling clip, from the 2005 BBC series “Auschwitz, The Nazis And The Final Solution”, is the most important thing about war that humanity should never forget.
.
“Looked at sky through smoke heavy with human fat and God was not there. The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever and we are alone.
Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us.”
.
Ah, Stu’s put it on Vimeo – it’s fine now. thanks! BTW aufie, thanks for the tip also. I didn’t know that.
I have not worn a poppy for years. I contribute my small change most days in the local shop which has an Earl Haig collection tin which sits on the counter most of the year. The women in the shop do not understand why I never take a poppy for my apparel.
I think having seen them on fighter jets and found them being made with various parts of munitions has reinforced my reluctance . They have become commercial with such items as cufflinks , scarfs and ties being marketed.
Only last week I heard that Tesco were selling a “poppyroni” pizza. It is too much.
The poppy also singularly fails to symbolise ALL the war dead, who did not die in action ,but who were murdered and butchered just the same without any” glory” in how they died. Afraid ,alone and abandoned.
The military appear to have consolidated remembrance day into their ranks,but it does no justice to those citizens who lost their lives for either being the wrong religion,the wrong race,or just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Sadly poets like Rupert Brooke almost glorified war and they are the ones most quoted.
Heartbreaking clip. Sadly things like that have happened in many conflicts since.
We have learnt nothing.
Sad how much of the wrong we remember instead of the right. 🙁
Bob 3.48
Agree. Most of my life I have worn a poppy proudly, but this year I have been a bit reluctant. I am also a Hearts supporter and have attended the service at Haymarket more than once. Always a very moving and respectful occasion.
But when that poppy is shown on a fighter jet or tank it loses all significance for me.
There is also the oft quoted statement “they gave their lives”. Well no they didn’t, their lives were taken from them by the folly of war.
I find the whole undignified industry that’s recently grown up flogging tacky poppy branded tat extremely distasteful.
Yesterday I stood while the Flowers of the Forest was being played and had difficulty knowing that at that same time innocent people were being bombed by our military. We are told why but I don’t believe a word. Our troops do as ordered in good faith that their superiors know better. No one can doubt the respect the people have for our troops. It is the same people who have throughout the ages that have sacrificed the flowers of the forest for their own greed Will there be an end to this madness? will our new foreign secretary or his ilk calm the troubled waters? Our remembrance day service is in safe hands, it will go on forever.
So while we remember the horrors of last century, let’s consider for a moment the sentiments being expressed today. Trump says he will deport Mexicans. Why? Because they are to blame for anything and everything, just like the Jews were. And Muslims – they also are to blame.
In the UK, it’s immigrants. Will we deport them? Well maybe if our negotiations with the EC don’t go well. They are a bargaining chip. Let’s not consider for a moment that they are also human beings with lives to lead.
The similarities between the simplistic solutions of today for society’s problems and the final solution implemented by Germany are too great for my liking.
I always struggle to believe that the powers that be did not know what was happening (and where).
What the hell was the UK’s (and her allies) agenda?
I guess I’ll never be allowed to know.
I’m told our FM is a ‘shameful ignoramus’ for leading our nation in remembrance at St Giles rather than in London. WTF.
And this very morning, our Glorious State Broacaster preceeded the showing of the ceremony at the Cenotaph in London with Marr’s interview with…
…Marine Le Pen.
All of us remember our dead especially the conscripted troups of the first and second world wars, but we should also remember the families, the children and those whose lives were changed forever by acts of war on both sides of every conflict – I feel the marching and the gloryfying of war is too much for me to take especially when you see how much of the charitable giving is eaten up in administration and ridiculous salaries for CEO’s etc (not just in military charities). We have an obligation to look after people who have been damaged phycially or mentally by conflict. How many ex-soldiers and now homeless. If government call servuces to conflict they should have a responsibility to look after them for as long as they need help, homes, money and care.
Maybe more of us should be wearing a white poppy and have a real longing for peace – which does not mean doing nothing but speaking out when we see wrongdoing, bullying and aggression and governments misusing their power. For evil to prevail good men only need to do nothing. Truer now than ever.
Words of Wisdom from John Lennon on this subject.
link to youtube.com
Peace Always
… and it came from within the Jewish community
I have always worn a poppy but in the last couple of years I have made my donation but not picked up the poppy. It has been hijacked and no longer is a remembrance for the awful waste of young lives particularly the senseless slaughter on the fields of Flanders without which there may never have been a Hitler or Stalin in power.
I hope this madness passes and once again the poppy will be a mark of sorrow and remembrance and not a political football and litmus test of political correctness for the conservative with a small c amongst us. Until then I will pay my respects personally and unadorned.
I don’t wear a poppy because it has been hijacked and demeaned by britnats.
This clip reminds me of what my Dad, who fought in 39-45, once told me, that in the wake of the carnage of 14-18 most people of his generation dreaded the thought of another war, but most also realised that a confrontation with the evil of Nazism was inevitable.
The war did not bring about Auschwitz and its like, Auschwitz and its like brought about the war.
A lesson for the present day also.
When I was a child growing up in Glasgow there were eight houses in our close. Three of them were occupied by elderly spinsters. The men they would have married were killed in the Great War.
Remembrance Sunday 2016, commemorating those who sacrificed their lives fighting fascism, BBC broadcast an interview with a fascist.
Pinned Tweet
The Andrew Marr Show ?@MarrShow 7h7 hours ago
.@AndrewMarr9: Why I interviewed Marine Le Pen #marr
Marr doesn’t explain why because he doesn’t need to. Fascists are always around, planning, waiting for their time.
Heartbreaking.
I, like many others lost family members in camps in Germany. I also had family members on my other side die in service and in the Quintinshill crash.
I refuse to wear a poppy- I never have as I feel it is not representative of my beliefs. The symbolism of the poppy has been seized upon and at this time of year, it appears almost mandatory to wear one. I may not be popular for this, but seeing old service men in full regalia and disabled ex service persons selling poppies leaves a bad taste. A personal opinion, but it sends me in the opposite direction.
I’ve never seen a white poppy for sale. I would buy one.
I wear a white poppy, as I feel the red poppy has been hijacked by the empire yoons and “celebrities!!”
It used to be only a few days before the 11th that you wore one but as my wife says its become like Christmas, celebrated weeks in advance by the media, and hell mend you if you are on TV not wearing one.
A friend of mine bought a white one in a pub in Inverness a week past Saturday, he was then abused by a couple of Rangers supporters (up for the Ross County game), they tore it from his jacket and called him a ("Tractor" - Ed) etc, before giving it god save the queen whilst doing Nazi salutes.!!!!! I kid you not.
I will always take my personal moment of reflection for the fallen,
but not to highjack the day, the world should hang its head in shame with the ongoing situation in Palestine, every one of us is guilty by turning our heads the other way, for me the red poppy is in danger of becoming a meaningless PC fashion statement.
OT kind of
Given the clip above makes any right thinking person wonder what they would do if a group were targeted in that way here and in these times?
I thought it might be appropriate to give a shout out for the Safety Pin campaign.
It’s mostly an American response to Trump but it’s still a good idea.
What you do is attach an ordinary safety pin on your jacket.
We have all got them you don’t need to buy anything!
This is a visable signal to immigrants and Scot’s of colour that you are safe,they don’t have to try to work out if you are likely to abuse them,and you would not join in with any who would.
You know the kind of thing,like choosing a friendly face to sit next to on a bus ect.
That’s what is attached where my poppy would have been.
For me that’s the way to really honour the war dead,and for more than just one day.
The Earl Haig Fund: A fund set up by warmongers who shirk their responsibility to look ex servicemen and women who were fucked up by the “Great” War. A fund that warmongers still support, because it means they don’t have to look after those that are still being fucked up today. Without the British Legion, I would not have got my war pension after the Gulf War. The army gave me fuck all help and even cost my unemployment benefit after they dropped me like a hot potato.
There is still nobody to look after service personnel after a conflict, except their unit, which is not trained to help someone affected. It is a get out of jail free card and an excuse to glorify war every time that fund raising gets under way.
This fund is still as necessary as it was in 1918, because they still don’t give a shit.
Yes, the poppy appeal has been highjacked, but service personnel need it more than ever with all the cuts and dodging of responsibility that goes with all the warmongering.
It is funny that the arseholes that glorify war the most are also the ones that avoid it.
Lest we forget “the old lie”
Dulce et decorum est, pro Patria mori
Shiregirl@5.06
The Gellions Bar in Inverness have them.
Look after in line 2
McBoxheid 5.13pm.
That’s one of the things that sickens me about the British State. They talk about “heroes” and “our boys”. Then when they’re finished with them they are kicked aside without a thought.
It’s ok though, Harry has a new girlfriend.
Gary45% says:
The Gellions Bar in Inverness have them.
Cheers 🙂
When Trump was elected I thought he won’t be that bad. The apparatus of government will restrict his excesses and rein him in. If he starts to renege on his promises he will be out of office so fast.
But then I looked back at Hitler’s time in Germany just as he was elected and how his eccentric behaviour was normalized and appeased by governments and how he immediately used his power to surround himself with even worse people who could quietly get on with doing the worst things imaginable.
I don’t wear a poppy but is there any point now? We have forgotten all the supposed lessons associated with that time.
And if these people get their way, there will be even more need for remembrance
link to archive.is
And the James Woolsey mentioned.
Well, look at just one of his current jobs!
link to archive.is
How dare foul Britain leave the care of their wounded partially to charity. How many other so-called modern, wealthy countries do this??
Poppies on fighter jets – maybe now people will understand why FIFA banned wearing on their strips last Friday.
Auld Rock
I too reluctantly bought a red poppy [not offered the white], feeling that it is wrong to be forced out of doing so by the hijacking of it by hysterical media etc. And because the service personnel do still need our help because the government refuses to accept the responsibility. I’m sure when Scotland is independent we will do better.
At our village memorial ceremony today it was rather worrying that the Saltire was missing – only the Union flag and the British Legion were displayed.
In the 1970s, at a school near a home where nuns cared for disabled war veterans, a girl was told off for wearing a poppy in her hair. Some people would consider it disrespectful, said the teacher.
Now we have poppy bling everywhere, sponsored by Lockheed Martin, painted on jet fighters, made out of recycled shell-cases, plastered on T shirts proclaiming the child wearer to be a future soldier.
And we have endless wars, some directly traceable to the 1914-18 “settlement”.
I used to wear a white poppy, then discovered that, paradoxically, it provoked some to violence. A compromise was to wear both a red and a white one. This year that became impossible because of Lockheed Martin etc.
So, in common with what seems to be a vast majority, I wear none.
But I remain haunted by the writings of Charles Hamilton Sorley, Violet Jacob, Vera Brittain, Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Robert Graves and many more. See, for example, the anthology In Flanders Fields — Scottish Poetry and Prose of the First World War, edited by Trevor Royle.
When will we ever learn?
‘War is a racket’.
In case anyone has not read this.
link to ratical.org
THE POPPY:-
I am not a badge of honour,
I am not a racist smear,
I am not a fashion statement,
To be worn but once a year,
I am not glorification,
of conflict or of war,
I am not a paper ornament,
a token,
I am more.
I am a loving memory,
of a father or a son,
a permanent reminder,
of each and every one.
I’m paper or enamel,
I’m old or shining new,
I’m a way of saying thank you,
to every one of you.
I am a simple poppy,
A reminder to you all,
that courage, faith and honour,
will stand where heroes fall.
Willie Fae killwinning 6.06
It would be pretty to think so.
Sadly a fair few canny see it like that anymore.
The poppy has been co-opted by those with nae honour.
And some would not dis honour the war dead by wearing one.
And just out of curiosity can anyone find out how much the CEO of the Earl Haig fund is paid these days.
Are there any links to the BBC who are helping with a lot of air time to raise revenue for him/ aye right.. her..?
Watchmen…?
‘Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding’
Albert Einstein
‘The monuments to the “Unknown soldier” after World War 1 bear testimony to the then still existing need for glorification for finding a “who”, an identifiable somebody whom four years of mass slaughter should have revealed. The frustration of this wish and the unwillingness to resign oneself to the brutal fact that the agent of the war was actually nobody inspired the erection of the monuments to the “unknown”, to all those whom the war failed to make known and robbed thereby, not of their achievement, but of their human dignity”
Hannah Arendt ‘The Human Condition’
The bravest, strongest and most dignified leaders (who merit leadership status) understand and articulate the language of peace.
Pax optima rerum
Something else Alan Moore wrote once: a bayonet is a tool with a worker on both ends of it.
Britain, America, Europe, the world. We are all so hopelessly divided, I fear war is inevitable within a decade or so.
THIS MORNING- Church of Scotland service to the intro theme of “in Englands green and pleasant land….” we are all brits. Flags brought in British Legion, BB, Guides etc no saltire anywhere…the sermon– british fought for freedom in both World Wars (I think I am on safe ground to argue against that stance for WW1) then some more british propaganda, then God Save the Q… Po faced Church member asked why I hadn’t sung GStheQ as if it is a legal requirement. They way things are going we might be forced too. I responded that I wont sing a so called hymn that basically castigates my nation. Minister preaches Love and at the same time supports those in armed conflict. Poppy politicised ? Certainly, but I wear it for the fallen and dare I say to get up the nose of those who think Independence supporters, Greens, Socialists and others have no rights. It annoys them. Maybe next year they will play Highland Cathedral.
It has always sickened me how people in the West say “died in Auschwitz” as if it was some kind of random tragedy.
Perhaps you could all do my family members the honor of saying the real word. Murdered.
I do not wear a poppy for the simple reason that when I put out crosses in Princes’ Street Edinburgh a couple of years ago the two men running it picked them up and threw them in the trash. Apparently having slightly German sounding Yiddish names meant it “was no for yous”.
Phronesis says:
13 November, 2016 at 6:37 pm
“all those whom the war failed to make known and robbed thereby, not of their achievement, but of their human dignity”
It is truly shocking how many were just obliterated by shellfire, no body, no grave, nothing. In fact in the British army its 526816, almost half of those killed.
And for what exactly?
link to 1914-1918.net
It happened before. It will happen again. It’s happening right now. These things don’t happen overnight. They happen gradually, incrementally, in stages. And unlike history, we’ve got no excuse this time cos it has happened before. Within living memory too.
Skybolt,
‘I always struggle to believe that the powers that be did not know what was happening (and where).
My mother was at a small, secular school. As most schools were christian they had a high proportion of jewish girls.
The school trip for ’36, which had been planned a few years earlier, was ‘The Great Cathedrals of Germany.
In ’35 they a sent a letter to all the parents saying that in view of the situation that they would not be able to take any girls with even one jewish grandparent, regardless of their name of appearance because the risk was too great.
If an insignificant, wee, girls’ school knew…
In Flanders fields the German bunkers were built using Portland cement Made in England. No prosecutions for the sale of the cement ever took place nor any enquiry ever held.
I have not worn a poppy for years and during a well observed two minutes silence in Livingston Centre, very few people were wearing a poppy. I think the poppy commercialisation is now killing this tradition.
O/T, or maybe not:
This is how Waitrose, that workers’ co-operative beloved of the chattering classes and devoted to decent values, responds to a polite request to withdraw advertising from the hate-filled Mail, Express and Sun:
“Thanks for getting in touch.
I’m sorry that you’re disappointed that we advertise in certain newspapers.
This is an issue which has generated a lot of passion recently. However it would be wrong for us to take a view on the editorial positions of the media in which we advertise.
For every strongly held belief on why we shouldn’t advertise, there would always be others who have equally strong views about why we should continue, or why we shouldn’t advertise with other totally different media.
So, our position is that it’s not right for us to be a judge – we simply target our advertising towards media which our customers or potential customers are likely to see and respond to.
I can appreciate why you feel like this and you can be assured that your comments have been taken seriously.
Kind regards”
What’s that quote again? The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing?
If the British state wanted me to respect the dignity of fallen servicemen, they really ought not to have scheduled Armed Forces Day in Stirling to cynically clash with the 700th anniversary of Bannockburn. If that wasn’t a royally tasteless “go feck yourself Scotland”, then I don’t know what else it was.
There was a time, until very recently in fact when I had the very utmost respect for the fallen. That respect remains of course, and I suspect it always will. But the sanctity of the poppy, which grew up rugged and resurrected in the churned up destruction of the trenches in WW1, has been sold out by the Britnat warmongers and cheapened beyond belief by tacky and tawdry commercialism.
Then of course we have our noble Scottish Regiments…. what’s left of them. Cast off and forgotten as yesterday’s news. Have we to wear a poppy to remember them too? Or just sweep their inconvenient memory under the carpet like Westminster did?
Left to our own devices, I don’t expect anyone in Scotland would have any problem respecting the solemn act of remembering our war dead. It’s the eye watering cynicism of a warmongering elite who would start the the same war machinery running all over again we find so bitterly distasteful.
Harry Patch didn’t go to many Remembrance Ceremonies until his later years. His personal day of remembrance wasn’t a parade, but the day his mates in his machine gun team were all killed by artillery blast, which spared him as wounded, and got him sent home. The very uplifting thing about Harry Patch was the life after his very brief experience of soldiering. He wasn’t defined as a soldier, he was very proud of his life long work as a plumber, his family, and service in the fire brigade too. His mates weren’t so lucky. Their life stories were never written. If I thought it would do any good, I’d send a copy of Harry’s book to Effy Deans, who doesn’t seem to realise what the world loses when young men, women and children are slaughtered wholesale before their their lives have even started.
I don’t feel obliged to wear a poppy for Britain, but I do feel obliged to stop the next war from happening, or to try to at least.
I don’t need the Queen or a government to tell me when is the right time to remember something awful I’m pretty capable of that myself, I also don’t need them to tell me about my outpouring of grief and how much grief that should be
It’s sadly become like Easter egg buying day or Halloween get your monkey nuts day “Poppy Day”
Youngsters today don’t really know and some of us oldies (although know well) don’t want to know because it’s all too horrible
What is true is the Imperialist glorification of something so horrible has almost turned it into a cartoon event because of the commercialism and deliberate missing of the real point and the finger points directly once again at the Great British medias portrayal of history in that it’s the one day a year when it’s OK to forgive the germans…………… but not the rest of the year!
so to that end we’ll fill the telly up with war films for days on end to make sure all you public out there don’t forget
That’s why Engerland must beat the Gerries at football at trade at being nicer at being anything as long as Great Britain doesn’t lose to the bad germans even though we played them at football on Christmas between the trenches in the war, but more importantly who won?
It’s at times like these I wish Scotlands National Party didn’t have National in the name because as is their way the Brits turn it into something unpleasant
Then I think, it really wouldn’t matter what the name was the Brits do this with everything in order to breed bitterness and then keep it going by making an occasion of it
It’s right to remember and or commemorate but it all looks more like a sordid black mass now with more uniforms every year and it seems to me armed military parading is the last thing a lot of folks would want to see
My own brother was a military man he doesn’t go to these turnouts in his uniform, he just goes stands and leaves
And now I’m expecting the respect police to batter down my door and take me in for……….see how easy it is for a country to be manipulated
Never the peoples fault
It’s Volkstrauertag in Germany today, their soldiers thought they were fighting for freedom in 1914 too…
link to en.wikipedia.org
going way OT here – but its an illustration of how easily narratives can be changed by a change of emphasis.
I visited Buchenwald concentration camp twice. First time was in the early 80’s, communist era. There were some displays detailing how well-known German companies, still big in West Germany, had profited from the ‘industry’. There was also an emphasis on how socialists and communists were incarcerated as well as Jews.
Second visit in around 1990, just after the Communist regime ended – all those displays had vanished, to be replaced by new ones detailing how the Soviets had continued using Buchenwald after 1945 as a camp for dissidents.
Some of the companies are listed here
link to remember.org
There was also recorded acts of bravery and self sacrifice in the camps surely that shows the best of humanity? i wear a poppy for the conscripts those men who were not professional soldiers who did not volunteer but who in 1916 were forced to go to war
I too used to buy and wear a poppy every year out of remembrance of my great grandfather who died in September 1916, howeverlast year I purchased a white peace poppy and a purple poppy for the millions of innocent animals that have died during conflict.
The reason for this is that I feel that the act of remembrance had slowly lost its true meaning after The Falklands conflict and was hijacked by Westminster and has now been politized and commercialised.
I also feel that the burden of care for veterans in the 21st century should be made by the governments of the time who sent these young men snd women into unnecessary warand not ordinary citizens of the country.
However as I once posted on Facebook. “I have no problems with a person whether they wear a poppy or not as to like or not like a poppy. To wear or not to wear a poppy is a personal choice and each person does not have to be criticized for the decisions they make”
Just learnt of the Alien Act 1705.
‘The Alien Act provided that Scottish nationals in England were to be treated as aliens (foreign nationals), and estates held by Scots would be treated as alien property,[1] making inheritance much less certain. It also included an embargo on the import of Scottish products into England and English colonies – about half of Scotland’s trade, covering goods such as linen, cattle and coal.[2]
The Act contained a provision that it would be suspended if the Scots entered into negotiations regarding a proposed union of the parliaments of Scotland and England. Combined with English financial offers to refund Scottish losses on the Darien scheme, the Act achieved its aim, leading to the Acts of Union 1707 uniting the two countries as the Kingdom of Great Britain’
Wow, just wow.
Effie Deans, whoever that person is, has truly gone beyond decency to say that it does not matter what age they died. These were not professional soldiers who knew to some extent what was ahead of them. These were indeed the ‘flower of youth’, a generation who could have done not just ordinary things but maybe great things and had a life and been part of others’ lives.
My grandfather signed up in WW1, faking his age, and was immediately sent to France where he and most of his battalion were captured and interred in a PoW camp for 4 years. His attitude to Earl Haig cannot be repeated. He learned much about tolerance and comradeship in the PoW camp from Russian soldiers whose kindness he never forgot.Like many, he watched in horror as WW2 developed before his eyes. He felt great regret and sadness at how the East and West polarised after 1945.
I feel we are watching something similar unfolding. While Slab and the Tories, Kevin McKenna and other apologists yell insults at the SNP and say all’s fair in the name of the Union and business is business, we have to be vigilant because everything has changed and it feels like there are very dark days ahead.
@Scottish Psyche,
Apparently Effie Deans is a lecturer in Aberdeen University. Go figure.
On Friday 11th, most news headlines included a clip of Prince Harry, ‘..leading the nation in remembrance on Armistice Day as he read the poem, The Soldier, by Rupert Brooke…”
Ignoring the sycophancy of the commentary about his “own front line experience in Afghanistan”, the choice of the poem was an extraordinary one on several fronts.
Rupert Brooke was from a privileged background and a Cambridge graduate. He joined the RN Volunteers reserve in 1915 and was posted to Antwerp. He saw no military action, but in 1915, he was on a ship bound for the Dardanelles when he contracted blood poisoning from an insect bite, died and was buried on a Greek island in the Aegean.
Brooke wrote “The Soldier” in late 1914 as part of a group of sonnets expressing the hopeful idealism and enthusiasm with which Britain entered the war. “The Soldier” is an unashamedly patriotic poem of its time.
However, the trench warfare of 1916 and 1917 led to unseemly deaths on such a staggering scale that even by the end of the war, such patriotic feeling – and Brooke’s poetry- was viewed as foolish and naive, sentimental and unrealistic. and gave way to war poets such as Graves, Owen and Sassoon.
It strikes me that remembering the war dead is a fairly hollow exercise unless it is accompanied by a resolve not to let these things happen again and graphic and biting poems like Owen’s “Dulce et decorum est” are far better suited to such a task but would obviously not fit the established Armistice day orthodoxy.
“The Soldier” is essentially an expression of English patriotism. Just read the words. And while it is undoubtedly a well crafted poem of its time, it is an extremely insensitive choice in the current day for an occasion and personnel tasked with representing all parts of the British Isles and reflecting on the tragic deaths of soldiers and civilians in Scotland, Ireland and Wales- as well as England – particularly given the disproportionately high toll of Scottish deaths in two world wars.
And lest this be taken as anti-English bias, I speak as an English person.
Those of us who have made Scotland our home will not be surprised at the insensitivity. However, any who continually conflate “Britain” and “England” as interchangeable terms will simply not be aware that there is even an issue.
Croompenstein
The Turkish troops had no idea why the Brit/Aust/Nz era were in Gallipoli, they thought it must be some new Crusade, as in the 11th, 12th 13th centuries.
Bob Mack says:
13 November, 2016 at 7:52 pm
@Scottish Psyche,
Apparently Effie Deans is a lecturer in Aberdeen University. Go figure.
For an academic, she doesnt half write a load of rambling, incoherent and nonensical pish. I dont think Ive ever managed to reach the end of one of her articles.
I feel the British state has perverted the natural feelings of sadness we have for people killed in endless wars for political gain. So I never wear a poppy.
But if others want to do so, or contribute to the Haig Fund, then that is their right and I don’t criticise.
Fascism is evil and has to be resisted. Let’s hope it isn’t too late.
Croompenstein says:
13 November, 2016 at 7:21 pm
“It’s Volkstrauertag in Germany today, their soldiers thought they were fighting for freedom on 1914,,”
You may find the following poem relevant
link to allpoetry.com
There is an 18 min. short film on you tube or vimeo ,takes the data on the harrowing number of people killed and displays through digitised graphics.
A very sad reminder 🙁
The Fallen of WW 11
(I am unable to link,due to text only,poor wifi signal)
jomry says:
13 November, 2016 at 7:53 pm
On Friday 11th, most news headlines included a clip of Prince Harry, ‘..leading the nation in remembrance on Armistice Day as he read the poem, The Soldier, by Rupert Brooke…”
why dont they read something like this, Dulce et Decorum est, by Wilfred Owen??
link to poetryfoundation.org
The whole remembrance poppy thing has moved away from actually remembering, solemnly and soberly, the horror and obscenity of war into some sort of nationalist glory fest.
Keep seeing references to Post Truth Politics.
link to en.wikipedia.org
After reading that I feel like BetterTogether and Brexit were solely in the realms of post truth politics! Pushing emotional buttons and completely ignoring the facts!
It’s like we want, push, discuss … facts. They Yoons and BritNats want to avoid that!
Never mind facts, history, informatation … how do you feel about good old Blighty … proud, loyal, obedient, unquestioning ?
I went into a public ‘ouse to get a pint o’ beer,
The publican ‘e up an’ sez, ” We serve no red-coats here.”
The girls be’ind the bar they laughed an’ giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an’ to myself sez I:
O it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ” Tommy, go away ” ;
But it’s ” Thank you, Mister Atkins,” when the band begins to play
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it’s ” Thank you, Mister Atkins,” when the band begins to play.
—
I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but ‘adn’t none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-‘alls,
But when it comes to fightin’, Lord! they’ll shove me in the stalls!
For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ ” Tommy, wait outside “;
But it’s ” Special train for Atkins ” when the trooper’s on the tide
The troopship’s on the tide, my boys, the troopship’s on the tide,
O it’s ” Special train for Atkins ” when the trooper’s on the tide.
—
Yes, makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap.
An’ hustlin’ drunken soldiers when they’re goin’ large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin’ in full kit.
Then it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an` Tommy, ‘ow’s yer soul? ”
But it’s ” Thin red line of ‘eroes ” when the drums begin to roll
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it’s ” Thin red line of ‘eroes, ” when the drums begin to roll.
—
We aren’t no thin red ‘eroes, nor we aren’t no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An’ if sometimes our conduck isn’t all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don’t grow into plaster saints;
While it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an` Tommy, fall be’ind,”
But it’s ” Please to walk in front, sir,” when there’s trouble in the wind
There’s trouble in the wind, my boys, there’s trouble in the wind,
O it’s ” Please to walk in front, sir,” when there’s trouble in the wind.
—
You talk o’ better food for us, an’ schools, an’ fires, an’ all:
We’ll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don’t mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow’s Uniform is not the soldier-man’s disgrace.
For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an` Chuck him out, the brute! ”
But it’s ” Saviour of ‘is country ” when the guns begin to shoot;
An’ it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ anything you please;
An ‘Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool – you bet that Tommy sees!
By Rudyard Kippling.
No further comment required.
I can never understand why charities have beg for
Money to look after the few soldiers who survived
and who don’t have families or funds to support them.
I think risking your life day after day for years, for a
Politician’s inadequcy makes a government duty
Bound to support a soldier for life.
Id also like to point out that 25% of the First World
War’s British fatalities were Scottish!
Isn’t that strange with us having less than 10% of the population?
I spoke to an old soldier who was there.
He was no more than 5ft talk, like many under-
Nourished Scottish Soldiers.
He proposed that the English officers thought
It justified to send them in first, and hopefully
Use up the German bullets as they were smaller
Targets to hit.
The English tactics go all the way back to the battle
Of Waterloo, were the Scottish General was
Instructed to send his Bastards in first.
If I were conscripted, I’d be more likely to aim
At a Tory Officer than a Russian.
@Bob Mack
I heard another rumour that they were admin Staff at NesCol (the Aberdeen college group). Whatever they are, they do themselves and their employer no favours.
Imagine your child was being taught by someone with views like Deans, Tomkins and Stephenson? I read an article today, which I cannot find, laying a lot of the blame for the shift to RW politics on the credence given to academics who try to put their daft theories into practice.
Whatever the official purpose claimed for the Remembrance poppy, there is no doubt the warmongering British State and their BritNat supporters now use it as an annual rallying call to nurture and stir their imperial and martial instincts.Not to mention their xenophobia.
Lest they forget those quintessential British values indeed.
I won’t be offering my appeasement to them in these pursuits by wearing this corrupted symbol.
Shame for all the victims of their endless wars though.
@Glamaig,
Effie Deans is apparently a man. Unionists seem to occupy positions of education like our man Scott Arthur. Highly educated bigots. Never averse to twisting facts to justify that bigotry.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Effie should look at the recently released letters from WW1 soldiers.
The truth is far removed from what goes on in Effies tortured mind.
The American historian Dan Carlin’s narration of the battle of Verdun sums up the absolute horror and futility of WW1.
link to dancarlin.com
There was never a more appropriate description than ‘educated beyond their intelligence’ for Yoons with academic titles (and blogs).
I wear mine in memory of the dead of both sides. Civilian as well as military. Also as symbol of the futility of war.
I thought a good move when the war widows were allowed to parade. A reminder from the queen down of the end result of war.
Biggest mistake was letting the C of E in on the act.
Cearc @ 6.53
Oh they knew ..it’s us … The people…who didn’t…
The one’s with the power to do something had to know.
That’s where I was coming from when I said earlier,we all have to ask ourselves what we would do if it started to happen again.
It’s not as if we could say that killing factories were the stuff of fantasy!!
That’s what the poppy’s were supposed to be for,so we remember all that war can do.
The lady in the film,rembers helping her friend to report to the officials.
She has the excuse of not being able to imagine.
We don’t.
WE REMEMBER..
And please forgive the obvious..we must never forget.
So I am not just disgusted with they way remembrance’s day has turned out,I am suspicious of it.
O/T
One of my offspring was told by his tutor, ‘if the worst comes to the worst, there are always jobs at the Scottish Parliament’. The idea being it does not matter what your politics are, say anything to get a job. The principles can be invented later.
Kezia Dugdale immediately came to mind.
Hey Liz g @ 5:12 pm ~
I liked that idea above of the wearing of a blank safety pin, very fitting.
Understandably, as many more Scottish people now find the wearing / displaying of a poppy on themselves negative by association, maybe it’s time for a positive 21st century update?
We’re Scottish, respectfully, does it have to be a poppy.. could we not represent and mark the occasion by wearing something else instead?
Why not proudly wear a broach or small cutting of a thistle on your lapel? The thistle represents Scotland, is beautiful and comes with no baggage.
Wear whatever you want to (or not,) forget about the finger-pointers.. it’s what it matters and means to YOU.
We must find a way to move forward positively from this, or the next hundred anniversaries from now until the year 2116 are gonna be much the same feeling and more awkward than they need to be. 🙂
Scotland.
X.
A Soldier’s Hope
A tot of native cheer, a blackened briar,
and all my life to feel their flavour;
a bed by night, a job by day,
that rest from toil may keep its savour;
just now and then.
A fire, a friend, a jolly story.
A decent wife, a cosy home,
a brush that makes a healthy lather;
a few good friends, some cash saved up,
mayhap a kid who loves his father;
and at the end
a quiet going out to God.
W R Torvaney, 2nd Lt, 7th Royal Highlanders (Black Watch), France 1916.
OT soz
interesting article about the psychology of political campaigns
link to uk.reuters.com
‘Repeatedly priming voters’ minds with concepts, whether supportive of or detrimental to candidates’ appeal, builds their chronic accessibility – the ease with which these ideas shape voters’ opinions.’
I think we are all familiar with this technique thanks to Better Together and the BBC…
@Dr Jim says: 13 November, 2016 at 7:15 pm:
It’s at times like these I wish Scotlands National Party didn’t have National in the name because as is their way the Brits turn it into something unpleasant.
On that point, Dr Jim, I can only suggest you pick up your dictionary and check out the difference in meaning between the two terms, “National”, and, “Nationalist”, and remind you the, “N”, in SNP stands for National e.g. of or belonging to the Nation. Furthermore there are two very different types of Nationalism and only one of them is destructive.
Might I also point out that in the United States of America school children must make a Pledge of Allegiance every day in school. They must stand up, hand over your heart, and recite the pledge every morning.
And our English partners in the United Kingdom are taught that the United Kingdom is not only a country but that it is their country.
Siegfried Sassoon’s 1917 protest about the war saw him, (a gallant officer, who could not be Court Martialled because of the attention that would receive), diagnosed with “shell shock” and sent for psychiatric treatment at Craiglockhart because, you know, he was obviously not thinking straight:
“I am making this statement as an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the War is being deliberately prolonged by those who have the power to end it.
I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this War, upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest.
I believe that the purposes for which I and my fellow soldiers entered upon this War should have been so clearly stated as to have made it impossible to change them, and that, had this been done, the objects which actuated us would now be attainable by negotiation. I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolong these sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust.
I am not protesting against the conduct of the War, but against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed.
On behalf of those who are suffering now, I make this protest against the deception which is being practised on them; also I believe that I may help to destroy the callous complacency with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share, and which they have not sufficient imagination to realise.”
I found it interesting that on Friday I was walking through Glasgow city centre and, apart from in George Square and a small group outside the GoMA in Queen Street, I saw almost no one pause at 11:00. Including me, I might add.
Re; Robert Peffers@9.07
And in fact the unionists in WM still insist on calling the SNP ‘The Scottish nationalist party’. It is not a mistake, it is quite deliberate.
I had a friend say she wished the SNP would call themselves something else, ditch the ‘national’ bit. It is a word which can be doctored to suit the masters, the britnat agenda, and clearly is every day regards Scotland.
Prince Harry’s insensitive reading of Rupert Brooke’s poem ‘The Soldier’ with its ‘ a corner of a foreign land that is forever England’ epitomises the absolute disdainful and unbelievable ignorance shown towards our Scottish dead, never mind the Welsh and Irish, North and South, that were slaughtered for King and Country.
But then again the English who lost a ratio half of ours in War dead, have taken full ownership of all conflicts, particularly the two world wars. We are written out: Loos in 1915, the first ‘big push’ a majority of Scottish divisions shot to bits; ww1 dead of 150,000, over 20% of all Scottish ranks. I heard Ancestry UK have upped previous estimates of 1/10 to 115,000. This is still a lie. Glasgow lost 35,000 men, Aberdeen lost over 5200. Scotland’s population was 4.7 million in 1914, go figure.
In 1940, Dunkirk, the myth of an army saved from the jaws of defeat. Reality, the whole Highland division sacrificed as a rearguard at St.Valery, still fighting on 10 days after the rest of the BEF were being feted as heroes…and continue to be so.
I bought poppies for years, despite my Grandfathers hatred of Haig and his callous butchery of their comrades. The poppy symbolised to me the futility and waste of lives by the British Empire. My Uncle’s death in the Second World War also was a factor.
But the last few years hijacking by the Brit pack and the military have sickened me to the point that I stopped buying them. I haven’t even put money in this year because of the nauseating hypocrisy of the UK that refuses to pay for the military incapacitated in their current crop of imperial adventures. The final straw is these large poppies like gardenias. They tell me the wearers are narcissistic arseholes with no real feelings for the fallen. Needless to say the only ones wearing them are the usual suspects.
@jomry says: 13 November, 2016 at 7:53 pm:
“On Friday 11th, most news headlines included a clip of Prince Harry, ‘..leading the nation in remembrance on Armistice Day as he read the poem, The Soldier, by Rupert Brooke…”
Indeed, Jomry, there is no doubt that, consciously or not, the choice of poem was, if nothing else, very insensitive and a slight on not only the war dead of Scotland, Wales and Ireland but also Jersey, Guernsey, Man and the entire British Commonwealth.
Not to mention the Free French, Free Poles and many others. I post the poem here for those Wingers who may not be aware of the text it contains :-
I’ve read quite a bit on WW1 and I have never read or heard or seen any explanation which adequately explains how it started. The stuff about Franz Ferdinand does not sensibly explain how two countries led by full cousins went to War with one another.
One of my mates thinks it’s because the Scottish Home Rule Bill was due to have its third reading in Westminster. I don’t concur, however , is there anybody out there able to give me an explanation which adds up?
Regarding the Poppy as an ex serviceman I always wore a poppy until about a decade or so ago I realised it was being hijacked for political reasons.
The problem I have is when they often say:” All the brave men and women who gave their lives for our nation in all the conflicts”.
Every war since world war 2 has had absolutely nothing to do with protecting the nation. It is about money, oil, politics and corruption. Carpet bombing Syria and killing thousands of families and children. Is the brutal unforgiving reality of illegal wars.
I will never support the British Military.
Cactus @ 8.50
I did and do like the Safety Pin thing.
No one who knows what it means would worry about getting into a lift ect…
No one in a train carriage with lots of visable Safety Pins will feel comfortable mouthing off… hopefully!
That for me is what was fought for.
Even if it was all elite’s competing for positions and none of it was really true and poor people were killing other poor people for no advancement…in some sense it doesn’t matter because they genuinely thought they and theirs were threatened and they stepped up.
I can’t wear a poppy again but….
I will..if I am around…be taking some White Rose’s to Mixed Clans at Culloden on Independence day.
For two reasons.
All the people killed in war.
From that day to this.
Also Scotland if I have anything to do with it…will give not one more drop of blood for her freedom,but she shall have it nevertheless.
I know it sounds a bit saft but I do remember and mourn for them all.
And if the Polish guy from the other night is reading…your countrymen too.
At lunchtime I passed a Scottish trucker with a giant plastic poppy on the front grill. Inside the cab was an led Union Jack and behind it a Rangers flag. Now tell me the Poppy is not political!
Some good posts guys. As far as I’m aware there were no British officers shot at dawn & the BEF were much more trigger-happy with deserters than the Germans with their defaulters.
France. Scribed in pencil in a WW1 tunnel.
“If in this place you are detained. Don’t look around you all in vain, but cast your net and you shall find, that every cloud is silver lined. Still.”
Down in that place, waiting, listening, but still with hope. I’d wear a poppy for him.
I don’t judge people who wear poppies and I don’t expect them to judge me.
Not so hard is it.
@Robert Peffers
If you read what I said Robert you’ll see I did not make distinctions one to the other I talked about others doing that
I’m rather proud of my party whatever it’s name, and I fully understand the difference between the two comparisons you make, which I did not, I once again pointed to those who do
Robert Peffers @ 9.35
Glad you said something Robert.
I thought it was a bit of a slap in the face but also wondered if I was being too sensitive!
I mean. WTF are the quotes from the Royal’s not ment to be carefully looked at.
If they are ,and, I think that they are, what were they trying to say.
Hopefully it’s that Scotland’s gone.
what do you think of it???
Lets see, I think I remember this after 45 years or so.
Good morning, good morning the general said
as he passed us last week on the way to the line,
now the soldiers he smiled at are most of them dead
and we’re cursing his staff for incompetent swine.
He’s a cheery old card grunted Harry to Jack,
but he did for them both with his plan of attack.
Apologies to Seigfried Sassoon
?Big Jock says:
13 November, 2016 at 9:43 pm
“At lunchtime I passed a Scottish trucker with a giant plastic poppy on the front grill. Inside the cab was an led Union Jack and behind it a Rangers flag”
——-
This is my problem. It has become too politicised and often seems to represent support for the UK state rather than remembering war dead.
Why do their need to be any flags associated with poppies and remembrance?
I’ve posted some details of this on WoS before but it seems appropriate to do so again now.
On the early morning 23rd April 1916 my Great Uncle John was at the small oasis of Dueidar just east of the Suez Canal at the edge of the Sinai Desert. It was held by 156 men; 120 from the 1/5th Battalion (Ayr) of the Royal Scots Fusiliers.
He had already fought at and survived Gallipoli. In January 1916 they had been evacuated to Egypt and on 2 March they took over section of the Suez Canal defences.
John was a ploughman from Muirkirk and that cold misty morning, he and his mates were a long way from the farmlands of Ayrshire. They had adopted a stray dog which began barking at something out beyond the barbed wire. The dog ran out into the mist and attacked someone. The alert was sounded and the guys took their positions. The Turks attacked in force.
They were saved by two things, the dog which died alerting them and the mist which prevented the Turks using the light artillery pieces they had brought.
The Scots held off the assault until relieved by Australian Light Horse at 13:30, who drove off the Turks. This action was part of the wider Battle of Katia. The Scots sustained 55 casualties and John Murphy from Muirkirk died of wounds received in battle next day on 24th April.
Not anonymous people. Real people. Our families. John’s grave…
link to twgpp.org
link to i29.photobucket.com
@Gary45%
===========
That would be the supporters whose team (a while back) turned Remembrance Day into a circus-like farce with abseiling soldiers and various “entertainments” involving Rangers supporting infantry. Real respect there…not.
The clip of the deportations from the Channel Islands reminds me of this thought provoking and disturbing book:
‘Modernity and the Holocaust’ by Zygmunt Bauman
Bauman’s thesis is that in a modern society with bureaucracy, technology and power structures, it is all too easy for a holocaust to happen – millions of small, rational acts by ordinary individuals contribute. Each act is so far removed from its ultimate consequences that it seems in itself harmless.
There is nothing structural in modern society to prevent a holocaust – on the contrary, the very nature of that society, where extreme division of labour distances an act from its consequences, makes the holocaust possible.
Also,
‘The lesson of the Holocaust is the facility with which most people, put into a situation that does not contain a good choice, or renders such a good choice very costly, argue themselves away from the issue of moral duty… adopting instead the precepts of rational interest and self-preservation.’
‘Evil needs neither enthusiastic followers nor an applauding audience – the instinct of self-preservation will do, encouraged by the comforting thought that it is not my turn yet, thank God: by lying low, I can still escape.’
The good news is that ‘it does not matter how many people chose moral duty over the rationality of self-preservation – what does matter is that some did. Evil is not all-powerful. It can be resisted. The testimony of the few who did resist shatters the authority of the logic of self-preservation. It shows it for what it is in the end – a choice. One wonders how many people must defy that logic for evil to be incapacitated. Is there a magic threshold of defiance beyond which the technology of evil grinds to a halt?’
I am in France at the moment for the final Somme Battlefield Commemorations, today at Beaumont Hamel was a truly Scottish event and quite moving. I refuse to wear a poppy as all you need to do is look up the expenses the Trustees of the British Legion vote themselves each year. People who drop a coin into the collection tin are paying for their junkets.
Of Peffers and Poppies
First: my admiration to Robert Peffers. His energy and resolve is astonishing, his knowledge always a good read. I don’t congratulate him anything like enough.
Second, the last time I bought a poppy, almost two decades ago as a callow yoof, it was to help pay for facilities to look after war wounded.
There was an unspoken presumption that in time no one need sell poppies, British war maimed and injured being a thing of the past.
It appears we were mistaken. War is to be an endless industry.
Galamcennalath @ 10.08
Jeezz 25 …my son will be 25 next birthday.
I don’t know how those mum’s ever lived with it.
To keep the toffs where they were …how did it ever be allowed to happen??
Lenny,
WW1, was my thing for a while while I was young, it would take a very long time to explain the political circumstances, but essentially you had superpowers, that fought their arms and technology superior to the others, that had territory world wide carved up, so when a small opening appeared, a weakness perhaps the immediate rush to fill the gaps lit the fuse, neither side would back down.
An easy way to explain it is as having put so much effort into war, it was easier to fight than to find a solution.
We have wars because we are good at war, and we are good at war because we have wars! It’s a profession don’t you know, a military industrial complex.
Remember Einstein, “I don’t know how the Third World War will be fought, but the fourth will be with sticks and stones”.
It won’t be that long until the last world war 2 vets are no longer with us. The Poppy peddlers then cant pretend the money is anything to do with the war dead. It is purely about supporting the current British Military and conflicts like Northern Eire, Iraq and Syria.
England is obsessed with the military. They use it as an excuse to drag the Queen out and waive the Butchers Apron.
I think there is nothing more sickening than watching the coffin of a 20 year Scottish shoulder. Being draped in the Butchers death Apron before being buried.
Liz g says:
His mother, my great grand mother who I never knew of course, was apparently never the same again. The rest of the family were miners and life would have been hard. But the news of John’s death far away was too much for the poor woman.
I suspect they never actually discovered as much detail about his death as I have. They would never see a photo of the grave. With the Australian Light Horse was a war correspondent. So online there are lots of written details and photographs taken on that afternoon.
O/T
Just heard BBC TV news announce a week of programmes looking at how unequal/equal Scotland actually is.
Wages, education, health and so on!!
Think we can guess it will be a hard week!
Liz g says:
13 November, 2016 at 10:21 pm
Galamcennalath @ 10.08
Jeezz 25 …my son will be 25 next birthday.
I don’t know how those mum’s ever lived with it.
To keep the toffs where they were …how did it ever be allowed to happen??
Well yes. My son is 20. My grandfather was 20 when he was in the trenches at Gallipoli. Makes you look at war a bit differently.
@Liz g says: 13 November, 2016 at 9:53 pm:
“I mean. WTF are the quotes from the Royal’s not ment to be carefully looked at.”
I have no idea of how the royals and English upper classes think of such things, Liz g.
However, as a young school kid during WWII I spent some time living in an cottage on an orchard, (which as agriculture land), was actually within Bordon army Camp in Hampshire. There I was surrounded by the Canadian Army soldiers who were wiped out in the Dieppe Raid. In fact as most of them were from Scots Canadian Battalions I was something of a mascot, (not a great one as it turned out).
I attended the local primary school and was beaten up every day by older English kids for no other reason than my very broad Scots accent. Now the thing was that the staff, including the head, caned me for being a troublemaker and there was a definite anti-anything not English thing going on. Even if we were all supposed to be fighting Hitler.
Now I’ve never blamed the kids or the staff for their bad behaviour for, even at that early age, I was somehow aware they were being brainwashed.
In the main the people of England are good people who have been brainwashed all their lives in much the same manner as we Scots have.
From the cradle onwards we are subject to these ideas and they are ingrained in us. Only when we are made consciously aware of what is going on will we make conscious efforts to think things through for ourselves.
For example – When did you first realise that the TV show Dad’s Army was a propaganda exercise?
“Who do you think you are kidding Mr Hitler if you think old England’s Done”.
That’s pure propaganda and the people on England never give it a thought for in their mind is the firmly fixed idea that England, Britain, Great Britain and the United Kingdom are all just the same thing and it is all just England.
As for the Royals and the people, who are our leaders, I think these do probably know the truth and encourage the propaganda.
@Cactus & other friends –
I still believe a wee ivy leaf could represent so much for us.
‘I Voted Yes’ encompasses many decent causes and beliefs, including appropriate remembrance as well as concern for generations to come.
My grandad died when my dad was 9. He contracted Malaria in Burma in World War 2. He came home when my dad was 5 and lasted 4 years. Towards the end my dad wasn’t allowed to see his twisted body.
He went from being a West of Scotland lightweight boxing amateur champion. To a skeleton in a matter of years. My dad has never worn a poppy. He says the Poppy is a representation of the loss of his father he never really knew.
The reason he says is because he was left to rot when he came home. He was poorly treated in the war and he thinks that didn’t help his recovery.
My Grandads dad was Irish and probably fought the British in his homeland, before being forced out of his land.
My dad grew up in Maryhill and supports the Jags as did his father and now me. My dad believed supporting Celtic was too predictable for an Irish descended Catholic. My dad joined the SNP when he was 18. He signed me up when I was 18. When all his friends called Snp the proddie party. My dad refused to change. He just knew he was Scottish and that republicanism sat comfortably with our Irish ansestory.
No one ever called my dad British and got away with it. The same for me.
So as for poppies and the Brit peddlers….. Not for this rebel soul!
The reason the English don’t correct others when they say England instead of Britain. Is because they don’t need to. Their identity is not being ignored or taken away. It’s only our identity.
@ Marcia 22:12
Good to hear the commemorations at Beaumont-Hamel went well today. I’d hoped to be there myself, but was unable to make it this year. Some times what we have to do takes precedence over what we want to do.
Here’s a poem for you, which you may or may not be familiar with, regarding a soldier who died at Beaumont-Hamel a hundred years ago today.
A poem by William Richard Torvaney, 2Lt, 1st Highland Field Company (ex 1/7th Royal Highlanders) written to commemorate the death of Private Hubert Julius De Reuter 6928, 15 Platoon, D Company 1/7th Royal Highlanders (Black Watch), 153 Brigade, 51st Highland Division. Killed in action during the assault on Y-Ravine, Beaumont-Hamel on 13th November 1916.
Along with being a soldier, Hubert was also the 3rd Baron De Reuter, grandson of the founder of Reuters.
OUR TOFF
We ‘ad a toff in our platoon
a Baron’s son was he,
a toff wot did his share of work
an’ drank his Army tea
an’ spent near all his handy cash
on chaps like you and me
He might have been a red-tab swell
that’s wot he might have been,
but then we chaps that’s coarser-like
would never quite ha’ seen
the splendid man he was right through
a soldier – straight and keen
He’s gone – like many another chap
an’ we wot’s out here still
when grey dawn breaks and men ‘stand to’
when armies fight and kill.
We misses ‘Arry, our star toff
who lies near Mailly hill
I ain’t religious, but I’d like
to thank the God who gave
this world our Harry, Baron’s son
who found a soldier’s grave
I donate annually to Erskine but do not wear a poppy.
IMO it has become politicised by the increasingly jingoistic/fascist British State for some years.
galamcennalath
My sympathies. Your great uncle’s name will be on the Victory Park memorial in Muirkirk. Still Murphys in the village.
Muirkirk was once an important industrial centre in lowland Scotland and just before the First World War had a population of approximately 5000. That, and the war’s huge death toll, explains why so many names are present on the memorial relative to its population size (as measured from the early 70s onwards).
Oh, and for what it’s worth, when in the BB, my friends and me marched to the Kirk and cemetery every year for 12 years. There was always a saltire and a union flag. It was always hugely respectful and dignified, just as you would expect in a small community. It is something I am proud to have done. It left me with an abiding interest in the First World War, from which grew my abhorrence of war in general and my complete mistrust of the political and class elite. Some people might think of the BB as being part of Yoondom, but that is not an impression with which I am familiar; some of us meet up regularly and we all vote SNP.
I should mention – more recently, in an attempt to ‘normalise’ their bigotry, the orange lodge attends these commemorations wearing their sashes. It’s easy to interpret this approach and time they were told where to go.
OTish
Harping back to Yoon complaints about Nicola’s comments re Trump I would like to remind you of this fairly recent quote by our current Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson:
“The only reason I wouldn’t visit some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump”
Little wonder we have Farage stepping in as first point of contact.
Beams, motes and all that.
People Carrier says:
It is 🙂
Chic. Nicola is aligning herself with the rest of Europe. While distancing herself from Trump and Brexit England.
She is looking to a future where Scotland is in the Eu and England is begging the Us,for trade deals. Right versus left. England is on the way to total isolation.
Re the word, nationalist.
The reason that the English political elites use the word ‘country’ so much, is because as a ‘nation’ they are an embarrassment even to themselves.
They avoid blatant ‘Englishness’ because they don’t know what it is, seeing it ridiculed or despised at ‘home’ and abroad,
Lumping themselves in with their underling celtic cousins, unaware that our resilience matches their inadequacy.
Trusting in the sum of your parts, your nation and it’s potential.. is not the same as keeping out foreigners so you all get more overtime.
@ Lenny Hartley – the best, and funniest, explanation of WW1, causes of, is Robert Newman’s “History of Oil”. A stand-up comedy routine which is also a great history lesson.
Spoiler- it’s about oil.
45 mins on yputube.
youtu.be/2DCwafIntj0
Nearly the end of Remembrance Sunday.
The common form
“If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied.
Kipling
Exultation and triumph was what Kipling had in mind as he actively encouraged his young son to go to war. Kipling’s son John died in the First World War, at the Battle of Loos in September 1915, at age 18. John had initially wanted to join the Royal Navy, but having had his application turned down after a failed medical examination due to poor eyesight, he opted to apply for military service as an officer. But again, his eyesight was an issue during the medical examination. In fact, he tried twice to enlist, but was rejected. His father had been lifelong friends with Lord Roberts, commander-in-chief of the British Army, and colonel of the Irish Guards, and at Rudyard’s request, John was accepted into the Irish Guards.[58] He was sent to Loos two days into the battle in a reinforcement contingent. He was last seen stumbling through the mud blindly, screaming in agony after an exploding shell ripped his face apart.
Well said, Lochside. You sum up my thoughts pretty well. I’ve been fortunate enough in recent years to visit St Valery-en-Caux, Albert, Bayeux and Beaumont Hamel. It leaves you empty and pretty disgusted at the same time. How many of the WWI troops even had the vote? Yet they died for “freedom/democracy”.
And Churchill abandoned the 51st Highland Division to their fate after Dunkirk without a qualm. They fought with De Gaulle until the end.
And, as usual, we seem to have borne the brunt.
It’s the Union Dividend.
link to scottishrepublicansocialistmovement.org
Galamcennalath
While thinking that my son is reaching the age of your uncle.
I thought it might comfort you to know that he and my other kids are and have been taught about their sacrifice.
Not only the kid’s (and they were mostly kid’s) on the field but in an upfront and personal way.
Wee wummin across the road from us long story short.
The wee wummin all the kids in the street looked out for.
They would have killed anyone that did her harm.
We all watched….we were a good Street.
What we ultimately learned was that she was all alone because her first husband died in WW1 & her 2nd in WW2 after that she just gave up.
She could not stand to lose another man that she loved.
She would prefer not to ever love again.
We learned this from a lovely elderly couple,again who we all looked out for.
My son escorted me to that gentleman’s funeral a few years back.
He wanted to go because that was the man who always watched what was going on in the street and who’s word could be trusted,and therefore had saved my son’s arse a fair few times.
That’s (his funeral) where we learned he had parachuted into Arnhem (hope spell check got it right) also that he had never really spoken about it.
Other than to say he had never been more frightened in his life.
My son,his friends,the community were not only impressed but all the kid’s wanted to know about their neighbours stories.
I went all… Robert Peffers…. on them.
No Hollywood the real version.
So I guess what I am trying to say to you is people like my neighbours and your uncle are not forgotten.
And is not because London Elite’s like to show off every year X.
The great general Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmany Melchett(Blackadder Goes Forth) brush and dustpan in hand sweeps a significant number of toy soldiers up and bins them.How many lost he enquires of captain Darling, I think around 10,000 was the figure quoted and our advance he asks? 6ins the reply. Thank you Ben Elton
I agree with so many of the posters above about the annual Poppy kermesse . I find it sickening even though i have close relatives who served in the BA and RAF from the boer war up to the falklands.
just to raise a smile – here’s some fashion advice for Unionist ladies on Poppy wearing. Enjoy
link to eurofree3.wordpress.com
IMO the greatest ever anti-war lyrics by Scot, now Australian, Eric Bogle.
All The Fine Young Men
They told all the fine young men,
“Ah, when this war is over,
There will be peace,
And the peace will last forever.”
In Flanders Fields,
At Lone Pine and Bersheeba,
For king and country,
Honour and for duty,
The young men fought and cursed and wept and died.
They told all the fine young men,
“Ah, when this war is over,
In your country’s grateful heart
We will cherish you forever.”
Tobruk and Alamein,
Bhuna and Kokoda,
In a world mad with war,
Like their fathers before,
The young men fought and cursed and wept and died.
For many of those fine young men
All the wars are over,
They’ve found their peace,
It’s the peace that lasts forever.
When the call comes again,
They will not answer,
They’re just forgotten bones,
Lying far from their homes,
Forgotten as the cause for which they died.
Ah, Bluey, can you see now why they lied?
Strangely. but then maybe not, I could no longer find a youtube of Eric Bogle singing this but Mary Black does a good version.
link to youtube.com
P.S. the non ‘Australised’ version used to end:
Oh young men, can you see now why they lied?
@ galamcennelath
My great-uncle (also in the RSF) died at Ypres in 1917 at the age of 20.
Tomorrow when I go to buy The National at the Co-op, I’ll cross the road and check out the Victory Park memorial and do a bit of remembering for both our relatives we never knew.
Lenny Hartley
WWI’s start was extremely complex, but here is a very brief and incomplete synopsis.
Frank Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian- Hungarian Empire was murdered by a Serbian Nationalist or anarchist, who wanted to see that Empire split up into the various nations it comprised.
Austria then made various demands on Serbia for reparations, which it rejected, so Austria mobilised and declared war on Serbia. Serbia appealed to Russia, their ally, so Russia mobilised and moved to attack Austria-Hungary.
Germany was allied to Austria, so Germany mobilised and started moving trains of troops to the Russian front. Russia invoked their alliance with France so France mobilised. Germany then moved into neutral Belgium to attack Northern France, and so Britain, which had guaranteed Belgian neutrality, joined France against Germany.
Italy joined the Allies as they had a border dispute with Austria, and Turkey joined the Germans because they had long-standing ambitions in the Balkans.
And they still thought it would be all over by Christmas.
At the last minute George V appealed to the Kaiser to think again but was ignored.
was obliged to join France and Belgium in resisting Germany.
I’m ex forces. Many of my family and ancestors were also in the forces. They fought in various wars or, as they call them now, “conflicts”.
To my mind, Remembrance Day has now been corrupted into mere jingoism.
We now see Brexiters wearing poppies the size of Tea plates to display their “patriotism”, all while spouting the kind of bile that my family fought and suffered to destroy.
I’m done with it.
Poppy hypocracy, used by the State to cover up their complicity and lies. A total diversion of a false narrative. Any veteran should be totally supported by the authorities for whom they made the a ultimate sacrifice. Not from a rip off charity campaign. The authorities dodging the bullet of their ultimate responsibility. Many service people fought and died for a corrupt system that ultimately betrayed them. Their sacrifice is used for total propaganda by ruthless, selfish people who should know better but want to cover up their crimes.
The State should provided for all the needs. Not Remberance services and charity. Lest we forget, it should be a complete narrative of truth and harmony for oeace, Not a twisted military campaign of a cover up of a failing State. The multimillionaire Head of.State and their sycophants who illegally benefit and who who are responsible for illegal War apposed the starving pensioners and their families. Totally incompatible with the false narrative. Lest we forget the forgotten ones,
Why do fund raisers not just put on an account no and sorting code for an Appeal. Or an address to send a cheque for those who want increased anonymity or for whom the links don’t work. An total increased amount would be raised. Re the Brains Appeal etc.
It is very easy to criticize Donald Trump, but keep this in mind.On his inside team he has Dr Ben Carson (black) A Woman ran his successful election campaign and a gay man whose name escapes me.He has refused to take a salary as President.
And before you start, do you really think he is the kind of person to hire for window dressing?
Illegal immigrants and terrorists can simply walk across the border, the US has to secure that border and should have done it years ago
The starving, empoverished Russian people wanted no involvement in the 1WW (or the 2WW) They viewed it as a ‘capitalists’ conflict and campaign. Calls were made to advise the working people of Europe not to take part in them. For working people to unite and resist the conflict.
They Russian saved the West in the 11WW. They made the greatest sacrifice. 26Milkion Russians died and Russian was devasted. It resulted in a Militarily Defence State to protect it’s borders. Create a buffer. Lest we forget.
1WW was caused by the European Royals. (The dominate British Royal family and their relatives) No universal suffrage, but ‘the divine right of Kings’ protected by ‘God’. Reined over, Some absolute monarchs and their interdependant ‘Treaties’ and rivalries, The European Royals were inbred. Cousins married cousins.The Royal cousins, the Czar, Nicolas 11 the Kaiser Wilheim and the ‘Bertie’ King of England. A philanderer of disreputed character. Queen Victoria’s daughters, sons and grandsons, There was remarkable physical resemblances between them, Queen Victoria’s mother and husband were German. Millions died to protect this archaic system.
A Including the intransigent Czar who helped caused the conflict and his family, Wilheim lost his position and was demoted eventually dying. The British Royal family managed to survived and rewrite the dialogues. ‘Long’ live the King’. To misrule ‘Us’? Russian Revolution 1917. The Bolshevik Revolution. The Russian people were starving and had been completely denied workers rights and any kind of equality. The Industrial Revolution had brought changes in the late 1890’s but did not bring sufficent changes to safeguard the society or economy.
More people died during the 1WW of illness than of conflict. A ‘Spanish’ flu epidemic wiped out half of the population of Europe. Culled the people. The 1WW led to an imbalance of gender within the population and resulted in Womens’ right to vote. Universal suffrage came in 1928.
There is an argument for a constitutional monarchy but only if the Head of State is totally unbiased. Slims down and bows out. Often that is not the case.
Use your vote wisely. Know the details. To change the path of history.
Andy Murray’s a sporting hero. No 1. Folk can’t get enough of him.
As with so much else, so also with Remembrance Day.
“Some people are so effectively indoctrinated they simply do not know that they do not know.
They might eventually garner insight from looking back at old headlines or programming because distance sometimes gives a better perspective, but in the main people tend to accept the output uncritically at the time of the actual broadcast.” (From the Guardian comments – no name)
Thankfully, more and more people in Scotland are waking up to the reality of British propaganda. It’s just taking a little longer than we hoped. Like waiting for the clothes on the line to dry – in the rain.
And so it begins. Tory donors and ‘leading businessmen’ are urging May and the Right Wing Junta to use Farage as a go-between with Trump to rebuild this ‘special relationship that the London Barrow Boys want to maintain between the Holy London Empire and the US of A( Wall Street, the American Military, the Neo Liberal Republicans and Democrats, and the US Military and Industrial Complex).
Meanwhile Trump announces that he will be deporting or imprisoning 2, no, make that 3, million illegal Mexicalis who are rapists murderers and/or drug dealers; oh, and the wall might not all be of brick, some of it may barbed wire fencing, or palings.
May is about to hand the Government of the UK over to Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson in the most blindingly obvious coup d’état in UK history, to a fanfare of Mail Express Sun and Telegraph hack trumpeters, declaring that it is the overwhelming will of the British People; well, 17 million of Them anyroads.
We are well down the road to Orwell’s dystopian world now.
Our only hope is that enough Scottish citizens will opt for self determination as an independent state within the European Community.
Or when England starts rounding up hundreds of thousands of ‘illegals’ and transporting them via ‘holding pens’, ‘back where they came from’ will we stand by and watch while the newly formed UK Border Protection Brigade mushrooms into Farage’s Personal Army?
The clip of the Channel Islands Occupation is chilling to say the least.
England seems to be lost to right wing zealots now.
Self Determination for Scotland is looking like our only escape pod.
Quite a time in human history. 2016 has been a year to forget so far.
A lot of people out there making capital of fear, hatred and difference. Doesn’t matter whether they believe it or not themselves, they use it for their own advantage. Its another political tool to some, an ideology to others. The real test for people the world over is in how they respond when faced with it.
I wonder if this time round we’ll pass or fail?
Obama/Clinton the total failures. Made false promises and did not deliver. Every country in the world seeks to secure it’s borders and prevent illegal immigration. The trouble is US/UK and France caused the mass migration and suffering of people into Europe. Caused by bombing the Middle East to bits for years.
Obama played the race card and Clinton played the gender care to win. They both were complete dangerous failures. Lying warmongers who killed innocent men women and children for their own gain.
Trump has more ability and outlook to see through the outcome of their vacant, destructive decisions of which American people paid the price. Obama/Clinton et al have cause destruction and anxiety around the world.
Trump’s family are hardworking, decent people. They have no airs and graces as they pass through Aberdeen/shire, They are pleasant and engaging with everyone. Taking routine flights and driving ordinary cars to the driving ranch. Pity about the small no of compulsive, lying Green opponents and few, lying hypocrite neighbours. They maliciously fed the lying, ill researched Press with bias and misinformation of excess of bias intention, Never gave the majority opposing view. Causing the prestigious Development to stall. Ignoring the wishes of the majority of neighbours who whole heartedly supported the asset to the community and the region.
The Greens and neighbours bullied Trump to order to line their pockets. They are despised in the locality and region for their greed, avarice and malicious intention, The Greens will never be endorsed for their culpable intention to hold back prosperity, economic growth and invention. The ‘crofters’ brother does not support his position and despises him for the malicious avarice intentions,
Since Trump arrived Golfing holidays in Scotland have doubled. At least Trump flies in his own jet not illegally in Airforce 1, like Clinton paid for by US taxpayers. A complete abuse of power. A terrible, terrible person. Drain the swamp. Trump called them out for what they were and they sure did not appreciate it. The American people did.
Many wealthy people can be encountered by hangers on and sycophants who want to relieve them of and benefit from their money. They can give malice account to achieve their endeavour. Every man and woman on the Planet has been subject to inappropriate touching of various degrees. For mild offence to total trauma. There are provision for appropriate recompense through the Law and legal system. From apology, to recompense or imprisonment for total trauma or violence, Even through the civil system. All touched by this can appeal through this system till proven.
The Churches are involved in cover up of malicious violent molestation, including of children. In Boston there were covers up. When victims came forward they were either discredited, maligned or killed in fatal ‘accidents’. In order that the accusations were withdrawn with not further scrutiny, Film ‘Spotlight’ won an Oscar. An account of when the Press held up the case of criminal justice with research and diligence. Unfortunately that is not always the case. Peddling double standards and suppressing information because of status. Saville etc.
Prince Andrew and Clinton were allegedly involved in rape of molestation of underage, young girls at meeting organised by their associates. JF Kennedy etc.extra activities with Billy Jean. Elton Johns related accusation. D notices. Double standard. Swept under the carpet. A special relationship.
Statistically Trump has a one in five chance of lasting 4 years. A quite low 20% chance of survival. Thatcher ‘ boys will be boys’. The Unionist Parties involvement in routine molestation and targeting of vulnerable people. The Routine cover up. Keith Vaz, Sewell, Osbourne, Blair, Johnson etc.
Trump does not suffer fools or hangers on gladly. Farague and the Tory/Unionists. Watch this space, Farague is a financial criminal. In the US if they are caught and found guilty there is punitive punishment. They got to prison for 30+ years. Farague survived a fatal crash. Could Farague survive the US justice system. His associate has already be arrested on charges of embezzlement and money laundering. How long is a piece of string. Given enough rope etc.
Not forgetting Trident. The obsolete false weaponry of Mass destruction while people in the world starve.
O/T UKOK Labour letter writers in Herald complaining about Tories getting rid of Triple Lock for pensioners. The same people who assurred us that only by remaining in UK would these be safeguarded.
And Alex Rowley still confused as he now wants Home Rule in a Confederal UK.
Links
Group of refugee children from Calais Jungle arrive in Scotland
link to archive.is
link to welfareweekly.com
Trial to begin of man accused of murdering Jo Cox before Brexit vote
link to archive.is
link to aljazeera.com
link to billmoyers.com
link to activistpost.com
link to ecfr.eu
Trump and his team of haters
link to archive.is
From ‘Mrs Miniver’.
The Wilcoxon speech is frequently cited in books about Hollywood’s World War II films as exemplary of the kind of filmmaking that helped mobilize the United States to war in defense of its ENGLISH allies.
The Vicar:
“We, in this quiet corner of ENGLAND, have suffered the loss of friends very dear to us– some close to this church: George West, choir boy; James Bellard, station master and bell ringer and a proud winner, only one hour before his death, of the Belding Cup for his beautiful Miniver rose; and our hearts go out in sympathy to the two families who share the cruel loss of a young girl who was married at this altar only two weeks ago.”
Chic Brodie the Neville Chamberlin of the SNP.
@ Ian Murray, is this the same Trump who never paid his taxes? well I never! billionaire refuses salary!
Many Lewismen lost their lives. One family from the village of Portnaguran lost four sons. I can not begin to imagine what that mother went through.
My aunt was among those who saw the Iolaire disaster unfold and could do nothing to help. To be so close to home and see the lights and land, just heart breaking.
link to stornowayhistoricalsociety.org.uk
Churchill a loathsome man who would welcome Trump with open arms
link to crimesofbritain.com
Ot…
He was serious then…. link to euronews.com
The only saving grace for us all is that I don’t believe Trump has the focus and sociopathic single mindedness to be a second Adolph Hitler.
Trump is no Hitler incarnate, he’s an idiot showman who now has to make good on his idiotic rhetoric.
It isn’t Trump that concerns me. It’s the new world order apparent where xenophobia, racism, and vilification are mainstream agendas which are casually accepted as legitimate. We have all moved to a different point on the spectrum.
If you took Trump and Farage out of their present circumstance and placed them both in the same Used Car Lot in Dagenham, the dangerous rift in the time and space continuum would be healed and natural order of the universe restored.
Don’t worry folks… I’m sure Dr Who will be along to fix all of this any minute….
No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other, or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.
Trump,Farage, and their kind serve only themselves,they care not for people only for profit and power.The colour of a persons skin matters not to them,but only the amount of wealth that person may have.
They spread dissent amongst us only to confuse and to keep us looking elsewhere while they rob rape and murder innocents to further their own desires.These parasites have nothing without the consent of us, the people.Without our acceptance they are nothing.
This supposed power must be wrested from them, preferably by the ballot box and as soon as possible.
This beautiful planet is more than capable of feeding clothing and housing all of Mankind.Education of these facts to the many will free us from the tyranny of the few.
Peace Always
That was the worst ‘look the moon’ distraction yet.
BBC guest scientist just said..
‘for reasons we don’t fully understand.. the moon looks larger when lower in the sky.
Does Trump refusing his presidential salary mean he does not need to file tax returns?
Just searching for sense in an insane world.
Chic Brodie on again. Neville Chamberlain was never so coherent.
Scotland has vast wealth,unrivalled opportunities for use of natural resouces,sits in the most strategic maritime position on earth and has been brainwashed to think it is incapable of effective self government.
Perhaps we should try the crooked Hillary trick and call out crooked Theresa at every opportunity but crooked Tory Ruthie might not like it.
Had never considered why the White Poppy wouldn’t go down well other than the obvious thought that it might be seen as a criticism of the Red.
Brief reading up on it,
link to books.google.co.uk
and
link to ppu.org.uk
Shows they campaigned in Northern Ireland in the’70s and against the Falklands war.
The NI would have them line up with the “Troops Out”
Not only that but they’ve strong links to the Coop movement and Labour.
Personally I don’t wear either poppy these days.
On other news, I don’t seem to remember seeing so many “commemorative” programs about WW1 recently. Perhaps because by this time we’ve definitely got into “Black Adder Goes Forth” territory.
John H. says:
13 November, 2016 at 5:23 pm
McBoxheid 5.13pm.
That’s one of the things that sickens me about the British State. They talk about “heroes” and “our boys”. Then when they’re finished with them they are kicked aside without a thought.
It’s ok though, Harry has a new girlfriend.
_____________
Thanks for that John. That’ll cheer the men up, when they’re dodging mortar fire and suicide bombers, eh. Nothing like knowing that the Prince of the kingdom has found someone else to roger to keep the mind sharp and on the job.
Just think, the joy of another royal wedding to bull the boots for. I do hope she is fecund, though. One does so worry about the royal line, especially under mortar fire!
Carry on chaps, whatoh!
Nana:
Good Morning, thank you for your links,my day is complete.Kettle’s on.
Peace Always
Ian Murray: “It is very easy to criticize Donald Trump
And just as easy to whitewash him when you’re smug enough to feel he can’t do you any harm.
“Just heard BBC TV news announce a week of programmes looking at how unequal/equal Scotland actually is. Wages, education, health and so on!!”
Aye, terrific.
Nice and safe now; the BBC would never broadcast such facts before the Referendum when it mattered!
They must be pretty certain there isn’t going to be another.
Dark nationalism is at the heart of all wars. British Nationalism only ever seems to have a dark side!
Good article from Ian Macwhirter ….
“Like neo-liberals, socialists see nations as essentially irrational, pre-modern anachronisms. But there is no such thing as an international working class, only working people living in pre-existing moral communities called nations. ….. the celebrated Scottish writer, Tom Nairn, always argued, nationalism is Janus-faced. It has an open, democratic anti-imperial face and a dark side of ethnic and racial supremacism. Keeping it on the democratic straight and narrow requires eternal vigilance.”
link to heraldscotland.com
(Archive.is doesn’t archive the whole article)
Grousebeater, is that yhe same Ian Murray that lives in Morningside and works in London? Lol.
@Jack Collatin
It’s not like us cybernats didn’t forecast a Boris/Farage coalition, and ultimately in No 10.
Anyone that was on line prior to indyref will back that up. We confidently said it would be a right wing Tory gov’t, and BoJo and Farage would be there, if not in cabinet.
All through 2014, I was ridiculed for that.
Even though Cameron was a shit PM, we will soon be invoking him as the good old days.
For I’ll go no more waltzing Matilda, all around the green bush far and free
To hump tent and pegs, a man needs both legs-no more waltzing Matilda for me.
So they gathered the crippled, the wounded, the maimed, and they shipped us back home to Australia.
The legless, the armless, the blind, the insane, those proud wounded heroes of Suvla
And as our ship pulled into Circular Quay, I looked at the place where me legs used to be.
And thanked Christ there was nobody waiting for me, to grieve, to mourn, and to pity.
ERIC BOGLE – AND THE BAND PLAYED WALTZING MATILDA
I cannot sing along with this painful song written by a Scottish émigré in the 70’s.
Since 2014 the BBC and the English Establishment has gorged itself in Commemoration Poppy Porn.
Parades and guns; Blood and Guts; the Glory Days. For Queen and Country. Oh Christ, preserve us from these nuts.
They are hell bent on destroying the world.
Nana, I knew an old lady on Skye who had been sent down to the Midlands on war work when she was a girl. It was quite a culture shock for a Gaelic speaker whose mother spoke no English. Churchill turned up on a factory visit, reeking of booze. She said he was totally arrogant and barely looked at the workers. She had some very hard words for him.
I think the Iolaire disaster is possibly the most heart-breaking loss of life of WW1, given the troops were almost home and had survived a terrible war.
Ian Murray @ 5.54am
Go check out Dr Ben Carson,Ian
I don’t think for a minute that him being black does anything to indicate to me Trump’s view on race.
Dr Carson is a full on Kids , Kitchen & Kirk type
Raging pro lifer…and don’t get me wrong I would never insist that he have a termination,or anyone else who thinks that it’s a sin.
My issue is with those who force that position on others.
Trump doesn’t need to be racist or Misogynistic himself,it really matters not.
What actually matters is that he will legislate for those who are..Why do I say this??? Because I have heard him promise to,a few years back on Info War’s.
Go check it out.
Bob Mack hit the nail on the head for me. I take nothing away from the sacrifice made by service personnel but the military are only part of Remembrence day. It may have started as a military rememberence event but surely we should now dedicate the service to ALL who died. It is unfortunately a sad statistic that at least 10X to 100X as many civilians die in conflicts compared to the forces involved. It should be for all who died across EVERY nation.
Poppy Day has become politicised. It is military parades when it should be about reminding the World about the horrors of war. If it is about money…why are our military personnel not being looked after by our government?
I wish to give BUT I would prefer the military/political spin to be turned down.
Perhaps if the horrors dominated the day politicians would hesitate before voting for “intervention” in Iraq/Lybia/Syria etc. Perhaps the concept of a replacement for Trident would be less popular.
…the next war may not leave anyone to attend a memorial service.
Alex Rowley states that Westmonster cannot deliver the sort of social society he envisages. Hey ho join the club. Is Alex thinking of deserting the sinking labour in Scotland ship?
Ken500
Just started reading ‘Hidden History – The secret Origins of the First World War’ ( Mainstream ). Implies Britain engineered WW1 to put Germany back in its box. Worth a read.
Controversial? Where is the harm?
link to poppyscotland.org.uk
Personally, I don’t like bigots, or apologists for bigots, adopting war hero’s as a human shield for their bigotry.
The donation and support could have been quiet, reflective, discreet and anonymous. But no, that’s just not how Britnat Unionism works is it?
BBC staff flaunt poppies while the corporation broadcasts an interview with fascist Marine Le Pen on Remembrance Day.
Happily, we take comfort knowing the BBC is impartial.
STOP THE WAR!
Dandelions
Now Arthur was only a young cub
A brave lion and merely fifteen
But with the rest of his pack
He was sent to attack
To a war that was cruel and obscene
But those lions fought hard and fought bravely
While the donkeys just grazed in a field
They had no sense of shame for their barbarous game
And the thousands of lions they killed
And when he saw them marching up Whitehall
I remember what old Arthur said
He said the donkeys are all wearing poppies
So I shall wear dandelions instead
Now every remembrance Sunday
Well I pause at eleven o’clock
And I remember those dandy young lions
And those donkeys and their poppycock
Cos they’ve taken those beautiful poppies
And they use them to glorify war
Well I remember those dandy young lions
And I don’t wear a poppy no more
And when he saw them marching up Whitehall
I remember what old Arthur said
He said the donkeys are all wearing poppies
So I shall wear dandelions instead
Now if you take an old dandelion
And just blow it quite gently he’d say
You can see all the dreams of those soldiers
In the seeds as they just float away
But then the wind takes hold of those seeds
And they rise and quickly they soar
Like the spirit of all those old soldiers
Who believed that their war would end war
And when he saw them marching up Whitehall
I remember what old Arthur said
He said the donkeys are all wearing poppies
So I shall wear dandelions instead
Cos those lions were dandy young workers
Who those donkeys so cruelly misled
And if the Donkeys are gonna wear poppies
I shall wear dandelions instead.
Peace Always
Capella at 2344 thanks for that! Should have Sussed out that WW1 was about oil.
In case folks missed the link here it is again. Will need to have a look at Robert Newmans other sketches, seems an astute young man.
M.youtube.com/watch?v=2DCwafIntj0
Man and Boy: “More and more people in Scotland are waking up to the reality of British propaganda. It’s just taking a little longer than we hoped. Like waiting for the clothes on the line to dry – in the rain.”
I hope so, MaB, I hope so.
@ Jack Collatin, went to see Eric Bogle at Birnam on his final? tour. He said his auntie in Motherwell phoned Oz to see if he was deid after watching Tony Blair addressing a school & telling the weans that this song, “And the Band Played!” etc, was written by a man who died in the war!
Thankful villages. I’d never heard the term til this year. It refers to those villages in England and Wales where all the soldiers returned home alive from WW1. Guess what? There are none in scotland. Nor Ireland. They keep that one quiet.
Glamaig – that is a really interesting quote from Zygmunt Bauman.
He is right – civilisation is not the opposite of mass atrocity. It is the pre-requisite for mass atrocity. When people ask “how could an advanced western civilisation like Germany produce the holocaust?” the answer is *because* they were advanced.
o/T link to archive.is
“…activists at the party’s autumn conference in Dunfermline, Fife, backed an amended motion making clear they should “explore all options, except independence, that may allow Scotland to retain the benefits of EU membership”.”
…. doomed to extinction.
Ian Murray says:5:54
And how many terrorist have crossed the border? I thought they flew in, (no pun Intended)
Ken500 says: Remember this Ken, Not all quiet on the home front.
link to libcom.org
my grandfather said the government wanted to start a war with Russia in 1918, as the king had promised the White Russians of his support, but the risk of violent insurrection in the UK was to probable, they don’t tell you that on the BBC, least we forget.
Andrew McLean says:
14 November, 2016 at 11:30 am
The Allied campaigns against the Bolsheviks in 1918-20 seem to be forgotten. Including the Japanese (an ally in WW1) deploying 70000 troops in Siberia.
All sorts of interesting and obscure stuff here, pretty much airbrushed from history.
link to en.wikipedia.org
link to en.wikipedia.org
@galamcennalath
Aye, there’s a gaping flaw in his argument. Actually, there are several, but we’ll go with the biggest. Its not up to Willie Rennie what gets explored or acted upon.
The second biggie of course is that Scotland is a popular sovereignty. The opinion of the Scottish electorate has been sought twice in referendums in recent years. The second referendum we did not ask for, did not vote for, but we were forced to take part in anyway.
Now Willie isn’t all that bright so maybe explaining it to him very slowly and very loudly would help. Possibly also the use of crayons and primary colours may be involved.
But the short of it is that the results of the two referendums we took part in are constitutionally incompatible. Both outcomes affect Scotland on national and international levels. Both affect our civic and political status, our economy, our life chances, our relationship with the world. Y’know, small stuff.
How and ever, being a popular sovereignty and fully entitled under the UN charter to the inalienable right of self determination, it kind of stands out to anyone but Willie apparently, that only one authority will settle the choice facing Scotland’s population.
That would be Scotland’s population themselves Willie.
If you’re listening like.
My grandfather won three medals in WW2 for his actions in northern France and Belgium. He never took anything to do with the poppy industry which he felt had nothing to do with remembering those who died. I follow his example.
Terry @ 11:21
That’s a new term to me also Terry. Never heard it before as far as I can recall.
Have to kick it around my head for a couple of days to mull it over and decide how I feel about it.
For some reason it brought to to mind Selkirk Common Riding… which commemorates the one man who returned from the Battle of Flodden in 1513, when there were 80 men of Selkirk who had left.
Grouse Beater says:
14 November, 2016 at 10:51 am
“”BBC staff flaunt poppies while the corporation broadcasts an interview with fascist Marine Le Pen on Remembrance Day.
Happily, we take comfort knowing the BBC is impartial.””
Not just the staff but anyone who comes within spitting distance of a camera. It has reached ridiculous levels. I believe the contestants on Strictly Come Dancing wore poppies on their costumes – can’t verify because I never watch it. There was a puppet on the One Show and they stuck a poppy on that! HIGNFY highlighted it on Friday.
The BBC has cheapened the whole thing.
Ed Milliband’s wife had a baby shortly after he became leader. He was photographed leaving the hospital shortly afterwards looking like all new fathers and casually dressed in jumper and open-necked shirt – and a poppy pinned to the jumper. How many men would bother doing that before going to the maternity ward with his wife?
It is that sort of poppy tyranny that puts me off. I buy one but don’t wear it and this year I did not even buy one because it has just got so bad.
But I never forget.
@sinky
“And Alex Rowley still confused as he now wants Home Rule in a Confederal UK.”
Home Rule in a Confederal UK isn’t a million miles away from the SNP vision of independence proposed at the referendum, sharing the pound etc
Independence has the advantage of full sovereignty, working backwards to retain common links.
Legerwood , the poppies that got me were pinned on some braw loons in a coo field – obviously they put them on themselves!
galamcennalath
Interesting to see how they sell that to their voters, without explaining exactly how it would be achieved, as there are no benefits of being a member of the EU available without being in the EU.
I can’t get my head round these “Thankful villages” .I live in a small Perthshire town which was probably a lot smaller in the 1900’s, and yet we have a memorial with lots of names on it. You live and learn right enough.
I think that strange. The odds of these villages having no casualties must be phenomenal.
How do you get volume on that BBC clip?
I did hesitate to make this comment but have decided to share it.
My Grandparents had 6 children. Three sons and three daughters. The eldest son was exempt from military service as he worked in Pumpherston Oil Works doing a vital job. The middle son volunteered and joined the KOSB and my father, the youngest son was conscripted.
Now that middle son, perhaps the most decent and nicest person I ever knew, spent almost the entire war with the Desert Rats and never had a single leave period back in the UK.
At wars end he spent several years in the blue uniform of the war wounded and had several operations and eventually returned home.
Now the family lived in a farm cottage near a small village and everyone knew everyone else, (and their business).
Now the story gets to the Earl Haig fund. This worked by former officer class people administering who got what, (if anything), from the fund.
In that rural area a local GP, a former army surgeon, was the administrator. Thus the villagers all knew him, (pre-NHS remember), and all the war veterans in the area.
What they knew was that only those, and such as those, that were allowed to benefit by the old doctor got anything. My unmarried uncle got nothing although he was then the sole support of my widowed Grandmother and the state pension back then was meagre to say the least.
Yet a former soldier who had been conscripted just before the war ended, who was not war wounded but had fallen downstairs while drunk in the army barracks in Edinburgh, he showed no outward signs of any disability and had never set foot upon foreign soil yet regularly got help from the fund.
My uncle never wore a poppy in his life but, being the man he was, never said a bad word about the Earl Haig fund nor complained about his lot.
Furthermore, like many another who had suffered in the war, he never ever spoke of his time in uniform and what he had suffered there.
The reality of remembrance is exposed in this song :-
link to youtube.com
It is sung by the author of the song and is not the version most people will have heard.
This must be the finest village war memorial in Scotland.
link to warmemscot.s4.bizhat.com
I have made 6 trips to date to the WW1 Battlefields in Belgium and France and plan to return again in 2017 it being the Centenary of the Horrors of Passchendaele.
What draws me back time and time again is seeing the horrific evidence of the utter futility of the whole thing and the evidence of the sacrifice made by the men on both sides.
In all my visits I have never felt the slightest hostility towards the German soldiers – my only feeling of hostility is towards the politicians on both sides who contrived the whole disaster and sat in comfort at home while millions were slaughtered for What???
Perhaps it would be a good idea if all elected politicians at both WM and the Devolved Parliaments were made to go on a trip to The WW1 Battlefields – not a quick in and out but a comprehensive tour. If they attended the nightly Last Post Ceremony at The Menin Gate in Ieper perhaps they would shed a quiet tear like many who attend and go back home to think twice about going to war again.
Something that has surprise me is that we are now past the the centenary of the first 3 years of WW1 and there is till no sign of anybody making a movie on the subject of The War.
How many American movies have we endured with the Yanks apparently winning WW2 single handed – but of course they were only involved in the fag end of WW1.
Would it be possible for somebody to come up with a suitably respectful screenplay covering the tragic story of The Iolaire.
Post election song from The Trumpets ….
” Three wee craws sat upon a metaphor”
The whole Trump, Farage, Brexit, Breitbart thing is an unholy mess. One minute Trump sounds conciliatory the next a champion of the far right white supremacist Christian conservatives.
It looks like being a bumpy ride. How I wish we were independent.
@gus1940
It has often been said but I still think it is a good idea – send the Government which is contemplating war to the area concerned. Send them in the same condition as the armed services. Now that really would make them think.
Imagine a platoon of Government ministers, perhaps with backup from Opposition politicians like Hilary Benn.
I’m confident that such an experience would definitely be “a war to end all wars”.
Hand and Shrimp “The whole Trump, Farage, Brexit, Breitbart thing is an unholy mess.”
The same people who suggest we should wait and see what Trump does, that he might mellow in office, would never suggest a kiddy fiddler should live in their street because he might alter his behaviour.
Robert Peffers says:”My Grandparents had 6 children.
My own Grandparents also had 6 children, Mr. Peffers, my Grandfather was a Gordon Highlander in WW1,he was shot twice and gassed once at Ypres.He also applied to the Earl Haig fund during a time of extreme hardship and received nothing.
He lived until I was 16yrs old and the advice that he gave to me was “Don’t ever join up and if you are conscripted, avoid the Yanks at all costs,stick like glue to the Canadians or the Australians they have a brain in their head and are just like us”
I never joined up, nor was I conscripted.
Peace and Love to You and to those that you Love,Sir
Robert Peffers:
I meant to leave you this song in my post.
link to youtube.com
Peace Always
Thought you would like to see this
SNP MEP Alyn Smith receives a standing ovation for his speech to the German Greens Party conference in Muenster.
link to youtube.com
Meant to say a lot of it is in German, sure some of you will be able to follow
@Glamaig
A large part of the Japanese Navy (17 warships) was stationed in the Med during WW1,
mostly escorting/protecting troop (700,000 troops crossed the Med) and merchant ships from German subs,
link to tinyurl.com
Hi Smallaxe
My Grandfather served a gunner in WW1 I’m not sure where he fought but I think it was Passchendaele, also wounded twice, he died when I was 15 but I remember him speaking openly about his experiences and he said exactly the same thing about the Americans and Australians as your Grandfather
Small world
Graeme
A Uni friend of my daughter said something today, and I thought it was worth posting.
She said that all the nice folk she knew voted Yes, and all the angry folk voted No.
Just been directed to this about postal votes,
link to archive.is
It makes your blood boil re-living it. If IndyRef2 does not restrict postal vote to medical/holiday and prevent the Yoons from access to them, then we are in trouble.
Graeme:
We are both lucky enough to remember our Grandfathers,I have often thought that if he had not survived that Hellish conflict that I would never have been born and I think of those who were not born for that very reason.
Here is the story explaining the song that I posted to Mr.Peffers.
“Joseph MacKenzie wrote the haunting lament after the death of his wife, Christine, and in memory of his great-grandfather, Charles Stuart MacKenzie, a sergeant in the Seaforth Highlanders, who along with hundreds of his brothers-in-arms from the Elgin-Rothes area in Moray, Scotland went to fight in World War I. Sergeant MacKenzie was bayoneted to death at age 35, while defending one of his badly injured fellow soldiers during hand-to-hand trench warfare
Sgt. Charles Stuart MacKenzie went to fight in France during World War I and was shot in the shoulder. The military sent him home to Scotland for treatment, where the surgeon wanted to amputate his arm. Sgt. MacKenzie refused, stating that he had to go back to his men. While recuperating in the hospital, he was asked what it was like to kill “the Hun” (as the Germans were called then). He replied, “what a waste of a fine body of men”. His last picture, with him in uniform, was taken on the steps of the hospital. This picture hung in his home above the fireplace. Upon his return to the front, he and his men were engaged in fixed bayonet combat. The composer says, To the best of my knowledge, and taken from reports of the returning soldiers, one of his close friends fell, badly wounded. Charles stood his ground and fought until he was overcome and died from bayonet wounds. On that day, my great grandmother and my grandmother were sitting at the fire when the picture fell from the wall. My great grandmother looked, and said to my grandmother “Oh, my bonnie Charlie’s dead”. Sure enough, a few days passed, and the local policeman brought the news – that Sgt. Charles Stuart MacKenzie had been killed in action. This same picture now hangs above my fireplace. A few years back my wife Christine died of cancer, and in my grief, I looked at his picture to ask what gave him the strength to go on. It was then, in my mind, that I saw him lying on the field and wondered what his final thoughts were. The words and music just appeared into my head. I believe the men and women like yourself who are prepared to stand their ground for their family – for their friends – and for their country; deserve to be remembered, respected and honoured. “Sgt. MacKenzie”, is my very small tribute to them. After “Sgt. MacKenzie” was first released on our Tried and True CD album in 2000, a copy of the song made its way to the hands of Hollywood director, Randall Wallace and actor Mel Gibson. Immediately they both agreed that “Sgt. MacKenzie” should feature prominently in their upcoming movie We Were Soldiers. The rest, as they say – is history! —?Joseph Kilna MacKenzie”
I’m a warrior born and bred, but now, at 67, I reflect more on the tragedy of it all, and the young lives lost in their prime. Sometimes, war IS necessary, but often is old men like me sending young men to kill or be killed in wars based on lies.
Folks, keep a very close eye on politicians, most are venal. vain and utterly immoral, or worse, amoral.
When you let them deceive you, wars happen, and it is those in uniform, their loved ones, and innocent civilians deemed “collateral damage” who pay the price.
That applies to anyone, in any country.
Peace to all.?
The origins of WW1 the USSR and the rise of Hitler are best explored the three important works of Prof. Anthony Sutton : Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution, Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler and Wall Street and FDR.
his three-volume detailed account of Soviet Purchases of Western Equipment and Technology… Sutton comes to conclusions that are uncomfortable for many businessmen and economists. For this reason his work tends to be either dismissed out of hand as ‘extreme’ or, more often, simply ignored.
One_Scot says:
14 November, 2016 at 3:01 pm
Just been directed to this about postal votes,
===========
In addition,this appears below the article you linked
link to archive.is
In Remembrance is a good title, considering how soon WW2 broke out after WW1. Our masters just cant stop themselves going to war. Desert Storm’s just the latest. The next Bush, Chennie, Blair, Brown catastrophe is waiting down the line. Will the UK become the next battlefield or will the maniacs keep it all just far enough away from themselves.
If we had a just democracy, we would jail Blair and Brown and at least bar all the MP’s that voted for Desert Storm for ever standing for office again. But we don’t.
My Grandad was a WW1 vet but he never spoke of it much at all. He got badly wounded in the Dardanelles, shot twice. He worked as Glasgow railway man and then accountant and he died in his mid 90’s, in a little south side Glasgow testament flat.
Today he now has dozens of grand children all the world and he was a socialist, old school. He once said to me that they should have shot the generals and come home. The Russians did. I think the Germans did too. He said he only survived because he was teenager and some battlefield medics were gifted and fearless. Otherwise, it was all over.
@Smallaxe
have to come to the rescue of the yanks,
my grandfather,Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders,was injured and left for dead,
was picked up 2 days later by an American stretcher team,and received major surgery,
although he lost his leg,he always says if the British had picked him up he would not have survived,
my dad says that the only time he mentioned the war was when something called `The Bull Run` was brought up (?)
supposedly a hated army camp set up to
retrain/discipline/condition war weary soldiers.
Looks like Graun’s just given up reporting on any thing Scotland at all these days. A UK national newspaper that knows no boundaries n shit.
“Never has the world needed fearless independent media more” but that Guardian world ends at Berwick.
link to archive.is
They’ll be back, to stamp out Scottish democracy just like last time because they’re so progressive and liberal and fearless:-(
Nae mair will our bonnie callants
Merch tae war whan our braggarts crousely craw
Nor wee weans frae pitheid an clachan
Murn the ships sailin doun the Broomielaw
Broken faimilies in launs we’ve hairriet
Will curse ‘Scotlan the Brave’ nae mair, nae mair
Black an white ane-til-ither mairriet
Mak the vile barracks o thair maisters bare
Hamish Henderson
O/t the reason trains were allowed over the badly damaged Lamington viaduct in south Lanarkshire after storms in 2015,was because of,wait for it dah dah. “Organisational”changes at network rail. Fcuk all to do with cutbacks and shareholders making a profit i suppose. Wonder if they’ll try and blame it on the baaad snp.
Brian Powell says:
Exactly!
“On Saturday, the Scottish Liberal Democrats confirmed themselves as unconditional Unionists.”
link to predictableparadox.co.uk
O/T – I don’t think this link’s been posted on this page.
It’s to a survey on alternative and pro-indy media, being carried out by Strathclyde Uni.
link to t.co
Scot Finlayson says:
I’m pleased your Grandfather survived Scot, or like myself you probably would not be here today.I suppose everyone had their own opinion during those dark years,no opinion better than another.I’m just happy that we did not have to fight in “the war to end all wars”.I am extremely proud of today’s armed forces and sickened by the politicians who send them into battle for profit.
Peace Always
No private companies shoulder involved in counting elections.
They should be not for profit organisations like public trust, with proper governance and a required level of transparency.
Scot Gov should block these companies mow.
I wore a red poppy. It was for my father-in-law, who was wounded and captured at Arnhem, and for the uncle I never knew, killed in Korea. I don’t expect that either had much say in where they went or what they did.
I do believe that after Arnhem Montgomery should have been fired, but by then he’d been feted by the media too long, was too big a figure to be allowed to fail. Of course it helped that he had the ear of Churchill.
OIL, EXPORTS AND GERS
“In 2014 we oil extracted from the North Sea worth £37.3bn, allocated, not to Scotland, but to an “unknown region”. We thought we might lose £5.3bn in a hard Brexit, but we have our very own Bermuda Triangle where, in 2014 alone, £37.3bn simply disappeared.
Then it gets worse: we now have “ghosts”. This is another extract from HMRC under the heading “Overseas traders registered in the UK”, it reads: “There are a number of traders who act within the UK on behalf of foreign companies overseas, operating as ‘ghost presences’.
For ease of administration, these traders are registered for VAT purposes with Customs House, Aberdeen. The RTS system categorises this ghost trade as ‘unknown region’, as allocating it all to Scotland would falsely inflate the Scottish share and we do not have any information to enable us to re-allocate these data to other regions.”
Just like GERS, years of integration within the UK, means that accurate figures are missing, or distorted, or hidden.”
link to commonspace.scot
If Mike Fenwick’s research is correct,this is dynamite and might explain how Norway with twice the UK oil and gas output raised £9500 million in oil revenues in 2015 whereas the UK only raised £76 million (or attributed that figure to Scotland)? Or is this down to tax avoidance by multi-national oil companies operating in the UK?
@Glasgow (Freedom Square update)
Noticed today they’ve now removed the remembrance statue, put up a big green coniferous tree and prepped the glass-box for the advent display.
Also noticed for the first time in ages, they’ve put up brand NEW seasonal lighting around our square.. alas, the moving bells be no more.. it now looks like LED lights on white festive trees and snowflakes only.
Bird, bell, fish, tree..
Glasgow.
X.
The word ‘nationalism’ is so often banded about. This page is no exception. So often the distinction between nasty ethnic nationalism and friendly civic nationalism is ignored, purposely.
We talk about British Nationalism. Does it exist? For most adherents, they actually mean English Nationalism, or even an imperial/colonial Greater English Nationalism. What do Scots BritNats adhere to? With their wannabe English attitudes it’s not the UK they believe it, it’s also Greater England IMO.
So why don’t we refer to British/Greater English Nationalism as Brenglish Nationalism? Then we are clear what we mean!
I think an aspect of WW1 that is neglected is psychological trauma. It must have been huge but probably either not talked about much or not recognised as a thing. I dont know. I dont know if much research has been done on this. I just had a wee search and came up with this for a start.
link to hssjournal.files.wordpress.com
link to caltonjock.com
O/T
link to voxpoliticalonline.com
Cactus:
Say hello to Glasgow for me.
SOG:
You had good reason to wear your Poppy,it’s the political warmongering frauds that should be under them,not wearing them.
Peace Always
mike d says:
14 November, 2016 at 4:14 pm
“”O/t the reason trains were allowed over the badly damaged Lamington viaduct in south Lanarkshire after storms in 2015,was because of,wait for it dah dah. “Organisational”changes at network rail. Fcuk all to do with cutbacks and shareholders making a profit i suppose. Wonder if they’ll try and blame it on the baaad snp.””
………
Network Rail is not a private company. The only shareholder, if that is the right word for it, is the UK Government.
It is a nationalised company even if the UK Government tries to avoid using that term for it.
@ Lenny Hartley
Wonder if you have read this book, it goes into the background of the ruling elite and the circumstances that led to the Great War, it’s a fair sized tome but worth the time, I thought it was immersive.
link to goodreads.com
my grandfather served on the front line as a stretcher bearer, he told stories clearing the trenches of wounded and dead, immediately after the soldiers had gone over the top and the next wave of soldiers arrived into the trench to replace them. He also told of soldiers who had refused to go over the top being executed in the trenches by the mps and officers who accompanied them. He saw this happen to one young soldier, but on removing the corps, he and his buddy realised that he wasnt dead, so took him to the hospital rather than the pit. the officer responsable, recognised the soldier as he was being carried past him, where upon the officer drew his revolver again, and shot him again through the head as he lay on the stretcher.
My father told me that my grand father had a mental breakdown sometime in the late 20s early 30s, he didnt utter a word for 4 years.
Poppies? meh
@Another Union Dividend,
Brilliant article. It would appear at first glance that what is happening is that oil is being directly exported to Europe via pipeline from “Unknown Territories” . This prevents figures from appearing on the balance sheet directly against Scotland. The European companies who import the oil would then pay revenues to their “ghost figure ” registered in Aberdeen, who then transfers the revenues directly to the Treasury.
That would again leave avoiding a trail back to Scotland.
Maybe now we can grasp why they say they are willing to pay Scotland more per capita for public services. In reality they would still be raking in billions even if this was true.
White Van Wummin Thanks for that will get a copy from the library. I have to do a bit o research into the Iraqi oil story but it sounds like it fits the bill.
My maternal Grandfather was mentioned in dispatches during WW[ his son of the same name (my uncle) was mentioned in dispatches in WW2 in the same place! My paternal grandfather who was in the Argyl’s was gassed on the Somme and died of the effects as a young man.
One of my friends father told him that they had more casualties from the Yanks behind them than the Germans in front of them after D day.
One little aside about WW2 the German’s lost more soldiers in Allied concentration camps after the war than they did in the whole western front from D-day until War end. For once the British were blameless as Churchill would have nothing to do with it as he reckoned they would need the men to stop the Russians. All explained in a book called Other Losses. (Can’t remember author)
STV just did a bit on the green shoots of recovery in the oil industry.
Hey Smallaxe ~
Your greetings given to Glasgow, received with thanks. Coming back at cha.
Enjoyed watching the day develop over on the secret “off-topic” page. The talk is top notch! Between yerself, CameronB Brodie, Ian Brotherhood, Tinto Chiel, Michael McCabe and Brian Doonthetoon 🙂 😉
Eh and by the way Smallaxe..
How’s things doing down at your border-post.. we secure?
Aussi, has everybuddy printed off one of these yet..
link to un.org
Scotland.
X.
Something else to keep an eye on is how the fight to get VAT exempt status restored for Scotland’s emergency services. Turns out NI has the same problem. Just an additional way of raising the per capita cost of governing some of the devolved regions. Watch out for the poisoned offer of additional funding rather than changing the rules.
Poor “plebs” are encouraged to join the army so that they can be used as cannon fodder to protect the elite and to die for imperialism.
They are not there to protect the nation. They are there to protect the privileges of the elite.
Unemployment and poverty are tools to entice the poor to join the armed forces.
Just watched the video, deeply, deeply depressing.
Rock
The army also has young officers, they too were butchered in the trenches, they too serve today, one pip don’t stop a round? Also most regiments do have a requirement for soldiers with brains, a lot of kit is complicated to use. So less with the plebs, mate. Slag off the political parties that warmonger, but back off from the guys, ok.
The Man Who Never Was
British war film based on what people now know as Operation Mincemeat.
21 minutes in for a classic exchange involving Scottish actor Moultrie Kelsall.
link to youtube.com