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Posted on May 05, 2021 by

THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF OLIGARCHICAL COLLECTIVISM

Chapter I
Ignorance Is Strength

Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end of the Neolithic Age, there have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle, and the Low. They have been subdivided in many ways, they have borne countless different names, and their relative numbers, as well as their attitude towards one another, have varied from age to age: but the essential structure of society has never altered.

Even after enormous upheavals and seemingly irrevocable changes, the same pattern has always reasserted itself, just as a gyroscope will always return to equilibrium, however far it is pushed one way or the other.

The aims of these three groups are entirely irreconcilable.

The aim of the High is to remain where they are. The aim of the Middle is to change places with the High. The aim of the Low, when they have an aim – for it is an abiding characteristic of the Low that they are too much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of anything outside their daily lives – is to abolish all distinctions and create a society in which all men shall be equal.

Thus throughout history a struggle which is the same in its main outlines recurs over and over again. For long periods the High seem to be securely in power, but sooner or later there always comes a moment when they lose either their belief in themselves or their capacity to govern efficiently, or both. They are then overthrown by the Middle, who enlist the Low on their side by pretending to them that they are fighting for liberty and justice.

As soon as they have reached their objective, the Middle thrust the Low back into their old position of servitude, and themselves become the High. Presently a new Middle group splits off from one of the other groups, or from both of them, and the struggle begins over again. Of the three groups, only the Low are never even temporarily successful in achieving their aims.

It would be an exaggeration to say that throughout history there has been no progress of a material kind. Even today, in a period of decline, the average human being is physically better off than he was a few centuries ago. But no advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimetre nearer. From the point of view of the Low, no historic change has ever meant much more than a change in the name of their masters.

By the late nineteenth century the recurrence of this pattern had become obvious to many observers. There then rose schools of thinkers who interpreted history as a cyclical process and claimed to show that inequality was the unalterable law of human life. This doctrine, of course, had always had its adherents, but in the manner in which it was now put forward there was a significant change. In the past the need for a hierarchical form of society had been the doctrine specifically of the High.

It had been preached by kings and aristocrats and by the priests, lawyers, and the like who were parasitical upon them, and it had generally been softened by promises of compensation in an imaginary world beyond the grave. The Middle, so long as it was struggling for power, had always made use of such terms as freedom, justice, and fraternity.

Now, however, the concept of human brotherhood began to be assailed by people who were not yet in positions of command, but merely hoped to be so before long. In the past the Middle had made revolutions under the banner of equality, and then had established a fresh tyranny as soon as the old one was overthrown.

The new Middle groups in effect proclaimed their tyranny beforehand. Socialism, a theory which appeared in the early nineteenth century and was the last link in a chain of thought stretching back to the slave rebellions of antiquity, was still deeply infected by the Utopianism of past ages. But in each variant of Socialism that appeared from about 1900 onwards the aim of establishing liberty and equality was more and more openly abandoned.

The new movements which appeared in the middle years of the century, Ingsoc in Oceania, Neo-Bolshevism in Eurasia, Death-Worship, as it is commonly called, in Eastasia, had the conscious aim of perpetuating unfreedom and inequality. These new movements, of course, grew out of the old ones and tended to keep their names and pay lip-service to their ideology. But the purpose of all of them was to arrest progress and freeze history at a chosen moment.

The familiar pendulum swing was to happen once more, and then stop. As usual, the High were to be turned out by the Middle, who would then become the High; but this time, by conscious strategy, the High would be able to maintain their position permanently.

The new doctrines arose partly because of the accumulation of historical knowledge, and the growth of the historical sense, which had hardly existed before the nineteenth century. The cyclical movement of history was now intelligible, or appeared to be so; and if it was intelligible, then it was alterable. But the principal, underlying cause was that, as early as the beginning of the twentieth century, human equality had become technically possible.

It was still true that men were not equal in their native talents and that functions had to be specialized in ways that favoured some individuals against others; but there was no longer any real need for class distinctions or for large differences of wealth. In earlier ages, class distinctions had been not only inevitable but desirable. Inequality was the price of civilization.

With the development of machine production, however, the case was altered. Even if it was still necessary for human beings to do different kinds of work, it was no longer necessary for them to live at different social or economic levels. Therefore, from the point of view of the new groups who were on the point of seizing power, human equality was no longer an ideal to be striven after, but a danger to be averted.

In more primitive ages, when a just and peaceful society was in fact not possible, it had been fairly easy to believe it. The idea of an earthly paradise in which men should live together in a state of brotherhood, without laws and without brute labour, had haunted the human imagination for thousands of years. And this vision had had a certain hold even on the groups who actually profited by each historical change.

The heirs of the French, English, and American revolutions had partly believed in their own phrases about the rights of man, freedom of speech, equality before the law, and the like, and have even allowed their conduct to be influenced by them to some extent. But by the fourth decade of the twentieth century all the main currents of political thought were authoritarian. The earthly paradise had been discredited at exactly the moment when it became realizable.

Every new political theory, by whatever name it called itself, led back to hierarchy and regimentation. And in the general hardening of outlook that set in round about 1930, practices which had been long abandoned, in some cases for hundreds of years – imprisonment without trial, the use of war prisoners as slaves, public executions, torture to extract confessions, the use of hostages, and the deportation of whole populations – not only became common again, but were tolerated and even defended by people who considered themselves enlightened and progressive.

It was only after a decade of national wars, civil wars, revolutions, and counter-revolutions in all parts of the world that Ingsoc and its rivals emerged as fully worked-out political theories. But they had been foreshadowed by the various systems, generally called totalitarian, which had appeared earlier in the century, and the main outlines of the world which would emerge from the prevailing chaos had long been obvious.

What kind of people would control this world had been equally obvious. The new aristocracy was made up for the most part of bureaucrats, scientists, technicians, trade-union organizers, publicity experts, sociologists, teachers, journalists, and professional politicians. These people, whose origins lay in the salaried middle class and the upper grades of the working class, had been shaped and brought together by the barren world of monopoly industry and centralized government.

As compared with their opposite numbers in past ages, they were less avaricious, less tempted by luxury, hungrier for pure power, and, above all, more conscious of what they were doing and more intent on crushing opposition.

This last difference was cardinal. By comparison with that existing today, all the tyrannies of the past were half-hearted and inefficient. The ruling groups were always infected to some extent by liberal ideas, and were content to leave loose ends everywhere, to regard only the overt act and to be uninterested in what their subjects were thinking. Even the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages was tolerant by modern standards.

Part of the reason for this was that in the past no government had the power to keep its citizens under constant surveillance. The invention of print, however, made it easier to manipulate public opinion, and the film and the radio carried the process further.

With the development of television, and the technical advance which made it possible to receive and transmit simultaneously on the same instrument, private life came to an end. Every citizen, or at least every citizen important enough to be worth watching, could be kept for twenty-four hours a day under the eyes of the police and in the sound of official propaganda, with all other channels of communication closed. The possibility of enforcing not only complete obedience to the will of the State, but complete uniformity of opinion on all subjects, now existed for the first time.

After the revolutionary period of the fifties and sixties, society regrouped itself, as always, into High, Middle, and Low. But the new High group, unlike all its forerunners, did not act upon instinct but knew what was needed to safeguard its position.

It had long been realized that the only secure basis for oligarchy is collectivism. Wealth and privilege are most easily defended when they are possessed jointly. The so-called ‘abolition of private property’ which took place in the middle years of the century meant, in effect, the concentration of property in far fewer hands than before: but with this difference, that the new owners were a group instead of a mass of individuals.

Individually, no member of the Party owns anything, except petty personal belongings. Collectively, the Party owns everything in Oceania, because it controls everything, and disposes of the products as it thinks fit. In the years following the Revolution it was able to step into this commanding position almost unopposed, because the whole process was represented as an act of collectivization.

It had always been assumed that if the capitalist class were expropriated, Socialism must follow: and unquestionably the capitalists had been expropriated. Factories, mines, land, houses, transport – everything had been taken away from them, and since these things were no longer private property, it followed that they must be public property.

Ingsoc, which grew out of the earlier Socialist movement and inherited its phraseology, has in fact carried out the main item in the Socialist programme; with the result, foreseen and intended beforehand, that economic inequality has been made permanent.

But the problems of perpetuating a hierarchical society go deeper than this. There are only four ways in which a ruling group can fall from power. Either it is conquered from without, or it governs so inefficiently that the masses are stirred to revolt, or it allows a strong and discontented Middle group to come into being, or it loses its own self-confidence and willingness to govern.

These causes do not operate singly, and as a rule all four of them are present in some degree. A ruling class which could guard against all of them would remain in power permanently. Ultimately the determining factor is the mental attitude of the ruling class itself.

After the middle of the present century, the first danger had in reality disappeared. Each of the three powers which now divide the world is in fact unconquerable, and could only become conquerable through slow demographic changes which a government with wide powers can easily avert.

The second danger, also, is only a theoretical one. The masses never revolt of their own accord, and they never revolt merely because they are oppressed. Indeed, so long as they are not permitted to have standards of comparison, they never even become aware that they are oppressed.

The recurrent economic crises of past times were totally unnecessary and are not now permitted to happen, but other and equally large dislocations can and do happen without having political results, because there is no way in which discontent can become articulate.

As for the problem of overproduction, which has been latent in our society since the development of machine technique, it is solved by the device of continuous warfare (see Chapter III), which is also useful in keying up public morale to the necessary pitch.

From the point of view of our present rulers, therefore, the only genuine dangers are the splitting-off of a new group of able, under-employed, power-hungry people, and the growth of liberalism and scepticism in their own ranks.

The problem, that is to say, is educational. It is a problem of continuously moulding the consciousness both of the directing group and of the larger executive group that lies immediately below it. The consciousness of the masses needs only to be influenced in a negative way.

Given this background, one could infer, if one did not know it already, the general structure of Oceanic society. At the apex of the pyramid comes Big Brother. Big Brother is infallible and all-powerful. Every success, every achievement, every victory, every scientific discovery, all knowledge, all wisdom, all happiness, all virtue, are held to issue directly from his leadership and inspiration.

Nobody has ever seen Big Brother. He is a face on the hoardings, a voice on the telescreen. We may be reasonably sure that he will never die, and there is already considerable uncertainty as to when he was born.

Big Brother is the guise in which the Party chooses to exhibit itself to the world. His function is to act as a focusing point for love, fear, and reverence, emotions which are more easily felt towards an individual than towards an organization.

Below Big Brother comes the Inner Party. its numbers limited to six millions, or something less than 2 per cent of the population of Oceania. Below the Inner Party comes the Outer Party, which, if the Inner Party is described as the brain of the State, may be justly likened to the hands.

Below that come the dumb masses whom we habitually refer to as ‘the proles’, numbering perhaps 85 per cent of the population. In the terms of our earlier classification, the proles are the Low: for the slave population of the equatorial lands who pass constantly from conqueror to conqueror, are not a permanent or necessary part of the structure.

In principle, membership of these three groups is not hereditary. The child of Inner Party parents is in theory not born into the Inner Party. Admission to either branch of the Party is by examination, taken at the age of sixteen.

Nor is there any racial discrimination, or any marked domination of one province by another. Jews, Negroes, South Americans of pure Indian blood are to be found in the highest ranks of the Party, and the administrators of any area are always drawn from the inhabitants of that area. In no part of Oceania do the inhabitants have the feeling that they are a colonial population ruled from a distant capital.

Oceania has no capital, and its titular head is a person whose whereabouts nobody knows. Except that English is its chief lingua franca and Newspeak its official language, it is not centralized in any way. Its rulers are not held together by blood-ties but by adherence to a common doctrine.

It is true that our society is stratified, and very rigidly stratified, on what at first sight appear to be hereditary lines. There is far less to-and-fro movement between the different groups than happened under capitalism or even in the pre-industrial age. Between the two branches of the Party there is a certain amount of interchange, but only so much as will ensure that weaklings are excluded from the Inner Party and that ambitious members of the Outer Party are made harmless by allowing them to rise.

Proletarians, in practice, are not allowed to graduate into the Party. The most gifted among them, who might possibly become nuclei of discontent, are simply marked down by the Thought Police and eliminated.

But this state of affairs is not necessarily permanent, nor is it a matter of principle. The Party is not a class in the old sense of the word. It does not aim at transmitting power to its own children, as such; and if there were no other way of keeping the ablest people at the top, it would be perfectly prepared to recruit an entire new generation from the ranks of the proletariat.

In the crucial years, the fact that the Party was not a hereditary body did a great deal to neutralize opposition. The older kind of Socialist, who had been trained to fight against something called ‘class privilege’ assumed that what is not hereditary cannot be permanent.

He did not see that the continuity of an oligarchy need not be physical, nor did he pause to reflect that hereditary aristocracies have always been shortlived, whereas adoptive organizations such as the Catholic Church have sometimes lasted for hundreds or thousands of years.

The essence of oligarchical rule is not father-to-son inheritance, but the persistence of a certain world-view and a certain way of life, imposed by the dead upon the living. A ruling group is a ruling group so long as it can nominate its successors.

The Party is not concerned with perpetuating its blood but with perpetuating itself. Who wields power is not important, provided that the hierarchical structure remains always the same.

All the beliefs, habits, tastes, emotions, mental attitudes that characterize our time are really designed to sustain the mystique of the Party and prevent the true nature of present-day society from being perceived. Physical rebellion, or any preliminary move towards rebellion, is at present not possible.

From the proletarians nothing is to be feared. Left to themselves, they will continue from generation to generation and from century to century, working, breeding, and dying, not only without any impulse to rebel, but without the power of grasping that the world could be other than it is.

They could only become dangerous if the advance of industrial technique made it necessary to educate them more highly; but, since military and commercial rivalry are no longer important, the level of popular education is actually declining.

What opinions the masses hold, or do not hold, is looked on as a matter of indifference. They can be granted intellectual liberty because they have no intellect. In a Party member, on the other hand, not even the smallest deviation of opinion on the most unimportant subject can be tolerated.

A Party member lives from birth to death under the eye of the Thought Police. Even when he is alone he can never be sure that he is alone. Wherever he may be, asleep or awake, working or resting, in his bath or in bed, he can be inspected without warning and without knowing that he is being inspected.

Nothing that he does is indifferent. His friendships, his relaxations, his behaviour towards his wife and children, the expression of his face when he is alone, the words he mutters in sleep, even the characteristic movements of his body, are all jealously scrutinized.

Not only any actual misdemeanour, but any eccentricity, however small, any change of habits, any nervous mannerism that could possibly be the symptom of an inner struggle, is certain to be detected. He has no freedom of choice in any direction whatever.

On the other hand his actions are not regulated by law or by any clearly formulated code of behaviour. In Oceania there is no law. Thoughts and actions which, when detected, mean certain death are not formally forbidden, and the endless purges, arrests, tortures, imprisonments, and vaporizations are not inflicted as punishment for crimes which have actually been committed, but are merely the wiping-out of persons who might perhaps commit a crime at some time in the future.

A Party member is required to have not only the right opinions, but the right instincts. Many of the beliefs and attitudes demanded of him are never plainly stated, and could not be stated without laying bare the contradictions inherent in Ingsoc. If he is a person naturally orthodox (in Newspeak a goodthinker), he will in all circumstances know, without taking thought, what is the true belief or the desirable emotion.

But in any case an elaborate mental training, undergone in childhood and grouping itself round the Newspeak words crimestop, blackwhite, and doublethink, makes him unwilling and unable to think too deeply on any subject whatever.

A Party member is expected to have no private emotions and no respites from enthusiasm. He is supposed to live in a continuous frenzy of hatred of foreign enemies and internal traitors, triumph over victories, and self-abasement before the power and wisdom of the Party.

The discontents produced by his bare, unsatisfying life are deliberately turned outwards and dissipated by such devices as the Two Minutes Hate, and the speculations which might possibly induce a sceptical or rebellious attitude are killed in advance by his early acquired inner discipline. The first and simplest stage in the discipline, which can be taught even to young children, is called, in Newspeak, crimestop.

Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity.

But stupidity is not enough. On the contrary, orthodoxy in the full sense demands a control over one’s own mental processes as complete as that of a contortionist over his body. Oceanic society rests ultimately on the belief that Big Brother is omnipotent and that the Party is infallible. But since in reality Big Brother is not omnipotent and the party is not infallible, there is need for an unwearying, moment-to-moment flexibility in the treatment of facts. The keyword here is blackwhite.

Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this.

But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest, and which is known in Newspeak as doublethink.

The alteration of the past is necessary for two reasons, one of which is subsidiary and, so to speak, precautionary. The subsidiary reason is that the Party member, like the proletarian, tolerates present-day conditions partly because he has no standards of comparison. He must be cut off from the past, just as he must be cut off from foreign countries, because it is necessary for him to believe that he is better off than his ancestors and that the average level of material comfort is constantly rising.

But by far the more important reason for the readjustment of the past is the need to safeguard the infallibility of the Party. It is not merely that speeches, statistics, and records of every kind must be constantly brought up to date in order to show that the predictions of the Party were in all cases right. It is also that no change in doctrine or in political alignment can ever be admitted. For to change one’s mind, or even one’s policy, is a confession of weakness.

If, for example, Eurasia or Eastasia (whichever it may be) is the enemy today, then that country must always have been the enemy. And if the facts say otherwise then the facts must be altered. Thus history is continuously rewritten.

This day-to-day falsification of the past, carried out by the Ministry of Truth, is as necessary to the stability of the regime as the work of repression and espionage carried out by the Ministry of Love.

The mutability of the past is the central tenet of Ingsoc. Past events, it is argued, have no objective existence, but survive only in written records and in human memories. The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. And since the Party is in full control of all records and in equally full control of the minds of its members, it follows that the past is whatever the Party chooses to make it.

It also follows that though the past is alterable, it never has been altered in any specific instance. For when it has been recreated in whatever shape is needed at the moment, then this new version is the past, and no different past can ever have existed.

This holds good even when, as often happens, the same event has to be altered out of recognition several times in the course of a year. At all times the Party is in possession of absolute truth, and clearly the absolute can never have been different from what it is now.

It will be seen that the control of the past depends above all on the training of memory. To make sure that all written records agree with the orthodoxy of the moment is merely a mechanical act. But it is also necessary to remember that events happened in the desired manner. And if it is necessary to rearrange one’s memories or to tamper with written records, then it is necessary to forget that one has done so.

The trick of doing this can be learned like any other mental technique. It is learned by the majority of Party members, and certainly by all who are intelligent as well as orthodox. In Oldspeak it is called, quite frankly, ‘reality control’. In Newspeak it is called doublethink, though doublethink comprises much else as well.

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. The Party intellectual knows in which direction his memories must be altered; he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality; but by the exercise of doublethink he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated.

The process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt. Doublethink lies at the very heart of Ingsoc, since the essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty.

To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary.

Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.

Ultimately it is by means of doublethink that the Party has been able – and may, for all we know, continue to be able for thousands of years – to arrest the course of history.

All past oligarchies have fallen from power either because they ossified or because they grew soft. Either they became stupid and arrogant, failed to adjust themselves to changing circumstances, and were overthrown; or they became liberal and cowardly, made concessions when they should have used force, and once again were overthrown. They fell, that is to say, either through consciousness or through unconsciousness.

It is the achievement of the Party to have produced a system of thought in which both conditions can exist simultaneously. And upon no other intellectual basis could the dominion of the Party be made permanent. If one is to rule, and to continue ruling, one must be able to dislocate the sense of reality. For the secret of rulership is to combine a belief in one’s own infallibility with the power to learn from past mistakes.

It need hardly be said that the subtlest practitioners of doublethink are those who invented doublethink and know that it is a vast system of mental cheating. In our society, those who have the best knowledge of what is happening are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is. In general, the greater the understanding, the greater the delusion; the more intelligent, the less sane.

One clear illustration of this is the fact that war hysteria increases in intensity as one rises in the social scale. Those whose attitude towards the war is most nearly rational are the subject peoples of the disputed territories. To these people the war is simply a continuous calamity which sweeps to and fro over their bodies like a tidal wave.

Which side is winning is a matter of complete indifference to them. They are aware that a change of overlordship means simply that they will be doing the same work as before for new masters who treat them in the same manner as the old ones.

The slightly more favoured workers whom we call ‘the proles’ are only intermittently conscious of the war. When it is necessary they can be prodded into frenzies of fear and hatred, but when left to themselves they are capable of forgetting for long periods that the war is happening.

It is in the ranks of the Party, and above all of the Inner Party, that the true war enthusiasm is found. World-conquest is believed in most firmly by those who know it to be impossible.

This peculiar linking-together of opposites – knowledge with ignorance, cynicism with fanaticism – is one of the chief distinguishing marks of Oceanic society. The official ideology abounds with contradictions even when there is no practical reason for them.

Thus, the Party rejects and vilifies every principle for which the Socialist movement originally stood, and it chooses to do this in the name of Socialism. It preaches a contempt for the working class unexampled for centuries past, and it dresses its members in a uniform which was at one time peculiar to manual workers and was adopted for that reason. It systematically undermines the solidarity of the family, and it calls its leader by a name which is a direct appeal to the sentiment of family loyalty.

Even the names of the four Ministries by which we are governed exhibit a sort of impudence in their deliberate reversal of the facts. The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy; they are deliberate exercises in doublethink.

For it is only by reconciling contradictions that power can be retained indefinitely. In no other way could the ancient cycle be broken. If human equality is to be for ever averted – if the High, as we have called them, are to keep their places permanently – then the prevailing mental condition must be controlled insanity.

But there is one question which until this moment we have almost ignored. It is; why should human equality be averted? Supposing that the mechanics of the process have been rightly described, what is the motive for this huge, accurately planned effort to freeze history at a particular moment of time?

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Chapter II
Freedom Is Slavery

Here we reach the central secret. As we have seen. the mystique of the Party, and above all of the Inner Party, depends upon doublethink. But deeper than this lies the original motive, the never-questioned instinct that first led to the seizure of power and brought doublethink, the Thought Police, continuous warfare, and all the other necessary paraphernalia into existence afterwards.

This was expressed recently in a lecture by an Inner Party Compliance Officer.

The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites.

The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal.

We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?

The first thing you must realize is that power is collective. The individual only has power in so far as he ceases to be an individual. You know the Party slogan: “Freedom is Slavery”. Has it ever occurred to you that it is reversible? Slavery is freedom. Alone – free – the human being is always defeated. It must be so, because every human being is doomed to die, which is the greatest of all failures.

But if he can make complete, utter submission, if he can escape from his identity, if he can merge himself in the Party so that he is the Party, then he is all-powerful and immortal.

The second thing for you to realize is that power is power over human beings. Over the body but, above all, over the mind. Power over matter – external reality, as you would call it – is not important.

Already our control over matter is absolute. We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. There is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation – anything. I could float off this floor like a soap bubble if I wish to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it.”

The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day, is not power over things, but over men. How does one man assert his power over another? By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own?

Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.

Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery is torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain.

The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy – everything.

Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer.

But in the future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now.

There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science.

There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always – do not forget this – always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler.

Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – for ever.

And remember that it is for ever. The face will always be there to be stamped upon. The heretic, the enemy of society, will always be there, so that he can be defeated and humiliated over again. Everything that you have undergone since you have been in our hands – all that will continue, and worse.

The espionage, the betrayals, the arrests, the tortures, the executions, the disappearances will never cease. It will be a world of terror as much as a world of triumph. The more the Party is powerful, the less it will be tolerant: the weaker the opposition, the tighter the despotism. Goldstein and his heresies will live for ever. Every day, at every moment, they will be defeated, discredited, ridiculed, spat upon and yet they will always survive.

This drama that I have played out with you during seven years will be played out over and over again generation after generation, always in subtler forms. Always we shall have the heretic here at our mercy, screaming with pain, broken up, contemptible – and in the end utterly penitent, saved from himself, crawling to our feet of his own accord.

That is the world that we are preparing. A world of victory after victory, triumph after triumph after triumph: an endless pressing, pressing, pressing upon the nerve of power.

You are under the impression that hatred is more exhausting than love. Why should it be? And if it were, what difference would that make?

Suppose that we choose to wear ourselves out faster. Suppose that we quicken the tempo of human life till men are senile at thirty. Still what difference would it make? Can you not understand that the death of the individual is not death? The party is immortal.”

 .

Chapter III
War Is Peace

The splitting up of the world into three great super-states was an event which could be and indeed was foreseen before the middle of the twentieth century. With the absorption of Europe by Russia and of the British Empire by the United States, two of the three existing powers, Eurasia and Oceania, were already effectively in being. The third, Eastasia, only emerged as a distinct unit after another decade of confused fighting.

The frontiers between the three super-states are in some places arbitrary, and in others they fluctuate according to the fortunes of war, but in general they follow geographical lines.

Eurasia comprises the whole of the northern part of the European and Asiatic land-mass, from Portugal to the Bering Strait. Oceania comprises the Americas, the Atlantic islands including the British Isles, Australasia, and the southern portion of Africa. Eastasia, smaller than the others and with a less definite western frontier, comprises China and the countries to the south of it, the Japanese islands and a large but fluctuating portion of Manchuria, Mongolia, and Tibet.

In one combination or another, these three super-states are permanently at war, and have been so for the past twenty-five years. War, however, is no longer the desperate, annihilating struggle that it was in the early decades of the twentieth century. It is a warfare of limited aims between combatants who are unable to destroy one another, have no material cause for fighting and are not divided by any genuine ideological difference.

This is not to say that either the conduct of war, or the prevailing attitude towards it, has become less bloodthirsty or more chivalrous. On the contrary, war hysteria is continuous and universal in all countries, and such acts as raping, looting, the slaughter of children, the reduction of whole populations to slavery, and reprisals against prisoners which extend even to boiling and burying alive, are looked upon as normal, and, when they are committed by one’s own side and not by the enemy, meritorious.

But in a physical sense war involves very small numbers of people, mostly highly-trained specialists, and causes comparatively few casualties. The fighting, when there is any, takes place on the vague frontiers whose whereabouts the average man can only guess at, or round the Floating Fortresses which guard strategic spots on the sea lanes. In the centres of civilization war means no more than a continuous shortage of consumption goods, and the occasional crash of a rocket bomb which may cause a few scores of deaths.

War has in fact changed its character. More exactly, the reasons for which war is waged have changed in their order of importance. Motives which were already present to some small extent in the great wars of the early twentieth centuary have now become dominant and are consciously recognized and acted upon.

To understand the nature of the present war – for in spite of the regrouping which occurs every few years, it is always the same war – one must realize in the first place that it is impossible for it to be decisive.

None of the three super-states could be definitively conquered even by the other two in combination. They are too evenly matched, and their natural defences are too formidable. Eurasia is protected by its vast land spaces. Oceania by the width of the Atlantic and the Pacific, Eastasia by the fecundity and industriousness of its inhabitants.

Secondly, there is no longer, in a material sense, anything to fight about. With the establishment of self-contained economies, in which production and consumption are geared to one another, the scramble for markets which was a main cause of previous wars has come to an end, while the competition for raw materials is no longer a matter of life and death.

In any case each of the three super-states is so vast that it can obtain almost all the materials that it needs within its own boundaries. In so far as the war has a direct economic purpose, it is a war for labour power.

Between the frontiers of the super-states, and not permanently in the possession of any of them, there lies a rough quadrilateral with its corners at Tangier, Brazzaville, Darwin, and Hong Kong, containing within it about a fifth of the population of the earth. It is for the possession of these thickly-populated regions, and of the northern ice-cap, that the three powers are constantly struggling.

In practice no one power ever controls the whole of the disputed area. Portions of it are constantly changing hands, and it is the chance of seizing this or that fragment by a sudden stroke of treachery that dictates the endless changes of alignment.

All of the disputed territories contain valuable minerals, and some of them yield important vegetable products such as rubber which in colder climates it is necessary to synthesize by comparatively expensive methods. But above all they contain a bottomless reserve of cheap labour. Whichever power controls equatorial Africa, or the countries of the Middle East, or Southern India, or the Indonesian Archipelago, disposes also of the bodies of scores or hundreds of millions of ill-paid and hard-working coolies.

The inhabitants of these areas, reduced more or less openly to the status of slaves, pass continually from conqueror to conqueror, and are expended like so much coal or oil in the race to turn out more armaments, to capture more territory, to control more labour power, to turn out more armaments, to capture more territory, and so on indefinitely.

It should be noted that the fighting never really moves beyond the edges of the disputed areas. The frontiers of Eurasia flow back and forth between the basin of the Congo and the northern shore of the Mediterranean; the islands of the Indian Ocean and the Pacific are constantly being captured and recaptured by Oceania or by Eastasia; in Mongolia the dividing line between Eurasia and Eastasia is never stable; round the Pole all three powers lay claim to enormous territories which in fact are largely unihabited and unexplored.

But the balance of power always remains roughly even, and the territory which forms the heartland of each super-state always remains inviolate.

Moreover, the labour of the exploited peoples round the Equator is not really necessary to the world’s economy. They add nothing to the wealth of the world, since whatever they produce is used for purposes of war, and the object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war.

By their labour the slave populations allow the tempo of continuous warfare to be speeded up. But if they did not exist, the structure of world society, and the process by which it maintains itself, would not be essentially different.

The primary aim of modern warfare (in accordance with the principles of doublethink, this aim is simultaneously recognized and not recognized by the directing brains of the Inner Party) is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living.

Ever since the end of the nineteenth century, the problem of what to do with the surplus of consumption goods has been latent in industrial society. At present, when few human beings even have enough to eat, this problem is obviously not urgent, and it might not have become so, even if no artificial processes of destruction had been at work.

The world of today is a bare, hungry, dilapidated place compared with the world that existed before 1914, and still more so if compared with the imaginary future to which the people of that period looked forward. In the early twentieth century, the vision of a future society unbelievably rich, leisured, orderly, and efficient – a glittering antiseptic world of glass and steel and snow-white concrete – was part of the consciousness of nearly every literate person.

Science and technology were developing at a prodigious speed, and it seemed natural to assume that they would go on developing. This failed to happen, partly because of the impoverishment caused by a long series of wars and revolutions, partly because scientific and technical progress depended on the empirical habit of thought, which could not survive in a strictly regimented society.

As a whole the world is more primitive today than it was fifty years ago. Certain backward areas have advanced, and various devices, always in some way connected with warfare and police espionage, have been developed, but experiment and invention have largely stopped, and the ravages of the atomic war of the nineteen-fifties have never been fully repaired.

Nevertheless the dangers inherent in the machine are still there. From the moment when the machine first made its appearance it was clear to all thinking people that the need for human drudgery, and therefore to a great extent for human inequality, had disappeared. If the machine were used deliberately for that end, hunger, overwork, dirt, illiteracy, and disease could be eliminated within a few generations.

And in fact, without being used for any such purpose, but by a sort of automatic process – by producing wealth which it was sometimes impossible not to distribute – the machine did raise the living standards of the average human being very greatly over a period of about fifty years at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries.

But it was also clear that an all-round increase in wealth threatened the destruction – indeed, in some sense was the destruction – of a hierarchical society. In a world in which everyone worked short hours, had enough to eat, lived in a house with a bathroom and a refrigerator, and possessed a motor-car or even an aeroplane, the most obvious and perhaps the most important form of inequality would already have disappeared.

If it once became general, wealth would confer no distinction. It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in which wealth, in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while power remained in the hands of a small privileged caste.

But in practice such a society could not long remain stable. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away.

In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance. To return to the agricultural past, as some thinkers about the beginning of the twentieth century dreamed of doing, was not a practicable solution. It conflicted with the tendency towards mechanization which had become quasi-instinctive throughout almost the whole world, and moreover, any country which remained industrially backward was helpless in a military sense and was bound to be dominated, directly or indirectly, by its more advanced rivals.

Nor was it a satisfactory solution to keep the masses in poverty by restricting the output of goods. This happened to a great extent during the final phase of capitalism, roughly between 1920 and 1940. The economy of many countries was allowed to stagnate, land went out of cultivation, capital equipment was not added to, great blocks of the population were prevented from working and kept half alive by State charity.

But this, too, entailed military weakness, and since the privations it inflicted were obviously unnecessary, it made opposition inevitable. The problem was how to keep the wheels of industry turning without increasing the real wealth of the world. Goods must be produced, but they must not be distributed. And in practice the only way of achieving this was by continuous warfare.

The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent.

Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labour power without producing anything that can be consumed. A Floating Fortress, for example, has locked up in it the labour that would build several hundred cargo-ships. Ultimately it is scrapped as obsolete, never having brought any material benefit to anybody, and with further enormous labours another Floating Fortress is built.

In principle the war effort is always so planned as to eat up any surplus that might exist after meeting the bare needs of the population. In practice the needs of the population are always underestimated, with the result that there is a chronic shortage of half the necessities of life; but this is looked on as an advantage.

It is deliberate policy to keep even the favoured groups somewhere near the brink of hardship, because a general state of scarcity increases the importance of small privileges and thus magnifies the distinction between one group and another.

By the standards of the early twentieth century, even a member of the Inner Party lives an austere, laborious kind of life. Nevertheless, the few luxuries that he does enjoy – his large, well-appointed flat, the better texture of his clothes, the better quality of his food and drink and tobacco, his two or three servants, his private motor-car or helicopter – set him in a different world from a member of the Outer Party, and the members of the Outer Party have a similar advantage in comparison with the submerged masses whom we call ‘the proles’.

The social atmosphere is that of a besieged city, where the possession of a lump of horseflesh makes the difference between wealth and poverty. And at the same time the consciousness of being at war, and therefore in danger, makes the handing-over of all power to a small caste seem the natural, unavoidable condition of survival.

War, it will be seen, accomplishes the necessary destruction, but accomplishes it in a psychologically acceptable way. In principle it would be quite simple to waste the surplus labour of the world by building temples and pyramids, by digging holes and filling them up again, or even by producing vast quantities of goods and then setting fire to them.

But this would provide only the economic and not the emotional basis for a hierarchical society. What is concerned here is not the morale of masses, whose attitude is unimportant so long as they are kept steadily at work, but the morale of the Party itself.

Even the humblest Party member is expected to be competent, industrious, and even intelligent within narrow limits, but it is also necessary that he should be a credulous and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation, and orgiastic triumph. In other words it is necessary that he should have the mentality appropriate to a state of war.

It does not matter whether the war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does not matter whether the war is going well or badly. All that is needed is that a state of war should exist.

The splitting of the intelligence which the Party requires of its members, and which is more easily achieved in an atmosphere of war, is now almost universal, but the higher up the ranks one goes, the more marked it becomes. It is precisely in the Inner Party that war hysteria and hatred of the enemy are strongest.

In his capacity as an administrator, it is often necessary for a member of the Inner Party to know that this or that item of war news is untruthful, and he may often be aware that the entire war is spurious and is either not happening or is being waged for purposes quite other than the declared ones: but such knowledge is easily neutralized by the technique of doublethink.

Meanwhile no Inner Party member wavers for an instant in his mystical belief that the war is real, and that it is bound to end victoriously, with Oceania the undisputed master of the entire world.

All members of the Inner Party believe in this coming conquest as an article of faith. It is to be achieved either by gradually acquiring more and more territory and so building up an overwhelming preponderance of power, or by the discovery of some new and unanswerable weapon.

The search for new weapons continues unceasingly, and is one of the very few remaining activities in which the inventive or speculative type of mind can find any outlet. In Oceania at the present day, Science, in the old sense, has almost ceased to exist. In Newspeak there is no word for ‘Science’.

The empirical method of thought, on which all the scientific achievements of the past were founded, is opposed to the most fundamental principles of Ingsoc. And even technological progress only happens when its products can in some way be used for the diminution of human liberty. In all the useful arts the world is either standing still or going backwards. The fields are cultivated with horse-ploughs while books are written by machinery.

But in matters of vital importance – meaning, in effect, war and police espionage – the empirical approach is still encouraged, or at least tolerated. The two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole surface of the earth and to extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought.

There are therefore two great problems which the Party is concerned to solve. One is how to discover, against his will, what another human being is thinking, and the other is how to kill several hundred million people in a few seconds without giving warning beforehand. In so far as scientific research still continues, this is its subject matter.

The scientist of today is either a mixture of psychologist and inquisitor, studying with real ordinary minuteness the meaning of facial expressions, gestures, and tones of voice, and testing the truth-producing effects of drugs, shock therapy, hypnosis, and physical torture; or he is chemist, physicist, or biologist concerned only with such branches of his special subject as are relevant to the taking of life.

In the vast laboratories of the Ministry of Peace, and in the experimental stations hidden in the Brazilian forests, or in the Australian desert, or on lost islands of the Antarctic, the teams of experts are indefatigably at work.

Some are concerned simply with planning the logistics of future wars; others devise larger and larger rocket bombs, more and more powerful explosives, and more and more impenetrable armour-plating; others search for new and deadlier gases, or for soluble poisons capable of being produced in such quantities as to destroy the vegetation of whole continents, or for breeds of disease germs immunized against all possible antibodies.

Others strive to produce a vehicle that shall bore its way under the soil like a submarine under the water, or an aeroplane as independent of its base as a sailing-ship; others explore even remoter possibilities such as focusing the sun’s rays through lenses suspended thousands of kilometres away in space, or producing artificial earthquakes and tidal waves by tapping the heat at the earth’s centre.

But none of these projects ever comes anywhere near realization, and none of the three super-states ever gains a significant lead on the others.

What is more remarkable is that all three powers already possess, in the atomic bomb, a weapon far more powerful than any that their present researches are likely to discover. Although the Party, according to its habit, claims the invention for itself, atomic bombs first appeared as early as the 1940s, and were first used on a large scale about ten years later.

At that time some hundreds of bombs were dropped on industrial centres, chiefly in European Russia, Western Europe, and North America. The effect was to convince the ruling groups of all countries that a few more atomic bombs would mean the end of organized society, and hence of their own power.

Thereafter, although no formal agreement was ever made or hinted at, no more bombs were dropped. All three powers merely continue to produce atomic bombs and store them up against the decisive opportunity which they all believe will come sooner or later.

And meanwhile the art of war has remained almost stationary for thirty or forty years. Helicopters are more used than they were formerly, bombing planes have been largely superseded by self-propelled projectiles, and the fragile movable battleship has given way to the almost unsinkable Floating Fortress; but otherwise there has been little development. The tank, the submarine, the torpedo, the machine gun, even the rifle and the hand grenade are still in use.

And in spite of the endless slaughters reported in the Press and on the telescreens, the desperate battles of earlier wars, in which hundreds of thousands or even millions of men were often killed in a few weeks, have never been repeated.

None of the three super-states ever attempts any manoeuvre which involves the risk of serious defeat. When any large operation is undertaken, it is usually a surprise attack against an ally. The strategy that all three powers are following, or pretend to themselves that they are following, is the same.

The plan is, by a combination of fighting, bargaining, and well-timed strokes of treachery, to acquire a ring of bases completely encircling one or other of the rival states, and then to sign a pact of friendship with that rival and remain on peaceful terms for so many years as to lull suspicion to sleep.

During this time rockets loaded with atomic bombs can be assembled at all the strategic spots; finally they will all be fired simultaneously, with effects so devastating as to make retaliation impossible. It will then be time to sign a pact of friendship with the remaining world-power, in preparation for another attack.

This scheme, it is hardly necessary to say, is a mere daydream, impossible of realization. Moreover, no fighting ever occurs except in the disputed areas round the Equator and the Pole: no invasion of enemy territory is ever undertaken.

This explains the fact that in some places the frontiers between the superstates are arbitrary. Eurasia, for example, could easily conquer the British Isles, which are geographically part of Europe, or on the other hand it would be possible for Oceania to push its frontiers to the Rhine or even to the Vistula. But this would violate the principle, followed on all sides though never formulated, of cultural integrity.

If Oceania were to conquer the areas that used once to be known as France and Germany, it would be necessary either to exterminate the inhabitants, a task of great physical difficulty, or to assimilate a population of about a hundred million people, who, so far as technical development goes, are roughly on the Oceanic level.

The problem is the same for all three super-states. It is absolutely necessary to their structure that there should be no contact with foreigners, except, to a limited extent, with war prisoners and coloured slaves. Even the official ally of the moment is always regarded with the darkest suspicion.

War prisoners apart, the average citizen of Oceania never sets eyes on a citizen of either Eurasia or Eastasia, and he is forbidden the knowledge of foreign languages. If he were allowed contact with foreigners he would discover that they are creatures similar to himself and that most of what he has been told about them is lies. The sealed world in which he lives would be broken, and the fear, hatred, and self-righteousness on which his morale depends might evaporate.

It is therefore realized on all sides that however often Persia, or Egypt, or Java, or Ceylon may change hands, the main frontiers must never be crossed by anything except bombs.

Under this lies a fact never mentioned aloud, but tacitly understood and acted upon: namely, that the conditions of life in all three super-states are very much the same.

In Oceania the prevailing philosophy is called Ingsoc, in Eurasia it is called Neo-Bolshevism, and in Eastasia it is called by a Chinese name usually translated as Death-Worship, but perhaps better rendered as Obliteration of the Self. The citizen of Oceania is not allowed to know anything of the tenets of the other two philosophies, but he is taught to execrate them as barbarous outrages upon morality and common sense.

Actually the three philosophies are barely distinguishable, and the social systems which they support are not distinguishable at all.

Everywhere there is the same pyramidal structure, the same worship of semi-divine leader, the same economy existing by and for continuous warfare.

It follows that the three super-states not only cannot conquer one another, but would gain no advantage by doing so. On the contrary, so long as they remain in conflict they prop one another up, like three sheaves of corn.

And, as usual, the ruling groups of all three powers are simultaneously aware and unaware of what they are doing. Their lives are dedicated to world conquest, but they also know that it is necessary that the war should continue everlastingly and without victory.

Meanwhile the fact that there is no danger of conquest makes possible the denial of reality which is the special feature of Ingsoc and its rival systems of thought. Here it is necessary to repeat what has been said earlier, that by becoming continuous war has fundamentally changed its character.

In past ages, a war, almost by definition, was something that sooner or later came to an end, usually in unmistakable victory or defeat. In the past, also, war was one of the main instruments by which human societies were kept in touch with physical reality. All rulers in all ages have tried to impose a false view of the world upon their followers, but they could not afford to encourage any illusion that tended to impair military efficiency.

So long as defeat meant the loss of independence, or some other result generally held to be undesirable, the precautions against defeat had to be serious. Physical facts could not be ignored. In philosophy, or religion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make five, but when one was designing a gun or an aeroplane they had to make four. Inefficient nations were always conquered sooner or later, and the struggle for efficiency was inimical to illusions.

Moreover, to be efficient it was necessary to be able to learn from the past, which meant having a fairly accurate idea of what had happened in the past. Newspapers and history books were, of course, always coloured and biased, but falsification of the kind that is practised today would have been impossible.

War was a sure safeguard of sanity, and so far as the ruling classes were concerned it was probably the most important of all safeguards. While wars could be won or lost, no ruling class could be completely irresponsible.

But when war becomes literally continuous, it also ceases to be dangerous. When war is continuous there is no such thing as military necessity. Technical progress can cease and the most palpable facts can be denied or disregarded.

As we have seen, researches that could be called scientific are still carried out for the purposes of war, but they are essentially a kind of daydreaming, and their failure to show results is not important. Efficiency, even military efficiency, is no longer needed. Nothing is efficient in Oceania except the Thought Police.

Since each of the three super-states is unconquerable, each is in effect a separate universe within which almost any perversion of thought can be safely practised. Reality only exerts its pressure through the needs of everyday life – the need to eat and drink, to get shelter and clothing, to avoid swallowing poison or stepping out of top-storey windows, and the like. Between life and death, and between physical pleasure and physical pain, there is still a distinction, but that is all.

Cut off from contact with the outer world, and with the past, the citizen of Oceania is like a man in interstellar space, who has no way of knowing which direction is up and which is down. The rulers of such a state are absolute, as the Pharaohs or the Caesars could not be.

They are obliged to prevent their followers from starving to death in numbers large enough to be inconvenient, and they are obliged to remain at the same low level of military technique as their rivals; but once that minimum is achieved, they can twist reality into whatever shape they choose.

The war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of previous wars, is merely an imposture. It is like the battles between certain ruminant animals whose horns are set at such an angle that they are incapable of hurting one another. But though it is unreal it is not meaningless. It eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair.

In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognize their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact.

The very word ‘war’, therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist. The peculiar pressure that it exerted on human beings between the Neolithic Age and the early twentieth century has disappeared and been replaced by something quite different.

The effect would be much the same if the three super-states, instead of fighting one another, should agree to live in perpetual peace, each inviolate within its own boundaries. For in that case each would still be a self-contained universe, freed for ever from the sobering influence of external danger. A peace that was truly permanent would be the same as a permanent war.

This – although the vast majority of Party members understand it only in a shallower sense – is the inner meaning of the Party slogan: War is Peace.

Dr. Emmanuel Goldstein is an unperson. By reading this article you have committed a crime. Remain exactly where you are until Thought Police Scotland arrive.

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255 to “Living In Oceania”

  1. Rob Brown
    Ignored
    says:

    So Nicola is now Big Sister? I see the point you’re making – especially after that 1984 party election broadcast. But she and her cronies aren’t administratively competent enough to creat and run Scotsoc. What the Murrells have given us is oor ain wee Maris-style conjugal dictatorship, a deep-fried banana fritter republic.

    https://jaggy.blog/2021/05/02/scotlands-conjugal-dictatorship/

  2. Rob Brown
    Ignored
    says:

    *Marcos not Maris-style

  3. Calum
    Ignored
    says:

    Well done publishing this. *Everyone should read 1984, I mean everyone. In fact a few multiple choice questions on it before issuing ballot papers would be a good move.

  4. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    ” They are then overthrown by the Middle, who enlist the Low on their side by pretending to them that they are fighting for liberty and justice.”

    A prime example of this in action was the 1799 French Revolution, where the bourgeoisie middle classes rose up with the lower classes. Of course the bourgeoisie middle class believed in liberte, and possibly fraternite, but certainly not egalite with the lower classes.

  5. Edward MacD
    Ignored
    says:

    What we’ve got to do is continue to be active in pushing for Independence. At least we have another actual Independence Party to back. In 5 years time the SNP shall be cast aside, by Alba or another new Independence Party.

    We have to get a dialogue going with the younger ones especially. Show them the real history, that of outright and endless manipulation.

    Scotland as a nation never agreed to the “Union”, it was a forced marriage to benefit the few who via their own stupidity failed big time, and those South of the Border who decided to capitalise on that in every way.

  6. Stephen
    Ignored
    says:

    It’s all a big distraction allowing sturgeon and co to carry out their heist.
    An investigation into MSP expenses would be interesting.

  7. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “But no advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimetre nearer. From the point of view of the Low, no historic change has ever meant much more than a change in the name of their masters.”

    As Noam Chomsky once said.

    “If voting made any difference it would be made illegal.”

  8. Cenchos
    Ignored
    says:

    ‘What the Murrells have given us is oor ain wee Maris-style conjugal dictatorship’

    Ach, shame it was a typo.

    Could’ve be played into the new term in parliament with a Maris Piper.

  9. Helen Yates
    Ignored
    says:

    You know I’ve read 1984 and Animal Farm and have found it quite frightening that people don’t see what is happening in this world around us, perhaps the most worrying thing about it all is you know if you try to explain some of the strange things that you can see quite clearly that you are more or less thought off as mentally unstable.

    I’m in a place now where I basically don’t discuss much with family and friends, as it is I have members of my family who think I am not quite right in the head, and to be honest there are days where I wonder myself, of course they say this laughingly, I’ve realised there is little point in giving your opinion on most things, people will see only what they want to see and hear only what they want to hear.

    It’s much like our independence, I’d love nothing more than to see my country thrive as an independent nation, I get caught up in all the discussions and debates and get angry and frustrated just like everyone else, yet within I honestly don’t see it ever happening, I’ll continue to live in hope but when I look at how divided we are as a country and the forces at work against us, I can’t for the life of me see it ever becoming a reality.

    I’ll say this though as someone who has always admired your work, this for me is probably the best, the most true to life and also the most frightening article to be published by you and strangely enough very few of the words are actually yours.
    We truly live in mad times.

  10. Stephen
    Ignored
    says:

    Red
    History teaches us that revolutions don’t work, not at least in the way their proponents intended.
    The French Revolution led to Napoleon and eventually the restoration of the monarchy.
    Lenin led to Stalin etc.
    Gradual change is much more effective.

    But history also teaches that you can’t hold back the tide.

    Scotland will become independent again and there is nothing the Murrells can do about it.

  11. Willie Jay
    Ignored
    says:

    A strange reaction to a very intelligent, point-laden post by the Rev.
    I refer to the fact that there are only 9 replies over 2 hours after the publication of the post.

    Usually, a lot of the Rev’s posts are immediately followed up with many, many replies.

    I find this lack of response rather disturbing. Do so many of the Rev’e followers not understand what he is saying? He is pointing out a cataclysmic result if Thursday’s election returns an SNP majority – God forbid!

    I come to this site as an Englishman who moved to Scotland in 1970 and I have never in my long life felt as despondent as I do today. I fear for the Scotland that I moved to. It no longer exists. I am feared for the future of Scotland should the SNP again *rule* after Thursday.

    Though I *am* greatly feared for Scotland’s future, my fear is tempered with the fact that I do not have a great deal of time left to worry about “things like that”. Though it will be a great shame for the younger generation following on whose own education standards have been truly trashed by a Nationalist Movement who never, ever concerned themselves with the consequences.

    Keep posting, Rev.

  12. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    Yeah, but hope still lies with the proles, right? 🙂 .

    Those similarities between Thatcher and Sturgeon are chilling, particularly since I hadn’t noticed them before.

    What next? Compulsory Two Minutes Hate for Salmond aka Goldstein before each NEC meeting?

  13. TheSNPLeftMe
    Ignored
    says:

    Most of us have quoted some part of 1984 during the last few years but when you get a tsunami like this article it makes you realise how just how bad it is now!

  14. Scozzie
    Ignored
    says:

    On the War on Women and safeguarding of children…to those who are indifferent to women’s rights (i.e. doesn’t affect me and all that shit)…

    What about the safeguarding of children? Ask yourselves this: why can a man declare himself a women because of his feelz with no compulsion to undergo gender-reassignment surgery, hormones or such like but yet ‘trans children’ need to be drugged up to the eyeballs with off-label puberty blockers, ruin their natural biological development and medicalise them for life?

    Fuck sake PEEPS, if the adults in the room won’t safeguard children who will? Think about that before you vote.

    To any lurkers – vote Alba on the list to safeguard women and children.

  15. Cenchos
    Ignored
    says:

    The piece has many uncomfortable implications, the most uncomfortable of which perhaps require a mirror to fully appreciate.

  16. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “A Party member is required to have not only the right opinions, but the right instincts.”

    Wow! That one sentence by itself, sums up beautifully as to what the SNP/Scottish government has become under the rule of Sturgeon the Betrayer.

  17. Stephen
    Ignored
    says:

    Orwell fought against the fascists who believed that the individual was merely a cog in the wheel.

    In 1984 he was prophesying that the next great frontier for the state would be the conquest of the individual mind.

    Sturgeon can’t bring the organs of state to force us to take part in her schemes or to think the way she does.

  18. Cath
    Ignored
    says:

    Brilliant, though it took me far too long to recognise what it was! The appendix: “the principles of Newspeak” is also brilliant, especially when related to thinks like queer theory and gender ideology. The ultimate way to make sure people can’t engage in wrongthink.

    As a kid, I used to read a lot about Nazism and fascism, as well as Orwell and Huxley later on, and I always wondered if I ever encountered it in real life, whether I’d really stand up to it or just be swept along. I’m glad to find, even with something I’m passionate about like independence, I’m put off at the first whiff of cult thinking and idolisation of a leader. It’s genuinely scary how many people who believe themselves progressive buy in without question and become parrots for incredibly regressive and dangerous narratives. I don’t think it’s a coincidence it’s mostly the older SNP members – the ones who were wrong-thinking on independence long before it became trendy – who are the ones leaving.

  19. Zander Tait
    Ignored
    says:

    There was a guy from India on Channel 4 news last night talking about Covid and the caste system in India.

    It was heart breaking. He referenced BLM and said that they, at least have their names like George Floyd. They can protest.

    In India they, the poor and oppressed, have nothing. There has never been one protest against poverty ever anywhere in India.

    It is Indians doing these things to other Indians, he said.

    He ended by saying: “I hang my head in shame”.

  20. sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Willie Jay at 3.07: “lack of response.. diturbing”.

    Perhaps they are still out leafleting for Alba in snow and sleet – as I was until an hour ago! Also it isn’t a quick read and neither is it new – we know already what the problem is.

  21. Merkin Scot
    Ignored
    says:

    Excellent post by Stu.
    However, I think a nod to Aldous Huxley would be in order.
    That is, did society wake up up one day and find ourselves in tiers. No!
    It was done drip by drip and we are seeing the drips as they are falling just now. Star badges for vaccinations?
    Choose your sex at birth?
    It is happening.

  22. Dave M
    Ignored
    says:

    It occurred to me the other day that Patrick Harvie looks quite like my vision of Goldstein.

  23. Cath
    Ignored
    says:

    Interestingly, I received another letter from the SNP (Nicola Sturgeon no less!) today urging me to renew my membership which lapsed at the beginning of the year. It came via mail re-direct as I’ve moved. I actually felt a huge relief that the party, and their nasty opinion enforcers, no longer have my correct address still on record.

  24. Socrates MacSporran
    Ignored
    says:

    “Deep-fried banana fritter republic, That is a keeper.

    Independence is sunk for a long time, unless we get rid of the Murrells. That is why this is such an important election.

    My List vote for ALBA is assured, but, I am really struggling to justify giving my Constituency vote to the SNP, regardless of the fact, their candidate in my constituency appears to be the best choice.

    Decisions, decisions.

  25. vlad (not that one)
    Ignored
    says:

    Re Alex Salmond accuses Nicola Sturgeon of rewriting SNP history:

    An influential Eastern European former Communist once commented that the most difficult thing for a Party member was to predict the past.

  26. Cath
    Ignored
    says:

    However, I think a nod to Aldous Huxley would be in order.

    Hatcheries and conditioning centres can’t be far behind given the current ideologies.

  27. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”

    Sturgeon the Betrayers take on Scottish independence, explained in the sentence above.

  28. robertknight
    Ignored
    says:

    God, the SNP are shit.

  29. Astonished
    Ignored
    says:

    I have read 1984.

    Not voting SNP in the constituency (except in sturgeon’s. swinney’s, shirley-anne hypocrite’s and angus robertson macbeth’s constituencies ) will gift Scotland to the yoons.

    I think you will find the sturrells , the wokeratti and their media hoors are too inept to maintain these fictions. They really are not that clever.

    I predict a swift fall from grace rather like Honecker or the Ceau?escus. Remember most totalitarian regimes have all fallen. All that is required is good people start laughing at them. And that is already happening regarding the wokeratti :-

    “That’s me getting divorced. My wife said I was too fond of nicola sturgeon and the genderwoowoo. So I packed her clothes and left.”

    I trust Mr Salmond and thus will vote SNP1 and Alba on the list.

    ‘Alea jacta est’ ( The dice are rolled) – I think is the posh boy expression.

    P.S. A very good film about what happened after the fall of east germany is “The lives of others”.

    I wonder if it will soon be peter post ?

  30. Fishy Wullie
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Willie Jay

    ” Though it will be a great shame for the younger generation following on whose own education standards have been truly trashed by a Nationalist Movement who never, ever concerned themselves with the consequences.”

    —————————————————————-

    Yeah if only we all had the good sense to just get back in our box let your motherland rule over us and do what we’re told, England knows best right

  31. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    “To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed”

    The parallels with Sturgeon the Betrayers party/government actions are breathtaking.

  32. Stephen
    Ignored
    says:

    Republicofscotand
    Doublethink…..
    /
    No that’s irony

  33. tolkein
    Ignored
    says:

    If you keep voting SNP, this is what you’ll get. But the hollowness and corruption at the heart of the SNP is so redolent of Labour in Scotland after Dewar’s death, that I believe the SNP’s fall will come slowly then all at once.
    It might kill independence for a generation, if the idea is inextricably associated with SNP (see Parti Quebecois for a salutary tale).
    1984 is so terrifying, because wokeness seems so like IngSoc.
    Try reading Darkness at Noon. Just as terrifying, as they seem to know at one level they are the bad guys, but cannot help themselves.

  34. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Helen Yates (3.00) –

    Hear hear.

    Such a difficult thing to write about but your observations are, for me anyway, bang-on.

    😉

  35. Cuilean
    Ignored
    says:

    Orwell’s real name was Eric Blair. He didn’t like the Scots surname, Blair, which he was bullied about by his English schoolmates, (at a private school).

    He therefore chose the patron saint of England’s name as his preferred ‘nom de plume’ and ‘Orwell’, after the River Orwell,as flowing through the heart of England.

    Yours sincerely, ‘Andrew Clyde’.

  36. osakisushi
    Ignored
    says:

    Uncomfortable placement of the images throughout the essay. Pete Townsend was clearly wrong as “won’t get fooled again” has been forgotten as a mantra.
    The infection is so insidious we get fooled every sodding time.

    And the collage of Thatcher snapshots, along with those of our dear leader, is brilliant.

    I’m really having problems with tomorrows vote, so tempted to write ‘FU trougher’ against SNP and only vote for Alba below. But worry they will decide the entire piece of paper is invalid.

  37. sarah
    Ignored
    says:

    osakisushi: the two ballots are on separate pieces of paper. Peach colour is the Regional list i.e. Alba, and lilac is the constituency.

  38. Willie Jay
    Ignored
    says:

    Fishy Wullie says:
    5 May, 2021 at 3:35 pm

    @ Willie Jay
    ” Though it will be a great shame for the younger generation following on whose own education standards have been truly trashed by a Nationalist Movement who never, ever concerned themselves with the consequences.”
    —————————————————————-
    Yeah if only we all had the good sense to just get back in our box let your motherland rule over us and do what we’re told, England knows best right
    —-
    @ Fishy Wullie :
    Part of the reason that I moved to Scotland was because England does not always know best. Right?
    When you, Fishy Wullie, can easily dismiss the appalling drop in Scottish educational standards, once renowned *all over the world* as being the *VERY BEST*, well, I don’t quite know what to say to you.
    Except perhaps: “If ignorance is bliss, then you Fishy Wullie, seem to be assured of a quite happy future.

  39. jockmcx
    Ignored
    says:

    New snp… SHITTING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS!

    (after this election…it’s time…for ……………..

    something…CMPLETELY FUCKING DIFFERENT.

  40. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    The similarities in the article in this thread and what the SNP/Scottish government have been up to under Sturgeon the Betrayer in recent years are there for all to see if they look hard enough.

  41. Pete Roberts
    Ignored
    says:

    https://votingcounts.org.uk/spoilt-ballot

    How to properly spoil your constituency vote paper

  42. Clavie Cheil
    Ignored
    says:

    Orwell never did win a Nobel Prize. That always makes me think why.

  43. Stuart MacKay
    Ignored
    says:

    Rob Brown,

    But she and her cronies aren’t administratively competent enough to create and run Scotsoc.

    Agreed, but Big Mammy is only a disciple. The real leaders of all this are across the Atlantic.

  44. Ottomanboi
    Ignored
    says:

    In century 21 there arose the cyber continents of Virtualia, inhabited by the mega-rich or the New Olympians who would refashion corrupt humanity in their perfect image….
    And the Lords said let the people be laid really low by a pestilence. Let governments, by the prophecies and auguries of the high soothsayers, put great fear into the hearts of the people. Let them be rendered wary of each other. Let them be divided from their kind and render them accepting of our saving salves. By our grace let a new order be dispensed bringing freedom from care, sorrow, joy, worry, love, thought and other failings of unperfected base humanity.
    For the Earth, the power and the glory are now ours, per omnia saecula, saeculorum……You Saps!

  45. Lost
    Ignored
    says:

    The slightly more favoured workers whom we call ‘the proles’ are only intermittently conscious of the war. When it is necessary they can be prodded into frenzies of fear and hatred, but when left to themselves they are capable of forgetting for long periods that the war is happening.

    Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Another one that makes you think. John Carpenter’s They Live, currently on Netflix.

    Power poisons. We’ve got a election candidate in Inverclyde running around in a top-of-the-range Land Rover asking people in one of the most deprived areas of Scotland to vote him into a £67k + expenses a year job. Tone deaf. The guy’s probably quite honest but I’m cynical that anyone who flaunts wealth like that in the faces of people who visit Foodbanks has their interests at heart.

  46. Al-Stuart
    Ignored
    says:

    .
    Hi Willie,

    Don’t worry too much abut the readership numbers.

    Firstly, it is a very long essay or even a small Ph.D dissertation.

    Secondly, it is not written by Stuart, but Dr Emmanuel Goldstein.

    Thirdly, quite a few of us are working! I am saving this article to enjoy for when I finish work.

    Willie, I reckon you are correct about there being fewer folk that will take the time to read something more than 140 or 280 Twitter characters long. Especially Yoon Trolls and Yoon Yoof.

    The resident Gang-Rape-Advocating-Troll may chime in with some inflammatory OFF TOPIC excrement.

    For others, I would say hope springs eternal. The past few days have been ones where genuine conversations have been had with polite, decent, articulate, nice folk at Wings BTL.

    Give it a while until after folk finish work. This contribution deserves a proper read and those who are working are unable to make anything other than the briefest rejoinders.

    Best wishes,

    Al.

    ————————————-

    Wilie Jay says…

    A strange reaction to a very intelligent, point-laden post by the Rev.
    I refer to the fact that there are only 9 replies over 2 hours after the publication of the post.

    Usually, a lot of the Rev’s posts are immediately followed up with many, many replies.

    I find this lack of response rather disturbing. Do so many of the Rev’e followers not understand what he is saying? He is pointing out a cataclysmic result if Thursday’s election returns an SNP majority – God forbid!

    I come to this site as an Englishman who moved to Scotland in 1970 and I have never in my long life felt as despondent as I do today. I fear for the Scotland that I moved to. It no longer exists. I am feared for the future of Scotland should the SNP again *rule* after Thursday.

    Though I *am* greatly feared for Scotland’s future, my fear is tempered with the fact that I do not have a great deal of time left to worry about “things like that”. Though it will be a great shame for the younger generation following on whose own education standards have been truly trashed by a Nationalist Movement who never, ever concerned themselves with the consequences.

    Keep posting, Rev.

    P.S. It is Dr Emmanual Goldstein who wrote this article.

  47. Luigi
    Ignored
    says:

    The religious leaders fooling us (2nd tier) come in many guises these days. There’s the religion of green activism, the religion of trans rights, the religion of socialism, the religion of racism, communism, environmentalism, and all the rest of a sorry bunch. You name it, they are all there – each craftily designed to fool enough of us to maintain the uppermost layer. Dig deep enough and you will find that most of these “movements” are set up and supported by billionaires in the shadows.

    That’s just the way it is folks. Try not to be fooled too often. 🙂

  48. Rev. Stuart Campbell
    Ignored
    says:

    ” I refer to the fact that there are only 9 replies over 2 hours after the publication of the post.”

    In fairness it’s 12,000 words long.

    Just FYI, what it is is basically the political “meat” of the book, shorn of the human-interest story of Winston and Julia. I made it years ago, but telling people stuff is “just like 1984” has very limited impact because it’s such a cliché. Putting the whole thing down in one lump paints a much stronger picture, I think, and really lets you see how the world works.

    12,000 words is still a big ask of your average blog reader, but it’s a lot shorter than a whole book.

  49. Red
    Ignored
    says:

    Cuilean says:
    5 May, 2021 at 3:52 pm
    Orwell’s real name was Eric Blair. He didn’t like the Scots surname, Blair, which he was bullied about by his English schoolmates, (at a private school).

    He therefore chose the patron saint of England’s name as his preferred ‘nom de plume’ and ‘Orwell’, after the River Orwell,as flowing through the heart of England.

    I’m not sure how much of that is actually true.

    Eric Arthur Blair adopted his pen name at the age of 30, because he feared “Down and Out in Paris and London” would be a flop, and perhaps to spare his family the embarrassment of a connexion with stories about being down and out. When it was a success, he was stuck with the pen name.

    He was bullied at school, though pretty much everyone was bullied at school in the olden days, and maybe we’re starting to understand with Generation Snowflake why a certain level of peer pressure and adolescent rough and tumble serves a social purpose. Orwell scholars and his old classmates have cast considerable doubt on the veracity of some of his more miserable schoolboy tales, suggesting that perhaps St. Cyprian’s and Eton weren’t the dark satanic mills he made them out to be.

    It seems certain he was a sensitive, bookish and aloof boy, the type of young man who would perhaps take off-the-cuff fifth form banter more gravely than a more gregarious character would.

    His will, and his gravestone, both bear his real name, which he never legally changed, so he can’t have disliked it that much. And bearing a Scottish name did no harm to the literary success of Walter Scott or John Buchan, among others.

  50. Republicofscotland
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T.

    Football commenator Jim Spence backs the Alba party.

  51. Calum
    Ignored
    says:

    The book is freely available nowadays so there’s no excuse for not reading it:

    http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks01/0100021.txt

  52. Graham
    Ignored
    says:

    Helen Yates at 3pm.
    I’ve never been able to articulate in words how I feel and about where this country is heading, but you have summed up exactly how I feel. I’m afraid I find it all very depressing now and wonder if I would be better just not caring anymore and trying to live in my own little bubble, ignorant of the chaos around me.

  53. mel
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Al-stuart

    ‘I reckon you are correct about there being fewer folk that will take the time to read something more than 140 or 280 Twitter characters long. Especially Yoon Trolls and Yoon Yoof.’

    The yoons aren’t the people who need to read this – they aren’t the ones voting for the SNP.

    Most of us older folk – of all political persuasions – read 1984, Animal Farm and Brave New World as youngsters, usually at school. I doubt many of today’s youth have read these books and probably few teachers either. That is the pity.

  54. Fishy Wullie
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Wilie Jay

    I didn’t dismiss the fall in education standards and I never said it wasn’t a problem learn to read before you start name calling,

    I personally blame it on this incompetent corrupt SNP government, while you seem to blame it on Scottish Nationalism,

    Are you suggesting an independent Scotland can’t have a 1st class education system ?

  55. Duncan Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    Genuinely disturbing, the way the screenshots fall so neatly into place.

    https://twitter.com/nicolasturgeon/status/1208400898122223618?lang=en

    Seems it was being reread as guidance, not a warning.

  56. Aunty Flo
    Ignored
    says:

    Stephen @ 3.20 pm says:

    “Sturgeon can’t bring the organs of state to force us to take part in her schemes or to think the way she does.”

    Mmmm, not sure about that, Stephen!

    Mass rollout of a potentially dangerous, experimental gene-therapy and removal of our freedoms, in total lockstep with a global totalitarian agenda, anyone?

  57. James Che.
    Ignored
    says:

    You know what comes to mind,
    Keep the masses separate, do not let the people interact with each other, so that one does not know about the other,
    Reduce human interaction, families and reproduction,
    Well covid and vaccines may have gone some way in perpetuating that very mantra as a beginning theory,
    It also kept people constantly at war with each other, dividing people into your wrong, I am right theories,
    It achieves the above divisions of constant war without battle, to live in and perpetuate fear.
    And no doubt people have fallen for the main aspiration of the i person Dr Emanuel Goldstein,
    Not to worry NS, BJ, Trudou, JB, TB and many others are all going to build back better,
    Now that cannot be my thought crime as it was them that said it themselves, the world leaders.

  58. Stephen
    Ignored
    says:

    Aunty Flo
    Haha.
    She could never pull it off…….
    I don’t buy that covid conspiracy idea
    I’m sure you are not suggesting that though.

  59. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    “Deep-fried banana fritter republic.” I am SO stealing that.

  60. Frank Gillougley
    Ignored
    says:

    Good on you Stu, what a belter (and I thought my resignation letter after the results was going to be long too).

    I have just scan read your post for the now, but will read it properly later on.

    Anyhow, I’ll just throw this in – I really think you’ve done your stint and some, and would be well deserving of a gong of sorts for being the only Scottish investigative journalist on the planet (the order of Bathgate, mibbes?) BUT in spite of your out of this world statistics for readership for WoS, dontcha think you should give scottish politics a rest for the next ten years (cos nothing will happen anyway) and do something more rewarding and creative instead? I only say this because that’s where i am heading, I (like many others) is done wae it.

  61. James Che.
    Ignored
    says:

    It’s not just Scottish politics, it’s all politics across Britain and around the world, when you get a better chance to do more than scan stu’s Excellent post, you will find equivalent equalising scenarios in every country,

  62. Mikey d
    Ignored
    says:

    Frank Gillougley. Same as that, i’m in my late 60’s and always supported Scottish independence. At my age i’m probably never going to see it, but if the people of Scotland can’t be bothered getting off their arses and putting their brains in gear tomorrow by voting for whats best for THEIR country, snp1 alba2. Then they deserve the trainwreck thats coming down the line for them in spades.

  63. Desimond
    Ignored
    says:

    From the proletarians nothing is to be feared. Left to themselves, they will continue from generation to generation and from century to century, working, breeding, and dying, not only without any impulse to rebel, but without the power of grasping that the world could be other than it is

    Bravo Rev. That was a great long rewarding read full of “Oh my” moments.
    The best post ever on Wings?..must be a contender.

    Cant believe you didnt post a picture of Daddy Bear when it came to Inner Party ‘ It is precisely in the Inner Party that war hysteria and hatred of the enemy are strongest. premise mind!

  64. Market Force
    Ignored
    says:

    Mike d. 5.28

    Can you explain to me how, by voting SNP 1 and ALBA 2, is going to save our country?

    Just what is the plan, because I must have missed it.

  65. Mikey d
    Ignored
    says:

    Market force. I’ll trust Alex’s word on.snp1 Alba2.

  66. Scot Finlayson
    Ignored
    says:

    Anyone financially supporting BonnyPrinceBob and wants a refund,

    https://support.gofundme.com/hc/en-us/articles/204150420-Requesting-a-Refund

    have no idea if it will work but worth a try.

  67. Scot Finlayson
    Ignored
    says:

    `Emmanuel Goldstein is a fictional character in George Orwell’s 1949 dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

    He is the principal enemy of the state according to the Party of the totalitarian Oceania.`

  68. Paula Kelly
    Ignored
    says:

    Very clever post Rev. Thoughtful, alarming and a must read for all. The similarities between Orwell’s 1984 and today are getting deeply concerning. And the similarities between Thatcher and Sturgeon are chilling. Shaking head in disbelief, she is turning Scotland into a fascist, police state. I wonder who she’s taking orders from ? Probably from the same nutters behind the scenes in the USA, Davos and their pals in the CCP (Chinese Communist Party)
    Think I’m joking ? Her “Inner Party” are not there by accident and policies such as the GRA and Hate Crime Bill have been planned for a long time. Next will be vaccine passports and goodbye to self autonomy, hello to social credit scoring. We must get rid of the SNP leadership before the next lockdown (which will probably be Autumn) after they find a new “variant”.

  69. Market Force
    Ignored
    says:

    Mike d 5.37

    Ok, so there isn’t a plan then.

    You just want to hand a phycopath a huge majority and then hope for the best?

    And Mike, I’m not having a go at you, I genuinely haven’t a clue what the SNP 1 ALBA 2 plan is.

  70. Stephen
    Ignored
    says:

    Some young SNP supporters will not like this but here goes….
    The SNP has become what Labour was in its heyday in its heartlands.
    They could put up a pig in a poke and it would get elected.

    This can’t go on forever.

  71. Anne
    Ignored
    says:

    Tomorrow I will not spoil my paper but will vote Labour and Alba. A contradiction, I know …

  72. William Habib Steele
    Ignored
    says:

    We see the Mammy State in all the provisions now being made by the state: baby boxes, feminine hygiene products (do transwomen get them?), free school meals for everyone; a proposed minimum basic income provided by the state, with Nicola as the corporate mammy. This really is the state taking on a parent function, and now with the Hate Crimes legislation giving the state the right to enter our living-rooms, kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms, it’s past 1984!

    The state should legislate that people are paid enough to provide all the above listed goodies for themselves and their families, and it should provide a social safety-net income for those who cannot earn the funds to pay for them by themselves. Thus freedom is preserved while exercising social care.

    Cultural Marxism has won in Scotland. But it’s fighting for control in all the countries of the UK, and, indeed, in all the world.

  73. Rev. Stuart Campbell
    Ignored
    says:

    ” BUT in spite of your out of this world statistics for readership for WoS, dontcha think you should give scottish politics a rest for the next ten years (cos nothing will happen anyway) and do something more rewarding and creative instead? I only say this because that’s where i am heading, I (like many others) is done wae it.”

    Barring a miracle this weekend, that’s my plan.

  74. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    OT
    Noticed it’s the highest number recorded of 4,280,785 registered to potentially vote in this Scottish election.

    It’s so comforting to ken you’re living in a proper first world secure democracy when the Cooncil Offices aren’t open to hand in postal votes, so they just get stuffed into an outside post box in the street that anyone without mutant large hands could simply reach in a take them out… FFS!

  75. Robert Graham
    Ignored
    says:

    The most relevant tier is below we RULE you

    We Fool you

    The current version of this snp have fooled a whole lot of people , people who have worked endlessly in order to deliver their message annoying and cajoling friends famly members and trying to convince them this is it this is the right path ,

    How fkn stupid and trusting we were if that’s not a kick in nuts I don’t know what is I will never trust or believe that fkn Sturgeon again and the sooner she gets out of our sight the better hopefully under police escort on her way to some jail along with her scabby husband .

  76. Stephen
    Ignored
    says:

    Anne
    No it makes perfect sense.
    If you were an SNP supporter last time your vote counts double.
    It could help get rid of Nicola if you are in that constituency.

  77. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Rev (6.15) –

    What, for you, would constitute ‘a miracle’?

  78. Elizabeth Hagan
    Ignored
    says:

    Old enough to remember National Assistance when we were really poor living in an old mining village but fortunate enough to come through a really good educational system enabling us all to get to university and get degrees & thus being upwardly mobile and into professional careers. Educate the child and you educate the nation.
    SNP’s record on education speaks for itself.
    “Judge me on education” or is it the Mushroom Syndrome?
    “Keep them in the Dark & shovel S**t at them”
    Please do not vote for SNP under any circumstances.

  79. Robert Hughes
    Ignored
    says:

    Great post Stu .

    Coincidentally , a friend of mine recently tried to read 1984 and gave up half way through ( how can people do that ? !! ) saying it was just too dark and too close to our own situation for his peace of mind , and he’s a committed ” Doomscroller ” !

    Orwell of course didn’t live to see the rise and subsequent ubiquity of computer technology , the new opportunities to enhance the black arts of disinformation , surveillance ( public and private ), propaganda and character assassination , combined with the global reach of Social Media it offered the assorted freaks , weirdos ,vainglorious sociopaths we seem to always end-up with to inflict their delusions and inadequacies on a mostly unwitting public , but , potentially at least , the future could be even worse than the one he forewarned of

    The complimentary dystopia of Huxley’s World State may prove to be ultimately the more prescient .

    Kinda disturbing seeing people so happy and excited about getting their * life saving * vaccine jab .

    Soma for the asymptomatic psychosomatic populace ?

    Could never happen here .

  80. Liz
    Ignored
    says:

    Fucksake, it’s worse than I thought.

  81. Garrion
    Ignored
    says:

    It’s a beautiful article, and sums up, weirdly, what my hopes for Scottish independence were – that in some way, there could be some kind of better, democratic, humane and reasonable Scottish national government that would somehow improve the lives and circumstances of those in Scotland, and, by extension, be a force for some kind of good in the world.

    I grew up poor as fuck with deeply unwell and damaged parents, and, like many other Scots, I know what poverty and squalor are. I got lucky, and I worked like fuck to get out, which I did, not unscathed.

    I think that in 2014 there was a crack that light might very well have poured through, and I saw, with horror, actually, what the ENTIRE (left, right, doesn’t matter) state would do to suppress it, and I see now that in my naivety, I underestimated the sheer enormity of force and sophistication applied to ensure that it would not happen again.

    I don’t know what will happen next. I still hope, but holy cow it’s hard.

  82. Stephen
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert Hughes
    There was a time that the plague wiped out half the population of Europe.
    I bet they wished they had a vaccine then.

  83. ahundredthidiot
    Ignored
    says:

    Apparently The National is not disclosing all the results from its very own Poll. It is happy to show the result of first question on the Constituency vote (90% for SNP)

    The List vote, however, is reportedly missing and one commenter states that nearly 13,000 votes were cast with 33% going to SNP and 49% to ALBA.

    When I last checked it was a similar result with just over 7000 votes cast.

  84. Bob Mack
    Ignored
    says:

    All men were created equal. Some have altered this process to be more equal than others at any cost to them or aforementioned “others”. It was ever thus.

    When will we really learn? I thought Scotland wanted to create just such a society with Indepedence, but then perhaps I am just one of the lumpen proletariat with a good intention and a head full of dreams.

    Quite a smack in the face to read it in context with recent events.

    Ever a fool!!

  85. Harry mcaye
    Ignored
    says:

    Mikey d – I beg to differ. Voting for evil is never in a countries best interests and the SNP are now evil. I will be spoiling my first ballot and having a rant.

  86. Liz
    Ignored
    says:

    PS Rev, your blog is keeping me sane.
    Even if you give up the politics, I hope you kerp writing excoriating articles

  87. Beaker
    Ignored
    says:

    Not got a lot of time these days but read the whole 12,000 words. Interesting and enjoyable edit.

    I’ve read 1984 a few times, ever since I had it as part of 3rd year English at school. Another book worth reading is Solzhenitsyn’s “Day on the Life of Ivan Denisovich”. The most recent translation is the about the best version.

  88. Beaker
    Ignored
    says:

    “Day OF the life”… typos

  89. Scot Finlayson
    Ignored
    says:

    Sweden,

    `Policy Change Regarding Hormonal Treatment of Minors with Gender Dysphoria at Tema Barn – Astrid Lindgren Children’s Hospital.

    Executive Decisions

    In light of the above,and based on the precautionary principle,

    which should always be applied,

    it has been decided that hormonal treatments (i.e., puberty
    blocking and cross-sex hormones) will not be initiated in gender dysphoric patients under the age of 16.`

  90. Robert Hughes
    Ignored
    says:

    Stephen

    Millions of young , healthy people being pressured into taking a vaccine that may or may not protect them from a virus they’re very unlikely to * catch * and even less likely to suffer any ill effects from .

    People should at the very least be allowed to make-up their own minds on this , and suffer no social stigma for declining the vaccine if they’re not comfortable with or see no medical reason for taking it .

  91. Pixywine
    Ignored
    says:

    Wot? No glory holes?

  92. robbo
    Ignored
    says:

    The world has gone mad , it really has . Well some people have that’s for sure.

    https://www.aol.com/news/mom-stirs-controversy-insane-attempt-182355273.html

  93. Pixywine
    Ignored
    says:

    Woops comment was meant for previous post.

  94. ahundredthidiot
    Ignored
    says:

    The only thing more bad mannered than someone directly asking who you voted for, is someone asking if you’ve had the vaccine.

    To ask someone about their medical background as if they were asking ‘have you tried the new burger at mcdonalds?’, is nothing short of despicable.

    Employers need to be on their toes with this one. Managers/Staff need to be mindful of not crossing the line.

  95. Frank Gillougley
    Ignored
    says:

    Just an absolutely brilliant post. There are 3 things that stand out for me: the first pyramidal illustration, the political map of ‘Scotland’ and the memory of the brainwashed John Hurt sitting in the cafe watching the news on the war. That image of Winston will never leave me. That is the metaphor for ‘Scottish’ Politics right there. Same old, same old, same old.

    I thought the placing of the political map of Scotland next to the world map of Eurasia and Oceania a stroke of absolute genius. It is clear to me now. Nothing will ever change. I always knew that all maps were political, but that association will never leave me now. A belter.

    And lastly to the pyramidal form of power. In Stalin’s USSR in the 30’s there was an architectural competition for the new Palace of the Soviets. And there was a genius architect called Konstantin Melnikov who took his life in his hands and submitted his entry comprising two pyramidal forms side by side, except that one of the pyramids was upside down (so that the proles were at the top). Of course it didn’t win, and uncle Joe picked some classicist heap or other as the winner. I actually suspect that Stalin didn’t quite understand it, which is the only reason why Melnikov wasn’t sent off to the gulags as millions of others were.

    I wonder if there’ll be a darkly comedic remake of ‘the Death of Stalin’ in twenty years time, entitled, The death of S……n’ with all her goons running around in their inimitable groupthink schpeak.

  96. Gone right handed
    Ignored
    says:

    Hey, I like that.

    Remember to vote tomorrow.

    You North British are better off in- Britain.

    Hugs xx

  97. Stephen
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert Hughes
    Your follow up was much more nuanced than your initial post.

  98. Jockanese Wind Talker
    Ignored
    says:

    Regards the National Poll

    See if this link works @ahundredthidiot says at 7:11 pm

    Total Votes: 11110

    Who will you be voting for in your constituency?

    SNP 90%

    Who will you be voting for on the regional list?

    SNP 33%
    ALBA 49%

    https://www.thenational.scot/news/19276712.reader-poll-think-holyrood-elections-may-6/

  99. Stephen
    Ignored
    says:

    People calling into question the validity and efficacy of vaccines are irresponsible and put the rest of us at risk.

  100. Daisy Walker
    Ignored
    says:

    This is the SNP’s last big win. They are a hollowed out party.

    Doing so many streets leafleting for Alba – and only about 1 in 10 SNP posters in windows compared to the last election.

    And they were the ONLY posters in windows.

    The on the supermajority weekends for Alba leafleting meeting all the Yessers who have decanted from the SNP to Alba, bringing with them local knowledge, canvassing experience, business experience, enthusiasm, vehicles, shoe leather, money, energy and life experience.

    And my god are they determined. And the sense of urgency. It has got to be now. Or it will be never.

    I take encouragement from the fact that all the Unionist parties (and I Include the current SNP in that, at present) are flapping big time.

    So if enough Alba candidates get in, its game on, and all will hinge on the next GE. That gives us 3-4 years of all out campaigning. While Westminster applies the brexit screws on Scotland.

    Ultimately if the ground towards Indy is being covered in a competent way, rumpSNP will come over to Alba as a matter of practicality, not contrition.

    A wee anicdote. I was aware of only one other Alba house in my area (about 3000 houses). I had to deliver Alba letters – and there were 7… but only 2 of us were showing Alba posters – the others don’t want a hard time from the SNP.

    This is an incredible buttoned down election. But it doesn’t mean folk haven’t been thinking long and hard about things.

    Anyhoo, its too late to do anything about it now.

    A HUGE amount of ground has been covered by Alba supporters – in 5 weeks. HUGE. Nothing good is ever wasted.

  101. Mikey d
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert hughes 7.26pm. Had my 1st AZ vaccine shot early feb, 9/10 days later have had a continual dull headache ( never suffered with headaches in my life before ( other than usual hangover) lol. Having a telephone appt with doc next week. Feels like someone rubbing sandpaper just under my scalp. Took my other half for her 2nd shot today, i declined mine.

  102. ahundredthidiot
    Ignored
    says:

    JWT

    Thanks!

  103. Gfaetheblock
    Ignored
    says:

    Robert Hughes @19.26

    The vaccine will absolutely protect young people from getting COVID, will protect their lower risk of suffering ill effects from it and reduce transition of the virus.

    What you have stated is just wrong.

  104. katherine hamilton
    Ignored
    says:

    Re your comment that barring a miracle, you’re for the off, as you have told us. No miracle coming, my friend, as we all know you know.
    I read this as your valedictory. Your very own Ed Morrow.

    So “Good night and Good luck” to you and yours.

  105. Hatuey
    Ignored
    says:

    Didn’t Goldstein’s book finish by suggesting all hope lies with the proles?

    I believe the proles in our context are being kept in the dark about this gender stuff and much else because they (the weirdo elite) know that the proles would tear their perverted ideas and policies to shreds if they found out the truth.

    When they discuss this gender stuff, note how they are always really guarded about how the discussion is framed. It’s always cloaked in a civil rights context, transgender people are always presented as flawless and innocent victims.

    Without explaining how real women’s rights are to be protected, they announce that they will be, you’ve just to accept that as true, and ultimately this is all very obviously about being moral and doing the right thing.

    Something like 1 in 100 thousands people are transgender. Something like half the population is real women. All of our kids are vulnerable and should be protected.

    For the first time today an article by Wings genuinely saddened me. It was a link to a newspaper piece that explained how they introduced gender neutral toilets in some schools and there had been an increase in truancy because many of the girls didn’t want to face the humiliation of using the new toilets.

    We should be ashamed to allow this stuff to go on. When the proles find out about this, there will be hell to pay. I remember being amazed and totally puzzled that society ever allowed a group like PIE to operate openly. Well, now I know. We are right there today, in Scotland.

    All hope lies with the proles… you better fucking believe it.

  106. Mikey d
    Ignored
    says:

    Gfaetheblock, well i’m not speaking for anyone else, just myself.

  107. Tom Kane
    Ignored
    says:

    SNP 1. ALBA 2.
    And prepare for the magic of a sleety winter night away from home, a corrupt referee, a hostile crowd, tired legs, everyone betting against you, and you with an annoying determination and everything to play for.

    If that doesn’t do it for you, tomorrow is Tony Blair’s birthday… Let’s celebrate it with a supermajority in the Scottish Parliament.

    I like that.

  108. Mikey d
    Ignored
    says:

    Tom kane, i’ll second that.

  109. Ottomanboi
    Ignored
    says:

    To offer a critique of «the vaccine» is a thought crime.
    https://off-guardian.org/2021/05/05/covid-vaccines-necessity-efficacy-and-safety/
    No doctor! No!
    Yes, my boy it is for your own gooood, the Foundation has decreed!
    https://img1.etsystatic.com/000/0/5994560/il_570xN.181737087.jpg

  110. it'scominyet
    Ignored
    says:

    The Ministry of Truth is messing with my mind! “Posted on April 19, 2021” this version says but the comments appear on May 5 post.

  111. Derek
    Ignored
    says:

    @Beaker says:
    5 May, 2021 at 7:21 pm
    “Day OF the life”… typos

    Wasn’t it “One Day In The Life Of…”?

    I can’t remember when I last read it. I do dip into Orwell reasonably regularly, though.

  112. Stephen
    Ignored
    says:

    Ottamboi
    No.
    To offer a critique of the vaccine is just foolish.
    And you don’t need to hide your lack of an argument behind two cut and paste links.

  113. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @Stephen 7:44 pm: “People calling into question the validity and efficacy of vaccines are irresponsible and put the rest of us at risk.”

    Since none of the vaccine manufacturers are careful not to claim their versions of the “vaccine” give you actual immunity as it is normally understood or prevent transmission (although they do claim vaccination in severe cases reduces symptoms), I’m afraid I don’t understand your statement.

    An unvaccinated person, therefore, is probably just as likely to be infected by a vaccinated one as vice versa. Please also remember that relatively few PCR “cases” translate into cases requiring hospital treatment. Since the median age of Covid mortality is about 82-84 in Europe, I think people are quite capable of working out the risks for themselves.

    Can you explain how a Pfizer vaccine, for example, which has been developed in less than nine months, can be properly evaluated for medium to long-term risks? Its Stage III trial is due to finish in 2023, I believe. Think through the implications of that for yourself

    And before you think of dubbing me an anti-vaxxer, I had my ‘flu jag last October/November and both my children (now in their 30s) had all their inocculations.

    It’s ironical your “I love Big Pharma” comment appears in this Orwellian piece.

  114. Stephen
    Ignored
    says:

    Our society is truly doomed if we can’t take the steps necessary for its preservation.
    Some people are in such a sweet spot of privilege that they are blind to the risks that they face.
    They can argue about the number of angels on a pin and see threats where there are none.

    In this vain pursuit of faux danger they miss the threat which is in front of them.

    SNP1 us a mistake.

  115. Saffron Robe
    Ignored
    says:

    Do you think when Nicola Sturgeon looks in the mirror she sees Margaret Thatcher looking back at her?

    On a more positive note I saw an Alba cavalcade making its way up Maryhill Road today. I gave them a wave and felt my spirit soar for the first time in a long while.

  116. Mikey d
    Ignored
    says:

    Saffron robe, with those black eyes, probabaly auld nick himself looking back at her. Auld nick looking at nickla.

  117. Stephen
    Ignored
    says:

    Tinto
    We vaccinate our children for a range of diseases.
    Why should this one be any different?
    Pandemics such as the one the world is now experiencing have historically been very destructive.
    The vaccine is all we have.

    Orwell has nothing to do with it.

  118. Mikey d
    Ignored
    says:

    Probably,

  119. Robert Hughes
    Ignored
    says:

    Tinto Chiel says

    “it’s ironical your “I love Big Pharma” comment appears in this Orwellian piece.”

    Yes , that occurred to me too , and similarly , I had all my jags as a kid and would have no problem taking a vaccine in required for foreign travel , for example .

    What I have a problem with is the idea of the State having the power to compel you to do something you don’t believe is in your own interest , or necessary – in this case I prefer to trust my own immune system , done a pretty good job up till now – and the power to punish , economically or otherwise , for failing to comply .

    Is this not precisely what the post is about – the power of the State ?

  120. Josef Ó Luain
    Ignored
    says:

    Thanks for the distillation, ed. An extremely clever idea, wonderfully executed.

  121. Mikey d
    Ignored
    says:

    Stephen, i appreciate its all we have and the benefits do outweigh the riks, same odds as winning the lottery as dying from a blood clot apparently, but if you dont win the lottery all you’ve lost is your £2 , not your life.

  122. Mikey d
    Ignored
    says:

    Risk,

  123. Stephen
    Ignored
    says:

    Supporting uptake of the vaccine is a responsible thing to do.
    It is all very well deciding for yourself, like Mike D, not to take the vaccine.

    But to call into question it’s efficacy and insodoing probably persuade others not to take it is morally indefensible.

  124. Robert Hughes
    Ignored
    says:

    EVERYTHING the State does should be called into question , at least examined with a critical eye , how the fuck do you think we got into this mess ?

  125. Stephen
    Ignored
    says:

    I don’t know why I am arguing with you.
    It’s just as well it isn’t you who is in charge of the vaccine roll out.

    To borrow your own choice use of vocabulary – we would be fucked.

  126. Cuilean
    Ignored
    says:

    On a lighter note, I took my old, white cat to the vet’s last week, to have his teeth cleaned and a wee tooth removed. He’s called Moonstone. [My then 8 yr old named him & his brother, also a white cat, Gandalf].

    Anyway, the vet is not letting anyone inside the premises at the mo. I was feeling quite stressed by the time we got to the vet’s, as the wee bastert had shat & pissed in his basket, in the car, all the way to the vet’s. So we were running late, as we had to go via the Co-op for baby wipes and kitchen towels to clean up said cat, basket and car seat. In the process, I ended up smelling of cat pee too, as the said wee (soggy) bastert had managed to partially dry himself on me.

    So, looking like I had been dragged through a hedge backwards, I rang the doorbell and a robed and masked vet, whom I had never seen before, flung open the door and in a booming ‘jolly hockeysticks’ voice shouted, jovially (a la Seigfried Farnon),

    ‘And who do we have here?’.

    Not sure if he meant me or the cat, I (also masked), replied, proffering cat basket, ‘Moonstone’.

    he replied, ‘Oh, Winnie?’

    Me, (thinking how the hell do you get Winnie from Moonstone), a little louder, ‘No, Moonstone’.

    he repeated ‘Winnie?’

    Me, louder still ‘Eh, no, it’s Moonstone’.

    he again, ‘Winnie?’

    FFS, thinking to myself, what is this man on? Worried I was going to come back to find Moonstone missing one leg, I tore off my mask and said as calmly and clearly as I could, ‘Moonstone!’

    ‘Oh! Moonstone!’ he replied, ‘I thought you were saying ‘Winston’!

    I didn’t do much better with Moonstone’s brother, Gandalf, now sadly deceased. Early one morning, I was out shouting for him to no avail. It was the day for the bins. I called repeatedly, ‘Gandalf! Gandalf!’ Away in the distance, a waggish binman hollered back, through the early morning mist, ‘You shall not pass!’

    I know, no very funny and f all to do with the post, which was brill, btw. Please don’t leave us Stu, my sanity is hing-ing by a thread.

  127. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @Stephen: “We vaccinate our children for a range of diseases.
    Why should this one be any different?”

    Because these vaccinations are black triangle ones which have not gone through the much longer period of tests/evaluations for a vaccine, usually anything between 4-10 years. The Coronavirus Act legislation allows them to be pushed through under emergency measures. Stage III trials are just what they say, they are trials. On us.

    Please explain to me how a vaccine produced in say, six months, can evaluate risk over the mid to long term.

    “Orwell has nothing to do with it.” On the contrary, I think he has a lot to do with it. He had worked with the BBC during the war and his ideas such as Newspeak and Doublethink seem to have begun with the corporation’s propaganda/spin/lies employed while he was there.

    Apologies: my first paragraph should have read:

    “Since the vaccine manufacturers are careful not to claim their versions of the “vaccine” give you actual immunity as it is normally understood or prevent transmission (although they do claim vaccination in severe cases reduces symptoms), I’m afraid I don’t understand your statement.”

  128. Robert Hughes
    Ignored
    says:

    Who’s arguing ? I thought we were having a conversation , unless your definition of a conversation is two people agreeing with each other only ?

  129. Stephen
    Ignored
    says:

    Tinto
    So your position is not to roll out the vaccination program
    I disagree.

    And the reduction in the number of infections and deaths since the vaccination.rollout commenced backs me up.

    Orwell is a red herring!

  130. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @Robert Hughes says: “EVERYTHING the State does should be called into question , at least examined with a critical eye , how the fuck do you think we got into this mess ?”

    Couldn’t have put it better myself: let’s just trust Bojo, SAGE and Big Pharma.

    What could possibly go wrong?

  131. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @Rev Stu

    A powerful piece. The prospect of five years of SNP or SNP/Green government fills me with a sense of foreboding. I barely recognise the movement I had so much faith in anymore. It struck me that the SNP ultras are now using essentially the same play book as the yoons during Project Fear: any disagreement with their agenda is wrong think. Disagreement = abuse. Principled difference is impossible. Only unconditional surrender to their weltanschauung is acceptable.

    Even if tomorrow’s results are better than I fear, it’s going to be a slog to rebuild a real independence movement again. I’m so tired of SNP ultras, gradualists, trimmers and apologists for the misogynists and twitler youth who are derailing what should have been our best chance of independence.

    Fingers crossed people: we could do with some good news!

  132. Stephen
    Ignored
    says:

    Tinto
    You didn’t answer.
    Robert
    Argumentum is an appeal to reason.

  133. Heaver
    Ignored
    says:

    Leafletting for ALBA in the hailstorm to end all hailstorms I learned two things:

    This is a crap way to get your eyebrows trimmed.
    Hail leaves your leaflets dry. Hailelluyah.

    We’re all on the same side. For freedom. See you on the other side.

  134. Confused
    Ignored
    says:

    1984 is one of “those books” everyone claims to have read, but hasn’t – so this WINGS-LIT crossover is nice.

    What next? Brave New World, Meditations, Decline of the West? Do you take requests?

    – hope? (among the proles)

    demand for labour will go to zero over time due to technology – the “proles” thus become “useless eaters”

    the oligarchs who won the class war, davastatingly, by the mid-80s by now think “why should we even bother with the bread and circuses consumerism and the pretence of democracy – time for a massive cull” – hard times for the little people, eh? Scottish indy as a faint glimmer of hope against this, seems almost kaput.

    “conspiracy theory de jour” is that the “mass culling” of the “useless eaters” is what is happening right now, with the mass covid vaccinations, progressing along the exact lines of the TV Show “Utopia”, shown in 2013; the jab will leave you sterile.

    – the missing part in Orwell’s analysis is : Islam – say what you like about muslims (and I have made many sarcastic remarks), but they still believe in something they will fight for, plus they have some inbuilt advantages over the west – feminism has not destroyed the birth-rate, nor is usury allowed (- the heart of our economic system). Islam is kinda-simple in many ways and is thus attractive to many; westerners have no belief in anything anymore, or are too scared to say so – or, it is this self-destuctive smorgasbord of nonsense – “woke ianity”.

    “primitive” peoples, like the afghans, seem to be unconquerable, even by “the most powerful military in history” – they are not like us, do not want to be like us, and are not interested in anything we have to offer. What we would call “societal collapse” and leave us devastated, they would not even notice; they are self-reliant, self contained, and much more in control of their lives than us. The future may belong to them.

    (Ellis wins word of the day with : weltanschauung)

  135. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @Stephen: “I disagree.”

    Which is fine by me but the fall in infections and death also took place last year (without vaccination, obviously) once we got into May and right through to September, i.e. the normal winter season.

    I’m not expecting you to absorb all this in the short term but some of the information here is interesting:

    https://swprs.org/facts-about-covid-19/#latest

    “Orwell is a red herring!”: loved the pun 😉 .

  136. Stephen
    Ignored
    says:

    Tinto
    Nice finish.
    Pleasure debating.
    And also Robert.
    Cheers

  137. Morag Frame
    Ignored
    says:

    Long read, great read and a must read!

  138. David McAdam
    Ignored
    says:

    Brilliant

  139. Daisy Walker
    Ignored
    says:

    Since we are talking about thought crimes, can anyone answer the following?

    How many SNP List votes will it take to change a lightbulb?

    I think the answer is all of them – cause they must have been doing something to keep themselves occupied when they should have been getting us our Indy. But I’m sure there are better answers out there.

    But then again, perhaps the answer is None of them because the lightbulb doesn’t need to ‘change’ it can just Self ID.

  140. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @Stephen 9.21: me too.

    All the best.

  141. Papko
    Ignored
    says:

    Helen Yates@ 300

    Well said.

    Animal Farm is uncanny, was there not a scene where the Dogs emerged and chased away the “Brilliant Pig” (cant recall name without Googling) and off course “four legs good etc” is the exact same chant as “Stronger for Scotland”.

    Its not the sense it makes its the noise that is a melody.

  142. Robert Hughes
    Ignored
    says:

    Indeed Andy .

    Good luck ( not a question of luck , I know , still… ) and best wishes to our only light in the * dimness * that surrounds us at the moment – ALBA – the morra .And thanks to all the people who have given their time n energy to get the message out by leafleting etc .

    Whatever the outcome we’ll still have something to help grow and participate wholeheartedly in , a “vehicle” with a solid structure n a finely-tuned , powerful engine . Ourselves .

  143. Brian Doonthetoon
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi ahundredthidiot at 7:11 pm.

    You typed,
    “Apparently The National is not disclosing all the results from its very own Poll. It is happy to show the result of first question on the Constituency vote (90% for SNP)

    The List vote, however, is reportedly missing and one commenter states that nearly 13,000 votes were cast with 33% going to SNP and 49% to ALBA.”

    The full results were on The National’s web site when I checked, after reading your comment.

    I have archived the page at two locations –
    https://archive.is/5CKy3
    (That can be over-written, if The National changes the page and a National staffer re-archives the new page)
    and
    https://web.archive.org/web/20210505201622/https://www.thenational.scot/news/19276712.reader-poll-think-holyrood-elections-may-6/
    (That one is captured forever and can’t be over-written.)
    It shows Question 2, The regional vote, with Alba on 49%; total votes 12786.

  144. tolkein
    Ignored
    says:

    Looking at the map, if Scots do vote to leave the Union (and promptly surrender independence to the EU), can the Borders and Orkneys vote to remain with England? Will that be OK?

  145. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    I don’t know about anyone else but I’d love to see Alba commit to changing the Holyrood voting system to Irish style STV.

    I wonder what the MSP count we be then….?

  146. Louise Hogg
    Ignored
    says:

    Admit I didn’t read all the war part in detail. But yes, not good. And the ‘UK’ version no better.

    Constituency: Christ Alone Is King

    Region: Alba

    The rest is out of my hands.

  147. Famous15
    Ignored
    says:

    Tolkein is a fantasist ANd it is bloody Orkney not Orkneys!

  148. Wee Chid
    Ignored
    says:

    I think this is the first time ever I’ve not been excited about an election. Sturgeon has managed to do something even the Tories didn’t manage – turn me off politics by making me think that all politicians are the same and that we are screwed, whatever the result.
    Postal vote is completed and will be handed into the polling station tomorrow with a spoiled constituency vote and a vote for Alba on the list.

  149. Robert Graham
    Ignored
    says:

    Steven @ 8:53

    regarding the vaccine and people questioning it , your quote ” morally indefensible to urge someone not to take it ”

    Well Stuart you know what’s really indefensible Companies manufacturing products when they know there is a risk , a risk to their investment most of them couldn’t give a fk about their victims because they go to great lengths to hide the evidence therefore protect the company and the investors.

    Case in point Teflon originally developed to waterproof military vehicles ,Du Pont spent millions fighting Lawsuits in the USA for 13 years knowing full well they had a big problem but the investors had to be protected the Company had to be protected.so morales went out the window as usual.

    3 Drug manufacturers in the last 5 years have been fined a total of eleven and a half Billion Dollars not for being fine up standing companies but for deception and false claims,

    Ranitidine once favoured as a Anti Acid remedy the court in the USAs verdict of details test results ” Unfit for Human Consumption ” I took Ranitidine also known as Zantac for 6 years , the suggested maximum dose period is 4 months , I had to find out the evidence myself because the medical profession suddenly had a memory lapse .

    So please forgive me if I don’t trust Drug Companies , Chemical manufacturers , or Governments to tell the Truth it’s a built in default setting to Lie its what they do so don’t be surprised if this latest sales promotion to get everyone Jabbed is just another fkn Fairly Tale it’s what they do .

  150. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @tolkien 9.35pm

    Still waiting on any evidence that either the borders would vote to “secede” from an independent Scotland. The only polling I’ve ever seen on whether the inhabitants of the Northern Isles would vote to stay part of the UK was done by the P&J in Aberdeen some years ago. >80% said they’d stay part of Scotland. Facts, eh…?

    Of course, if you’re honestly advocating the “Passport to Pimlico” approach, presumably you’d accept Glasgow and Dundee could have declared UDI in 2014.

  151. Hatuey
    Ignored
    says:

    Confused; “demand for labour will go to zero over time due to technology – the “proles” thus become “useless eaters””

    Much smarter people than you were saying that in the 1850s. They were wrong too. I assume you all know this is where Marxism made its biggest verifiable error…

    I don’t rule out the possibility that this virus will wipe out a significant number of people.

    What does “significant number” mean? I’m not sure, but I think I’ll know it when I see it.

  152. Derek
    Ignored
    says:

    @Famous15 says:
    5 May, 2021 at 9:38 pm
    Tolkein is a fantasist ANd it is bloody Orkney not Orkneys!

    “…there ain’t a bloody thing to do…”

  153. Derek
    Ignored
    says:

    @Confused says:
    5 May, 2021 at 9:16 pm
    1984 is one of “those books” everyone claims to have read, but hasn’t – so this WINGS-LIT crossover is nice.

    What next? Brave New World, Meditations, Decline of the West? Do you take requests?

    I’m going to suggest Saki and Kipling. Both very much “of their time”; Saki was killed in WW1, as was Kipling’s son. His writing thereafter was less empire-jingoistic. Both were good observers, though.

  154. Tommo
    Ignored
    says:

    Noticeable even from my distance that the delay in immediate responses to your blog seems to be reflected in more thoughtful responses by nearly all
    I have no idea what will happen in Wales tomorrow (Save that my constituency will be Plaid Cymru)-however it is quite touching to see so many people in Scotland struggling with essentially ethical(Not necessarily political) decisions
    For my part I will be sad as and when when Scotland leaves the UK as I am-if anyone is- British; Welsh speaking son of an Argyll mother and a Carmarthenshire father.
    Lets see what happens. No need to hate. I guess the River Till will still flow under Twizel Bridge. No border there.

  155. Confused
    Ignored
    says:

    @hatuey
    – well, that may have been premature in the 1850s, but this is the brink of the 4th(?) “industrial revolution”

    all the driving jobs will go soon; drones will do deliveries. Unless you have some truly high end skill, and I mean something a machine cannot do, or be trained to do, there is not much future for you. Concert pianist? Pro athlete? Pop star? – it’s not a basis for mass employment. The emergence of a genuine AI leaves us all no more than the fleas on a dog’s back.

  156. Gfaetheblock
    Ignored
    says:

    Tinto @21.19

    You are aware that your link to SPR is linking to an anonymous conspiracy theory blog?

    I would ignore nutters like that if I was you.

  157. alan scott
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry to see your pictorial comparison of Nicola Sturgeon with Margaret Thatcher. Sturgeon is not fit to lick the shoes of Mrs Thatcher.

  158. true scot
    Ignored
    says:

    Stu – no one can say you haven’t tried. I came to this site last year, believing that Alex Salmond was guilty – and over the last six months have had my eyes opened wide to the state of Scottish politics under the structure of our parliament, our voting system and lack of separation of the governing party from the judiciary – and the jailing (Craig Murray very soon) and attempted jailing (AS) of political enemies. I could go on, but hey, it’s all a bit depressing.

    Vote wisely – there’s no caveats, a vote is a vote.

  159. lumilumi
    Ignored
    says:

    As it happens, I went to the library today (YASS! They’re finally open!) and got a book about North Korea.

    It’s by a Finnish scientist and non-fiction writer Kai Myrberg, who’s been a “tourist” in NK and studied its history (as much as is possible here in the “corrupt” west). Pohjois-Koreassa vain porsaat ovat onnellisia (“In North Korea, only the piglets are happy”), the title a reference to a joke made by a vet while visiting a pig farm. He got reported, executed, his family sent to a labour camp.

    NK’s culture, history and circumstances are of course different from Scotland’s, but reading about the personality cult, use of propaganda, ruthless silencing of political opponents and dissidents… Show trials, defamation campaigns, threats and blackmail to make people toe the line… Creating an alternative reality and forcing the population to live in it (or else…)

    Scotland, and the whole of UK, is, of course, far from North Korea, but some of the methods seem chillingly similar.

    Nicola Sturgeon wanted to airbrush Alex Salmond out of SNP and Scottish history, an “unperson”. No wonder she’s so vehement against AS and the Alba party. They weren’t supposed to be able to rise.

    Widening the view beyond Scotland/UK, the whole of west is more or less in thrall to toxic woke identity politics, which abhor dissent, label any disagreement as “hate speech” or even “hate crime”.

    Now, I’m a pretty reasonable, left-leaning, socially liberal kind of person, who wants reasoned debate, fact-based policy, more equitable income distribution, a fair society that tries to tackle discrimination in its various guises, free health care, free education, good municipal services, happy to pay taxes (though, of course I grumble. Doesn’t everybody?) I’ve even done the climate-friendly thing and strayed away from eating red meat… because I prefer chicken or fish – and I’ll NEVER give up cheese!

    But according to wokists, I’m a right-wing bigot because I don’t agree with EVERYTHING they prescribe.

    One example: I don’t agree that transwomen are women. No, they’re transwomen, biologically male. Transmen are biologically female (my transman niece, now nephew, agrees). Trans people should not be discriminated against and they should get sex-approprite health care for their special needs. But according to wokists and TRAs I and my trans nephew are “transphobes”.

    The wokeists are creating their own North Korea inside their heads, then trying to impose it on us others, the society at large.

    Every wokist will lose at some point, become an “unperson”, because they’ll fall foul of the purity spiral at some point or another.

    Here’s an interesting article about purity spirals:
    https://unherd.com/2020/01/cast-out-how-knitting-fell-into-a-purity-spiral/

    I can attest to its veracity. I was a part of that knitting community – still am, but stopped sharing or commenting when the woke stuff took over.

    Scotland is not North Korea, but the danger of figurative North-Koreanism – often in the guise of woke identity politics – is real.

    Tomorrow, vote Alba on the list. To maximise Alba’s chances, the SNP has to do well on the constituencies (so they don’t get list seats) but I realise it’s difficult for many indy supporters to vote SNP 1 (constituency). (Wow, words I never imagined I’d have to write!)

    Whatever you do with the constituency vote, don’t vote North Korea, vote Alba on the list.

  160. unsigned
    Ignored
    says:

    Great but sobering post – I tend to think I’m overly pessimistic when I draw parallels to Orwell, but then again, no…
    Hope you get the list vote out against the squalor that is Sturgeon.
    Keep your wits about you for dodgy dealing, take no chances with spoiled votes being interpreted against your intentions.
    Good luck.

  161. Andy Ellis
    Ignored
    says:

    @ alan scott 10pm

    Hilarious. A big similarity is that one day you won’t be able to find many people who admit to voting for Scotland’s Leaderene either.

    With luck though Nicola will end up getting politically knifed in the back by her party too. 🙂

  162. John Martini
    Ignored
    says:

    Four genders good, two genders bad. The more genders the better.

  163. Cenchos
    Ignored
    says:

    Orwell wrote a warning that was misused by some as a playbook to make a society that necessitated the need for others to resurrect Orwell’s original work…as a warning.

    And now Orwell’s warning is again being misused by those in power.

    So here, today, Orwell’s message has again been necessarily reinstated…as a warning.

    So on, it seems, might Orwell’s ouroboros go. Unless and until we stop letting politicians, and those who whisper to them, away with it.

  164. Stuart
    Ignored
    says:

    James Che,

    Excellent comment re this not being peculiar to Scotland, but do understand some of the intent of the post in that context.

    However as always seems the way (certainly in BTL comments not just here but everywhere) whatever “side” your on takes Orwell and any derivations as proof absolute of their “sides” position, or rather a warning against the other “side”, when the beauty of reading 1984, to me was completely at odds with this take. I could however (and frequently am) be completely wrong!

  165. Mikey d
    Ignored
    says:

    Scotland,dont keep being told you are too poor to be independent (too rich to let go) or too stupid not to vote.Snp1 Alba2 tomorrow.
    Over and out Scotland.

  166. David Brackenbury
    Ignored
    says:

    Brilliant stuff. One of your very best, even set against your own high standard. Sorry if that seems a back handed compliment, since you were quoting in the main, but WOW.
    The clocks are indeed striking 13.

  167. Cadogan Enright
    Ignored
    says:

    What a load of rubbish…Stu Campbell is either working for Greater England in some sort of paid capacity or is simply off his head.

    Meanwhile, Boris dispatches 2 warships to face down the frogs the night before an election – so the rest of the English and unionists will be out in force to vote tomorrow.

    There is no way that the insanity of Campbells ‘support’ in this Scottish election is driven by opposition to the outer fringes of insane wokyness

    Its just sabotage for the sake of sabotage

    Just like in Ireland, the Imperial Power can always rely on a tractor

    Shame on him

  168. Jockanese Wind Talker
    Ignored
    says:

    “Noticed it’s the highest number recorded of 4,280,785 registered to potentially vote in this Scottish election.”

    Probably not that OT @Dan says at 6:22 pm

    Apparently Curtice says there are going to be no exit polls either.

    So take those 2 facts plus the ballots not counted immediately and stored overnight gives a lot of scope for interference.

  169. Balaaargh
    Ignored
    says:

    Tinto,

    There are numerous flaws with your post.

    “Since none of the vaccine manufacturers are careful not to claim their versions of the “vaccine” give you actual immunity as it is normally understood or prevent transmission (although they do claim vaccination in severe cases reduces symptoms), I’m afraid I don’t understand your statement.”

    Your statement doesn’t make much sense either with that double negative in there.

    “An unvaccinated person, therefore, is probably just as likely to be infected by a vaccinated one as vice versa.”

    No, that’s not how vaccination works. A vaccinated person is significantly LESS likely to be infected or infect someone else. See smallpox, polio, TB, measles, etc. for evidence of that. Or Israel right now.

    “Please also remember that relatively few PCR “cases” translate into cases requiring hospital treatment.”

    Hospitalisation for a virulent respiratory infection is resource, people, and time intensive. Patients requiring extra oxygen don’t tend to be released after a checkup. From there, you don’t need a large number of cases to overwhelm a health system when you can’t free the beds. Then you have patients lining up in corridors, lining up in the streets. And people who don’t have COVID but also need medical help are now sitting out on those streets. The whole thing snowballs and the system collapses with people dying needlessly.

    “Can you explain how a Pfizer vaccine, for example, which has been developed in less than nine months, can be properly evaluated for medium to long-term risks?”

    This isn’t true. mRNA vaccines have been under research for 20+ years. Biontech – it’s their vaccine, not Pfizer’s – have been working on developing mRNA technology since 2008 and were submitting patents back in 2015.

    “Its Stage III trial is due to finish in 2023, I believe. Think through the implications of that for yourself”a

    If you are trying to imply that everyone who gets the vaccine will suddenly grow a third arm in December 2022 then you should take your computer to the edge of the world and throw it over. Correct, the official completion date is estimated to be April 2023 but any ‘implication’ is pure FUD.

    The actuality is that until that date, there will be regular followups on all medical issues the participants experience. The raw vaccine itself has long gone from those in the study, its only legacy will be the instructions on building new antibodies. Keeping the study open for that maintains funding and visibility so they can give report on how long the body can protect itself for.

    I see you’ve also posted a link to Swiss Propaganda Research. Their COVID junk science is no better than their anti-western nonsense.

    Oh, and before you say I am some big pharma supporter, I am firmly of the view that the Oxford vaccine should not have been limited to one pharma manufacturer nor is Gates correct in conflating vaccine IP with manufacturing regulations.

  170. Mikey d
    Ignored
    says:

    Andy ellis 10.18pm. Yes when i worked in england after thatcher came to power, i only came across in 10yrs 3 cnuts who admitted voting for her, otherwise it was the scottish equation of ‘ it wisnae me’.

  171. Stuart
    Ignored
    says:

    Andy Ellis and Alan Scott

    You both fall for with all due respect, that what you project on to others which I would suggest is a big part of the problem and point of the essay. Cognitive Dissonance is
    Probably the greatest weapon in Big Brothers armoury.

    And so the “wheel keeps turning” and the “show goes on, and on and on”

  172. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @Gfaetheblock 9.59: “You are aware that your link to SPR is linking to an anonymous conspiracy theory blog?

    I would ignore nutters like that if I was you.”

    Maybe you would prefer my linking to “trusted sources” like the BBC? Which articles/monographs/essays by medical professionals in SPR do you wish to refute, by use of appropriate references/sources?

    I’m afraid that the knee-jerk term “conspiracy theory” doesn’t really work for me any more, unless people can produce some kind of argument to back up their assertions. Usually, it’s just a lazy attempt to discredit uncomfortable ideas without having to go to the trouble of providing counter arguments.

    The timestamp to your comment 9.59 means you have dismissed all the medical info on SPR (a massive resource, updated monthly) in just forty minutes.

    I’m impressed, but not convinced 😉 .

  173. Rikali
    Ignored
    says:

    In Oceania, One must be cautious as to who to believe because Emmanuel Goldstein who is said to have written The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism and to lead The Brotherhood, was created by The Ministry of Truth!

    This was designed by the State to attract rebels and thereby render them powerless to challenge Big Brother/Sister and ultimately destroy them.

    As Rev Stuart has come out as Emmanuel Goldstein does that mean Wings is actually run by the SNP’s Ministry of Truth to flush out malcontents to be dealt with by Scotland’s growing army of Thought Police?

    Of course, only asking for a friend. 🙂

  174. alan scott
    Ignored
    says:

    Andy Ellis says:
    5 May, 2021 at 10:18 pm

    @ alan scott 10pm

    Hilarious. A big similarity is that one day you won’t be able to find many people who admit to voting for Scotland’s Leaderene either.

    With luck though Nicola will end up getting politically knifed in the back by her party too. ?

    Not sure where the hilarity comes from. I’m proud to have voted for Mrs Thatcher – I can’t speak for others.

    As Enoch Powell said all political lives end in failure.

  175. Socrates MacSporran
    Ignored
    says:

    BBC Shortbread lead item at 10.30pm tonight – Sturgeon insisting there can be no Independence referendum until Covid is beaten. Why?

    A referendum will have the same number of polling stations as tomorrow’s Holyrood Election. Otherwise, it will be easier to organise and manage.

    There will only be two sides taking part – the elctorate will be asked to vote Yes or No. That has to be less hassle than having to deal with up to ten different parties, plus independents, as will be the case tomorrow.

    There will, going by 2014, fewer counting venues to organise and staff. The polling papers will be less complex.

    All things considered a referendum is easier to organise and run than an election.

    So, what reason, other than the fact she does not want to hold one, can Sturgeon have for trying to delay the referendum?

  176. Mikey d
    Ignored
    says:

    Cadogan enright, well if A Salmond had endorsed snp1 and alba2, i am a bit surprised myself why the rev is against it. I can understand voting against sturgeon and robertson.

  177. MacLam
    Ignored
    says:

    Dan
    Noticed it’s the highest number recorded of 4,280,785 registered to potentially vote in this Scottish election.

    That’s the scariest quote in all the comments tonight.
    Given that the total Scottish population is only 1.24m more than that, I’m guessing that this is way above the norm for most western democracies, if that’s where we still are.
    Where have all the extra people come from?

  178. Stuart
    Ignored
    says:

    Mickey D, did the Gruniard tell you that? I know its comforting to your beliefs but its not actually true (other than the bit about her own party stabbing her in the back) and at its best is an anictode on the views of millions of people. I voted for MT for reasons you will never accept or understand, fair enough, but you’ll never understand me or millions of others views by projecting your views on to them.

  179. tolkein
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m not the one calling for an independence vote. I’ll note in passing it was the ruling elite in Scotland that made such a financial mess that led to them agreeing to the Union in the first place!
    If the Borders (and Orkney) wanted to stay with rUK, would that be OK?

  180. Mikey d
    Ignored
    says:

    Has endorsed. Predictive bloody txt

  181. Mikey d
    Ignored
    says:

    Tolkein. If the borders and orkney want to stay with the rest of the uk, then they can eff off back there and stop emigrating. Scotland is Scotland. Would england allow cornwall or the iow to breakaway, not bloody likely.

  182. K Campbell
    Ignored
    says:

    Reading this (again, I read it when I was a teen) just reminds me of just how utterly horrified I am of our current situation, whether it be Scotlands’ political landscape or taking the world view.
    My old gran Dot, used to say “it’ll be a blessing when it comes”. Now I truly understand what she meant.Sigh
    Tomorrow will be Alba2 with hope upon hope upon hope to at least try and get us somewhere sane (cannae vote Katie F, sorry, but she said NOTHING about ANYTHING)
    m’on the ALBA (Runrig never leaves ma heid these days 😉 )

  183. alan scott
    Ignored
    says:

    Mikey d says:
    5 May, 2021 at 10:49 pm
    Would england allow cornwall or the iow to breakaway, not bloody likely.
    Why then would the UK allow Scotland to breakaway?

  184. Balaaargh
    Ignored
    says:

    tolkein @ 9:43PM spouted,

    “I’ll note in passing it was the ruling elite in Scotland that made such a financial mess that led to them agreeing to the Union in the first place!”

    “I’ll note in passing it was the ruling elite in Scotland that made such a mess of their own personal finances after the Kingdom of England introduced the Alien Act, they were much easier to be bribed into agreeing to the Union in the first place!”

    FTFY.

  185. Sheepshagger
    Ignored
    says:

    Speaking from Ireland.
    Think about it this way, Big Tobacco has it’s beady eye on Scotland and Big Eck is the fly in the ointment.

  186. Effigy
    Ignored
    says:

    Don’t know if this has been mentioned today but I
    Checked Companies house and it is true that Boris’
    brother was made a Director at Dyson just as the pandemic
    was evolving.

    This could explain why the G Tech Ventilators that had just been developed
    we’re rejected by the Tories, even though it was ready to mass produce,
    to set up a contract with Dyson who had nothing ready to roll out.

    It put citizens lives at risk, it would ultimately give Bojo’s brother and James Dyson
    rich reward for being Tory party donors.

    Is there no limit to Tory blatant corruption?

  187. Mikey d
    Ignored
    says:

    Alan Scott .Because Scotland is a country, not a effin region; now why dont you go and have a have a coffee break down there in hermitage.

  188. Market Force
    Ignored
    says:

    Cadogan Enright

    You seem to be one of the main cheerleaders for the SNP.

    Can YOU tell me what the plan is if Sturgeon gets her Supermajority?

    I am genuinely want to know how Sturgeon is going to take us to becoming an independent nation.

    If you could keep it simple and fairly straightforward it would be much appreciated.

  189. Mikey d
    Ignored
    says:

    Stuart 10.42pm. I dont need any comfort for my beliefs from trolls like you. Are you not due on a coffee break as well?

  190. Derek
    Ignored
    says:

    @lumilumi says:
    5 May, 2021 at 10:10 pm
    As it happens, I went to the library today (YASS! They’re finally open!) and got a book about North Korea.

    It’s by a Finnish scientist and non-fiction writer Kai Myrberg, who’s been a “tourist” in NK and studied its history (as much as is possible here in the “corrupt” west). Pohjois-Koreassa

    I recognised the words because of cheese!

    pohjan poika being “northern boy” brand.

  191. Breastplate
    Ignored
    says:

    Balaaargh,
    For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
    Newton was talking about balance, because that’s pretty much the basis for everything.

    The idea we can enforce restrictions without consequences is delusional.

    Of course, the cheerleaders for these restrictions don’t want anyone pointing out possible detrimental present and future repercussions because it weakens their stance.

    Refusing to concede that changing one side of a formula changes the other side is simply ridiculous.

    I thought this pish had already been dealt with but apparently not.

  192. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @Balaaargh 10.28: I dealt with my mistake in phrasing @9.03, if you had bothered to read it.

    YOU: “No, that’s not how vaccination works. A vaccinated person is significantly LESS likely to be infected or infect someone else. See smallpox, polio, TB, measles, etc. for evidence of that.”

    Those were conventional vaccines which had undergone proper, long trial periods before they received a licence. How can a vaccine developed in six months spot mid to long term risks? As I said before, Covid vaccine developers don’t claim immunity or prevention of infection.

    YOU:”Hospitalisation for a virulent respiratory infection is resource, people, and time intensive. Patients requiring extra oxygen don’t tend to be released after a checkup. From there, you don’t need a large number of cases to overwhelm a health system when you can’t free the beds. Then you have patients lining up in corridors, lining up in the streets. And people who don’t have COVID but also need medical help are now sitting out on those streets. The whole thing snowballs and the system collapses with people dying needlessly.”

    And has this happened since March 2020? Are any of the “Nightingale” hospitals still functioning? I am concerned, however, about the huge number of people suffering from cancer, heart disease and other serious diseases who are finding hard to get treatment because most resources have been diverted to Covid.

    As for your comment on SPR, see my response to Gfaetheblock.

    ME:“Can you explain how a Pfizer vaccine, for example, which has been developed in less than nine months, can be properly evaluated for medium to long-term risks?”

    YOU:”This isn’t true. mRNA vaccines have been under research for 20+ years. Biontech – it’s their vaccine, not Pfizer’s – have been working on developing mRNA technology since 2008 and were submitting patents back in 2015.”

    ME: “Its Stage III trial is due to finish in 2023, I believe. Think through the implications of that for yourself”

    YOU: If you are trying to imply that everyone who gets the vaccine will suddenly grow a third arm in December 2022 then you should take your computer to the edge of the world and throw it over. Correct, the official completion date is estimated to be April 2023 but any ‘implication’ is pure FUD.”

    ME: What I’m saying, Balaaargh is that that, unlike previous conventional vaccines, those receiving Covid vaccines are effectively taking part in a trial. It’s quite amazing Big Pharma companies were anticipating Covid as far back as 2008, according to you. Or worrying, according to your viewpoint.

    I fear “there are numerous flaws with your post.” If you can point me to any proof that the Covid vaccines make me immune or stop me being infectious, with little risk to my health, then I will be happy to “roll up my sleeve.”

  193. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    Rikali says: at 10:38 pm

    …does that mean Wings is actually run by the SNP’s Ministry of Truth to flush out malcontents to be dealt with by Scotland’s growing army of Thought Police?

    I could envisage that it might be difficult to get prosecutions to stick, and incarcerate us all in overcrowded jails if we were to simply self ID as having multiple personalities but being trapped in a singular body, or trapped in the wrong body, which presumably means you could be trapped in someone else’s body…

    I’ll just add “Woman = Adult Female Human” & “Both Votes SNP is a good idea” to cover both bases and prove that I am on occasion pure aff ma fuckin napper. 😉

    I’ve started re-watching Logan’s Run and Gattaca for tips on how to evade capture. Totes got an advantage what with not having “the vaccine” with those trackable chips floating round my bloodstream… 🙂

  194. Market Force
    Ignored
    says:

    This is my own conclusion on why the thick SNP 1 Brigade are Voting for this Sturgeon Supermajority tomorrow.

    It’s because it sounds good.

    It sounds strong, a sign of strength from within Holyrood.

    But what they are overlooking is that Supermajority is in the hands of a sociopathic phycopath.

    There is not a hope in hell of Sturgeon delivering Independence.

    She is as keen on Independence as Boris Johnson.

    She is a Perverted fraud and should be avoided at all costs.

  195. crazycat
    Ignored
    says:

    @ MacLam at 10.40 (and others earlier)

    The number of people registered to vote has increased due to the passing of the Scottish Elections (Franchise and Representation) Act 2020 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2020/6/contents/enacted)
    which :

    “extends voting rights to all foreign nationals with leave to remain, including all those granted refugee status.

    It also extends candidacy rights to foreign nationals with indefinite leave to remain, and to those with pre-settled status.

    This also marks the first time in the history of the Scottish Parliament that a Bill has passed after requiring a super-majority, the support of two thirds of the 129 members elected.
    (https://www.gov.scot/news/right-to-vote-extended/#:~:text=The%20right%20to%20vote%20in,all%20those%20granted%20refugee%20status.)

    My emphasis – the last paragraph is interesting.

  196. Don
    Ignored
    says:

    Saffron Robe 5 May, 2021 at 8:41 pm

    “Do you think when Nicola Sturgeon looks in the mirror she sees Margaret Thatcher looking back at her ? ”

    More likely she sees Eva Peron or Joan of Arc I think
    mind you with the bags under the eyes developing there is a bit of Myra Hindely there too.

  197. James Barr Gardner
    Ignored
    says:

    My concern is why is £30 million being flung at Porton Down to help with Covid variants ?

    Weaponizing the strains is more probably the real objective, it is an MoD facility after all !

    Why was the cash not given to leading commercial scientific laboratory’s especially those with ties to major Universities ?

  198. James Barr Gardner
    Ignored
    says:

    Don says:
    5 May, 2021 at 11:26 pm
    Saffron Robe 5 May, 2021 at 8:41 pm

    “Do you think when Nicola Sturgeon looks in the mirror she sees Margaret Thatcher looking back at her ? ”

    More likely she sees Eva Peron or Joan of Arc I think
    mind you with the bags under the eyes developing there is a bit of Myra Hindely there too.

    I think she is looking more and more like Johann Lamont,…I’ll jist go an git ma jaikit….lol…

  199. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    Hmm… Guess this might annoy the recent influx of entities btl pushing to vote for Sarwar / Labour coz Sturgeon is the devil incarnate.

    https://twitter.com/Grouse_Beater/status/1390063262167883793

  200. Southernbystander
    Ignored
    says:

    It isn’t completely true to say all human societies have this high, middle and low hierarchical structure though. If you look carefully and wide enough you will find societies such as some of those on the rainforests of Papua New Guinea who have completely flat structures, group decision making, working only when necessary and with notions like ‘talent’ meaning little. It would perhaps take an anthropologist to explain how this is and such societies are certainly very rare. But they do exist proving that human beings can behave differently.

  201. cirsium
    Ignored
    says:

    @Dan, 6.22

    Noticed it’s the highest number recorded of 4,280,785 registered to potentially vote in this Scottish election.

    And there are no exit polls. And the electorate have been encouraged to use a postal vote. This is all so reminiscent of the Indyref. I wonder how many names are going to disappear from the electoral roll next year.

  202. Papko
    Ignored
    says:

    Alan Scott

    “Not sure where the hilarity comes from. I’m proud to have voted for Mrs Thatcher – I can’t speak for others.”

    Amazingly more Scots voted for Mrs Thatcher than ever voted for Alex Salmond.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_United_Kingdom_general_election_in_Scotland

    916k Scots voted for her in 1979 as leader of her Party.

    And the most votes the SNP got (when Alex Salmond was there leader is 800k)

    There are lots of old wives stories in Scottish Politics.

  203. Confused
    Ignored
    says:

    Another vote coming up, almost on us – and I am feeling some “strangeness” (Greens predicted to win 13 seats?!)

    Makes me think of Ian Brotherhood’s intriguing story of the “sharp dressed man” the day after the catastrophe of 2014. I would have followed that up – got a sketch artist, done an image search. Either it was some over-subtle prank, aimed at strangers, done for no reason in particular, or it was some shady Brond-figure, who despite decades on the inside, doing dark deeds, feels so disgusted by the things he has had to do, he has to let his conscience speak, even in a small way … nice kickoff point for a story?

    We have to remember, in life in general, when anything valuable is at stake, someone will try to cheat – and remember here, our opponents regard our political aspirations as entirely illegitimate, which for them “justifies” doing whatever it takes – “defence of the realm”. I think we need to wise up. It seems to be that this election is the DESTROY ALBA election, and everyone is in on it; the polling seems odd – it could be the signal is lost in the statistical noise, but maybe the numbers are being massaged.

    In the real world, with imperfect and often out-of-date information, sometimes it is best to just – “assume the worst” – as a precaution as by the time you know the facts, it is much too late to act; in this spirit I have distilled something

    ELECTION RULES FOR CYNICS

    – if there is no exit poll, it’s rigged

    – if there are unusually high postal votes, it’s rigged

    – if there is unusually high turnout, way above historical levels, it’s rigged

    – if there is no separate count of postal votes, it’s rigged

    – if the counting process is not swift and transparent, it’s rigged

    – if voting is allowed over an extended period, it’s rigged

    – if numerous statistical anomalies exist, it’s rigged, but this will not convince the general public as they are innumerate cattle

    – if the media are using bullshit phrases to manage public expectations beforehand like “late surge from the silent majority” or “smashed it in the marginals” – they are setting you up, to dampen suspicion beforehand

    – opinion polls may or may not mean something; they are easier to rig than any real poll and can be used to manipulate opinion rather than simply measure it. Some polls are better than others, but widespread disagreement with the polling consensus, is a red flag; if the media subsequently get the pollster to admit in public how useless they are, this is very suspicious

    – modern spying, social media scanning, website traffic, online posting, sentiment analysis, gives the spooks a really fine-grained notion of who will vote and how, at any given moment; this allows highly specific targeting of floating voters in key marginals – cheating is only done where it is needed, and to that extent. Technology has developed electioneering to high art, then precision engineering – but only establishment parties will have access to this datastream

    – when something valuable is up for grabs, someone will try to steal it

    – rules against photography and sharing your vote – snapping your ballot and hand and uploading it to twitter – are not there to “preserve the sacred anonymity of the vote” but to prevent anyone providing an independent audit afterwards, or a realtime count

    – if some obvious security measure is missing, it will be deliberate

    – “shit that goes on in banana republics” also goes on here

    – election rigging is a well studied art, with experts in it; just because YOU cannot see how something is done, does not mean it isn’t done; I don’t know how to rob banks or do brain surgery.

    – Israel, full of the most suspicious, but perceptive and quick-witted people on earth has – no postal votes, you vote in person, you put the ballot in 2 envelopes and the result is known on the day

    – paper ballots are not all that secure, but better than full electronic voting; hackers with sufficient skill can make the result anything they want

    – augmenting the paper ballot with newer, distributed and cryptographically secure public ledger systems could be done – but no one is in any hurry to do this

    – if the ballots are destroyed quickly afterwards, it’s rigged

    – if the ballots are kept for a significant period, then are destroyed -accidentally- while a court case for election fraud is live … you get the idea

  204. James Che.
    Ignored
    says:

    Stuart, its good that every body can learn something from the post above, fact fiction or supposition of the future we are maybe heading into,
    What I gained personally myself is not to be blinkered to anyone or by anyone wishing to statelike impose one glove fits all, from children being indoctrinated, or separated from parents, to the rights of all humans to live in peace, industrial in their own endeavours to the benifit of themselves or their families, not to be set one against another like hyenas around a carcass, to recognise that a smile, can do more to a persons sole for a whole day than harsh put downs.
    Have you ever watched the animation film monsters i n c, where they harnessed children’s terrorised fears for energy and profit,
    While all the time laughter created a much more powerful energy and children were happy,
    Sort of the reverse of what rulers believe.
    I am overwhelmed with the thought of a happier tomorrow, for laughter, and to set some things in reverse, and perhaps having a chance to right at least a small portion of the world.
    We will live in hope.

  205. boris
    Ignored
    says:

    https://caltonjock.com/2021/05/05/oliver-mundells-past-indiscretion-surfaces-at-an-inopportune-times/

    I’m really sorry if my point of view has been upsetting or misinterpreted but, rather than engaging in petty student politics, I’m moving forward with my plans to make the Student’s Union more representative.”

    He was not elected. Evidently his fellow students disagreed with his statement about being unconcerned about engaging in “petty Student politics”

  206. Stuart
    Ignored
    says:

    Mickley D, absolutely excellent comment you’d make a tremendous study in to Cognitive Dissonance, however I fear it wouldn’t take that long ! Oh and I don’t drink coffee, thanks for asking.

  207. Al-Stuart
    Ignored
    says:

    .
    Hi Cadogan,

    You probably know this already, but there is NOTHING “GENUINE” about what the latest incarnation of GANG-RAPE-TROLL is posting on Wings BTL in the fecklesss effort to bait Wingers in engaging with him/her/it…

    ———————————

    Market Force says:
    5 May, 2021 at 11:05 pm
    Cadogan Enright

    You seem to be one of the main cheerleaders for the SNP.

    Can YOU tell me what the plan is if Sturgeon gets her Supermajority?

    I am genuinely want to know how Sturgeon is going to take us to becoming an independent nation.

    If you could keep it simple and fairly straightforward it would be much appreciated.

    (Faux politeness ~ you are guaranteed to be called a paedophile or have your wife the subject of GANG RAPE taunt by the end of this creep’s trolling).

    ——————————————————-

    THE UBER-TROLL who advocates GANG RAPE.

    The NEWEST sock-puppet name he/she/it has registered is: “Market Force”. This low-life has of course been haunting the Wings Over Scotland BTL for months. His/her/its grammar, syntax and abusive messages are pretty much a copy-and-paste fingerprint.

    How can we tell? Well EVERYONE on Wings who votes SNP1/Alba2 is a PEDO according to Uber-Troll. Also his penchant for using three commas ,,, and other fingerprints too.

    What disturbs me is this nasty piece of work ADVOCATES GANG RAPE ABUSE against someone he was Trolling. The message is duplicated below to indicate the level at which this lawless creep slithers.

    As part of a Public Service Announcement for GENUINE new contributors to Wings Over Scotland, here are the names used by the Gang Rape Troll.

    Now you have a list of this persona’s other dishonest fake names, you can choose to scroll past some of the worst it has.
    Why?

    THIS ABUSIVE TROLL DERAILS EVERY ARTICLE.

    IF YOU ENGAGE WITH HIM/HER/IT HE WILL LIBEL YOU AS A PEDO OR SUGGEST HIS MATES RAPE YOUR WIFE…

    Rock
    Hudson
    KcoR
    Gordon
    Andy
    Labour4Indy
    Patrick Jones
    Eugene Henderson
    Stainless Steel
    Market Force

    There are a couple more SUSPECT sock-puppet accounts/names he has registered and is growing, but the BTL posts from those have not yet posted sufficient for the authorities to action. Yet. More updates each time Gang-Rape-Troll hides behind a new sock-puppet name. You can usually tell his next name as it has a meltdown and mega rant with dog’s abuse each time one of his carefully nurtured earlier fake names is exposed.

    —————————————————

    One of his worst of many inflammatory “contributions” BTL from the odious fake ID Troller PatrickJones/Gordon/Hudson/Rock/kcoR/Andy/Labour4Indy/Stainless Steel/EugeneHenderson/StainlessSteel/MarketForce is this…

    1 May, 2021 at 2:37pm

    QUOTE…

    “Patrick Jones says:(to Garrion)

    “You’re funny.

    Howz your wife, she still got that birth mark at the top of her thighs?

    Me an the mates used to spend many a night around that area.

    It was a Bastard if you were Last though.

    Send her our love.” .

    ALLEGATIONS OF MULTIPLE RAPE BY THE TROLL AND HIS MATES IS SERIOUSLY BEYOND THE PALE.

    On what planet can that abuse by the Patrick Jones the lonely Troll with AT LEAST TEN fake SOCK PUPPET accounts be acceptable as “debate”?

  208. cynicalHighlander
    Ignored
    says:

    If anyone needs any help vote ALBA.

    https://twitter.com/Rossmatthews86/status/1390052250433769475

  209. Stuart
    Ignored
    says:

    papko, and not just in Scottish politics, everywhere the MSM infects id say

  210. Stuart
    Ignored
    says:

    Al Stuart , whats occurring? You’ve.left me off your list!!!!

  211. Stuart
    Ignored
    says:

    James Che, very well said would like to think that’s what most of us wish for, irrespective of politics.

  212. Al-Stuart
    Ignored
    says:

    .
    Stuart,

    I apologised to you.

    You threw it back in my face.

    You’ve been making snide remarks ever since.

    You simply don’t see the wider picture of what has happened here.

    I really don’t want anything to do with you. You are an obnoxious jerk.

    You have no grace; no style; no class and are boring.

    As the site owner said earlier this evening (paraphrased)…

    Barring a miracle tomorrow I’m off”

    I don’t blame hm. He has to wade through 50% of BTL shit to get to any notion of normal debate.

    Stuart, you have played your part in the demise of self determination for the people of Scotland.

    I just hope the Rev has one final stonking swan-song article before he shuts up shop.

    I suspect this “Living In Oceana” might be that very penultimate feature.

    Indeed I hope a one-year sabbatical will be enough to recharge his batteries and that HIS intelligent and incisive views will be published on a resurrected Wings Over Scotland website.

    As for you “Stuart”. Just go on posting your snide crap. You’ve only a few more days left before the owner of Wings does what he said and calls it a day. Frankly, with all the pish and excrement on BTL nowadays such as that of your wee best pall Patrick Jones et al., who can blame the Rev.

  213. Stuart
    Ignored
    says:

    Oh man I know you don’t do irony, but thought at least you’d possess a modicum of a sense of humour! Anyway lifes too short and as you rightly said you apologised to me so fair enough , all the best Stuart

  214. Sheepshagger
    Ignored
    says:

    Went to school in Scotland, never learnt about Foyers hydroelectric /aluminium smelter built in 1896.
    Scotland’s industrial birthright has been stolen.

  215. Davie170
    Ignored
    says:

    Al Stuart. 11.55

    I think you are mentally ill mate.

    You come out with this shite night after night.

    Nobody gives a flying fuck what you think. You seem to be obsessed with pointing out who you think is a troll.

    Jesus fuck, there is a Scottish General Election tomorrow and all you can think about is your stupid irrelevant List.

    Anywhere else and you would have been called out as a Stalker.

    And by the way, the guy Patrick Jones you mention, who is related to the story of his mates and a certain female, well going by what you are alleging, the woman doesn’t seem to have been gang raped, infact by the sounds of it she seemed to have been a very willing participant and actually enjoyed the guys being around her.

    So it’s you who is actually making false allegations about a female who enjoyed the company of a few of her male friends.

    So I think it is you who should retract your story.

    And I repeat again, you are mentally ill and should maybe go for a lie down.

    Remember, it’s the big election day and wee Nicola us waiting on your vote.

  216. Market Force
    Ignored
    says:

    I have been asking some of the SNP 1 Brigade to explain the plan once Sturgeon gets this Supermajority, and not one has replied.

    Is it because there is no plan?

    I think this is closer to the Truth.

    So if there is no plan for Indy, are we not better getting shot of Sturgeon and her creeps at the ballot box tomorrow?

    I would think so.

    You all know the consequences if Sturgeon gets her way, it’s all down hill from then on in.

  217. Terry
    Ignored
    says:

    Rev – dont give up. I wouldn’t blame you. But having been out campaigning with Alex today and seeing his energy and commitment well, it’s inspiring.

    Have yourself a wee break. The court of session is coming up. That should be good.

  218. James Che.
    Ignored
    says:

    Davie 170, unless you are acquainted with that mans wife, and were part of the suggested abuse towards the woman personally, I would suggest your bordering on defamation of the ladies character and insulting her marriage and husband,
    Try being nice instead of being an abuser.
    The world is a bad enough place.

  219. Balaaargh
    Ignored
    says:

    “Balaaargh 10.28: I dealt with my mistake in phrasing @9.03, if you had bothered to read it.”

    Tinto,

    I read so many mistakes of yours yet my one was missing a single correction slid in to another post. Never mind, eh.

    “Those were conventional vaccines which had undergone proper, long trial periods before they received a licence. How can a vaccine developed in six months spot mid to long term risks?”

    As I said before, this is FUD. Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. Long trial periods and licenses are not what you are trying to imply they are – the ‘only’ way to be safe. Long study periods happen because there was only ever a finite pot of funding from governments and private sector investment for hundreds of research projects globally. Researchers spend a good chunk of effort chasing the money so they can progress their research to the next phase. Taking years to get a drug to market isn’t always a good thing.

    Licenses allow medicines to be used for multiple treatments not just what they were initially scoped for and hold the Pharma responsible for addressing long term adverse effects. If you had read the COVID legislation, you’d already know that it is Westminster which has, based on the evidence from ALL phases, granted emergency usage of the vaccines specifically for COVID-19 and that if there are issues, then the government takes on that risk.

    Finally, a vaccine is very different from a medicine. Vaccines are proactive and help the body learn how to produce antibodies. When the vaccine is no longer present in the host, there is literally nothing left to create a mid to long term risk. Medicines are reactive and help the body by attacking whatever is causing the problem. Medicines can be taken for short periods (painkillers) or long term (e.g., statins). There is no differentiator in the research process but that does not make the vaccine less safe in this case.

    “As I said before, Covid vaccine developers don’t claim immunity or prevention of infection.

    Carlsberg didn’t claim they were the best beer in the world. Likewise Pharma companies won’t claim immunity because they don’t. Immunity is an absolute term, you ‘get it’ or you ‘don’t get it’. Vaccines reduce the ‘get it’ part. No vaccine is 100% effective and not every person can receive a vaccine. This is why the much abused term of herd immunity is so important.

    “And has this happened since March 2020? Are any of the “Nightingale” hospitals still functioning?

    This has been happening in countries across the world since then, so yes. And it still is. I have several colleagues who are extremely concerned about their families back in India right now (after Modi announced at the start of the year they had beaten COVID). If you had paid attention to that earlier comment, you should have picked up on the phrase “resource, people, and time intensive.” There are only a finite number of trained staff in the NHS and if every doctor and nurse has been pulled in to support their colleagues in A&E, etc., to maintain a 24 hour service, then are no doctors or surgeons available for other patients. Likewise with the Nightingale hospitals – if there’s no staff then it’s a white elephant. The BMJ published a paper last year putting the blame for that straight at the feet of 10 years tory austerity.

    “I am concerned, however, about the huge number of people suffering from cancer, heart disease and other serious diseases who are finding hard to get treatment because most resources have been diverted to Covid.”

    Won’t someone think of the children! An appeal to emotion is just another logical fallacy. Every decent human being is concerned about how this virus has tied up our health service. So the quicker we get rid of the thing, the quicker we can move on.

    “As for your comment on SPR, see my response to Gfaetheblock.”

    I’ve already posted links before about the junk science used by Swiss Propaganda Research over the last wee while. If only you had bothered to read them.

    “What I’m saying, Balaaargh is that that, unlike previous conventional vaccines, those receiving Covid vaccines are effectively taking part in a trial. It’s quite amazing Big Pharma companies were anticipating Covid as far back as 2008, according to you. Or worrying, according to your viewpoint.”

    Not a very impressive straw man. I did not say that “Big Pharma companies were anticipating Covid as far back as 2008”. What I said was that Biontech were developing mRNA technology since 2008. mRNA is not a vaccine. It is the deployment method of a vaccine containing instructions for the body to build a part of the virus which the body’s immune system then uses to create antibodies against. And it doesn’t change your DNA.

    And Big Pharma were not anticipating COVID. There is constant work and research undertaken by the WHO across the globe monitoring viral outbreaks and how to potentially react to them. Ironically, Netflix released a documentary in January 2020 called “Pandemic: How to avoid an outbreak”.

    “Or worrying, according to your viewpoint.”

    That viewpoint is for the conspiracy theorist too busy looking for monsters under the bed instead of getting in it.

    “I fear “there are numerous flaws with your post.” If you can point me to any proof that the Covid vaccines make me immune or stop me being infectious, with little risk to my health, then I will be happy to “roll up my sleeve.”

    I’m not feart at all about anything I’ve said. I’ve already said you that you’re being disingenuous about demanding absolute proof of immunity but there are plenty of papers showing a massively reduced risk of infection or virus shedding such as,

    https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-covid-vaccines-breakthrough-infections-variants

    Or there’s this one: https://www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n1112

    How about: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7013e3.htm

    Finally for now, https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciab361/6253721

  220. Davie170
    Ignored
    says:

    James che

    What the Fuck are you talking about ya fuckin Wanker.

    It’s that lunatic Al Stuart you want to be talking to, he is the Bam who repeatedly posts s story he knows nothing about.

    Read the fuckin story

    Is this the SNP 1 Brigade coming together?

    If Al Stuart is you or if he is listening to you, then I would advise him to stop posting that story, unless he is going to back up his story with facts.

    The guy is mentally fuckin Ill. He needs urgent medical attention.

    Unless you are him, then it’s you who needs medical attention.

  221. Davie170
    Ignored
    says:

    No wonder the Rev is packing it in with zoomers like Al Stuart/James che hanging around his website.

  222. Market Force
    Ignored
    says:

    “Vote SNP 1 and ALBA 2 so child molesters and Chicks with Dicks get access to female changing rooms and toilets.”

    “This will lead to women and young girls being sexually assaulted in places that were once women only spaces.”

    There, sorted that for you crazy, dyed in the wool Sturgeonistas….

    The Rev Stu says:-

    “So we’re making a plea from the heart. Spoil your constituency paper, readers. For children, for women, for gay people, for Scotland and for kindness”.

    The Rev also tells us to vote for Sarwar if you are in the Glasgow Southside Constituency.

  223. Hatuey
    Ignored
    says:

    Confused: “all the driving jobs will go soon; drones will do deliveries. Unless you have some truly high end skill, and I mean something a machine cannot do, or be trained to do, there is not much future for you. Concert pianist? Pro athlete? Pop star? – it’s not a basis for mass employment. The emergence of a genuine AI leaves us all no more than the fleas on a dog’s back.”

    And that, again, is exactly the sort of argument they used against mechanisation in the 19th century. It’s why they deliberately jammed their sabots in the machines (as in saboteurs…), as I recall.

    What you and the Marxists don’t seem willing to factor in is the new jobs and industries that technology also creates. Look at smart phones and apps, for example, and consider the millions of jobs they have created — not all of those jobs are highly skilled either.

    People are naturally creative and productive. Nothing will stop them finding things to do.

  224. Meg merrilees
    Ignored
    says:

    Sheepshagger@12.26
    Re Scotland’s industrial history ignored.
    I never knew until a couple of years ago that the first factory to use electricity was in Deanston, just outside Doune, in the late 1800’s and, if memory serves me correctly they advised Albert and Queen Victoria on setting up an electricity supply in Buckingham house.

  225. Rikali
    Ignored
    says:

    Dan

    I could envisage that it might be difficult to get prosecutions to stick, and incarcerate us all in overcrowded jails if we were to simply self ID …

    ———-

    I am sure there is fine print somewhere reserving self-ID to those in good standing with the Wokerati!

    Certainly, it would be unavailable to those who wilfully defy Big Sister and her Manichaean Guard.

  226. Hatuey
    Ignored
    says:

    On Rev packing it in…

    I couldn’t in good conscience advise the man to stick with it. There’s better stuff for him to do out there… a world full of beauty and awesomeness.

    Politics is shit; it beats you every time.

    Go explore, Rev. Walk on sandy shores. Go up mountains. Lose yourself in forests. Take some photographs, you seem pretty good at that.

    This crap will grind you to dust.

  227. holymacmoses
    Ignored
    says:

    I hope you’re writing the book Wings.

    Is Sturgeon bright enough or is someone manipulating her?

  228. Daisy Walker
    Ignored
    says:

    Since we are talking about thought crimes, can anyone answer the following?

    How many SNP List votes will it take to change a lightbulb?

    I think the answer is all of them – cause they must have been doing something to keep themselves occupied when they should have been getting us our Indy. But I’m sure there are better answers out there.

    But then again, perhaps the answer is None of them because the lightbulb doesn’t need to ‘change’ it can just Self ID

    Having slept on it, I now realise this question was wrong. It should have been:

    How many lightbulbs will it take to switch the SNP on.

    And on that note, I’m away oot to put up posters at the stations. Miracles do happen – its 0542 in the morning and no-one is forcing me to do this.

  229. Carol Neill
    Ignored
    says:

    Just back from putting a board up at local polling station , first one there ,5am in the snow 🙂

  230. Shocked
    Ignored
    says:

    @rev Stu

    You appear to be scunnered, I don’t blame you, so am I.

    You’ve spent months forensically exposing for corruption at the heart of Scottish politics and pointing out where we are heading and yet there are people who come on here who either can’t or don’t want to understand what your saying and continue to support the SNP. At the end of the day you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.

    The reactions of some of the pro SNP crowd to this article are absolutely priceless, these people are beyond saving. When we get our SNP/Green coalition today I suppose the main question for a lot of folks will be do they want to put up with 5 more years of this shit and watch Scotland descend into the mire or do they just lack their bags and leave.

    You tried your best, it’s not your fault the people you tried to save weren’t worth it.

  231. David Holden
    Ignored
    says:

    Good morning to you all on polling day. I would in previous years have been down at the school to see the boxes sealed but as an ex SNP member not this year. There are no SNP boards in the village apart from in private homes as that was also one of my jobs. I offered to put them up but through poor communication from the branch only got the message on Monday night and when I replied they said not to bother. On my vote they said Alba H and I were hopeless and if I couldn’t vote Green Andy Wightman was a safe vote. My flabber was gasted as I don’t want safe I want independence and will vote Alba and my SNP1 vote is in doubt. My intention for months was to go ISP2 but as they did the honourable thing and gave Alba a clear run it will be Alba. I feel badly let down by the SNP and that is down to one woman and her weak group of hangers on.

  232. Socrates MacSporran
    Ignored
    says:

    In roughly 20 minutes’ time, the polling stations will open; all the predictions and polls will become meaningless as, finally, the Sovereign People of Scotland get their say.

    We will not know what they have said until Saturday night, then we can maybe begin to make sense of it all.

    The opinion polls this week have been all over the place, so, we realy cannot know how today will pan-out properly.

    I would dearly love to see Sturgeon out on her erse in Glasgow Southside – that would be the real wake-up call for an SNP which has, like “Scottish” Labour before it, started to take their core support for granted.

    But, should she survive, I dearly hope it is with a reduced number of SNP MSPs, in the perhaps-forlorn hope, it will get her back to the basics of SNP membership – and really going for Independence.

    Even more-dearly, I want to see Alex Salmond back inside Holyrood, agitating for Independence and holding the SNP’s feet to the fire on that crucial subject.

    Sturgeon’s worst nightmare is having Eck, backed by two or three other ALBA MSPs, questioning her every week at FMQs. She has wasted enough time, by ignoring Independence. Let’s hope, when Holyrood reconvenes, we begin, at last, to get movement towards our Freedom.

    Me, I will definitely be voting ALBA on the List, even now, before I vote – I am still swithering as to whether or not I can give my Constituency vote to the SNP. At the moment, I am favouring spoiling that paper.

  233. Effigy
    Ignored
    says:

    Men and Women fought long and hard giving up so much that
    I might have a vote.

    I will use that vote.

    Not use it as a scribbling pad not make notes that will be completely ignored but
    to nominate someone or some party who are even perceived to be the best of a bad
    lot.

    Never, ever will I vote for a party based in another country who collectively have treated Scots
    as second class citizens who they can legally lie to and take any resources they chose to at any
    time and deny our human rights as a sovereign nation.

    I greatly respect and agree with so much the Rev says but I will have to vote SNP and it’s made
    a little easier as the woman I vote for is a woman and a hard working individual with genuine care about my community.

    If it was possible, Alex and Alba would have both my votes today but he most definitely have my
    second vote today. If the party can continue to grow, Alba will have all my future votes.

    The cancer that is Westminster must be excised from Scotland forever and I will never rest until
    we again control our own future.

    Many Irish citizens have a cross as a headstone having given their life for the freedom of their
    nation. I can mark a cross on a ballot paper with teeth clenched to free my country and tell the
    London Parties they are not wanted here.

  234. Captain Yossarian
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Socrates MacSporran – I think Alex will need another 4No MSP’s with him in order to be able to ask a question at FMQ’s.

    Before you jump down my throat, I like Salmond. I don’t agree with him all of the time but, like you, I reckon he will bring new life to Holyrood.

    5 is the critical number for him.

  235. The Isolator
    Ignored
    says:

    Oh oh just seen the Daily Retard front page.Surgeon go take a flyin fuck tae yersel.

    Alba on the list and spoilt constituency paper it is.Sorry Alex I’m oot.

  236. John
    Ignored
    says:

    The ‘War on COVID’ is obviously political. No more die than in a bad flu season.
    I hope ‘social distancing’ doesn’t allow vote count tampering.

  237. Gfaetheblock
    Ignored
    says:

    Balaaargh @ 01.09

    Thank you for an excellent post, you have more patience than me.

  238. Willie
    Ignored
    says:

    In all good conscience I cannot after a lifetime of voting SNP put my cross on the ballot paper for the SNP.

    The SNP has not just lost its way, it has become hostile. The actions of Sturgeon and her clique are testimony to that. They will not change. They, like the Labour Party before them have become corrupt and arrogant and re-electing them will only reinforce their behaviour.

    And so in my constituency, I believe there will be many who will vote to retain the incumbent member rather than vote for the SNP candidate who they see as a carpetbagger gerrymandered in by the candidate rigging SNP leadership.

    For them, the failure to take a seat the SNP were never going to win is not a loss in parliamentary arithmetic. And thus a vote for the incumbent will serve to send a message to the SNP. They are unpopular and I think when the votes are done and dusted that will become clear.

    Surgeon needs to go and voting for her will not achieve that.

    On the other hand the enthusiasm for Alba is I believe immense. From a standing start only five weeks ago voters know how giving their second vote to them could change not just the parliamentary arithmetic but the parliamentary dynamic.

    A sleeping parliament under attack and utterly swamped by a hostile Tory Westminster would be reinvigorated. NHS privatisation, Scottish identity destruction, post Brexit reductions in health, workplace and environmental standards would be resisted vigorously.

    And so for me it is Alba, excise the rotten SNP leadership, and get our parliament back on track.

  239. Dorothy Devine
    Ignored
    says:

    been and gone and done it.

    I didn’t realise we had an ‘Abolish Holyrood party’ -top of the list on the list vote!

  240. Kiwilassie
    Ignored
    says:

    Tinto Chiel says:
    5 May, 2021 at 9:03 pm
    @Stephen: “We vaccinate our children for a range of diseases.
    Why should this one be any different?”

    Because these vaccinations are black triangle ones which have not gone through the much longer period of tests/evaluations for a vaccine, usually anything between 4-10 years.

    Reply
    I agree with you Tinto Chiel. I’m in my 70s & haven’t had the jag yet. I recon I won’t bother when they become available in NZ. The government here isn’t pushing the vaccines the way other countries are. I’m grateful for that as it’s still in the experimental stage. We haven’t spent much time in lockdown here & life is back to normal. We’ve been lucky with the way the government has handled things thus far.
    My son however, who lives in Singapore has already had his 2nd one & he’s just 45yrs old.
    He felt unwell afterwards & had a high temperature for a few hrs. He blamed his reaction to his being tired, as he had spent the night in the hospital as his wife was giving birth to a son.

    He was unable to go to the hospital for the evening visit, having a high temperature. His two girls had to wait till the following day to meet their new brother.

  241. Ian Brotherhood
    Ignored
    says:

    @Balaaargh, Gfaetheblock et al –

    The following won’t change your minds but pretty-much covers the reasons many of us are not taking ‘the jag’.

    Forgive me if I don’t get into an exchange about it all. Tinto has a lot more patience and natural diplomacy.

    https://www.deconstructingconventional.com/post/18-reason-i-won-t-be-getting-a-covid-vaccine

    Hope you all have a good day, vote with clear consciences, and get the results you are hoping for. (Kind of like getting the jag, eh?)

    😉

  242. Al-Stuart
    Ignored
    says:

    .
    Oh dear,

    “Davie 170” aka Patrick Jones/Rock Hudson and all the other sock-puppet accounts, I seem to have touched a raw nerve. Especialy as “Davie 170” is a new account, yet you seem so familiar. Have we met before. Any fresh libel in your box of sick troll-bait?

    Davie170/Patrick/Gordon/Rock/Andy, you REALLY don’t get why I am calling you out do you? Because you have WASTED the time of so many people when this site would normally be having civilised debate on how to secure SELF DETERMINATION FOR SCOTLAND.

    As for your deluded allegations about my being mentally ill. Sorry “mate” (by the way, the term is “pal” in Scotland, but as a grunt 77th squaddie you feel free to revert to your local dialect:, wi summat daarn sarf about you maytey innit).

    Nope “Davie 170” you are utterly wrong and lying. Again.

    For the record and to refute your slur termed in a libellous manner, I was tested thoroughly for mental illness by the police doctor and psyche panel (and positively vetted) before becoming a specialist forensic detective in Strathclyde Police.

    That’s how I can deduce in the “balance of probabilities” (which is all I need to capture you pal), plus a strong likelihood of a prosecution “beyond reasonable doubt”.

    “Davie 170” you are one and the same person with your ELEVEN sock-puppet accounts.

    In fact “mate” if anyone is in the DSM-5 manual of mental health disorders it is you. That is borderline multiple-personality mental illness you display on EVERY BTL thread on Wings. Even here, right after my post, we have THREE of your multiple personality accounts talking to each other. Good grief, if that ain’t signs of the DSM-5 (now updated) I know not what is.

    Even non-police trained readers here can see you are the same person. Exhibit A at the foot of this post. You rant disgusting abuse at James Che when the guy basically and POLITELY asks you to be civil.

    “Davie 170”, your M.O., is to try and appear nice at the lifecycle start of each new sock-puppet account you register. Then you quickly draw many into your abusive time-wasting world where your victim is so disgusted at being libelled as a PEDO for voting SNP1to help get an Alba PPC elected MSP that they fee the need to defend themselves against your vicious (and illegal) onslaught.

    Then as per your words quoted below, you start quibbling whether the person you are abusing’s wife has been GANG RAPED or as your latest post states to your victim: YOUR WIFE WAS NOT GANG RAPED, SHE IS A WHORE. Patrick/Gordon/KcoR/Davie170, you disgust me. Have you no honour; no style; no dignity? What drugs are they feeding you that you write these obscenities?

    You really are a charmer.

    By the way, what you are doing is illegal and we will address that conduct of yours elsewhere.

    Nope “Davie 170” your days of being stalker-troll disrupting every thread on Wings are coming to an end. Scotland IS still in the UK and YOU ARE still subject to the UK law.

    As part of a Public Service Announcement for GENUINE new contributors to Wings Over Scotland, here are the names used by the “YOUR WIFE HAS BEEN GANG RAPED” Troll and/or his multiple-personality friend the “YOUR WIFE IS A WHORE” Troll.

    One way or another “Davie 170” you have been captured.

    For NORMAL readers of Wings who simply want SELF DETERMINATION FOR SCOTLAND AND INDYREF2 here is a list of this persona’s other dishonest fake names, you can choose to scroll past some of the worst it has.

    Why?

    THIS ABUSIVE TROLL DERAILS EVERY ARTICLE.

    IF YOU ENGAGE WITH HIM/HER/IT HE WILL LIBEL YOU AS A PEDO OR SUGGEST HIS MATES’ RAPE YOUR WIFE OR THAT SHE IS A WHORE…

    Davie 170
    Patrick Jones
    Eugene Henderson
    Stainless Steel
    Market Force
    Rock
    Hudson
    KcoR
    Gordon
    Andy
    Labour4Indy

    There are a couple more SUSPECT sock-puppet accounts/names he has registered and is growing, but the BTL posts from those have not yet posted sufficient for the authorities to action. Yet. More updates each time Gang-Rape-Troll/Your-Wife-Is-A-Whore Troll hides behind a new sock-puppet name. You can usually tell his next name as he/she/it has a meltdown and mega-rant with dog’s abuse each time one of his carefully nurtured earlier fake names is exposed.

    ——————————————————-

    quote…

    “Davie170 says:
    6 May, 2021 at 1:16 am

    James che

    What the Fuck are you talking about ya fuckin Wanker.

    It’s that lunatic Al Stuart you want to be talking to, he is the Bam who repeatedly posts s story he knows nothing about.

    Read the fuckin story

    Is this the SNP 1 Brigade coming together?

    If Al Stuart is you or if he is listening to you, then I would advise him to stop posting that story, unless he is going to back up his story with facts.

    The guy is mentally fuckin Ill. He needs urgent medical attention.

    Unless you are him, then it’s you who needs medical attention.
    And by the way, the guy Patrick Jones you mention, who is related to the story of his mates and a certain female, well going by what you are alleging, the woman doesn’t seem to have been gang raped, infact by the sounds of it she seemed to have been a very willing participant and actually enjoyed the guys being around her.

    In other words, “Davie 170” is saying “Your wife is a whore”. Nice.

    ——————————————————

    James Che. says:
    6 May, 2021 at 12:48 am
    Davie 170, unless you are acquainted with that mans wife, and were part of the suggested abuse towards the woman personally, I would suggest your bordering on defamation of the ladies character and insulting her marriage and husband,
    Try being nice instead of being an abuser.
    The world is a bad enough

    ——————————————————

  243. wee monkey
    Ignored
    says:

    Helen Yates says:
    5 May, 2021 at 3:00 pm

    Quote:- “I’ve realised there is little point in giving your opinion on most things, people will see only what they want to see and hear only what they want to hear..

    ..when I look at how divided we are as a country and the forces at work against us, I can’t for the life of me see it ever becoming a reality..”

    Open and inquiring minds are the first thing that any despot needs to curb.
    —–

    Effigy says:
    6 May, 2021 at 7:19 am
    Quote:-
    “I greatly respect and agree with so much the Rev says but I will have to vote SNP and it’s made
    a little easier as the woman I vote for is a woman and a hard working individual with genuine care about my community.”

    I REST MY CASE.

  244. Dan
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Hatuey

    More from our ever caring “Government”.
    Well we don’t want those poor humans getting RSI handling all those pesky ballot papers. They are to be liberated from their toils of counting votes and using a calculator, and will soon have time to explore the mountains or walking on a sandy beach instead 🙂

    Idox (AIM: IDOX), a leading supplier of specialist information management software and solutions, today announces a contract with the Scottish Government and Scottish Local Authorities, to deliver the electronic counting of ballot papers for the scheduled Local Authority elections in 2022 and future Scottish elections.

    https://archive.is/oe8kl

    Next up, our caring “Government” will further ease the burden on its citizens by casting their votes for them…

  245. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @Balaaargh 1.09: I’ve heard this argument that these vaccines have appeared quickly because so much funding is possible but I simply fail to see how the producers can identify risks over such a short time period. The AZ vaccine already has already run into problems, as I am sure you know, causing its use to be suspended. A proper trial period would have avoided this situation.

    The fact that governments are indemnifying the pharmaceutical companies does not fill me with confidence, I’m afraid. As for the rest of your reply, it’s basically a question of trust for me and I think fear, uncertainty and doubt (to use your phrase) has been exploited to make the vaccines the passport to a return to “normal” for most people and I expect we will be told that boosters will be necessary in the autumn or that more jabs will be required for emerging strains, and so on. Huge amounts of money will be made vaccinating people who are at low risk of becoming ill.

    Your description of SPR as “junk science” is your opinion, of course, like everything else in your post but then you are just someone on the internet like myself, entitled to an opinion and which science to believe but thanks for the links anyway.

  246. Robert Hughes
    Ignored
    says:

    Thanks for that link Ian Brotherhood . It encapsulates all the reservations I have regarding this whole shit-show .

    I missed your final comment last night Stephen , all the best to you too .

    Thanks also to Tinto for your contributions to the conversation .

    Mon ALBA !!

  247. Hatuey
    Ignored
    says:

    Dan “Next up, our caring “Government” will further ease the burden on its citizens by casting their votes for them…”

    When you factor in the role of the BBC and media generally, that’s pretty much what they do now.

    They’re all right behind Nicola in this one.

    I thought it was interesting to see the Tories campaigning for second votes earlier in the week… with the BBC and British State supporting Nicola, they know they’d be banging their heads against a wall if they tried to compete for first votes, and sort of getting in the way.

  248. Paul Short
    Ignored
    says:

    Just for those too depressed at the apparent unstoppability of the 1984 analysis (of Orwell) – there is one huge and gaping hole in this, which is understandable because Orwell was not an economist. It is that the society he suggests (and warns against, of course) would be unable to continue long. The idea of wealth controlled from above and wealth production controlled from above seems on the surface to be straightforward, but productivity simply doesn’t work that way. On the one hand greater investment in machinery/digital/automation/whatever compared to actual people creates a massive problem in generating profits in aggregate – because machines/IT etc is essentially sold at the discounted value of its future production output. Only people can be obliged to work for less than the value of what they produce. Fewer people – less aggregate profit. This is the main worry economists (who know what they’re talking about, which is’t most) have – profitabilty drops, as it has been dropping steadily (trend downwards) for the past century. Yet the first ones to bring in the new equipment etc gains profits from those with old equipment – well you get the picture. So in the end (how long? Piece of string stuff) Oceania, Eurasia and all the rest start to collapse, unable to fund even their strapped-down, controlled, and in the end the starvation-level economic situation they will bring in (as part of the War Effort). The USSR fell because producitivity and profitability collapsed. More complex but it wasn’t socialist, it was state capitalism. I think (can be corrected) it was Lenin who said that you don’t’ get revolutions when the ruled don’t want to be ruled any more, you get them when the rulers can’t manage to rule any more. Does that apply to Sturgeon? Well probably a bit – their control is limited, time limited in effect and also in terms of making things better in Scotland for ordinary people. Mind you Sturgeon’ll be off in 2 or 3 years (ten years is the norm at the top) and won’t care. Anyway Orwell was a git (mind you, I’m from Wigan).

  249. Thistle's Bristles
    Ignored
    says:

    Tinto Chiel says:
    5 May, 2021 at 3:07 pm
    Yeah, but hope still lies with the proles, right? ? .

    Those similarities between Thatcher and Sturgeon are chilling, particularly since I hadn’t noticed them before.

    What next? Compulsory Two Minutes Hate for Salmond aka Goldstein before each NEC meeting?

    It’s already happened, though differently.

    I was strongly reminded of the Two Minutes Hate by the response I saw and heard within the Scottish Green Party upon the resignation of Andy Wightman.

    More than a few members posted comments critical of or expressing outright hatred of Wightman cf ‘Goldstein’:
    ‘good riddance’ being among the more polite.

    Emergency [damage-limitation] messages were swiftly emailed to the membership jointly by the party co-leaders Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater and – separately jointly – by the two current co-conveners of the SGP Council, who declared themselves ready to listen to anyone’s concerns.
    The very same day one of these co-convenors posted on Slack that ‘he [Andy Wightman] always had thought that he was more important than the Party’.
    So much for impartial listening!

    Members were also urged by them to restrict any discussion of this matter to the internal SGP forum on Slack, not openly on wider social media.

    (This was not wholly adhered to. Some attempted fair discussion but also flaming occurred on Facebook’s Unofficial Scottish Greens group. TERF was bandied about. A post referencing a formal public decision that TERF used by [a named Scottish Councillor] had been abusive and offensive was replied to with ‘I am not [that Councillor].. Fuck off, TERF.’
    The thread, having predictably proved toxic, was closed.)

    When I alluded to the Two Minutes Hate one of the transactivist and therefore now anti-Wightman members responded along the lines of ‘Oh, a 1984 reference – very original’..
    Recognition negated by sarcasm, as a means of doublethink.

    The SGP initiated a series of ‘facilitated meetings’ (online) across local branches, styled ‘Gender Awareness Workshop’ or ‘Trans-Identity Awareness Workshop’. Both members running the meeting I witnessed were biological males and trans. According to Mridul Wadhwa, Greens member only since December, now a roving volunteer co-facilitator [and I paraphrase, but closely]:

    ‘We go by the SGP policy statement’ [re ‘TransInclusivity’ – shown at this point on participants’ screens].
    ‘You may ask questions, but not question our [trans] identities. If you intend doing so, you should leave the meeting – or you will be removed.’

    So no questioning of the Party line, nor independent thought, permitted.. Some ‘Workshop’.

  250. Duchess of Puke Street
    Ignored
    says:

    Paul Short at 11:20 am

    Thanks for that, did cheer me up 🙂

  251. Lorna Campbell
    Ignored
    says:

    Combination of Oceania and Gilead.

  252. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @Robert Hughes 9.02: 🙂 .

    @Thistle’s Bristles 11.51: an equally chilling account but it’s hardly surprising given the attitudes of the kind of people involved.

    I wish I could remember the exact wording of an Alexei Sayle gag from the 80s/90s involving the word “workshop”. I think he proposed a nasty fate for anyone using the word other than to describe a light engineering concern in the West Midlands, so I don’t think he was a fan of even the conventional ones.

  253. Mitch
    Ignored
    says:

    This is pure Icke material. I would seriously avoid if I were you.

  254. Confused
    Ignored
    says:

    @tinto re: alexei

    youtube search bar is your friend
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icMP4AlB61I

  255. Tinto Chiel
    Ignored
    says:

    @Confused: “youtube search bar is your friend.”

    And so are you after that, me old haricot! Thanks for looking that one out. So the insult was “twat”: a wee gleam of light in a dire day.

    In return, I leave you with this from “That Fat Bastard”:

    “Honestly, sometimes I get really fed up of my subconscious – it’s like it’s got a mind of its own.”



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