The Eleventh Hour
Posted on
November 07, 2022 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Someone had to remind us that today is Wings Over Scotland’s 11th birthday.
In a grim indictment of Scotland’s once-vaunted political new media, a site that’s been officially closed since May 2021 is still far and away the most-read in the country, despite that readership now being mostly angry overgrown children squabbling with each other in the comments. People would apparently still, by a vast margin, rather read that than endure the tedium of Bella Caledonia or Believe In Scotland.
We’ve said pretty much all that there is to be said about that miserable state of affairs already, so we won’t repeat ourselves. God help the independence movement.
(Notice: ANYONE posting personal abuse of ANYONE in the comments to this post will be banned, permanently, no further warnings. “They started it” will not be considered a valid excuse. I don’t care who you are or how long you’ve been here. You’ve been told a thousand times. This time I’ll be watching.)
It’s very disappointing to see Robin McAlpine’s site with such low site visits. Is there a way of boosting or better promoting his site to get wider exposure?
I regularly link to his articles and https://www.voices.scot/ also does a good job of collating Indy related stuff.
Oh please ban that prick wishart, and if I have transgressed by saying that, ban me too, but I do love wings. As it stands though it does not matter what we all say or do. Hey ho, once in a lifetime eh?
Robin McAlpine’s site is always worth visiting, although his politics are probably further left than the majority which might inhibit a mass audience I suppose? I do find the way the articles display a bit distracting and off-putting, but the content is always engaging even if you might not agree with everything he says.
Can’t say I visit any of the others regularly: Craig Murray sometimes, Yours for Scotland for updates on how independence is going to happen without a referendum or plebiscitary election. Other than that, nope.
For all the sound and fury, there’s little evidence of any progress. I’m not seeing any evidence of people feeling scunnered and shifting to Yes in desperation as a result of the current situation. Maybe the polls will tell us differently in coming months.
Hoppy birdy, Wings Over Scotland.
11 is one louder than WGD.
How on Earth is Wee Ginger Dig still up there? The most pointless site ever. I despair for independence.
Congrats Rev, I’d hoped that we the commentors would’ve been reading articles on your blog in a now independent Scotland, alas not yet.
In hindsight, I wish Alex Salmond would not have resigned on losing the 2014 indyref, but hindsight is as everyone knows a wonderful thing post an event.
Still, Salmond probably thought to himself that he was leaving the indy cause in safe hands, and that Sturgeon would carry the indy baton across the line, even the best can sometimes get it wrong on a judge of character.
Now it looks like we’ll have to wait for Salmond to climb back up the ladder via Alba.
“readership now being mostly angry overgrown children squabbling with each other in the comments. People would apparently still, by a vast margin, rather read that than endure the tedium of Bella Caledonia or Believe In Scotland”
It’s good entertainment though.
All the fun of spectating at a steaming, closing-time rammy with no fear of getting glassed.
Who was it wrote about politics being the provision of bread and circuses to the punters? The serious web sites don’t give you a circus.
What do folk make of this relating to the ScotWind auctions. Blocks were auctioned off presumably with a value relating to their theoretical potential power generation capabilities.
Scroll down following linked page to map then click on big blue grid on the bottom right off Angus coast (sort of inverted Y shape)
https://www.crownestatescotland.com/our-projects/scotwind
That is this block in the article from a couple of months back.
https://www.offshorewind.biz/2022/08/25/sse-and-partners-name-2-6-gw-floating-offshore-wind-project-in-scotland/
But this block mysteriously increases its potential power generating potential by over a third from 2.6 to 3.6GW.
https://www.offshorewind.biz/2022/11/04/ossian-floating-wind-farm-could-have-capacity-of-3-6-gw/
Dodgy surveys reducing potential generation output and thus value prior to sale? Are there any contractual recall possibilities to scrutinise this?
Dan @6.05pm.
Dan.
I read today that the Common Weal are on the verge of releasing a book on Scottish independence, a kind of Wee Blue/Black Book type, that shows the benefits of an independent Scotland.
It was crowd funded, has 19 chapters and around 300 pages, it is called Sorted: A Handbook for a Better Scotland, I think it will be available next month.
Robin McAlpine said he was surprised at how quickly people donated to fund the book; pre-ordered books will be delivered to those who help crowd fund it next month.
I don’t disagree, but we can’t give up.
It’s easy to get angry and disillusioned, lose a bit of heart. But never forget our people are being indoctrinated with sedative every day they get their news from the BritNat Media.
Our political scene is just that; a scene. It’s an illusion. The people are being conned into think Scottish Independence is in safe hands, when we know the fuckers aren’t doing a damn thing to advance the cause an inch.
We need more of this Rev Stu, not less. More blogging, more discussion, more exposes, more scandals undone and charlatans exposed.
It’s not what you write that accounts for the numbers Rev Stu, sorry to rain on the parade. It’s the hunger for information of a people who know there is something deeply, deeply wrong with the running of Scotland, and coming here gives people the chance to maybe learn just enough to get a handle on what’s really happening.
We have to be there. We have to keep going. It takes a long time to establish that kind of footprint, but while 228,200 visits trounces the rest, it’s still slim pickings beside the Unionist Media and BBC propagandists.
I firmly believe you shouldn’t be doing this on your own Rev Stu. You need time away. You need buffers, a fence between you and the vitriol. You need support. Teamwork. You need freedom to do the stuff you’re good at, and relieved from all the never ending drudge that takes the fun out of it.
Full credit for putting a brave face on it, but it wears you down, really wears you down when the establishment gets away with shit and you have to eat bitter and faceless injustice day after day after day; whether it’s Dugdale, whether it’s Twitter staff, or cancelling wankers wherever they exist…
You need a team Rev Stu. You need a team like Steve Wright on the Radio, or half a dozen other radio stations who recognise banter and have a laugh and a giggle about shit is a vital theraputic necessity.
I’d write more, but I’m actually on a generator that’s about to run out of juice, and this is a pc not a tablet…
And what’s Cairns doing these days anyway?
You see pictures of homeless people on the street, and you always want to double check if that was a packet of felt tips sitting beside them…
My hope remains that a proper independence campaign will occur again, and this site will lead the way in it.
Which is why this site and Craig Murray’s are my first port of call.
Happy Birthday, Wings, and here’s to a time when the kids will grow up and independence will arrive. There are still quite a few useful and interesting and relevant links and bits of news on here, even if we have to wade through a lot of mud to find them and these little gems are what still make Wings worthwhile.
ROS 6.51pm, I still find it difficult to understand how a person as intelligent and on-the-ball as AS did not in all these years, at such close quarters, in such close communication, see through the Betrayer, or even have any doubts about her. I also wish he had remained to at least hold the vow-makers’feet to the fire, but of course his honesty and integrity did not permit him to do otherwise.The warning signs were already there, with the power grab by the Murrels.
Is there any independence movement left? The life seems to have been crushed out of it by the SNP.
They don’t even seem to be able to bring themselves to go through the motions of pretending to want independence anymore. Alba don’t seem to have worked out what it is aiming to do post the most recent elections and has made basically zero dent in the public consciousness in doing that.
Robin McAlpine has been recommended reading recently, though mainly only because he so bluntly and clearly states why the whole thing is going down the toilet. I thought Craig Murray was more than right in what he said about Alba essentially having to stand against the SNP if they backtrack from holding a plebiscite. I thought Scot Goes Pop was starting to get it too in recent months, but that blog has backslid into the “don’t split the pro-indy vote even if the SNP aren’t going to do anything and even if they backslide on what *they’ve* promised”.
I like Barrhead Boy and Yours For Scotland and I did read them fairly religiously for a while, but I just get the impression they’re struggling to keep their hearts in it, and who could blame them? I scan the headlines of WGD every so often just to check its still parroting the same stuff – and it is.
I’d beg for a return to regular writing for Wings but to what end? Nothing’s happening any time soon, if ever now, it seems.
Things are about as bleak as I remember the day after the first indyref being – if not bleaker, knowing the chances that have been squandered since.
Will you be celebrating with cake?
@Dan, thanks (again) for the mention.
I keep a running score of the articles clicked on Voices for Independence for the past 4 weeks, https://www.voices.scot/source/popular/
I think the site is more popular with the Alba crowd so the stats are biased accordingly i.e. WGD is currently 10th – it’s been declining for a while but seemingly folks simply can’t get enough “Tories Baaaad”. I have no idea what itch that scratches. It’s not like its news.
Robin McAlpine’s personal blog is definitely underrated. He’s too polite but there’s enough anger in there to see that things are gonna change if he ever gets the chance.
Grumpy Scottish Man is also worth reading. He offers a good commentary on the news and a good place to go to catch up.
Jonathon Shafi’s, Independence captured, is also a good read. Even if you don’t share his politics his arguments are always well structured and well thought out.
This is not going to be popular here, but Peter Bell is always worth a read. The writing style can be a little hard to follow at times but he asks the awkward questions so you get a good idea of where the campaign for indy needs to pull it’s socks up or stop bending over.
The names on the list are essentially unchanged for the past couple of years. That in itself is a little disappointing. Given the explosion of channels on 404 I’d have thought that independence would have been attracting more folks – especially now that we’ve never been closer.
Generally the blogosphere is sort of ok but I don’t think it’s healthy. It’s ton of work and I’m surprised that the popular sites are also, generally, the long-lived ones. There really needs to be something in more traditional channels if only to get more readers/eyeballs and generally get more people thinking about what’s next or how to move forward. The status quo supports inaction, which is probably how the Wisharts of the world like it.
I still think it’s worth saying happy birthday, Wings.
Thanks for everything you did in the past and everything you continue to do. It is appreciated.
11’s still a youngster.
@ Dan says:7 November, 2022 at 6:58 pm
“Blocks were auctioned off presumably with a value relating to their theoretical potential power generation capabilities.”
Maybes a big presumption. Strikes me that if the true value of something is already known, then you set the price and sell it. You don’t auction it.
“Dodgy surveys reducing potential generation output and thus value prior to sale?”
Could be. Taken at face value, the latest press release identifies that survey work has been done since the auction. It also states that a further 2 years of survey work is planned, after which the higher generating capacity “could” be possible. That “could” is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Maybes the original figure will be back, maybes even a lower one.
“Are there any contractual recall possibilities to scrutinise this?”
No idea.
My take is that if the potential generating capacity of the area was not sufficiently well known, then maybes it should not have been sold. ScotGov could have chartered a 2-year survey, paid for that, then sold the development rights for a price more suited to what the field will generate, selling from a position of strength because the true value of the asset is already determined.
Happy Birthday to website that changed my perspective from a “heart yes/head no” person to yes/yes.
I do miss the ruthless debunking, but there’s nothing new being said and no real new arguments to argue. To reuse Theresa May’s phrase, Nothing has changed.
Otherwise I hope you’re well, and are looking after your teeth.
Happy Birthday Stu. Wings seems to be hitting up again. Very glad to see it. Time to announce a formal return from retirement surely. Please! Pretty please!!
… It’s been said already, but Robyn McAlpine deserves a wider audience. I hope he manages to build one, as his articles have been consistent and thoughtful for a while…
solarflare says:
7 November, 2022 at 7:34 pm
“Is there any independence movement left? The life seems to have been crushed out of it by the SNP.”
How did the current SNP leader manage to totally crush the independence movement despite Wings of Scotland and its numerous well informed readers and contributors?
From the verge of independence to the complete corruption of all the institutions of state.
“Breeks says:
7 November, 2022 at 7:04 pm
And what’s Cairns doing these days anyway?”
On holiday, maybe?
Here is a press piece about the HMS Victorious vanguard class having to emergency surface whilst the 130 strong crew fought an on board fire.
Armed with two ICBMs with no doubt nuclear warheads warheads on a secret mission are we lucky that the sub, its nuclear reactor, and the missiles didn’t end up on the bottom of the North Atlantic.
And aren’t we even luckier that the crippled nuclear submarine and its Trident missile cargo are headed back to its base in Faslane, Scotland.
Make you think about why the nuclear subs and missiles are based in Scotland. Lucky white Heather.
PRESS REPORT –
One of the British Navy’s Vanguard-class nuclear submarines was forced to abort a “top secret mission” after it sustained fire damage, according to a Sunday article published by The Sun.
According to the outlet’s sources, it took the efforts of the entire 130-plus crew, including many who were off-duty, to put out an electrical fire aboard the HMS Victorious, which was carrying Trident 2 nuclear ICBMs at the time of the incident.
While the fire was reportedly contained relatively quickly, the emergency situation declared by the ship’s captain forced the ship to shoot to the surface at an undisclosed location in the North Atlantic to vent out toxic fumes.
A Navy source reportedly explained to The Sun that “every seagoing member of the Royal Navy is a qualified fire-fighter,” and that this ensured that British ships and submarines were able to quickly respond to such incidents without affecting operational outputs.
Nevertheless, the damage caused by the fire prompted the submarine’s captain to abandon an unspecified “top secret mission” and order the vessel to return to base at HMNB Clyde in Faslane, Scotland
Happy birthday!
Why do I not get notifications via email anymore?
Solarflare: “Alba don’t seem to have worked out what it is aiming to do post the most recent elections and has made basically zero dent in the public consciousness in doing that.”
Correct. Alba isn’t playing to its strengths. With people like Tommy Sheridan in there, I think they should forget the ballot box and concentrate on building a mass movement.
Power is fungible. Around 50% of the population want independence but nobody really represents them. A lot more will want it if they hear the arguments. The goal should be to force them to hear it through mass protests.
The same goes for the war in the east and other stuff. If people were to hear the arguments, opinions would change.
I’m not a card carrying leftists by any standard, but everything is developing in a certain direction right now and Alba can capitalise on it. I’m talking about living costs, war, spending cuts, independence, fuel and energy deprivation, poverty generally, and you can throw in unemployment which will certainly rise in the coming months…
You have all the ingredients of a mass left-leaning national liberation campaign for real change. Alba and the independence movement needs to ride that wave. The alternative is bleak.
Happy birthday Wings.
Its all down to you rev, 11 years of informative articles and first class journalism and i know it has also been 11 years of stress so thank you.
Well done for hanging in there and thanks for all your efforts and the Wee Blue Book which was a game changer. I feel things are looking up as a couple of sites are on the move and the Yours for Scotland site shows potential hosting guest articles and supporting Salvo etc. Robin McAlpine is a very able man but his writing style and the length of some of his posts does not help him. Sad to say but a lot of the hits on this site have been a few people bitch slapping each other in public which is a huge turnoff. Happy birthday to the site and just wish it was no longer required. Take care old boy.
Happy Birthday Wings – hope you have some ‘childish’ sweeties to celebrate!
I don’t get notifications either, but Wings is still my first port of call in the morning.
It’s all being held back by the lunatic fringe that is the Scottish Government. They have to go before progress can be made.
They have to be exposed for what they have done. Only then will people see for themselves what treacherous cowards they voted into office.
Keep going Stu. Chip away and one day their Tower of Babel will come crashing down and a genuine independence party will replace them.
Get Chris to design a banner with you on it. Something along the lines of a Rev. rampant with squirrel supporters, netting a sturgeon. Run a competition for best motto – £1.00 to enter and raise some money to keep the site firing.
Come to think of it, a weekly competition – lots of possibilities. Start off with a competition for best competition. I’ll have 5 goes. Have some guest judges lined up – Alex, Iain Lawson, Barrhead, Robin, Craig.
Aim to double those figures in the first month at least, and share the burden.
Happy Birthday to “Wings Over Scotland” and cheers to all “The Vile Cybernats” where ever you are.
Thank God for you.
Happy Birthday Wings and Wingers
Well, you’re still winding some folk up. And I quote…
“..The queue of toxic people banished to Gettr and other platforms..”
For me the independence scene has been bleak for quite a while and I can’t see a chink of light yet. The descent of Wings BTL into fractious name-calling has been very disheartening for those of us who remember the time before the 2014 referendum and some time after. I only come back now to read the articles.
There was often lively debate but you didn’t get the impression that people who professed to be independence supporters actually hated one another. That, I think, has been a fairly recent phenomenon. I can well understand Stuart Campbell’s exasperation.
Perhaps it reflects the aimless drift caused by the way the SNP has evolved into a party that actually appears to dislike many of his voters. Division among supporters would seem to be an aim of the SNP. They, at least, must be quite satisfied with that accomplishment.
I do like Robin McAlpine’s blog for its cogent and detailed analysis of the SNP government’s incompetence and authoritarian mind-set – and there are no BTL comments. But sometimes I just have to take a break from reading blogs because it is just depressing with no dawn on the horizon. This is the midwinter of the independence movement.
Happy Birthday, Wings. Still great articles and helpful for those in need e.g. Craig when in prison, Alex and Alba with the book.
And the go-to site daily to check if anything of import is in the air. Thank you.
For those who are down-hearted at the lack of independence activity there is one thing you can do – sign up to liberation.scot and the Edinburgh Declaration. Then tell someone else about it and show them the salvo.scot site as well. The quicker the letter goes to the UN the better, and the more signatures the better.
““..The queue of toxic people banished to Gettr and other platforms..”
Hahaha, Mike Small writing for the only audience smaller than Bella Caledonia’s 😀
It is really odd that Nicolas team think world leaders should follow her and that she is promising money to the third world when she can’t organise a referendum
What on earth is going on, are they on drugs
Is Nicola now so deranged she actually believes the stuff the security service agents are feeding her
The left hate you and the right hate you.
In a time of universal deceit – telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
“despite that readership now being mostly angry overgrown children squabbling with each other in the comments. People would apparently still, by a vast margin, rather read that than endure the tedium of Bella Caledonia or Believe In Scotland.”
Oh MEEEEOOW! LOL! Love it!
__________
shiregirl says on 7 November 2022 at 9:08 pm: “Why do I not get notifications via email anymore?”
Some time ago Stuart announced he was going to do a bit of downsizing with the site, due to some of the facilities no longer being needed, due to his “retirement”. Perhaps the notification/alert facility came at that cost?
You may have more success with an answer to your question if you try contacting him via the ‘contact’ facility’ at the top of this page. I don’t think he likes answering queries on btl threads when he has a contact facility available.
Personally, i’ve never used the email alert because i always looked in 2 or 3 times a day every day. Even now i still check-in to see if there’s any new articles every 1-3 days, but mostly daily. It’s the articles, and their quality, that count. Btl comments can throw up some interesting stuff but for me it’s by far the articles. Everything else is secondary.
Try the contact facility at the top of this page. Good luck! 😉
__________
BTW, folks, i just learned tonight how, back in 2010, England’s ‘Supreme Court’ overruled Scotland’s legal system and forced wholesale changes within that reputably “fiercely independent” legal system regarding rights to be accompanied by a Solicitor during police questioning.
Kenny Mcaskill was the non-too-happy Justice Minister at the time. But he was forced to drop approximately 800 pending cases and make those legal changes. Maybe Scotland has even less power than we think?
Aye, a Union of equals right enough, eh! And some folk think that very same “Supreme Court” is going to rule on the side of us being able to hold a referendum without Westminster’s agreement? LOL! As they say, we do indeed live in interesting times.
Sturgeon, you’re a sell-out.
I’m afraid I have no idea why email alerts no longer seem to be working for some people (is anyone still getting them?) or even how to look into it. I think it’s a built-in WordPress thing, I’ve never enabled or disabled it.
Happy birthday Wings STU how about an opinion piece on SALVO and Liberation.Scot and can I ask have YOU signed up yet
Happy Birthday Wings!
Still the best!
PS I receive an email alert from you to a new topic you’ve published but I don’t receive ‘notify me of new posts’ check box if that relates to btl if someone has replied (like, for example, YouTube notifications.
I need cookies & milk before matron appears for lights out! LOL! Nite..
Like me most people i dont read the comments (sanity is a precious resource) far less post
It does seem like the
BritishEnglish security state agents, working for Engerland in their Scottish colony, have done rather well. Sturgeon is to my eyes their biggest asset. Endless procrastination, dithering and doing NOTHING for independence, whilst simultaneously promising us the world. I mean, seriously, we have a supposedly pro indy FM who won’t even ‘dirty her hands’ by lowering herself to actually attend an independence march! Pretty clear where her priorities lie.Now, today, the SNP are yet again whining about England yet again cutting the number of Scottish MP seats to the English parliament. Why are they surprised? The SNP have been handed clear mandate, after mandate, after mandate by the Scottish people to get us the hell out of this tawdry unwanted, undemocratic colonial rule by England. They have done nothing but whine, whilst eagerly lapping up England’s ever so generous hospitality in Westminster.
The SNP really need to either get on with ending unwanted English colonial rule in Scotland, or (to paraphrase the esteemed Malcolm Tucker) f*ck the f*ck off.
shiregirl says on 7 November 2022 at 9:08 pm: “Why do I not get notifications via email anymore?”
Rev. Stuart Campbell says on 8 November 2022 at 3:04 am:
“I’m afraid I have no idea why email alerts no longer seem to be working for some people (is anyone still getting them?) or even how to look into it. I think it’s a built-in WordPress thing, I’ve never enabled or disabled it.”
Or, alternatively, it may be the device you use to read WOS on, Shiregirl. Maybe you’ve had a relatively recent update to your device’ system and that has changed your ‘notifications’ status? Maybe turned them off?
Something similar happened to me a while back with notifications i get from a certain organisation. I had to re-set my notifications accordingly. Check if your device is set/able to receive/allow notifications. And if so, turn them on.
* Happy * Birthday WOS . Still the best .
Apologies for whatever degree of ” fuck you , naw , fuck YOU ” level of * debate * I’ve participated in . It’s a symptom of the frustration and anger many of us feel at the abysmal pass the so-called * leaders * have brought us to : compounded by head-shaking disbelief they’re getting away with it . Still, no excuse for descending into fractious squabbling BTL . We can do better .
In other news ……World Leader elect Niccolo Sturgeon tells a meeting held in a bike shed behind the bogs @ COP THIS PLEBS 27 she will – personally – extract a pound of flesh from every white-privileged , misognyist etc man in Scotland in reparation for wrongs committed at some time long before anyone currently living was born *
* only if there’s a camera present and she can find time between selfies
OT. I think the next great instability is unfolding in the USA itself. Gotta be honest, I don’t feel like I have a good handle on America, but the little I do know is that the political battle lines between Trumps Republicans and the Democrats has some uncomfortable parallels with the US Civil war.
It was the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 in an America essentially polarised by slavery and race which saw seven US States secede because they couldn’t abide the result. Slavery might not be the issue, (though a relevant legacy perhaps), but race, ethnicity and economic circumstance seems to have America similarly polarised in their beliefs. There are ominous signals that democracy is in big trouble and not going to settle their differences but instead exacerbate them. It’s literally ”Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition”, stuff.
I don’t ordinarily recommend anybody to read the Guardian, but this doesn’t read like typical Guardian toe dipping, but maybe it is. I find the USA difficult to tune in to.
https://archive.ph/3scPr
It’s alarming to pick up, but I don’t know America well enough to know if it’s alarmist and can be put back down. But my instincts are saying pay attention to this. By all means, be cynical and don’t automatically assume experts are what they appear, but even if they’re half tight, what is there, what factor or ingredient is there that is likely to diffuse any of this?
America needs a good leader like never before, but for that to happen, we’d be seeing them on the rise.
I think the Democrats have the closest thing to rising star in Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, but she seems to be vilified by the Republicans, and won’t de-polarise the animosity. A whole lot of armed people in USA just don’t like socialism, healthcare, or paying tax to fund it, and treading on eggshells saying so, but there seems a race element to those most in need of support.
From the outside looking in, the place looks like a tinderbox. Trump is on the return, and his political rallies manage to be impressive and chilling at the same time. They don’t want to win democratically, they want to own the democracy. Trump is playing a dangerous game with popularism, and it seems to be working.
You’d like to think the spectacularly powerful lobby groups which seem to blight US politics, the gun lobby, big Pharma, and the Zionist lobby in particular would be feeling the heat, but they don’t seem to be in the “firing line” if you’ll pardon the expression. These lobby groups seem embedded very deeply and are all but untouchable.
The USA could be in real trouble here,..
It truly is a depressing state of affairs.
I have basically all but given up on the hope of independence happening in my lifetime.
I can no longer see it as a possibility, and I won’t spend what life I have left chasing after a lost cause.
If some miracle happens to change the prospects, I’ll be here, but I no longer waste my time even thinking about it tbh.
The British state is concluding a gas supply deal with the US.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/uk-poised-announce-gas-deal-with-us-after-climate-change-summit-telegraph-2022-11-07/
In the light of America’s proxy war in east Europe this makes sense.
https://off-guardian.org/2022/08/23/how-food-shortages-economic-collapse-protects-the-status-quo/
What rational conclusions might you draw Scotland?
You’re the only one who stuck his neck out to break through the shit.
Much, much needed
Many happy returns to Stuart and Wings
Keep on keepin on.
Breeks, American society is unraveling because the American economy is unraveling. That’s about the only pattern you’ll find there that’s fairly predictable and normal.
Poverty in the US is rarely discussed but it’s been steadily getting worse over the years. Trump, for all his flaws, attempted to address that — that’s what MAGA, his wall, and economic nationalism were all aimed at.
They’ve been programmed to call anything resembling the European mixed economy model “socialism” which is tantamount to satanism in their propaganda mindset. A lot stems from that and the grip that the American rich has over society.
Back in the early post-war period, the US decided it wasn’t going to go down the “socialist” road; things like welfare and health care were essentially to be left to the individual rather than society and government. It half-worked okay when the US economy was booming.
The US model depends on people having jobs and taking care of their own health and welfare. They assumed there would be plenty of work, with investments by government in technology (disguised as defence spending) providing enough economic stimulation and dynamism to make the mixed economy model unnecessary.
Now they’re paying the price for that decision. Their economy is a hollowed out carcass when it comes to manufacturing and industry — most of the jobs went overseas — leaving them with dire levels of poverty and a military industrial complex that dominates everything.
That’s where the emphasis and need for constant wars and new enemies stems from. Their whole economy depends on wars and perceived threats, and if they can’t find any then they need to either invent them or provoke them. It’d be impossible to justify their massive military spending otherwise, and without that spending their economy simply collapses.
The thing that scares American policymakers most is peace.
To all the folks expressing disappointment at lack of progress towards independence, frustration with the nuSNP, different sort of frustration with ALBA, here’s a suggestion. Look yourself in the mirror at least once a day and ask yourself what you have done yourself over the past 24 hours to advance the cause. I’ll admit to doing this, and only sometimes being happy with the answer.
” Their economy is a hollowed out carcass when it comes to manufacturing and industry — most of the jobs went overseas — leaving them with dire levels of poverty and a military industrial complex that dominates everything.”
Quite so , H : what Chris Hedges refers to as The Permanent War Economy – utter insanity , which appears to be reaching full-blown psychosis in it’s overt provocation of Ru n Chi .
Looks like the Biden Puppetocracy is going to get a – deserved – midterm hammering , which * may * limit it’s capacity to move humanity ever closer to colossal damage as more Americans make the connection between what * their * Gov is doing geopolitically and the increasing economic hardships they’re experiencing
Re. US also heard recently there is push back in some states now against all the gender nonsense. Apparently it doesn’t sit well with family folk, particularly mothers to have their kids taught this stuff in schools. Who’d have thought…
All the best, Stu.
I’m not getting any email notifications these days either. They seem to have stoped a few months ago.
Must say, this BTL is sooo much better without the usual bammery. It was getting a wee bit embarrassing having to scroll past so much utter irrelevant shite from folk who should know better.
Happy birthday!
I noticed that your https://twitter.com/WingsScotland profile is now active. Can you post yet?
Yes, Robert Hughes, funny how China became a threat isn’t it. One minute they were celebrating its growth and toasting Nixon for opening China up to US manufacturing, next minute it’s their mortal enemy.
China didn’t change.
Willie.
HMS Victorious is the second-oldest nuclear sub in the fleet, only HMS Vanguard is older which is currently in Devonport dockyard in Plymouth for deep maintenance and refuelling at a cost of £204m. HMS Victorious is due to go into Devonport after HMS Vanguard leaves in 2019.
We don’t know the extent of the pollution these old subs have caused in Scottish waters, as the MoD supercedes SEPA on such matters relating to the subs.
I ‘discovered’ Wings later than most folks. For a while , I looked at it daily. It was some time before I posted anything.
Nowadays I regularly miss reading for days. The articles produced by Rev Stu are ALWAYS informative and forensically accurate but the comments section, shall I say, left a lot to be desired. The same posters posting the same things day after day was frankly repetitive and boring. Some resorted to profanity simply because they were not articulate enough to get their message across. The abuse some posters receive simply because they point out the glaring errors of others is not and never will be constructive. I do confess to ‘name calling’ but simply because of exasperation and a pathetic sense of retaliation.
I look forward to certain posters being banned in future when they undoubtedly will misbehave. It is simply in their nature to be abusive. To my mind, the removal of some posters, who monopolise the site, will make it easier for new posters to express their views.
Is the Independence movement dead in Scotland? Not quite, but it is on life support! The current crop of SNP troughers are NOT the ones to resuscitate the patient but…………….who is?
Happy Birthday Wings and many happy returns!
Geoff Bush says:
8 November, 2022 at 9:07 am
. Look yourself in the mirror at least once a day and ask yourself what you have done yourself over the past 24 hours to advance the cause…
Agreed Geoff.
I know we’ll have a puncture in our tyres for as long as Sturgeon is at the helm, but the indifference this breeds is as exasperating as the subversion itself.
Were it not for SALVO, SSRG and ALBA, there would be literally nothing happening. I find it difficult to avoid drawing comparisons with the Liberation petition, and trying to get some enthusiasm for signing it, (which has to happen people get moving!), and the Scottish UN Committee’s 1986 petition to the Queen. I think I’m right to believe this is the petition that was backed with 1.5 million signatures.
1.6 million people voted YES in 2014. We should be taking this fence at a canter. Get out there people!
The Scottish UN Committee’s petition itself is well worth a read, but so too is the foreword.
https://electricscotland.com/independence/queen.pdf
I quote ” Action had been taken within the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, the Council of Europe, the UN Secretariat, the UN Educational, Social and Cultural Organisation, and the Assembly of the European Communities, amongst others.
A Scotland-UN delegation of three members had addressed a United Nations conference in Geneva for a week on the Scottish situation. And every national government in the world had been given a comprehensive statement, with special attention being paid to the President of the United States of America.”
This was a committee of volunteers, rather extraordinary “ordinary people’, yet we now have a damned Scottish “Independence” Government with mandate after mandate, sitting on it’s bone idle arse in Holyrood these past eight years doing NOTHING for Independence except a cut and paste job on three Mickey Mouse “Papers” and a roundly discredited Growth Commission. This debacle is an absolute shame and disgrace upon the Scottish Nation.
We gave the most urgent and important job to safeguard Scotland’s future and integrity to a shower of charlatans and troughing fraudsters who have excelled at nothing except charlatanism, troughing, and fraudulent manifestos.
But then, instead of grabbing pitchforks and flaming torches to drive them out, we went to sleep! Not all, I know, but most.
We NEED our puncture fixed.
We need our YES people shaken from indifferent stagnation and stirred to action.
We need an Impeachment Protocol, and we need that protocol launched and in the water.
We need a Government AT LEAST as committed, determined and busy as the Scottish UN Committee was, and that just isn’t happening under Sturgeon or Sturgeon’s lamentable SNP.
I’m fully aware my words are divisive talk when we need unity across the spectrum, but no wound can heal until the cause of the injury is removed. Sturgeon has to go.
The time “wasted” in this phoney war when we all know Sturgeon’s IndyRef in 2023 is a hoax and cynical ruse, could be time spent constructively impeaching her rotten, indolent, constitutionally illiterate, puppet Assembly in Holyrood.
It isn’t the people who back SALVO and ALBA that I’m speaking to. It’s the SNP people whom we need to embrace an Impeachment, back it, not fight it, as the right and fitting course of action that is warranted by events and the urgent imperative of Scotland’s escape from madness and infused toxicity.
Ottomanboi.
Thanks for the Off-Guardian link, it’s pretty much on the money, I think Germany is now paying seven times for US LNG than what it paid to its previous supplier. There are widespread demos and riots across Europe due to the cost-of-living crisis, and the energy price hikes.
France has so far escaped most of the energy demos due to its a nuclear energy and Macron guaranteed a price cap until next year on electricity. After the cap expires that’s when the French will once again take to the streets en masse
Yes it’s true, the Rev’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/WingsScotland is open again, or to be more correct not blocked.
The last tweets are still from Dec. 2019 so we’ll first find out if it’s active when someone/Rev posts a tweet.
The “Ghost of Wings o. Scot.” is still blocked.
Are we now about to get a boost of hard hitting messages for Indy again..?
Happy 11th Birthday to Wings. Still miss the serious & the sometimes earth shatteringly hiarious articles & the banter from Stu & the wingers.
I only know when you have a new post up from the daily list on Voices for Independence. Maybe WordPress have cancelled the notifications as the site has officially closed? Who knows.
Likewise with Robin McAlpines site it only appears in Voices for Independence list or perhaps I’m looking in the wrong places for it.
WGD now seems to be Sturgeons right hand man as according to him she can do no wrong so I’ve not looked at his site since he asked indy folk to buy him a house. To me that was unforgivable.
Do hope everything is going ok for you Stuart & that you’re managing to find plenty of work to keep the wolf from the door 🙂
@Breeks (10.45) –
Hear hear.
An effective starting point could be a very simple list of the occasions on which Sturgeon has misled the Scottish parliament and/or ignored the ministerial code. I’ve lost count. If Stu wrote it up as a new post we could all set about getting it spread as far as possible. Hard to imagine anyone in the Yes movement generally objecting to that.
Stu did keep across this back in the day and from memory, she misled the parliament at least twice. The ministerial code-breaking is one which definitely needs to be updated after her testimony to the Audit Commission last week (i.e. not having minutes taken as required).
Grounds for the kind of nobile officium petition that Scott has been telling us all about for a while?
AS for nasty Nicola at the COP27, it’s the same for COP26 or the jolly to the UN in New York, she’s not there to actively participate in finding solutions for the climate problems.
Her priority is pushing herself forward and getting to know as many folk on the international stage as possible, kissing their ar*** and toadying for attention.She wants a job with international prestige and the cash that goes with it.
Scotland’s just a small provincial backwater for a narcissist ego like hers. She doesn’t give a s**t about us.
Wings twitter account was showing zero followers and following earlier, now back to 53.3K followers.
No blue tick yet but that costs 8 bucks a month these days I think. lol
@Graf Midgehunter
Hmmnn…the question is will Rev Stu be paying Uncle Elon the monthly fee for a blue tick, and will all the other accounts suspended for thought crime also be restored….?
https://mobile.twitter.com/FOWingsScot as far as I can see doesn’t have a blue tick.
Nor Grouse Beater, Barrhead Boy etc.
Maybe it’s just the whores in the MSM who need a tick for a prick.. 🙂
Shauny Boy has a new one:
https://mobile.twitter.com/shiny02/status/1589920673396162563?cxt=HHwWhoCg7bebxJAsAAAA
🙂 🙂
Kirsty Blackman on the politics show being chewed up
Weak and wishy washy
Ha ha what a joke
I am embarrassed for the snp
That new Shauny Boy video is top class… best yet.
Happy 11th to Wings.
I don’t miss an article because it is set to my homepage! As others have said, I wish there were more but understand why there isn’t as all is stasis. By the way, was there not talk of a book at one point….?
Got an eye on Twitter to see if there’s a big comeback….
That’d be great news if Wings is back on Twitter! Yay! The pampers crew will be shitting thier nappies!:D What a time to be alive! ?
Shall we have bets on how quick the Jeremy Hunt insult is resurrected? 😀
@ Hatuey says:8 November, 2022 at 10:25 am
“funny how China became a threat”
“China didn’t change”
I think I agree with you, Hatuey, China has not changed.
They annexed Tibet. They put their awkward minorities in concentration camps. They killed 30 million of their own people in the 1960’s – the worst preventable famine in recorded human history. They reneged on their promises to Hong Kong. They gave us Covid, then lied about it.
I guess we can write all of that off as collateral damage. But for us freedom-loving Scots, with our human rights concerns, we shouldn’t just ignore China’s ongoing and permanent lockdowns as it pursues its zero-Covid policy to insanity and back.
At least, I don’t think we should. Should we ignore that, Hatuey? Please don’t tell us it is us, the west, that is forcing them to do that.
Willie says:
7 November, 2022 at 8:58 pm
Here is a press piece about the HMS Victorious vanguard class having to emergency surface whilst the 130 strong crew fought an on board fire.
Armed with two ICBMs with no doubt nuclear warheads warheads on a secret mission are we lucky that the sub, its nuclear reactor, and the missiles didn’t end up on the bottom of the North Atlantic.
And aren’t we even luckier that the crippled nuclear submarine and its Trident missile cargo are headed back to its base in Faslane, Scotland.
Make you think about why the nuclear subs and missiles are based in Scotland. Lucky white Heather.
Sorry Willie, but it’s not two Trident ICBMs, it,s the upgraded Trident 2 ICBMs, and will be loaded with its full compliment
Dan says:
7 November, 2022 at 6:58 pm
What do folk make of this relating to the ScotWind auctions. Blocks were auctioned off presumably with a value relating to their theoretical potential power generation capabilities.
Scroll down following linked page to map then click on big blue grid on the bottom right off Angus coast (sort of inverted Y shape)
https://www.crownestatescotland.com/our-projects/scotwind
That is this block in the article from a couple of months back.
https://www.offshorewind.biz/2022/08/25/sse-and-partners-name-2-6-gw-floating-offshore-wind-project-in-scotland/
But this block mysteriously increases its potential power generating potential by over a third from 2.6 to 3.6GW.
https://www.offshorewind.biz/2022/11/04/ossian-floating-wind-farm-could-have-capacity-of-3-6-gw/
Dodgy surveys reducing potential generation output and thus value prior to sale? Are there any contractual recall possibilities to scrutinise this?
Thee reason for the higher generation figures is probably more to do with newer turbine generators being used with a bigger output, it happened up at the Smiths Bank turbine sited off of the Sutherland/Caithness coast and off of Aberdeen as well
Boundry commission changes for parliamentary seats for UK.
England = gain 10.
Scotland = loose 2.
Wales = loose 8.
Wullie B says: at 1:04 pm
“Thee reason for the higher generation figures is probably more to do with newer turbine generators being used with a bigger output, it happened up at the Smiths Bank turbine sited off of the Sutherland/Caithness coast and off of Aberdeen as well.”
Aye, no doubt it could be that advances in wind power generation development upping the efficiency of harnessing kinetic energy and converting it to electrical energy may be a factor, but over a third increase without some staggering breakthrough in technology seems unlikely in such a short time.
But if technological improvements were not factored in to the sell off “value” of the various grid blocks with the inclusion of some kind of ongoing index linked equity return over the course of the contract, then it seems a bit of a giveaway.
James Che says: at 1:14 pm
“Boundary commission changes for parliamentary seats for UK.
England = gain 10.
Scotland = loose 2.
Wales = loose 8.”
Ach, the SNP won’t be too bothered as we’ll be having and won a referendum on returning Scotland to self-governing status by the time of the next GE…
There will be some unholy (and not very comradely) squabbling over those seats that remain following the boundary changes!
Happy Birthday rev.
Apathy reigns at the moment.
Sturgeon is one these people who sucks all the oxygen, energy, positivity out of the room.
We can but hope things will improve.
Salvo is helping keep some energy up
Whit’s Oor Nicola up tae?!
Here she is, in her element, giving forth to the world about…
‘…the importance of gender balance in climate response leadership, and how richer countries can support the most vulnerable groups and countries.’
https://twitter.com/GMac_Dod/status/1589952351028203520
@ Ian B
But there’s nae blokes in yon pic. That’s hardly sex balanced discussion. Bigots!
John Main, if you desire to the rise above low threshold I require of those I engage with, and you seem to want to do that, can you stop complicating your comments with unnecessary attempts at sarcasm. It’s difficult to read — quite impossible in some cases.
Your English is okay generally, but don’t underestimate the value of just saying what you think in as simple and clear terms as possible. Language is at its best when it’s simple and efficient, leaving the reader in no doubt as to the message you wish to convey.
Politics is complicated enough.
The more I hear on the radio about Qatar and the World Cup, the more excited about it all I get. I think it’s going to be a huge success and a great distraction from the miserable state the world is in, a world made all the more miserable by the woke morons who are determined to ruin the occasion.
I’ll be supporting Qatar and whoever England is playing.
Scotland – Europe ferry to restart from next year: https://archive.ph/iwTPn
UKGov finds 1400 extra laws to scrap: https://archive.ph/fP7Fh
Happy Birthday. The reason your blog endures is because it tells the truth – the unvarnished truth. You said what would happen if people voted SNP 1 & 2 last time, and you were so right. Disaster.
@Dan (2.15) –
‘But there’s nae blokes in yon pic.’
You never know Dan, you never do know.
😉
Hatuey
I dunno where they breed these eejits. The radio was in meltdown last week from the pampers brigade cause Qatar has rules on public displays of affection & modesty. Everything from stripping them from hosting the event forever to mass demonstrations when they get there to *just do it* out of defiance.
Go for it, Betty-Sue! Nowt like a good flogging for sales in popcorn. 😀
Happy Birthday Stu.
Do a crowdfunder, just for the hell of it.