Wings Over Scotland

Andrew Neil knows that the Russians have thousand of twitter bots and RT are the voice of the Kremlin. He has the government figures which prove it, the BBC of course would never just be the voice of the government.

If all these twitter accounts can be traced back to Russia I would suggest they are not as hot at computer hacking that they are claimed to be.

Just watched Andra Neil and the other 2 stooges on the set, handed their Ar**s by RT journo on This Week watch before it is deleted????

Cameron b Brodie @ 11.56
Well done you!!??

You’re forgiven (aye right)

Don’t ya just feel so very special.

Don’t ye rise tae it ,,my friend.
Just keep reminding us,how much we need tae know about… current thinking..

Because….for us the only answer is,
Independence….. there is no way that your work IMHO could reach any other conclusion!
Anybody who reads yer stuff will know that!!
I think that your”stuff has been read”..??.?
Don’t let it be disrespected!
I know that yer fit fur them.
But be careful of the balance of… giving them their opinion…and giving them a … platform

Not really my place to say!!
But I hope ye take this comment as it wiz ment

I don’t know about you ….but I miss my friend Smallaxe..
If he is reading Hi honney….And
I hope I am saying to Cameron ….the kind of thing… that you would X

liz g
I’m just doing what I can. Think I could get away with a bit of whitemansplaining? 🙂

THE RISE OF NEOLIBERAL FEMINISM

In this paper, I argue that we are currently witnessing the emergence of neoliberal feminism in the USA, which is most clearly articulated in two highly publicized and widely read ‘feminist manifestos’: Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In (a New York Times best-seller) and Anne-Marie Slaughter’s ‘Why Women Still Can’t Have It All’(the most widely read piece in the history of the Atlantic).

Concentrating on the shifting discursive registers in Lean In, I propose that the book can give us insight into the ways in which the husk of liberalism is being mobilized to spawn a neoliberal feminism as well as a new feminist subject. This feminist subject accepts full responsibility for her own well-being and self-care, which is increasingly predicated on crafting a felicitous work–family balance based on a cost-benefit calculus. I further pose the question of why neoliberalism has spawned a feminist rather than a female subject. Why, in other words, is there any need for the production of a neoliberal feminism, which draws attention to a specific kind of inequality and engenders a particularly feminist subject?

While this new form of feminism can certainly be understood as yet another domain neoliberalism has colonized by producing its own variant, I suggest that it simultaneously serves a particular cultural purpose: it hollows out the potential of mainstream liberal feminism to underscore the constitutive contradictions of liberal democracy, and in this way further entrenches neoliberal rationality and an imperialist logic.

Indeed, neoliberal feminism may be the latest discursive modality to (re)produce the USA as the bastion of progressive liberal democracy. Rather than deflecting internal criticism by shining the spotlight of oppressive practices onto other countries while overtly showcasing its enlightened superiority, this discursive formation actually generates its own internal critique of the USA. Yet, it simultaneously inscribes and circumscribes the permissible parameters of that very same critique.

link to sussex.ac.uk

Feminism and Neoliberal Governmentality

ABSTRACT: The article investigates the consequences for feminist politics of the neoliberal turn. Feminist scholars have analysed the political changes in the situation of women that have been brought about by neoliberalism, but their assessments of neoliberalism’s consequences for feminist theory and politics vary. Feminist thinkers such as Hester Eisenstein and Sylvia Walby have argued that feminism must now return its focus to socialist politics and foreground economic questions of redistribution in order to combat the hegemony of neoliberalism. Some have further identified post-structuralism and its dominance in feminist scholarship as being responsible for the debilitating move away from socialist or Marxist paradigms.

I share their diagnosis to the extent that it is my contention that the rapid neoliberalization characterising the last thirty years has put women and feminist thought in a completely new political situation. However, in contrast to those feminist thinkers who put the blame for the current impasse on the rise of poststructuralist modes of thought, it is my contention that the poststructuralist turn in feminist theory in the 1980s and 1990s continues to represent an important theoretical advance. I will discuss Foucault’s genealogy of neoliberalism in order to assess the ways it can contribute to feminist theory and politics today.

I contend that Foucault can provide a critical diagnostic framework for feminist theory as well as for prompting new feminist political responses to the spread and dominance of neoliberalism. I will also return to Nancy Fraser and Judith’s Butler’s seminal debate on feminist politics in the journal Social Text (1997) in order to demonstrate that a critical analysis of the economic/cultural distinction must be central when we consider feminist forms of resistance to neoliberalism.

link to rauli.cbs.dk

Violent Femmes – Gone, Daddy, Gone
link to youtube.com

Belair hairspray mixed with milk through a straw left folk with eyes like Haitian zombies and brains of runny tripe
The common haunt was underneath and behind the Rolls Royce club near Eglinton in Glasgow across the road from that famous chippy place

Tragic

Wow trying to catch up having read every post on here. Brilliant posts as per usual. Some stand out, imo.

………………………

Let’s hope that everyone who frequents this site will denounce the Labour Party for the ‘shenanigans’ that has been going on in Ayrshire and no doubt elsewhere right across the country. Will take a closer look at what has been going on. Ayrshire Council forking out £1 million a month in relation to PFI, FGS. How many lost jobs does that entail? Then there’s the issue of the Procurator Fiscal and the Police. Who shut them up?

Has Gordon Brown mentioned PFI in his ‘autobiography’?

Great big thanks to the ‘investigators’ by the way. Well done folks.

………………………………….

@ Shinty at 7:18pm says…. ”Excellent video. I came across Campbell Martin’s blog before indyref, but haven’t checked him out much since (to my shame). A wee glance at the shenanigans of the British Establishment at the G8 (Gleneagles)

link to campbellmartin.blogspot.co.uk

………………………

@ Meg at 7:46pm ..

Meg thanks for that. Your story is absolutely heartbreaking and gives us great insight into what goes on in relation to liver disease with regard to the destruction of organs through drinking and of course through no fault of your own. Best wishes from me Meg. You’ve run the (hellish) course, the gauntlet, and have survived darling. Big hugs from me (((X))).

…………………..

Let’s see if the witch of the west, Treeza May, announces (re the budget next week) that our emergency services WILL receive their VAT money (£134 million backdated) due to the 13 Scottish Tories (who say nought in Westminster – on record) submitting a claim. No doubt garbage. That follows 30 requests over the last 4 years from the SNP MP politicians at Westminster. If it happens we’ll all know that Westminster once again is totally corrupt and BIASED against our SNP MP’s at Westminster. That of course, that knowledge, will include all members of our Fire Brigades, Police Force and the Ambulance Service. Let’s hear Davidson talk her way out of that one. More so let’s hear what she has to say about the Police Force in Scotland in relation to Northern Ireland. One Police Force that has been receiving their VAT. And, eh, has control over Corporation Tax unlike the most devolved Parliament in the World.

……………………….

Alex on RT. Good for you Alex. You’ve found a way around Westminster control. Can access over 90 million people Worldwide. More than anything with your professionalism, honesty, competence, ability and friendly demeanor have made MANY friends along the way. The list of people you can have on your show is absolutely endless from supporters of Scottish independence to opposers. The list is endless from right around the World.

Show them, the Unionists, up. Tell the story of our oil. How we have been ripped off by experts such as Professor Alex Russell. Get people like Dame Marriot Leslie, NATO, on your show and Craig Murray et al.

Westminster and their MSM lackeys are quaking in their shoes right now. And no wonder. The truth will come out and they don’t like it one bit. Alex Salmond lost his seat to Tory Colin Clark who has asked ONE question at Westminster since he parked his erse on the benches five months ago. Let’s just say that with the use of their ‘dark money’ they did us all a great big favour. Bring it on Alex X.

Off-Topic, but relevant by date/time

I do not “do” twitter, but enjoy reading the Rev’s twitter feed. I therefore have to, reluctantly, indulge in pedantry and pull our exalted moderator up on something.

James Bond only went to Fettes, to complete his education, after he was “gated” at Eton, where, as a senior pupil, he was discovered in bed with one of the assistant matrons.

I watched the start of Question Time from Newcastle last night, but, switched-off after the first question. How typically BBC, to open with a question on the decision to introduce minimum pricing for alcohol and NOT have a representative of the Government which had introduced the new ruling on to defend it.

Of course, that is the SNP, and it would never do to give them extra publicity. I thought Val McDermid made a terrific case for the new law, in spite of the boorishness of the odious and to me, somewhat drunk,Rod Liddle next to her.

This programme truly is, like Westminster, and the BBC in general, a shadow of what it once was and stood for.

link to indyref2.scot

link to autonomyscotland.org

link to randompublicjournal.com

link to tommysheppardmp.scot

link to skwawkbox.org

link to rt.com

Will not archive
link to independent.co.uk

link to uk.businessinsider.com

Just heard Col Blimp is the Heralds politician of the year!
Sums up the “quality” of the 2 above.(had to check the date,not April 1st)
Two lumps of shite in the same cludgie.

Now that RT, Alex and Vladimir have been well aired can we independentists now get on with the glorious task of subverting the failing British state, its agents and all its works? It’s what we’re here for, ?????!

Very interesting…WordPress does not seem to support Cyrillic…..BEPHO?

YAY! Morning read is back. 🙂

Ta Nana.

@Big Phil says: 17 November, 2017 at 1:44 am:

You asked, Mr Peffers …tell us ? Who is the bad’un?

I had not intended to say any more on that subject, Big Phil, but as you ask – here is some information:-

Peter Thomas Anthony Manuel (13 March 1927 – 11 July 1958).

Manuel was an American-Scottish serial killer. He was convicted of murdering seven people and suspected of killing several others. He murdered victims mainly in Lanarkshire and across south Scotland between 1956 and his arrest in January 1958. He was found guilty and hanged on the Barlinnie prison gallows in July 1958.

BTW: Here is a cite to a linked story, (by George Galloway), that might be of interest to Wingers:-

link to glasgowlive.co.uk

Morning Macart.

On-line Herald – Lead Story – Col Ruth voted Scottish Politician Of The Year for the second year running.

You’ve got to laugh at that. Anybody who believes that she merits that is in serious need of urgent attention.

Is Uncle Tom Tractor Gordon Chairman of The Ruth Davidson Appreciation Society?

After that the Herald manages 4 separate articles plus cartoon, all negative of course, on the subject of Eck’s RT program and the rest of the MSM seem to be on the same or similar tacks – they really are upset.

On last night’s Brillo Vanity Show he couldn’t resist devoting most of it to attacking RT with, of course, a mention of Eck on the side.

I see that Fallon’s replacement is threatening Russia and the rest of the world with our wonderful white elephant carriers – if that isn’t propaganda what is? The Russians must be terrified.

You’ve got to laugh at that. Anybody who believes that she merits that is in serious need of urgent attention.

Not laughing. Colonel Ruth’s being ladened with sparkly tory baubles for good tory reason. If we’re lucky, Scotland will be free of the whole tory creep show in London for good, soon enough.

If not, Colonel Ruth’s heading for the House of Lords, dripping in “awards” from all kinds of tory con artists and chancers, like the Herald’s dingdongs.

The Tories believe that the EU will just move on and forget about the Irish border, pretend it does not exist, if we don’t talk about it, it will just go away, nobody will notice.
The Tories are down the rabbit hole with Alice.

starlaw says:

Irish border …. Tories are down the rabbit hole with Alice

Indeed. Reuters ….

link to tinyurl.com

Great links as ever Nana! Totally agree with Robert P. on alcoholics and other unfortunates! It’s a privilege to read and sometimes comment on a blog full of talented thinkers and progressive minds!

gus1940 says:
17 November, 2017 at 10:07 am
On-line Herald – Lead Story – Col Ruth voted Scottish Politician Of The Year for the second year running.

This is the “politician” who never holds a constituency surgery, who has to appeal for people to write in and suggest policies because she hasn’t got any, who believes that Scots going to visit England are all hooligans and thieves, who personally selects sectarian bigots and racists as Tory candidates, who is so committed to the day job that she spends more time swanning around in a pretendy Army uniform and driving a tank, riding poor, unsuspecting farm livestock and appearing on Dumbvision TV reality shows, whilst all the while denigrating Scots and Scotland.

In short, a Yoon.

If you have to have a stupid prize award like Politician of the year shouldn’t the main criteria be that “nominees” should actually have done something or be shown to represent something noble or charitable or *something* anything?

Ruth Davidson doesn’t even hold constituency surgeries, all she ever does is talk to the press then hide until she appears at FMQs where she presents a swaggering self confident attitude for the cameras only to be shot down on a weekly basis by the FM but knows that the BBC will only show the swaggering bit accompanied by Bryan Taylors voice informing the pensioner Tory voter and her sectarian troop of followers and fishermen she *Done good* and scored points off the FM

We’re at the ridiculous point now where her own side know it’s all propaganda but they don’t care they’ve chosen their side and they’re sticking to it just as the Independence side are sticking to theirs

Brexit will change few minds in Scotland about Independence that was clear in the aftermath of the vote
Unfortunately Scotland is not Catalonia where the people of that area can have a common cause because they’re not arguing about the much bigger problem that Scotland has

Whit team dae ye support and I’ll vote for you if it’s the right one, although to be fair that argument runs way deeper on the Brit side than the Independence side

We might as well have the referendum now and get it over with, nothing and no event is ever going to change anything in a country where a religion is only acceptable if you play for the right football team on a Saturday but the rest of the week somebody wants to be up to their knees in your blood

Cuz yer a (insert racial or sectarian slur here)

The REAL grim face of the Tory Party.
STV News taken from ITV News:

WINTER HEATING in Ruth Davidson’s Tory Great Britain 2017.

“More than one million families will not have enough money to meet basic fuel needs this winter, according to research published Friday by National Energy Action.

The NEA report follows a recent survey that revealed three in 10 Britons are too scared to put their heating on fearful of crippling fuel bills…….”

“A survey by Solarplicity published Thursday revealed a staggering 32% said they will struggle to heat their homes this winter and a further 43% say the cost of heating their house forces them to think twice before turning it on……..”

link to archive.is

More realism anyone?

Political realism as ideology critique

Abstract

This paper outlines an account of political realism as a form of ideology critique. We defend the normative edge of this critical-theoretic project against the common charge that there is a problematic trade-off between a theory’s groundedness in facts about the political status quo and its ability to envisage radical departures from the status quo. To overcome that problem, we combine insights from theories of legitimacy by Bernard Williams and other realists, Critical Theory, and analytic epistemological and metaphysical theories of cognitive bias, ideology and social construction. The upshot is an account of realism as empirically informed critique of social and political phenomena. We reject a sharp divide between descriptive and normative theory, and so provide an alternative to the anti-empiricism of some approaches to Critical Theory as well as to the complacency towards existing power structures found within liberal realism, let alone mainstream normative political philosophy, liberal or otherwise.

link to tandfonline.com

Left-wing ideologue, me?

THE THEORY OF CRITICAL LEGAL STUDIES

I. A PROGRESSIVE INTERVENTION

Critical legal studies is the first movement in legal theory and legal scholarship in the United States to have espoused a committed Left political stance and perspective.2 A left-wing academic trend of considerable breadth in the field of law is in itself worthy of attention, but one which has assumed an organized form and has already made a marked impact loudly demands careful scrutiny….

II. THE CRITIQUE OF LIBERAL LEGALISM
The liberalism against which critical theory directs its critical energies is the liberal theory which has generated the philosophy of legalism and the associated jurisprudence of legal positivism that has so decisively implanted itself in both the academic, the political and the popular discourse of contemporary capitalist democracies.

The central features of this powerful doctrine of legalism are: (a) the separation of law from other varieties of social control, (b) the existence of law in the form of rules which both define the proper sphere of their own application and [c] which are presented as the objective and legitimate normative mechanism whilst other normative types are partial or subjective, and (d) yield determinant and predictable results in their application in the juridical process. It is the view which Talcott Parson made more historically specific in his formulation that ‘law when developed to the requisite level, furthers the independence of the normative components of the social structure from the exigencies of political and economic interests and from the personal, organic and physical-environmental factors operating through them.’10

The legal theory of the Anglo-American tradition has exhibited a remarkable degree of continuity. The substance of contemporary debates and controversies exhibits a lineage which can be traced back to the variant models of bourgeois political relations developed by Hobbes and Locke. The interplay and reworking of their differential emphases upon the proper relation between state and civil society has been the backcloth against which the repeated play-off between rationalist natural law theory and legal positivism has taken place. It is the persistence of these themes which have so dominated the terms of debate that it has become increasingly oppressive in the sense that it has colonized the intellectual and political space of discussion about the relationship between law, state and society.

link to cisr.ru

Saw this post on my short Break:
manandboy said at 11:29 am:

“Apologies if already posted, Alan Knight of Newswatch Scotland and IndyRef2 presents:’Protecting Ruth Davidson’.

A brilliant and irrefutable exposition of how the BBC operates a ‘protect Ruth Davidson’ policy………”

Here it is on a 13 minute video:

link to tinyurl.com

Get in touch with your feminine side guys, we need to purge Anglo-American neo-liberalism from Scotland’s body politic.

Biopolitics and the Female Reproductive Body as the New Subject of Law

1. Introduction

To say that the histories and conceptual frameworks of Michel Foucault have, since the late 1980s, heavily influenced feminist theory is an understatement. On the other hand, one might add that the influence of Foucault on feminist jurisprudence and feminist legal theory has been much less pronounced, in spite of the obvious value of Foucault’s work for critical legal theory more generally.[1] One probable reason for this is the uncanny resemblance of Foucault’s ‘sexless subject’ to the abstract sexless subject of law which feminist legal theory has been tirelessly critiquing since its inception (giving rise to feminist works with titles such as: “unspeakable subjects”,[2] “the hidden gender of law”,[3] “sexing the subject of law”,[4] and so on).

And yet, when a ‘new Foucault’ – the Italian political philosopher Giorgio Agamben – hit the critical legal scene in the late nineties, one might argue that a new kind of feminist legal theory was quickly born; one that was receptive and subtly attentive to the work of both Foucault and Agamben. And this in spite of the fact that Agamben’s legal subjects are, like Foucault’s, utterly sexless. What might explain this phenomenon? Here, we suggest that Agamben’s work on law and citizenship, in focusing exclusively on Foucault’s concept of biopolitics, and therefore on questions of the regulation of populations rather than of individual bodies, represents a point of departure that is particularly ‘user friendly’ for feminist legal theory. We would also argue that feminist legal scholars need not be disturbed by Agamben’s apparent sex blindness – as earlier scholars were by the sex blindness of Foucault….

link to journals.kent.ac.uk

The Sarry Heid was the last stop before going to the Barrowland, it was a great pub, the wine of choice was “White Tornado!” which it also sold in half-bottles for the jigging! Not many pubs sold draught cider then but the Sarry sold Scrumpy & Champagne Cider (superb), the casks lifted single-handed onto the bar by the proprietor a Mr Ross! Still open I think but won’t be the same.

Watching sky news talking about Catalonia with a few inverviews from there. Reporter trying hard to get someone who would say it would be bad.
Anyway, they had a fall back in an old guy who owns the biggest wine company in Catalonia and jeeze he was Tory over the back.
Independence would be bad, very bad, could take 10 years to recover, maybe longer. Very bad for Catalonian people.

We have these people by the bucket load, but unfortunately it seems Catalonia has the same version of self interests working against them, not only the Spanish state. Seems familiar!

@Fred says:
17 November, 2017 at 1:31 pm
The Sarry Heid was the last stop before going to the Barrowland, it was a great pub, the wine of choice was “White Tornado!”
=====================================

I’m not sure White Tornado was a wine – more like a mild paint stripper. It could also be the reason the pub was often called the “Sorry Heid”.

In passing, claims that it was a continuation, however partial, of the old Saracen’s Head Inn (a coach Inn originally, all aboard for Edinburgh and don’t spare the horses) were never true. The original building was completely flattened at the turn of the 19/20th c. The pub built later had no connection with the old inn except the shared name – except perhaps (and I’ve never been able to confirm what I was told) that part of the old inn cellars form the cellar of the current pub.

So….

where are all the MSP tweets to (t)Ruthless Davidson saying aka Jenny Marra that
‘Being elected to Holyrood is a privilege not a pathway to Celebrity’

Will Ruthless donate her salary from the Bake Off – does it matter?
She’s doing what she always does before elections, get on a cosy TV show, become a well-kent face in people’s living rooms, they think of you like a family friend and at the next election you get extra votes.
Meanwhile, the same TV continues to show Nicola and colleagues as the big bad bogey-men and you definitely don’t want them in your living room!!!

Looks like it’s passe to refer to the video presentation, but it’s utterly depressing. Hope when newish political movements mature, they don’t start to resemble this !

A follow – up on who now owns the PPP contracts, and the gross profiteering, would also make interesting listening.