To your values be true
Posted on
October 28, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
The world's most-read Scottish politics website
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Wings Over Scotland is a (mainly) Scottish political media digest and monitor, which also offers its own commentary. (More)
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A tall tale
Wee Books
Video
Probably a robbery
Transphobia
And don’t let anyone else tell you what to think. That was my dads advice.
What a great image. Who is the dude? Anyone know?
That’s what real socialists look like first thing in the morning.
@Ian Brotherhood
Charles Edward Russell
Iainbrotherhood,
you are showing your natural preference and understanding of the written word there pal, in that last statement. wink!
That image wrests on the old classic fascistic ‘sunburst’ effect so beloved of Mussolini, Hitler, Hirohito and link to labour.org.uk
I see unionists on twitter are apoplectic with boiling spleen and hatred that STV Scotland Tonight will be mentioning the latest excellent WOS-Panelbase opinion poll. That’s on top of the usual Scottish Labour Party smear merchants spreading their usual anti-WOS propaganda which is so familiar to most us now we could write it ourselves, which is the whole point of such exercises, to get people to repeat it without thinking. Some are so incandescent with rage they can hardly express themselves properly. Its great free entertainment watching them self-combust in public.
With every passing day unionists resemble more and more the incoherent irrational libertarian-authoritarian Republican teaparty nutters of America.
Joe Kane,
and with so many more months still to go, eh? [snigger]
Thanks Braco.
They’re just a populist political rabble with no arguments to support their cause and with a year still to go. We know that space isn’t going to be filled with civilised debate and argumentation cf Anas Sarwar.
It’s no surprise that George Galloway gives his very public support to Nigel Farage of UKIP. Unionists are only surviving because of the foreign-owned news media in Scotland is taking their side. As far as I’m aware its still to report the latest Better Together public laughing stock escapade of its highly criminal lottery, a scoop first reported by WOS which seems like an age ago now but was just last week.
Just think. There actually used to be socialists like Charles Edward Russell in the US! They even had communists in the early 20th century! Incidentally, many socialist and communist activists in America in late 19th/early 20th century were Finnish immigrants or 2nd generation immigrants.
It’s all been safely stamped out now and even though the US (and the UK, for that matter) nominally have 2 main parties for the sake of “democracy”, they’re both very right-wing. People are offered a false choice. Only in America could Obama be called a socialist. And it’s meant as an ugly taunt. [shakes head in despair…]
As regards the political compass thingy, I’d say Finland’s most right-wing mainstream political party Kokoomus is well left of UK Labour.
tonight attended:
The School of Law presents Professor Jim Gallagher on the topic of Hanging Together: The Case For Union. Also supposedly has written a book called Scotland’s Choices.
Numerous questionable stats including that 2/3 of people in Scotland consider themselves British. However, most interesting was that he said he is a supporter of the concept of international socialism but that we have to start with what we have, which is the UK. In answer to question; which real life example of independence or constitutional change would be most likely to provide useful guidance on Scotland/Uk situation (to help us foresee the future outcomes), he suggested that NONE was really suitable but perhaps Czechoslovakia or South Sudan.
His main point is that UK needs fiscal federalism. An Elephant remained quiet on how that would be taken forward.
Joe Kane
I have had a look and they are angry.
Well done Rev, your poll is not being ignored this time.
First they ignore you, then they froth at the mouth, then they explode.
I know I shouldn’t but I will, anyone got a link to the Twitter rage? I am a twitter Luddite.
Well done Rev, looks like it’s being covered this time, Q the Unionist bile ! The main thing I take from this is, we are doing it… It’s going to be a YES
For undecided lefties
http://marksimonfrankland.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/scared.html?m=1 …
crisiscult @ 7.48pm
So, according to international socialist Professor Jim Gallagher, the way to go is to make the whole of the UK socialist first? Aye, right. How is he going to do it when there are no socialist parties in the UK with even the slimmest chance of ever winning an election? (NOTE: Labour is NOT a socialist party.)
Does he not see that if Scotland goes indy, it might be an inspiration to all real lefties in rUK? I don’t think indy Scotland would be a socialist country but maybe something between Nordic social democracies and rUK? More lefty than rUK, anyway.
Incidentally, I think all socialist parties are “doomed”, in that if they succeed, i.e. lift enough of their voters out of poverty, many of the newly reasonably well-off will not want to vote for the party anymore. They’re setting their sights higher, aspiring… (Aspiring Tories, anyone?) So, in order for the party to hang on to its voters, they have to move right.
Now, in a better functioning (=proportional representation) democracy, that leaves ground for new lefty parties to emerge. In an undemocratic FPTP mock-democracy, new parties find it extremely difficult if not impossible to emerge in any meaningful way.
I think it’s the irony of the Holyrood voting system, deliberately designed to make an SNP majority “impossible”, that it has given Scots a taste of real democracy. They saw that it doesn’t have to be like Westminster, one or the other, and duly voted in a third alternative. Twice. The SNP minority government did such a competent job that they were rewarded with a landslide in 2011 and now the UK is facing a real possibility of Scotland opting for independence in a democratic referendum.
Indepencence is not yet won, but the genie will not go back into the bottle.
If not in 2014, then in the near future, Scotland will be independent, because Scots want more than they’ve got now. (all the devo-maxers etc.)
REV whits that graphic at the top tryin tae say that the PENS MIGHT ER THAN THE TURDS your pieces over the weekend hiv them SHITIN THEMSELVES
lumilumi: I haven’t given that part as much thought as you but certainly the ‘socialists’ that seem obsessed with the territorial integrity of the UK, who of course aren’t nationalists, versus the narrow minded Scottish separatists, who of course are nationalists, do seem to actually believe what they are saying. He also made the point, not the first time I’ve heard this, that Scots don’t come out as much more socialist than the UK as a whole. However, I think the Rev’s latest poll makes that idea more complex because it seems, if I read properly, that pro-Yes voters are indeed more socialist, even if Scotland as a whole is not dramatically more socialist. This leads to the conclusion that a motivation for voting yes is to develop a more socialist style body politic. Now you may or may not believe the Professor’s theory that independence is the wrong thing to do, and it will ultimately damage the social and economic ties between Scotland and rUK, to Scotland’s detriment, but I was certainly extremely suspicious about a) the socialist card being played b) the denial that there is any relevance to Scotland of pretty much every independence achievement in the history of the world.
crisiscult @ 10.10
)
I’m not sure if “socialist” is actually a useful label these days. Lots of the (in name) social democratic parties in Europe have moved right, though none so much as UK Labour, and aren’t really “socialist” anymore in the original sense, more like “tempered capitalism”. That’s because their historical voter base has been lifted out of poverty. I think the definition of lefty parties now is some kind of social conscience, maybe? As opposed to rampant capitalism?
Anyhoo, I wouldn’t know, I’ve never been a member of any party and I’ve never voted for a “socialist” party. I’m an entrepreneur but also a lefty in the social consciousness sense, and also concerned for democracy (that’d label me as a liberal in the original sense) and the environment (so I’m a green, too!
Thankfully, in a PR democracy, there are so many parties to choose from that I can find one that most closely matches my ideas. Sometimes they even get into government (all Finnish government are coalitions) and influence national policy.
Whereas in the UK. It’s a pretty barren landscape. The blue, orange or red Tories. Scotland has an alternative in the SNP. Apart from the indy question, it’s also more lefty than any of the main UK parties.
Majority right Parties in Europe are more left wing than the US/UK Parties (except the SNP). UKIP is a right wing Party, being funded. Illegally by EU funds.
US/UK in high debt US raised $18trn (approx 300million pop) UK £1.2Trillion. (approx 60 million pop)
US debt raised €2trn.
UK debt (economy) stagnating.
Norway/Germany etc Socialist they pay high rate of tax but are in surplus, with lower unemployment.
@Grant_M (6.57 yesterday) –
Cheers for the man’s name.
Just been reading about him there. Interesting dude. Can’t imagine he’d last five minutes in the USA today, they’d have him carted off to Guantanamo in a jiffy.
@lumilumi-
‘I’m not sure if “socialist” is actually a useful label these days.’
I’m not sure either. Unfortunately, tins need labels.
I suppose we could down the route of George Galloway, Tommy Sheridan, and call the ‘party’ what we think it embodies eg ‘Respect’, ‘Solidarity’. That’s all well and good, but it ditches a lot of heritage and seems a tad disrespectful to all those who sacrificed so much. It’s a tricky one.
We could have a party called ‘Common Decency’. Or one called ‘Naemerrshite‘.
If Orwell was alive, and tasked with renaming/repackaging socialism, what would he call it?
What’s wrong with Socialist? Just because some right-wingers try to use it as a flag of convenience. If there are more of us than of them then we reclaim the name.
@Simon-
Agreed. We’re as well keeping it – it’s just a shame Labour left it lying in the gutter, close to death.