Wings Over Scotland

And don’t let anyone else tell you what to think. That was my dads advice. 

@Ian Brotherhood
Charles Edward Russell

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.

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.

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.

First they ignore you, then they froth at the mouth, then they explode.

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 🙂

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.)

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. 

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.

@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?

@Simon-
 
Agreed. We’re as well keeping it – it’s just a shame Labour left it lying in the gutter, close to death.