We Will Remember Them
On Twitter yesterday evening I said - “journalists think they know which side their bread is buttered come #indy we will remember” - I’ve taken out the @people as I don’t intend to name names here but one poor, sensitive soul construed that as a threat against him personally.
Let me make one thing crystal clear, what I said was not a threat, it was not even a warning, it was much more an observation. If Labour / Tory / Liberal Democrat politicians and the journalists / newspapers who are currently talking Scotland down with their scare mongering continue perpetuating the same old lie that Scotland is too weak, too poor, too stupid to be an independent country they are not only insulting each and every person who lives in Scotland, but also damaging the future prospects of both Scotland and the Rump UK.
When I wrote my Dear John Bull letter I asked for an honest debate, it is now clear that there is, in fact, no positive case for the Union and the shouty scare mongering continues. This is a reflection of the rules of ‘new’ politics practised by those three UK parties which occupy the majority of seats in Westminster*, and it is very much an American influenced model.
Rule 1 - if you have no legitimate argument against your opponent then call them names, insult their physical appearance and disseminate as much fear among the electorate as possible. Fear of almost any kind will do, the more irrational the better, fear of poverty is a good one as is fear of the unknown, people are predisposed to fear of the unknown.
Rule 2 - if you can’t find anything to blame your opponent for then blame them for everything, it may waste their time finding references to negate your lie which takes away from time they would otherwise use to promote their positive case. Be as negative as you possibly can.
It’s very simple, to dispel all the lies disseminated by the pro-status quo camp in this independence ‘debate’, Scots only have to read the McCrone Report**. Titled Oil Of Scotland, this report was kept a dark secret by successive governments for decades but it shows that in the previously successful attempts to squash the Scots desire for independence, Scots were blatantly lied to by the Westminster government of the day. That government actively practiced a deception on the Scottish people which was not discovered for three decades.
Let’s be clear, this was no simple manipulation of the truth, it was a deliberate burying of facts which more than fully supported the knowledge of some Scots that we would be healthier in so many ways as an independent country. Truth is always the first casualty in any conflict.
Now, even though the McCrone Report is in the public domain, the successors of that government are still peddling the same myths that Scotland would be a poorer place if independent. The facts show that it is Westminster which is in a panic because England can’t afford to lose the income Scotland’s oil provides.
Let us also be clear that, if the “right question” had not been supplied to be asked in Westminster, the McCrone Report would even now lie buried with other (still) secret papers relating to Scottish devolution and potential Scottish independence in the vaults of Westminster.
A court decreed that those still secret papers should be released into the public domain but Westminster has vetoed this. These documents are apparently still too sensitive to allow the people of Scotland access to them. This secrecy is something normally applied to papers dealing with, for example, the Iraq war or ‘dangerous’ influences and foreign governments. What does this tell us about the way Westminster views Scotland?
Just how damaging to the three main UK political parties would those documents be if they were released? And the only political party which has a clear mandate to govern the Scots, given to them in a vote held under proportional representation, is the Scottish National Party.
I am pleading with all those who are peddling lies and spreading fear, stop and think.
Pause, take stock of what you are doing because not only are you harming Scotland, you are showing a very ugly side of the Westminster Government, damaging your own reputations and making lackeys of yourselves, especially those journalists who neglect to challenge the outrageous, laughable and easily disprovable claims being made by Unionist politicians. Please research the widely available facts instead of simply regurgitating what you are being fed. Above all, these Unionists and their lackeys are making a mockery of democracy.
Of course, talking of journalists brings me full circle. As everyone is aware, Twitter only allows 140 characters in a post, too little to give whole quotes. For the context in which this was intended, please read the poem For the Fallen “at the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them”.
That poor, sensitive wee creature who took my words so wrongly and so personally has made an error - by finding a cap so perfect a fit what has he admitted?
*For those who don’t know, Westminster in London is where the Houses of Parliament are located and where the UK government sits. The Scottish Government sits in the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood and is often simply referred to as ‘Holyrood’.
**It's not all about oil for Scotland, though the McCrone Report is significant in that it points out that oil would give Scotland an almost embarrassing surplus Scotland has a rich diversity from which to sustain her population.
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/for-the-fallen/ For the Fallen by Laurence Binyon
http://www.oilofscotland.org/mccronereport.pdf all you need to read is the covering letter to get a very clear picture of what was going on
http://weegiewarbler.blogspot.com/2012/01/dissecting-mccrone-report-official.html an excellent piece looking at the implications of the McCrone Report