Anarchy in the UK ?
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| Art work by my daughter Beth |
My take on Scottish independence is influenced by living in England for 20 years and by being part of a radical counterculture which flowed through punk and on into the 1980s and 1990s. It still survives, but the UK government did its best to 'stub out progress where the seeds are sown' by 'killing of anything that's not quite known'. [A Mob quote]. That UK government was and still is lost in the illusion of an Empire that is gone. One of the pillars of the illusion is the genocidal energy locked up inside nuclear weapons based in Scotland.
My hope is that Scotland will vote Yes to independence in 2014 -striking a blow against the UK's imperial illusions and opening up the space for another England, another Wales and another Northern Ireland to become possible. Maybe not 'Anarchy in the UK', but a step along the road towards the new world we still carry in our hearts.
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posted by Unknown | 4:30 pm
2 Comments:
Great art from your daughter, Alistair. Like the use of Witchhunt lyric - listening to this song daily these last few months - sign of the times stuff...again! Completely behind your campaign. I just hope that your politicians, if given the chance, don't screw everything up to the extent that the self-serving fuckwits have south of the border. My fear for Scotland is that the symbiotic relationship between politics and money and royalty is inherently corrupt and that geography seems to make little difference, ie. political/economic/social leaders are all, more or less, as bad as each other, wherever they are. Frighteningly, given what has happened over the last two decades, things just seem to get worse. We thought that nothing could be worse than Thatcher, and then we got Blair and Brown, and then Cameron and Osborne. I guess that an independent Scotland is unlikely to commit war crimes, therefore no repeat of the 600,000 and rising death toll in Iraq courtesy of Bush and Blair, and that in itself, would make it worthwhile. Furthermore, cynical as I am about all politicians everywhere, Scotland must have the opportunity to be independent, even if it ain't no bed of roses. Tha's what I think anyway. Once again, love the art work. ;-)
Alistair, I just thought I'd write to congratulate you on an amazing blog as a whole.
If I was living in Scotland, I would definitely be voting yes in the coming referendum. As things stand, I merely voice my support on occasion, much to the dismay of some friends who fight me on every post.
They parrot the mantra of "condemn us to Tory rule in England" and look for anti-Englishness everywhere and "that kind of nationalism". It's like listening to George Galloway's dismissal of Independence in an interview on RT I watched once.
For my part, Scottish independence is simple self determination and thus a self evident right.
I think what hurts me, in those attacks on my postings on the subject, is feeling truly misunderstood.
Culturally, my home is anarcho/goth and very definitely counter cultural. I am quite blatant in my... left leanings when it comes to the choices our societies politics gives us. In recent years politics in the UK and beyond, have given me many a moment of sickened silence.
I play the Mob - Witch Hunt a lot.
With respect to getting through to people on the independence question, all kinds of things are going through my head, from psychology and mass psychology.
That is why it is such a complicated business.
Over some mate of mine, I caught this question put out by a group calling itself "the only way is Glasgow" on Facebook. It asked people how they were going to vote.
The clear majority said no and what was truly frustrating, were the reasons for doing so. They ranged from Football (Rangers) to economics. What was so horrible about the comments was that people parroted the top ten "no" arguments according to the "too wee, too poor, too stupid" psyche.
So it is a hard fight all in all.
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