Last weekend, the dreadful Guardian newspaper reported that the entertainer, Paul McCartney, has put his name to an open letter which quite clearly accepted the dubious validity of the Referendum, the exclusivity of it’s electorate and the finality of its result, if any; McCartney also said that he loved Scotland and hoped that it would remain part of the United Kingdom; as a law-abidng, tax-paying, generally blameless citizen of what is still our country, McCartney was entirely within his rights in expressing a widely-held and perfectly legitimate point of view.
Within a very short space of time, however, the Guardian’s comments section was blitzed by – at the last time of looking – more than a thousand comments from those who claim to speak for Scotland; I am as Scottish as any in the land, as Danish as any in these islands and these people certainly do not speak for me or anyone I know or would care to know.
McCartney’s music was rubbish, they chanted, Rubbish-Rubbish-Rubbish, ignorant of spelling and punctuation, much less crochets and quavers, and because his music is so bad, people must vote Yes; he dyes his hair, therefore people must vote Yes; he disgustingly married a one-legged woman; he’s a pervert; he’s not as good as was John Lennon; he’s a filthy vegetarian; a filthy tax-dodger, he looks older than he did when he was younger; and more wrinkly, he has wrinkles, vote Yes; he married an American, twice, he married two Americans; he had the cheek to come and live in Scotland; what better reason could there be for voting Yes, someone in showbusiness dyeing their hair?
All these insults were delivered as though they were brilliantly scintillating one-liners honed by some Heavenly satirist when what they were was filth. As well as the personal abuse, those claiming to speak for the nation which has given us The Proclaimers and the Bay City Rollers offered endless, turgid, infantile re-writings of Yellow Submaine and Yesterday, revealing only the fatuity and charmlessness of their authors. This, nationalism's finest hour, was playground politics, the retards, ranting.
Neither spontaneous nor sincere, this epidemic of cyber-abuse is Hitlerian, appealing to the very, very worst, the darkest, the cruellest and most vindictive parts of our nature, this is not an invigorating People’s engagement which we should celebrate, this is fascism’s harbinger, McCartney, as was 1930’s European Jewry, cast as sub-human, degenerate, untermenschen.
And nor is it just Paul McCartney who is so ill-treated, misrepresented and blackguarded by these illiterate, emotionally stunted and politically obtuse cyber bullies, it is any who dare disagree, any who see little difference between Alec Salmond, David Cameron, Ed Milliband or Mr Carmichael’s notional and temporary boss, Nick Wotsisname, all of whom learnt their larcenous, grimy, rabble-rousing skills in the subsidised bars and bondage parlours of Westminster, all of whom have far more in common with each other than with the rest of us. Unless you believe that Salmond is the way, the truth and the light you are unworthy, Scottish Nationalism, laughably immature.
Culloden be damned, New Salmondia is just another device to divide today’s working people one from another; a separated United Kingdom, North and South, will prove GlobaBank’s even more obedient, supplicant handmaiden. Could anyone in history kow-tow more abjectly to Donald Trump than did Mr Salmond? There is no socialist agenda in Holyrood.
I back-tracked just one of the Guardian’s grubbily anonymous BeatleBashers and in just thirty days he had managed to post one thousand five hundred abusive, anonymous comments, fifty per day, one wonders what he will do with his time, post-referendum.
Paul McCartney can fend for himself but many, traduced, defamed and bullied by cowardly, anonymous cyberthugs will be anxious, asking themselves the question – as should we all - if Nationalism is such a good thing, why is its voice so harsh, so cruel, and so bitter? And who would live within its triumphant, raucous and cruel earshot?
13 comments:
A well observed piece Mr Ishmael. I cannot see the need for such unpleasantness. The result of the referendum is hardly likely to be a resounding one for either side. What can we look forward to? Endless reruns and escalating bitterness and rancour, that's what.
I won’t be giving up my British passport any time soon. I’ve just paid nearly a hundred quid for it.
Nearly got into fisticuffs with a Scottish Nationalist a number of years ago. Told told him that Scots fought on the side of the English at Culloden.
Wasn’t trying to put him right on history or anything. Just trying to illustrate the Scots historical tendency to opportune.
The first rule of ruling; divide those prospective rulees.
Sounds like the guardian comments section has as least one full-time paid troll.
Scores of them, mr doug shoulders, all of them wilfully misunderstanding their own history. Either way, this will cause bloodshed.
Do they willfully misunderstand? The history they talk of is the history of Kings/Queens, Barons and Aristocrats. The history of the common people of these islands is 'willfully' swept aside, the Peasants revolt, the Diggers, the Luddites, the Covenanters, ordinary common people looking to improve their lot in life, only to be beaten down by the great and mighty elites.
I said before earlier down the road, if the elites don't want Scots independence, the Scots won't get it. But if they do, if it suits their agenda, as you say mr I, there will be bloodshed.
I must admit that I tend to agree with you despite not being too upset at seeing Macca getting a good kicking - he deserves it for Mull of Kintyre and Give my regards to Broad Street if nothing else.
Nationalism is the worst of human emotions and if the BNP is bad(which it is) then so is the SNP and all the other nationalist parties.
As usual I take my inspiration from GK Chesterton...
Were I that wandering citizen whose city is the world,
I would not weep for all that fell before the flags were furled;
I would not let one murmur mar the trumpets volleying forth
How God grew weary of the kings, and the cold hell in the north.
Trump to receive Balmoral as a gift from a Grateful (Scottish) Nation?
Will Salmond, also, permit the image-maker every license?
Scottish Nationalism = Elective Clearance?
I think Trump has got Salmon iller (and he was bloody awful to start with).
Can't say I'm a fan of Macca either but he has as much right as the next man to give view without being on the receiving end of a shitstorm of ignorant drivel emanting from people who confuse their arses with their mouths. The whole thing is insane Mr I. If it does happen I think the consequences will be very serious, not just for Scotland but also for the whole of the UK. Economically the impact could on a similar scale to that caused by the 2008 crash. Also it means that we will inevitably take our eyes off a range of already very serious problems both at home and abroad while the two governments spend the next 5 - 10 years focused on tearing up the UK and arguing about who owns what of a diminishing asset base while liabilities and risks continue to grow like topsy. Salmond and Co are a far greater threat to UK national security than the head chopping Jihadists of the Levant or Vladimir Putin.
The whole thing seems a pointless exercise - just like the Irish, get your independence, then join the totalitarian EU. Madness. As you say, Mr I, the practicalities, not to mention costs, are too horrendous to contemplate - and I doubt there has been any serious analysis.
The only pause for thought I have is that the whole of the establishment wants NO, and I'm usually a contrarian as far as the ruling class is concerned.
Anybody getting teary-eyed over the history of Scotland should read up on how the clan system worked - the definition of slavery.
I dunno, if we must have musical national treasures, better McCartney than most - Cliff Richard, Mick'n'Keef, Elton John,
- although mine would be Richard Thompson. That's all beside the point, though, it is the very nastiness of nationalism which is revealed by the BeatleBashers.
I believe that Salmond and Trump had a wee falling out, over the bewigged one not getting his way, being unable to stop an offshore wind farm blighting his fucking golf course; talking of which, Trump's treatment of local residents was dreadful and could only have happened with Salmond's backing, no mention of that, of course, by Separatists.
"....the Peasants revolt, the Diggers, the Luddites, the Covenanters, ordinary common people looking to improve their lot in life, only to be beaten down by the great and mighty elites." Jock doesn't know anything about all that, his understanding of history melds with that of the JewBasher Gibson, apt, really.
More news further on up the road, with the learned friends......
To add to what Mr SG says: rather a lot going on, isn`t there ? Scotland, the EU, Ukraine. Middle East, economy still in the toilet....Ruin`s fancy footwork. Laws of Unintended ( maybe not so Unintended) Consequences kick in, ripple out.
The actors ? Bad Vlad, Islamonutterbastards, bankers, defeated military careerists, EU chair polishers, pansy faced effete trust fund wastrels, Farrage face down in a pool of claret in a Brussels bistro, a fat bullshitting clown dancing around in a skirt in Holyrood and Ed Miliband.
An empty car draws up, an empty suit gets out and the wind sighing through the empty suit is mistaken for speech. Or as Media Minster lies " Ed Miliband delivered a keynote speech today....
Don`t set fire to that longship, Mr Ishmael. You might need it to row to Bergen.
if Nationalism is such a good thing, why is its voice so harsh, so cruel, and so bitter? And who would live within its triumphant, raucous and cruel earshot
And, with the shoe on the other foot, with so much in your face 'YES, YES, YES!!' and 'Better Together' afraid to set foot on the street for fear of physical harm, the 'NO' crowd are going to be somewhat unbearable for the Little Scotlanders if the vote goes the other way.
'So, Jock, lacked the balls to go your own way eh? Still hiding behind your mammy's skirts?'
That nasty little fucker Salmond has brought out the worst in everybody. Admittedly, in Fucking Scotland, he didn't have to dig too deep to find it but the constant snide 'Doing the best for Scotland' and 'Turning our back on Westminster' is fooling nobody. All he's doing is tapping into the bottomless well of hatred for their neighbours nurtured from generation to generation and century to century.
History viewed through a nationalist colander or SNP welder's mask as necessary.
Aye. The English did this to us. The English did that to us. The English fucked up our attempts to establish a colony. The English are murdering colonists. We're admired the world over which is why all our old colonies have bagpipe bands in their military. The English are hated the world over for militarily crushing the natives. We invented everything. The English stole everything. We abolished slavery. The English grew rich on slavery. The English threw us off our land. We made Canada the great nation it is. etc etc.
Best of luck with the fuckers.
I usually agree with your sentiments, mr jgm2, call me the Bill Clinton of the blogosphere - I feel yo' tits, I mean, I feel yo' pain but I diverge from you on the detail, here. I don't know many Scots and such few as I do are from North of Inverness, HighlandandIslanders and they are not at all rabid and vengeful, as is Jock; there is no militant Unionism to speak of, maybe a bit in some of the Central Belt footba' clubs, but that's the same across Britain, football's purpose being to safely harness and contain tribalism and its devotees.
What I do know is my own nature - Scottish Presbyterian, from my mother and Anglo-Scot diffidence and distance, from my father; there is no patience among people like me for rabble rousers, be they the obnoxious piece of filth, Ian Paisley, or the the tub-thumpomg greaseball, Salmond, whom you describe so well.
There is certainly sectarianism in the Central Belt but it is not national; there is widepsread drunkenness and wife beating, too; ther eis intitutionalised, elitist child molestation in the citadels of Power and among the Tribesmen there is my oft-lamented fathomless sense of grievance.
I agree with you that there is likely to be violence whatever the result but I do not believe that it will originate from the Togetherists. It also raises the question of who, pending Independence Day, will police any such conflict; will it be the newly-nationalised Scottish Police or will it be the British Army, as peacekeeping force? Now, there would be a thing.
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