Last Thoughts on Scottish Election

Submitted by NYCVG on Mon, 05/10/2021 - 5:30pm

Andrew Neil is leading the Post-Election Doublethink: Victory is failure. Failure is victory. No-one is interested. You didn’t vote. A vote for the SNP or the Greens is a vote for independence. A vote for the SNP of Greens is not a vote for independence: https://t.co/PrHUgonAvq

— Bella Caledonia (@bellacaledonia) May 10, 2021

War is peace. Winning is losing.

Coming soon to a country like ours.

Full article is worth a read.

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It can happen here

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Comments

Submitted by Lookout on Mon, 05/10/2021 - 8:24pm

It is doublespeak...

You know...
war is peace_4.jpg

Funny that the UK empire died long ago. Does that speak for the future of the US empire as it collapses? I wonder.

All the best!

—

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Submitted by NYCVG on Tue, 05/11/2021 - 2:19pm

That's what it looks like to me

@Lookout @Lookout We'll find out if cable news in the USA covers the midterms as always or if they pull back if the Establishment seems to be losing ground.

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NYCVG

Submitted by Nastarana on Mon, 05/10/2021 - 8:56pm

A coupe of good posts on the elections

from Craig Murray https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/

Murray is very pro Scottish independence, and is also a friend of Julian Assange, and about to be jailed for reasons I can't understand but I think connected with his advocacy on behalf of Assange. A political prosecution for being a nuisance, maybe.

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Mary Bennett

Submitted by Marie on Tue, 05/11/2021 - 12:15am

The charge(s) against Murray

@Nastarana are NOT related to Assange. Has to do with Murray's reporting on Alex Salmond's sexual misconduct court case. Salmond was the former leader of SNP and forced to resign from the party in 2018 due to the misconduct allegations. (He had lost his MP seat in the 2017 general election.) Salmond is staunchly pro-independence. His former protegee and successor SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon, isn't (or is no longer) interested in independence.

The media in the UK convicted Salmond long before the trial. One feature of this court case was that the accusers were a 'state secret,' and therefore, reporters couldn't name or identify them. Even if, as in Murray's situation, he knew who they were. Murray didn't name them, but as I understand it, the Scottish prosecutors claim that he revealed identifying information.

IMHO what Murray's reporting revealed was that the Salmond case was the worst of political witch hunts. The Sturgeon coven needed to get rid of Salmond, and therefore, cooked up the sexual misconduct charges. And, surprise to TPTB, the jury found in favor of Salmond. So far, Strugeon hasn't paid any political price for bringing the case forward (against the advice of SNP attorneys) and none of the accusers have any legal problems.

Submitted by NYCVG on Tue, 05/11/2021 - 8:00am

Wings Over Scotland

@Marie shares your views on Sturgeon and Salmond.

I do not.

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NYCVG

Submitted by Marie on Tue, 05/11/2021 - 1:46pm

Other than agreeing with

@NYCVG the decision of the jury, I didn't express any opinion of Salmond because I don't have one. I also don't have an opinion on an independent Scotland. (The history on that issue is very long.)

Sturgeon is another matter. IMHO she demonstrated untrustworthiness before using sexual misconduct allegations against Salmond. A relatively easy way these days to get rid of a political rival if only slightly true. A low bar and also with all the legal advantages that her gang failed to step over. (I'm not in the 'believe all women' camp because I'm all too familiar with women lying; we are people after all and people lie.)

I do bristle at false witnesses and false charges that seemed evident to me in this case. Is that what you disagree with?

Submitted by NYCVG on Tue, 05/11/2021 - 2:20pm

I am not qualified to comment

@Marie @Marie on Craig Murray, Alec Salmond and George Galloway. Let alone sexual allegations made overseas.

I will say that imho Nicola Sturgeon is the real thing.

Nicola has been a staunch supporter of Scottish Independence for as long as my memory serves and I believe that she will bring this initiative to a successful conclusion.

Blowback against a landslide SNP election win, is coming from the usual Unionists and from various fifth column efforts. Wings Over Scotland is an anti-Sturgeon blog that appears to me to work for the Empire. The commentariots on that blog sound like the same ignorant angry constituency as the bloggers on Zero Hedge do to me. Only with slightly different expressions of fury and misinformation.

On the 3 gentlemen cited above, I have no opinion. Other than I thought Galloway got the Corbyn defeat entirely inaccurately. There's no reason for me to think he views Scotland through the same lens I do.

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NYCVG

Submitted by Marie on Tue, 05/11/2021 - 3:02pm

Yes, Sturgeon is a real politician --

@NYCVG and quite clever. Lost interest in independence when the referendum failed.

wrt sexual allegations overseas, I weighed in early after the facts became available in Assange's case. Took a long while for the Swedish prosecutors to catch up.

Suspect there's quite a lot we disagree about. Suggest a recent Glenn Greenwald piece.

For months, polls have shown two center-left candidates anathema to the city's progressives — former presidential candidate Andrew Yang and Brooklyn Borough President and police captain Eric Adams — in the lead. The only progressive candidate with any viable chance to win is Stringer, the former Manhattan Borough President and current City Comptroller. He has placed a strong third in most polls behind Yang and Adams, and has been closing in on Adams.

The recognition that Stringer is the only left-wing candidate with a viable chance to beat the two centrists has resulted in a pile of recent endorsements from many of the same progressive groups and politicians who hopped on board the Morse train, including the Sunrise Movement, the Working Families Party and Rep. Bowman. ...

But Stringer’s candidacy suffered a likely fatal blow last week when a woman named Jean Kim — who Stringer says was a former girlfriend — claimed that eighteen years ago, in 2003, the candidate “repeatedly groped me [and] put his hands on my thighs and between my legs” without her consent. Just as was true with Alex Morse, this accusation suddenly materialized, said The New York Times, right “as he had appeared to catch momentum….In a number of recent polls, Mr. Stringer had appeared to be virtually tied or just behind Mr. Adams.”
...
As a result, within days of Kim’s accusation about what happened in 2003, many leading left-wing groups announced they were withdrawing their support for Stringer. Worse, they issued statements in which they took the truth of these accusations for granted — exactly as they did to Alex Morse — and in which they all but accused Stringer of being a predator and sexual abuser.
...

Buttar in SF suffered the same fate -- (imho his accuser is nuts). Guess it doesn't seem curious to Democrats that accusations against Biden were treated differently.

Submitted by NYCVG on Tue, 05/11/2021 - 5:50pm

stringer is out but

@Marie @Marie @Marie not because of the sexual harassment item.

I've quoted Scott on this blog several times already, that the lesser known story is Scott Stringer in his own words reassuring his donors at a fund raising event that this "Progressive him" was for the primaries only. You can search thru my columns to find this. That is why NYC Progressives jumped ship so quickly.

On Yang and Adams, the Establishment is all for Adams. The people of NYC have other ideas.

This is a fight against the empire if there ever was one.

Per @nytimes interview: Median price of a home in Brooklyn:@RayForMayor - $80-90k(?)@ShaunDonovanNYC $100k(?)@Dianne4NYC - $500k@ericadamsfornyc - $550k@KGforNYC - $800k@AndrewYang - $900k@scottmstringer - $1 million@mayawiley - $1.8 million

(The answer is $900k)

— NYC Mayor's Race 2021 (@MayorsRace2021) May 11, 2021

The "Yang doesn't know enough about NY" line is looking worse by the day. Look how off some of these candidates are from reality. Shaun Donovan has worked in the Housing sector of government for decades, for example.

Only Andrew knew the answer.

#2.1.1.1.1 and quite clever. Lost interest in independence when the referendum failed. wrt sexual allegations overseas, I weighed in early after the facts became available in Assange's case. Took a long while for the Swedish prosecutors to catch up. Suspect there's quite a lot we disagree about. Suggest a recent Glenn Greenwald piece. For months, polls have shown two center-left candidates anathema to the city's progressives — former presidential candidate Andrew Yang and Brooklyn Borough President and police captain Eric Adams — in the lead. The only progressive candidate with any viable chance to win is Stringer, the former Manhattan Borough President and current City Comptroller. He has placed a strong third in most polls behind Yang and Adams, and has been closing in on Adams. The recognition that Stringer is the only left-wing candidate with a viable chance to beat the two centrists has resulted in a pile of recent endorsements from many of the same progressive groups and politicians who hopped on board the Morse train, including the Sunrise Movement, the Working Families Party and Rep. Bowman. ... But Stringer’s candidacy suffered a likely fatal blow last week when a woman named Jean Kim — who Stringer says was a former girlfriend — claimed that eighteen years ago, in 2003, the candidate “repeatedly groped me [and] put his hands on my thighs and between my legs” without her consent. Just as was true with Alex Morse, this accusation suddenly materialized, said The New York Times, right “as he had appeared to catch momentum….In a number of recent polls, Mr. Stringer had appeared to be virtually tied or just behind Mr. Adams.” ... As a result, within days of Kim’s accusation about what happened in 2003, many leading left-wing groups announced they were withdrawing their support for Stringer. Worse, they issued statements in which they took the truth of these accusations for granted — exactly as they did to Alex Morse — and in which they all but accused Stringer of being a predator and sexual abuser. ... Buttar in SF suffered the same fate -- (imho his accuser is nuts). Guess it doesn't seem curious to Democrats that accusations against Biden were treated differently.

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NYCVG

Submitted by Marie on Tue, 05/11/2021 - 8:27pm

Well, at least Stringer has

@NYCVG a public policy record and isn't a product of private schools.

Freely admit that I'm biased wrt to novice political candidates. I'll listen but they have to demonstrate far more than Yang has done. I'm also wary of first generation immigrants from most countries as they tend to be conservative and capitalistic in their orientation. Again, I'll listen, but I'm not interested in the Kamala Harris' that have entered US politics.

Submitted by Nastarana on Tue, 05/11/2021 - 11:12pm

Agreed about 1st gen immigrants.

@Marie Call me a meanie, but I can't help wondering if the proposed monthly stipend wasn't inspired by complaints from immigrant business owners that the Americans aren't spending anymore. Also, I think it is useless unless combined with rent controls in every state.

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Mary Bennett

Submitted by Nastarana on Tue, 05/11/2021 - 8:38am

I know he stepped on

@Marie somebody's toes. Here in the USA we would simply assume Sturgeon had been bought off, or been persuaded that independence was "bad for fillintheblank". One has to respect Salmond for getting back up and trying again.

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Mary Bennett

Submitted by Marie on Tue, 05/11/2021 - 1:52pm

Yes, he did step on Sturgeon's toes.

@Nastarana Craig Murray:

UPDATE I today received a prison sentence of eight months for my reporting of the defence case in the Alex Salmond trial. I have a three week stay while we apply to this same court for permission to appeal to the Supreme Court. My appeal will be based on the simple fact that I did not identify anybody. It will also be based on the right to report the defence case being denied by an extraordinary, impossibly strict application of “jigsaw identification”, and on fair process not having been observed.

Submitted by Nastarana on Tue, 05/11/2021 - 9:20am

A pro-Unionist view

from George Galloway https://www.rt.com/op-ed/523370-galloway-scotland-independence-referendum/

NYCVG, what do you think about all this, and, should we Americans care about Scottish independence, or is it, in your view, none of our business? Count me as one of those who thinks we need to close the overseas bases, bring the soldiers back home and put them to work here, never mind howls about "militarization", which is happening already, so we might as well get some benefit from it. And we should mind our own business overseas. I have been keenly interested in the Alba phenomenon because of the difficulties small parties have here. I was hoping to see someone, somewhere, pull it off.

Murray has been sentenced to 8 months of what amounts to slow motion execution (for an elderly man with chronic health problems), it is being reported this morning. I can't help thinking that his friendship with Assange had something to do with it, whatever the ostensible excuse.

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Mary Bennett

Submitted by NYCVG on Tue, 05/11/2021 - 2:16pm