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Ruling politicians around the world (and the dominant medias of their nations) are expressing smug satisfaction over the defeat of the Scottish independence referendum. As a matter of "principle," they oppose the idea of people asserting independence (although exceptions can be made for unpopular regimes, such as Sudan, newly divided). Also Britain is an important brick in the wall of U.S. Imperialist power, so all members of the U.S.-bloc were aghast at the idea of a weakening of that nation.
I thought, despite the “Yes” side surging in polls, overtaking the “No” side just before the voting on the referendum took place, that independence would lose, mainly because of people's innate conservatism, in the proper use of the word conservative; resistant to change. (As opposed to conservative as a euphemism for right-wing, reactionary, even fascist. Sometimes a clue that U.S. establishment propagandists are referring to fascists is indicated by front-loading the word conservative with ultra.)
British Prime Minister and typical toff David Cameron gave a gracious victory speech as soon as the outcome was tallied (55-45%, a solid rejection by a ten point margin, belying the polls, with turnout of 84%, highest in a UK election since 1951) in which he reiterated the nice promises of more local powers and goodies for Scotland. He bragged about British democracy. He claimed to believe in giving people a say and voting on big issues. (So I would ask him: why the repeated avoidance of a long-promised UK-wide referendum on EU status?) I think the British ruling elite was smug and overconfident of victory until the last few weeks, thinking the issue would be put to bed by a vote their way (the only reason they allowed a vote was because they were sure they would win). Then, when the polls showed a tie, they got alarmed and came out with a public relations campaign, brilliantly branded “Better Together,” including Cameron's speech likening the British Union to a marriage, and threatening a bitter breakup. [1]
“It would have broken my heart, to see our United Kingdom come to an end,” Cameron also said. He
I thought, despite the “Yes” side surging in polls, overtaking the “No” side just before the voting on the referendum took place, that independence would lose, mainly because of people's innate conservatism, in the proper use of the word conservative; resistant to change. (As opposed to conservative as a euphemism for right-wing, reactionary, even fascist. Sometimes a clue that U.S. establishment propagandists are referring to fascists is indicated by front-loading the word conservative with ultra.)
British Prime Minister and typical toff David Cameron gave a gracious victory speech as soon as the outcome was tallied (55-45%, a solid rejection by a ten point margin, belying the polls, with turnout of 84%, highest in a UK election since 1951) in which he reiterated the nice promises of more local powers and goodies for Scotland. He bragged about British democracy. He claimed to believe in giving people a say and voting on big issues. (So I would ask him: why the repeated avoidance of a long-promised UK-wide referendum on EU status?) I think the British ruling elite was smug and overconfident of victory until the last few weeks, thinking the issue would be put to bed by a vote their way (the only reason they allowed a vote was because they were sure they would win). Then, when the polls showed a tie, they got alarmed and came out with a public relations campaign, brilliantly branded “Better Together,” including Cameron's speech likening the British Union to a marriage, and threatening a bitter breakup. [1]
“It would have broken my heart, to see our United Kingdom come to an end,” Cameron also said. He
referred to “our United Kingdom” as “our country of four nations,” presumably England, Scotland, Wales, and the piece of Ireland the British empire managed to hang on to, Northern Ireland. Rather idiosyncratic use of the word “nation” for that last bit of turf especially. Seems to me it's four countries bolted or welded together in one nation. Basically England took over and dominated Scotland, Wales, and Ireland (now just the northern 6 counties of Ireland). (Ireland was conquered by force about 500 years ago.) [2]
The British would have lost a big chunk of national territory had the Scots gone their own way. The Scottish National Party also expressed its opposition to having Britain's ballistic missile nuclear subs based in Scotland. On the oil issue, I think Britain simply would have refused to let Scotland take the lion's share of it, and Scotland would have been forced to embark on a long, unenforceable legal campaign in international courts. Trouble is, international courts have no marshals to send out to enforce its verdicts.
What remains unchanged is the exploitative class system, under which the majority are getting progressively poorer in Britain, and high finance has social, economic, and political hegemony, just as in the U.S., although the “lower” classes in America are much worse off, mainly because of the terrible “social safety net” in the U.S. This in turn stems from the class unconsciousness of the lower classes in the U.S., and their very confused and elementary political understanding.
While we're at it, what's the difference between nationalism and patriotism? Nationalism BAD, Patriotism GOOD! [3]
Just a half-hour after airing Cameron's speech on the outcome, a reporter on the British government global radio propaganda network, the BBC, predicted no action on the rejiggering of power promised by the political bosses, in part because they'll be busy competing and plotting and campaigning against each other in the upcoming Parliamentary election. If he's wrong, however, the Scots actually will have a pretty good deal. Independence would have been fraught with problems, no least because the British state would have devoted itself to making life difficult for Scotland, as they all but vowed to do. The currency, control of undersea oil, diplomatic and trade ties with Europe- all would have been fraught for an independent Scotland. The marriage analogy is valid in the sense that the “husband,” the so-called “United Kingdom,” had to offer promises of bribes to convince the “wife” not to leave.
One observation on the technicality of the voting: Scots voted the “old-fashioned” way, on paper ballots. They managed to count about 4 million ballots in a few hours. In the U.S., expensive and defective digital voting machines are used by Republicans to steal elections. That's the “modern” way to vote!
The Scottish referendum was also different from U.S. elections in apparently being a fair, and not a stolen, election, unlike Bush the Younger's two presidential “victories,” and the “elections” of various Republican U.S. Senators (Chuck “Wagon” Hagel, who owned a digital voting machine company that got him elected to the U.S. Senate- he's now the U.S. War Secretary- and Saxbe Chambliss) and many local GOP officials, such as Wisconsin Supreme Court judges. It also allowed people as young as 16 to vote. It allowed everyone living in Scotland to vote (very unlike the U.S.). And over 90% of eligible people registered to vote, vs. roughly 60% in the U.S. And as noted, turnout was 84%. In U.S. presidential elections, turnout typically is 55% of the electorate. In “off year” Congressional elections, it's under 50%. In elections for lesser offices, it can be well under 10%, such as in Ferguson, Missouri, site of recent unrest stemming from the wanton murder of a black male by a white cop, an almost daily occurrence in the U.S., which is a town that is 70% black with an all-white local government, because only 5% of blacks there vote in local elections. The town has a police force of 53, of whom 50 are white non-residents, armed with armored vehicles, sniper rifles, tear gas and all sorts of military gear, which they rolled out to suppress the unrest (with help from other police forces, the Missouri State Police, and Missouri National Guard, a military reserve force).
Anyway, good luck to you Scotland, in getting the British ruling class toffs to make good on their promises to you of more power and control over revenues! (I'll be waiting for the double-cross.)
1] See “UK Prime Minister Begs Scotland on Bended Knee: Please Don't Go! And Adds a Threat,” September 17th, where I predicted thusly: “I think the referendum will probably fail, however, because of the fear-mongering and threats from the opponents, and because people are innately conservative, by which I mean they fear change. But we will see shortly,” last sentence of essay.
The pro-independence side actually increased its support by 50% over the course of the campaign, starting at 30% and ending up with 45% of the actual vote. (15% is half of 30%, thus a 50% increase.) All numbers on Scottish referendum from BBC.
If not for the bribes and cajolery the poohbahs of Westminster offered up as blandishments, the outcome may well have gone the other way.
2] Notice that the United Kingdom is a KINGdom, a monarchy. A monarch is a “divine” dictator. Of course, now the UK is a “constitutional monarchy,” even though it doesn't actually have a constitution! What it is now is a bourgeois class dictatorship clinging to aristocracy as a relic. In addition to the continuation of hereditary privilege by the ancien aristocracy, bourgeois people get “titles” to make them nouveau aristocrats. Truly a bizarre affectation, to long for medievalism like that. This bourgeoisie consists of competing factions organized in political parties that vie for power in elections manipulated by media barons like Rupert Murdoch.
3] In U.S. parlance, patriotism is ONLY in America. Every other nation's patriotism is “nationalism.” Patriotism IS U.S. nationalism.
We could define the words differently from each other. We could say patriotism is love of country, and nationalism is love of one's country's power. But in practice patriotism is for chumps, used to get people to fight imperialist wars for “their” country. They feel obligated, and virtuous, to be used as cannon-fodder for the power-mongering schemes of their imperialist rulers in nations like the U.S. (And not just the U.S.)
What remains unchanged is the exploitative class system, under which the majority are getting progressively poorer in Britain, and high finance has social, economic, and political hegemony, just as in the U.S., although the “lower” classes in America are much worse off, mainly because of the terrible “social safety net” in the U.S. This in turn stems from the class unconsciousness of the lower classes in the U.S., and their very confused and elementary political understanding.
While we're at it, what's the difference between nationalism and patriotism? Nationalism BAD, Patriotism GOOD! [3]
Just a half-hour after airing Cameron's speech on the outcome, a reporter on the British government global radio propaganda network, the BBC, predicted no action on the rejiggering of power promised by the political bosses, in part because they'll be busy competing and plotting and campaigning against each other in the upcoming Parliamentary election. If he's wrong, however, the Scots actually will have a pretty good deal. Independence would have been fraught with problems, no least because the British state would have devoted itself to making life difficult for Scotland, as they all but vowed to do. The currency, control of undersea oil, diplomatic and trade ties with Europe- all would have been fraught for an independent Scotland. The marriage analogy is valid in the sense that the “husband,” the so-called “United Kingdom,” had to offer promises of bribes to convince the “wife” not to leave.
One observation on the technicality of the voting: Scots voted the “old-fashioned” way, on paper ballots. They managed to count about 4 million ballots in a few hours. In the U.S., expensive and defective digital voting machines are used by Republicans to steal elections. That's the “modern” way to vote!
The Scottish referendum was also different from U.S. elections in apparently being a fair, and not a stolen, election, unlike Bush the Younger's two presidential “victories,” and the “elections” of various Republican U.S. Senators (Chuck “Wagon” Hagel, who owned a digital voting machine company that got him elected to the U.S. Senate- he's now the U.S. War Secretary- and Saxbe Chambliss) and many local GOP officials, such as Wisconsin Supreme Court judges. It also allowed people as young as 16 to vote. It allowed everyone living in Scotland to vote (very unlike the U.S.). And over 90% of eligible people registered to vote, vs. roughly 60% in the U.S. And as noted, turnout was 84%. In U.S. presidential elections, turnout typically is 55% of the electorate. In “off year” Congressional elections, it's under 50%. In elections for lesser offices, it can be well under 10%, such as in Ferguson, Missouri, site of recent unrest stemming from the wanton murder of a black male by a white cop, an almost daily occurrence in the U.S., which is a town that is 70% black with an all-white local government, because only 5% of blacks there vote in local elections. The town has a police force of 53, of whom 50 are white non-residents, armed with armored vehicles, sniper rifles, tear gas and all sorts of military gear, which they rolled out to suppress the unrest (with help from other police forces, the Missouri State Police, and Missouri National Guard, a military reserve force).
Anyway, good luck to you Scotland, in getting the British ruling class toffs to make good on their promises to you of more power and control over revenues! (I'll be waiting for the double-cross.)
1] See “UK Prime Minister Begs Scotland on Bended Knee: Please Don't Go! And Adds a Threat,” September 17th, where I predicted thusly: “I think the referendum will probably fail, however, because of the fear-mongering and threats from the opponents, and because people are innately conservative, by which I mean they fear change. But we will see shortly,” last sentence of essay.
The pro-independence side actually increased its support by 50% over the course of the campaign, starting at 30% and ending up with 45% of the actual vote. (15% is half of 30%, thus a 50% increase.) All numbers on Scottish referendum from BBC.
If not for the bribes and cajolery the poohbahs of Westminster offered up as blandishments, the outcome may well have gone the other way.
2] Notice that the United Kingdom is a KINGdom, a monarchy. A monarch is a “divine” dictator. Of course, now the UK is a “constitutional monarchy,” even though it doesn't actually have a constitution! What it is now is a bourgeois class dictatorship clinging to aristocracy as a relic. In addition to the continuation of hereditary privilege by the ancien aristocracy, bourgeois people get “titles” to make them nouveau aristocrats. Truly a bizarre affectation, to long for medievalism like that. This bourgeoisie consists of competing factions organized in political parties that vie for power in elections manipulated by media barons like Rupert Murdoch.
3] In U.S. parlance, patriotism is ONLY in America. Every other nation's patriotism is “nationalism.” Patriotism IS U.S. nationalism.
We could define the words differently from each other. We could say patriotism is love of country, and nationalism is love of one's country's power. But in practice patriotism is for chumps, used to get people to fight imperialist wars for “their” country. They feel obligated, and virtuous, to be used as cannon-fodder for the power-mongering schemes of their imperialist rulers in nations like the U.S. (And not just the U.S.)
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