Author Archives: the45

shovel-faced lesbian

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sorry but i’m a jock
it won’t be much of a shock
that i want to break holyrood
and steal power back for good

once i get my orders from may
i execute them without delay
my words and fundamentalism
spread by organs of imperialism

keeping the rich nests feathered
is the reason i am bothered
hopefully an ermine coat
can clothe this unworthy scot

i can lie to order
knowing the media won’t bother
chastising my deceit
i’m just protecting the elite

the will of the people means nothing
when we have migrants needing expelling
human rights will be eviscerated
once we have brexited

i tell you what to do without mandate
while my chums pollute and rape
the country into which i was born
your criticism only brings scorn

you won’t be getting a referendum
the thought makes snackbeard glum
you’d only vote yes, that’s true
then i’d have to wear flat shoes

Respect democracy

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It’s the phrase of choice for British Nationalists, isn’t it? They’re always telling us that we need to respect the result of our independence referendum. They use this phrase as a shield to deflect any and all criticisms of the UK, the stock phrase being “well you voted for it.” And they’re quite correct.

We voted for the status quo, we voted to remain the junior partner in a UK which was a member of the EU. Indeed we were told that the only way to preserve EU membership was to vote No in our referendum. We were promised other things if we voted to continue to be subservient to our London government, but they were more threats than promises. They were threats about HMRC jobs, threats about Royal Navy ships built on the Clyde, threats about our economy and it’s reliance on oil. But one of the biggest threats was the one about our membership of the EU. The architect of this programme of fear mongering dubbed it Project Fear.

It must be some quirk of fate then which moved the HMRC jobs to England, delayed the building of Type 26 frigates indefinitely and drove the price of oil to sustained lows. It must be a pure coincidence that we now find ourselves heading for the EU’s exit door (the one which confounded Nigel Farage). In fact it must just be a fluke that all of the British Nationalists’ threats have come to pass.

But we have to respect democracy, don’t we? We have to respect the fact that 55% of Scots voted to remain a part of one of the most corrupt states on the planet based upon the threats and promises of the serried ranks of corporations, politicians, media and monarchs. Forget the 45% that voted to jettison a 300 year old union which has extracted so much from Scotland that our economy can’t sustain itself. We don’t count because we didn’t win.

We have more democracy to respect now in the shape of the EU referendum. In reality it was more like a Nuremberg rally than an exercise in democracy. Project Fear took time out from demonising the Scottish independence movement and it focused it’s dull gaze, Theresa May like, on “immigrants”.

Theresa May

Theresa May

If anybody doubts that propaganda works, witness the sharp increase in racist attacks since the result of the EU referendum was announced. I hear that the Brexiteers are to rename England to Xenophobia.

But forget how the campaign was won. After all it’s not the means which counts in a referendum, it’s the result which matters. Slim as it was it was the result was still a majority for leaving the EU. That’s cool, I respect that. I respect the fact that the UK as a whole wishes to turn insular and cut itself off from the rest of the world. I respect the fact that the UK wishes to cancel all of the trade deals which currently exist between the EU and the rest of the world.

However, respect is a two-way street. So now that I have proclaimed my respect for the result, so must the British Nationalists. They must respect the fact that an overwhelming majority of Scots voted to remain within the EU, as did the people of Northern Ireland. I doubt that they will, after all we are the losers again. The British Nationalist will not respect our vote in the EU referendum just like they will not respect our qualified vote in the independence referendum. So why on earth should we respect the result of either referendum?

As far as I am concerned all bets are off. We voted to stay in this toxic union called the UK on condition that we retained our EU membership. Now that we are to be torn out of the EU by the votes of another country why should we stay in the UK?

What is to come is one of the most uncertain periods our country has ever faced. We will face massive upheaval, economic shocks and political mismanagement on an unprecedented scale. Given that we can clearly see our fate, how can we best navigate our way safely through its turbulent waters? To which ship should we pin our colours to? Should it be the slave ship Xenophobia with its crew of 65 million (foreigners not welcome), or should it be the cruise liner Europe with its crew of 742.5 million? My money, and most of the rest of the world’s money, is on the EU.

The only way that this can be achieved is for Scotland to become an independent nation once more. For that to happen we will need to hold and win a second independence referendum, we don’t have much time but the broad Yes movement is still with us. Let’s get going. The British Nationalists have already begun, but now their arguments ring hollow and we are no longer afraid. Saor Alba

Angus Glens mountain hare slaughter. Courtesy of Raptor Persecution Scotland

The tears of our land

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The Gift of Grouse, a lobby group for the blood sports industry in Scotland, have issued a press release in which they seek to reassure us that it’s good to burn vast strips of our countryside, they laughingly call it Heather on FireOK! They even have a Twitter hashtag for it #hetheronfireok!, although if they were truly understood Twitter they would know that hashtags don’t use punctuation marks. Muirburn is the name that is used for burning the heather, it is used in order to control scrub and to re-generate the heather. This then provides food for grouse.

The whole purpose of this group is to portray the blood sports estates in a benign light, like they are really managing the landscape for the benefit of all. But this is not the case, the continued burning of the heather prevents the land from regenerating naturally and produces a variegated landscape with which we have become all to familiar. Have a look at this picture from Google Maps, it shows the area around Balmoral Castle in Aberdeenshire. It could be a photo from any upland area in Scotland.

Balmoral courtesy of Google Maps

Balmoral courtesy of Google Maps

There can be no doubt that the landscape is being intensively managed, each one of those strips is the result of burning. Muirburn is governed by the Muirburn Code, regular readers of this site will know that when something is governed by a code there are vested interests at play.

Muirburn is not a harmless thing, it is not some necessary evil which we should accept. It is the wanton destruction of our native environment for the purpose of providing “sport” to the select few who can afford to pay upwards £140 for the privilege of killing a brace of black grouse. When the heather is set alight most larger mammals and birds will get away, but lots of smaller animals, reptiles and invertebrates will be killed since they are just too slow to get away.

Muirburn significantly lowers the water table in the burnt areas, this results in the drying out of the peat which releases carbon into the atmosphere. It also affects the amount of water which the peat can store, combine this with the draining of the peat bogs on the grouse moors and any excessive rainfall is going to rush into the rivers and produce flooding downstream, as happened in Ballater, just downriver of the above photo, last winter. These floods are the tears of our land.

Flooding endangers lives and property, it results in increases in insurance premiums for everyone. In effect all of us are paying for the effects of this poor land management, witness the announcement of the Flood Re scheme yesterday. At least it will help some homeowners to insure their properties, but this will be achieved by foisting a levy onto all insurers, who will pass the cost on to everyone. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be happy because he has just increased the Insurance Premium Tax by 0.5% to 10%, this is after a rise of 3.5% last November.

The same lobby group also released a PR piece about the culling of mountain hares, they place the usual spin on it about protection of the environment blah, blah, blah. But the harsh reality is this (photo courtesy of Raptor Persecution Scotland):

Angus Glens mountain hare slaughter. Courtesy of Raptor Persecution Scotland

Angus Glens mountain hare slaughter. Courtesy of Raptor Persecution Scotland

You see, mountain hares get in the way of grouse shooting. The reason for this slaughter, which repeats itself across Scotland, is cited that the hares spread ticks. That is why they must be butchered annually. And all because the the rich folk want to pursue “the sport of kings.”

These shooting estates are very often owned through offshore tax havens so it is almost impossible to find out who the beneficial owners are, perhaps the Panama Papers may throw some light on some of them. But you ca be sure that every one of the blood sports estates will be receiving a hefty subsidy from the EU. That’s more of our money going to them, but we can’t find out how much or to whom. Most of the blood sports estates are run at a loss, which helps to minimise the owners’ tax liabilities elsewhere. Leaving the rest of us to pick up the tab once more.

To my mind the only way to really get a grip on these blood sports estates, and to find out who the beneficial owners are, is to make them all apply for a licence. We could call it the “blood sports licensing scheme”. We could then ensure that the land is being managed in a manner which befits the many, not the rich few.

The Scottish Government needs to be much bolder in its next term. To that end we cannot allow the pressure groups like The Gift of Grouse and Scottish Land & Estates to dominate the debate. The land belongs to all of us, it is merely being (mis)managed by these people. If this is an issue which you feel strongly about, make your voice heard. After all there are elections soon, don’t let the entirety of the debate be about tax. It’s our land after all.

 

Yet another establishment whitewash

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Dame Janet Smith has published her review into the predatory paedophile, serial sex abuser, rapist and necrophiliac, Sir Jimmy Savile at the BBC. In it she concludes that Sir jimmy Savile was indeed a rapist, sex abuser and paedophile while he worked at the BBC. Happily she also concludes that management knew nothing about it, some junior plebs knew some stuff but they failed to report it. So that’s alright then.

Another review was conducted into the sexual activities of another BBC employee, Stuart Hall (formerly OBE), by Dame Linda Hobbs. This review was originally going to be included in the Sir Jimmy Savile review but Dame Janet Smith had a conflict of interest because she knows personally a member of BBC senior management at BBC North West. It’s curious how this conflict did not prevent her from conducting the rest of the Savile review, especially since she concluded that Savile abused his victims “in virtually every one of the BBC premises at which he worked.” Presumable he Sir Jimmy Savile never worked at BBC North West then?

Sir Jimmy Savile presenting Top of The Pops from BBC North West's studio in Manchester

Sir Jimmy Savile presenting Top of The Pops from BBC North West’s studio in Manchester

The Stuart Hall review concluded that some management may have known something about his paedophile activities but nothing specific so nothing was done. Both reports conclude that no one is to blame because of a culture of fear at the BBC which still exists today, as could other predatory rapists and paedophiles. So that’s alright then. The review cost £6.5 million of TV licence payers’ money and the BBC Trust must think it money well spent, since none of them were at all to blame.

These reviews remind me of the Cullen Inquiry into the Dunblane shootings, which was generally derided as a whitewash since it didn’t look into the allegations that the murderer was heavily involved with a VIP paedophile ring which operated at a military school which has the Duke of Edinburgh is the patron; the school is called the Queen Victoria School. Another inquiry has been started into whether there was a police cover up at the time. Lord Burton, a former head mason, alleged that a paedophile ring may have operated at the school which was based around a masonic sect known as the Speculative Society.

Lord Burton said, “The Housemaster told me of how, in about 1990, he believed boys from his then school were being bullied by their peers at the school and sexually abused, both at the school and away from the school. He told me the latter was done by a clique of paedophiles connected with the school (teachers etc. and their friends) and another group of “toffs” who visited the school and took carefully targeted boys away for weekends.”

The modus operandi of the establishment seems to be:

  1. Event occurs which public demand action over
  2. Establish inquiry which takes years
  3. Inquiry eventually reports once furore has died down a bit
  4. No one is to blame but lessons are learned
  5. Carry on as before

How long are we going to take this for? How many must be killed and/or abused before we put a stop to this? We can make a start by getting rid of the BBC, the home of paedophiles and corruption. We can legally withdraw our funding from the nonces, a quick search on the internet will tell you all you need to know.

As a final thought, here’s a picture of the Dunblane murderer and a couple of well known faces:

Two of the men in this photo have had whitewash inquiries carried out on them

The establishment have whitewashed inquiries into two of the men in this photo