To preserve and protect individual rights and freedoms, a democratic people must work together to shape the government of their choosing. And the principal way of doing that is through political parties – There is a lot of truth to that and the distant solution to our problems starts with us, if we don’t stand up today then as I have noted this week in my latest depressingly glass half empty blogs, but I hope informed blogs is that it is literally over and we may as well lay down and die in the streets of cold and hunger if we don’t act now.
We are not a people like the French, we normally don’t burn things down, we take our time, we get pushed to our limit, we wait for a Tommy Sheridan, for a Jeremy Corbyn (to a degree), even an Alex Salmond who is establishment in a lot of ways, to come along with ideas that can bring about change, we then cast them aside and allow the state to bring them down, we also cast aside their ideas due to our own ignorance and fear before we also understand that actually we need these people and their ideas.
Hitler was spot on 70 years ago, and we didn’t learn, but it doesn’t have to stay this way – Read the link posted by benmadigan by Robin McApline it is well worth a read and it is the start of a process we need to embark on now. But we need to do more in the medium term, and it starts with the members of our political parties in Scotland, and in the parties in the wider UK not totally inflicted with hate, right wing British nationalism, and mental illness.
There is hope, yes Grumpy Scottish Man, the glass quarter full blogger said there is still HOPE, I know lol. But there is, I have hope, I have hope in you, and I have hope in me, and I have hope in the honest and decent people who are out there but we need to think in the medium term. It starts with the Autumn Party Conferences.
There is a saying in free societies: you get the government you deserve. For democracy to succeed, citizens must be active, not passive – This is also very true and means the same for the political parties, as well as any government we foolishly elect without actually thinking about what we are voting for. This cost of living crisis is possibly the last chance we will have to bring about change, we won’t bring down our capitalist system, we won’t make the rich poorer and the poor richer but we can use this crisis to take control of the political parties again, to ensure that they do more to represent the interests of their members. The members need to stand up and fight for their beliefs, they need to reflect on why they are a member of their particular party and if it is actually standing up for those interests. If it is not then they need to either take back control or leave that party. It is all or nothing now I think. The unions are standing up to fight for what is right, workers across all sectors are standing up and fighting to not just ask for a little more but to protect what little we have, they are losing money in a cost of living crisis because we are now in the end game, political parties are no different, we have allowed them to be infected by career politicians who no longer represent our interests.
Protests alone are not enough, we know that. We have seen it all across the world since 2008, where are they now. Does anyone know what happened to protest in Greece , the yellow vests in France. Protests are a failure of democracy in so many ways, failure of the politicians we elect to act in the best interests of the majority of people, but if we can’t sustain them they die out, so ultimately we need the political parties. However, as we have seen with all of our political parties, more recently the SNP, parties invite corruption, corruption of ideas, of personality, of power. That is where we are at right now, all of our parties are corrupted so it is either take back control if members are so inclined and for those who can’t then they need to leave because we can’t afford to lose this fight.
I really believe that the politicians right now are afraid, they have no answers to the current crisis, they have de-regulated to the extent that they have very little control anymore, they fear the strikes as they grow in strength, if their members decide that they are hurting enough to take back control then we can change the narrative and set the agenda. It won’t solve our problems in an instant but it might just be the start of hope of a different future, it really is up to us now, if we lose our nerve now we lose it all.
grumpyscottishman.wordpress.com 
Great analysis Grumps.
The analogy with Hitler and democratic death by 1000 cuts is apposite. I wrote this in Peter A Bell’s blog a couple of weeks ago:
“The Scottish people have been, and are being, conditioned whilst the British ‘solution’ to the Scottish ‘question’ has been, and is being, normalised.
The First Minister has been, and is being, deified by her blindly loyal brigade of supporters whilst the British defecate upon the Scottish people.
The leaders of the party of Independence, and their mouthpieces in The National, urge us to be cautious, to keep the heid, to keep the faith and to adhere to somebody’s idea of ‘campaign conduct code’.
They fiddle while we get fiddled.
Our political representatives might claim to be on their holidays. For me, during Scotland’s emergency, they are merely absent without leave.”
We are in big trouble.
Duncanio
Again, you are not wrong. All of the politicians in all of the parties have failed us and we can no longer accept being victims of an unjust system without trying to at least make that system work more in our favour. I really do believe that the members of the established political parties, well the members with a sense of direction and belief, figure out a way to make those parties answerable to their members again. I accept we need political parties, I am a member of Alba, although not active due to the time I spend on the blog, but we do need them but currently they have been hijacked by the very same kind of careerists that we have elected and these people have demonstrated over the years, but particularly the last few months, that they have no answers to the crisis we face, as well as being, struck down with fear on how to act to make things a little better, a little fairer. I know that I am as much prejudiced as the next man and woman, esp when it comes to the Tories, but at least I recognise it and accept that I am not perfect but I also understand that we are a cross roads where there can only be one winner and if it is not us then it is over, all of it, our rights, our independence the whole lot.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
Great article once again and I can’t disagree with a single thing you say. For me personally I think we are seeing an every man for himself mentality taking over and it goes against everything I was brought up to believe. And don’t start me on opportunists who’ve inveigled themselves into one time decent political parties and brought them to the edge of destruction for their own ends.
I’m at the stage of giving up and leaving people to get on with it. No matter what you tell them and try to explain, they have no interest and prefer to be distracted by the non-stop circus of crap TV programmes. Breaking News, watching episodes of The Masked Singer / Dancer etc. isn’t gonnae feed your kids or heat your house.
There are ways out of this, but it means all of us standing up together and taking full control of our country and our resources. We also need to rid oourselves of the chancers and the mentally unwell who seem to have taken over.
ruglen1
I wouldn’t say that it is every man for themselves just yet, the reason I say that is you have taken the time to contribute your opinion to an an opinion that I decided to share in the blog, so there are more of us who have a wee think and try to communicate what is happening as we understand it to be. I am no great thinker, I am 53 years old and grew up around/in poverty and my opinions reflect my experiences and my own prejudices. I don’t have many solutions, some would say I have none, but like you I get as equally frustrated at the many people who are more interested in things like Love Island and Strictly that starts again soon. I get why many watch them, they are an escape from the day to day grunge that many face, they are a chance to switch off for many, I get that I really do. I read, listen to music, I watch sci-fi etc but like you I am at the point where sometimes I want to give up and leave people to sit in ignorant misery and do their own thing but then I read something, or someone says the blog got them to look into an issue they never knew about, or just the state of the SNP and I keep going. I blog, others organise, others march, you have expressed that we need to have more control over our resources, it all helps. We just have to keep at it, share as much of the various blogs and information we have, we keep going or they win. It’s like my morning walks, I go for a walk every morning between 6am and 6.30am following a health scare last year, most days I really don’t want to do it, some days I hate every minute of it, well hour and a half that it takes, talking about it now brings the dread that I will get up at 5am tomorrow, have a coffee, and at some point go for that walk because I have to. It is the same with this struggle that we both understand we face in our communities so we keep going, we keep learning. The fact that you took the time to read my often ill-informed opinion and contributed to the discussion gives me hope that not all is lost and we keep going.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
You are far from ill informed by our standards. None of us know how power works in detail in Scotland. That’s what its all about. When push comes to shove. we are left to guess. That same power is happy, conscienceless cycling abused people through the prison system. The Lord Posh Contemptuous antiscot President and the Lady Posh Contemptuous hanging judge Justice Clerk do not give a tiny smidgen of a fuck about the common people of this land. 1 am 53 as well. I started to be politically aware in my early teens. It wasn’t until I witnessed that utter human dross Lord Cullen report on the Piper Alpha disaster I realised that everything wasn’t just a difference of opinion. I had always been proud that we had our own legal system. I gripped tight to it to it like a plank of wood during the Thatcher years(the beginning of the Plantation of my home district Breadalbane in Highland Perthshire). we are nothing Bruce. If we value anything beyond ourselves we need the revenge of Independence and decolonisation. By christ I will rage against these bastards getting a truth and reconciliation escape route and if they are deid and can’t pay then by god those who benefited by their actions should.
lord Cullen was a Dundee man I believe but no a Dundee man like you! People talk about Thatcher on whose behalf he acted but by christ I despise that stinking bastard. Why let it lie?
Peter Fraser took up the cudgel after him. He had a hoose in Fearnan. I delivered snp leaflets three as a semi naive16 yr old. i got spat on there once. and told that the Scots were nothing but dross etc at other doors around the district. I’ll just put that out there seeing as it is topical. . little England it was known in the district then, not know. That was close to 40 years ago. it is all that way now. That is natural though, money replacing who it replaces wherever it pleases.
Interestingly there is judge who bevvies in my home toon now. My mate has had a craic with him but is savvy enough to know what subjects to avoid. That’s the way it is
Obair
It’s the price we pay for the union isn’t it, what the British did to huge parts of the world has happened in Scotland. People with money in so many ways will always win out, just how it is sadly, it is not going to change unless we figure out a way to grow a spine and make it change. I am not against people making money, or even being arseholes, but Scotland can be a fairer place, a more honest place, it is not a lot to ask for really is it. The politicians have all failed us and it is time to make a last stand or lose it all for ever is pretty much my guess. We are no closer to independence in many ways than 2014, the SNP and Sturgeon have seen to that with their cowardice, their gradualist approach being kind to them will fail, the British just see that is failure and know that will win. The British will only give up when you show that you will not give in and you get dirty and we are no where near that.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
Obair
I was the 80’s as well, mine was nuclear weapons and Thatcher I suppose. I grew up in Whitfield in Dundee which had a bit of reputation UK wide as being a hard place, it was in some ways but no different to many other schemes around Scotland at that time which had been left to rot by Labour / Tories and filled with people with multiple problems. High unemployment, poverty, drugs, alcohol, domestic abuse we had it all so Whitfield and the politics of the time have shaped my beliefs, my hatred of everything Tory, and allowed me to develop my own prejudices which haven’t really went away but I am honest about them. I remember Piper Alpha but won’t pretend to know all that much about it but we have been getting shafted my whole life, things actually being worse in so many ways now, yeah the houses might be a little better in some cases but that’s about it, all the rest is pretty much worse and that is one of the things that keeps me angry and keeps me going I suppose.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
I said it for a long time AUOB should have been marching on Bute house instead of marching to get rid of BJ now that we have got rid of BJ, ask yourself who’s better Truss, Sunak or Johnson?
I applaud everyone who take hours out of there time to write or talk about Independence for our country and to be honest that’s great, but it isn’t getting us any where any time soon, action is need and its needed by the masses today not tomorrow.
I was on youtube listening to Alba and its members who where only actually taking to members, yah that’s great we have all these ideas but guess what not one of them is making a difference to the here and now, we have this Salvo Yah its great but how long is it going to take, there isn’t a single direction from any political party or organisation that is going to delivery Independence for Scotland.
The Biggest party has taken Indyref2 to the supreme court who will rule that the people of Scotland are not sovereign and its Westminster both the SNP and NS know this, I’ve said this is the biggest mistake by any Pro-Indy party could have done and then what does the SNP want to do hold a Plebiscite which we will not win at all.
Ask your self this how many times can we hold a Ref and lose it before interest in the idea of Scotland becoming Independent has gone and gone for good. NS is dead cert on losing a vote on Independence and its got to the point where we have Sturgeonites and Salmond loyalist, Sturgeonites fans believe that she going to delivery Indy when in fact she securing our continued membership of the UK for decades to come and the Salmond camp is still fighting this court case and not one of these things is achieving the goal of Independence.
We need to hold this Ref in 19.10.23 and ask the UN to monitor it and then allow the UKG to decide to abide by it or reject it.
Scotland with all its Pro-Indy parties are no closer to an idea of if or when or how we can hold a legal and binding Ref each and everyone of these parties are so far apart in what’s right for Scotland it’s become a joke.
My opinion is the real cause of all of this is the SNP its leader and membership including these two IndyCar Gordon Ross & Indy Truck Davy McGuinness who seem more interested in posting there sickly-sweet NS bile and the attention that it brings.
100%YES
I share your concerns and have expressed them in the blog, especially around the strategy being followed by Sturgeon and the SNP. I also appreciate that a lot of the time we are talking to ourselves, or to the already convinced, but more and more people are starting to think about things, this cost of living crisis is possibly/sadly the best opportunity we have had for a long time to make a breakthrough to other people, maybe even the ones we have to convince. I haven’t believed for a long time that any political party will get Scotland independence, least of all the SNP, hence it is now or never for members to take back control before it is too late. Our parties, like our so called democracy is broken, my next blog is about that, but all we can do is keep going and not give up no matter how tempting that is because most of us are tired and deflated at times because of our circumstances and what we see around us. I try to share my opinion, and what I learn from reading etc via the blog as my contribution to the debate. I try to write in a way that is accessible to people and not full of the shit that I so often read from wanna be intellectuals (my prejudice showing) sorry but it is the way I have chosen. Every time you comment on this blog, or other blogs, you are informing the debate and expressing your opinion, that is so important no matter how futile that might feel at times to yourself you are adding to the debate and people like me learn from your insights and your experiences. There are a lot of people doing the blogs, doing videos, some I pay attention to some I don’t, some ask for money to keep going and while it is something I would never do and don’t like they are trying. We just need to keep going, to keep asking questions, keep expressing our opinion because your opinion matters, mines matter, they all do on all sides but giving up let’s those that want to silence us, including the Pete Wishart’s of the world win, f that. We need to fight to win now, it is last chance saloon in many ways, this crisis as I said is maybe the very thing that will focus the minds, you and I have a part to play even by just expressing how we feel.
Thanks for commenting as always and don’t give up, your honesty I have always found refreshing.
Bruce
Bruce your great at what you do and we definently need people like you or where would we all be, keep up the great work.
100%YES
That’s very kind of you to say, it really is just my opinion but I am flattered that others take the time to read the blog.
Thanks for commenting.
Bruce
towards the end of the last referendum it got tight. That’s when the Vow appeared on the front page of the daily record. Signed by the leader of the three English political parties operating in Scotland. At the same time, the BBC set up a studio for Gordon Brown to make the dame offer to the punters., Vote No And We;ll Gie ye Everything You Want. the press ran with it up to the date of the vote. Surely man we have seen through the referendum route by now. We cannae win one. its an exercise in humiliation. That wasn’t democracy.
Gordon Brown got to pace about for an hour or so saying the same thing, Vote No, we’ll gie ye what ye want. The state had editorial input into all the newspapers, it could use damn near every means of influences the punters through that control. A referendum is a trick. Much as i respect Alec Salmond, I look up to him, he did us a bad turn there.
He is probably the only Scot alive today i look up to
Reblogged this on Ramblings of a now 60+ Female.