Opinion: Neil Scott on No Campaign negativity

The norys are trying to make any real dialogue on the ground difficult in order to ensure the billionaire, London based press is the only outlet for "fair discussion." Demonising loud, enthusiastic voices is designed to demonise the very word, "Yes."  A problem with this is, the press and other media outlets pretend to be neutral when they quite patently are not, so they gleefully print ugly words about our street and social media discourse. Those of us who, from the outset of this campaign have been assaulted, insulted and bullied on the streets by Labour hacks and right wing thugs, know the truth of who have tried to bring this campaign down to their sewer level. Project Fear, their name for their campaign, is also Project Intimidation, Threat and Violence. 




Peaceful protest against the proto-fascist Farage and the Tory Leader Cameron is being made to look as if, 1, these people have something important to say to a country that has through democratic means rejected their politics of hate and division and 2, we are stifling debate.




Peaceful, and sometimes noisy, protest has been a feature of Scottish civil politics since Dundee Jute workers became the source of the term "to heckle," many, many years ago.
That said, we must ensure people hear our positive Yes message through the negative, nasty No camp noise. Yes  gives a myriad of colourful, bright, healthy, wonderful, prosperous paths. No forces us on our knees, down the path towards the torture of continued and increasing austerity and poverty and robbery by the corporations and billionaires.




Any protest, if needed at all on the lead up to the historic day, against those who wish to impoverish our people with neo-liberal thievery and lies, must be turned into a joyous occasion with our alternatives to their austerity displayed imaginatively, positively, colourfully and in a way that ignores them, because they really have nothing to say to the majority of people in Scotland.




Let them lie to the media. Scottish people arny daft. Our truths should be displayed with pride.

Campsie Socialists at Westerton Yes Public Meeting

Two SSP Campsie members spoke at Yes Westerton today. Dr Sonya Scott spoke on the disasterous Westminster/Tory/Liberal Democrat led welfare cuts and Bill Newman, a retired banker, spoke on the future economy and also his want, as a "sassanach" for a fair-socialist-independent Scotland. Other speakers were the Economist Gordon Macintyre-Kemp and local SNP organiser Ian Macdonald.

Contributions and questions from the floor were lively and those at the top table were properly grilled.

The people of Westerton were concerned with the future of the economy and how fair an independent Scotland will be for their children and grandchildren.

People from across the political spectrum and indeed, age-groups were represented. We had an international audience with Spanish, Australian and other nationalities represented in the meeting. And trades unionists from across the world of labour came along with genuine questions about pensions, wages and working conditions in a future Scotland.

Contributions from the floor and the speakers managed to debunk and smash the national media's biased No campaign claims of Scotland as "too wee and too stupid," - the audience left with no illusions of how resource rich Scotland really is.

Neil Scott, SSP Campsie branch organiser posted this during the meeting-

"One thing all of us here have in common is we want a better world for ourselves, our families and our children.

The campaign is choc full of ideas and there are three main political parties involved as well as non and cross party organisations.

The parties involved are the SSP of which I am a member, the SNP and the Greens.

The vision we have for the route to a better Scotland doesnt really differ that much- but check our websites or speak to us about what our visions are. We all want a fair Scotland- the SSP believe that socialism is the step towards fairness.  All of us agree that a Yes next year will create the ground on which the seeds of equality will be sown..."

The rest of this article is on his blog, HERE

One reason why I support Independence...

By Neil Scott, Campsie Branch.

How do I explain my want for an independent Scotland? Ok. Lets do that using one example. Excess.

It's clear I am a socialist, so surplus in my independent Scotland would be used to ensure those with little access to something they need, get it. Excess or surplus or profit would not bolster the bank accounts of those who have so much they will never use it.

In Scotland, over 2000 people MORE die in the four winter months than they do in the previous four and the following four. A lot of those deaths are because of hypothermia in the home. This is in a country in which we have an excess of oil and an excess of electricity produced. This surplus is not given to our pensioners and poor to ensure they live through these harsh Scottish months. Both are sold in London or through a majority of London based companies for the profit boosting of the top six power companies who make more than £30 billion a year to cushion billionaires from the harsh winters on their yachts in the Carribean or at the most local, their well heated second, third or forth homes they keep in Scotland for the Grouse shoot or a wee visit at Hogmanay.

£30 billion a year that is mostly generated in Scotland through our excess of power. And this figure does not factor in the oil drained from our shores to bolster those bank accounts of the millionaires and billionaires who can afford to invest in the oil companies. Money they will in all probability never spend, while the lives of the poor and old are sacrificed.

Fighting this greed and fighting to share out our plentiful resources to ensure people have better, longer and more productive lives has not happened with Scotland in the UK. The UK is not OK for Scotand's vulnerable.

Scotland has voted continuously and decisively for a more socially just system since the days of Thatcher and before. But what have we had? Our budgets and welfare controlled by the Tories, Liberal Democrats and New Labour- all who have deep relationships with the power and oil profiteers.

None of the above really want to ensure our pensioners and vulnerable are safe and warm. In fact all of the above support welfare cuts and bleeding more money from the most vulnerable of our people in order to boost profits and pay off bankers.

Can staying in the UK change this? The evidence of the past forty years is evidence itself.

Can an Independent Scotland change this? I believe so, as the people of Scotland have been proven to vote for fairness and increasingly so, from election to election.

On Alasdair Gray...

email conversation about Alasdair Gray's recent controversial article (more background in the excellent BELLA CALEDONIA article)

Bill... What is your take on the attack on A Gray' in the Scotland on Sunday article? I think (as a recent immigrant) his words were welcoming, thoughtful and are being twisted by Better Together at the moment.

Neil

reply by Bill Newman

I have no concerns whatsoever about Alasdair Gray's comments which seem to me to be factual.  As a sassenach I (and you) have settled in Scotland  and, as Gray says. we are as much part of Scotland as any other immigrant and, of course, immigrants in the past have included Vikings, Irish, Normans and so on.  Colonialists are different and are those who spend time in the colonies of an imperial power, make their money and return home; again, surely a literal description of the English who come to Scotland, take a senior position, pocket the proceeds of his/her activities and goes back to the Imperial power - England.  I wonder if he had the unlamented director of Creative Scotland in mind?  Gray will not be upset by the criticisms - he never is - and he is not a man to change his considered views, nor the way he expresses them.

He is dreadfully underestimated as a writer and artist, probably because he doesn't fit into any ism.  I think that Lanark is the finest novel by far to have been written in Scotland in the 20th century and his visual work merits much higher praise than it receives.  Of his recent work, why isn't his magnificent ceiling and surrounds in the top hall of Oran Mor better known and why is his more recent mural in the booking hall of Hillhead Subway Station not acknowledged as the witty and humane masterpiece which it certainly is.  He is, of course  a socialist, but  of an individual and iconoclastic bent.   A great man!!

My reasons why Scotland should be independent

Mark Callaghan, Lennoxtown.

 

Due to the slavish following of neo-liberal economy policies over the last 30 years by governments of all shades, the British economy is now over-dependent on one very precarious and inefficient sector. The powers that be seem unwilling to prevent this.  By its very nature free-market capitalism is a reactive rather than pro-active system, short term with no contingency for long or even mid-term planning, so we are doomed to be adrift and to be engulfed by any tsunamis that come our way if we stay part of the union. We will get steadily worse and worse off - even those at the top of the tree due to this seeming blindness to the fact that the system that they espouse is based on a premise which is disastrous on any reckoning.

In an independent Scotland we will have the foresight to introduce some sort of planning into the economy, so as to help us diversify the economic base that we have to cope with the waves of terror-filled scenarios dreamed up by those who are opposed to this idea.

 

Secondly, our historic system of society were very different, i.e the feudal system was a very top-down one whereas the clan system was much more communal in basis.

Why I am voting Yes

Workers for independence 

By Richie Venton, shop stewards convenor & SSP national workplace organiser


Low paid workers often ask me 'would we be any better off under independence'? That's the kind of issue we need to convince people on if we are to win a Yes vote.

The 'Bitter' Together's poster boy, Alistair Darling, has issued dire warnings that those of us supporting independence threaten our children with a very uncertain future. 

The vast army of workers struggling to survive on or around the pathetic £6.19 minimum wage are guaranteed the certainty of more of the same exploitation and in-work poverty under Westminster's dictatorship of the rich...which guarantees children a very certain future of cruel, crushing poverty.

And that's the case regardless of whether it's Tory, LibDem or Labour in charge.
Low pay is the single biggest cause of poverty. The SSP's fight for a national minimum wage calculated as two-thirds average male earnings - over £9 an hour in current figures - for all over 16, with equal pay for women, requires the powers that go with independence. 

Likewise if workers are to escape the most repressive workplace laws in western Europe - ushered in by Thatcher's Tories, retained by New Labour, made even worse by Cameron and Clegg's millionaire regime, and left unchallenged by Miliband's Labour - we need the independent powers to scrap them and set an international example of decent rights at work.

Tackling poverty pay, fuel poverty, job insecurity, public service cuts and the brutal assault on benefits all require powers for change that only independence offers - such as the powers to tax the rich and big business; take banks, big enterprises, energy and transport into democratic public ownership, and radically redistribute wealth. 

But merely swapping flags and emblems; switching from rule by the Bank of England to rule by the Bank of Scotland (or both!); swapping being exploited by tax-dodging, profiteering British bosses for their tartan-clad and multinational capitalist counterparts inspires nobody. 

That's why socialism and independence are inseparable. The goal of an independent socialist Scotland which the SSP has fought for since our formation 14years ago will attract workers to voting Yes - where the SNP leadership's "nothing will really change" message is a downright put-off. 

And a Yes vote will greatly speed up the prospects of socialism in Scotland. Workers need independence and socialism.

My View on Scottish independence:

How to Confuse an Electorate

Bill Newman, retired Banker

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the Bitter Together campaign, far from engaging in an honest debate, is deliberately raising a multitude of specious questions to throw confusion in the minds of the electorate.  By posing an endless series of questions, to many of which they know there are no definitive answers, they hope to sow confusion and doubts on matters where no real issues arise,or, at least,where no decisions are needed prior to independence. 

The question of EU membership is a typical case.  There are many interpretations,legal and otherwise, as to whether Scotland (and, incidentally,the rest of the UK - RUK) would automatically become a member of the EU on independence.  There are no definitive answers to this question.  Nor does it matter whether automatic membership would apply or not.  If not, then does anyone seriously think that neither Scotland nor the RUK would be granted accession on application?  This, of course, begs the question whether membership would be desirable; Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man seem to get on perfectly well without membership, not counting our northern neighbours, Norway.

To cite just one of many other red herrings.  The position of an independent Scotland's currency need not depend on negotiations to become a subservient client of the Bank of England and English interest rate policy.  Indeed, Alec Salmond has been most unwise to imply that Scotland should continue the current ties.  Scotland could very ably establish its own monetary authority, and its own currency (the old Scottish Merk?) could shadow sterling, at least on a temporary basis, without being beholden to Westminster and the Bank of England.

There are many other examples of Bitter Together's attempts to muddy the water (Trident comes to mind), and the Yes campaign must not be drawn into pointless debates which present a defensive posture.  Let's get back to the core reason why independence is necessary.  We do not wish to continue at the beck and call of a Government antipathetic to our needs and desires.  We are distinctive and we need to be in charge of our destiny.

Bill Newman