Scotland has never before been so polarised. We are divided over independence and devolution. We have schisms in the independence movement with the main independence party sitting in a stationary mode. Eight years on from the referendum they have done absolutely nothing to advance our cause. Indeed, we are regressing and the latest polls show that the number of people supporting independence is slipping backwards towards 2014 leveĺs. It is no surprise, if you do not cultivate a field it will just grow weeds. Instead of full steam ahead to independence the SNP spends their entire time dancing to a UK tune and attacking those in the movement that want action towards our secession from the accursed union.
We have the Unionists clinging on for dear life attacking anything that might remotely improve Scotland or its governance. They for some unfathomable reason wish to remain a de facto colony of England. When invited to explain the benefits of that position they instead denigrate their own nation of birth. Despite many offers they refuse to debate the benefits of the union unless it is stage managed by the corrupt BBC or STV. Then they get 3 unionists and one from the SNP.
We are polarised over the very meaning of life and the sexes of humans. We have one group that insist against all scientific knowledge known to mankind that humans can change their sex by just wanting to! It is preposterous as well as impossible, a wig some bright lipstick, false breasts and a pair of high heels does not a female make! Pointing out that scientific, biological fact can land you in all sorts of bother, even imprisonment.
We are polarised over the carnage in Ukraine. More than all the conflicts that have happened since the end of World War two this horrific war divides us like no other. This article is not about the rights and wrongs of the current events in Eastern Europe. I have opined on that from day one. I oppose and condemn this war as I have all wars in my lifetime. Sadly, some hard of thinking people accuse me of being a pro Putin apologist because I suggest not believe everything the western media are telling you. They have lied about all wars! This one is no different.
Contrary to the accepted western narrative, I say there are no good nations in this particular killing field. As I have said many times, the only innocents and good guys are the civilians caught in an American/ Russian proxy war. Do not let anyone kid you on. This war was made and gamed in both Washington and Moscow. Like most wars it is all about money, natural resources and power, nothing else. Discount words like democracy, right, wrong, good and bad.
The real reason for this war is, the petrol $ is under threat and consequently the United States is in a panic. It is estimated that around 20% of US GDP is tied up in the $ being the global trading currency of choice. The dollar’s role as the primary reserve currency for the global economy allows the United States to borrow money more easily and impose painful financial sanctions on any nation it deems unfriendly. The US has often used sanctions or the threat of sanctions as a weapon against nations that have acted in what the US views as against their interests. That includes against even its closest allies.
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/dollar-worlds-currency
In 1956 the Suez Crisis was ended by threats from the US to UK, France and Israel. These three sovereign nations seized the canal in a dispute with Egypt. The US seized the opportunity to humiliate and weaken their war time allies by threatening the British and French with economic ruin if they did not withdraw their forces from Suez immediately. The two former world super powers had been severely weakened militarily and more importantly financially by 10 years of World wars in the 20th Century. They were humiliated by the US, their so-called ally and forced to climb down. Historians point to Suez as the end of global Britain’s influence.
We should not forget in WW1 the US were only in it for the last 18 months of the carnage. They only entered WW2 in 1942 after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour on December 7th 1941. This one attack on the Hawaii Naval base was the one and only attack to American soil in both world wars. No bombed out cities, factories or civilian deaths befell them. 4 days after Pearl Harbour, Germany declared war on the US.It was not the other way round. We will never know if the US would have declared war on Germany.
Those first years of the war had seen Europe’s infastructure destroyed, however it proved very profitable for the US. In 1939, the American economy was struggling. Unemployment was high, while prices and wages were low. By 1940, with Europe at war, everything had changed. European countries were desperate for goods to use in the war effort. Driven by growing consumer demand, as well as the continuing expansion of the military-industrial complex as the Cold War ramped up, the United States reached new heights of prosperity in the years after World War II.
In contrast Europe was broke and broken. Meanwhile, the US with not a bombed out factory in sight took full advantage and supplied not only its own market but the entire world became its customer base. The things you hear about America supplying Britain with ships, aeroplanes and weaponry was called Lend Lease. Do you think US gave us those arms for nothing? Everything with the US internally or externally is viewed at as a profit or loss only!
It was only under the John Major Tory Government (thanks to Scottish Oil & Gas!) that the UK finally repaid its war debts to America.
The Marshall Plan in the aftermath of WWII was a U.S.-sponsored program designed to rehabilitate the economies of 17 western and southern European countries in order to create stable conditions in which democratic institutions could survive in the aftermath of World War II. It was formally called the European Recovery Program. It made the Europeans dependent on the goodwill of the US. It was why US was able to bully the French and British during Suez. It resulted in the two ex-global powers losing all their influence in the Middle East. Into this vacuum stepped the US becoming the dominant power in the region. It was also the time when US replaced all the other trading currencies with the mighty $.
It was also the real reason for the Cold War again do not let anyone tell you anything differently. When the Soviet Union refused to participate or allow its satellites to participate, the Marshall plan became an element of the emerging Cold War. That was the real reason for the pathological hatred of Soviet Union and Communism. That ideology threatened America’s ability to be he richest nation on the planet. The few in the US knew that and also the benefit of having a bogey man.
https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/marshall-plan
President Eisenhower on ending his Presidency 17th January 1961 warned the people of the United States and the world of the growing danger to them from the US Military Industrial Complex. Neither the US nor the world listened to his wise words. Ever since that day, the military industrial complex and Big Pharma have had a tight grip on the throat of American politics and global events.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/eisenhower-warns-of-military-industrial-complex
Events in recent times have been not ideological conflicts but corporate wars. Iraq was not about 9/11 or Islamic Terrorism it was because Saddam was threatening to stop trading in US $. The bombing of Libya was the same Gadaffi was threatening to stop selling oil in US $. Iran too has threatened to move away from $ trading. Do not think for a micro second any of these events had a single thing to do with the US having any concern for democracy or freeing people.It was and is all about a few people and large corporations in the US getting or remaining disgustingly wealthy.
Russia and China have been subject to western sanctions from the US. They have watched and learned. That is precisely why those latest sanctions are not harming Russia. They have put measures in place to cushion them from this US and NATO tactic. Indeed, more damage is being done to the West’s economies than Russia’s.
For years now both Russia and China have been beefing up their reserves with Gold. While US and its foreign policy organisation NATO has been going round the world bombing and bullying the Chinese have been taking a different approach.
Throughout the world from South America, Africa, Asia, Middle East, the Chinese and Russians have been investing in infrastructure for the poorer nations as well as buying, not stealing their natural resources. They have bought themselves a lot of goodwill without dropping a single bomb on anyone. Now they are offering the third world oil, metals and fertilisers, manufactured goods at discounted prices.The third world is reacting, but not to US threats. These nations are also agreeing to pay in RMB and Rubles for goods. I forecast that by October of this year the western allies including the EU countries will be buying Russian oil and gas in Roubles. The US cannot regime change or bully the entire world on this occassion.
The western nations followed the Regean/Thatcher model of economics which ultimately destroyed the US and UK manufacturing bases. It is built on four concepts: (1) reduced government spending, (2) reduced taxes, (3) less regulation, and (4) slowdown of money supply growth to control inflation. Moving from an industrial to a service economy was an essential component to make this plan work. By outsourcing manufacturing to the third world the corporates dramatically reduced costs and increased profitability. It meant a rust belt in US and swathes of the UK industrial deserts.
The western economists never reckoned with China becoming an industrial giant and a global super power. Just look around your home and property and try to identify anything that was made in UK or US and not in China or Korea. Outsourcing your manufacturing is a poisoned chalice as we are finding out. Not only have we lost the jobs we have lost control of our economies. The US has also lost the weapon of being able to sanction nations into defeat.
This conflict in Ukraine has exposed the weakness in the western economic model. Not only are the sanctions having little effect on curtailing Russia in Ukraine, the Ruble is gaining strength. As reported recently in the Wall Street Journal. The Russian ruble strengthened close to its pre- invasion level against the dollar a by product of the central bank’s tight control over the currency. Also at play, a possible surge of quarter-end payments for Russia’s commodity exports of oil, gas, fertilisers, metals. Russia has goods the west needs.
.https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/russia-ukraine-latest-news-2022-03-31/card/russian-ruble-rebounds-close-to-prewar-level-hPTaHv1bNniOctrUnU8e
Despite all the noises coming out of the west here is the reality. The west needs Russian oil, gas, metals, minerals, wheat and fertilisers. Other giant producers of Oil & Gas like Venezuela, Iran are hardly likely to rush to the US aid. The dependency on Chinese manufactured goods is now irreversible. The West’s economic model of requiring increased growth and profit each year without manufacturing has become a giant bubble. Ukraine could be the cause of this particular bubble bursting.
More than half the world’s population are ignoring the western hysteria being directed at Russia. While the US was bullying the world and the old colonial countries were quietly going along with Uncle Sam, Russia and China were quietly investing and aiding the developing world. Now it is the US, the NATO countries and EU versus the rest of the world.
Russia and China have said that for oil and natural resources from now on anyone trading with them will have to use Rubles and RMB. There, of course, has been outrage from the west at such a suggestion. How dare any nation want paid in their own currency and retain wealth for their own nation. All the money is supposed to be filtered up to a very few people and corporations in the United States and Europe via the City of London illegal money laundering system and the plethora of UK off shore tax havens. Wealth is not for sharing it is for hoarding by the global elite who should only of course, be WASPS.
This is the real reason that for all of your lives you have been told Russia, China, Socialism are bad and that only we in the white Christian west are the good guys. Lies of course, it has always been about the money and power. It is nothing to do with democracy or equality and everything to do with greed of the few.
In the US 45 million of their citizens either have no health care or are under insured.
- Almost 60% of US adults have had medical debt at some point in their life.
- 70% of Americans with medical bills had to cut their food expenses to avoid bankruptcy.
- Two-thirds of all personal bankruptcies are due to medical bills.
Why would you believe that a nation that won’t even give their own people a modicum of decent health care or a decent education would care a jot about you, let alone a Ukrainian, Libyan, Iraqi or African citizen?
Always follow the money, not the news cycle!
Great post Roddy
I am a reluctant admirer of Vladimir Putin, I admire him because he refuses to bow to the Americans, I’m not saying he’s a saint far from it, but this is no world for saints (William Wallace was no saint),
Putin is the president of a nation of 145 million people that’s a heavy responsibility and as such has to do what he believes is necessary to defend his country, I don’t believe he want’s to be in the Ukraine but I do believe the threat of US/EU expansionism has given him no choice, we live in a complicated world and we can rest assured if we are being told the truth (which I doubt) we’re not being told the whole truth.
Putin may well be the nasty vicious dictator our media tell us he is but then maybe he has to be, nonetheless I would sooner have him as our leader than Nicola Sturgeon
That’s a pretty good assessment, Roddy.
I only differ in some details but you are pretty much on the money, as it were, here.
I don’t know if you follow him already, but if not, I wholeheartedly recommend you follow Alex Christoforou and Alexander Mercouris for really incisive and honest reporting of the Ukrainian situation.
Alexander can be found on YouTube but they are also on The Duran@locals.com where there are many other interesting links.
I recommend them to all for some sane reporting; I find the MSM utterly impossible to watch/listen to now.
I can only presume like so many others likeme you are missing the honesty from Russia Toda as well.
https://twitter.com/b_judah/status/1514379169769086987
Excellent article! Encouraging and concerning in equal measures. This may very well be the point at which the American empire over reaches, and signals the end of another very sorry chapter in human history. Let’s hope for a positive result.
Most excellent.
I too think Putin is put upon and as leader of the largest country in the world has his hands full , he needs no daft red’s under the beds stuff emanating from the US and the wee cringy UK.
I concur with Davy that this is a good assessment. The Duran definitely have an agenda or at least specific bias. However, even if you don’t agree with that Christoforou and Mercouris say (even though giants in geo-politics like Mearscheimer broadly do) it’s pretty obvious that very few people in the west are asking the important questions on where this is all headed.
Assuming we don’t stumble into WW III due to ideologues like Nuland, a realignment in the world order will have important implications for Scottish independence. Nothing exists in a vacuum so the rise of the European superstate or it’s collapse pretty much dictates whether we will be able to break the chains with England. Right now I’d say that independence within ten years is less likely. However if the EU does overreach and starts to fragment, then the window of opportunity will open once more.
Very good article Mr MacLeod.
It is such a tragedy that so many of us do not see the two sides of the coin and believe that we in the UK and the US are God’s chose people on the path of righteousness. We are certainly not the benevolent altruistic societies that the corporate elites would have you believe. War is our business as you accurately point out.
And so articles like this are so very welcome to read. The continual narrative of Russia being a country ruled by a genocidal bad evil tyrant and an equally savage evil Russian population is a well trod line. Every country we fight, humanitarian bomb, was evil and led by an even more evil dictator.
But what I was interested to read in your article was the comments about how the US and UK economies now rely on manufacturing from countries like China and North Korea. Thatcher and Reagan economics and the pursuit of corporate profit outsourced manufacturing laying down the Rust Belt is the US. And now the economic model fails and with it I fear our standards of living.
From my view point here in the west of Scotland I don’t see a country of rising living standards, rising economy. We’re struggling to get doctors appointments, hospital appointments, access to A and E. We have a fuel and energy crisis where already hundreds of thousands are in fuel poverty. And it is getting worse as energy, fuel, food, everything rockets in price at an astonishing rate.
And shortages, we don’t talk about shortages be it new vehicles, or parts for vehicles, or chip shortages, or even things like cooking oil. Biggest decline in living standards since records began says our Chancellor as his wife avoids millions and millions of UK tax on her elite earnings.
And will the European Alliance hold up as sanction continue to be applied. You address your thoughts on that Roddy when you mention Europe, and especially Austria and Germany need Russian gas. No gas, no economy, is a sobering thought for countries like Germany. Maybe not however for Blighty. We of course can take it with our indomitable Churchillian spirit. Cold houses, a collapsed economic model, and falling living standards will not phase us.
But turning back to economic sanctions, and how it can impact on industry and companies, not many of us will have heard or thought much about a metal called titanium. Used extensively in the aerospace industry no one, well not most ordinary people, will know that some 40% of the world’s titanium comes from Russia. Nor will they know that the USA has been building up very considerable titanium stock.
And the punchline of this is that Boeing that troubled US aerospace corporation has more than sufficient supplies whilst in Europe the hugely successful Airbus Industries ’ has a problem. Funny that how the US were prescient enough to priorly stockpile this critically important metal.
And guess where the world’s titanium is produced. Based on 2013 production it’s China 45%, Russia 20%, Kazekstan 12%, Ukraine 5% with the remainder of titanium production being Japan 17% and India 1%.
Economic games to be played there with China, Russia, Kazekstan and Ukraine having around 82% of the world production.
But hey, you don’t read about it in the mainstream media. And if you did it would be to tell you the shortage was impacting the manufacture of golf club drivers, or replacement hip joints. But it’s real and I’m sure the sanction by the West will be of more than passing interest to some of our European neighbours, as supply line shortages grow and prices soar.
But I digress. There’s a war to be fought. Who needs peace.
Just as well Graeme George is not standing as an ALBA candidate or he would have been slaughtered by the “Scottish” media. though he didn’t call Blackford a “fat twat” or Robertson a “big nancy”
I am struggling to connect your comment to the article?
Roddy just saying anyone saying that they would rather have Mr. Putin as their first minister than Nikla gets asked to stand down as a candidate
Neither of them find favour with me.
Spot on, Roddy. Money speaks louder than any humanitarian crisis – most often caused by the pursuit of money – and louder than any human cost to children, women gay people. Money speaks with forked tongue, always. Always, we fall for its siren call. We’re not talking here of a few paltry pounds or dollars or euros; we are talking mega bucks; and unfettered capitalism, as opposed to managed capitalism with a dash of small ‘s’ socialism thrown into the mix, is embarking on its latest metamorphosis – like a particularly virulent and variant virus, causing havoc wherever and whoever it infects. Until politicians, who enable this to happen, big business leaders and lobbyists are brought to book for their crimes against innocents, this will go on… and on… and on…
Follow the money in deed.
The merest suggestion of Russian troll farms or Iranian bots and our msm is thrown into spasms of hysterical pearl clutching.
Raise the issue of extensive, blatant and extremely well funded political influencing operations from the US State Department and tumbleweed ensues.
A very probing piece—great read! Imran Kahn wasn’t playing the US’s game. Gone! Are we about to see the new marionette in Islamabad putting-it-up to his next-door neighbour, Modi, an avowed anti-colonialist? Dare I draw comparisons with Zelensky and Putin, minus the obvious religious differences? Given that the US appears to have embarked on the last empire-building crusade that the world will probably ever see, there are now, it seems, no “daft” comparisons or questions left in the cupboard.
Roddy, I had to stop reading when I got as far as this:
“I say there are no good nations in this particular killing field”.
Except, of course, there is only one nation doing the killing. Not the US, not Blighty, not the EU, not NATO, and not Ukraine (except in self-defence). No-one is doing the killing except Putin’s Russia.
There is a time for all the other perfectly legitimate stuff, but now is not it. The fact that you think otherwise doesn’t make you an apologist for Putin or Russia; just seriously wrong in your timing.
You acknowledge that this (like the trans business) is a seriously divisive issue for the indy movement. So let’s not divide on it, at least not for now.
Let’s have a post-mortem (ahem ..) on all this once the killing stops. Any ideas on how that comes about, Roddy?
That is actually totally inaccurate Tom. The Ukraine are doing their fair share of killing too. Indeed for the past 8 years the Ukrainians in Donbass have been under attack by their own Ukrainian military and their Nazi Azov battalions. Over 14,000 Russian speaking Ukrainians have been killed in a civil war. Daily artillery barrages as well as air strikes against unarmed civilian areas have been routine.The reason for this war? The two Russian speaking regions voted to be autonomous republics. The day after their referendums 97% in favour the shelling and killing began. Please tell me you were ignorant of this fact and not just like the western media and right wing Tory types that discount these killings because they do not support your US/NATO/UK narrative.
The trouble with that Roddy is that many of those killed are Ukrainians (both ethnic Russians who identify as Ukrainian and ethnic Ukrainians) killed by the the deeply unpleasant far right Russian nationalists behind the Donbas separatists, who are of course simply shills for Putin’s regime who want to “re-unite” ethnically Russian areas of Ukraine with the Russian Federation…or rather neo USSR.
The Russian Federation is a vast gangster kleptocracy, which uses its imperial power to subjugate many other ethnic minorities for the benefit of the ethnic Russian heartland. Western liberal democracy may not be perfect as a system, but you don’t see refugees clamouring to emigrate there. The hundreds of thousands of Russians who fled Russia after the invasion of the Ukraine – most of them young, politically progressive, anti-Putin – did so because they didn’t want to live in a dystopian, regressive shit hole with no human rights.
No reasonable person accepts the flawed narrative that Ukraine needed to be de-nazified or de-militarised. Any supporter of Scottish nationalism shilling for Putin needs to gie themselves a shake. You’re not on the right side of history.
What utter nonsense you are spewing the western lies they very thing we advise people not to fall for. The Nazis are imbedded in the Ukraine Military and Government it has been proved beyond any reasonable doubt. You sir,speak with forked tongue. I suspect you are a paid troll.
The Nazi’s were even made part of the Ukrainian National Guard that’s how deep they are imbedded, and Zelensky is on record saying about them, that they are what they are.
Yes, Roddy, I know about all that. But the issues around it are quite complicated given 20th century history in the region (and, as you say, that was/is a civil war, not a war between nations). Anyway, is the obliteration of Ukraine, and the slaughtering of its people, by a bullying outside power fair revenge? The fact that such bullying has happened elsewhere by people on ‘our’ side, doesn’t make it right here, does it? I ask again: how do you think this slaughter be stopped? If it can’t be stopped, what is the outcome you hope for?
Basically you don’t give a f ### about the 14,000 dead in Donbass or the Nazis you are happy backing them.Not me ,not ever I can never justify backing Nazis even over dosing on CNN and Fox News I couldn’t. However your comments it seems is an attempt to divert people away from the thrust of this article. This war is about money just like most wars, and the danger to US$ and western economies by the stupidity of Biden and his sanctions.
Roddy, that’s a great smear (that I am happy backing the Nazis). As I’m sure you intended, it brings this dialogue to a close.
I am sorry you cannot accept a truism if you are backing Ukraine and seeing this as a black and white conflict it does indeed mean you are backing the Nazis of Azov and other Nazi battalions integrated into Ukraine army. I have condemned both sides from day one. Sadly those of you in thrall to US and UK corporate media seem to have a real problem with reality or withcanyone that refuses to be as easily fooled as yourselfby CNN Fox News MsBnC SKy BBC,ITV.
Please forgive me for butting in, but, Tom, Roddy is one of the fairest, most even-handed commentators around. He has, indeed, condemned Russian aggression, as have we all who do not view this conflict as having been unavoidable or one-sided. It is not. Unfortunately, we are all in the heat of the moment here. Time will prove that, not only could and should this conflict have been avoided, but that the West is largely to blame for not helping Ukraine to avoid it, and also for not helping Russia, under Gorbachev and Yeltsin to be gently led into Europe, alongside Ukraine, when that offer from Russia stood.
The West’s answer was to repudiate Russian advances and strengthen and expand NATO. Why? It’s not too difficult to work out: America (and, probably, the UK, too) did not want a consolidation of Europe with two huge additions in Russia and Ukraine because that would have tipped the geopolitical balance in Europe’s favour. We all know that innocents are dying and suffering in Ukraine, none more so than Roddy, and we all deeply regret that and do not offer Putin any support in that, for heaven’s sake! We also understand that Russia felt it was being backed into a tight corner by Western interests. We just don’t swallow the propaganda from the West any more than we swallow it from the Eastern side. People need to use their critical faculties and not allow themselves to be worked up into a lather – but do help the Ukrainian people where possible. More and bigger weapons are not the answer. Getting the Russians out of Ukraine is, although they are going to have to write off the Donbas, I think.
Well said Lorna. A really good summing up and a timely reminder of the West (well mainly the USA) not giving Gorbacheve and Yeltsin the support they needed and taking full advantage of the difficulties of moving from totalitarianism to democract overnight.
Another great article Roddy. America is a curse on the planet. Everything rotten stems from that country. The latest example being “Stonewall.” Enough said. Keep the truth coming, the only way we will be informed is through bloggers, the MSM will never tell it as it is.
Not all bloggers sadly Janette, some have been taken in by the same media we have all been correcting since 2012.It is not just the SNP that have gone all 4 nations!
“What utter nonsense you are spewing the western lies they very thing we advise people not to fall for. The Nazis are imbedded in the Ukraine Military and Government it has been proved beyond any reasonable doubt. You sir,speak with forked tongue. I suspect you are a paid troll.”
I don’t know if he’s paid or not but he’s certainly a troll, this is the same man who trolls Wings advocating every Englishman/woman for whatever reason and however long living in Scotland should get a vote on Scottish sovereignty, I suspect he’d import them to give them a vote if he thinks he’d get away with it
The truth right there Roddy, good stuff. ps I think the Iranians might be right. America is the great Satan after all.
People in the West don’t realise just how deeply rooted Nazism is in Ukraine, with multiple streets and monument named after Nazi sympathisers, and Nazi parades held annually.
https://forward.com/news/462916/nazi-collaborator-monuments-in-ukraine/
Not only that the Nazi’s have been shelling Russian speaking people of the Donbas region since 2014, not shelling military bases or posts, but shelling schools, hospitals, and residential areas, in effect it could be described as genocide and crimes against humanity.
For those bleat on about Crimea, I’ve got news for you.
The folk of Crimea prefer Russia over Ukraine, they too were attack.
The US planned on taking over the Russian naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea, twice a Gallup poll was carried to find out how the people of Crimea felt about themselves if they felt Ukrainian or Russian, they answered Russian.
The US and the Ukrainians resorted to violence against the people of Crimea in the hope that they would change their minds, this of course led to a referendum where Crimean’s voted to be ruled by Moscow.
The US then commissioned another poll by Gallup, and this was the findings of that poll.
“When Gallup did their “Public Opinion Survey Residents of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea May 16-30, 2013” (which was called that because even when Crimea was part of Ukraine, it had a special status, as being an “Autonomous Republic” — not a province), only 15% (slide 8) of Crimeans viewed themselves as “Ukrainian,” but 40% said “Russian,” and 24% said “Crimean.” 53% (slide 14) wanted Crimeans to be part of the “Customs Union with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan,” but only 17% wanted Crimeans to be part of “The European Union.” 68% (slide 15) said their feelings toward “Russia” were “warm,” but only 6% said their feelings toward “USA” were “warm.”
Also worth remembering Crimea had always been part of Russia going back centuries until 1962 when Kruschov decreed it would be part of Ukrainian Republic. He of course, never envisaged the Soviet Union of Socialist Republics ever ending.
Roddy here’s the full article with more info.
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2019/11/02/the-obama-regimes-plan-to-seize-the-russian-naval-base-in-crimera/
The economic model the Torys ape is the American model, it is a dystopia for ordinary people who cant afford heath insurance or food. This is what Brexit is all about mirroring the American dream the big con where anyone can make it but very few do . The rich get richer a Tory wet dream. The British establishment have declared war on its citizens and aim to sell of the NHS against the peoples will. The propaganda machine of the State broadcaster Ignores the failure of Brexit and blames everything on the Ukraine war. Democracy is a illusional soon we will be give the choice of renewing Trident or keeping the NHS and you know which one the Torys will choose.
UK, Ok.
Outstanding article Roddy ; can’t add a word to it , all the salient points are there .
All the points that so many are point blank refusing to acknowledge ; this we expect from MSM – though the degree of unfettered propaganda currently , even by it’s own abysmal standard , is really shocking .
What I didn’t expect is seeing otherwise intelligent people appear to abandon any critical thinking on this – latest , geopolitical horror-show : opting to see the situation in simplistic * good guy/bad guy * narratives .
We’ve read that book before : trite , derivative , unimaginative , with a predictable, unsatisfactory ending . Bin it .
Another fantastic article! We have to stand against the waves of hard of thinking people who insist on wars having goodies and baddies, SNP being a vehicle for independence and the Westminster government having sovereignty of the people of Scotland. Please keep up the good work and don’t let the buggers accusing you of being a Putin sympathiser grind you down. Fight the good fight.
Only now got round to reading this excellent article. Nothing to add except that in 1993 my father, who spent 6 years of his youth fighting in World War 2, told me about his meeting with soldiers from the Donbass. They taught him “The Red Cavalry March”. I wrote down the words.
Verse 1: When the white guards invaded
And the Donbass was raided
In those grim unforgettable years –
Swift our columns assembled
How the earth heaved and trembled
As we galloped with song and with cheers.
Verse 2: With Budyenny to lead us
In the cause that had freed us
We press’d onward by night and by day
Soon our fame rode before us
Like a thundering chorus
As the army that never gave way.
Verse 3: If to our peaceful borders
War again brings marauders
If the shrapnel once more scatters wide
With Voroshilor and Budenny
As of old once again we
The Red Cavalry Army will ride.
My father died the following year so the month I spent with my parents that summer is very special to me.
Wonderful stuff and good that you have those happy memories,
Your song glorifies Semyon Budenny and Klimenti Voroshilov, two of the most incompetent generals of WW2, which is odd.
And nothing at all wrong with approvingly posting Stalin-era Soviet patriotic songs these days, is there?
Unlike you Sparks we are democratic on here not Russian haters.Final warning anymore of your Britnat abusive comments you will be blocked. By all means take a different view but be polite.
Excellent article Roddy, first class. Scotland must also focus on trade, and therefore shipping and ports, to enable growth and development. The UK and US are bust in trading terms, with immense and worsening trade imbalances, no empire to fleece. China and others show the way, including the Belt and Road initiative, developing container ports in the right places globally. Scotland can be part of that global system, more than we know – we have the natural deep water harbours at the right locations, some interesting trade flows, and many others to intercept. But we need independence to develop and maximise what we have, otherwise we will always be ‘out of the game’.
I think you are right Alf in the comment about the UK and US being bust in trade terms and that China’s Belt and Road initiative is the way to go.
The US and the UK know their economies are in major difficulty. Put simply countries like China now out produce the US and the UK. A look at what we manufacture in the UK as opposed to what we don’t gives you a clear indication of that.
And so conflict, the creation of conflict, very often by subterfuge and clandestine interference on behalf of Western commercial interest is the way to go to try and redress the UK and US’s grave economic decline. .
And so two major economies mired in debt, and being out produced by countries like China who has focused on developing their manufacturing base, the US and the UK try to destabilise and undermine in what is a changed world. A world that has tilted East.
But in mounting this fight it is a fight that the US and UK could, and almost certainly will. Yes war may be fantastic for the the armaments corporates, but will it redress an already failing economy. Or will it wreck it further.
Already being told that the biggest reduction in living standards ever is underway people are now waking up to empty supermarket shelves, shortages in all manner of products from steel to food to silicon chips. They are now also aware of the soaring prices, destruction of income value, destruction of savings. And they are also aware of the desperate difficulty to see a GP or access an Accident and Emergency department.
And the tax rises too whilst we pump billions of pounds of weaponry ( and undisclosed special forces) into the Ukrainian proxy war with Russia.
Not exactly the fabled Nirvana promised by our Brexit exit and tales of life enhancing US and world trade deals.
Rather it looks like we’ve embarked on a war we will not win – economic war or physical. And the signal of China’s CNOOC oil company moving its assets out of the North Sea to avoid sanctions, what does that tell us.
But at least with the BBC who keep us right, we can cheer the photo shoot of our war time prime minister photo shooting in Kiev as we bleed our righteous veins fighting evil.
No surrender we may proudly cry but like Suez, or Afghanistan and everything in between, the Empire to fleece is gone The world has changed.
And we in Scotland are going down with the sinking ship.
A wee bit Off Topic but relevant
I inadvertently watched part of have I got news for you with victoria coren mitchell as the host , she made a couple of comments re Scotland which was quite an insight to how some of our neighbours view our supposed equal partnership with england in the uk , BUT don’t worry it was only a bit of banter not racist or demeaning whatsoever
It had to do with qwasi kwartengs proposal to site nuclear power plants in Scotland, link
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00164tk/have-i-got-news-for-you-series-63-episode-2
From 10.46 and 14.25
Great article but you missed out two important parts of the Jigsaw evidence
Murray Foote the previous Edititor of the Daily Broken Rescord must have
always been an Sturgeon sympathiser.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18209841.snp-hire-murray-foote-architect-vow-top-spindoctor/
And on top of our missing £600k there is the ongoing investigation of corrurption at
Sturgeons book publishers too https://www.insider.co.uk/news/sturgeons-book-publisher-still-being-26667659