My special guest is none other than Yvonne Ridley. I caught up with her in Kabul where she is at present. She tells us of the terrible effects of the unjust American sanctions which are causing huge humanitarian suffering. As we have seen elsewhere it is the most vulnerable in society that suffer under sanctions. Children, mothers and the poor. We hear an alternative to the western media of Afghanistan, its people and its Taliban Government. Another example of western media propaganda? YOU must make up your own mind. We like you to have both sides of any debate.
Later I am joined by Phil Boswell and Sara Saylers. We discuss the plight of Afghanistan, the ongoing war in Ukraine. The UK’s plan to build 8 new Nuclear Power stations. Two of those are to be built in Scotland, why when we produce 95% of our needs from renewables and export to England 25% of its electricity do we need two dirty nuclear power stations on our soil? Where will the nuclear waste from a further 8 power stations be dumped? Clue it won’t be in the Home Counties!
The SNP advising their supporters to only Vote SNP1 2 now where have we heard that before and remind us again what happened?
Enjoy, share and comment.
Exceptional prism today Roddy. With so many honest, worthwhile, intelligent people in Scotland we MUST be nearing independence.
The Sunday National has an article today from someone I would normally class as very grounded and intelligent, but he talks of not alienating potential YES voters. In the name of the wee man! How many times are we going to hear this? They sold us out because they put their own wee pre occupations first instead of looking at the bigger picture and seeing that their pre occupations are everyone’s, and that things are not “not perfect, but why rock the boat?”. They are dire and getting more dire by the day. Middle-class people are notoriously difficult to shift, and any study of voting patterns shows this fact. It is working-class people who change the political landscape, as we saw with Brexit and with the election of the Tories in England, when huge swathes of working-class England did exactly what the middle-class wanted and voted to the detriment of themselves and for the betterment of the middle-class that generally despises them. Scotland is slightly more to the left on average, but the SNP is keeping the middle-class on side to the detriment of the working-class – exactly the same as pertains in England. They are doing the Tories’ job in Scotland for them while the Tories are set to make another killing in the local elections because the incalculably devious and self-interested leadership of the SNP is telling everyone to vote SNP 1 and 2 again, as they did in the SE, when swathes of Unionists gained seats. They have become the real stumbling block to any kind of progress in Scotland, and their regressive policies reflect that. They are an utter disgrace to the party of independence and the people of the past on whose shoulders they dare to stand. Disgusting chancers and betrayers!
Sara is bang on the money yet again.
Scotland’s Constitution gives the people the right to impeach Nicola Sturgeon and Holyrood wherever and whenever Scotland’s “government” lets down the people of Scotland. Brexit was an occasion when the emphatic democratic will of Scotland’s sovereign people was brazenly overruled and our Nation subsequently subjugated by Westminster, and Sturgeon’s “government” were entirely complicit in the process.
Scotland thus has the right and the justification to impeach Sturgeon and Holyrood both, but what we lack is a codified method of doing so. I’ll warn you now, you will not find that method detailed anywhere in the colonial Scotland Act.
What Scotland NEEDS is a second chamber / upper house / Constitutional Grand Assembly to robustly champion Scotland’s Constitutional rights and “red” Scottish sovereignty, and to give Holyrood and Sturgeon a proverbial thick ear, and actual impeachment for their constitutional illiteracy.
Quite literally, to “exert ourselves at once to drive him [her] out as our enemy and a subverter of his own right and ours”…
Breeks you know I have supported your assertions and exposures both here and on WOS , and the confirmation of your repeated claims by Sara Salyers is music to everyone’s ears , BUT and it is a mahoosive BUT ,there is NOT one politician in Scotland willing to move your and Sara’s conclusions forward , EVEN when Alex Salmond spoke of a convention it was a convention of the usual great and the good from political parties , academia , business interests , elected officials , ALL the usual culprits who would spend more time self aggrandising and looking for ways to benefit financially than they would interacting with the masses , basically a lesser house of lards
TBQH the above mentioned groupings would be the LAST PEOPLE I would want representing working class Scots that is why we are in the position we are currently in and represented by the parasitic morons we have
Phil made a proposal that people should write to their snp MP’S, MSP’S and councillors and tell them they will not get their votes because of failed indy promises and policies like GRA and the HCB , a proposal supported by Sara and Roddy and no doubt quite a few others
I don’t know if you remember Breeks , about 2 years ago I made a proposal on WOS , Barrhead Boy , YOURS for Scotland , Peter A Bell and other sites asking for help in creating a form that could be downloaded from the Internet and sent to ALL of the snp reps and high heidyins STATING CATEGORICALLY that the form signatory would NOT be voting snp unless and until NS stated categorically , publicly , and unequivocally that the GRA bill would be paused until after indy , that the forthcoming election 2021 and ANY other future election would be fought on a plebiscitery basis where if a majority of seats were won by independence parties negotiations would IMMEDIATELY start on the dissolution of the union
YET here we are today 2 years later with sturgeon lying publicly that she was elected by the electorate to implement GRA which the public voted for her to do , we are further away from independence than we were in 2014 , and she ignored and still does the DEMAND for plebiscite elections made by REAL independence supporters , the ONLY way anything will change is through MASS PARTICIPATION and education of the public and sturgeon being a fake independenista is desperate to avoid that
I hear what you’re saying twathater, but Scotland needs a “body” to both enact and defend Scotland’s Constitutional Sovereignty.
“What” that body does, is much more important than “who” that body is. But I agree, that’s not to say the “who” is unimportant. Nevertheless, it has to be somebody.
The Holyrood assembly has it’s small “c” constitution written by the Scotland Act. Surely we are smart and resourceful enough as a people to initiate a Scottish Constitutional body, whether we call it a convention, upper house, second chamber, or whatever else we want to call it, – but create that body with such a tight small “c” constitution of it’s own that it doesn’t actually matter “who” is on that body, only that it exists to respect and defend Scotland’s red sovereignty, – and actually acts to do it.
Maybe the answer is to research and examine how other Nations monitor and safeguard their own Constitutional integrity, find similarities which resonate, and draw inspiration from them.
The other thing to say, is that it needn’t necessarily be a permanent body. We might easily establish this Constitutional body as a temporary institution created to address a one-off Constitutional crisis. Once the crisis has been negotiated, the body might simply dissolve.
We are sovereign people inside the realm of Scotland. We have the right and opportunity to pursue whichever option we choose.
AGAIN Breeks I agree with what you are saying about who is on a convention or WHATEVER it is called AS LONG as they DO SOMETHING to make indy MOVE , and as for the members initially being temporary until a proper constitution and body can be assembled again I agree . BUT time is moving on and the betrayer and her cult are implementing and continuing with a DELAYING tactic which has allowed WM to organise themselves and prepare laws and acts which will destroy any attempts in the future for independence
RODDY you have been vociferous about the absolute necessity of a peoples assembly or whatever you want to call it , Alex Salmond agreed that one was desired and needed , the only fly in the ointment was who the membership would be , surely it would be within the realms of the OTHER REAL independence parties to agree to approach esteemed and recognised independence supporters like bloggers and activists , professionals from different disciples, e.g. Prof Alf Baird , Grousebeater Gareth Wardell , yourself , Iain Lawson , Sara Salyers and many other examples of true patriots and CREATE an assembly that sturgeon will find it difficult not to recognise , and even if she does it will create a momentum and generate publicity , interest and support from who knows where
You really must watch next weekends Prism. That is all I am prepared to say tonight!😁😁😁😁👍
Just as a minor tangent, but it’s arguable you could describe the signatories and proxies who were named or represented on the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath as a similar impermanent body to a “Peoples Assembly”. It was a temporary coming together of people to write a Constitutional letter which sought the equivalent International Recognition of sorts for Scotland, and their legitimacy was recognised.
In 1320, you could also argue with some justification that it took “the people” to do what the ruling Scottish Monarch could not… make a sovereign declaration on behalf of Scotland.
Roddy you are poking my interest , I always watch the prisms and I thank you for them and the guests , but now a canny wait
Top notch again, Roddy, folks. This will eventually be the beauty of the internet IF – and it’s a huge IF – we don’t let the b******s have control so that they can lie to us. If we don’t sit up and take notice and start to reason things out for ourselves, but just leave it to the totalitarians to decide what we are fed information-wise, we are lost. Not just in Scotland where totalitarianism is becoming established as we speak, but right across the globe. We all have an in-built b***s**t detector. Sometimes, narrow self-interest dulls that alarm system or allows it to be dulled. That is just another form of suicide. It is now painfully evident that we cannot trust those we have elected, and we need to bring back control to its most basic level, which Sara spoke about: the burghs and the Common Good, local accountability so that the charlatans and selfish are by-passed and kept in check for all our sakes. That can only be brought back by independence coupled to a will to decentralise power. Those who are in power should display humility and have a sense of those below them, as well as a sense that they are not the apex, that they, too, despite their arrogance and self-entitlement, are part of something bigger that they are answerable to. I don’t think it should be just war crimes that should be indictable, but also crimes against the populace, against the people, where stupidity and intransigence counter sense and rationalism across the board.
The political class are selling us out to a greedy elite whose aim is the great reset. (You will own nothing and be happy ) This is not conspiracy theory watch the Davos elite with Prince Charles video on YouTube, you’ll get it from the horses mouth, make you own mind up.
Time is running out for us there in Scotland we need to get away from this coercive Union this sudo medieval state that robs the poor to give to the rich. It is not a proper country, it does not work for its citizens, it hobbles and punishes the poor the old, sick and disabled. Strugeon is the worst possible Leader to have currently representing us , she is only interest in power and thinks nothing about selling us out for a gender ambassadors role at the UN recommended by a thankful Britsh government for kicking independence down the road or worse give you a referendum on a doggy voting franchise that ties you in to a coercive Union forever by a compromised SNP that dont want to win.
Another excellent podcast, with thoughtful and and hard-hitting analyses from all concerned. Thank you, all.
There are many devious games afoot in the world today, with the US and its arms, oil and financial interests involved in each-and-every one of them. That the attempted colonization of the world’s markets, resources and consumers by US capitalism and its useful idiots won’t be resisted, with catastrophic outcomes for all concerned, doesn’t really need saying.
Satisficing is a term – meaning, – you have a job, a manageable mortgage or rent payment, have a car, life ‘s comfortable and so… what’s the concern for you, and such as you, of others? – of foodbanks, of drug addiction? Life is comfortable, you won’t be rich, but you won’t be poor. But meantime there are those who are immensely wealthy thanks to your complacent “satisficing” mode – instance your UK Chancellor – and those immensely poor.
velofello: you are right. History shows us that the comfortable or just comfortable middle-class never puts itself out for anyone else, even if that means that others suffer below them and those above them are enriched more than ever. The only way that middle-class people ever put themselves out is when they are directly affected. The Tories have it down to a fine art – as have the Tory Lites, the Lib Dems, and New Labour (and the Greens and New SNP) – that the middle-class is rarely impinged upon in anything like that which would be necessary for them to stir their stumps. Since the 1970s, it has been the low-paid working-class right across the UK that has borne the burden of Tory and New Labour policies. In Scotland, the same is happening under the New SNP/Greens, with their virtue-signalling policies that are middle-class in origin, but which bear down most heavily on the working-class. The simple fact is that everyone, from middle-class upwards, is supremely lacking in self-awareness and in any empathy whatsoever with those below them because they, themselves, have never known what it is to face real hardship or just managing. There are now two UKs, perhaps even three, and that does not bode well for future social cohesion.
As Frantz Fanon wrote, “Colonial domination, because it is total and tends to oversimplify, very soon manages to disrupt in spectacular fashion the cultural life of a conquered people.”
Much of the world’s problems, today and historically, relate to the unwelcome enforcement of a dominant alien culture/language imposed on a people, and with that the marginalisation of indigenous cultures. This usually coincides with the systematic economic and political exploitation of a people/land, and establishment of a ruling cultural hegemony reflecting the dominating culture, which always includes collaborative (i.e. assimilated) native elites/bourgeoisie. This is what we know as colonialism.
Once a people are liberated from colonial oppression, the native elites who worked against the people in serving the interest of the colonial power find themselves in a rather uncertain predicament, and often need to search for the first flight out to the safety of ‘the mother country’, even though it is foreign to them in most respects. A similar process occurred throughout the former colonial empires as nation after nation became independent, which to some extent explains the population make-up today of the UK, France and others.
There is a reason the Scots are today left with “a moribund culture and rusted tongue” amidst a plundered undeveloped nation and people, a great many still living in poverty and lacking opportunity, ruled by a cultural hegemony (inclusive of native elites) that reinforces the culture, language and ‘values’ of an economically and politically exploitative oppressor. This is ultimately why any oppressed people seek independence, which is decolonisation, and why Fanon describes independence as essentially “a fight for a national culture”.
Alf, your quote from Frantz Fanon is a perfect description of Scotland’s present cultural life……..but not for much longer! ALBA will return our independence dream to an independence reality.
Lets hope you are right Jan, however any National Party serious about independence would be expected to develop a firm policy on such critical matters as their verra ain (Scots) Language and more especially giving the language authority and teachin oor braw Scots langage mither tung in schuils tae aw Scots bairns (language is a human richt efter aw), tae mak shuir the native fowk dinnae remeen foriver confuised aboot thair ain naitional identity, an tae cast oot o oor heids Professor Tam Devine’s ‘dual persona’ (i.e. ‘A’m British and Scottish’ haivers) fer guid!
Yes, Alf. The Scots language must be given its rightful place within our educational system. Gaelic speakers have been more fortunate recently but only in certain areas of the Highlands. Having been educated in English I’m afraid my problem is with spelling – in both Gaelic and Scots! But once we’re independent, school children must be taught in their own tongue. (We could teach English as a foreign language just as so many Nordic and European countries manage to do.) Thanks to John Knox, Scottish Education was the envy of the world, so we’re told. There’s no reason why we can’t reach those dizzy heights once more. BUT we must get rid of Nicola Sturgeon & Co. before we make the attempt!
Its not a good look it has to be said for the SNP.
Why oh why does Anuus O’Neil not leave the SNP and Join Alba if he doesn’t its beginning to look like He is
just another Carpetbagger. Do any MP’s have principles anymore ?
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