Do the Dance Apocalyptic!

[ggreig]

Well, I already knew I was an extremist, as Nick Clegg was kind enough to inform me of it a couple of years ago.

What I hadn’t realised was that I’m practically one of the horsemen of the Apocalypse. According to George Robertson – sorry, Baron Robertson of Port Ellen – Scottish independence would be “cataclysmic in geo-political terms”. Gosh, nice to know we count for so much.

There’s a lot of inflated language going round about the independence campaign and it’s daft. Really, if a measly 8.4% of the UK’s population peacefully vote to govern themselves, that’s going to cause the fall of Western civilisation is it? Particularly when what’s being proposed actually sounds a bit like a loose confederation with the rest of the UK? There’s a lot of good will there, if folk are prepared to stop caricaturing independence for a small country as a global catastrophe, and comparing the Unionist cause to that of Lincoln in the American Civil War.

George Robertson’s a coof – if you don’t believe me, watch him comprehensively lose this debate in Dundee last year, turning a 38% margin in his favour into a 13% lead against him. And remember he was involved in determining the Scottish Parliament’s electoral system that was going to help devolution “kill Nationalism stone dead”.

Let’s take his words as seriously as they deserve, at this, the dawn of the Apocalypse. If the world says it’s time to go, tell me, will you freak out? No; with fires in New York, locusts in Detroit, and zombies in Atlanta, you’ve gotta laugh at the zombie in the front yard:

And I really, really want to thank you for reading to the end. ;-)

Comments

[myceliumme.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the light-hearted reporting - I wish I could emulate it. But…
N
ato is a hangover from the cold war. It's not needed any more, even if any militaristic organisation ever brought overall benefits, a thesis I strongly doubt.

As for Europe rearranging its borders - that happens all the time. I had a very interesting conversation recently with a farmer in Bolzano/Bozen recently. That area of Italy (South Tyrol/Südtirol/Sudtirol/Alto Adige) used to be be Austrian, and is still mostly German-speaking. If this person is typical of local sentiment, then most agree they want to be out of Italy but are divided over whether to rejoin Austria or remain independent. If they rejoin Austria, it could be by merging with Tirol or as a separate Land.

It can't be that hard to move borders as people decide, so long as it's done by sane people and reasonable negotiation. (OK, it is hard for the civil servants who are currently trying to prepare for several, unknown futures.) Just so long as it doesn't degenerate into border raiding, forcible annexations and other forms of bloodshed. Which is why I'd want the militaristic idiots locked in padded cells, at least until the current debate is settled for now, if not for the rest of their natural lives...

[ggreig]

I did want to keep it light, but it's not without a real anger at the language used. It generally - though not always - takes something that I think's beyond the pale to make me write about politics. I think George Robertson's language is not just wrong, but dangerous, irresponsible and escalatory. The best way to deal with it seemed to be to mock it, and thankfully that seems to have been the general response even of his fellow Unionists. We do have to watch out for inflammatory stuff like this though, whichever side of the debate we happen to be on.