Scottish Independence

[Muirium]

Scotland's a post-industrial mess. IBM at Greenock was just one of thousands of such stories. Not enough business. Not enough graduates choosing to stay at home instead of emigrate. No venture capital. No hope, honestly.

But I think we could make a better crack of it than Greece! The Greeks need a legal system and prosecutors to deal with their eternal tax collection woes. We've got that. But not much else frankly. Not as things are now.

[chzel]

EU is a bit like a social gathering, where there is a guy flaunting his riches (Germany), bossing the others around (rest of EU), while a reluctant guest just watches the show thinking "I've got better places to be.."(UK)

Here's some homework: take a look at one of Europe's racist party's manifestos. They all play the same game. "Local jobs for local people." Never "Burn the migrants!" It's how these things are done in politics.

Photekq, here's a little something to help you with your assignment:
We have a "nationalist" party (Golden Dawn) and this is an excerpt from their "manifesto":

The Popular Nationalist Movement of GOLDEN DAWN is at the forefront of the battle against the Memorandum and the sinful system of the parties of the political establishment. Against the population distortion, because of the millions of illegal immigrants, and the dissolution of the Greek society that is promoted by the coalition parties and the so called Left. It proposes a National policy for exiting the crisis imposed on our country. It fights for a Greece that belongs to the Greeks.
Source

Now, they openly deny being neonazis and/or extreme racists, yet they beat and stab immigrants, and their logo is a bit too much like the Nazi swastika.
Take a look at a few members at a rally and judge for yourself.

Spoiler:

[seebart]

They look fascist alright. I read about them. Here in Germany we would never believe such groups exist in Greece. That picture looks like it came straight out of some lousy movie.

[chzel]

We buy your cars. You bail our banks. Euro pro quo, as they say.

Right but the Greek didn't even want to be bailed. I'm sure they still like BMW etc. But the whole thing is a mess. Chzel will tell you.

Our banks were fine, thank you!
It's our public sector that is fucked up beyond recognition.
Our banks' problem is that for many years they were forced to buy bonds under political pressure, and when the "haircut" (or PSI if you prefer) happened, they lost ~28 billion €, requiring a "refinancing" of 11bn € to stay afloat.

Our private sector is heavily dependent on credit lines from the banks, and the whole situation made the banks reluctant to lend money, so the real everyday economy was strangled. The public sector salaries were way higher than what they should be, and they got cut, but those were money spent in the real economy.

Our tax policies are crap too!
I'm not really sure how it is for other countries, but as an example, let's suppose a company has 123€ income, they have to give 23€ to the taxman (VAT). If they buy 1000€ worth of stock from a supplier, they have to pay 1230€, and wait a couple of years to get the VAT refunded (230-23=207€). We get fucked from the man, and the lending helps with that, and ingenuity helps too (virtual invoices anyone?)
It is a mess indeed.
And we do like our German cars!

[Muirium]

Our banks were the problem here. Or rather "our" banks. They were formed here in Edinburgh several centuries ago, but are London businesses, which were caught their fingers deep in subprime US housing pies. The Royal Bank of Scotland was the worst: it needed billions upon billions to bail it out in 2008. The UK chancellor (finance minister) of the time was a Scot (and former Trotskyite) by the name of Alistair Darling, so it seemed very apt that he was writing the cheques. Paid for by the Bank of England, of course.

As a long term independence supporter, I wasn't happy about any of that in 2008. The bank bailouts were bad news, plain and simple, but even more so in the sense that "Scottish" banks were taking enormous sums from England's wallet. And, much like in Greece, the bastards have been loathe to loan any of it out again so mortgages and working capital are all much more expensive now while they sit on the taxpayer's money.

Then of course the same banks actively campaigned for a No vote in the referendum! A campaign led by the very same Mr. Darling, who had been thrown out of office in 2010 by English voters, while increasing his party's share here at home.

Britain: it's a hell of a countries!

[andrewjoy]

it could be worse

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Sea_Company

[Muirium]

Fun fact: Scotland joined with England in 1707 because of the spectacular failure of another such plan: the Darien disaster. Our attempt to make an empire was so bad there's still literally a gap there today where you can't drive between north and south America! It remains thick tropical rainforest. Great choice, sirs…



The tools who lost all their money in that scheme were paid handsomely by you-know-who to vote for the union in the Scots Parliament. When the people heard, they chased them out of town. Never to return. They were our new MPs in London instead. Ach!

Anyway, everyone knows flowers are forever.

[Mal-2]

Now, they openly deny being neonazis and/or extreme racists, yet they beat and stab immigrants, and their logo is a bit too much like the Nazi swastika.

Oddly, their logo looks most like the symbol for current Israeli currency, the New Shekel (or Sheqel).

[Muirium]

Tell it to the Minoans…



And all these Nazis!






Not invented in Germany. Even the name "swastika" gives it away. I think the Nazis hijacked it as an iconic, symmetrical, traditional Hindu symbol, because it meshed with their daft ideology about a unified Indo-European "Aryan" race. The term "Semitic" came from linguistics too. But didn't have anything to do with bloodlines. (The Phoenicians who invented the alphabet we still essentially use today were also Semites. As were the Babylonians and Assyrians and Akkadians before them…)

Like nincompoops of every age, Hitler's lot mixed and matched concepts they barely understood as they went. Just check out the bizarre knights of the round table stuff Himmler was up to! They'd have stolen from Star Wars too if it had been out in the 1940s…

[chzel]

Now, they openly deny being neonazis and/or extreme racists, yet they beat and stab immigrants, and their logo is a bit too much like the Nazi swastika.

Oddly, their logo looks most like the symbol for current Israeli currency, the New Shekel (or Sheqel).

The pattern of their logo is the meander, an ancient Greek decorative pattern, and of course has nothing to do with nazis or fascists, it was inspired by the meanders of rivers.
It is the integration of the meander with the colors (red/white/black) that makes it provocative.
Had it been a white meander against a blue background, it'd be fine, but they probably wouldn't have used it!
Patterns are "innocent" by themselves, it is when we make them symbols (good or bad) that we "load" them with sentiments.

[seebart]

Yes the swastika type symbol has been in use for centuries all over the world. Simply rehashed by Adolph and his gang. Of course those golden dawn chumps did not come up with that either.

[mr_a500]

I went to Korea and all down one street there were large flags flying - black swastika on white background. There were lots of smaller swastika flags too. I wonder what would happen if I took a flag like that back to Canada. I'd probably be instantly arrested and charged with "hate crimes".

[seebart]

That symbol and any other Nazi relics are banned by law in Germany since 45. Of course that does not stop some morons going down that road despite our history.

[Muirium]

We were going to ban mentioning the war here, until parliament passed Godwin's Law.

[seebart]

I noticed you know your Scottish history well Mu! But of course one has to be interested to learn.

[Muirium]

Well, the way that voter registration and turnout are suddenly up around here now, for the first time in generations, people are interested in something. Probably more the future than the past…

[andrewjoy]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-32736153

[seebart]

"Take us with you, Scotland" say thousands in North of England

interesting. Seems they want out big time those northern brits.

[Muirium]

It'd be fun to push the border south a bit! But I sense bullshit. The English are a proud people, perfectly willing to let identity get in the way of their well being. Someday we Scots will join them. Ironically, by leaving!

[Muirium]

Either I'm hung over or Ireland really did vote to become the fairest country in the world:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32856232

Congratulations! Bet you guys can't wait to vote to rejoin Britain and to leave the EU, right? Or don't you get the Daily Mail there?

[scottc]

Nothing's been finalised yet, but it sounds like a resounding yes vote so far! I'm absolutely ecstatic.

We'll not be re-joining the Empire any time soon, and we'll have our six northern counties back while you're at it, thanks!

[Muirium]

One of my history teachers at school really annoyed me once. It was likely just after the general election in 1992 when the SNP had run on the campaign banner "Free by 93!" Scots voted Labour again instead. And got Thatcher and Major's Tories for the fourth time in a row. Some freedom! The teacher laughed at my 12 year old disappointment. He reckoned Northern Ireland would leave Britain before us at this rate.

Come on history. Prove him wrong! The clock's a ticking. For now at least. Just the idea of an SNP victory and government was laughably absurd back in my teens. And a referendum! What next? The Irish allowing gay equality!

[scottc]

Ah, the thing about Northern Ireland is that there are many Brits living there who would have arrived as planters in the time of plantations in Ireland. So they're just as British as the rest of the UK. The land may be rightfully Irish, but many of the people aren't. Of course there are many originally Irish people there too (and of course generations of a mixture of both), but it's still difficult. I'm not expecting Northern Irish independence anytime in the forseeable future as a result of this.

[Muirium]

Yeah, I try not to even joke about the future there. Because it really is split down the middle in the kind of way you'd have to go to Israel/Palestine to see. Both communities fear for their survival. Unlike the Middle East, the peace process has worked fairly well there. But there's still no clear peaceful endpoint in sight. Just more ceasefire. Which is a lot better than what came before.

[scottc]

Definitely. All of the individual counties are either 55% Unionist vs. 45% Republican or 55% Republican vs. 45% Unionist. A sticky situation indeed. I'd of course be happy to see the North re-join the rest of the Republic but I don't think it's realistic. Realistically, I'm happy with continued peace there, regardless of what country they're a part of.

[seebart]

Sounds like a "big mess" to me, but as a German what the hell do I know about Northern Ireland. Little.

[Muirium]

When I first heard (in high school German class) about Switzerland's three language communities, I wondered why it was peaceful and prosperous instead of more like Northern Ireland in those days! Perhaps it's because Germany, France and Italy rarely fought over it. The mountains and rich banks might have something to do with it too!

[seebart]

Good question. It may also have more to do with the Swiss people and their culture. They managed to avoid large conflicts very elegantly. Or so it seems.

[SL89]

That's because they are armed to the teeth, and ready to take down all the bridges and tunnels in and out of Switzerland.

[Mal-2]

Come on history. Prove him wrong! The clock's a ticking. For now at least. Just the idea of an SNP victory and government was laughably absurd back in my teens. And a referendum! What next? The Irish allowing gay equality!

Maybe if UKIP succeeds and gets its Brexit, that will be sufficient motivation to push a closely split populace over the line. Then your teacher may be only half-right, and NI may be going with you.