This Is Not A
BLOG!
Date: 11/08/14
The Wee Blue Book
The late, much-missed English journalist (and he was a journalist rather than just a re-hasher of press releases, as so many hacks are today) Paul Foot, describing the vast swathes of silence which engulfed the London press when the people of Portugal overthrew the extreme-right dictatorship there in 1974, memorably stated, "If you don't know what's going on in Portugal, you must have been reading the papers".
So it could be said today that, if you don't know what the real issues and facts are surrounding the upcoming referendum on independence in Scotland, then you must have been doing the same thing. Because, as I remarked back here, the media - whether London- or Scottish-based - have a chronic, thoroughgoing and utterly shameless pro-'Union' bias. So it is that any claim made by or through them should be looked at with the proper degree of healthy cynicism (with the key questions of "Cui bono?" and "Who's paying for this?" being at all times uppermost in the mind).
The trouble is that those media are all-pervasive and, being so, their deliberate malinforming of the public has a reach which is difficult to counteract. Fortunately, sturdy souls such as Stuart Campbell of the redoubtable (and often justifiably rude) Wings Over Scotland website has been cataloguing the misdirections, half-truths and outright lies eructating from and via the corporate- and state-owned media since the start of the campaign.
He has now condensed all of this into The Wee Blue Book, which summarises not just the case for Scotland's freedom, but also undermines the bogus arguments made against it. Even if you don't live in Scotland (and therefore have no vote on September 18), you will find it a useful resource to inform yourself of the arguments that those who currently control our politics and media would rather you not know about.
The various versions (for desktop/laptop use and for smartphone/tablet owners) can be downloaded from links at this page at 'Wings'.
Update! The book is now also available as a website!
