The Judge RANTS!
Date: 27/04/21
The Antipendent And The Spooks' Gazette
It could of course be mere coincidence.
But there's a national election coming up in a couple of weeks' time in Scotland and, as one would expect, the colonialist media is throwing a lot of shit and shade at the Scottish National Party, which will - at the very least - be far and away the largest party after the vote.
Not that the SNP doesn't deserve a few buckets of ordure slung in its face at present. Supporters of independence, both in Scotland and elsewhere, have been dismayed beyond the point of exasperation at the party's mis-steps (to put it kindly) over the last three to four years. I mean things like:
-
using the Brexit vote not to push for an immediate re-vote on independence, but instead to join with some very dodgy characters (Alistair Campbell and the Liberal Democrats prominent amongst them) to try to stop the people of England - and inevitably by extension, England's First Colony™ - from getting what they voted for,
- I mean things like the Hate Crimes Bill which they rammed through Holyrood which will mean that you can be prosecuted for an honestly-expressed opinion made in your own home if some numpty within earshot claims to be 'offended' by it,
- things like the obsessive pursuit of dangerous legislative changes which would allow men (defined as 'adult human males') to be given the rights and protections accorded to women (defined as 'adult human females') simply by stating that they 'self-identify' as women,
- the party's refusal to reign in the self-identified 'trans rights activists' in and around it who have conducted campaigns of verbal and physical threat to anyone who dares to point out the inherent dangers of allowing men (defined as above) into the spaces properly reserved to protect women (as defined) from the predations of violent and creepy men (a demographic which seems disproportionately represented in the ranks of those same activists),
- the clear attempts by the party's leadership and the almost cult-like grouping around it to connive at the imprisonment of the current leader's predecessor for alleged crimes against women (and the subsequent attempts by Sturgeon and those around her to undermine by innuendo the fact that a majority-woman - as defined above - jury acquitted him of all charges),
- the compromising of the prosecution service and police not only in its pursuit of Alec Salmond but in its highly-selective prosecution of bloggers and journalists who reported or commented on his trial (whereby people such as Craig Murray face imprisonment for doing far, far less which might identify the complainants against Salmond than a number of state-corporate hacks who have not even been questioned by the McPlod for their actions),
- and the general perception that the SNP's upper echelons have become so comfortable with their positions both in Holyrood and Westminster that they see independence as being such a threat to that status that they would prefer to back-pedal on the very principles that their party was set up to promote and deliver in the first place.
So yes, the SNP have had it coming to them. But I've noticed something recently which I have found - if not significant - then certainly interesting for what it can tell us about the nature and source of propaganda on behalf of actually-existing power.
That the independent isn't what is implied by its name is, of course, a given by now. Since the heady days of its foundation over thirty years ago, it has collapsed soufflé-like into the standard pattern of British print media; a plaything of oligarchs and yet another channel for corporate fluffing and the promotion of the only permitted line to be taken on such stories as Venezuela, to give just one example.
That its stance on Scotland's self-determination is inimical is an equally correct assumption, and a week has scarcely gone by in recent years without the letters page featuring a moan from Martin, Keith or Jill about "that nasty Essennpee". But something curious has come to my attention just in the last week or so.
It started in the normal style on April 16 with Mr Redfern of Melrose (for it was he) whining on about how the improvements in health expenditure promised by the Scottish goverment would only be possible if UKania handed back more of Scotland's money than it has been minded so to do to date.
Then, on or about April 23 (the inthebindependent's is one of those annoying websites where they don't tell you the actual date upon which something was published, only that it was posted x days before), we had not one but three letters where the authors rail against any assertion or manifestation of Scotland's right not only to self-determination but to any meaningful existence outwith the control or manipulation of Greater Gammonia.
Firstly - and taking the launch point for his hot-air balloon from the hoo-hah over the proposed European Premier League - one John Maxwell bolts on his contention that Celtic and Rangers will never be able to compete at that sort of level because, essentially, they're hamstrung by, "local political tradition", i.e., they're not English.
This is then followed by a response to an article by the Zavisimaya Gazeta's (*) chief political hack John Rent-A-Tool which states that the people of Scotland wouldn't have a mandate for a second referendum on independence even if they voted for a majority of pro-independence MPs. The letter - by a Howard Payne - is for the most part the standard boilerplate trope about how an independent Scotland would be an economic basket case, and that they shouldn't be allowed to ruin their 'beautiful country', along with the equally de rigeur language describing the 'pride' of Scottish nationalism by comparison with the 'deeply held beliefs' of unionists (remember what I said in my earlier piece linked above about the importance of little words?). Where he holes his boat of bile below the waterline however, is when he quotes approvingly a report from a right-wing, free-market lobbying group lambasting the Scottish government for...well, just about everything, really...and reserves his greatest praise for a statement from a high-minded, untainted mind...called Dr. Liam Fox. Yes, that Dr. Liam Fox.
We then have a brief pause for letters about trivial matters - such as the sacking of the War Minister, or from a tame Yorkshire imam reminding us that "we are all British" - before we get one more thrust of the rusty dagger of colonialism, in a letter which the paper has even headlined, "Blinded by nationalism". Its author, one Stephen Simpson, seems to be referring to the same report as Mr Payne and - on top of the same stagnant, weed-choked rhetorical water as before, states that, "...an independent Scotland would leave the UK borders exposed". Keep that concept in mind for a little bit later on.
The point is that none of these correspondents actually lives in Scotland. The first two live in the south of England, and the third - whilst claiming to be a director of a business in Scotland - doesn't live there, preferring to be almost certainly one of those white-flight lieutenants who have infested the midlands of my country over the last thirty years because it is sufficiently dermally monochrome so as not to make him quake with fear in his bed every night. Bear this in mind, too for what follows.
For the very next day, there were two more letters, again from correspondents in the south of England (although one claims to have been born in Scotland). The first, from a chappie called Pollard in Kent, returns to the new theme in anti-self-determination rhetoric I introduced to you two paragraphs ago, namely that a free Scotland would entail the removal from there of Trident nuclear weapons - currently conveniently located just a short drive from the largest city in that country - which Mr Pollard describes romantically as, "our last and vital line of defence" (he is right about the 'last', but the 'our' is a bit difficult to take seriously given that they couldn't be deployed to murder millions of people who are foreign and therefore don't count without the imprimatur of an external power; which is of course why they are habitually referred to as an 'independent deterrent'). This would leave a 'weak' and 'undefended' border on "...our beautiful island" (note that 'our' again), and would leave Dear Old Blighty at the mercy of all those demnation Russkies, towelheads and fiendish orientals who are just slavering to get their grubby hands on the Isle of Sheppey.
The second letter - from someone who would no doubt describe himself as an 'ex-pat' (or even as - for the maximum flourish of courageous victimhood so necessary in these cowardly times - an 'exile') firstly repeats the same, "Ye'll all be livin' in caves!" message as all the others (adding the claim that there would be a run-down of 'British' naval shipbuilding on the Clyde, seemingly having not noticed that that has already happened despite the high-flown promises made immediately prior to the 2014 referendum), but augments Mr Pollard's pithering about the "...defence of these islands", "The security of our northern borders..." and reference to "...our nuclear submarines..." (that 'our' again), before claiming that an independent Scotland would hock itself to states hostile to Greater Gammonia (I wonder who that could include, boys and girls?).
Then, the very next day after that (April 24 - I think), the abubindependent published yet another two letters - again both from correspondents in southern England - repeating all the blather of all the preceding missives including and down to the more than slight suggestion from the first author (an M. Liesching of Wiltshire) that Scotland would whore itself out to Blighty's enemies ("...would be worryingly susceptible to the malign overtures of expansionist nations intent on [...] a foothold [...] on the mainland of this island" (hint: they've already endured that; it's called 'England') and the concomitant "...pressure on the SNP to bow to the will of its new paymasters...". This is followed by one A. Watson of Leicestershire calling on what (s)he patronisingly refers to as, "the rational majority of the people of Scotland to avert the threat of British unity being weakened by short-sighted nationalism", before going on to refer to, "socialist Europe" (a concept which may come as a surprise in the Élysée Palace and in Tiergarten) and closing with that favourite old line much beloved of unionists about Scotland being, "a significant and valued member of the United Kingdom".
(This last is the geopolitical equivalent of the sort of chat-up line used by a randy eighteen-year-old lad trying to get a girl into bed with him, and with the same likely outcome; she's going to get screwed badly).
But the independentski still isn't finished. Only yesterday, here was another - again from England (although Glen Harding is in Leeds, so they're getting closer) which, along with insulting the people of Scotland by infantilising them, makes the same claim - in almost the same words - about, "...wide open, unprotected borders".
Now even by the standards of a newspaper whose two main controlling interests are a Russian oligarch who knows he has a safe haven in England from both Tsar Vladimir's goon squads and anything which could be called a justice system in the Motherland and a similarly dodgy business tycoon with very close ties with that exemplar of advanced seventh-century thinking the House of Saud, this is an extraordinary outbreak of remarkably similar sentiments, expressed in suspiciously alike fashion, by a series of correspondents none of whom actually lives in the country that they're wittering on about.
But just in case you think I have it in for the Lebedev-Abuljadayel Courier because they don't publish my letters, here's a curious echo in yesterday's Guardian. It publicises a report by something called the 'European Leadership Network', which seems to be one of that ever-expanding group of functionally useless bodies reminiscent of the old days of Statist Britain, like the Prune Marketing Board (which would actually be quite appropriate in this case, as the ELN seems to be chock-full of superannuated has-been centrists and centre-rightists who obviouslt weren't smart enough to get themselves non-executive directorships after leaving office). The retired rear admiral who authored the report claims that Scottish independence would leave nowhere for 'us' to put 'our' nuclear arsenal except the United States or even - God save the mark! - France (or, rather, Breizh; the French are as fond as the English for putting their most dangerous facilities on the territories of their colonies).
One curious thing: if you download the report and examine its properties, you will find that it was published on March 31 this year. So why is the Graun only reporting on it nearly a month later? And why does it seem to mesh in so neatly with all of those frothing missives at the indy?
Dear reader, when I started writing this piece some seven hours ago (I have had one meal, two naps and done the washing-up in the meantime as well, just to break the monotony) I thought I had one clear reason why this should have happened. I now think that I have two, and that they knit together. See what you think.
That there is a spook presence in every newspaper in what used to be called 'Fleet Street' is well understood, especially since the former Mirror editor Roy Greenslade admitted as much a few years ago. That the 'securuty services' use those rags to disseminate their own preferred interpretation of current events (and even to create 'events' where there actually aren't any) is also a given. That the section of newspaper readership in UKania which most needs to be convinced of the secret state's beneficent intentions - indeed, its reason for existing at all - is on the self-described 'liberal' and 'progressive' part of the spectrum means that the Guaraniad and the notveryindependent are vital conduits for the spreading of The Official Line™; for, clearly, those 'sensible centrists' who read (and write for) such outlets are far more likely to be convinced if they are presented with it there rather than, say, the Toryglyph (a paper in such dire straits that it is now down to its last Barclay). It is also well enough known by those with the inside track that a number of Gurniad hacks - not least Luke Harding and its 'security correspondent' Dan Sabbagh (author of yesterday's story) are either 'assets' of the spooks or immensely amenable to them.
What is also well enough known to those who bother to look is the existence of the 77th Division of the British Army, a branch of the military which concentrates on Infomation Warfare (that is to say, propaganda on behalf of the State's preferred narratives on major issues) and also the risibly-entitled 'Integrity Initiative' (which has so much 'integrity' that it has been heavily funded by the British War Ministry for many years). These orifices of the State's versions of reality have become notorious for 'placing' - with the willing assistance of hacks such as Harding and David Leask (see Craig Murray passim) - narratives not only on Scottish independence but on l'Affaire Skripal and other significant stories of the day.
So it was the spooks, then. But as I wrote the earlier part of this story, another possibility impinged upon my thoughts. Given the remarkable similarity between the substance (if that word could ever reasonably be used for such tissue paper) and means of expression deployed in all the letters published in the last few days by the spin-dependent, it becomes clear that this is a deliberate campaign on the part of the so-called 'think tank' which produced the report part-authored by the terminally bent Liam Fox. Get the supporters to write in to any amenable rag - especially one with 'liberal' credentials, at least in its own hive-mind - with variations on the themes contained in the report, viz., that Scotland is shite, it couldn't survive without subsidy from England (even if that 'subsidy' is in fact merely a small portion of the wealth extracted from Scotland being returned grudgingly to it), and that if it ever liberated itself from Empire, the Cossacks and the Chinks would be over-running Carlisle within the hour. This would also account for the fact that none of the letters apart from the first one of all in this sequence came from someone living in Scotland (if any of those people actually exist at all, of course).
It's an ancient tactic. The old ogre Beaverbrook owned a number of newspapers which pumped out the same deeply slanted version of events so that future historians would think that - coming from so many apparently diverse sources - that was the way things had actually been.
Luckily in this case, the effect on the voting intentions of the people of Ould Caledonia is likely to be non-existent. Even in its forest-fucking days, the indy never sold more than a few hundred copies a day in a country of over five million people, and there's no reason to suspect that its reach there is any greater now that it has confined itself to online activities.
But it raises important and troubling questions about the health of political discourse in general, and what we flatter ourselves (often in defiance of observable reality) is 'democracy' in particular. For clearly, if it is so easy for politically and ideologically partisan groups to game the debate in such ways, and if the media seem to be willing accomplices to such skewing (otherwise, why didn't the letters editor at the indy notice or care that (s)he was publishing so many near-identical letters in such a short period of time?), then we clearly have a major problem.
For in order for the concept of democracy to have any validity at all, there must be a well-informed and well-educated demos. Clearly if you have an education system which is deliberately fractured between that tiny sector designed to produce future 'leaders' and the rest which is designed to produce people just about trained enough to operate the machinery, and that the concomitant result is that the mass of the population has no experience of exercising critical thinking; and if you ally this with a media landscape (and not just the news media either; think of all those 'Great British x, y and z' programmes pumped out at the plebs every week) which is owned and controlled by either the State, or rapacious private corporations, or by a malign symbiosis of the two, then it is obvious that the one thing you are not going to end up with is a well-informed and well-educated public. This means that control of the thoughts and emotions of The People is far easier, and the powerful in politics, commerce and the media can sleep comfortably in each other's beds of a night.
"Si monumentum requiris, circumspice". 
* Russian: "Dependent newspaper".
