I am deemed mad because I have this crazy notion that if you want something done, you go to those with the power to do it. Seemingly, to be judged sane one should assiduously avoid those who have the power to do the thing you want done, and go instead to whoever has neither power nor influence nor any prospect of power or influence before the thing you want ceases to be important ─ having been left in the dust of rapidly changing circumstances. But I’m the one who is mad.
I am called mad because I maintain that political activism is about getting government to do things they otherwise would not do, or would not do in a timely fashion or would not do in an effective manner. I am told by people who have a conceit of themselves as real political activists that the sensible thing for a political activist to do in the face of a government’s refusal or failure to do the thing the political activist wants done is to give up. To actively abandon any effort to change anything. I don’t understand this at all. So I am mad.
I am labelled mad because I advocate a way forward on the basis of the facts which define the starting point. I am advised that the sane thing to do is to imagine a starting point based solely on your preferred means of travel.
I am called mad because my reasoning follows a logical path.
- The thing I want done must be done immediately.
- The thing I want done can only be done by the those who have the power to do it.
- There is no way to immediately change those who have the power to do it.
I conclude from this that, regardless of any other consideration, if I want the thing I want done done immediately then I have no option other than go to those who have the power to do immediately the thing I want done immediately. This, I am assured, is sheer folly. It’s crazy thinking! What a sane person would do, it seems, is not go to those who have the power to do immediately what it is that I want done immediately, but instead to pin my hopes of getting this thing done immediately on taking away from those who have the power to do what I want done immediately even though there is no way to do this. The sane person does not consider the third item on the list. They elide it entirely. Because I am unable to erase this highly significant fact from my mind, I am said to be made.
The sane person has another option. The sane person can choose to ignore the first item on the list. They can propose removing the power to do immediately the thing they want done immediately even although there is no way to do this before ‘immediately’ becomes ‘too late’, and replace them with others who while now having the power to do what needed to be done immediately but now can’t be, may or may not be any more able or willing to do that which it is now too late to do anyway than those who had the power when it mattered. I see a few snags in this. But I am mad, so pay no attention to me.
Peter A Bell 
Peter, I hope that one day you come to realise that the brick wall is harder than your head and that it is therefore futile to keep banging your head against it. Sanity will soon follow.
The SNP may have the power but they do not have the inclination or ability to achieve our goal. And you ain’t going to change that.
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I travel long distances and my car is broken. No other suitable cars are available for the foreseable future. Should I walk everywhere or source a new engine, assuming I can afford it.
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I’m not ready to give up on independence.
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Reblogged this on Ramblings of a now 60+ Female.
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Look on the bright side Peter, people argue against you on Wings, he just deletes my comments.
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I never look at responses to my rare comments on WOS. The comment facility is dreadful.
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I somehow get the impression you have been reading some comments elsewhere, with next to everyone else insisting SNP must be removed, and if that means we wait ’till whenever, for Independence, so be it!
I would think those folks are not just a wee bit mad, but really, really mad!
Now, true, they are very, very mad at SNP, and so are many of us,, and with good reason, and most of us still, madder at the Greens, but, alas, there’s always a but, it it truly mad to want to have less SNP MPs elected at Westminster, and especially at Edinburgh, tho we would like a lot more pro Independence others at Edinburgh, say on the List votes, etc.
The problem tho, being that while we don’t want less MPs elected to Westminster from SNP, we actually don’t want them to be there at all.
It is the fact SNP have done next to nothing on Independence, is what makes some think having less of them won’t make any big difference.
It is infuriating, SNP did not act more robustly with Brexit for example.
Well, it will make a huge big difference in that it allows London to continue to do whatever they please against Scotland, and the pro 1707s here to claim support for Independence is all but gone.
.
Now we have yet another big row with London over the bottle deposit thing.
My advice to Humza & Co. is to simply ignore London on the bottle Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) and go ahead with it regardless, and lets see what London’s gonna do about it.
SNP should be making this an Independence issue, and forget about the Gender stuff for now.
That will help galvanise Independence support I’m sure.
Also, that Labour is now set against oil and gas in Scotland, should have been a political advantage to SNP, but for the SNPs present Green alliance, and this is the thing the Greens want more than SNP. We wonder how this will pan out! Will Greens suddenly be pro Labour???
One point to be noted about Labour policy here, is we have learned just how much money from Scotland is flowing into London. Billions upon billions!
In the past few years, oil and gas revenues have been up to over 100 billion.
The head of Aberdeen and Grampian Chambers of Commerce was telling this stuff on BBC Radio Four PM news program yesterday (May 29th), and this should be used to highlight how this country’s money is being stolen from us and that Scotland can easily pay its own way with Independence.
The SNP really must get serious about defending Scotland, and with both Labour’s new policy and the Deposit Scheme stance of the London regime, SNP have the perfect opportunity to act, but will they?
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Gordon, in view of the SNP’s track record over the past 8 years, how confident are you that they will act on this ‘perfect opportunity’?
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Not as confident as I would like to be, unfortunately!
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The fundamental problem is the SNP renamed the Scottish Executive as the Scottish Government, thereby creating the impression of having greater powers than it actually did – a mirage. Winnie Ewing made a nice wee comment on opening day saying the Scottish Parliament is hereby re-convened, which in fact it most certainly was not re-convened. It remained as it is to this day – a devolved assembly with limited powers under the care of Westminster.
Folly upon folly as the “Scottish Government” tries to run things as if Scotland was independent. Instead of running things competently within the devolution framework. A series of costly time consuming contentious issues were embarked upon since 2014, which have uneccessarily split the movement asunder and not aided the independence cause one bit.
Even today the SNP are still at it. Forget all new issues and concentrate all resources on independence which once achieved, all issues can be pursued by whatever party is elected post independence and with the full levers of power back in our own hands.
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“Apparently, I’m mad”
Doesn’t make you a bad person.
Stage 1: If the SNP don’t make Independence their absolute priority, we fire their MPs in the General Election 2024. Don’t abstain, spoil your ballot sheet with “INDEPENDENCE” diagonally across the sheet.
State 2: Then if the SNP don’t make Independence their absolute priority in spite of losing most of their MPs we fire their MSPs at Holyrood.
Currently the SNP is the Scottish Government led with a ring through their nose by Lorna Slater and Patrick Harvie going ballistic with progressive poo like the DRS that has the priority support according to Ipsos of just 1% of the population, with Humza Yousaf running behind with a bucket and shovel (you can guess what for).
If they don’t listen bye bye and thanks for all the ridiculous HPMA fish.
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Time is real. The British state is real. The effects of both are real. You discount both. This would be no more than a quaint eccentricity were it not for the fact that thousands of others do precisely the same day in and day out despite being reminded day in and day out. The response to these reminders is almost always indignant denial that anything has been discounted, even though the effects of time and the British state clearly have not been taken into account because if they had the comment could not have been made.
Next day. Same thing. And the next. And the next. Eventually, the utter pointlessness of reminding people of the things that make their fantasies fantastical dawns, and they stop and the fantasy is free to take on the status of fact in the minds of those unwilling to face an unpleasant reality.
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If enough of us say “Independence on the agenda or we won’t vote for you”, and mean it, maybe they’ll put Independence on the agenda. But they won’t if we keep voting for them because there’s no choice. They’ll just continue to take our votes for granted, and fight Westminster for the right to place preservation on wild stones, or some other “rubbish”.
Luvly jubbly, another 5 years in Holyrood fighting for Devolution.
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This ‘plan’ depends on getting a very large number of SNP voters to declare their intention to withhold their vote if the party/government doesn’t act. Fall short of that large number, and the ‘plan’ fails catastrophically. Even if you get that large number of solemn declarations from SNP voters, your ‘plan’ depends on the party leadership being aware of the threat and taking it seriously. Otherwise, the ‘plan’ fails catastrophically.
The ‘plan’ depends on all of this being done in a very short time. The threat must be made and made credible enough to worry the SNP leadership in the space of two or three months at most. In principle, the UK general election could be called any day. Ideally, the Scottish Government should pre-empt the announcement of a date for the Westminster election. It must act before the Purdah period. If your ‘plan’ isn’t effective almost immediately, it fails catastrophically.
The ‘plan’ fails. Catastrophe to follow.
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There’s a lot of apathy and no wonder. More people saying they’ll just stay home. At least doing the diagonal “independence” ballot spoil sends a message for them (us).
Meanwhile anyone who suggests anything is a “Britnat” whatever that means, according to the more moronic of the SNP stooges. You of course are a prime example of a Britnat (rolls eyes). But at least it looks like the Greens and their puppet SNP can drop the badly formed and discriminatory DRS – and get to blame Westminster as well. I look forward to those same stooges Larry, Curly and Moe, saying that was the plan all along.
But what is it with this idea Holyrood has to be first with something just a year before it’s done in the rUK or England – at great expense? It’s plain embarrassing.
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Peter, you are mad for all sorts of other reasons, but not this one !! Key question is how to get the SNP / Scottish Government to do what we want them to do, and to stop doing all the useless (ie displacement activity not directed at furthering independence) stuff that we don’t want them to do ? Who has the necessary leverage to “persuade” them to act in a logical fashion ?
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In answer to your questions bushgeoff; only the PEOPLE, who are SOVEREIGN, can enact to “persuade”. Unfortunately, too many still don’t appreciate the logic therein!
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The people. The Yes movement. But most have given up already and just won’t make the effort.
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