Evolution of the Dark Places

I take it that you've noticed the redesign, the name change and the fact that this blog has been untouched in months... Anyway, I'm back online simply because I can't find any blogs to read. I don't mind the copy-and-paste jobs, but I want to read original content, a different – more fundamentalist – slant on things. So that's why I've gone back to black for the Colour scheme. I find it absurd that all these blogs and I find so little of it interesting. Ach well. Que sera…

Originally, fundamentalism in Scottish Politics referred to a wing of the Scottish National Party. But since they went legit, it now refers to most pro-independence groups outside of, and mostly proscribed by, the SNP hierarchy. But this doesn't entirely cover it... What's the current status of the drinking club? Without the prospect of standing for elections, what do we fundamentalists actually do? The time you get MOST people together is whenever something is being commemorated: Glencoe, Arbroath, Elderslie, Stonehaven... The time of most activism is much less crowded affair: usually one or two stickering, leafleting, boarding, flag-burning or you-tubing to their hearts content. All of this is linked, and made bigger by the internet.

This presents two minor problems: one, 90% of people are more interested in the drinking club elements than the activism; two, the internet creates clans of people it's impossible to communicate with unless you're actually already in the room with them... pedants, keyboard warriors, emotional dyslexics (i.e. Those people who don't quite get the joke most of the time and think you're insulting them) and the sundry cruisers, boozers and losers this game attracts. I couldn’t be without the internet for more than a day, and I get vein-poppingly frustrated when I am. That’s when you know you love something too much.

Now I know I missed a meeting somewhere, because I didn’t get the memo which had the one answer to the multiple choice test of fundamentalist politics. Oh yes. There's an exam to do this. Oh yes. It asks questions like: “How does one carry a flag? A, Straight up. B, to the side or C, Using violence.” There must've been a memo cause for some people; violence is the answer to all their problems. And yes I do mean you… (*giggles childishly as three hundred people wonder if he’s talking about them…*) Sorry. Couldn’t resist.

But that's life, not a problem. If you have too few people you can't get anything done, if you have too many it's as if your dominatrix has forgotten your safe word and just won’t stop whipping... Sorry… should I get my coat?

Walking through Glasgow is an experience if you transgress the wrong places wearing something indicating socialism. I don't mean normal people... working class people... I mean students. Every student who has read and “got” Marx for the first time is Lenin born and you must worship their inadequate lack of knowledge, cos they get it more than you do. It's with a certain timorous regret that the YSI appear on the radar on that particular front... To the YSI the Siol are Nazi's and I'm a Commie / Nazi hybrid (basically I'm Stalin mid-purge). Meh. Could care less. I don't need any more lessons in activism, and as I'll explain later I'm past holding grudges against pro-independence people. I like 99% of the people 75% of the time. Which I think isn’t bad…

The problem with the fragmentation of the independence movement in general is that we're competing over scarce resources (i.e. YOU) and tell our fellow members everything else is bad because... for whatever reason I can't be bothered thinking up. All it creates is wild-west morality where lots of people who clearly can't read properly end up arguing over petty garbage for the sole reason that they can't understand each other. It also means that things become ends in themselves. Take postering: if you poster for Scottish independence; it seems to me that the internet has devised a new phenomenon. I'm told that in the 70s these things were done as a matter of course. Now it's de rigueur to do an American high-five on the forum of your choice. No.... YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE DOING THAT! The American Internet has created a brazen: Let’s high-five petty shite cos we’ve bugger all else to talk about tonight! Woo-hoo! Unless (as someone I know DID) do a cheeky postering on a Labour Party office, you don't have bragging rights! I'm all for rewarding good behaviour, but some things are just stupid. One of the better things I read about recently was a ad-hoc contest for whoever could place a recently obtained batch of stickers in a more unique location than any of the others... See THAT's what I like. Not all this self-reverential penis envy that some activists indulge in, in between sobering up from the most recent drinking club meeting.

Ask. More. Questions. In general, and not of other people, but of yourself and who YOU are? Take any photograph you've seen of an event and ask yourself, not what it depicts, but who took it, and why? The scariest thing someone pointed out to me recently was just how little time we all have to achieve our collective aim of Scottish Independence. The average life-span of a human being is only 28,000 days (and much less if you indulge the drinking club as much as some activists...) Cut half of that because of the rest of your life and then divide that number by whatever arbitrary figure you want (based upon just what percentage of the year you actually spend DOING things – and no, rallies and piss-ups don't count) and the figure you're left with is tiny.

It also makes it inexplicable how so many people, with such a common aim, i.e. The freedom of our country, can't find the baws to at least TRY and get along, mystifies me...