And Finally… You Have to Do Your Democratic Duty – but Just Don’t Lose It…
By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart
As I sit in my Kailyard I often wonder about the future.
The Final Word from Scotland
Loss.
It’s a terrible thing, loss.
Recently in Scotland we have suffered an appalling number of losses to our political commonweal. It started with the death of former First Minister Alex Salmond. He is a man who managed to get us close to being independent in 2014. He was a colossus on the political stage and managed to convince the Scottish people to vote in a majority for his Scottish national party (SNP) in an election. He did the unthinkable in an electoral system which was set up to ensure that there would never be a majority in the Scottish Parliament. He did just that and because of that, the British government were unable to refuse his demand that we held a referendum on Scottish independence in September 2014.
I can well remember the day after the Scottish independence referendum where my children and I were completely and utterly dumbfounded that Scotland had been given the opportunity to be free from the United Kingdom and said no thanks. By a margin of 55% against independence to 45% in favour of it, Scotland was to remain part of the United Kingdom. Salmond fell on his sword. He decided that having taken us up to the top of the hill he could not face marching us back down again and resigned both as First Minister and leader of his political party the Scottish National Party.
Over the last few days, we also lost Janey Godley. A comedienne who became famous in Scotland due to over dubbing former First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon’s daily briefings during COVID and dubbed them into something that was hilarious. She created a persona for our First Minister which was someone fed up with all the questions that were constantly asked of her and showed some of the human side of having to lead. It was completely fictional, and Nicola Sturgeon found it absolutely hilarious, and you saw a human side of a politician who was well regarded as a leader, being lampooned and having the grace to see how it helped the message get across to more people.
Unfortunately, Godley got into trouble because of historical tweets and was dropped from a Scottish Government campaign on health later, but when she was diagnosed with cancer, many in Scotland felt that we should honor such an inspirational working-class woman. She had risen from poverty, her mother had been murdered in Glasgow, had become a landlady in a very tough part of her home city, ended up raided by the police and eventually forced, by family, to leave her pub and livelihood, she went into comedy! She was in her mid-thirties.
But she did something even more lovable.
When Donald J Trump came down to Turnberry and managed to go for a game of golf, she appeared there with a big sign describing what Scotland felt about Donald J Trump. The fact is that the majority of Scots, it would appear and is constantly being shown, do not like the type of politics that Donald J Trump represents.
And so, our current First Minister John Swinney, has ended up in a little bit of controversy as Donald J Trump and his team branded his comments on the US presidential election as “appalling”.
Swinney made a joke that endorsing Kamala Harris, is not just because Trump, is against Scottish independence. He also said that “people in the United States of America should vote for Kamala Harris.”
And Donald J. Trump took it badly.
The fact of the matter is that anybody who has such a fragile ego should not be in a position where they’ve got a finger hovering above a nuclear button. Unfortunately for Scotland, Trump, owns the Mainie Estate Golf Course in Balmedie near Aberdeen and the Trump Turnberry Hotel and Resort on the coast in Ayrshire. Trump obviously has a further connection to Scotland, given that his mother came from the Isle of Lewis near Stornoway. Trump did speak about Scottish independence when he talked about the attempt to break up Scotland from “the rest of the empire, so to speak.”
But it was not just his reference to the British Empire that was quite galling. It was the fact that he was appalled that the Scottish First Minister would have anything to say due to the fact that Trump had poured so much money into Scotland, and that, to me, is exceptionally telling.
Any politician or any businessman who turns round to you and says the reason that you should support him is due to the fact that he’s given you money is corrupt.
The beginning leads to corruption.
Donald J. Trump thinks that Scotland should support his bid to become president for the second time because he puts money into Scotland. He pays for that support.
And that is the difference between Donald J. Trump and Kamala Harris.
As she has said countless times, Donald J. Trump is looking for a return on his investment.
Kamala Harris is looking to put herself in a position where she is able to serve you as a servant. A public servant, somebody who is dedicated to public service, to giving rather than receiving.
And that if there is any reason why you are deliberating over where to place your vote on Thursday of this coming week, you should sit and think very, very carefully.
If you want to have a political master who is going to be just that, your master, then vote for Donald J. Trump.
I don’t think that’s the American way. It’s not the way that I was brought up to think about America.
I listen to people talk about freedom and the ability to speak your mind and do the work that gives you the rewards.
That’s not Donald J. Trump. That’s not the Republican Party as it is at the moment.
What it is, is an unbelievable self-interested coup that you’re going to participate in.
Don’t think for a second that on Friday morning, the votes are counted, and the decision has been made, you have a get out clause. If Donald J. Trump, God forbid, manages to win his second term, you cannot turn around to people and say, well, we didn’t know.
You do.
You know exactly what he’s going to do, and you know exactly what it is that is in the plan for you and yours.
If you think that the empire, including slavery, was the way that you saw your country, then please don’t listen to me.
Go and do what you need to do. You’re lost.
But if he comes for you and in the future, you find that your taxes are raised, your income is reduced, the costs go up and the world turn their back on you, don’t come running to us crying.
Our response…
From Scotland, let me tell you what the Scottish National Party leader in Westminster, Stephen Flynn said in response to Donald J. Trump’s comments?
He responded with one single word.
You may have heard it already.
You may have got used to hearing it.
“Garbage”
Please, take the time to take yours out in this election, and leave the place cleaner, safer and better as result.
A view from the new Kailyard or, how you look over there, from over here…
(Kailyard n. a cabbage patch, often attached to a school of writing – the Kailyard School – a genre of overly sentimental and sweet Scottish literature from the late 19th century where sentimental and nostalgic tales are told in escapist tales of fantasy, but here we seek to reverse it by making the Kailyard Observations of effective invective comment from that looks not to return to the past but to launch us into a better future by the one Donald worth believing…)
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