Comments on Scottish Unionist: SNP candidate falls into line

Agreed. Enough. Thread locked.

2009-09-03T17:23:17.720+01:00

Agreed. Enough. Thread locked.

Suggest the fact that you are all debating Mandela...

2009-09-03T16:39:01.431+01:00

Suggest the fact that you are all debating Mandela and not David Kerr or Kenny 'the robot' Mac means that this topic is now dead.

"No, I did it to extract the michael from you...

2009-09-03T15:00:03.139+01:00

"No, I did it to extract the michael from you, and anyone else who wouldn't have defended de Klerk with the same verve."

oooh gosh! you're so clever!
Extracting the michael from little old me with your witty repartee...

Or did you just thoughtlessly disparage the support of an International statesman and are now furiously backtracking...

As for this snippet of a sentence
"Erm, which bits of "his post Apartheid actions were not without merit" do you not understand?"

From this sentence
"And I explicitly said his post-release actions had merit. I said, however, that post-Apartheid has been a mixed-bag..."

Actually I couldn't find where you explicitly said his post-release actions had merit and I certainly didn't see you call it a 'mixed bag'. In fact I think your words were 'Post-Apartheid South Africa has been as much of a social failure as post-invasion Iraq'

I understand perfectly well though that you're trying to cover up your slur on Mandela's capacity and character.

Jim

PS
Is this where you are saying his post-apartheid actions were not without merit ?
"Whether or not he came to see the futility in armed insurrection (which coincided with the collapse of the main sponsor of non-state terrorism, the USSR; leaving much malaigned Libya to carry the foul torch) is not relevent. It's what he did which is being discussed - and he did it 40 years ago."

Or here when you once again legitimised the stance of the odious Apartheid system

"Mandela never was recognized as political prisoner due to his pursuit of violence, and membership/association of organizations such as MK and Poqo."

(ie he wasn't recognised as a political prisoner by the South African authorities and their supporters - I believe you're in fine company here with Thatcher and Tebbit)

He's been reprogrammed Indy - this is the New ...

2009-09-03T14:09:49.575+01:00

He's been reprogrammed Indy - this is the New Model Kenny!

Anyone else seen the deeply weird Steve Bell cartoon in today's Guardian? Bell's cartoons have been getting more and more impenetrable but this one is a cracker - if you're at all like me, you'll need the online comments to make even (provisional) sense of it all.

A friend says it is a very clever attack on both Brown and Salmond, for reasons that are probably not replicable on SU's douce site - me, I just think cartoons should be explicable.

>> You did so in order to undermine the supp...

2009-09-03T13:31:46.256+01:00

>> You did so in order to undermine the support of Mandela

No, I did it to extract the michael from you, and anyone else who wouldn't have defended de Klerk with the same verve.

>> just because his position does not agree with yours.

Erm, which bits of "his post Apartheid actions were not without merit" do you not understand?

(Indy, at least try to lie convincingly. That Macaskill invoked the views of Scottish volk is a matter of official record. You could try to argue he was couching his decision in necessary rhetoric so to display some realization of its significance, but instead you flatly deny it. Why do you do this???)

SU - I did read that there was a problem with goog...

2009-09-03T13:22:02.051+01:00

SU - I did read that there was a problem with google in the last week, but perhaps I haven't been diligent enough in checking the post status after I submit it either. I had tried to respond to both Braveheart and Alec in this thread and the previous lest they think I'm somehow persuaded by their stance.

In the end I'm happy to sit on the same side of the fence as Malcolm Chisholm and Nelson Mandela.

Jim

Jim: Your missing posts aren't reaching my inb...

2009-09-03T13:13:44.009+01:00

Jim: Your missing posts aren't reaching my inbox.

Edwin says: Come on Indy, there must be some reaso...

2009-09-03T10:00:34.527+01:00

Edwin says: Come on Indy, there must be some reason for that glazed expression, the robotic delivery!

Yep - this has been causing a lot of speculation in the SNP too. Voice coaching to make him understandable for American TV I think. There is no way they would understand Kenny if he spoke at his usual breakneck speed with his usual vocabulary.

Safe to say he will not be challenging Robert Carlyle or David Tennant for best Scottish actor award any time soon!

Some posts still seem to be going astray, but I...

2009-09-03T09:48:42.837+01:00

Some posts still seem to be going astray, but I'll try again.

Alec says:

"Post-Apartheid South Africa has been as much of a social failure as post-invasion Iraq. Plus, 90 year olds say some strange things. Especially convicted terrorists."

I ask "Is Alec really calling Mandela a convicted terrorist in order to disparage him?"

You describe my response as both horrified and irrational.

It was horrified, but hardly irrational. Calling Mandela a 'convicted terrorist' implicitly legitimises the South African Apartheid system and the courts which convicted Mandela.

You did so in order to undermine the support of Mandela just because his position does not agree with yours.

So, in order to attack Kenny MacAskill you would legitimise Apartheid and you wonder why that is met with horror?

Before you start one of your long diatribes now, you should consider that I simply don't understand your video game analogy, but:

I am instinctively against Apartheid and consider Mandela to be one of the great figures of the 20th Century. His activities in helping to bring about the Lockerbie trial in the first place give him every right to retain an interest, and the work he undertook in order to rebuild South Africa as a nation after the horrors of Apartheid make him an Internationally acclaimed statesman. His support for the Springboks in 1995 remains one of the greatest sporting moments ever and has helped South African rugby (the pride of the Africaans) become much more representative of the rainbow nation with the 3 superstars of the team all being black.

So, yes, you may disparage Mandela but it says a lot more about you than it does about Kenny MacAskill's decision.

Then, Andrew, I stand corrected. My odd comment...

2009-09-02T22:08:40.452+01:00

Then, Andrew, I stand corrected.

My odd comments the past few days have been accentuated by adjusting to new medication (stop that laughing at the back), but I'm better now.

>> By the way, just because I don't agree with him doesn't mean I have to rubbish everything he's done.

And nor do I, as I elucidated on. Although this case has created a whirlwind of feelings, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a definite opinion to be expressed.

Your earlier comment must have genuinely passed me by as I generally do pick-up on comments made across multiple threads. As you can see now, after a lengthy exchange, as soon as you make clear your position, I offer an immediate retraction.

The remark was unashamedly made to elicit the sort of response which Observer and Jim came out with (and which Salmond, who can "live with"/dismiss blanket opposition, displayed today in Holyrood).

Alec I'm inclined to ignore your 'ranting...

2009-09-02T20:44:17.601+01:00

Alec

I'm inclined to ignore your 'ranting', but I do need to correct you on something.

If you care to remember from a previous thread, i didn't agree with MacAskill's decision. If you also look at the context in which I use Mandela in this thread (August 31, 2009 10:05 PM,) you'll see that it was with regard to more media attention on UK Labour's Libyan agenda than on MacAskill.

So to suggest you have gone off on a tangent, is an understatement. The obvious implication is that I disagree with Mandela's endorsement of the decision, and means you've been wasting your brain. By the way, just because I don't agree with him doesn't mean I have to rubbish everything he's done.

>> SU I implied that ALEC may be about nine ...

2009-09-02T20:35:24.289+01:00

>> SU I implied that ALEC may be about nine years old - not you.

Don't tell him, Pike!

>> Anyway this whole issue is now going to move South as Cameron smells blood - and it ain't Kenny Macaskill's, and we can hopefully all start talking about something else.

Yeah, it's not fair when we're not popular. Oh, look, Nelson Mandela!

>> The Scottish Parliament made a right old ...

2009-09-02T19:27:46.546+01:00

>> The Scottish Parliament made a right old fool of itself today.

Ah, good, the same old Indy. I was getting worried.

Scottish Parliament + control = good.

Scottish Parliament - control = irrelevent/disobedient.

Maybe we should dispense with Parliament altogether.

SU I implied that ALEC may be about nine years old...

2009-09-02T18:25:10.015+01:00

SU I implied that ALEC may be about nine years old - not you.

Anyway this whole issue is now going to move South as Cameron smells blood - and it ain't Kenny Macaskill's, and we can hopefully all start talking about something else.

Come on Indy, there must be some reason for that g...

2009-09-02T18:13:56.997+01:00

Come on Indy, there must be some reason for that glazed expression, the robotic delivery!

I actually think he has fought his corner quite well, but the truth - a sad truth for all of us - is that the opposition is generally pretty poor.

Sorry - the idea of Kenny MacAskill as Labour'...

2009-09-02T17:57:16.969+01:00

Sorry - the idea of Kenny MacAskill as Labour's 'Manchurian candidate' must be mocked.

We have many ex Labour folk in the SNP but Kenny ain't one of them.

Agree with you Indy but please do avoid words lik...

2009-09-02T17:50:37.980+01:00

Agree with you Indy but please do avoid words like 'redemption'. There has been far too much godspeak in this debate.

If I were SNP, I wouldn't be too eager to mock though - Galloway's vision of MacAskill as Broon's Manchurian Candidate gets less whimsical by the day!

Re online polls, and their worthlessness, there is a classic on the Guardian's front page today asking if you support Scottish independence ('Aye') or not ('Naw') - so patronising in that delightful Guardian manner, but the striking thing is the weight of the 'aye' vote - it was running earlier at about 90%, which in no way reflects reality of course, just the fact that nats seem to care much more about voting in online polls.

Some things are obvious. The Scottish Parliament ...

2009-09-02T17:39:09.706+01:00

Some things are obvious.

The Scottish Parliament made a right old fool of itself today.

Time for everyone to calm down, move on and discuss something sensible like minimum pricing or a referendum on independence ...

Please tell me that wasn't the real Indy. I c...

2009-09-02T17:25:40.277+01:00

Please tell me that wasn't the real Indy. I cannot bear to agree with him.

The politics of this become more preposterous by t...

2009-09-02T16:22:19.012+01:00

The politics of this become more preposterous by the moment.

The Telegraph is reporting David Rivkin, a former Justice Department official, as condemning the UK Govt thus:

''This (presumably Brown indicating that he was not hell bent on seeing Megrahi draw his last breath in jail) will damage US relations with Britain for years to come … I really can't think about a more duplicitous act by Britain vis-à-vis the United States in the post-war period.''

At the same time as Labour in Westminster are getting it in the neck, Labour in Scotland are accusing the SNP in much the same terms!

Truly, this has become a farce beyond any kind of redemption.

Miles' views are of no more significance than ...

2009-09-02T16:21:02.539+01:00

Miles' views are of no more significance than Jacqui Smith's.

>> Kenny MacAskill at no point has invoked the views of the Scottish people on his decision to release Megrahi.

Please stop it.

interesting comment from former British Ambassador...

2009-09-02T16:05:44.448+01:00

interesting comment from former British Ambassador to Libya, Sir Oliver Miles.

“If I can make a personal comment on this, I find this rather extraordinary and rather disgusting because it seems to me that it was never intended, by the court for example that Megrahi should die in jail. The sentence he was given if he had had a normal life span it would have meant that he would’ve been considered for release in the future. To say that ‘he should have died in the prison’, seems to me the polite equivalent of the barroom language of ‘hanging is too good for him, throw away the key’. Now, I am frankly shocked, shocked, that all of our UK parties seem to by vying with each other to be more vindictive of the other. It’s enough to make me vote Scottish Nationalist, and I’m as English as they come.”

>> I had tried to state that even with my li...

2009-09-02T15:19:48.174+01:00

>> I had tried to state that even with my limited knowledge of the world I had understood that Mandela spent 27 years in Robben Island prison, precisely because he refused to denounce the use of violence against his violent oppressors.

What was I saying about playing Grand Theft Auto? Apartheid died a welcome death, in no mean part, due to the even more welcome death of a truly foul world ideology - i.e. Soviet Communism - which it had been (wrongly) seen as a bulwark against.

South Africa failed to come into the post-Colonial period in which it was unacceptable for one ethnic group to lord it over a majority population (well, okay, for white Europeans to lord it over non white Europeans). However, the doughty resistance fighters invariably took their funding and cues from the Soviets or Maoists or North Koreans - or that bastion of racial harmony, Idi Amin - and killed more black Africans than Apartheid forces did.

The Zion Christian Church, for one, did not fair too well due to their refusal to denounce the use of violence against their violent oppressors. Similarly, for the first decade and a half, Zimbabwe and Uncle Bob received a get out of gaol free card because the oppression of black Africans by white Africans across the border was considered more unacceptable.

The Ndebele people certainly didn't feel the cooling rains on their faces during the 1980s.

INDY >> Mandela has received international r...

2009-09-02T14:54:57.328+01:00

INDY >> Mandela has received international recognition not because he is seen as a champion of passive resistance but because he used his position to promote reconciliation and a negotiated and peaceful transition to democracy in South Africa.

And I explicitly said his post-release actions had merit. I said, however, that post-Apartheid has been a mixed-bag and the TRC often used by the perpetrators of horrific crimes simply to get off without punishment (as Gillian Slovo says of her mother's killers).

Furthermore, the immediate irrational response from Jim and Observer suggests they *do* think he is a paragon of virtue.

>> Worth remembering that he received his Nobel Prize jointly with F W De Klerk, for that very reason.

Considering whom it went to in 1976 1978 and 1994, and that Al Gore got it over Irena Sendler, my views on it ain't pristine either. The 1998 winners were a surprise, considering they deserved it.

>> He overcame hatred and enmity; that is why he is seen as a moral arbiter.

Wanna bet that had I defended de Klerk with half the verve which Mandela receives the response wouldn't have been approving?

>> I would further point out that the US Government made no attempt to prevent the prisoner release going ahead [...]

That's not what you said. You referred simply to American politicians, who may or may not have had Executive influence. Your implication was that they were meddling in Scottish internal affairs which only concerned the murder of 189 of their friends and relatives.

Plus, considering I opposed the release, why would I defend people supporting it through inaction?

>> Whether I consider something called "the international community" to be a coherent force for anything is irrelevant.

Er, yes it is when you go onto to claim its lack of disagreement is significant. Are you familiar with the concept of joined-up-thinking?

>> The statement has been made that Scotland has been 'shamed' in the international community. That is simply not true.

Not by me, so why should it affect what I'm saying?

Kenny MacAskill did not invoke the views of the Scottish people in his decision.

Blimey, you must have asbestos cheeks to come out with that guff!

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/This-Week/Speeches/Safer-and-stronger/lockerbiedecision

>> In Scotland, we are a people who pride ourselves on our humanity.

Sorry, you were saying?

And your point is Alec? You have a genius for rea...

2009-09-02T14:48:40.572+01:00

And your point is Alec?

You have a genius for reading into statements what you wish to read into them.

Kenny MacAskill at no point has invoked the views of the Scottish people on his decision to release Megrahi.

If you can post anything that proves otherwise please feel free.