Carmichael threatens to tighten Westminster's grip if Scots vote No

Alistair Carmichael, Westminster's "Secretary of State for Scotland" 

Carmichael threatens to tighten Westminster's grip if Scots vote No

By a Newsnet reporter (28 July 2014)

Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael has said that the UK Government's priority in the event of a No vote would be to strengthen its presence in Scotland.

Speaking to the Herald newspaper, the Lib Dem MP said that Scots would need to be reminded that they were governed by Westminster and not just Holyrood.

In a statement which included a reference to the London Olympics, he said: "Part of the reason we are where we are today is we have allowed the Nationalists to hollow out the role of the United Kingdom Government in Scotland for the last seven years and in the same way the Olympics were about reminding people they had a British identity, the Scotland Office or the UK Government has to be there, reminding people they have two governments."

Mr Carmichael said a No vote on September 18, should not be seen as "job done" and that Westminster could not afford ever again turn its attention away from Scotland.

"Once the vote is over we have to learn the lessons of how we came to be here," said the Secretary of State.

"Part of that process has involved the UK Government not being sufficiently visible in Scotland and we can't allow ourselves to go back to that in the future."

The report also quotes a source close to Nick Clegg saying that the UK Government's voice in Scotland needed to be "enhanced rather than diminished" if there was a No.

Carmichael's statement has been seized on by pro-independence group Yes Scotland with the campaign saying it 'undermines' claims that the Scottish Parliament would have its powers strengthened after a No vote.
  
Yes Scotland Advisory Board member and Deputy First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon said:

"Alistair Carmichael has let the cat out of the bag about Westminster's attitude if there was a No vote - and undermines No campaign claims about more powers for Scotland. Rather than enhanced devolution, there would be a reassertion of Westminster's authority. 

"It is not possible to have both, and thanks to Mr Carmichael the UK Government's attitude has now been laid bare.

"Alistair Carmichael used to say that the post of Scottish Secretary at Westminster was redundant and 'indefensible", but now the UK Government's role is to be actually strengthened - and there is a real danger that the Tories could be re-elected next year, which is a risk Scotland cannot afford to take.

"That is a big reason why we need a Yes vote in September, so that Scotland will have the certainty of knowing we will get the governments we vote for every time - not Tory governments which we overwhelmingly reject.

"Given that the Tories govern Scotland with just a single MP here, it is the Westminster system which has hollowed out proper representative democracy in Scotland. The latest poll puts Yes support at 46 per cent - within touching distance of a majority - and we intend to win in September."

Yes Scotland Chief Executive Blair Jenkins said Mr Carmichael had actually made a "compelling case" for a Yes vote.

He added: "The truth is that Westminster isn't working for Scotland and a No vote would not change that.  Only with the full powers of independence can we ensure that Scotland's enormous wealth, talent and resources are used to create a more prosperous, fairer country."

Reblogged from Newsnet Scotland

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BBC Scotland Bias: The case of the missing billions

The case of the missing billions

by Scott Minto (27 July 2014) 

Readers of [Wings Over Scotland] may remember the story published on the BBC earlier this week, where the figures for GDP per capita miraculously switched overnight from showing Scotland as a net contributor to the UK to implying that Scotland was a net recipient. And after reviewing the data posted by the BBC, it appears that the export figures have also been massaged to imply that Scotland exports vastly less than it does in reality.

[...] What the BBC has done here isn’t just careless, it’s deceptive. In order to gauge the reality of Scotland’s finances you clearly need to look at exports as if the country was already independent, in which case the rest of the UK would be an export market as well, radically shifting the balance. And obviously you need to include ALL of Scotland’s exports, not just an arbitrary selection of them.

Readers may feel that the state broadcaster – in using outdated figures and assuming an independent Scotland would end all trade with the rest of the UK and have no oil or gas revenues – has somewhat overstepped the bounds of impartiality. On the basis of the evidence it would be difficult to construct a case for the defence.

Read full article HERE

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George Lockhart of Carnwath: "If Scotsmen would seriously reflect..."

George Lockhart of Carnwath (1681?–1731)
Scottish Jacobite and founder of the Scottish Tory Party.
Strongly opposed the Act of Union with England.

"I'm persuaded, if Scotsmen would often and seriously reflect upon the happy state from which the kingdom of Scotland was fallen and the glorious and heroic actions of their progenitors, it could not fail of exciting in them a generous resolution of recovering what was so valiantly defended and maintained by their predecessors, and meanly parted with by this age: and I can never suffer myself to despond, or doubt, but that, some time or other, God will bless such resolutions and endeavour with success, by restoring the nation to its ancient rights and liberties." 

 ("The Lockhart Papers: Containing Memoirs and Commentaries upon the Affairs of Scotland from 1702 to 1715" by George Lockhart, Esq. of Carnwath, Vol. 1, ed. Anthony Aufrere, 1817)

Frankly Independent

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SNP calls on BBC to address 'serious concerns' after report questions news coverage

SNP calls on BBC to address 'serious concerns' after report questions news coverage

By Martin Kelly (22 July 2014)

The SNP has called on the BBC to set out detailed plans for how it intends to address issues raised in a new report published by the Audience Council Scotland.

According to the report, BBC Scotland needs a "thorough reassessment" of its news output with viewers north of the border questioning the broadcaster's impartiality over its covering of the independence referendum.

Read full article HERE

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Neal Ascherson: I shall vote yes this September

Neal Ascherson (photo source)

Scottish Independence Is Inevitable: 

The Independence Referendum is a Test of Scotland’s Confidence

by Neal Ascherson 

(New York Times: Sunday Review, 18 July 2014)

[...] The English media and many politicians explain the independence movement by claiming that the Scots are obsessed by “anti-English racism.” My own experiences tell me the exact opposite. Scots, these days, have almost forgotten about England, so fascinated are they by their own country.

[...] Twenty years ago, a predecessor of Mr. Cameron’s as leader of the Conservative Party and prime minister, John Major, told me that “this whole devolution idea is loopy. The problem is that the Scots just feel left out of things. I really should go up there more often.”

I thought about a retort. But where to start?

Only three years after that, amid songs and tears, the Scottish Parliament met in Edinburgh for the first time in almost three centuries. The old Union Treaty started to fall to dust at that moment, a process that is still following its own logic.

I shall vote yes this September. The campaign has already taught me that if we don’t make it with this third referendum, there will be a fourth. It’s time to rejoin the world on our own terms.

Read full article HERE

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Juncker and Scotland: Yet more BBC chicanery

The BBC? Stick it up your Juncker!

By G.A.Ponsonby (Saturday 19 July 2014)

This week...BBC Scotland got tangled up in a web of its own making as it sought to make a cheap bit of political capital from an innocuous speech from the man who replaced Jose Manuel Barroso. Oh how must BBC Scotland Chiefs yearn for the days when Barroso would feed them a ready-made anti-independence line.

For those still unaware of what happened this week, Jean-Claude Juncker officially began his tenure as the President of the European Commission.  The politician from Luxembourg is now one of the most powerful and influential men in the whole of Europe.

Juncker gave a speech on Tuesday in which he called for the suspension of what is termed 'the enlargement' of the EU.  The EC President very specifically made clear he was referring to 'candidate countries' - specifically states from the Balkans who have already applied to join the EU.

...What it very clearly didn't mean was that a newly independent Scotland would be thrown out of the EU and made to wait five years before trying to re-enter. However that's precisely what BBC Scotland told the nation in its flagship evening news programme Reporting Scotland.

...So, in the space of a few hours, the anti-independence movement had been granted the apparatus of the BBC in order to promote a quite egregious piece of political chicanery.

Read full article HERE

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Solas: Independence Debate

This is the full video recording of the debate at Charlotte Chapel, Edinburgh on 11 June 2014. Hosted by the Edinburgh Solas Group, the debate featured Murdo Fraser MSP (Cons), Richard Lucas, David Robertson and John Mason MSP (SNP).

SOLAS: Centre for Public Christianity

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Doug Gay: “Imagining Scotland’s Future” - Debate

“Imagining Scotland’s Future” 

Debate at the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (20 May 2014) between Rev Doug Gay (Glasgow University) and Douglas Alexander (UK Shadow Foreign Secretary) regarding Scottish independence. 

Rev Doug Gay, Lecturer in Practical Theology, Glasgow University

Text of Doug Gay's address to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (20 May 2014) in support of a Yes vote in the coming referendum on Scottish independence. 

PDF download HERE.

Moderator, I am daunted by the task I have here today, but I am grateful to you and others for the opportunity they have given us to reflect on what is a momentous decision for Scotland, for its people and for the whole of the UK.

Can I add my own warm welcome to Douglas Alexander – having you here put me in mind of another new Labour politician who once said – this is no time for soundbites  – but I feel the hand  of history upon our shoulders…  apparently the twitter hashtag for this debate is #twadugs

I want us in the Kirk to find our voices in this debate  – firstly because we too are Scotland – in the  recent Census, more Scots individually identified in some way with the Church of Scotland than with any other single body in Scottish life... Secondly, because a liberal democracy benefits from the contribution of organized groups and associations – from trade unions to employers’ associations, from women’s groups to supporters clubs – from political parties to churches. Together, Scotland’s Churches – Catholic and Protestant have more than ten times as many members as all Scotland’s political parties put together.

So our voices and our voice matters – alongside many other voices in Scottish life – and we are committed to being part of a respectful dialogue.

As Christians, we need to join in a common conversation in the public sphere. In a pluralist society - a diverse society – atheists, humanists and folk from every faith tradition are allowed to bring to the table not only their proposals for public policy, but their reasons for making those proposals. Our faith shapes our reasoning. Such conversations are a crucial preparation for democratic decision making. And Presbyterians are fierce advocates of democracy, in both church and society.

As Christians, we believe that respectful dialogue commits us to listen to the other, including our opponents, with attentiveness and respect. We believe it involves us speaking the truth in love. Among the most disturbing things I ever heard a Christian politician say was Tony Blair saying he didn’t have a reverse gear.

We all need a reverse gear…

We need it because of basic Christian convictions about human nature and repentance. We are flawed and fallible people – in our political and economic life, as in our personal and social life, there is a lot we don’t know, a lot we don’t control and a lot we get wrong. And if our political scripts or party whips don’t allow us to say that – then we need to change them.

Another basic Christian conviction is that what we have in common is more important than what makes us distinctive. We are all the bairns o’ Adam, the daughters of Eve – our shared humanity is more fundamental to who we are than our ethnicity or nationality. We are one human race made in the image of God – equal in worth and dignity – equal in our fallibility and sinfulness. We owe one another a basic respect and recognition in relation to our cultural differences – God has no favourites – Edinburgh, I’m afraid is no closer to heaven than Belfast, Dublin, Cardiff or Manchester.

So when Douglas speaks, as he often does, against ‘narrow nationalism’ I say AMEN – I have no truck with narrow nationalism, the nationalism I espouse and the one which is to the fore in Scotland at the moment is a generous, hospitable, liberal civic nationalism – a broad, not a narrow nationalism. One which welcomes new  Scots who settle here and welcomes those of many nationalities who come to Scotland for a season – one which wants to enjoy a warm and respectful social union with England and Wales and Northern Ireland  – to be open to a constructive currency union, to maintain a co-operative union with Europe and the Commonwealth – one which wants to take its place as an equal partner in the family of nations.

For Christians who identify as nationalists – there are clear red lines – our nationalisms whether British or Scottish – and remember Ed Miliband spoke just yesterday with a big ONE NATION – hardworking Britain banner behind him – our nationalisms need to be discipled. They cannot be based on belligerence or superiority or ethnic exclusivism. No Christian can ever say my country right or wrong. We place our political allegiances under the sovereignty of God and the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

There are moreover, many who will be voting YES in September who do not identify as nationalists, but who are  pro-independence. Remember the YES campaign is not the Salmond campaign or the SNP campaign – it is a cross party and civil society campaign for political self-determination [independence].

So why is it a better choice to vote YES? It is, I believe, so we can secure an exciting opportunity to develop an ongoing ‘journey of reform’ for Scotland.

As a reformed Christian, my political theology holds together two things - a sober realism about human fallibility and a demanding vocation to love my neighbour. Without the realism I become naïve. Without the vocation I become decadent.

I am realistic about independence – it is not a utopia – it is a future full of risks and challenges and uncertainties. But so too is a future within the union. It is because most of us are mature enough to realise that, that the negativity and fear-mongering of the NO campaign at its worst, has I think been so counter-productive.

When Better Together warn about future unknowns - think of the Labour Party in government, Ed Balls and Gordon Brown promising no more boom and bust – then  the  2008  financial crisis hit. Or remember the Conservatives in 1992 crashing out of the ERM. What degrades political discourse is – when in order to win an argument or an advantage – we apply tests to our opponents claims which we know our own could never meet.

We never get to control the future, only some of our own responses to it. A lot of political choices like a lot of spiritual ones, depend on faith.

So I am realistic, but I am also hopeful about independence – because the demanding vocation of loving our neighbour calls us to the work of social and economic and political transformation – I want to see a more equal Scotland – a more compassionate and hospitable Scotland, a Scotland which rejects the use of or the threat to use weapons of mass destruction.

My dad was English – my wife is English – two of my kids were born in England - I love England and I love London – I have spent a decade of my life in gloriously multi-cultural Hackney, but I want  to  see  a  Scotland  which asserts  itself  appropriately  against  a  painfully  anglo-centric  and  London-centric media – I want to see Iain Crichton Smith’s ‘three voiced country’ value and  celebrate  its  local  cultures  –  and  enjoy  their  global  dialogue  with  many cultures – I want to see a new Celtic Connections Scottish identity which can move out from the shadows of the old Union to sing and speak and choose for itself as Ireland does – I want to see us claim the BBC’s biblically inspired motto – nation shall speak peace unto nation.

I am not a fundamentalist nationalist. Nations are free to enter unions and they are  free to leave them. If a Tory-UKIP coalition leads the UK out  of the EU in two or three years time – that would be within the UK’s rights as a sovereign state – tragically for Scotland we might be dragged out against our will at the initiative of a coalition of parties who few of us had voted for - even if a majority of Scotland’s people voted to stay in. Staying as part of the Union also has its risks and unknowns.

I want to vote YES and leave the parliamentary union because I do not believe the UK as it stands is capable of making the journey of reform it so badly needs to make. It cannot make the cultural journey of properly recognising and respecting Scottish, Welsh and Irish cultures; it cannot make the political journey of creating a fair voting system, ending the West Lothian question and ridding us of the absurdity of the 780 member unelected House of Lords and Bishops – Douglas’s New Labour party had 13 years in power to do all of these and did none of them; under its present electoral system, the union state cannot make the political and economic journey towards a significantly more equal society. And here’s the promise of independence – not only will it give us a new opportunity to secure those goals in Scotland – it could also make them more possible and more likely in the rest of the UK, particularly England - England - which badly needs its own parliament to help save it from confusing itself and its interests with those of the UK as a whole.

The hand of history is upon our shoulders. We have, yes, a historic opportunity this year to set out on a new journey of reform.

As Christians we are called to a sober realism and a demanding vocation – for me, taken together, they point to a YES.

Rev Doug Gay.

Read Doug Gay's book championing Scottish independence:

More info HERE

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Calls for No campaign to apologise after EC official confirms Juncker's remarks were misrepresented

Calls for No campaign to apologise after EC official confirms Juncker's remarks were misrepresented

  By a Newsnet reporter (15 July 2014)

Officials in charge of the anti-independence campaign are facing calls to issue a correction and apologise after they misrepresented comments from new EC President Jean-Claude Juncker.

The calls follow a speech by Mr Juncker in which he said that enlargement of the EU should be suspended for five years.

Read full article HERE

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What it would be like (Juncker & Scotland)

What it would be like

by Rev. Stuart Campbell (15 July 2014) 

The media and the No camp, in so far as those are two different things, got incredibly excited today about some comments made by new European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker in which he said the EU wouldn’t undergo any further enlargement for the next five years.

“Juncker deals blow to Alex Salmond’s EU claims” (Telegraph) 

“Independence: Juncker deals blow to Scots EU plans” (Scotsman) 

“Alex Salmond’s dream of staying in the EU dealt a blow by new President of the European Commission” (Daily Record) 

“Better Together said the president’s comments make it clear that a Yes vote in the referendum would also be a vote to leave the EU.” (Herald)

So far so mundane. And then something odd, but welcome, happened. 

Someone did their job properly.

Read full article HERE

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Scotland as a Good Global Citizen: Discussion with First Minister Alex Salmond

9 April 2013

Aye Talks: Jim Sillars

"Jim Sillars, then the MP for South Ayrshire came to prominence in the 1976 when he split from the Labour Party and set up the Scottish Labour Party. Following the demise of his party in the early eighties, he joined the Scottish National Party and was instrumental in shifting the SNP to the left.

In the nineties he became a political activist outside the parties, contributing ideas to the debate about devolution and then independence. He has now written a manifesto for an independent socialist Scotland; free from political jargon and ideological posturing, he provides the pragmatic case for a different kind of Scotland that could be an example to other nations in United Kingdom.

The title, In Place of Fear II, revives the title for Nye Bevan's book, published in 1952 and considered 'the most widely read socialist book' of the period.

Jim Sillars, born in 1937, followed his father into work on the railways before joining the Royal Navy. When he later joined the Fire Brigade, he started his political career, active in the Fire Brigades Union and the Scottish Trade Union Congress. He became the Labour MP for South Ayrshire in 1970 and worked tirelessly for the establishment of a Scottish Assembly. He was married to the independent MSP Margo MacDonald and is an articulate spokesman for the cause of socialism and independence."

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Aye Talks: John Finnie

Aye Talks: Cat Boyd (Radical Independence)

Aye Talks: Aamer Anwer

Aye Talks: Ivan McKee (Business for Scotland)

Just who exactly are the OBR and are their forecasts on oil believable?

Just who exactly are the OBR and are their forecasts on oil believable?

By Martin Kelly (12 July 2014)

In March 2013 I wrote an article which looked at the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) and asked whether its forecasts on oil revenue were believable.

Since the article was published, the body set up by George Osborne has revised its forecasts for the oil and gas sector downwards several times - the latest by a whopping twenty five per cent.

As ever, the media in Scotland has headlined these figures and the Better Together campaign has used them in order to 'prove' just how pitiful Scotland's oil and gas resource is.

Now, nearly a year and a half since my original article, I have decided it is time to bring it up to date and see just how accurate the OBR predictions for 2013 were.

Read full article HERE

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Bateman Broadcasting: Episode 6: Creatives

AUDIO PAGE HERE

"Bateman Broadcasting took on the views of The Creatives this week, including newspaper editor Richard Walker, playwright and author Alan Bissett, screenwriter Sergio Casci and political strategist (yes, they can be creatives too!) Stephen Noon."

Derek Bateman worked in the Scottish media for 45 years for the Scotsman, the Herald, The Observer, the Sunday Times and as an international programme maker for STV and for 20 years at the BBC reporting and presenting current affairs on radio and television. He presented Good Morning Scotland for 10 years and anchored coverage of the opening of the Holyrood Parliament in1999. He made radio and TV documentaries from all over the world, covering key events including the return of Hong Kong to China, the election of George W Bush and the Quebec Referendum.

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Radical Independence Campaign - Gorbals, Glasgow

A public meeting held by the Radical Independence Campaign to inform undecided voters about the Left wing case for Scottish Independence. (1 July 2014)

Speakers:

Jim Sillars

Jeane Freeman - Woman for Independence 

Allan Grogan - Labour for Independence 

Victoria Heaney - Radical Independence Campaign

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✘ on September 18th #voteYes

Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun

"England is a Wise, Gallant and Brave nation; they love Liberty themselves, and therefore will always have a due regard to the same Spirit among others, but must needs despise a People who would tamely part with their Freedom as abject Slaves, and think them neither fit to be treated as good Neighbours or useful Subjects."  

(Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, An Historical Account of the Ancient Rights and Power of the Parliament of Scotland, 1703)

How Scotland Was 'Catcht'

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Stephen Paton: Scottish independence referendum weekly review 5

Frankly Independent

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Ivan McKee: Economic Case for an Independent Scotland

(Publiée le 2013-12-05)

Ivan McKee: Economic Case for an Independent Scotland 

Business for Scotland

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Ground-motives: Brief intro to Dooyeweerd

Direct download of above BOOK (256 page PDF)

HOMEPAGE for free downloads of Dooyeweerd books

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Dear P_,

Dooyeweerd all the time champions actuality over theory. Actuality is anchored in Christ. That is because Christ is not theoretically the Creator and Sustainer and Redeemer of reality but is actually the Creator and Sustainer and Redeemer of reality. All meaning in existence therefore depends on Christ. All things are upheld by His word of power. There is NO neutrality. The single paramount antithesis in human life is between an acknowledgement of the Lordship of Christ, and the lack of such acknowledgement. Dooyeweerd stresses that this antithesis is present in each and every heart, including Christians.

Every human heart seeks anchorage in the ultimate. If Christ is not acknowledged, then something else is necessarily accorded ultimacy. But there IS nothing else which is ultimate, because Christ is indeed Lord of All. So the apostate heart has no alternative but to make an ultimate of that which is in reality only relative - that which has in actuality no intrinsic "brute" meaning, and then to attempt to integrate all of existence around this gilded delusion. 

So the non-Christian (and often the Christian) intellectual will typically make an idol of Logic itself, and so try to reduce all of reality to "Logic". But "Logic" is an abstraction. Dooyeweerd suggests that Logic is only one of FIFTEEN aspects of reality, irreducible to each other ("sphere-sovereignty"), yet each reflected in all the others and unable to truly function without the others ("sphere universality"). In theoretical (ie abstract) thought, a single aspect is isolated and pondered, but this theorizing happens within a mental suspension of time ("epochē"). Something like considering a single colour of the spectrum refracted through a prism. Full-orbed functioning only takes place in time-embedded reality (ie in everyday holistic life) involving all aspects together (imagine reversing through the prism from the theoretically separated panoply of colours to the combined "white" or "clear" natural light of day). 

Biblical ground-motive
Dooyeweerd calls Christ-anchored reality the "Biblical ground-motive", which he elaborates as: "Creation, Fall, Redemption through Jesus Christ, in Communion with the Holy Spirit". Dooyeweerd's great insight into Western Thought is that insofar as the Biblical ground-motive does not prevail over our personal and communal thinking and action we are invariably succumbing to an apostate ground-motive. There is no alternative. 

Dichotomies
Apostate ground-motives, unlike the Biblical one, are internally dichotomous. They are dichotomous because when an attempt is made to reduce reality to an idol (ie to an absolutisation of that which is only relative) a counter-idol is automatically summoned up, as reality itself resists its own distortion and calls the human heart back to equilibrium (cf Augustine's "Our heart is restless till it finds its rest in Thee"). Some of humanity will coalesce around (become spellbound by) one absolutisation, Others will be captivated by the counter-absolutisation. Thus we have major political, social, and artistic divisions such as Neo-Classicism and Romanticism. The former championing eternal, geometric, rational, absolute, abstract laws. The latter championing transient, irrational, lawless, corporeal, emotive particulars. The former emphasises communal responsibility and solidarity. The latter emphasises individualistic heroism and genius.

Form/Matter
According to Dooyeweerd the main early ground-motive apparent in Western culture is the Hellenistic one involving the "Form/ Matter" dichotomy. His historic analysis of this is what you are currently reading in the early part of "Roots of Western Thought". Essentially Dooyeweerd says that the earliest Greek belief-system absolutised its perception of nature as being an endless flux of matter. He calls this the "Anangkē", ie "inescapability" (we cannot avoid being eventually pulled back into the formless flux from whence we arose). On the other hand, the Olympian religion of immortal, invisible form, measure, and rationality was a subsequent development which became the public cult of the Greek city-state (polis). Domestically, however, ordinary folk apparently continued to worship the older nameless and formless gods of nature (the time-cyclical backstory offering some consolation regarding death). Dooyeweerd shows why these two belief-systems (also occasionally characterised as "Apollus" versus "Dionysus") were ultimately incompatible, though mutually dependent.

The analysis of the Hellenistic Form/Matter ground-motive may seem a heavyish read at times as Dooyeweerd establishes his case, but I would encourage you to push on through it as its relevance will become apparent. I am of the view, for example, that the Form/Matter ground-motive is currently staring us in the face in Zombie and Superhero movies. The zombies are surely a manifestation of the "anangkē", arising out of the formless subterranean realm and dragging stricken humanity inexorably back down into material disintegration. In turn, Superman, Batman, Ironman, Spiderman etc are gods of an American-style Olympus, (more-or-less) immortal, ideally-formed, shining saviours from on high (with relational complications, of course). Dooyeweerd calls the dwellers of the Greek Olympus "deified cultural forces". That seems a fruitful way of making sense of the American counterparts too.

Nature/Grace
The Form/Matter ground-motive is relevant also because of the development of subsequent Western ground-motives, as identified by Dooyeweerd. The medieval world was dominated by the "Nature/Grace" (or "Nature/Supernature") ground-motive. This was essentially a synthesis (formulated by Thomas Aquinus) of the Hellenistic and Biblical ground-motives. The dichotomy here is between the "sacred" and the "profane". But also there arises a "body/soul" dichotomy, the soul being understood in Aristotelean terms of immortal rationality (escaping like a bird, at the time of physical death, from its corrupting material cage). Dooyeweerd sees the soul/heart very differently, as the deepest self, the integration point of all aspects of life and reality, the source of all of our acts, transcending time (or relating to the "fullness of time") in the here and now. Not just some kind of escape-pod of rationality-survival jettisoned at physical death. 

Although the Thomistic Nature/Grace ground-motive is more formally related to the Roman Catholic Church (though there is also an Augustinian heritage), it also remains highly conspicuous in much evangelical and so-called "reformed" Christianity, manifesting itself in a world-denying pietism and in the evangelical tendency to reduce political involvement to sporadic upsurges of moralistic petition-signing before returning to the bunker. Dooyeweerd reminds us that Christ is not just Lord of morality (only one aspect of fifteen), but of politics as such, of law as such, of street-plumbing and bridge-engineering as such.

Nature/Freedom
The prevailing modern Western ground-motive is the "Nature/ Freedom" (or for more clarity we might call it the "Mechanistic Natural Law versus Free Human Personality") dichotomy of humanism, which incorporated and secularised the previous three ground-motives. Humankind declares its absolute autonomy and undertakes the project of constructing reality anew from brute (ie un-God-referenced) scientific laws of cause and effect. But humankind gradually finds itself boxed-in (indeed turned into box-wood) because, from the point of view of this materialist reductionism, humans themselves can be no other than a random result of the exhaustively determinist laws of physics. In other words the personal freedom which humanity initially asserted is annihilated. So humanism must periodically (and irrationally) make a fresh assertion of absolute lawless personal freedom (hence Existentialism, Postmodernism etc). Thus the dichotomy is evident. To quote Dooyeweerd from his "New Critique":

"The deepest root of its dialectical character lies in the ambiguity of the Humanistic freedom-motive. The latter is the central driving force of the modern religion of human personality. And from its own depths it calls forth the motive to dominate nature, and thus leads to a religion of autonomous objective science in which there is no room for the free personality." (Herman Dooyeweerd, New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1969, p 190)

This paradigmatic "Natural Law v Personal Freedom" ground-motive is highly visible in contemporary popular movie-culture. We glimpse it in Star Trek, for example, in those perennial "rationalist versus emotionalist" exchanges between Mr Spock and Captain Kirk. More panoramically we see it in the cyberpunk genre - in Bladerunner, the Terminator and Matrix films etc, where heroic humans struggle to survive dehumanising mechanisation. The polarisation is also evident in the objectivist Mechanical Law "meta-narrative" ("Big Story") we call "Darwinism" (in Attenborough documentaries, for example) versus the subjectivist interrogation of meta-narrative (in Tarantino, and in films such as Inception, Source Code etc). 

Normativity
The X-Men movies show humanism wrestling with the vexed conundrum of "normativity" in a universe within which the only real norm is random mutation. Regarding moral normativity, consider the following from Richard Dawkins in an interview with Justin Brierley on Premier Christian Radio (8 Nov 2008):

JB: When you make a value judgement don't you immediately step yourself outside of this evolutionary process and say that the reason this is good is that it's good. And you don't have any way to stand on that statement. 

RD: My value judgement itself could come from my evolutionary past.  

JB: So therefore it's just as random in a sense as any product of evolution. 

RD: You could say that, it doesn't in any case, nothing about it makes it more probable that there is anything supernatural. 

JB: Ultimately, your belief that rape is wrong is as arbitrary as the fact that we've evolved five fingers rather than six. 

RD: You could say that, yeah. 

http://www.bethinking.org/atheism/the-john-lennox-richard-dawkins-debate

Are "human rights" thus based on an arbitrary (therefore inherently provisional) consensus among beings who are themselves no more than an amalgam of random mutations in a purposeless universe? Is the only fixed law that there IS no fixed law (particularly in a multiverse)? Dooyeweerd helps us critique these issues with his view regarding the "positivization" of norms. If we take, for example, the aesthetic aspect, Dooyeweerd suggests that its "kernel" is "harmony", but this harmony can be and obviously has been positivized in different eras and cultures in a plethora of ways. There are always going to be some kind of limitations, however. This is more immediately obvious in the physical aspect -  we can decide to have plastic surgery, but can't just decide we are going to breathe under water (without additional apparatus). 

As regards the question of norms, Dooyeweerd's insight into "historicism" is particularly helpful. Absolute norms clearly cannot survive an absolutisation of the "historical" (ie "cultural formational") aspect, since such absolutisation dissolves everything in an acid of perpetual change. Heraclitus. All is flux. Postmodernism falls into this camp.

Fascism
It is noteworthy that in "Roots of Western Thought" Dooyeweerd sees fascism as a product of "historicism". Lacking any absolute norms above itself (other than a spurious conviction regarding its own historical "destiny"), the fascist State arbitrarily assumes to itself a monopoly over "normativity", refusing international arbitration. However, a germane question would be "How far and on what basis does any international court itself have a monopoly over normativity, and how does it avoid a fascism of its own?" 

Closing
Much more could be said, but this is already looking more like an essay than an email. You mentioned favourite symphonies. One which has profoundly impacted on me is Beethoven's 9th. Its structure seems to me cyclical and spiral, with Beethoven introducing motifs in the early stages which are returned to, elevated and expanded on later. It might be helpful to read Dooyeweerd with something like that in mind. What might seem piecemeal does hold together in the end. And leads us towards a glimpse (at the very least) of transcendence!

Best wishes,
Fearghas.

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The media has helped to create a Scottish Labour monster

The media has helped to create a Scottish Labour monster

by G.A.Ponsonby (1 July 2014)

So a Scottish Labour candidate for Westminster has been forced to resign just one day after being selected to stand for her party. 

Kathy Wiles, who would have been bidding to become Labour MP for Angus, posted an image of German youngsters gathered under a Nazi banner.

The tweet was one of many from Labour party activists who were reacting to a peaceful protest by Yes supporters that took place in Glasgow on Sunday.  In pictures and videos posted of the event there was one of five Scots youngsters standing beneath a banner depicting a well-known website.

It led to some quite unsavoury comments from the anti-independence online Labour activists.  Wiles, caught up in the online goading of a pro-independence website loathed by Unionists, posted the offending image.

The intention was clear, to suggest the youngsters at the pro-Yes event were being indoctrinated in a similar manner to that which led to the creation of the Hitler Youth movement in Nazi Germany.  The tweet was deleted by Wiles, but not before being captured and re-posted by Yes supporters, angry at yet another attempt by Unionists to demonise the Yes movement.

Within hours both Wings Over Scotland and then Newsnet Scotland were running the story on their respective sites - social media was abuzz.  Incredibly, there was nothing on any of the main stream media online sites.

The Herald online compounded its editorial cock-eyedness by headlining an article that same evening in which comedian Rory Bremner apparently complained about "sinister, unpleasant intimidation of pro-UK supporters."

Full article HERE

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3000 Trees - The last hour of Willie McRae

3000 Trees - 

The last hour of Willie McRae

by George Gunn (1 July 2014)

Willie McRae was a former vice-president of the SNP and a controversial anti-nuclear campaigner, when he was found dead at the wheel of his car in the remote Highlands.  At first it appeared he had veered off the road and crashed in a burn but the later discovery of a gun and a bullet wound to his head led police to conclude he had killed himself.

However, it had been fired twice and conspiracy theories were fuelled when it emerged the book McRae was writing, and his briefcase containing key documents, were missing.

Now a play - '3000 Trees' - fictionalising the last hour of McRae's life, is to be staged at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe.  It's writer, George Gunn, explains why the time is now right for such a play.

Sometimes it pays to wait. The Scots have waited for 307 years for a chance to undo the slippery knot of the Union of 1707.  I have waited for 29 years to write a play about the death of Willie MacRae.

In either case this has not been from choice. The time has to be right both for political independence and theatrical production but I am a firm believer that plays, if they are meant to be, will eventually find their moment and I am glad to report that “Three Thousand Trees”, a fictionalised account of Willie MacRae’s last hour of life, will be performed by Grey Coast Theatre at next month’s Festival Fringe in Edinburgh.

I hope to be able to dance with joy on September 19th when the Scottish people vote “Yes” so that we can begin to build our own nation.

Read full article HERE

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I was bullied by BBC over academic report on indyref bias – the Scottish media blackout must end

Fortress BBC Scotland - Pacific Quay, Glasgow.

Professor John Robertson, 

I was bullied by BBC over academic report on indyref bias – the Scottish media blackout must end

by Prof. John Robertson (30 June 2014)

Following a demonstration outside BBC Scotland's Glasgow headquarters this weekend, Professor John Robertson, media politics professor at the University of the West of Scotland and author of an academic study that claimed Scottish news broadcasts leaned more favourably towards the No campaign on Scottish independence, recounts the aftermath of his report and the implications for Scottish democracy.

When I published academic research at the beginning of the year examining the impartiality of broadcast news reporting ahead of the Scottish independence referendum, I didn’t expect one of the subjects of my report – BBC Scotland, no less – to take such a strong reaction to the findings..

Senior BBC figures reported me to senior staff at my university and colleagues of mine were even warned to ‘stay away’ from me. I see this as a clear form of bullying by a powerful corporation. The great crime I’d committed was in publishing the results of a study which indicated that BBC Scotland’s coverage of the Scottish independence referendum between September 2012 and September 2013 noticeably favoured the No campaign.

Read full article HERE

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AUDIO interview 
with Prof John Robertson
HERE
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