From: 'Sunthar (Yahoo)' suntharv@yahoo.com [Abhinavagupta] <Abhinavagupta@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 5:58 PM
Subject: [Abhinavagupta] "Last sunrise for the UK?" (Bhadrakumar) - "
The sun may never again rise on the United Kingdom after this weekend. By the "breakfast time" on Friday the outcome of the closely-fought referendum in Scotland will be known. It's a toss-up. Did the last-minute intervention by the Queen make a difference to tilt the delicate balance in favor of "No" to Scottish people's demand for independence?
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India remains in the danger zone, and wisdom, patience and tolerance and sensitivity is needed - especially on the part of our boorish and crass political class. Our pundits point finger at Jaffna, Baluchistan or Tibet but refuse to look within - or pretend they have not noticed.
Vast regions in our country feel alienation but are literally held under the thumb with brutal state coercion. Try and see what happens if we remove the army deployments in the north-east regions - you'll hear the pressure cooker whistle as far away as Thiruvananthapuram in the deep South.
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What Scotland underscores is that nationalism and sub-nationalism has strange ways and it is not economic development (or deprivation) that lies at the root of political alienation - at least, that is not the only underlying factor or even the main factor. Cultural identity, political discrimination (real or perceived), language and ethnicity, religion, and the sheer exuberance of living one's own way - all these matter in varying degrees and in the crucible where contemporary experiences mix with the residues of history, strange amalgams form.
Clearly, with a 5 million population, Scotland may not even be economically viable, but that doesn't seem to worry the people who are seeking independence.
The break-up of Britain will send tremors across Europe and globally. If Scotland moves out, Wales may follow. The opinion in the rump will heavily favor moving out of the European Union. Now, an EU without Britain has profound implications.
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There have been ups and downs in the US-UK relationship, and there have been times when the poodle led the bumbling master through blind alleys, but Britain is ultimately irreplaceable in America's global strategies. It's unthinkable that the US agenda on NATO's expansion can go ahead without Britain's active role. Equally, without the Anglo-American axis, a New Cold War can never start in Europe. Poland or Lithuania simply cannot replace Britain.
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However, Britain's demise will not be universally mourned. Britain is fairly widely loathed across continents for its brutal colonial record, for its slyness or deviousness (couched in irritating self-righteousness), for its preachy character (despite its scant regard for morality), for its panache to punch above its weight (from under American wings, of course) and for the sheer zest with which it explodes into violent acts against alien peoples who did no harm to it directly or directly.
There is deep irony here, from the South Asian point of view. The Partition is visiting Britain 67 years after Britain summarily imposed it on the Indian sub-continent. History's revenge? But Britain may still get away paying only a fragment of the price that India paid - and is still paying - for the Caesarian operation it conducted on the subcontinent without even administering anesthesia.
I can't help brooding for the rest of today and until tomorrow "breakfast time": What a way an empire on which the sun never set may finally cease to exist. The Ottoman Empire was the last one to vanish into thin air. Britain played a magical role then. Oh, the ephemeral nature of all "power" - the way it finally ends! Sound and fury signifying nothing …
M K Bhadrakumar, "Last sunrise for the UK?" (Asia Times Online, 18 Sep. 2014) [see reader comments]
There's one good reason for why Scotland should vote yes for independence: the breaking up of the United Kingdom would be an imminently good thing for the sake of world peace.
Anything that lessens the power of the London-centered United Kingdom is bound to be a good thing. So, if Scots walk away from the Union on September 18 by voting to establish their own separate, sovereign nation, that will deliver a positive blow to further weaken Britain's legacy as an imperial power.
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Historically, the English ruling class has used the nations of Scotland, Wales and Ireland to expand their power base centered in London. That's why the English conquered and colonized its neighboring nations first before setting out on its global conquest as the British Empire. The English rulers forced those nations through a series of "unions" into the so-called United Kingdom. Scotland was nailed in 1707, as was Ireland in 1801. The Irish partly seceded in 1922 but only after a cruel and bloody War of Independence. Britain still clings on to the territory of Northern Ireland.
There is a searing reason why the London government has fought tooth and nail to maintain the Union down through the centuries and latterly over the upcoming Scottish referendum next week. London knows that without the outer territories its power will be greatly diminished. It will no longer be able to "punch above its weight" in the world, as the English establishment likes to put it.
Great Britain lost its allure long ago, but with Scotland taking its leave, that will surely deliver a crippling blow and reality-check to British pretensions. The Scots will also enliven separatist sentiments in the remainder of the UK: Northern Ireland, Wales and the remote English regions, such as Newcastle in the far northeast and Cornwall in the far southwest. All these regions have suffered economically and culturally from the centralizing power of the English establishment based in London.
Scotland's oil wealth from the North Sea has been siphoned off for the past 40 years by a London government that has squandered it on tax cuts for the rich and reckless, criminal overseas wars of conquest. It's time for the Scots to harness that wealth for their own development.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the First World War. Millions of Scots, Irish and Welsh were slaughtered in that war, sent into battle by English rulers. Many other wars have since been fought to prop up imperial Britain and give it a much-undeserved global status as is manifested by its position today on the Security Council of the United Nations.
Britain is a warmongering, destructive entity that continually destabilizes world peace through its "special relationship" with the United States. Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Pakistan, Iran, Libya, Syria, Ukraine... anywhere you care to look in the world to see people suffering from conflict or duress you will see the nefarious presence of Britain.
There are many positive reasons for why the Scottish nation should now create its own destiny. After centuries of subjugation under the English yoke, they deserve to chart their own path of freedom. But one good reason, among others, is this: Scottish independence is a vote for peace by delivering a hammer blow to Britain's imperial pretensions and warmongering. William Wallace, Robert the Bruce, Bonnie Prince Charlie would be proud of ye!
Finnian Cunningham, "Scotland: Vote Yes for World Peace" (Information Clearing House, 13 Sep. 2014)
http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2014/09/11/st-andrew-flag-flown-over-scotland-and-donetsk.html
Should we now look forward to secession by the States of the Union (as Igor Panarin has long predicted)…making it clear that Washington represents no one but "its 1% self" at the United Nations Security Council?
Sunthar
PS. Note that with the advent of PM Narendra Modi, the 'nationalist' trend in the Indian Republic has shifted gears towards (re-) integration on a spiritual-cultural (as opposed to imperial-economic) basis…
[Rest of this thread at Sunthar's post (19 March 2014) at
From: Sunthar (Yahoo)
Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2014 7:55 PM
To: Abhinavagupta@yahoogroups.com; 'WTC-911'; 'Dia-Gnosis'
Cc: 'Akandabaratam'; 'Ontological Ethics'; 'MeccaBenares'
Subject: [Abhinavagupta] "96.77% of Crimeans Give The Finger To The White House Tyrant" (Roberts) - Putin takes charge of the new world order!
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The truth is that the entire evil of the universe is concentrated in Washington. It is this evil that is destroying millions of lives, and it is this evil that will destroy the world.
Paul Craig Roberts, "96.77% of Crimeans Give The Finger To The White House Tyrant" (16 March 2014)
Behold a true statesman, calm, deliberate, and restrained, the resurgent architect of the new world order and increasingly acclaimed spokesman for the free world:
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Note that Putin specifically thanks China, which abstained in the Security Council Vote, and India, which has been more more forthcoming and unequivocal in its support.
What really terrifies the West is not so much Crimea's accession to Russia but that their own subject populations will realize the truth and also break free (as eastern Europeans recently did from the Soviet Union).
Sunthar
[Rest of this thread at Sunthar V. (17 March 2014)
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