wee beautiful pict

Lessons from hurricanebawbag and the coming evil empire

I'm on a train heading into Scotland; into the eye of a storm. #Hurricanebawbag is trending on twitter. Endless hilarious stories and comic brivado - amongst the flying windmill blades and cooncil buckets. Scots, old and young, rough and hue - from all over haggisland, discover the joy of fighting an unseen foe, invading from nowhere - with a shared voice, a common language sprouting up from among their 'ane' - from nowhere.

The train is chugging at half mast - almost afraid of what is ahead. It gives me time to reflect on a question thats been bugging me for months.

How come Scotland didn't riot?

A question asked by some of my English friends involved in riots and occupy London - an yet again this morning:

I would trot out the usual: Divided and weak solidarity among working class - long way away from westminster, centuries of domination internally and externally, land ownership by few, competition for crumbs by many etc. public space dominated by vested interests - stacked against us etc- to increasingly puzzled expressions and that look - which says 'you are a region of our country - you are us- the same - we don't understand you scots; what is wrong with you? where's your fight?

What is wrong with us? has, after so long this empire night - the fight gone oot o us?

Well maybe not - the difference between westminster and hurricane Bawbag - is that Westminster and all sophisticated powers of global domination towering over us - invades and occupies and destroys cultures using the old tricks of mystery Babylon - divide and conquer, creation of dependancy and erasure of memory of particular peoples, localities and geographies - to wear the nations down into fearful submission like sheep. The storm invades too, and rips up the ground and geography but at least we can see it feel it hear it - and if anything it recovers our MEMORY.

The land does not forget us - if we forget the land and it's seasons and rhythms and stories of our fore parents - it bites us up the arse: ouch! then we remember

Enough to be shocked a bit and fight it - shout at it - laugh at - and a wee taste of a half rememberd community of language and land and it's God given purpose to stand up to bullies and not be afraid of the whispering threats or be fooled by the velvet glove drenched in electric light of false angels with their ssssmooth voices and lying sssspirits that stroke and charm us from political and media heaven above. Nay - instead awaken us from our tombs of sleep and mourning - to courage and comic resistance and boldness - to surprise us and the world.

Hah! no - the fight hasnae gone oot o us

But just let the ancient alien evil of empire hidden under the righteous cloaks of media and globalised power - that power which has terrorised man since earliest history - disclose itself in these last times - in it's arrogance come just close enough to the sleepy auld scots - maybe it thinks, to put its scaly bejewelled royal foot over our neck in final triumph - close enough to where we can just see the whites of its torpid sneering eyes, feel its breath on our neck and the beating of its black heart

At the right time ...

we will remember - and then we will not only fight

But in our own land - the auld land of loss and sorrow and vanquish - In the sight of all -

In solidarity with a vanquished world and its vanquished creator

we will at last take it down Hah!! So lads and lassies from the south - we're with you, just sharpening oor axes (;-)

London screaming: why?

Re: #londonriots on twitter...  

Curiously, I was recounting only last week to a friend just before London kicked off - that when I were a lad, our estate would blow up for 2-3 days at a time.

I remember my mum warning us, days before it would kick off - she would always sense it - walking around, chats over fences, the post office - it was in the air, like the smell of electricity before a storm: you could feel it coming.   The police would hide in the police box (both of them), we would hide in our house and turn up the TV,  our mother would whip up some butterscotch angel delight to cheer warm and calm us.  Noise would fill the air outside, you boys chanting, crying, rage, fights breaking out, gangs running around, shops getting smashed, cars upended...open wounds screaming to the stars...  

from oor forgotten wee world to the forgotten god of housing estates... 

After it ended we would walk around looking at the piles of mess  - I would go get 20 embassy tipped for our ma from the shoppie; she'd be fair gasping by the time it was all over.   Things would get back to normal for a bit - then it would happen all over again.

Why? We on the estate kinda knew why?, but we never did find out from the rest of aberdeen and aberdeen media - what 'they' thought happened here in those crazy summer days and why?; why our estate young screamed for 3 days.   

Now I've been reading my twitter feed on london riots .. particularly media tweets 

Now I think I'm finding out  ... jeepers! 

If back then I could speak - I would say this - LISTEN... really LISTEN... 

eg. listen to Tottenham ... for the love of God ignore the media and the political voices for just one minute... and listen to them... 

Taking a light to the Land: is scottish art coming home?

Hidden Door 3 - meetup last night.  Exciting stuff. 

More and more artists, musicians, film-makers, poets around these parts getting their teeth into scottish economy and politics - how refreshing.

The 3 big taboos for scottish artists today:

1. economics
2. politics
3. religion

these open up whole new energy and vitality for scottish artists to open up imagination, break some chains and cause some trouble in high places

but if scottish artists want to open a whole can of worms, crack open graves and stir a whole stack of hornets nests - 

open up scotland's biggie: LAND - who owns it, how they got it, what the effect it has on scottish psyche, self harm, sectarianism, its well documented health and prison stats, and how it does its economics, politics and religion 

its friendship broken with its own land ..... its enforced landlessness and exile on its own soil.. its dark adventures with colonialism abroad...

are we artists ready to ask questions, create waves, endanger our own funding, eat the hands that feeds us evn; in scotland recovering from 300 years of involvement in empire - are scots artists in 21st century of every shade and colour ready to revisit these fallow fields that our poets have trod in the 20th and take it further? 

or we as a community going to remain in the green mist of exotica, obscurantism and infantilism?

will scottish art cut off from its land and people and their stories, their questions about their land's political and economic realities find its way home? at this time of global economic change and local appetite for its own day of independance - not just merely from wee westminster but independance from empires of the soul and spirit -

the neo-colonialisation baby giants of global rule, spin and control that are already jostling for pole position on the earth

these new monsters are hungry for us - are we ready for em?

if not - 'mon bonnie artists, imaginative resistors and the eternally curious

wake up and shine yer wee light on the land...

IDEA 4: Tartan Homes: 100% self-powered, heated and watered houses built of rubbish that can be built anywhere in a few days, grows food, eats waste and make money while you sleep

This one is a personal dream of mine since 70's.   Age 13, at my grans house I saw a Tv series: 'the ecohouse' I think it was called.  It had a huge effect on me.  I decided one day I would design and build a spherical house, half underground.    A home that was 100% self powered, warmed, cooled and watered and could be built in days with rubbish - and looked like part of the land but coming out of the future and looking absolutely stunning.

In my 3rd year as an industrial design student at Edinburgh's Napier University - my course lecturers allowed me to design it as my main project for that year.   Much of the basic ideas and technology has been around since the 70s.   All that remains is to find the money to buy some land and build it.  My partner Fee and I agreed to do just that.   So what the heck am I talking about ?

Imagine all kinds of homes across scotland that:

1. collects it's own water and generates ALL its own power, heat and recycles its own waste 

2. eats waste (built with coke cans and disused tyres) and generates surplus power to the national grid to create a small income

3. barn-raising architectural economy- self designed and built quickly with growing network help of other earth ship builders (inc. their wide mix of growing expertise)

repercussions: 

1. Architectural design - dead for over 100 years, apart from few mavericks -would come alive, houses would all look very different

2. 20th century would have to be completely rethought: town planning, building trade, road systems, waste collection, energy, water and power and all associated legislation.  

3. Economics: Income needed from 'working for others' would reduce therefore State Taxation: would be sought more from land not people.  Treasury would need to radically shift its spending priorities. Landless folks' dependancy on Banks and mortgage based economics would have to have major surgery.

5. Land reform would move to centre stage.  The reality that wealth  = land, may start to sink in among many scots- and may accelerate demand for land reform, once they realise that houses that make money.   Haggis-land is crazily concentrated in hands of tiny few - keeping cost of buying devilishly high and beyond the reach of the many - and I mean devilish!! (;-)

6. Travel: new forms of transport would be developed that do not need roads

7. Social Justice, health, art and play -  allowing citizens to have land and build their own wee tartan domes - every one different designs shaped by 'place' its resources, links, ecology, character, possibilities and its rubbish.  Institutionalised solidarity and labour party politics that surround it will need an overhaul.  Not new visions of 'market economics/big society' espoused by conservative party politicians but 'different kinds of solidarity' imagined by the people - people with houses, no mortgages, unleashed creative energy and lots more time to play with.

8. Food & farming - Tescopolis: supermarket based economy would have to radically change/ adapt or crash.  Using houses to grow local food- sounds bizarre - but it could transform whole thinking about food and farming and what we mean by 'local' - can't get more local than growing it in or on your house.

Here's a good example my partner Fee, has been banging on about lately- earthships - started in 1970s new mexico and which is spreading around the world - including a 'pilot project' called SCI in good ol pioneering Fife in Scotland.  

If it's such a great idea - how come so few are doing it ?  Now that's another question - something to do with, lot's of vested interests - but tackling that is another idea for another post.

Jamesie: first electronic bothy ballad/protest song uploaded

hey jamesie (hanging from the walls of our estate) by mcbee (paul T)

My first baby steps at a kind of experimental ‘protest song’ - which I’ve dedicated to my wee brother James T.

Combination of subject matter with electronicky ‘bothy ballad’ style verses with my rough sung/spoke delivery in N.East scottish vernacular means that its not exactly easy listening but ‘hopefully-provoking’ (;-)

Course if yer fay aberdeen - ye’ll hae nay probies eh?

verses

kids home at eight, prison at eighteen, AIDS at twentythree 

wrapping presents for his boy, he died on christmas eve

doon it i station, pink police faces, didnae ken fit to say

couldn’ae lift yer coffin- though, six pounds wiz a’ ye weighed

schemie, beastie, junkie, is a’ they had tae say

another loon like jesus- hangin, on the walls of our estate

chorus

hey……. Jamesie, hey, hey (repeat)

music and lyrics - Paul T

Digi-llectuals and communicators: Scotland needs you!

Well if the last few weeks have proved anything is that the old political, economic and mediated arrangements - call them what you will - and 100 years of scottish poetry, art, writing and thinking have a spectrum of things to say about it - from the electrified frankenstein or steam driven hybrid monster of empire at one end to the wee enlightenment torch that lit up the global landscape at the other - 

is out of steam and out of battery charge 

what does this mean?

These princely areas of scottish life - are caught with their knickers down: politics, media, economics and arts.   

Politics

Today at moving scotland foreward debate - alex salmond speech painted a sophisticated picture of a transformed scotland;  involving both internal and external change: what some sociologists of religion might call: a conversion.  Imagine Westminster tracing the road ahead of policy - directed at catalysing change of English consciousness as well as its external  structures of finance, politics and - that biggie english land reform - difficult to imagine?  Well that's not a million miles from where Alex tosses his caber.   Others painting scotland yellow too have sensed the mood of scotland correctly and have brought new ideasd and energy to political life and debate  in scotland.  

 Joan McAlpine struck out in her inaugural speech today about land reform and the re-challenge the current crown estates claim on scotland's shore and foreshore.   But none expected scotland to turn yellow in its desire for change.  An ancient saying:  'there go my people I must run after them so I can lead them' - party politics is playing catch up with the changing narrative of scotland erupting from the ground.  We all are. 

Media: 

The BBC moving question time and its posse to scotland - is money saving with a dash of 'regional' (a word that makes my flesh crawl almost as much as: 'governance') devolution.  However, there is both a counter centralisation of structures and where there is freedom to schedule, invite participants to debate and comment on the big issues of the day - there is curious deficit of what I could call the 'habit of social imagination' - the habituated reflection on political religious psychological theological historical  philosiphical, economic and artistic (particularly architecture) - life of Scotland.    We used to call folks that pursued such reflection: intellectuals.  Unfortunately, communication without reflection, the result of turing media into mechanisms dependant on markets and other powers that be - has been growing trend of scottish media: mainstream news, radio and TV.   This growing situation has provoked a growing trend; an eruption of - mcbloggers, activists, artists and (just for fun - making up words and new language is great fun)...

digi-llectuals.

The commercial instrumentalisation of news and media, politics, economics and religion creates a dustbowl of ideas... 

  The Scottish parliament doesn't do 'god' - but they can do 'sod'

... bigtime!!

Politics is essentially about 'how we live' - and life has been shit for many scots for centuries because they have been ripped from god-given/human right to an inheritance in the land around them.  

The political gathering at holyrood has immense resources to invest in new ground and new spaces of re-publicking and conversation and ideas sharing- yes!! absolutely.   But, with the mandate given at the recent election that they have from the scottish people  they are permissioned now to push for land to be given back, shared, starting with commons and community buy backs in urban as well as non-urban areas- so that many are given the chance to reimagine the unimaginable, a scotland that grows oranges and prisons close down and missiles get melted down into iphone accessories (;-)

where everyone has a wee bit of turf to breathe some free air and turn some dreams into action.

Economics 

Much has been written about this already.  Suffice to say: scotland no longer believes in the mythology narrated by most economists.   Experiments with indie economies are springing up in the most unusual places.   In Edinburgh we are looking at artist economies; encouraging artists of all kinds - from musicians to comics to writers to poets to visual to film to create an economy/economies  - they can have some control over - and not either starve at one extreme or become a dancing market bear at the other.  Alternative economies: eg. gift and vernacular economics, art and time banks - which before were swimming against the current - are springing up all over the uk.

Arts

Talking of the arts - my own area.  Yup - I have my hand up!  guilty.   I and most of my fellow artists have been both marginalised and have participated in their own marginalisation from - the political and economic and religious life  of Scotland - indulging at best in exotica, the last toke on an old tired exhausted scottish empire they are allowed by the priests on both sides of scotland's sacred-secular split.

But I'm on a barefoot path of repentance with sackcloth n shit..  .    .   . ..      . .    .   .. .     . ...  . .. ....    ..... 

Bob Dylan sang about a wind a' blowin:  Well I've lost count of the number of my friends now curious about what lies outside - doon the street... in hidden Scotland and I'm exploring gritty themes in my music - mixing electronic & folk/bluegrass with bothy ballads and lyrical protest tradition.

They are entering the existential ontological boxing ring of scotland (It would be honest to say I've been more like dragged backwards through a hedge into public space - not comfortable I'd rather fiddle with my guitar and noodle with my electronica) to some - like myself - some are monsters experienced as powerless children that we spend years running from:

poverty, scottish empire, religion, politics, war,  alcoholism, prison,  kids homes, housing schemes and places  of deep loneliness, betrayal and neglect  - and others are taking on the big elephant itself: extreme land ownership/disinheritence and its affect on scots distorted relationship with itself, folk and god - and expressed in toxic relationship with land/creation: alcoholism, self-violence and sectarianism.    Booze, Bashing and Bigotry.

but also digging up soil - coming across a wealth of gifts and treasures and stories of big hearted courage and perseverance and comedy to rip open the devil even with a belly laugh...and in dreams forgotten prayers and wishes under the soil and snow of old scotland of new scotlands unheard of and as yet unimagined - unaired on the telly screens of 2011 that is.. 

As Salmond in his speech in the 'moving scotland forward' debate in parliament today says:

'..Bigotry and Booze no more..!     amen and bashing too -bashing self and each other and tall poppies in the garden and those who carry our shadow - the other, the alien, the stranger, the wild, the scapegoat - directing our impotent wrath onto our families and weakest and neglected among us instead standing up to the powers that be and the stories they tell.

so, if there is to be a new politics, new media, new economics, new art in scotland 

we need an eruption of thinkers and communicators that are drenched in - some o this wide and the deep of scotland and not only at times forced to eat poison but also at other times drunk of its promise and vast array of colourful possibilities, can communicate and learn from across the world - with many facing the same struggles and

eat the 'scottish cringe' for breakfast and cry out - more!!! bring it on....

Because although the folk - the people- have won a victory and their eyes see the absurdity of the powers that be trying to catch up - and have walked into a whole new open space of possibility and see the horizon anew -  westminster and our own ghosts from the past won't give up that easy - their last weapons are words and language  and they are prisoners of their ideologies and caught in spiders webs of vested interests.    

And, most importantly, they (and the story of empire and soveriegnty) still will hold on to governing power and status because the actors in this show feel they have nowhere else to go - empire is their ontology - it is for many, like 20th century fundamentalist movements of religion and 21st century secular and economic ones: a place of 'being' - to leave it would feel like death and  

empires do death they don't do dead

empires crucify and torture they don't do crucifixion and don't like pain or shame and embarrassment - no empire wants to die to itself - they want you to die for 'it'.

all empires - as 'dominating' structures of power, economics, arts, media and governance - are at heart  juvenile peter pan spiritualites that have never 'healthily' grown up and have become narcissistic personalities; utterly self serving.   They can emit the 'halo effect' and can disguise its  lust for control and power under garb of our finest stories and hide behind the shield of our best words and stories- like: democracy and jesus, never underestimate it.

So communicators - scotland needs you - drenched in reflection, the odd scar and war wound on your flesh - time to struggle for a new narrative of scotland.. out of her stuck past into future she is now straining and running for..  this is a time to help scotland leave the institution and grow up and get used to responsibility and embrace and enjoy it... 

empires are clever - very clever - and language and story is their favourite battle field.   

separation v growing up - will be 2 takes on the narrative of what is happening to scotland right now; togetherness is a powerful emotional picture

the story of freedom and growing up into maturity by leaving institution or home is also emotional for many of us - and will win in the end but not without a fight.

and imaginative artistic communication that can speak to depths and breadth of scotland and england - will be key - in this 'leaving home and growing up' 

thats what i think anyway -(;-)

 

 

 

 

 

Scotland 2.0

some quick idea examples for alt. Hustings - Scotland 2.0 cribbed from my latest twitter feed (start from bottom):

hag: now repeat, but imagine first that everyone in scotland owns a wee bit of hill or glen and only land is taxed now instead of people -now create ur policy
1 day ago

hag - go on have a go yersel - pick a policy: start with a blank canvas - how would you completely create it from scratch ?
1 day ago

hag or radicalise the tradition of the university - as place for folk to learn their 'place' in the universe - not their place in the class
1 day ago

hag or nu foreign policy, policing & forces - as schools in creative non-violent engagement to protect/free poor from powers -nt powers frm poor
1 day ago

hag or a braw new tax system: based on land to release folks energy and creativity & work as play or a health/learning system around friendship?
1 day ago

hag call it scotland 2.0 ? - perhaps 2.0 would start: - landshare act (everyone has at least small plot if land) - then scotland 3.0 & 4.0... ?
1 day ago

hag so ideas for re-entry? 1. organise open hustings, where artists host all kinds ideas 'different scotlands' - where folk vote ideas not msps
1 day ago

hag stunning lack of ideas in political leaders debates are not only due to banishing of artists-it's also due to artists self imposed exile

1 day ago

Scotland 2.0: injecting the political and media landscape with brave new ideas

I'm in the middle of travelling around scotland tracking various projects and developments and conversations - bumping into the odd politician on the way.

Couple of things erupting from changes sweeping north Africa and here in localities around scotland:

1. Breathtaking range of ideas - not only about the policies we scots would like to shape - but deeper: radical shifting and redesigning of political and economic (and for some: religious) arrangements that we want for haggis land - with ideas circulating in edinburgh and glasgow to open up public fora - that allow some shockingly interesting ideas and world-views to collide in the open air to turn some of this energy and ideas into action

2. on more narrow party political tip - the potential for building momentum and partnering with these ideas and action - are increasingly being spotted by many of my activists, artist and innovator chums in the space between greens and SNP - as well as key actors in the other parties that have appetite for ideas and deep core change in scotland eg land & tax reform - not just tweaking policies.

Stirring chats with friends Josiah Lockhart (grassmarket community project) an amzing connector who has spotted this potential between political and grassroots actors budding right now and Duncan McFadzean, innovative investor/social biz thinker who is calling for innovative cross-city learning and solidarity around key hot spots of change. This came up a little to when Josiah introduced me to green candidate: Alison Johnston yesterday - as we talked about burst of grassroots energy and potential for solidarity spearheaded by a new generation of activists thinkers and creatives wanting to give the scotland project a complete rethink. Pat Kane also explores this - potential for fresh new shoots of political/grassroots solidarity and compares our situation with Catalonia of 5 years ago: http://www.thoughtland.info/2011/04/calmerc-snp-greens.html

also I started floating the idea of hustings - hosted by scottish artists - exploring a stack of alternative Scotlands distiller from these many new flurry of ideas mentioned above but..

instead of voting for people - folk vote for the kind of scotland they want most

as political debates revealed stunning lack of ideas - shrunk to fit a tiny canvas of choice and imagination

we need to let these eruptions of ideas at grassroots - not just from artists bloggers thinkers innovators connectors and justice-makers but the explosion of ideas coming now from all quarters of scottish life and endeavor -

burst into the shrivelled public space -

to inject scotlands political landscape and an increasingly coopted/out of touch media with raw courageous imagination of it's people

This is the big task now ahead of scotland - for BOTH voters and elected

Pat Kane's CalMerc column: Scottish humour goes digital (and goes deeper)

Here's my latest column for the Caledonian Mercury. In a seeming departure from the usual heavy topics, I'm looking at two examples of new Scottish comedy that are completely connected to the digital age - one lighter, one a lot darker, but both confirming Scottish identity and puncturing it at the same time. All comments welcome. 

via www.thoughtland.info

Pat Kane: a sober man looks at a glistening thistle - brilliant!

Francis of Assisi: artist, comic, justice-maker

Woke up this morning with this title in my wee brain. As many of my friends know - I'm fascinated by the connection between these 4 waves of reformation right now, erupting across the world:

Land
economics
Leadership/power

And their sick child:
Sacred V secular divide

So what on earth has this got to do with a renegade medieval monk?

Put simply: Francis shows folks how to attack the domination of a world empire - without becoming infected by that which you attack.

in his case an all encompassing empire - not just sacred but secular mixed together - and utterly enslaving.

Francis besieged empire:

1. With comedy and tricksterism: when the pope dismissed him and his badly dressed mates by telling him to preach to the pigs outside - they did so with theatrical abandon, turned the city into a mass of hysterics - pope forced to listen to and grant their requests.

2. True anarchism: they refused to setup leper charities and professional roles- but insisted on friendship instead by eating and hanging with diseased leper chums (attack on the pretense of empire which uses charity and professionalism and clientism as shield and cover)

3. Cracking art installations - francis didnt paint the growing war between church and Muslim - he stood right in the middle of the battlefield as some artists did in no mans land in ww1 and ghandi did in India - with his own body (he was respected by both sides) - his kind of art installation.

4. he called poverty - his girlfriend - lady poverty - not to romanticise it ( as most books about him do) but quite the opposite - to scandalise and shame the wealthy christian empire of his day -

5. he understood - that poverty is caused on purpose by the powers that be - is robbery and starvation of resources for the poor to create for themselves - economics, language and world - then look on in disgust at their ' passivity'
'lack of education and ambition' -
Francis and his chums - worked with Poorest villages to create their own festivals - to recover sense of dignity, take back economics and show defiance toward the powers that be's narration of this story - and from a taste of such recovered imagination and bold DIY economics - a people can then begin to take the land back

Aye the dude has got a lot to teach us methinks

What has this got to do with - land, economic and political reform sweeping through the world today ?

and what part to play has - healing the secular sacred divide nave to play in this reform?

Next time ...

guerilla funding: scotland style

Social edge: Good site for social innovators - some of us were wondering about adding this to the mix: 

A lot of us around Scotland (also connected with growing number of friends in england wales and northern ireland) are experimenting with: guerilla funding.  

It's a bit like guerilla gardening but with moneybombs instead of seedbombs.  Throwing it into scotland's wildest places - places - that don't seem to appear on radar of either existing funders and banks/micro-creditors.  Influences: gaelic/native forms of vernacular economics that still exist in some parts of scotland (and on the housing estate where I spent my childhood) and local chats and mini-experiments with 'gift - economics' in edinburgh over the last 10 years.  

We wanted to avoid 'feedback loops' involved in giving loans and the 'charity' feeling and 'strings' of grants.   We feel there is still lots of scope for micro-finance and micro-loans for cottage industry and other startups - especially in wild and ignored and disinherited places of scotland - which we would argue are also the most innovative and creative; the most creative places and folk are the most starved of resources.  But we wanted to try something fresh and incarnational ( ie bursting from the felt ontology of folks here in scotland) - something that had the smells and textures and colours of scotland - living fragments of hot tradition, still praxised among its poorest and most hidden here.

some playful values: small bags of money - face to face- wild places - bottom up - DIY - innovative ideas & stories - peer-led - grassroots native wisdom and learning - authentic voices - simple and fast to do  - and most importantly: no strings 

Its not about capitalism,  its definitely not about charity,  its about restitution; in the most 'concentrated land ownership among the fewest' chunk of rock and earth at the backside of europe: it's all about the taking and giving back: the land! 

and its about fun (;-)

IDEA 3: The Torch Tour

just uploaded -  IDEA 3: The Scottish Torch Tour experiment 

from my 'future scotland blog' - try your own country wide- 'guerilla funding experiment'. 

1. Get together a small pot of money

2. Road trip around your country: turn the map upside down, prepare to look at your country differently, go where you have not gone, search for its hidden stories, its grassroots people, justice-mad artists, imaginative activists - look in its forgotten places, look for its big-hearted folk who give a monkeys, and then ask them: what is your dream for this place; your town, city.. your back yard?

3. Ask them what they need to turn these dreams into action; to turn these embers into a wee fire

4. Give them money to make a start, help find others to help locally 

- move on and repeat - attach absolutely no strings!  - see what happens next 

for an example of the above in 2010 and more future scotland ideas :: jump

Sloth-casting: the BBC and fastfood news

The BBC are churning out fast food and its making us as a nation - sick!

John Pilger gives us a good example of particular news areas where BBC presenters and reporters seem to be, 'cooking the news' to suit the BBC. 

I was noticing how much of it  is due to a kind of laziness; a lack of self-reflection & criticism within itself - (particularly their use of power).  In ye olde religious language, the word for this would be: sloth.  

Sloth is also, promoted by excessive virtuality of powerful organisations; where one's life, wages, work, life - become more and more funded by powers - perspective becomes disembodied from land and place and people - and the awkward voices, unusual stories and stark critique from the heather and the desert - need to be 'managed' and 'massaged' to fit the core 'story' of the organisation.  

For example:  let's say, the core story of the BBC is:

'We the BBC are unbiased about search for truth, we are for quality, and we are for 'all' the people'.  

But watch what happens, when a voice or story comes up that runs against the grain of their core story: there is a feeling of being: 'threatened' so re-framing, massaging and fast food cooking automatically kicks in to protect 'the BBC story' - with little or no sustained self-critique -which ends up shutting down or coopting little awkward stories and voices at the margins of their worldview, in order to diffuse their - perceived effect or danger.  

These little contrary stories are felt by the big media to deemed to be 'dangerous' - to be diffused or if possible coopted - if useful to strengthen the media company's own story.  But what we can learn from this, I would argue,  is something far more interesting:

the armour surrounding big media/power creates a false consciousness which is paper thin and those within it, deep down, KNOW IT. 

To find out what is holding this lo-self-critical, or 'false consciouness' in place - we have to ask:  Q what are the rewards for participants in large media organisations like the BBC? 

The armour or forcefield that surrounds much of the big media (and this occurs as well in political, religious, cultic and financial structures and stories) and often prevents it from hearing criticism from the ground and its own people's internal critique - is held by the silver stickytape of certain belief about itself and the world around it.

Pilger - gives us a hint in his blogpost: flying the flag; faking the news: in the context of wikileaks and european resistance to gov war policy: it offers those within its thin sticky walls: an ontological rock of 'inner peace or certainty' - but it is based on a pretty big lie and a peace, for most on front lines of reporting - very difficult to maintain in face of reality - more like building on sand?, pilger puts it better:

'unaccountable power rests on the false reality that no popular resistance works.. and it does!

media (as well as economics, politics and art) - should be radically practiced 'as if people mattered' - regardless if our precious myths about ourselves and our nations and organsiations in the process - crumple a wee bit.

If our big holy stories crumble a bit - our false consciousness fragments a bit - our wee clan gods tumble from their thrones - in the face of truth from a tiny awkward place that demands us to hear with ears- nay even better: invites friendship - big hearted courageous friendship with truth and folk and especially, perhaps, those we fear the most.

we need less fast food media journalism and TV -  we need a revolution in scottish media and art that engages the land and folk face to face and gives a damn about the lies and the sloth in the scottish public space..

we need jamie oliver journalists, authors, media communicators, writers, activists, artists, scholars, filmakers, songsmiths and poets of independant spirit - to clear away some green mist out of the kitchen and start cooking some tasty, healthy food - gie honest food-  food that puts the red back intae oor peely wally scottish cheeks again (;-)  

 

Tesco Tax (part 2)

Just to add to my last wee post re: the media framing, looping and lazy hyperlinking between scottish and world news media around the this story: 

8,000 new jobs at risk from SNP's Tesco tax

Here are 2 ways of countering the roars of the supermarket voices - Newsnet Scotland's Economy Editor,  Alex Porter: 1. changes the title to highlight what has been backgrounded  and 2. then reads against the grain of the argument; by asking: what information is missing, what is being left out here? whose voices are being dismissed or missed out here: 

1. Title changes to: SNP supermarket tax will boost local communities

2. The article then fills in what is missing re: benefits of this proposed tax on local farms and economy and question dangers and fearmongering by the supermarket lions.  

Counter arguments to the roaring ones are added by many of the commenters: Legerwood, comments on Alex porter's post, stating that what is being proposed is:  '30 million levy' out of their profits which amount to '100's of billions to billions'; about: '£150-£160 million per day' (and repeats point on Alex follow up post here)

And we could ofcourse draw these implications of scale out a little further:

So!! the Scottish gov propose a tax of their profits for that year = that is: the time it takes to generate profits in one leisurely lunch break!! 

See Alex' follow up post to follow next day's counter arguments gain ground: Lib Dems U-turn as business backs SNP supermarket tax

In all of this though, Mike Small, Bella caledonia, in his posting entitled: Supermarket Sweep: spells out some stark political implications for us haggis eaters; and warns us that capitulating to these powerful superbodies could further toxify our democratic structures and disempower the social capital that gives life to our economy:

'The case presents a test case for not just the SNP Govt – rightly criticised for caving in to Trump and being ‘under the influence’ of big business like Brian Soutar – but for the body politic. This is about who makes decisions and what influence the elected government can wield. As one poster put it ‘I didn’t vote ASDA or TESCO’

Whew - I was getting worried there -  Scottish journalism that 'engages the powers that be' is alive and well after all.

fish fight

My step dad Lenny was a well known aberdeen fisherman - my memories of him were his arrival every two weeks on our doorstep of my housing estate hoosy - with a big, wriggling, black bag of fish from his boat's latest catch.

The great heartbreak of his life - was having to throw away mountains of fish that could have fed his people - I agree with osama on this - bout time!  There must be a better way of conserving precious fish life in the North Sea - we must find a better way - To sign petition: www.fishfight.net

Tesco Tax: lessons in biasing stories via 'media framing, looping and lazy hyperlinking'

THE TESCO TAX 

It is a story that involves an argument between a government and the UK's 4 biggest Supermarkets about a proposed tax levy imposed on them: 

1. Scottish Government argues, that it will help Scotland's Recovery: Swinney's proposal for 2010/11 involving an additional tax levy for the largest supermarkets - to bring in 30 million, arguing that: 'those with the broadest shoulders should bear more of the burden during hard times'; this income will help scotland's recovery.

2. Supermarkets argue, that it will harm Scotland's recovery: The big four supermarkets - Sainsbury's, Tesco, Asda and Morrisons - and the Scottish Retail Consortium (SRC) - do not agree with this proposal and threaten to respond by changing their plans to expand their Scottish base; this income will destroy scotland's recovery.

Firstly, let's look at how Andrew Whitaker and Martin Flanagan at the Scotsman frame this particular story (Published: 13 January 2011 - 0:50 am):

a/ They foreground argument No 2. in the title: 8,000 new jobs 'at risk' from SNP's Tesco Tax

b/ Then supermarket voices that hold argument 2. are 'looped' with slight variations: "a damper" on job creation, 'sparked a storm of criticism',  "terrible" consequences for investment, 'unfair tax on successful businesses' are sprinkled throughout the news article - not much looping from argument 1.

This would not be enough to 'grow' a story with a bias-  the phenomena of: 'lazy hyperlinking, looping and uncritical referencing' will allow a 'framed' story to travel around the net: 

At 7am - James Hall at the Telegraph picks up the story over his toast and english marmalade :  Tax plan could force sainsburys to rethink Scottish expansion (forced??) - not hyperlinked but similar frame.

At 9:37 am-  Tim Farrand at Bloomberg links to the Scotsman Tesco tax story  - '8000 new jobs 'at risk' from Retail tax plan'   

11am - the drum  runs with a brief summary of the story (inc. just one quote - and from an unamed 'sainsbury spokesman').  This continues throughout the day - other news media take up the story;  latest - at 3 pm Discount Vouchers news gives us: '8000 jobs threatened by proposed Scottish tax'.

This is a lesson on how to frame a story - towards the following agreed consensus: the proposed tax plan on the 4 biggest will be bad for scotland's recovery.  Not a million miles from Noam Chomsky's 'manufacturing consent' - which exposes editorial bias in corporate owned news and media.   This unconscious bias is alive and well in the Uk and Scottish media.    

What is the point of raising all this?

Well, we may not feel able to influence big news media to change their way of reporting - but we can be aware of the mechanisms of: 'framing' and 'looping' and 'lazy hyperlinking' of breaking news without critiquing bias - especially where influential powers that be, that news and media may be dependant on for their future, are being given more of their lions share of 'voice'.     Armed with this 'literacy' we can learn how to 'read against the grain' and listen to and foreground the marginal voices and stories hidden behind the scenes in our art, music, filmaking, reporting and storytelling - the voices and stories often impacted the most by decisions made by those who get to roar the loudest.

Brief thoughts on today's Scottish artists, activists, saints and sinners, and Pat Kane's 'Play Ethic'

Pat Kane has done some great thinking and detailed writing on the subject of the play ethic - a badly needed antidote to the scottish 'work ethic' which was machine tooled and honed among the post-reformation cogs and wires of scotland's superfast industrialisation and empire.

His thoughts on the deaths of two of scotland's finest in 2010: Poet, Edwin Morgan and Clydeside's Jimmy Reid, ends with some words, I think of clarity and, even, comic hope - in his article for the Online Scottish news and analysis site: Caledonian Mercury, entitled: How we swapped leisure for money, overwork and consumerism, he writes: 

'Between the gay modernist and the Govan communist there’s a reservoir of possibilities for the Scottish future that shows no signs of drying up'

A reservoir of possibilities, and I would add, in these days of pompous edicts about the undeserved poor and framing of the media by our westminsterial political class about the 'inevitability' of our situation calling for 'bricks without straw' from a people increasingly enslaved to debt and endless work - a lifegiving reservoir of play.

Also, as has been explored already in various initiaves like: liberation brunch here in edinburgh -  that this no-mans land of playful possibility in scotland - signals an invitation to both artist and activist - and even more radical, if you can accept it: saint and sinner; religious and secular worldview holders - to put down your guns and get on to this pitch; this no-man's land-  this bombed field, to play together - again.   Even if also - like my great grandad playing football with german and french soldiers one christmas eve night in trenches of first world war- it means getting your arm blown off by army generals from both sides.    

In the spirit of Morgan and Reid and young bekilted Spuds with their new german friends that christmas eve on land, demarcated by empire as 'fearful, dangerous, no-one's land' - let's sink bold feet into this muddy ground and drink with our enemies, share our food and cheer each other big-heartedly - let's ignore the machine gun fire from the powers that be and play 'our' game on a soil rich with such a past; a lush possible place where folk have always tasted, however briefly, such a future.

IDEA 2: scottish oranges; make haggisland good to eat

Just uploaded Idea 2 to future scotland  - Make Haggisland incredibly good to eat.  

Imagine scotland covered in orange groves - and just about everything else - Yum!  Move from a Scottish economy based on an old colonised wasteland for the lairded few to shared place for the Mcmany: where we can all grow stuff to eat...

where 6 million people experience the God given dignity - the god given right- of being creators and producers and watch amazed - as our prisons empty

No harm in imagining... check out the link for more future scotland madness (;-)

future scotland blog: 100 ideas for liberation, imagination and action in haggisland

I've just created this new posterous blog: 

FUTURE SCOTLAND 100 sketchbook ideas for liberation, imagination and action in haggisland.

I'm going to use it like a store and a sketchpad - and not only come up with but also look for all manner of mad ideas for new art, crazy thinking and liberating action from all kinds of folk around scotland about what a future Scotland might look like - today.

Liberation Scotland: call to artists and activists - update

Call to artists and activists in scotland 2011 to engage in liberation:

First gathering of the curious artist activist at The liberation brunch today was brill - from liberation in housing estates to revolution in scottish artist studios- Frans wuytack and the caracas slums in venezuela inspired us in Scotland to get our arses into gear

Thanks all for taking part -
hannah kitchen who is a musician and activist - for sparklin beautiful voice and andy philip for his gritty scottish rhyme - and here's a list of folks and projects around edinburgh... who came..

Pat Kane, Thoughtland: Scotland should build green-tech not warships

Pat Kane on reimagining scotlands future Industries - from warships to green-tech

Frans, the ex priest artist activist involved in Caracas liberation movement in Venezuela - who met with a bunch of us: artists and activists from estates in Edinburgh and Glasgow - talked about this need for Scotland to grasp it's own creative future and leave Scotland - as empire's little dr Frankenstein - in the dustbin of history.   

Here Pat's latest column for the Caledonian Mercury -critiques Scottish politicians of all stripes coming together to preserve the right for Clydeside shipyards to build weapons of mid-range destruction - and asks: Does the military-industrial complex impose a ceiling on the Scottish political imagination? 

 

 

Liberation Scotland - the story of Spud and the beaches of Dunkirk

Part 2 of liberation Scotland ... meet Spud number 2 - a rear guard at the beaches of Dunkirk at the beginning of world war 2.

My great granda spud thomson had a son - his name too was charlie Thomson - boxer, poet, house painter and kilted rear gunner - and his name too was spud- he with his mates were the last to leave Dunkirk beach.

By the way, Everyone with last name Thomson and a kilt was called 'spud' - a kind of 'Everyman' Scottish soldier, no one knows who first started called thomson warriors spuds. Anyway he was quite a character - a fierce boxer, larger than life comic, the company's 'sarge' and story teller.

creative survival guide

A great down to earth 'being creative' survival guide from Hugh Macleod; here are 37 hints n tips from his Blog:

1. Ignore everybody.

2. The idea doesn’t have to be big. It just has to be yours.

3. Put the hours in.

4. If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being “discovered” by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.

5. You are responsible for your own experience.

6. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.

7. Keep your day job.

Liberation Scotland: Spud and a spot of christmas Eve football in the trenches of world war 1

Here's a wee story of scottish liberation. Hope you enjoy it.

Two sides of my family faced the sharp end of the British empire: charlie's family forced out of the highlands to tough landless slavery wandering farmlands for work in North East Scotland, and michael, escaping famine in Mayo in Ireland in 1800s, where the dead, it was said lay in heaps, to land in fishing port of Aberdeen. Both came about as result of government policies, unleashing a wave of land grabbing by those in power - tricking and forcing folk off the land into slavery, destitution and starvation - from native lands in America to farmlands of India and outback of Australia to coasts of ireland and highlands of Scotland. Leaving them with choice: fishing work, farm work or leave the country. 

My great granda Charlie (spud) Thomson escaped drifter/farmwork of his forebears, and found work as a tailor - a huge opportunity for the lad. But at age 19, like many kids in Scotland, he was drafted into the army and sent into the trenches of world war 1... it was christmas eve, there was a truce, germans, italians, french - met in no-mans land ... kilts started flying, carols singing, cigs and whisky sharing- a game of football started ... laughter... 'the people, the folk '- found each other - 

then the sound of machine gun fire cracked the night air...

iPad blogging

Trying out blogging from my iPad
- Posted using BlogPress app

Location:Scone Gardens,Edinburgh,United Kingdom

Boris, the Mayor of London by silencing his own people - betrays England

An odd thing for a scot like to to say but here goes... 

Empire has erased the memory of our english brothers and sisters as it has done ours - taking back the land by the poor, by powerless artist or activist - awakens it.  

Boris - professor of one who loves the english community, by using his considerable powers to silence these few voices, is violating the people of England - essentially: an act of treason against against his own people.

and the english press sleeps...

 

aaah! my kinda theologian... preach it brother!

Just uploaded my latest track 'to heal scotland'

hi all- check it, enjoy! for other tracks / download go to my soundcloud website

walk a million miles (to heal scotland) by mcbee (paul T)