By site member ‘Joker’.
Forgive the dramatic tone within the title... but that is a question I've asked myself lately.
I've been a subscriber to Newsnet Scotland since its inception as a fortnightly newsletter sent via e-mail. Many months on now, it's blossomed into a professionally designed and frequently updated news site that I visit every morning, afternoon and evening. I've even made several donations.
The reporting is top-notch. The articles are drawing comments that almost universally praise the quality and consistency contained therein. Echoes of "... if only the people knew", and "... the truth must be heard" abound in the halls.
Like the rest of you, I want to see Scotland flourish in a similar manner with a true leader at the helm. I believe at present that Alex Salmond is that man, however... I am not writing this to convert anyone to a political "side". I am encouraging a different idea: Democracy.
In Newsnet Scotland, at last, we actually have a site that reports the unbiased truth. Real information, which other countries take for granted, we view as an unexpected luxury. The corruption at Glasgow City Council, the bias of the BBC, the newspaper propaganda - things that, if people knew about them - would lead to outrage being aimed at the establishment.
It is an establishment that treats us with contempt, restricts our choices, impedes our development, and does so without regret or remorse. We do not move forward, we do not move back. We remain in a state of arrest, at the will of those who benefit from us. All accomplished through control, manipulation and misinformation. We are a caged animal, we have been beaten onto our knees for so long that we have almost grown to accept it.
Anyone who has read Fahrenheit 451 will recognise our current situation.
It's a sad state of affairs resulting from a story that has gone on for several chapters too long. The lies, deceit, and corruption... it decays our national pride with each passing day. Things need to change.
The natural and obvious counterbalance to lies and misinformation... is truth and information. Objective fact, balanced reporting, and considered judgement. With these tools, the tidal wave of information and progress cannot be so easily controlled. Leaks will appear, information will escape, people will talk, ideas will form... and progress is inevitable. The artificial dam of lies will collapse under the pressure of a hundred thousand voices that cannot be silenced, all demanding their freedom and deserved justice.
This brings me to my original point: Democracy.
In order for the system to work, the public must be informed. The reality of our situation is that the bulk of the voting public are not informed. Single mothers, single fathers, busy parents, stressed students... people from every sect of society who do not have the time to find information that is not readily available, even deliberately obscured, are being denied their right to an informed vote. This is the real tragedy of Scotland, ongoing. These are the people who decide elections.
For our Democracy to be corrupted in this manner is unacceptable. Whatever party people vote for, the vote MUST be INFORMED. They must know not only WHO they vote for, but also WHAT. Names, labels and history be damned, be it Labour, Conservative, SNP or another. Knowledge of the here and now is the key. The knowledge to make an informed decision based on reason; to make a judgement on who is the best qualified leader today.
An uninformed choice is no choice at all, it is the enemy of democracy. This is the enemy that we face now.
This site is a lone voice in a crescendo of loud and calculated lies. It represents those of us who lack the resources with which to promote their messages above the white noise. It is never mentioned on the news. It will never appear in the newspapers. The BBC have banned any mention of this website from BBC blogs. The villain of democracy is not an enemy with a gun or a knife. It is a silent aggressor; a stealth like presence that stalks and censors us every day. How do we fight something like that?
I read the answer in a comment on this very website. We do not oppose the media.
We REPLACE them. We BECOME them.
We spread the facts as widely and frequently as possible. We counter their manufactured negativity with REAL positivity. We INFORM the people and let our facts carry themselves over the media propaganda. There are many of us. Can we be silenced? No.
This brings me back to the title. What have I done? I asked myself that recently, and the answer was "almost nothing". I hadn't done anything other than read the articles, nod my head, agree vehemently with the comments, and be outraged. Why wasn't I emailing this site to my friends who would be interested? Why wasn't I printing articles off and sticking them on notice boards? Why wasn't I recognising that we have an opportunity HERE and NOW to get the word out to people? Why wasn't I leaving stacks of print-outs in places where people would see them?
I was lazy, without even realising it. The information is here, and the number of users seems to be growing... but the election is drawing ever closer. How many people out there still don't know how corrupt Labour has become? How many are in blissful ignorance of the truth? How can we spread the word FASTER? People want the truth. All we need to do is provide it.
The reality of our situation is that we cannot rely on the SNP to fight the uphill battle themselves. Nor can we expect sites such as this one to fight the lies themselves. The outpouring of support for the SNP in light of the legal case against the BBC shows that people DO believe in Scotland. They raised £50,000 in 48 hours with a single call to arms. Scotland still has the energy that we are famed for, that has served us in centuries past. It's just sleeping, made sluggish through deceit. It's confused, unfocused, and diluted by the torrent of nonsense we are subjected to every day by the puppet-masters. Sites such as this one, and several others, can unite that energy however, and break the barriers that constrain us.
My message here is simple: Get out there, and spread this around. Time is short. Print articles, email links, post it to facebook, post links on other sites (in a non-disruptive fashion of course), and let people see what the establishment doesn't want them to. Tell people that the BBC are even censoring this website on their blogs. Leave a small bundle of articles on a desk at work. Reach the common person and let them know what's going on.
Everything you do, post it into the comments of this article. If you tell people... then let site readers know, let’s encourage one another. If you post it onto a public board, be it on the internet or a real notice board... inform the site. We can work together better than if apart. If others see us leading by example, they will follow and do the same, knowing that they are not the only one. Community is our strength.
Whichever way people choose to vote is their own choice... as it should always be.
We do not want to influence their vote, only inform it. So long as they cast that vote as an informed voter in a true democracy, instead of a slave to a corrupt system, our mission and goal will have been achieved.
It's about time we had our country back, and I'm sure the rest of you wouldn't disagree. Let's start today. Scotland is famed for its inexhaustible fund of self-belief and energy. It only needs to be released.
We can do it.
Comments
Ignore the media! Don't buy their papers. Cut off their revenue!
Write to them and let them know why you are cancelling your copy of the "Record" etc. (You can "keep an eye" on what they are up to at the local Library.)
Let us circumnavigate the media.
WE BECOME the media.
WE tell the "story"
"Tell 5 to Tell 5"
With regard to "Newsnetnet Scotland" you wrote
"It is never mentioned on the news. It will never appear in the newspapers. The BBC have banned any mention of this website from BBC blogs."
I suspect this will change in the very near future. Keep an eye out / ear open for mentions of NNS on MSM soon.
Watch this space and keep the faith!
"Tell 5 to Tell 5"
remember when it happens it shows they are worried ,they are on the back foot and it will definitely get worse before it gets better.
when that happens be strong don't lower yourselves to their standards ,we have the truth on our side.they have nothing positive to say about anything
Sid
Keep on working for Scottish independence.
Newsnet's strength is that it allows free debate, something we should never lose in a democracy. It's an old cliche, but thousands of people died to ensure that right to a free debate. It saddens me that certain groups in the "establishment" seeks to curtail that right.
I am collecting all the ideas people have had about campaigning and publicising this site. I am doing this for the 'Smeddum' group which you can find details about in the Campaign Forum. There are different categories of ideas, but here are some of the ideas I have collected which you can do today.
Individual ideas – things you can do today
Register as a member of Newsnet Scotland.
Make a donation to Newsnet Scotland.
Put an ad in a local paper/magazine.
Print out a leaflet or poster for Newsnet Scotland from the ‘Campaign’ forum. There are 4 possible ones in there. Hand them out in the street, at your work, put a poster up at your work etc.
Add a flyer or banner from Newsnet Scotland’s website to your emails. These are also found in the Campaign forum.
Put ‘newsnetscotlan d.com’ below your signature on emails.
Get a t-shirt made with ‘newsnet Scotland’ on it.
Tell 5 to tell 5 campaign – tell as many people as you can about Newsnet Scotland through emails, facebook, leaflets, letters, phone-calls, posters, blogs, posts on related sites, posts on un-related sites, twitter and any other innovative ways you can think of.
At football matches, or other large events, give out leaflets or get a t-shirt printed with ‘Newsnet Scotland’ on it to bring attention to the website.
At football matches or big sporting events, take a flag of St. Andrew’s cross, printed with ‘Newsnet Scotland’ over the top. This might just make it onto the TV.
Get car stickers made, put one on your car.
Install flashblock and adblock to your web browser. That way you read MSM articles but they don't get paid by the advertisers.
Order the ‘Scots Independent’ from your local newsagent. It is a monthly paper, not expensive £1.50 per issue. Supports SNP but is independent from the SNP. Ask your newsagent to stock more issues of it. If it gets more money it will be able to do more.
Sell the Scots Independent around pubs (if this is allowed), in the street, or in Shopping centres. Donate the profits.
Contact SI and offer to help distribute the special issue which will be put out for the election in May.
Print out the QR-code. If your mobile can scan barcodes it will read it as www.newsnetscotland .com". The site can then be visited it on your mobile device. It's a way to maybe capture some younger readers. Print up some stickers of this and place these in public places. (sorry couldn't get this to appear in this post but it appears in an earlier post).
Individually I can do little, but I try. I blog on the BBC site to annoy the establishment and the unionists. I try and spread the news net Scotland site through face book, I talk to my neighbours and explain to them the benefits of independence. Its amazing the lack of knowledge and understanding their is out their. We have to remember that 90% of the population have no inherent interest in politics and readily believe the unionist crap as there is no one to tell them different. If we want independence we must engage with our friends neighbours and work colleagues to spread the "gospel' of independence. If you have friends on facebook copy the newsnet link and paste it on your site for all your friends to see. If one of your workmates raises an issue, put forward the independence message. Like early Christian preachers we have to all do our own little bit to spread the word.
We should be saying don't you fear newsnet Scotland. Don't you forget, newsnet Scotland, more than any other news organisation in Scotland, tells the truth.
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer.
As I said, Bring it on! The sooner we get to, and get through the second stage, the sooner we get to stage three and its inevitable consequence of independence for Scotland and her people.
The way in which political debate and coverage has become corrupted and skewed by almost the entire media, is akin to what happens in a dictatorship.
It is a disgrace.
When the corrupt Scottish media start mentioning NEWSNET SCOTLAND then we know we are winning.
We must bring this site to the attention of everybody, and show ALL Scots just how they are being lied to and misled by organisations such as the BBC.
On every blog, no matter what the subject, make sure you include the link to Newsnet Scotland.
Every day, I get angrier and angrier at the fact that the media in Scotland is lying and misleading on a daily basis.
It is wrong. It should not be happening in a democracy.
I said it many, many weeks ago, but if they stick to their principles, this site WILL become one of the most important media sites in Scotland.
As other have previously pointed out, there is a famous Ghandi quote that is very pertinent here;
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win".
When they start mocking this site, then you can know for sure that they feel very threatened.
The game really is a bogey for the unionist liars.
Further slogans could be "Catch the TRUTH with the NEWSNET".
Any site that attempts to promote fear of this site, simply reply and ask for substantive examples of WHAT should be feared, and WHY. Make them back their claims up. That's the weakness of the lies. They dissolve under scrutiny.
Censorship is the enemy of a developed society. Let information and words fight an open battle. The truth will always win and speak for itself in the end, without needing the establishment to quell either beforehand.
Likewise, the public are not stupid. If they hear both sides, they can make their own informed decision over which is correct.
May we include your designs in our still small, but growing, repository of Newsnet Scotland Promotional Material in the SMEDDUM group?
I will also in the next post(because of text length restrictions here) add an extract from another section in Smeddum where the possibility of utilising European legislation via the ECHR is being looked at.
It is part of the commentary on a recent ruling by the ECHR in respect of a complaint about the bias of the media in Moldova. The complaint was upheld.
Now Britain/Scotland isn't Moldova but is our media all that better? It's certainly getting worse.
Anyway a lot of the comments seem relevant to our situation and your comments on democracy to me.
TBC
Part of commentary on the recent ECHR ruling by Dirk Voorhoof, a Belgian media regulator.
"In its judgment, the European Court took as the starting point of its reasoning the fundamental truism that there can be no democracy without pluralism. A situation whereby a powerful economic or political group in a society is permitted to obtain a position of dominance over the audiovisual media and thereby exercise pressure on broadcasters and eventually curtail their editorial freedom undermines the fundamental role of freedom of expression in a democratic society, as enshrined in Article 10 of the Convention, in particular where it serves to impart information and ideas of general interest, which the public is moreover entitled to receive. The Court further observed that it is the State itself that must be the ultimate guarantor of pluralism and that the State has a duty to ensure that the public has access through television and radio to impartial and accurate information and a range of opinions and comments, reflecting the diversity of political outlook within the country. Journalists and other professionals working in the audiovisual media should not be prevented from imparting this information and commentary. Furthermore, it is indispensable for the proper functioning of democracy that a (dominant) public broadcaster transmits impartial, independent and balanced news, information and comment and, in addition, provides a forum for public discussion in which as broad a spectrum as possible of views and opinions can be expressed."
If not, just copy/paste the image into the email.
I say this because think of how the media was at the time they allowed McCarthy7 to institute a society based on fear something that was later followed up with the Patriot Act where if you spoke out against the powers that be you were branded unAmerican. It seems that to go against the Unionist parties is to be unBritish. The problem is that the majority of the MSM forget that being British is not the same as being English.
I used to take pride about being British but I was always more proud of being Scottish now I have had enough of being told how we should be thankful to be British. The so-called British should be thankful that they have Scotland as friends and allies which is what i want us to be.
How on earth is THAT a danger?
The PUBLIC are the ones who decide.
I'm just back from putting copies of The Scots Independent through doors in Aberdeenshire. A small contribution but every little helps.
jim Lynch: jim@scotsindepe ndent.org
They responded very quickly - I got delivery about a week after first contact.
Good luck.
Thanks I don't think I was clear about what I wanted. It was the banner put up by Chickmac that is designed to go on emails and can be set up so that when it's clicked on it directs the reader to this site It's a great idea as you know how curious folk are
Joker
Thanks I don't think I was clear about what I wanted. It was the banner put up by Chickmac that is designed to go on emails and can be set up so that when it's clicked on it directs the reader to this site It's a great idea as you know how curious folk are
Yes the animated gif was designed to fit in a signature or go on a website or html email.
Four years ago, when most folk used Outlook Express you could have in your signature, in adition to your name, an animated gif which when you clicked on it, took you to the site you wanted. This was used for Independence First with marqueeing gifs (flying across the bottom of your email).
However it appears that most email browsers no longer support this.(That's progress for you).
Although most still allow an animated GIF minus the hyperlink.
When used on websites or embedded within html email bodies, the gif can still be set as a hyperlink to NS, its just the signature usage which has changed.
Therefore I am going to add the newsnetscotland .com to the banner so folk can type the address in manually if it is used in a sig. And it is still perhaps worthwhile to include in a sig as then it is automatically included on future emails for zero effort.
aangirfan.blogspot.com/.../...
Scotland is probably unique in the world in having its most popular political party, its government, fundamentally opposed by all of the mainstream media in the country without exception. The encouraging thing is that despite that deeply bizarre situation, despite all the powerful forces allied against it and the absence of anything approaching a level playing-field, the SNP is STILL the most popular political party in the country, gaining the most parliamentary seats without a single mainstream newspaper anything other than implacably hostile to its raison d’etre.
That gives us a great position to start from.
The way forward, as you and others have emphasised, is to BECOME the media and I am beyond delighted that Newsnet Scotland is here and growing. The only way the Unionists can continue denying us our freedom is by continuing to deny the cause of freedom a voice. Like, I am sure, many people reading this, over the years I have heard virtually every conceivable argument against Scottish independence: ‘it’s too late – it would have been fine in the seventies when the oil was discovered’; ‘it’s too early – we’re not ready yet’, ‘we’re too wee’, ‘it would be too expensive’, ‘we’re too dependent on England’, ‘it would be too much upheaval’, ‘we’d need to reapply to get into the EU and they might not have us’, ‘I’ve got friends and family in England’ etc etc… They all have one thing in common: none of them stands up to the slightest degree of scrutiny. They are all, at heart, based on fear and lack of confidence. (Or, in the case of the small minority of Scots who do very well out of the Union, vested interests – another kind of fear.)
The cause of Scottish independence is not, essentially, radical however much it might look so through the warped Unionist filter. It is simply natural; independence is the natural state for a country, not to be feared but embraced. What we are about is nothing more or less than normalising the constitutional arrangements of our country. Once that message gets across – and Newsnet Scotland is in the vanguard of this and to be supported in all the ways you describe - it’s game over.
We get well informed news and opinion that's not written through the prism of the pro-Unionist press.
That's why the BBC, STV and the so called Scottish newspapers will blankout this website.
I'm positive Newsnet Scotland will grow and grow to a point where it cannot be ignored by our Unionist media.
The Megrahi charade combined with the GCC stories was the last straw for me. You now have my complete support newsnet. Good luck and keep up the good work.
My only suggestion would be to add some non-political stories, perhaps interviews with celebrities who support the ethos of the site. It worked for the Big Issue. It wouldn't make any difference to me, I love the site as it is, but it might draw other people in. The only people reading the site are already interested in politics - we need to inform the masses.
I look forward to receiveing a copy which I would be able to onpass to my very independence minded friends and relatives.
Great to have you here.
The newsletter isn't around anymore, all the content is on this site nowadays. You can print the articles off and hand them around, or email them with the envelope icon that is at the top of each one.
But it is always good to see what Scotland's enemies are saying (online of course) and from that .....well, we all know the Saying ' Give them enough rope'
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