Can you identify the city?
A) Baltimore.
B) Detroit.
C) St. Louis.
D) Tacoma.
Actually it's Glasgow, Scotland.
Yes, indeed. They are having a referendum in Scotland today on independence.
Meanwhile, poverty, health, and employment figures in parts of Glasgow are third world.
Sorry if I offend any delicate sensibilities - I'm good at doing so.
But I am offended that in some Glasgow neighborhoods the male life expectancy is 54 years. While Alex Salmond trots around Scotland promising 16 year olds the right to vote in the referendum, another generation of young people stare at crushing poverty, joblessness, and bombed-out neighborhoods.
http://www.who.int/...
I am offended that more than half of all children in parts of Glasgow live in poverty. I could give a shit about the map of Scottish National Party electoral strength. The map I see is the one of childhood poverty - with its bulls-eye in Glasgow.
Childhood Poverty Rates in Scotland
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/...
Sound familiar? Yeah, it could be Baltimore, Detroit, St. Louis, or Tacoma. The neoliberal destruction of the working class is a worldwide phenomena. The burned out shells, weed-filled lots, and drugs in the streets are the same - an utter contempt for working people in historic industrial cities across Europe and North America. Not only does independence for Scotland do nothing about it, it is a three-card monte game - stealing the political energies of the left.
Yeah, the Brits have been pricks over the past three centuries, but independence for Scotland is a misguided exercise in masturbation. Whacha gonna do when the oil runs out? Or if the Shetlands and Orkneys break away from Scotland and take their oil with them? Wait a minute - - they can't do that! Oh, yes they can and will.
http://www.motherjones.com/...
The reason that yours truly along will tens of millions of other Americans, Canadians, Australians, and New Zealanders claim Scots-Irish heritage is because Scotland was so fucking poor for most of its history. And Scots soldiers were usually at the forefront of British imperial expeditions - whether in the Indian Raj or Flanders fields - because the military provided a way out. Much like it does for poor kids in West Virginia or South Central, today.
Once upon a time, parties of the left focused on basic material issues - wages, benefits, housing, medical care. Nationalism has been a sop thrown at the working poor by the elites to distract them from the theft taking place under their noses. "USA! USA!" Meanwhile, real wages have been stagnant since 1975. The same applies to Scotland - or worse for places like Glasgow.
Alex Salmond Hoisting the St. Andrew's Cross at Wimbleton
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/...
Why is it that most of the folks at Daily Kos seem to be uncomfortable with jingoistic flag-waving when it is the Stars & Stripes, but seem to be okay with it when it is the St. Andrews Cross? It is largely the same sentiment - irrational and insular - and often is used to mask serious breaches in the social fabric.
The Marxist call-to-arms, "Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains." is as appropriate in the early 21st century as in the late 19th. Perhaps, more. Internationalism has always been the socialist response to bourgeois nationalism. And yet there is a massive upsurge in jingoistic nationalism worldwide.
Surely, the world's elites who jet between Westchester, Gstaad, and Singapore have no problems with internationalism. And the combined weight of trade agreements have superseded national laws that have attempted to protect worker rights or regulate the worst of abuses. The balkanization of political entities will only accelerate this process. It's a neoliberal's wet dream.
So go ahead, Alex. Quote your Bobbie Burns in your best Scots burr.
There is, at least, one person on the left who is going to call you on it.