We can take some comfort in the fact that Salzburg have lost three games on the bounce but they sit in second spot in the Austrian Bundesliga, Celtic are fourth in the Scottish Premiership and have won only one of their previous five games. The Austrians will see just as much comfort in our form.
Success on Thursday will be determined by who manages to overcome their frailties most effectively. As far as Celtic are concerned, that will mean trying to find the kind of defensive performance that we put in last season.
Our reason for most confidence should be the speed which we can break at, and Salzburg’s only defensive issues. They shipped three goals to Sturm Graz and Malmo in recent outings.
Many thanks to everyone who has already taken our ‘Who we are and Our Values’ survey, it took just over 1 hour to register 1,000 submissions. It’ll take you little more than 5 minutes to share your view on some important matters, take a look here.
I’m a wee bit late to the party but I’ve signed up for the Great Scottish Run on 5 October to assist Celtic Foundation’s work in the areas of health, equality, poverty, and learning. If you’ve already registered with the event, or you have a pair of trainers and an outrageous disregard for the aging process, get involved.
You can register for the Great Scottish Run here and with the Foundation be emailing them, details here.
This is our club, they are your trainers, that is your outrageous disregard for the aging process. Let’s do it.
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An interesting and thoughtful piece.
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Ewan Morrison – YES: Why I Joined Yes and Why I Changed to No
Ewan Morrison is an award-winning Scottish author and screenwriter.
Four months ago I joined the Yes camp out of a desire to take part in the great debate that the Yes camp told me was taking place within their ranks. Being a doubter I thought maybe I’d failed to find this debate and that it was exclusive to the membership of the Yes camp, so I joined hoping I could locate it and take part. But even as I was accepted into the ranks – after my ‘Morrison votes Yes’ article in Bella Caledonia, I noted that 5 out of the meagre 20 comments I received berated me for either not having decided sooner or for having questioned Yes at all. Another said, and I paraphrase: ‘Well if he’s had to mull it over he could easily switch to the other side.’ That comment in Bella Caledonia worked away at me like a stone in my shoe. Beneath it, I realised, was a subconscious message: ‘Now that you’re in with us you have to toe the line – ask questions about Yes and you’re out.’
Within the Yes camp I attempted to find the revolutionary and inclusive debate that I’d heard was happening. But as soon as I was ‘in’ I was being asked to sign petitions, to help with recruitment, to take part in Yes groups, to come out publicly in the media, to spread the word and add the blue circle Yes logo to my social media photograph – even to come along and sing a ‘Scottish song’ at a Yes event. I declined to sing but I went along to public meetings and took part in debates online. I noticed that the whenever someone raised a pragmatic question about governance, economics or future projections for oil revenue or the balance of payments in iScotland, they were quickly silenced by comments such as “We’ll sort that out after the referendum, this is not the place or the time for those kinds of questions”. Or the people who asked such questions were indirectly accused of ‘being negative’ or talking the language of the enemy. There was an ethos of “Shh, if you start asking questions like that we’ll all end up arguing (and that’ll be negative) so in the interests of unity (and positivity) keep your mouth shut.”
It was within a public meeting that I realised there was no absolutely no debate within the Yes camp. Zero debate – the focus was instead on attacking the enemy and creating an impenetrable shell to protect the unquestionable entity. In its place was a kind of shopping list of desires that was being added to daily. So there was: Get rid of Trident, raise the minimum wage, lower corporation tax, promote gay and lesbian rights, create a world leading Green economy, exploit oil to the full and become a world leading petro-chemical economy, nationalise the banks, nationalise BP, be more attractive to foreign investment. The shopping list of ‘positive’ ideal goals could never tally up, the desires of the Yessers were incompatible and contradicted each other, but to raise this was seen as being ‘negative’. Every kind of Yes had to be included, and this meant there could be no debate. Instead there was a kind of self-censorship and conformism. The Yes camp had turned itself into a recruitment machine which had to silence dissent and differences between the many clashing interest groups under its banner. This was what YES had started to mean – it meant YES to everything – everything is possible – so don’t question anything. You couldn’t talk about what would happen after the referendum because then all the conflicts between all the different desires and factions would emerge. Questioning even triggered a self-policing process – The Yes Thought Police – rather like the Calvinist one in which doubters started to hate themselves and became fearful of showing signs of their inner torment. I have witnessed some of the greatest minds within Scotland go through this process, one week they are vocally discussing complex issues of global capitalism and the next they’re posting ‘selfies’ of teenagers waving flags and photos of cute puppy dogs carrying Yes signs in their mouths. The conformist dumbing down has been acute and noted by those outside Scotland who wondered where all the intellectuals went.
The Yes movement started to remind me of the Trotskyists – another movement who believed they were political but were really no more than a recruitment machine. I know because I was a member of the SWP in the late 80s. As a ‘Trot’ we were absolutely banned from talking about what the economy or country would be like ‘after the revolution’; to worry about it, speculate on it or raise questions or even practical suggestions was not permitted. We had to keep all talk of ‘after the revolution’ very vague because our primary goal was to get more people to join our organisation. I learned then that if you keep a promise of a better society utterly ambiguous it takes on power in the imagination of the listener. Everything can be better “after the revolution”. It’s a brilliant recruitment tool because everyone with all their conflicting desires can imagine precisely what they want. The key is to keep it very simple – offer a one word promise. In the case of the Trotskyists it’s ‘Revolution,’ in the case of the independence campaign it’s the word ‘Yes’. Yes can mean five million things. It’s your own personal independence. Believing in Yes is believing in yourself and your ability to determine your own future. Yes is very personal. How can you not say Yes to yourself? You’d have to hate yourself? Yes is about belief in a better you and it uses You as a metaphor for society as if you could simply transpose your good intentions and self belief onto the world of politics. The micro onto the macro. Yes is a form of belief – and this is the genius of the Yes campaign: they’ve managed to conflate personal self-determination with state power – to shrink the idea of the state down to the self and the question of the future down to ‘belief in the self.’You wouldn’t want to repress yourself and you personally want to be independent in your own life so, the Yes logic goes you should ask the same of your country. Every economist has told us that you cannot transpose the micro-economics of your home onto the globe – that micro and macro are different worlds, with different rules, but Yes has managed to blur the two to say ‘your country is you.’ Your country is an extension of your own personal desires. As the ubiquitous campaign slogan runs ‘Scotland’s future in Scotland’s hands’ – and to reinforce the domestic personal motif the image is that of a newborn – a perfect new self.
The Yes camp have managed to make it seem like criticism of their politics is an attack on the individual’s right to imagine a better self. To do this, the Yes campaign has had to be emptied of almost all actual political content. It has had to become a form of faith.
And it’s not surprising – there is no way that the groups under the banner of Yes could actually work together; they’re all fighting for fundamentally different things. How can the Greens reconcile themselves with the ‘let’s make Scotland a new Saudi Arabia’ oil barons? How can the radical left reconcile themselves with the pro-capitalist Business for Scotland group? Or the L.G.B.T Yes Youth community find common cause with elderly Calvinist nationalists or with the millionaire SNP donor who backed Clause 28. Instead converts chant the same mantra – YES – to cover all the cracks between their mutual hatred. Debate becomes reduced down to one word and the positivity of that one word erases all conflicts and questions beneath a fantasized unity. YES. Yes also erases history, politics and reality. Yes means too many things and ends up meaning nothing. It’s silenced the conflicting politics within it to the point that it means little more than the euphoric American self-help phrase “be all you can be.”
Now some may say – ah yes but Yes is a rainbow coalition – the very essence of democratic pluralism. But you have to ask yourself with so many groups all tugging in so many directions what makes a separate Scotland any different from the rest of the UK with its democratic conflicts, its mess? Democracy is a daily struggle, an ongoing fight to reconcile differing opinions and ideologies, of contesting facts and plans and shouldering the burdens we inherit from history. It’s hard, it’s exhausting, it’s frustrating and it’s all about compromise.So why do we need to leave the union to engage in this painful process we call democracy?
The answer is that the factions within the Yes camp are all dreaming that they will have more power in the new Scotland ‘after the referendum.’ Bigger fish in the smaller pond. The Greens will have more power than they ever could in the UK. Business leaders will have more influence over Scottish government. The hard left will finally realise its dream of seizing power and creating a perfect socialist nation. Each group is dreaming of this fresh new country (as clean as a white sheet, as unsullied as a newborn) in which they themselves dominate and hold control. Clearly these groups can’t all have more power and the banner they share is a fantasy of a unity that is not actually there. It’s a Freudian slip when converts claim that the first thing that will happen ‘after independence’ is that the SNP will be voted out – it betrays the fantasy that each interest group has of its own coming dominance.
Many people are voting Yes just to express their frustration at not being able to engage with politics as it is. They’re voting Yes because they want their voice to be heard for the first time. That’s understandable and admirable, but Yes is not a debate or a democratic dream, it’s an empty word and an empty political process which means dream of what you want and express it with all the passion in your heart. The dream will die as soon as the singular Yes gets voted and Scotland then turns into a battleground of repressed and competing Yesses. Once the recruitment machine has served it purpose it will collapse and the repressed questions will return with a vengeance.
I left the Yes camp and joined the No camp not because I like the UK or think the status quo works well as it is. No. I think things are as complicated and compromised as they always are and that we live in trying times. The Yes camp understand that and so have created an illusion of a free space in which everything you’ve ever wanted can come to pass – overnight. How can it? There are exactly the same political conflicts within the factions of Yes as there are within the UK. After a Yes vote the fight for control of Scotland will begin and that unity that seemed like a dream will be shattered into the different groups who agreed to silence themselves to achieve an illusion of an impossible unity – the kind of unity you find in faith, not in politics. What makes this worse than remaining in the UK is that Scotland will be fighting out its internal battles on a world stage after demonstrating it intends to run its new politics on an illusion of unity, a unity that breaks up even as it is observed.’
http://wakeupscotland.wordpress.com/2014/09/15/ewan-morrison-yes-why-i-joined-yes-and-why-i-changed-to-no/
Sorry Taurangabhoy, here is the text
A week before my family and my 7 year old son were slandered by senior members of the Labour Party in Scotland for standing next to a Wings Over Scotland banner there appeared in the media an orchestrated piece of propaganda around an individual called Claire Lally.
Portrayed as an ‘ordinary mum’ of a disabled child there was a media furore when an SNP official mistakenly assumed she was related to Pat Lally, former leader of Glasgow City Council.
The media deliberately missed the point, which was that she was presented falsely by Better Together as a non-politicised member of the public when she was anything but.
“Not since Iraq have I seen BBC News working at propaganda strength like this,” said the former Business Editor of the BBC Paul Mason a few days ago.
When my family attended a protest against bias at BBC Scotland this summer, my son and his two cousins wore tshirts that spelled out the word Yes on the front and Aye on the back.
They spent most of the day hugging each other and smiling as people took their photographs. They met up with another two children also wearing home-made tshirts stating ‘it’s about our future’. The five children posed together, then they played on the steps of BBC Scotland inventing a game of Yes-tig. When they saw a banner they liked they jumped in front of it. This they did with the Wings Over Scotland banner.
They were swiftly joined by two pandas, another two protesters with a banner and the crowd surged forwards taking their photos as the image of this little grouping struck a chord.
Scotland’s future standing under Wings Over Scotland, bookended by pandas with a banner which said ‘BBC letting Scotland down!’ underneath.
The images spread like wildfire on twitter and facebook that evening. Clearly the Labour Party in Scotland disliked the impact of the visual message, as influential blogger Duncan Hothersall used the photo, with specific reference to my son, to attack Stuart Campbell of Wings Over Scotland. This quickly escalated into a twitter discussion involving several senior members of the Labour Party, culminating in accusations of irresponsible parenting and comparisons between our children and Hitler Youth.
Such was the venomous language used within the establishment against those who favour independence, that comparing 7 year olds to Nazis was considered not out of the ordinary. Social media was the mechanism by which we replied to these disgusting comments, facilitated by Wings and supported by a staggering number of individuals outraged at what had been said.
When the establishment smears and lies and propagandises to justify the continuance of a political system, when power is concentrated into the hands of an establishment that seeks to protect its power, when a campaign attempts to win at any cost, regardless of the ill feeling and destruction and mistrust that campaign engenders; is a victory achieved through lies, smear and fear really worth it?
As this campaign reaches its conclusion headlines scream about tension, abuse and vandalism, perpetrated by the Yes campaign against the establishment, orchestrated by the same establishment that can look at images of 7 year old Scottish children and project Hitler Youth upon them. This is not a campaign that has the best interests of the Scottish people at heart. The mainstream media do not speak for the Scottish people.
They are complicit in a propaganda war against the democratic rights of the Scottish people to have a civilised debate to determine the future of their own country.
There is a line between campaign spin and propaganda. That line has been well and truly crossed and it will be trampled upon today and tomorrow.
If there is a Yes vote it will be thanks to the democratisation of information which has been enabled by social media. Ordinary people have been able to connect, discuss ideas and share information in a way that makes the mainstream media irrelevant.
Writing in the Guardian last week George Monbiot said “If Scotland becomes independent, it will be despite the efforts of almost the entire UK establishment. It will be because social media has defeated the corporate media. It will be a victory for citizens over the Westminster machine, for shoes over helicopters.”
Whatever the result, every person who has positively engaged with the debate using social media has made a Yes result possible against the most overwhelming of odds. Thank you.
Ernie worries for the mental health of some posters come Friday. Whereas I’ve always had my concerns…
;)
ernie, As I have said all along, I think you and your fellow Unionists will win this one, but the UK is on a dodgy peg and Independence will come sooner rather than later. Yes there will be many gutted on here come Friday but their revenge will be the laughter of their children, in an Independent Scotland. As for your good self, you have absolutely every right to your political vision but I find your blog name the height of irony. The least you could do would be to amend it to “ernie lynch, Not to be confused with Che Guevara”.
Ernie…
Reads like the author set out to do a particular thing…went to plan…wrote about it.
Only my opinion of course!
Another day of tit-for-tat reasons for voting the way someone wants you to.
My advice?
Vote for whichever option will best benefit you,your family,your community.
And use the scroll button a lot.
Good luck with it. Choose wisely!
Two men walk into an office. One is a republican and one is a unionist.
The unionist says “Jesus, this is a fine office. We’ll share it 50/50.”
One more day lets hope we use it well that our preparation is as good as it can be that everyone is up for it and we get our best eleven on the park. We dont find Europe easy nowadays and Saltzburg will be no different RD still has many fans questioning is he the right mhan for the job well now is his time to show the Celtic support that he is the mhan.I dont want to see us getting hammered again or to hear about another glorious failure.I want to see the players take pride in there performance and see the Celtic fans having some thing to cheer about in Europe. H.H.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR6IL3fUvGU
Love Liam Clancy
Good morning CQN have a great day
Bobby Murdoch.A good post fella with which I concur I have no idea how the vote will go but respect that people should make up there own mind what is best for them.Whichever side win we will still have to work with each other to make Scotland the best we can so let democracy be the victor. H.H.
Thanks Yogiy. Not totally surprised that the bee bis finally getting sprung but also expect Scots who vote yes and not yes have thought it through for themselves. Interesting how the bookies expect it to go compared to the fiscal polls. Friday morning every person who voted should be proud, if not al pleased.
Bmcuw
I’ve now been diagnosed with RSI with all the scrolling I’m doing. 8-)
corkcelt
08:44 on 17 September, 2014
One thing I have noticed is that the term Unionist no longer comes with the taint it once did.
It was at one time a term of art in British politics, referring specifically to the Irish question.
It’s broader now, and we are all unionists of one kind of another.
Some are unionists in that they favour membership of the European Union.
Some are unionists in that they favour a political union between Scotland and the rest of the UK.
And some are unionists because they favour a currency union between Scotland and the rest of the UK.
So it’s no longer a political insult. It no longer means that if you support Scotland remaining in the UK you must logically be opposed to the reunification of Ireland. In truth that was only ever an argument advanced by the stupid and the ignorant, but it did none the less have some traction. That’s no longer the case.
BLANTYRE TIM
Think of the extra meds,you must rattle when you walk!
I haven’t worn it on my sleeve as they say, but never thought there was an alternative to the chance of independence other than taking it!
My blog http://www.tomminogue.com/…/independence-stick-or-twist/ has been up for about 3 weeks now, but I took the view that to have an impact timing was important and one shouldn’t come too soon. Pardon the pun.
So my appeal for a big Yes banner on here and twitter was only made with a week to go.
But I am pretty sure that Yes will win and win by a big margin.
I believe the pollsters miss many young voters who don’t have landline, are working or simply won’t take the trouble to complete a survey.
Older voters are usually more cautious but the adventurous young ones will lead us to a landslide victory IMHO.
YES YES YEEESSS it will be party time on Friday.
ernie
One man`s `interesting and thoughtful piece` is another man`s one sided promotion of a viewpoint.
JJ
JOEFILIPPISHAIRCUT
Correct,mate.
Friday,fair enough,let the victors enjoy their moment.
After that,no recriminations,back to the job in hand.
Taurangabhoy
08:55 on 17 September, 2014
I’ve said from day one, ignore the polls, go with the bookies.
It’s in the pollsters interests to talk up tension, it’s in the bookies interests to call it right.
Apparently Ewan Morrison left yes scotland as it was an illusion of unity a quote from his article below
it intends to run its new politics on an illusion of unity, a unity that breaks up even as it is observed.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRTbOTaTnFc
Now both men on the same political side, unity……………………………………
Don’t the bookies use the polls tho?
Big Nan
08:59 on 17 September, 2014
‘But I am pretty sure that Yes will win and win by a big margin.’
###
I tell you what.
I won’t remind you of that on Friday, just out of consideration.
I’m not saying I won’t on Saturday though.
Big Nan. The Yes vote will win by a big margin is imo wishful thinking on your part I think the who ever wins and it is to close to call will do so by a narrow margin.Friday morning for whatever side win should be a time of reflection before the hard work begins so let the people vote. H.H.
JFH
“RD still has many fans questioning is he the right mhan for the job”
Assuming this is the case, do you think those fans really have enough information at the moment to make a meaningful judgement re Ronny`s suitability for our Club?
I think that the passion of some for our team can make them rush to unfair conclusions. Totally understandable but not helpful.
JJ
I’m a unionist love the union of toast and marmalade
Ernie , three out of four punters are betting on YES. Throwing their money and vote away ?
I thought the bookies` odds were determined by how much money went on. Naturally enough, when a No victory is so widely predicted, most gamblers would see it as a cert and bet accordingly. More money goes on No, the odds shorten and on it goes.
JJ
LIONROARS67
I love the union of my lips and Guinness.
See ya,pub beckons.
Win, and win by a Big margin I tell ye!
Friday morning on CQN will be party time.
Queen Victoria, Lord Nelson, Lord Beaverbrook, Sir Winston Churchill, Sir Anthony Eden, Clement Attlee, Henry Cooper, your boys are going to take a helluva beating.. a helllllluva beating!
BOBBY MURDOCH’S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS
09:10 on
17 September, 2014
LIONROARS67
Enjoy that union it may be yer last, all unionists and their unions will not be permitted after a yes vote, including my love of toast and marmalade
This scaremongering lark is easy…………………………………………….
LIONROARS67
What,is Salmond planning to abolish unions?
Worse than the tories,right enough!
Yer right about the scaremongering,though. Now,pint time.
When Kojo dislikes a player.
A player who has served Celtic well.
Infact a player who has been a sensation in a Celtic shirt.
It always seems to me that someone at Celtic either wants to cash in on the player .
Or the player is in negotiations to extend or improve his salary.
If the player has options which mean Celtic can possibly no longer afford the player.
Then there seems a pattern that Kojo besmirches the players value to Celtic.
Kris Commons is the best player we have at Celtic park.
If he doesn’t sign a new contract because he can earn far better elsewhere , then fair play to him.
He is the star in the Celtic team.
I would rather Ronnie went than Commons.
We are also being told Ronnie wants to punt Griffiths.
Yet he turned the game and scored against Dundee.
Ronnie and Collins are idealists.
Whenever we have faced half decent opposition we have been pumped.
Salzburg are a standard below Legia and Maribor .
We have played around 10 competitive matches now.
Our much vaunted “fitness” should be better than the Austrians.
Let’s see.
TT
TT
You don`t seem overly happy 0:-). Hope you are well,
JJ
ATTENTION ALL VOTERS
Tomorrow, at your local polling station, look out for this guy…
http://myreactiongifs.com/gifs/hechosepoorlyindianajoneslastcrusade.gif
So Sir Tom Hunter doesn’t buy Salmonds promise of a currency union. I think he’s a pretty good judge.
###########################
One of Scotland’s best known entrepreneurs, Sir Tom Hunter, has rejected Alex Salmond’s proposals for a currency union and said the best option for Scotland’s businesses is to remain in the UK.
In a significant blow to the first minister’s currency plans, Hunter said: “On the narrow question of currency, there’s no question that the way we are currently is best for business. Any other option is going to have costs, uncertainties and risks.”
A multi-millionaire philanthropist and investor, often cited by Salmond for his charitable work, Hunter has privately funded a series of expert reports and opinion surveys on Scotland’s economic and currency options after setting up his own small thinktank Scotlandseptember18.com.
One of its studies, by the Beijing-based currency expert Professor Leslie Young, embarrassed the no campaign earlier this year after Young systematically challenged the Treasury’s arguments against Salmond’s proposals for a Scotland-UK sterling zone after independence.
Salmond’s sterling zone plan has been endorsed by other economists, including his own fiscal commission which includes the Nobel economists Joseph Stiglitz and James Merrilees, as the most logical for both the UK and Scotland. Salmond also insists Scotland has a moral and historical right to share sterling, given Scotland’s 300-year-old partnership with the rest of the UK.
But Hunter said his evaluation of the options, a formal currency deal or Salmond’s unofficial alternative plan – to use sterling without a formal deal – left him believing neither were as sustainable or as flexible as staying within the UK.
He said it was hard to “cut through the fog” over the currency options, with the three main UK parties and the Treasury insisting they would never agree to share the pound, and Salmond insisting that was the most intelligent option.
Despite the implication he would vote no to independence, Hunter insisted he would not disclose how he would vote in Thursday’s referendum but said ceding control over monetary policy to a foreign bank did not meet his definition of independence.
“All of that tells me that our interest rate policy will be set by a foreign country’s bank and indeed our spending in global terms will be dictated by a foreign bank,” he said.
“Now, I don’t think that is the independence that the yes side have been striving for, and I don’t think that has really been spelled out to people who say we want to be independent, we want to be separate. That is me is less flexible that the fiscal autonomy that we have today.”
“It just seems to me to be less flexible in what we can do just now using sterling. And we do have quite a lot of autonomy, and now promised more autonomy. Then if we decided to vote for separation and independent and therefore governed from a currency point of view by a foreign bank, the Bank of England.
He said he frequently tells people that a country’s currency is one of the most critical issues. Many did not understand why that was the case.
He said: “If you want a just and civil society, the government doesn’t have any money. The money is raised by businesses growing and flourishing and employing people, having their national insurance and their taxes and that’s how we afford a just and civil society. Therefore currency is a matter for you.”
Asked to confirm that his views on currency suggested he was a no voter, Hunter refused to discuss his vote. “First of all, I only have one vote. Secondly, when I went to all those experts and made their opinions and facts free to everybody, I said I’m not trying to convince you to vote in the way I’m voting, therefore I’m not going to tell you the way I’m going to vote.”
The 2007 Gambling Act.
The Labour Party and their friends in the gaming/bookmaking industry.
Such a blight that has been on deprived districts – just what the proletariat and the unemployed needed.
Well done.
If they are so sure of the result of that referendum,they should tell their great pals in the Labour Party to calm themselves down a wee bit then,and stop having kittens over nothing.
Those turf accountant chaps are not always right.They FIX the odds in a lot of events so as it is very difficult for them to lose money.
Remember,not so long ago,they priced Roy Keane as short as 16/1 on to get the Celtic gig – and look how that panned out.
Nobody can predict the future,not even the bookmaking fraternity.
HH,
Ernie the the British Nationalist.
How are you today?
Talking more bananas.
Neganon are you aboot?
MWD says AYE
16 roads – Celtic über alles…
09:28 on
17 September, 2014
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I guess you are a yes voter.
In the unlikely event yes wins, who will you vote for?