NATIONAL YES REGISTRY: Happy Hogmanay one and ALL! Hello everybody, I hope you are all having a great festive season and getting geared up for a memorable and hopefully cathartic Hogmanay. We are. The Registrys fridge and drinks cabinet is full again (and the buckets are all washed and ready ;-)! Santa brought me a lovely box set of The Private Life of Plants which has reminded me of the reasons for the BBCs remaining (if rapidly evaporating) residual power in the popular imagination, along with reasons for the palpable emotions of loss, disillusion and betrayal induced by its shockingly partisan, hyperbolic and frankly anti democratic role in our Independence referendum. This box set though, has been a God send. It has helped me rationalise many of the previously contradictory attitudes and understandings of the YES movement, the referendum, Scottish politics in general and the post referendum YES surge toward party politics in particular. Analogy and metaphor are such powerful conceptual tools. A magnificent and powerful Oak Tree stands in the centre of a forest. We follow it from the tip of its uppermost branch down past its leaves, acorns, insects, twigs. Down its massive trunk following the ridges of its bark. Down, down to the tops of the grass shoots growing about its base. Down, under the earth following the massive roots as they split and then divide again. Down into the maze of small roots and tendrils reaching out into the soil, anchoring themselves, while searching for and absorbing the life giving nourishment found within the moisture of the earth from which the mighty Oak sprung. Under the forest now, we are in a microscopic network of different interdependent roots and fungal threads, leading from, and connecting to, every tree, sapling, and plant of the forest. Continually growing, ever more delicate, in ever increasing density and surface area in the search for nourishment. We are lost in an enormous, self organised life giving maze. The referendum experience has given many in Scotland their first glimpse of a political eco structure forced to properly value every element in the actual flow of power, not just the magnificent individual parties, or the BBC, or the ancient and respected organs of the press. Nor even the beautiful flowerings from the buds of campaigning bodies and new media outlets of our great Scottish political forest. We found, from that fleeting glimpse, that we (the grass roots) were in fact below the forest. Below the earth. The unsung and ignored ground breakers. The conduit to, and source of, all political nourishment and the anchoring foundations from which our forest grew. It was only a glimpse however, and from it many feel themselves planted in the wrong place, performing the wrong role. More accurately, people through experience are being drawn up through newly grown (and sometimes previously derelict) interwoven fungal threads, into the official political root structure of our YES Parties. This is a very, very positive and natural process that under a normal healthy political eco structure would be followed by an equally healthy capillary action, drawing the newly politicised into a dense, educating network of practical social connections from which to organise, take political responsibility and action. A repeating, ever growing and nourishing process from which EVERY plant and tree, of our political forest can draw. As these many experienced YES activists naturally move into the the party political structures (when allowed) we temporarily lose a large part of that capillary action from non party political activists abilities to draw in newly politicised non party political members of the electorate (and then onto active citizen participation). We also lose valuable credibility as our visible YES network gets gleefully and erroneously redesignated by our MSM and political enemies as just another manifestation of the same old tired Party Politics (and always as SNP of course)! Its for these reasons that we MUST find a way to maintain our independent YES identity. To allow for the continuation of an official non party political point of entry for all those in the electorate that are becoming politicised but have been intentionally alienated by normal party politics. A place where the newly politicised can acclimatise themselves, learn, be encouraged, supported in taking political responsibility and action. This, as we all know, is what happened in every YES shop, Yes group and community activist organisation during the long referendum campaign, and is what is at the root of the incredible flowering of political engagement in Scotland today. We must find a new way to continue this most important of all jobs in the run up to (and beyond) the Westminster and Holyrood election campaigns until our Independence is won. This is not a threat to the SNP (or any other party), it is an essential source of nourishment from which the SNP and YES parties can draw massive political support and resources (just as they have done already, after the referendum defeat)! That fleeting glimpse is already fading. The scale and scope of our under ground network and its natural access to all Scotlands latent power (its ordinary people) is once again being buried. Out of sight, out of mind.... and so, all the easier to return to the tame party political pot plant system essential to the continuation of the UK state. Each party must grow and draw its nourishment from the underlying, interwoven, complex reality of Scotlands different societies and pre occupations. NOT just respond to the daylight bulb and baby bio infusions from Westminster and the British establishment. Our job, in forming a National YES Registry is to always keep that most important underground network growing, well connected, interwoven, constantly educating and feeding our political parties with the truthful, nourishing realities of Scottish societal needs. That means All of Scotlands societal needs. We must recreate that official YES space where the newly politicised can learn and engage, and where radicals disappointed with their experiences in party politics can return and operate effectively again. We must not allow, through lack of an identifiable YES framework, the drifting off of the politically disaffected. The referendum has shown they are only disaffected with politics as practised in Scotland, not the politics that should be practised in Scotland. Hoping you all have a fabulous Hogmanay celebration! Please, lets make one of those resolutions to face the New Year with a renewed sense of purpose and urgency and to help build that YES network together. Braco, National YES Registry nationalyesregistry@hush Please give the information your group feels comfortable in sharing with their fellow YES groups. Consider what you would find useful in making contact. An email address is however essential. * YES Group/Shop Address if unavailable could be a notional post code, central to the area in which your group operates. This is simply a marker to allow location of YES groups via geographic search.* YES Group/Shop Address : * YES Group Telephone : YES Group Face Book Page : YES Group Website : YES Group Twitter account : YES Group Email address : YES Group Contact Name : (Enter N/A where necessary but please use this format, as we will cut and paste your information in order to limit typing errors on our side.)
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 15:44:29 +0000
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