What Scottish independence will mean to me (for Ungagged 13)

I first became interested in my family’s origins after watching the miniseries Roots on TV in January 1977.  Damn, I just realized that was forty years ago.  Ben Vereen’s character Chicken George was my favorite of the whole series, and remained an idol of mine for years.  Speaking of black heroes, I recetnly learned that the fictional characters the Lone Ranger and Tonto may be based on two Afro-American deputy marshals in Indian Territory, Bass Reeves and George Johnson, who often worked together.  Johnson grew up as a slave in the Creek Nation, Reeves in Arkansas, and while Reeves was unquestionably the best lawman of the Old West, Johnson was the near second in his own right.

Back on topic, after watching the Roots miniseries, I became fascinated with where my family might have come from, and I don’t know what gave me the idea to look at maps but in Scotland I found the town of Hamilton.  Flush with enthusiasm, I went to the public library to borrow what books they had on Scotland and its history, and those they had were two on the Scottish War of Independence, one focusing on William Wallace and the other on Robert the Bruce.  From that time on, even without knowing yet any more of Scotland’s history, the betrayals that led to the Union and the Jacobite wars and the economic subjugation by the London government, I have believed that Scotland should be free.

Of course, my views became less romantic and more nuanced later, but that belief has never gone away.  When the devolution referendum was announced, I became a member of the Scottish Nationalist Party, and remained so until the UK passed the law barring foreign citizens from being members of UK political parties.  I was affiliated with the American branch that opened here in the early 21st century before that closed due to that law and to the fact that neo-Confederates here, still under the influence of Walter Scott as Mark Twain noted they had been before the war, tried to coopt it as a means of gaining legitimacy.  By that time, in addition to associating online with members of the Scottish Socialist Party, I had become affiliated with the Scottish Republican Socialist Movement, and which would have barred me from membership anyway if it were known.

So, what in the age an overgrown Oompa-Loompa with Oompa-Loompa size hands is the most powerful chief executive on Earth will Scottish independence mean to me?  For starters, the realization of a forty-year dream.  Scotland deserves to be a nation of its own, with a government that has its own interests at heart and is in total control of its own affairs, without having its resources siphoned off and its needs and wishes ignored by a regime outside its borders that has little or no interest in the welfare of Scotland for Scots, especially with the pig-fucking cunts now in power and the only possibly viable opposition in almost as much disarray as the Dems are here.  Scotland regaining its independence and freedom after 410+ years will be a beacon of hope for much of the world, and for me.  The world needs that right now, and so do I.