AyeBorders Annexee

Promoting Independence in the Borders This is a private site and our opinions are our own. Extremish. Retweets not necessarily endorsements.

[AyeBorders Annexee @AyeBorders]

@Rangers_Spares_ Shankland's a Jambo till Jun 15th. No?

[Allan petrie @Allanpetrie91]

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Drumclog: When Ordinary Scots Refused to Kneel

On 1 June 1679, on a patch of marshy ground near Loudoun Hill in Ayrshire, ordinary Scots made a stand that echoed through history, they were not professional soldiers, they were farmers, labourers, tradesmen, fathers, mothers and neighbours, the Sma Folk. Yet at Drumclog they stood against the might of the state and proved that when a people believe deeply enough in a cause, courage can overcome power.

The Battle of Drumclog was fought during one of the darkest periods in Scottish history, the Covenanters had gathered to defend their right to worship according to their conscience, they believed that no king, government or earthly authority had the right to dictate their faith or crush their liberties, for that belief they were hunted, imprisoned, tortured, transported and executed.

When government troops under John Graham of Claverhouse, later known as Viscount Dundee, moved against them, the Covenanters did not scatter, instead, they chose to stand and fight for what they believed.

The ground itself became their ally, knowing the marshes and bogs around Drumclog, they lured the cavalry into difficult terrain where horses lost their advantage, then they charged, the government forces were routed and forced to retreat. Against the expectations of the powerful, ordinary Sma Folk Scots had won.

What makes Drumclog remarkable is not merely the military victory, it is what the battle represented, it was a declaration that there are moments in history when a people must decide whether they will submit or resist, whether they will accept decisions imposed upon them or insist upon their right to determine their own future.

Nearly three and a half centuries later, Scotland faces a very different struggle, no cavalry rides across the moors, no muskets fire across the fields, yet the underlying question remains remarkably similar, who governs Scotland, who decides Scotland's future, who holds sovereignty?

Those who stood at Drumclog believed authority flowed from principle and conviction, not simply from power, they believed that there were rights which could not be surrendered merely because those in authority demanded it. That belief remains at the heart of the modern independence movement.

The battle for Scottish independence today is fought through democracy, persuasion, debate and the ballot box, it is a peaceful struggle but it is nonetheless a struggle about the same fundamental principle, whether the people of Scotland should have the right to choose their own path and shape their own destiny.

The men and women of Drumclog did not fight because victory was guaranteed, they fought because they believed some causes are worth standing for regardless of the odds, yet one of the greatest lessons from Drumclog is not simply courage, it is strategy.

The Covenanters did not defeat a better equipped force by charging blindly across open ground, they understood the terrain, they recognised where their strengths lay and where their opponents were vulnerable, they used the marshes and bogs of Drumclog to neutralise the advantages of the government cavalry, they turned what appeared to be weakness into strength because they understood the battlefield better than their enemy.

That lesson should resonate deeply with Scotland's independence movement today, our battlefield is not a marsh in Ayrshire, it is the ballot box, it is the electoral system, it is the political landscape in which we operate.

We know that Scotland elects its Parliament using the D'Hondt system, we know how that system works, we know that it rewards strategic voting and punishes the wasting of votes, we know that properly understanding and properly using it can maximise the number of pro-independence MSPs elected to Holyrood.

Yet, despite knowing the terrain, many within the independence movement refuse to use it to their advantage.

[Cynthia Guthrie. @cynthguthrie]

What a legend 🇱🇻❤️

[AyeBorders Annexee @AyeBorders]

@InspGadgetBlogs Duck Soup.

[Heart of Midlothian FC @JamTarts]

🆕 Heart of Midlothian can confirm that Beni Baningime, Frankie Kent, Alan Forrest and Lewis Neilson will leave upon the expiry of their contracts this summer.

All four players depart with our sincere thanks and appreciation.

ℹ️➡️ https://t.co/ifqH8GIbbS

[Frankie Kent @frankiejkent]

@JamTarts 🪄 🎩 ❤️

[Eva Olid @olid_eva]

We did ♥️

[AyeBorders Annexee @AyeBorders]

@heartswomenfc @PDT10 Many Congratulations. Next season Men's Women's double. #HHGH

[Hearts Women @heartswomenfc]

🏆 Good morning, Jambos 🌞

[RobertFella 🇺🇸 🇺🇦 @Bonkavision5]

Too on point not to share. This is great, but too bad the Orange Felon’s enablers won’t let him see it.
This Australian's reply to #Trump's rant about “NATO not being there for America” is perfect.
"Mate. You run a country with 600,000 homeless people sleeping on the street tonight. A country where 40% of adults can't cover a $400 emergency without borrowing money. A country where insulin costs more than a car payment and people are rationing it to survive. A country where medical debt is the number 1 cause of bankruptcy. A country where women are dying in hospital car parks because doctors are too scared of abortion laws to treat a miscarriage.
You lock up more of your own citizens than any nation on earth. More than China. More than Russia. More than North Korea. The land of the free has 2 million people in cages, and a quarter of them haven't even been convicted of anything. They're just too poor to make bail.
Your life expectancy is going backwards. You're the only developed nation where that's happening. Your infant mortality rate is worse than Cuba's. Your kids do active shooter drills between maths and English while you sell the gunmaker's stock to your mates.
Your minimum wage hasn't moved in 15 years. You've got teachers working 2 jobs and veterans sleeping under bridges and you just spent a trillion dollars flattening a country that didn't attack you.
And you’ve got a convicted felon, adjudicating raping, paedophile protecting, porn star shagging insurrectionist running the biggest dumpster fire war campaign since the Taliban thanked you very much for losing again.
And you're calling Greenland poorly run?
Greenland has universal healthcare. Free education. One of the lowest incarceration rates in the world. Nobody goes bankrupt there because they got sick. Nobody dies in a waiting room because their insurance said no.
'NATO wasn't there when we needed them." When exactly was that, champ? September 11? Because NATO invoked Article 5 for the first and only time in history FOR YOU. Soldiers from dozens of countries deployed, fought, bled, and died in Afghanistan FOR YOU. Australia wasn't even in NATO and we still showed up. For 20 years.
And you pulled out at 2am without telling anyone and left them to deal with the mess.
So maybe before you start calling other countries poorly run, have a look at your own backyard, you spray-tanned aluminium siding salesman. The only thing poorly run in this picture is your f----- mouth."
- Tony Locke

[Jambo @TonyTonyBloom]

Hearts fans don’t want a replay or a tainted title handed over.

We want the @ScottishFA and @spfl to show some backbone and properly punish the club responsible for three pitch invasions this season — incidents repeatedly fuelled by the behaviour of their players and officials.

[AyeBorders Annexee @AyeBorders]

@WingsScotland @damilne1 There were substitutes and fans on the pitch before the ball left the scorers foot. Technically it should've been 2-1 😁

[AyeBorders Annexee @AyeBorders]

@markf_7 @BarryAnderson_ Ex Rangers player. Like the rest of Scottish football he'll have grown out of it now. It was many years ago.

[AyeBorders Annexee @AyeBorders]

@JollyGoodWheeze @WingsScotland I watched it live. It was only when Eilidh Barbour specifically asked Mr O'Neill that they were mentioned.

[AyeBorders Annexee @AyeBorders]

@markf_7 @BarryAnderson_ Only in the wide open spaces between your ears. Keep your sectarian shite between the two of youse. No-one else gives a fuck. Green or Blue you're as twisted as each other.

[Robert MacIntyre @robert1lefty]

Super John McGinn @jmcginn7 👏🏻👏🏻🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[AyeBorders Annexee @AyeBorders]

@WingsScotland 2 European Trophies.

[Scotland’s Story @80_mcswan]

The treaty of Union created in 1707 is no longer fit for purpose

Please RT if you agree

#DissolvetheUnion

[AyeBorders Annexee @AyeBorders]

@JollyGoodWheeze @WingsScotland And the gallant losers were not mentioned until Eilidh Barbour specifically asked. This was more than half an hour after the initial post match interviews.

[Scotland’s Story @80_mcswan]

If you support Scotland's right to self-determination, please retweet.