As we’re writing this, our YouTube channel remains dead. We’re still trying to navigate through YouTube’s awful maze of robotic guards to reach a human being, and while at least two newspapers – The National and the Scotsman – have asked the BBC for a comment, none has been forthcoming.
The mainstream media’s attacks on this site in the last couple of years have included getting our Twitter account shut down in 2016, getting me arrested, having all of Wings’ electronic equipment confiscated by the police and now killing our YouTube channel full of crucial documentary evidence, most of which isn’t available anywhere else. (On top of an endless catalogue of smear stories and hatchet jobs, of course.)
Now, we’re not planning on going anywhere, but in the face of such a concerted and increasingly sinister assault aimed at silencing us, we also can’t make any guarantees that Wings itself will continue to survive. WordPress may prove as fragile in the face of malice as Twitter and YouTube have.
So in case we fall victim to another unexpected technical/censorship catastrophe, or suddenly commit “suicide”, you might want to strengthen the rest of the team.
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Paul “Wee Ginger Dug” Kavanagh is a top-class polemicist and commentator, so as you’d expect he never gets on telly. His current fundraiser is going well, with significant additional donations away from the main page, but could still use a shove to make sure he can actually continue to live in the UK in the coming year.
James Kelly of Scot Goes Pop! is a keen-eyed statistical analyst. For some baffling reason he’s chosen to run his annual fundraiser by tacking it onto the end of last year’s so there’s no real way of knowing how it’s doing, but if he couldn’t afford to eat he’d be a significant loss to the Yes movement online.
Marky Booth is an inspiring young investigative journalist whose output has already been featured on Wings, and who digs where Scottish newspapers fear to tread. Recently the victim of a heinous robbery which cost him his laptop among other things, we’re going to need people like him fighting fit and properly equipped.
Then there are our tireless chums at AyeMail, led by the indefatigable Lindsay Bruce (who’ll also be sending out all your Wings fundraiser perks in the next couple of weeks, as the Wee Blue Notebooks finally arrived from the supplier on Friday). They’ve always got excellent projects on the go, and their latest is a very worthwhile effort aimed at delivering a million leaflets and other campaign materials to Yes groups.
And finally, the superb Phantom Power should need no introduction, as we’ve run many of their superb high-quality movies on Wings, but their latest series – Nation and Scotia – are a step up in scope, and have the potential to be a hugely persuasive force when the next indyref comes round.
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We know that’s a lot of things to ask you to put your hands in your pockets for at one go. But if you can manage a few quid for just one or two, that’ll help keep the Yes media strong for the coming times, no matter what might happen. We need them all.
