In Eamonn's Bar off East 45th Street in Midtown Manhattan last week, the talk turned to Scottish independence. The young fella with the funky glasses and the tartan tie to my left is a bar owner himself and a native New Yorker and had observed the tartan parade down Madison Avenue that had kicked off Scotland Week in the US the day before.

Both he and Sean, the bartender, were knowledgeable about the Scottish independence debate and aware that the polls are pointing to a close finish in September.

"It's a big year for you Scots," said Sean. A young American and an Irishman in New York, their native lands born of a struggle to cast off unrepresentative British authority now acknowledging that destiny awaits another land, but quietly and with respect. They ventured no opinion either way but wished us good luck whatever we decide on 18 September.

In another part of the country, they were staging "Bring on the Clowns" as George Robertson told a bemused audience in Washington that Scottish independence would lead to the breakdown of western civilisation. Robertson is a politician who, like many others, rose without trace in the New Labour project. The moment he became secretary general of Nato recalled the one in Duck Soup when Mrs Teasdale proclaims Rufus T Firefly leader of Freedonia.

The damage Robertson visited on Scotland's reputation was considerable. He may feel he was only pointing out the dangers of Scottish independence but instead, all he did was belittle his own country and diminish its standing in the world a little more.

"I want all those in the world who understand that the break-up of the United Kingdom would have cataclysmic geo-strategic effects, breaking up the solidarity of the west at this particular time, to say that," said Robertson.

So, even if Scotland does decide to remain within the union, a damaging impression will be left in the minds of Americans and others about Scotland: that it must be run by a bunch of Marxist crazies who want to topple western democracy. They will also wonder how this country, nevertheless, produced someone who rose to become the head of Nato. "How can someone who has enjoyed the benefits and advantages of being raised in Scotland hate so much the idea of the country determining its own affairs?" they may ask themselves.

The week before Robertson made his speech, it was revealed that the Better Together campaign is now asking Labour's so-called "legends" at Westminster to lend a hand. The Unionists were responding to the latest set of opinion polls which suggest that the Nationalists require a swing of a mere handful of points to achieve independence. Thus we can expect to hear more from George Foulkes, Jack McConnell and John Reid between now and September. Once, these three and Robertson were Labour machine politicians in Scotland. Now, in the House of Lords, these ermined four are known as Baron Robertson of Port Ellen, Baron Foulkes of Cumnock, Baron McConnell of Glenscorrodale and Baron Reid of Cardowan.

Cumnock and Cardowan are mining areas utterly ravaged by everything that a rabidly rightwing British state could throw at them during the miners' strike of 1984. Is it not a little disrespectful to the memory of what these villages once were to use their names as a calling card for the establishment that killed them off? If Barons Robertson, Foulkes, McConnell and Reid are the answer, then the Better Together campaign is indeed truly struggling. They will be asked to supplement the opinions of an assortment of capitalist titans who similarly are asking us to believe that independence will see the lights going out. These include Bob Dudley, chief executive of BP, who claimed that "all businesses have a concern" about the referendum and that his company would face higher costs amid currency uncertainty, leading to doubts over future investment. Just the other week, Keith Cochrane the chief executive of the Weir Group, one of Scotland's most successful companies insisted the "quality of life of millions of people" was at stake.

Bob Dudley last week saw his pay triple to £5.2m in the face of a shareholder revolt over the extent of his remuneration while Cochrane leads a company that was found guilty in 2010 of paying millions in sanction-busting kickbacks to the Iraqi regime, paid out before his tenure. They ought quietly to be going about their business, working out strategies to ensure that their companies are well placed to evolve honestly and with integrity with the challenges of independence if it's to be a yes vote. Sometimes you wonder how much of this is about a genuine concern for Scotland's future or if there is some sort of race for knighthoods if Scotland votes no.

While George Robertson was having his Armageddon moment in Washington, I was accompanying a group of Scottish entrepreneurs from our creative industries who were participating in a Scottish trade mission to New York organised by Scottish Development International.

These men and women, all paying their own way, were in the city to speak to an assortment of tax specialists, lawyers, state department officials and businessmen and seeking their advice on how to sell their products in America and thus grow their companies and provide more employment.

They represented the cream of creative talent in this country and included award-winning fashion designers, carpet-makers, a manufacturer of healthy dog biscuits and the owner of a boutique brewery and distillery in St Andrews. They are determined to see their businesses thrive whether Scotland becomes independent or not.

But instead of worrying about what happens on 18 September and scaling back their visions and their operations, they are setting sail for America and the markets beyond. As a group, they are neither pro- nor anti-independence. They are simply taking a deep breath and investing in Scotland's future financially, intellectually and spiritually.

The contrast between them and men such as Robertson, Dudley and Cochrane could not be starker.