h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I watched the Channel 4 drama, The Bradford Riots last night: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,14934-2145242,00.html

It was reasonably good - a reminder of how that summer many ordinary, decent British citizens across Northern England were provoked to violence following extreme pressure from racist thugs - although they didn't make nearly enough of the orchestrated intimidation that went on throughout that summer.

But one thing struck me. Call me paranoid...but they kept refering to the NF - a tiny, fringe fascist group which has pretty much faded away from its peak in the 70s. Was this possibly self-censorship on the part of the programme makers, afraid of being sued by the now respectable, mainstream BNP? Because it is well known that they were behind it. They may have convinced the BBC to conduct 'fair and balanced' interviews with the media-friendly Nick Griffin, but these are people whose hobbies typically include beating up elderly Bangladeshis and collecting Nazi memorabilia.

And then...I wake up this morning to find that the BNP have 11 seats on Barking council and are now the official opposition. And Nick Griffin being solemly interviewed on Radio 4 about how his party members will represent their communities.

http://www.s-light.demon.co.uk/
http://www.anl.org.uk

It's only partly coincidence that I'm wearing my famous Malcolm X t-shirt today. There was one other that I could have ironed.

I take it the profanity filter wouldn't have allowed you to wear the other T-shirt.

Too many smileys no doubt?



zdt

Interesting.

Speaking of censorship...this has taken about 7 hours to appear. It seams that somebody forgot to change the profundity filter to stop it flagging up words that were treated with caution because of the English elections - it didn't stop them, just put posts on pre-mod - so the Mods have had their biggest backlog ever.

See petard? See hoist?

This thread got duplicated somehow: F1860405?thread=289709

Tsk tsk, "petard" is a foreign word. Be careful; be very very careful.

zdt

emr said on the *other* version:
>>I have to say, the BNP kind of scares me. Every country has its extremists, but the BNP are so extraordinarily open about being extremists that it's both weird and frightening.

The thing is...they're trying to appear as a reasonable, democratic alternative. And it's working! I know for a fact that Griffin came up to Glasgow that summer intending to stir up trouble in an area where refugees are housed and a young Kurdish guy had recently been murdered. He was warned off by the police so got his my Sturmabteilung to leaflet my multicultural ex-neighbourhood instead (and I've mentioned before that a colleague of mine turned out to be one of their cannon fodder and was jailed as a result).

This is getting way serious. They're being given too much of a soft ride in the media in the mistaken belief that they'll expose themselves. But they're far too media-savvy these days. Nobody's asking the searching questions like 'But you're violent, fascist scum, aren't you?'

And echo's link got messed up somehow: F1860405?thread=2897098 alt="smiley - winkeye" title="winkeye" class="smiley" src="http://www.h2g2.com/h2g2/skins/Alabaster/images/Smilies/f_winkeye.gif"/>

Hi Eddie

Sturm Abteilung is exactly the word I would reach for at a time like this. As a young ANL member I fought the NF on the streets of Southall in 1975 and 76, when they were protected by the Met and their SPG assault units. Then we had Combat 18 to contend with, savvy thugs with an agenda that unmasked their masters in the NF.

Many of those young thugs now surround Nick Griffin, elder statesmen of the fascist movement, but thugs still.

I will continue to fight them with truth until my last breath for they are an anathema on any civilised society, purveyors of lies and hate.

Despite this I will not have them silenced for then they will go underground as they did in the 80's, only to re-emerge stronger and cleverer.

I want them where decent folk can see their madness and sadness and abhor them for it.

Moseley's Brownshirts never went away, they live next door...

Dark blessings,
Matholwch /|\

>>As a young ANL member I fought the NF on the streets of Southall in 1975 and 76

Respect, Drood! The only argument these [word I can't use any more] understand is half bricks, thrown with great force.

I was in Birmingham at that time, Balsall Heath to be exact & dare not say more on here, but seems like we all went through the same stuff.

*

Stand down Margaret
Sing if you're glad to be gay
London's burning

*

zdt

Di SPG dem are murderer
Wi cyaan let dem get no furderer

This tooooown, is coming like a ghost town...

Too much fighting on the dance floor


What really worries me is that the parties will lean rightwards in an effort to 'win back' the BNP vote. This would be a political - as well as a moral mistake. Firstly - the BNP vote is coming from white trash who are noy usually voters (although in Burnley, it seems to come from the leafy, middle class areas ). Secondly, Labour's problem has been losing the Asian vote - as well as the socialist vote - because of Iraq.)

The move rightwards can be subtle. In last year's General Election, Howard conducted the most appalingly racist campaign of many a year. Now, of course, the Tories are Under New Management...led by Howard's campaign manager/ speechwriter. Cuddly 'Dave' may be fooling a lot of people, but not me.

And Labour are far from immune to it either. They've had a succesion of Home Secretaries each trying to appear more authoritarian than the last one. What lost Clarke his job was the realisation that prisoners from overseas weren't being deported on release. Shock horror...some of them have re-offended. Hardly a surprise, surely, given that Britain has the highest re-offending rate in Europe (as well as the highest per capita prison population). Ah...but these were *foreigners* Something Must Be Done!. One would like to think that the Brown administration will be different. But...who do we suppose leaked the Clarke story?






Ain't you heard of contraception?
Ain't you heard of the starving millions?
Do you really want a programme of sterilisation?
State control of the population
Boom?!
It's in your living room.
Keep the generation gap.
Try wearing a CAP!

"the BNP vote is coming from white trash who are noy usually voters"

Please don't call them trash. The BNP work on vulnerable white people in poor areas. They tell them the reason it's so difficult to find jobs and houses, or even to get benefits, is because brown people are taking them all and are being treated with favouritism by the government. When you're down and out, and not privy to the truth, it's a persuasive argument.

Afterthought: the existence of positive discrimination in the workplace for the sake of statistics is enough to add weight to the battier claims.

>The BNP work on vulnerable white people in poor areas. They tell them the reason it's so difficult to find jobs and houses, or even to get benefits, is because brown people are taking them all and are being treated with favouritism by the government. When you're down and out, and not privy to the truth, it's a persuasive argument.<

The KKK used similar tactics here. And I still hear on an almost daily basis, from our more "conservative" constituency (and some of the more conservative government types) that affirmative action is taking jobs away from better qualified qhite workers and students.

While that might be true in a few isolated instances, affirmative action is hardly favoritism. I imagine the situation isn't all that different over there?

<>

Well quite, Snailrind. I hate the term 'white trash' myself. Anyhow, nobody would get away with using the term 'black trash' - and of course they shouldn't. Likewise writing off poor uneducated people in general as 'trash' at all simply shows a lack of understanding.

Not to say that some segments of the poor and uneducated don't behave in a nasty manner. But the very dismissive and unfair term 'trash' is one I think we don't need to use here.


az

No...in this case I'll stick with White Trash. I'm in no way applying it to all poor white people - that's my own family background, after all. But there are many, many white working class people who live happily side-by-side in multi-ethnic neighbourhoods who wouldn't dream of voting BNP.