Unite against Fascism (UAF) has failed (?)

[sihhi]

Notable, and sorry if this has been said, that the Dudley demo wasn't much less attended than Bolton by the fash.

Yet there was less coverage and what there was made the EDL look a lot worse than they did in Bolton. Is is co incidence that the anti-demo was a lot further away?

I used to think Butcher's line was wrong, that we should still turn up to register our dissproval and prevent these people from marching. Now I aint so sure.

You didn't answer my point about festivals earlier.

Socialist Worker this week
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=20840

Stop the Nazis at the ballot box

There is less than a month to stop the fascist British National Party (BNP) in the general election.

The violent nature of the party was underlined this week, as a film was released showing BNP leader Nick Griffin declaring to supporters that they “have the right to take up arms” and use “physical force” against opponents.

So UAF is opposed to physical force against the EDL?
It's just meaningless nonsense.

But to declare, as the Independent did last week, that “Margaret Hodge is the Labour MP probably feeling most relieved” is dangerously complacent.

Anti-fascists have to redouble our efforts to mobilise the majority of society who reject the BNP.

It's just pro-Hodge. Not a word against Hodge's record

Another absurd end:

And the carnivals and gigs organised by Love Music Hate Racism are vital to building a mass anti-Nazi culture, especially among young people.

There's basically a UAF/SWP alliance with Margaret Hodge in Barking.
http://www.uaf.org.uk/news.asp?choice=100208

Her only strategy is an anti-BNP one and UAF are helping her with it.

 

[TopCat]

Helping Margaret Hodge must leave one feeling really used and sullied.

 

[treelover]

The violent nature of the party was underlined this week, as a film was released showing BNP leader Nick Griffin declaring to supporters that they “have the right to take up arms” and use “physical force” against opponents.

Did Griffin really say that? bit worrying...

then again I remember a very senior SWP hack saying ''one day we will take that police station'', he was a Maths Professor as well

 

[mk12]

I was going to say, how's that any different to what the far-left says?

 

[sihhi]

I was going to say, how's that any different to what the far-left says?

It's all a concoted nonsense anyway Griffin's explicitly stating that people should vote BNP because that channel is open to them and only if that channel is taken away is violence legitimate.

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/0...ave-right-to-take-up-arms-and-blow-things-up/

 

[The Black Hand]

Just because some people don't write up their own actions (and those of others, natch) in academese, publish them and then claim the act as a form of praxis doesn't mean they've failed, it just means they're not careerist.

This comment was a waste of time. Publishing and agreeing to do things with people is useful in a number of ways. It makes links of solidarity, it gets ideas into new circles of people when you publish stuff WITH people from other traditions, in this case it has got published material into a completely new town for me.

This is all about capacity building, and it is strange that you are displaying poisoned old leftism so much, and cannot recognise progressive alliance building when you see it. But then, you prefer to stay in your old left ruts, which of course would be tragic if it weren't so sad.

The end stuff about 'careerist' is just pathetic, there is no money or a career in this and it is ultra left political lies to say so.

 

[audiotech]

Did Griffin really say that? bit worrying...

In Griffin's own words:

They ["people"] only have that right ["hurt, maim, blow things up"] when they're not allowed any other way of expressing a grievance.

...

 

[butchersapron]

That's your standard political liberalism.

 

[audiotech]

That's your standard political liberalism.

Tony Lecomber is no liberal then?

 

[butchersapron]

I don't think he is no. What's your point? They're not selling themselves on their liberalism, but on their opposition to it.

 

[audiotech]

I don't think he is no. What's your point? They're not selling themselves on their liberalism, but on their opposition to it.

Griffin's hypocrisy and bullshit is my point. A leading party member is caught and convicted of using an explosive device to bomb the premises of political opponents and Griffin welcomes him back into the party, when at the time, and still today, there are clearly "other ways of expressing a grievance", which he is now using to good effect in an attempt to gain power. If in the unlikely event of that happening, Griffin would have no hesitation at all in not allowing people any other way of "expressing a grievance" against him and his ilk.

 

[butchersapron]

Griffin's hypocrisy and bullshit is my point. A leading party member is caught and convicted of using an explosive device to bomb the premises of political opponents and Griffin welcomes him back into the party, when at the time, and still today, there are clearly "other ways of expressing a grievance", which he is now using to good effect in an attempt to gain power. If in the unlikely event of that happening, Griffin would have no hesitation at all in not allowing people any other way of "expressing a grievance" against him and his ilk.

Who and what the fuck are you about? In English.

 

[audiotech]

Admittedly, it's not in academic speak, but it's in clear, jargon free English for most to understand.

 

[butchersapron]

Admittedly, it's not in academic speak, but it's in clear, jargon free English for most to understand.

What is? That Lecomber was convicted of idiocy over a decade before Griffin was even in the BNP, yet you claim that Griffin allowed him back in the party? That Griffin adopted Lecombers pre-existing localist strategy after getting elected.

Yes, that's clear enough. As are a few other things.

 

[audiotech]

The BNP is now an open democratic organisation, who will allow a free expression of views from across the political spectrum and who in all honesty will not in any circumstances hinder anyone from "expressing a grievance" at anytime.

Message ends.

 

[butchersapron]

Yes, ignore it.

Sort your chronology out, sort your facts out and engage your brain.

 

[LLETSA]

The BNP is now an open democratic organisation, who will allow a free expression of views from across the political spectrum and who in all honesty will not in any circumstances hinder anyone from "expressing a grievance" at anytime.

Message ends.

I thought we weren't supposed to take the BNP at face value?

 

[audiotech]

Yes, ignore it.

Sort your chronology out, sort your facts out and engage your brain.

Cup of tea and a slice of toast, some further research and brain engaged.

The BNP's former Group Development Officer, Tony Lecomber, was convicted for offences under the Explosives Act in 1985. In the 1990s, Lecomber worked closely with Nick Griffin and supported him when he challenged John Tyndall's leadership of the BNP in 1999. Lecomber was later sacked from his position as the BNP's Group Development Officer over allegations from a former BNP organiser that Lecomber had tried to recruit him to assassinate politicians and members of the British establishment.

 

[Das Uberdog]

tbh MC5 I wouldn't bother trying to 'rise' to apron's 'standards' of debate, where he consistently shows himself unwilling to understand the implicit and tacit assumptions of ordinary dialogue where it doesn't fit with something he wants to be said.

 

[audiotech]

I thought we weren't supposed to take the BNP at face value?

That what they expect most will do, as the BNP treat the British electorate with utter contempt.

 

[audiotech]

tbh MC5 I wouldn't bother trying to 'rise' to apron's 'standards' of debate, where he consistently shows himself unwilling to understand the implicit and tacit assumptions of ordinary dialogue where it doesn't fit with something he wants to be said.

He's a big softie at heart.

To add: and honest in debate. That I admire.


...

 

[butchersapron]

tbh MC5 I wouldn't bother trying to 'rise' to apron's 'standards' of debate, where he consistently shows himself unwilling to understand the implicit and tacit assumptions of ordinary dialogue where it doesn't fit with something he wants to be said.

Speak hooverbag speak.

 

[Das Uberdog]

lah fa lah

 

[The39thStep]

Best Value Performance Indicators?
Is that a joke? Are you a local government bureaucrat?

Its my ambition to be one, any hints?

How would you measure the impact of these events then? Or should we just accept that they are somehow inherently a good thing?

 

[audiotech]

tbh MC5 I wouldn't bother trying to 'rise' to apron's 'standards' of debate, where he consistently shows himself unwilling to understand the implicit and tacit assumptions of ordinary dialogue where it doesn't fit with something he wants to be said.

Just peered into the bin, the daft sod.


...

 

[sihhi]

Its my ambition to be one, any hints?

How would you measure the impact of these events then? Or should we just accept that they are somehow inherently a good thing?

No.

I don't think they're "a good thing" for the population any more than a picnic with your relatives is a good thing for the population.

 

[sihhi]

'Putting demands on Labour splits the movement'

back from when Tony Blair was prime minister...

'Putting demands on Labour splits the movement'
Report of Unite Against Fascism Conference 17th February

The Unite Against Fascism conference was a reminder of the Labour Party and trade union bureaucracy's ability to strangle a movement. Seventeen top table speakers in the morning; at no time during the whole day was a delegate from the floor allowed to address the meeting; documents, resolutions, elections and mandates... "so old hat". ...

The liveliest moment of the morning was when Dave Chapel of Bridgewater CWU postal branch stood up, pointed at Peter Hain, as he started to speak, and bellowed, "You are a minister in a racist government and you have no right to be here." It was a sign of the meeting's lack of fire that the applause this drew was quieter than the calls for Dave to sit down.

Hain confined his remarks to his past antifascist activities... which appeared to end around 1981. Other speakers, however, gave useful speeches about the BNP today.
...
Lee Jasper of the National Assembly Against Racism and the London Mayor's Office noted that, when Derek Beacon was elected in 1993, "we made the ground shake until we got rid of him"; but now we are in danger of "sleepwalking towards our first fascist council".

However, Jasper's overall contribution to the debate was characteristically long on rhetoric and short on proposals. Like UAF Secretary and Socialist Workers Party leader Weyman Bennett, and Jeremy Corbyn MP, his only political riposte to the BNP was the defence of multiculturalism. In a clear attempt to limit the parameters of the debate to what was acceptable to mainstream Labour Party policy, Jasper said we should "reject the luxury of theoretical debate". In the afternoon's workshops, it became clear that this was shorthand for "Don't criticise Labour!"
...
But, whenever we demanded that the Labour dignitaries that grace UAF's platforms should openly fight against Blair and Brown's leadership, whenever we called on UAF to promote working class unity against the bosses and the government's attacks, we were told that we were somehow damaging unity. "Putting demands on Peter Hain won't achieve anything," claimed SWP hack, Elaine Heffernan, "it will only split the movement. To beat the fascists, we need unity, unity, unity!"

Many other activists, however, agreed with our points. Tony Barnsley of Sandwell Unison told how his Labour council reacted to the BNP winning four seats by deciding to hold a St George's Day parade, albeit with a multicultural flavour; BNP henchmen duly hijacked the 5,000-strong, all-white march and scored a political victory.

from http://www.workerspower.com/index.php?id=47,2341,0,0,1,0

 

[The39thStep]

back from when Tony Blair was prime minister...



from http://www.workerspower.com/index.php?id=47,2341,0,0,1,0

where art the Fifth international these days? last time I checked their stopped watch they were still on the mantra of workers defence squads ala James P Cannon

 

[veltins]

Its a bit like D- Day. Rommel and the Nazis knew that their only chance of stopping the liberation of Europe was to beat the allies on the beaches, they didn't and the rest is history. Birmingham and Manchester where the UAF's 'beaches' and they failed.

You have to remember that the EDL is not even 1 year old yet and at the beginning was being organised by lads that have difficulty organising a stag do never mind a national protest. But that is definitely changing and the football season is nearly at an end.

Where have the UAF been successful? First in giving publicity to the EDL and its cause. But second and i suppose more importantly to this board in stopping the far right in gaining any sort of strong hold which none of us want and making the EDL paranoid about the far right influence. As i have mentioned before fascism and communism are just different side of the same coin to me and i want no part of either. The left does have a role to play in highlighting know far right activists but shouting "nazi/fascist scum" at the rank and file is very much counter productive because it just doesn't mean anything to them, basically 'what the fuck are the UAF shouting that at us for"?

If i wanted to find a modern example of a fascist state I would look at the likes of Iran, Syria, Saudi (anything in common?) not Britain which i see as one of the most liberal and democratic countries in the world and at all costs has to remain so and be defended.

And i suppose there lies one of the divides. I see this democracy and freedom being undermined by islamic ideology (and dont get me wrong i think the muslim world has a strong case to be pissed off with all the interference from the likes of Bush, Blair and Brown) and trying to preserve this Islands culture and heritage as it seems everyone else should be allowed to have a culture except the British. You may disagree with that but to dismiss it is to not understand the rank and file of the EDL.

The left (imo) sees this as defending the defenseless (which muslims certainly are not and would probably do a much better job without the UAF interfering all the time). Its then a case of 'why just muslims'? well because everyone else seems to get on just fine, Sikhs, christians, Buddhists Hindus, Chinese communities, Jewish communities all just seem to integrate quite nicely thank you very much and don't wish to enforce upon the people of this country a set of religious laws that belong in the dark ages. So again, shouting 'racist' (which seems to be the default position for most) just dosnt have any effect because it doesn't mean anything. It is such an important word that has been used out of context so many times it is embarrassing. This isn't about race or colour its about culture.

 

[butchersapron]

Have you read this thread veltins? Looked at the poll results? (I'll come back to your post in a bit.)