For reasons I and others have already outlined. An extra few dozen (usually temporary)recruits to organisations way past their sell-by date indicates no political sea change, but only that small numbers of people interested in making a difference have nowhere else to go.
What Now for the BNP?
- Thread starter intersol32
- Start date
For reasons I and others have already outlined. An extra few dozen (usually temporary)recruits to organisations way past their sell-by date indicates no political sea change, but only that small numbers of people interested in making a difference have nowhere else to go.
Red Storm
M14
They turned out temporary in the SP but they then went on to do anti-fascist work and now anti cuts work albeit independent. The membership of organisations may be temporary but becoming politically active within the labour movement can be longer lasting.
However it is true that we have no where to go. An issue not easy to resolve.
intersol32
Well-Known Member
This seems to border on religious fervour, rather than a realistic assessment of strategy.
No one here is suggesting that the BNP offer concrete solutions. But the irony is that whilst the far-right have metaphorically dropped the ball after their 55+ councillors, there's still nothing standing in their way to prevent a resurgance and learn from their mistakes.
Let's not forget that rather than fill the void and connect with the working class, many on the left instead urged them to carry on voting for the Labour Party...or as in the case of Barking and Dagenham "even a Tory, as long as its not the BNP!". What a fucking nightmare.
To highlight this lack of foresight, I remember a few years back when the BNP were on one of the local estates whipping up the issue of immigration. The response from the left? Produce a poster that says "Asylum Seekers Welcome Here!" (where they meant by "Here" is not entirely certain, as they certainly weren't going to be housed in Hemel Hempstead where most of the protestors appeared to be from). In fact only a few weeks ago I saw another elderly lefty protestor at a UAF demo holding a sign that said "I love Mosques", so they obviously haven't learned.
To accuse many of us on here of "pessimism" is also a bit rich. Especially when you state that "The working class may see their salvation TODAY in passivity and buying a Lottery ticket, but once unemployment reaches 4 million or so, the welfare state is in tatters, and wages are cut to the bone, masses of people WILL be open to the socialist message again."
Brilliant. I'd like to see someone sell that message on the doorstep; "listen mate, I know youth unemployment has gone up, substance and alcohol abuse is rife, the financial system is fucked, everyone's in debt....but when it gets WORSE you'll finally understand that Socialism is your answer. Cheers."
It reminds me of the local vicar that suddenly turned up at my grandparents house after they were burgled. Prior to that he'd not shown his nose in the whole 50 years they'd lived there.
Despite all this I do have faith in the working class, but I don't rub my hands hoping that things will finally become so bad that they'll come running to us. It may become the case that a political movement of some sort will rise out of it at some point, but the only way anyone on the left can be sure of its direction is if they're in there living and breathing it. Not on the outside trying to flog them a newspaper and trying to get everyone along to a meeting about Palestine.
The BNP just has to wait.
The country will come apart at the seams as collapsing standards of living arising from the government's progressive default on the £4 trillion unfunded pension liability collide with escalating living costs as oil depletion inflates transportation, heating and food bills, global economic contraction, and the collapse of that great engine of middle class wealth - the 40 year housing bubble. As the penny drops that rolling power blackouts, round-the-block unemployment queues, soup kitchens and the paraphenalia of Depression society is not a "double dip recession" but rather the videotape of our parents' post-War oil surplus synthetic enrichment running backwards, all eyes will turn to the "other" in our midst, competing with "us" for diminishing resource.
Enter the BNP.
There is a reason why the Government is pre-emptively installing the infrastructure and legislation for massive public disorder control, and why the BNP sit in the front row of Transition planning meetings.
The country will come apart at the seams as collapsing standards of living arising from the government's progressive default on the £4 trillion unfunded pension liability collide with escalating living costs as oil depletion inflates transportation, heating and food bills, global economic contraction, and the collapse of that great engine of middle class wealth - the 40 year housing bubble. As the penny drops that rolling power blackouts, round-the-block unemployment queues, soup kitchens and the paraphenalia of Depression society is not a "double dip recession" but rather the videotape of our parents' post-War oil surplus synthetic enrichment running backwards, all eyes will turn to the "other" in our midst, competing with "us" for diminishing resource.
Enter the BNP.
There is a reason why the Government is pre-emptively installing the infrastructure and legislation for massive public disorder control, and why the BNP sit in the front row of Transition planning meetings.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
do they?? what do you mean? (i don't know what you mean by this, sorry!)
1%er
Well-Known Member
Can you give me some examples of the infrastructure and legislation of which you speak?
SpineyNorman
Inappropriate content removed
It's not just you mate, I had a wtf? moment when I read that too but I didn't ask cos I was hoping someone else would and save me from looking thick lol
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
yes. a surprising number of bnp members are short-sighted and too vain to wear glasses.
The Transition Movement is a rapidly growing global movement that supports community led preparation for energy depletion and climate change. It's fluid (as you'd expect - no-one has ever operated an industrial society in reverse, they've always exploded so there is no manual). A significant aspect of the process is the systematic consideration of all the ways society will degrade as its operational fabric unravels (the "operational fabric" comprises the given conditions at any time that support system wide functionality. Examples include functioning markets, financing, monetary stability, operational supply-chains, transport, digital infrastructure, command & control, health service, sanitation, food production, institutions of trust, and sociopolitical stability. It is what we casually assume does and will exist, and which provides the structural foundation for any project we wish to develop. Since what we perceive as "society" is an emergent property of a complex system rather than something we designed, we don't actually know all of its critical subsystems, interdependencies and single points of failure, so this is quite a hard exercise). The reason the Transition Movement does it is to try and figure out ways to mitigate their failures with alternative social arrangements. The reason the BNP are interested in it is to learn what they are. It's like someone else doing your homework. They are regular attenders at the meetings I've been to.
The Civil Contingencies Act is one example of pre-emptive legislative change. The scope of its application is, inexplicably, limitless. It cannot be explained from a presumption of continuity of government through preservation of the rule of law. It is predicated on an assumption that discontinuity of government is a contingency for which an explicit legislative instrument is now required. The balance is now shifting from the logic of the legal system, which requires proof, to the logic of intelligence, which is based on suspicion. They have been slipped under the radar by splitting them, like binary weapons: (1) Introduce laws notionally targeted at "terrorists" (2) broaden the definition of "terrorist". Protestors at the 2004 Docklands arms fair were stopped and searched under the Terrorism Act 2000, not conventional police powers. Walter Wolfgang was removed from the Labour Party conference for heckling Straw - under anti-terror laws. Anti-terrorism powers were invoked to stop people approaching the 2007 Climate Camp at Heathrow, and against residents of a nearby village preparing to march to protest the loss of their homes to an airport expansion. The UK Government seized the assets of Icelandic bank Landsbanki in 2008 - under anti-terrorism laws. Wearing a T-shirt with an anti-government slogan can get you arrested in Britain - under anti-terrorism laws.
Legitimate political dissent and protest is now criminalised. You do it to the extent you are permitted, and that extent is discretionary. The anti-capitalist protest outside St Pauls is the precursor of mass civil disobedience. The scope of anti-capitalist protest is rather fundamentally circumscribed by new and unprecedented state powers.
If you tried to organise a protest to have the law repealed, you could be detained under the law.
The British achieved in a single legal instrument what it took the American neo-Conservatives years of patient, deep-state extra-legal stealth to install in their Constitution. I think we are in an even deeper coma than they are, if such a thing is possible. Imagine if the wrong lot got their hands on those toys, elected, say, on a ticket of restoring the glory of Britannia?
The Civil Contingencies Act is one example of pre-emptive legislative change. The scope of its application is, inexplicably, limitless. It cannot be explained from a presumption of continuity of government through preservation of the rule of law. It is predicated on an assumption that discontinuity of government is a contingency for which an explicit legislative instrument is now required. The balance is now shifting from the logic of the legal system, which requires proof, to the logic of intelligence, which is based on suspicion. They have been slipped under the radar by splitting them, like binary weapons: (1) Introduce laws notionally targeted at "terrorists" (2) broaden the definition of "terrorist". Protestors at the 2004 Docklands arms fair were stopped and searched under the Terrorism Act 2000, not conventional police powers. Walter Wolfgang was removed from the Labour Party conference for heckling Straw - under anti-terror laws. Anti-terrorism powers were invoked to stop people approaching the 2007 Climate Camp at Heathrow, and against residents of a nearby village preparing to march to protest the loss of their homes to an airport expansion. The UK Government seized the assets of Icelandic bank Landsbanki in 2008 - under anti-terrorism laws. Wearing a T-shirt with an anti-government slogan can get you arrested in Britain - under anti-terrorism laws.
Legitimate political dissent and protest is now criminalised. You do it to the extent you are permitted, and that extent is discretionary. The anti-capitalist protest outside St Pauls is the precursor of mass civil disobedience. The scope of anti-capitalist protest is rather fundamentally circumscribed by new and unprecedented state powers.
If you tried to organise a protest to have the law repealed, you could be detained under the law.
The British achieved in a single legal instrument what it took the American neo-Conservatives years of patient, deep-state extra-legal stealth to install in their Constitution. I think we are in an even deeper coma than they are, if such a thing is possible. Imagine if the wrong lot got their hands on those toys, elected, say, on a ticket of restoring the glory of Britannia?
audiotech
wav, aiff, mp3, ogg, flac
Well yes, but no but, yes but, but no but. 
A normative approach Falcon, which rightly assesses the here and now (well, sometime in the near future at least), but historical materialism does tend to throw up a few surprises that then is organised. Yes?
Seven million trade unionists dwarfs the BNP and in all likelihood the vast majority of shop stewards (how many these days?) at least despise them.
A normative approach Falcon, which rightly assesses the here and now (well, sometime in the near future at least), but historical materialism does tend to throw up a few surprises that then is organised. Yes?
Seven million trade unionists dwarfs the BNP and in all likelihood the vast majority of shop stewards (how many these days?) at least despise them.
Well, if you can't expect civil behaviour at that point in our civilisation when we've never had so much comfort and so little competition for resource (the functional definition of "peak"), when can you?
As far as I know, the citizens of the Weimar Republic weren't genetically or culturally predisposed to running the likes of Treblinka. Something happened to change the behaviour of shopkeepers and nice family men. That "something" was a variant of structural collapse, the creation of an entire underclass of very desperate people, and an artificially manufactured "other" (in their case, Jews, gypsies, etc., in our case "muslimsterrorists") who's existence explained the problem and who's elimination provided a solution and diversion and legitimated necessary legal and constitutional changes. (Interestingly, the Nazis went to some length to ensure that death camps were legal under German law).
As thoughtful creatures, we look beyond the next episode of "I'm a Celebrity" to speculate about how people's behaviour might change as we descend through Orlov's five stages of collapse (financial, commercial, political, social and cultural), based on observation of how it has always done so in the past.
Joe Reilly
Well-Known Member
Well yes, but no but, yes but, but no but.
A normative approach Falcon, which rightly assesses the here and now (well, sometime in the near future at least), but historical materialism does tend to throw up a few surprises that then is organised. Yes?
Seven million trade unionists dwarfs the BNP and in all likelihood the vast majority of shop stewards (how many these days?) at least despise them.
Seven million (it used to be 12) trade unionists who are, and have been for many years effectively powerless, who can't even protect their pensions. Who are, the most of them, formally aligned to a political party that is overwhelmingly middle class and supports the cuts in their pay in public services and so on. And who, if opinion polls are to be believed are hardly immune to the anti-immigration stance that dictates core BNP policy either.
To nuance that: seven million with no pension capable of being protected; a middle class which is converting en-masse into the unworking class; and public services that are ceasing as their funding mechanism (debt transfer to the next generation) fails. But unionists are certainly sensitive to the value of a bit of organisation in service of pursuing a class interest.
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
So as we descend through the five rings of post-industrial hell, trade unionists, with their love of organisation and self interest, will fall into step with an emergent neo-fascist movement; where they will be joined by blood and soil eco-warriors? The only glimmer of hope in the impending apocalypse is provided by the recalcitrant stoic's beacon of rationality. I'm glad you're here Falcon.
Cheers - Louis MacNeice
Cheers - Louis MacNeice
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
It's certainly an odd thing to do you while simultaneously claiming that everything 'financial, commercial, political, social and cultural' (including the conditions which made possible the history with which the analogy is being made) is going to fall apart; this is known as Falcon's paradox.
Cheers - Louis MacNeice
Yes, but I'm not. Conversely, failing to recognise that our own time has no analogy is fatal to meaningful engagement. And there can be no greater disengagement from the realities of one's own time than the marvellously reassuring phrase: "This time, it's different".
Louis. Straw man argument. Engage with what I said, please, not with your fanciful distillations.
How widespread is this attendance, though? I went to a film showing they were advertising in a neighbouring area. The meeting was a bit of a shambles. The organisers arrived late and hadn't even set up the equipment so some of the locals left before it had even started. I'd gone along because the film they'd advertised was something apocalyptic and juicy-I forget what now, it was a while ago-but they'd somehow fucked that up and instead showed that Kunstler talk on the wastefulness of suburbia which you can see on YouTube. The discussion that followed was dominated by some bloke who was trying to sell them some corrugated iron for their allotment and two religious nutters who kept dragging everything back to Judgement Day. The organisers couldn't really handle them-the whackos were working class and they were teacher/lecturer types who clearly mix only with their own kind.* For that reason, I couldn't imagine them being too keen to deal with/tolerate BNP members either.
*The young woman was a very nice looking piece though.
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
No straw men Falcon; just dissapointment that you won't be able to lead us to the promised land...for a moment there I thought you'd saved us all.
Cheers - Louis MacNeice
It sounds like we are violently agreeing. Our time has no analogy. We can distinguish between observing certain properties of other situations, and asserting that the other situation is analogous. I think you made too much of the observation
Fair comment. Attendance is about what you would expect for the general level of knowledge about the basic facts and properties of our financial and energy system.
intersol32
Well-Known Member
This sounds familiar. A few years ago we were setting up a local residents group and I received an invite to a meeting with a similar bunch of people. Real business suited types who tended to flick through a load of pie charts, Venn diagrams and use phrases that they seem to have made up.
It was obvious within five minutes that they hadn't a grasp of what was going on in the area. Afterwards they kept contacting the residents group in an attempt to set up more meetings, but by that time we were certain they were just a waste of time. At one point they even tried to get me to sit on some sort of committee they were arranging.
It was a load of bollocks. They were an odd bunch who essentially seemed out of their depth, and more than likely were failed office types who'd replied to some quirky add in the job centre for 'community liason' or something.
Presumably, among Transition types they don't bang on about immigration and suchlike for the reasons I've outlined. How in that case can you be sure they're BNP?
Having said all that, the middle class professionals who seem to dominate the Transition movement as with so much else on the green/ liberal-leftish scene are mostly anti-racist because they automatically absorb the fashionable notions of the day. If something happens to undermine the basis of these notions, this could change very quickly and I don't see why they would necessarily object to articulate and well-behaved fascists, especially if they were in broad agreement on a range of issues. 'Respectable racism' already seems to be on its way back (not that it ever really went away.) I don't know about anybody else, but I happened to start watching that Danish TV serial about the high-level political/journalistic scene over there currently being shown on the BBC (Borgen?) It's striking how politicians of all sides treat the leader of the neo-fascist 'Freedom Party' as just another politician. I don't know how accurate the portrayal is, but it's definitely what Griffin's BNP was aiming for.
I think the Transition types do mean well, and the work they put in does seem impressive (I know vaguely somebody who's been to have a look at their community allotments, as they invite people to.) I just feel it's destined to confine itself, partly deliberately and partly inadvertently, to the usual middle class liberal ghetto.
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
The Recalcitrant Stoic, by turns ladling out certitude and smugness. Personally comforted no doubt in these difficult times, but politically disabled in an age when (following RS's paradoxical lead) the necessities are mutual recognition and cooperation not hectoring leadership. But don't mind me, you carry on with being fascinated and tapping out your words of wisdom.
Cheers - Louis MacNeice
Cheers - Louis MacNeice
No, they make no contribution. You know who they are - it is not a secret organisation.
Transition cheerfully admits that it does not know "the answer", and Transition people cheerfully admit they are unqualified. How can it be otherwise - there is no precedent, and there are people now who would literally die if supermarkets and electricity stopped working. So its approach is to try and create a framework that organises lots of diffuse energy, figure out by trial and error what seems to work, and spread information to make learning as fast as possible.
But these are people who are growing their own food, building alternative currency systems and social support mechanisms, learning trades other than selling photocopy insurance, and reducing their dependency on systems that are, frankly, pretty ropey. If things go bad, they will be better placed. A lot of it is precisely the kind of thing they accused Maggie Thatcher of destroying with her "no such thing as society" philosophy. Labelling them as middle class twits is fun, but inaccurate.
You might feel there is nothing to worry about and that, even if there was, the Government are wise and qualified and foresighted enough to figure something out. Or you might feel that unfettered capitalism, the market, and human ingenuity will come up with something. In which it's easy to poke fun at it. In fact, I can imagine how it might be quite reassuring to. There is no doubt that getting involved is inconvenient.
Well, I'm sorry you feel that way. It's an unpleasant subject and hard to talk about in a way that satisfies everyone.
I don't think I've really poked fun at them: I've just describe my brief experience of the movement. And nor do I think there's nothing to worry about in terms of what you're saying. All societies have to collapse at some point, and who knows, what we're currently witnessing in the economy may be the start of it. The signs are not good.
I didn't mean to imply you were doing wrong. I find involvement in it frustrating at times and I recognised the comments above. Transition is a (self-confessed) imperfect response, but better than nothing.
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