Extremist politics - no comments

Muslim convert 'recruits' inmates:

A former British National Party activist who converted to Islam in prison is trying to radicalise young prisoners, the BBC can reveal.

I'm deliberately avoiding use of the term 'fascist', but doesn't this tell you all you need to know about those whose currency is political hate, whether on the 'left' or 'right'? Once the contempt for the mass of the population is there, trivial political and religious differences like these can easily be rationalised away.

Steve Gough, vice-chairman of the Prison Officers Association (POA), said the organisation had been worried about the situation for a number of years.

"This shows what we've been saying. If you can get someone that's so right wing converted then a normal prisoner is going to have absolutely no chance," he said.

Which is probably about the same amount of faith in the human race I'd expect from a Prison Officer.

Suppressing the BNP - 5 comments

This is almost too ridiculous for words: six companies will withdraw advertisements from Facebook on the off-chance that a non-BNP supporter will visit a BNP (Wikipedia) group page and decide that the same advertisements they see randomly appearing on every other page on the site imply, in this case, some kind of corporate endorsement, or acceptance, of BNP policies. If anyone owns shares in First Direct, Vodafone, Virgin Media, the AA, Halifax, or the Prudential, now might be the right time to sell, if those companies are so quick to make fruitless political gestures that allow additional exposure to their competitors, while doing nothing to thwart the BNP except offer them additional publicity and swelling their victim-complex. If the named companies decided they didn't want BNP supporters as customers, or were prepared to campaign against the party, that would be different altogether, but their corporate image is hardly worth us bothering about. More here, and here.

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The BNP might almost have been invented to distract good, principled, intelligent people from the international fight against bigotry, intolerance, and religious/ethnic/racial victimisation, towards a single struggle against a tiny party that can hardly be separated from the murky world of thugs and madmen (remember Derek Beackon?) that makes up the extremities of the political world. The tragedy is that, by ducking the substantive moral and policy issues, opponents' emphasis on (say) racism appears to shift from to being a moral abuse to, as this new Facebook group argues, a 'terms of service' violation. Forcing the hand of advertisers and open social networking sites, so that poor ignorant members of the public can be insulated from the BNP's extreme views, can't help opponents to mobilise the population against them.

I can't think of any cause that is so critical, or infectious, as to justify the population being kept in ignorance. An account of the atrocious record and (occasionally criminal) behaviour of BNP councillors in office would surely carry more weight. Furthermore, a grown-up analysis of their policies - a plausible-looking summary of which appear here - would allow us to go beyond the word 'fascist' to say that they are morally wrong, inegalitarian, and opportunistic; that they breach universal human rights; and that their mishmash of authoritarian economic policies - culled from both traditional left and traditional right - would make people poorer both here and abroad, just as they have failed under every other government that has ever tried them. Are we unsure that we can win these arguments among the electorate? Ministry of Truth takes some of them on here, but this is rarely done.

So, while I'm sympathetic to the old adage that the only good BNP activist is one holding a steak over his eye, we should allow parties we despise to organise on Facebook within its rules, just as Facebook allows us to organise within its rules, and concentrate on promoting our own, positive message, and criticising stupid and damaging views - with our sights on the electorate, not on ourselves.