Time to scalp a wingnut, part 2: Browne in his own words

A follow on from my post earlier today, I've spent far too much time digging around dark and fetid corners of the web, places like The Spectator, collecting some choice quotes from Mr Browne. I'll comment on these later, maybe over the weekend, but for now, I'm going to let them stand on their own, as an archive. So no, no snark for you today.

"A popular topic for discussion on Arabic TV channels is the best strategy for conquering the West. It seems to be agreed that since the West has overwhelming economic, military and scientific power, it could take some time, and a full frontal assault could prove counterproductive. Muslim immigration and conversion are seen as the best path."
Saturday, 24th July 2004, The Spectator

"In Muslim tradition, the world is divided into Dar al-Islam, where Muslims rule, and Dar al-Harb, the 'field of war' where the infidels live. 'The presumption is that the duty of jihad will continue, interrupted only by truces, until all the world either adopts the Muslim faith or submits to Muslim rule,' wrote Professor Bernard Lewis in his bestseller The Crisis of Islam.' "
Saturday, 24th July 2004, The Spectator

"In the last century some Christians justified the persecution and mass murder of Jews by claiming that Jews wanted to take over the world. But these fascist fantasies were based on deliberate lies, such as the notorious fake book The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Now, many in the Muslim world are open about their desire for Islam to conquer the West."
Saturday, 24th July 2004, The Spectator

"At least, though, the Left in the Netherlands has seen that there is a clash between liberal democracy and cultural relativism; that some cultures are simply not compatible with Western traditions of freedom and tolerance; and that the old distinction between evil right-wingers and cuddly left-wingers no longer makes sense. It is one thing to turn a Christian church into a mosque, quite another to get radical Islam to accept liberal democracy. Outside the Netherlands, however, the Left has yet to learn these lessons."
Saturday, 20th November 2004, The Spectator

"Just as communism could only be upheld by totalitarianism, so multiculturalism is being upheld by curbs on free speech and democracy."
Saturday, 20th November 2004, The Spectator

"Is Hackney the future of the world? You may find it a horrifying thought, but many on the Left hope that it is. I don't mean the extortionate taxes, the crushingly bloated public sector, the government-by-political-correctness, the bankrupt school system, the dehumanising crime, the failing social services, and all the other things the Left love so dearly."
Saturday, 19th February 2005, The Spectator

"Even in supposedly Christian Europe, Christianity has become the most mocked religion, its followers treated with public suspicion and derision and sometimes — such as the would-be EU commissioner Rocco Buttiglione — hounded out of political office."
Saturday, 26th March 2005, The Spectator

"I have spoken to dozens of former Muslims who have converted to Christianity in Britain, and who are shunned by their community, subjected to mob violence, forced out of town, threatened with death and even kidnapped. The Barnabas Trust knows of 3,000 such Christians facing persecution in this country, but the police and government do nothing."
Saturday, 26th March 2005, The Spectator

"No, the real answer to why Britain spawned people fuelled with maniacal hate for their country is that Britain hates itself. In hating Britain, these British suicide bombers were as British as a police warning for flying the union flag."
Saturday, 23rd July 2005, The Spectator

"Britain's self-loathing is deep, pervasive and lethally dangerous. We get bombed, and we say it's all our own fault. Schools refuse to teach history that risks making pupils proud, and use it instead as a means of instilling liberal guilt. The government and the BBC gush over 'the other', but recoil at the merest hint of British culture. The only thing we are licensed to be proud of is London's internationalism — in other words, that there is little British left about it."
Saturday, 23rd July 2005, The Spectator

"Only in the last few years has it dawned on the government how dangerous the Left's war on Britishness really is."
Saturday, 23rd July 2005, The Spectator

"Livingstone also has — how shall we put this? — controversial views on relations with Muslim extremists. His notorious embrace of the Qatar-based, anti-Semitic, homophobic, totalitarian, Islamic extremist imam Yusuf al-Qaradawi, spiritual guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, has been roundly condemned. It wasn't only a naked appeal for the Muslim vote but was also driven by the principle that your enemy's enemy is your friend. Livingstone sees al-Qaradawi as a natural ally because they both hate America."
Wednesday, 28th February 2007, The Spectator

"No, it's lefties we should be furrowing our collective brow about. We shouldn't worry about the threat they pose to society (even though successful countries can survive anything except civil war and socialism)."
Wednesday, 5th September 2007, The Spectator

"The Left was definitely right on basic moral issues, particularly on promoting tolerance — whether it be gay rights, women's rights, or combating racism. But on most other social issues, it was wrong. About the causes of crime, family breakdown, the dangers of welfare dependency, personal responsibility, and the drawbacks of multiculturalism, the Right was right. When Iain Duncan Smith visited a rundown estate and was challenged: 'What are you doing here? This is Labour territory,' he replied: 'Yes, and look around you.'"
Wednesday, 5th September 2007, The Spectator

"Whether it is market forces in public services or multiculturalism, the Left first successfully demonises right-wing policies and then, when its own ideas fail, it adopts them without apology. The Left's great triumph has been to remain credible after adopting policies that it had demonised; the Right's failure has been to win the arguments but lose the debate."
Wednesday, 5th September 2007, The Spectator

"Universities are pretty much monopolised by the Left, and seem to rejoice in their lack of real-world impact. A whole raft of lobby groups from Liberty to Refugee Action to the Child Poverty Action Group get endless free BBC airtime promoting pretty uniformly left-wing viewpoints."
Wednesday, 14th May 2008, The Spectator

"In the US, the flourishing centre-right think tanks have helped push the whole political centre of gravity way to the right of that of the UK. The AEI is (in)famous for promoting the invasion of Iraq, while Heritage has kept social conservatism and the importance of religion high on the policy agenda. Cato has helped mute the siren calls of protectionism.

Those on the right of centre in Britain often complain that the Left has been far better at promoting its ideas, while commentators often complain about the shallow state of debate in Britain. But with such a weakened ideas industry, it's no surprise that our ideas aren't thriving. It would be far healthier for democracy and debate in Britain if our ideas industry managed to step up to the American level."
Wednesday, 14th May 2008, The Spectator

"The London magazine Time Out recently interviewed a Turkish immigrant who said that the English were now the foreigners in Stoke Newington. This, of course, was reported as a cause of celebration: we must celebrate diversity. We have to celebrate it, even though for white British people celebrating diversity basically means saying sorry. We have to celebrate diversity, because otherwise it might rise up and kill us: Northern Ireland, former Yugoslavia, Israel, Rwanda, Gujarat, northern Nigeria have all recently suffered mass deaths as a result of diversity."
Anthony Browne, August 07, 2002, Times Online (cross-posted to VDARE.com)

"Mr Blunkett's warning shows just how dangerous it is to ignore the clear democratic will and impose mass immigration on a people that really don't want it. He in effect admitted that his policies of promoting legal mass Third World immigration while refusing to take action necessary to stem illegal mass Third World immigration are bringing Britain, normally one of the most stable democracies in the world, to the verge of anarchy."
Anthony Browne, January 28, 2003, VDARE.com

"The turning point was the murder of a policeman during a raid on a North African Islamic "asylum seeker." Asylum is the favoured means of illegal immigration to Britain, because once you just say "asylum" you get a whole range of benefits, housing, full health care (including free plastic surgery) and free immigration lawyers who will string your claim out for years, and then when eventually your claim to be escaping persecution is rejected (as happens in 90 per cent of cases) you can just stay in Britain anyway because the government finds it too hard to make anyone leave who doesn't want to."
Anthony Browne, January 28, 2003, VDARE.com

"This political earthquake is rumbling in Britain (the "coming storm" as the left-wing Observer newspaper put it) but it will explode once Islamic terrorist illegal immigrants claim the first life of an innocent civilian–not just a policeman–on British soil. The fear that will rip through the country when that happens will force the government to act, but the tragedy is that it will have set back race relations in Britain decades.

In the battle between the British public and the human rights lobby, it is Britain's five million ethnic minorities, and two million innocent Muslims who will be the real losers."
Anthony Browne, January 28, 2003, VDARE.com

"And although the government broadcaster, the BBC, feels compelled to brainwash the people about the delights of multiculturalism at every opportunity, the national newspaper media is both incredibly powerful and overwhelmingly right wing (there are few left wing papers, and
they are the worst selling)."
Anthony Browne, December 07, 2002, VDARE.com

"Islamic radicals, like Hitler, cultivate support by nurturing grievances against others. Islamists, like Hitler, scapegoat Jews for their problems and want to destroy them. Islamists, like Hitler, decree that the punishment for homosexuality is death. Hitler divided the world into Aryans and subhuman non-Aryans, while Islamists divide the world into Muslims and sub-human infidels. Nazis aimed for their Thousand-Year Reich, while Islamists aim for their eternal Caliphate."
August 1, 2005, Times Online

"The support of Islamic fascism spans Britain's Left."
August 1, 2005, Times Online

"Rather than tackling intolerance, it [Political Correctness] now promotes intolerance, brooking no criticism and denouncing any critics. PC has a vice-like grip on public debate and policy making, setting out what can and can't be debated, and what the terms of the debate are: anything or anyone who digresses from the PC script is automatically controversial."
January 4, 2006, Times Online

"But even Britain's new Muslim ally in the War on Terror, Muammar Gaddafi, recently advised of the dangers of admitting Turkey. He referred to it as "a Trojan horse" and warned the West of rising Islamic radicalism on its streets.Europe is already far from a Christian club — there are 15 million Muslims in the EU, more than the population of most individual member countries. Macedonia and Bosnia both have large Muslim populations, and are all already destined to join the EU along with Islamic Albania. It is not Christian intolerance of Muslims that is driving the "clash of civilisations", but Muslim intolerance of Christians and Jews."
March 26, 2004, Times Online

"The sheikh has used his influential sermons to promote suicide bombing by Palestinians in Israel. Before the Left gets too misty-eyed about suicide bombings, it should remember that it can involve blowing to bits innocent children on buses."
July 6, 2004, Times Online

"Compare and contrast 2:
(a) Christmas trees and decorations are banned in Saudi Arabia;
(b) Christmas trees and decorations are banned in Britain's Jobcentres.

The extremes that other religions go to preserve their cultural
heritage is only matched in Christianity by its extreme death-wish."
December 21, 2004, Times Online

"Now the Christophobes are on the rampage again. The heirs of the Puritans and Communists have declared war on Christmas. But this time it is by stealth and guilt-tripping."
December 21, 2004, Times Online

"Once Christmas has been supplanted by a spiritually vacuous post-Christian orgy of consumption, the next phase of the war is to ban it altogether. Simply turn it, as Birmingham famously did, into a generic "Winterval" to make it equally meaningless to everyone."
December 21, 2004, Times Online

"No, the real Christophobes are the self-loathing, guilt-ridden politically-correct liberal elite, driven by anti-Christian bigotry and a ruthless determination to destroy their own heritage and replace it with "the other"."
December 21, 2004, Times Online

"The liberal Left need to ask themselves what they hope to achieve by giving such uncritical support to Islamic extremism. They may believe, in their naivety, that they are helping to combat Islamophobia, which is indeed a real problem. But instead they are encouraging it."
August 11, 2004, Times Online

"But winning arguments with reason, rather than rabid denunciation, is
difficult. Too difficult, too often, for too much of the Left."
February 13, 2003, Times Online

"One of the most powerful psychological foundations of political correctness is liberal guilt. Many in the West from middle-class backgrounds suffer a usually unspoken guilt about their unearned privilege, which in turn can lead to an under-current of self-loathing in their views. Men often feel guilty about being men, and whites often feel guilty about being white, even though these are innate characteristics they can do little about."
The Retreat of Reason, page 19

"The West's refusal to confront contemporary Islamic slavery is a reflection of the inability of PC thinking to engage a non-PC reality."
The Retreat of Reason, page 25

"The politically correct have a particular problem with crime. Their instinct is to support the criminal rather the [sic] victim of their crime, because criminals tend to be more socially disadvantaged…"
The Retreat of Reason, page 63

"Many of the politically-correct left - including the Guardian, the Independent, most of the BBC… - have chosen to champion those who are deliberately trying to murder innocent civilians."
The Retreat of Reason, page 11

"Many on the left in Britain supported the Ayatollah of Iran's call to murder Salman Rushdie for insulting Islam…"
The Retreat of Reason, page 50

"After a few days, the coverage of the terrorist attack was obliterated by saturation coverage of the accidental police killing…The reason was simply that the terrorist attacks, although a far more important story, didn't fit the politically correct agenda."
The Retreat of Reason, page 10

"The rise of political correctness represents an assault on both
reason and liberal democracy."
The Retreat of Reason, page 5

"A country that has long prided itself on its freedom of speech has been reduced by political correctness to a country where, despite endemic levels of violent crime, police spend time investigating and arresting leading writers and broadcasters for what they write and
say."
The Retreat of Reason, page 51

Time to scalp a wingnut

For those of you haven't been reading Liberal Conspiracy, Sunny has put out a call for information on Anthony Browne.

A week ago the director of the right-wing thinktank Policy Exchange, Anthony Browne, joined London Mayor Boris Johnson as his new policy director. He was replacing Nick Boles, also formerly of Policy Exchange, for screwing up over the Ray Lewis incident.

[...]

Browne is the newest recruit and there has been surprisingly no sense of outrage on the left. As the Evening Standard’s Pippa Crerar pointed out last week:

He first came to prominence at The Times when his series of articles on immigration led to him being denounced by then Home Secretary David Blunkett in the Commons for “bordering on fascism”.

Now anyone who can be called a borderline fascist by David Blunkett without the audience immediately breaking into laughter is, in my book, someone to be worried about.

There are already a number of good comments on the article itself, and probably many more being sent by email, but something in particular stands out. Dave Hill points out that back in 2005 Browne was targeted by bloggers for his:

article comparing Islamic fundamentalism to Nazism and his links with a rightwing US website.

[...]

The piece accuses parts of the British left of supporting "Islamic fascism", criticising the Guardian and the BBC for letting the Muslim Association of Britain "promote sanitised versions of its Islamist views".

The article is, of course, a pretty nasty piece of work. However, it is the site that is of interest. The site in question is the US anti-immigration site called VDARE. Now, as people who read me know, I keep a close eye on US politics, and not just in the mainstream. I keep an eye on their lunatics too, especially on the far-right, partially out of an academic interest in extreme right wing populism (ie; proto-fascism) and partially because the US far right has the largest internet presence of any state, and thus to a degree set the trends that other groups around the world follow.

I also have spent more than a few boring hours mocking debating with the wingnuts who tend to believe and quote these people, so I know their nasty, vile stench when I smell it, and believe me, that scent is all over Browne.

Anyway, to get back on point, I know a fair bit more about VDARE than the average British person. VDARE is originally named for Virginia Dare, the first English child born to immigrants in the New World. And that curious choice tells you a lot about where the group's priorities lie.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, who track extremist and hate groups in the USA, VDARE is a hate group who:

[VDARE] has now become a meeting place for many on the radical right.

One essay complains about how the government encourages "the garbage of Africa" to come to the United States. The same writer says once the "Mexican invasion" engulfs the country, "high teenage birthrates, poverty, ignorance and disease will be what remains."

Its not just a one off case either, but a pattern of hatred directed against immigrants and thinly veiled racism. If one continues to read the SPLC article, you can see how the loathesome Jared Taylor of American Renaissance, a well known white supremacist in American circles, is frequently published on the site.

So is Kevin MacDonald, a Californian professor who accuses Jews of:

"dominating" the "movement to change the ethnic balance of the United States by allowing mass, non-traditional [i.e., non-white] immigration."

He writes that Jews, believing "the masses ha[ve] to be deceived," frame their appeals in universalistic language. But behind that are "the Jewish agendas" of the deceivers. MacDonald also mentions "the famously heavy Jewish role" in television news.

Lovely.

The founder and director of VDARE is also of interest. Peter Brimelow belongs to the US paleoconservative right, that is the wing of the Republican party dominated by Nativists like Pat Buchanan, former Nixon speechwriter and one time leader of the radical Constitution Party. Buchanan's political philosophy is predicated on the superiority of Western European culture, religion, family and tradition:

"I will use the bully pulpit of the Presidency of the United States, to the full extent of my power and ability, to defend American traditions and the values of faith, family, and country, from any and all directions. And, together, we will chase the purveyors of sex and violence back beneath the rocks whence they came".

Also

"Who is in your face here? Who started this? Who is on the offensive? Who is pushing the envelope? The answer is obvious. A radical Left aided by a cultural elite that detests Christianity and finds Christian moral tenets reactionary and repressive is hell-bent on pushing its amoral values and imposing its ideology on our nation. The unwisdom of what the Hollywood and the Left are about should be transparent to all"

Buchanan is a reactionary who fully promotes a "culture war" against the left, and also promotes the idea of immigrant invasion and takeover of American society:

"In the next 50 years, the Third World will grow by the equivalent of 30 to 40 new Mexicos. If you go to the end of the century, the white and European population is down to about three percent. This is what I call the death of the West. I see the nations dying when the populations die. I see the civilization dying. It is under attack in our own countries, from our own people."

This is the sort of "intellectual" background that Peter Brimelow has come from. So it is hardly a surprise when he describes:

...the role of race as "elemental, absolute, fundamental." He said that white Americans should demand that U.S. immigration quotas be changed to allow in mostly whites. He argued that spending tax dollars on anything related to multiculturalism was "subversive." He called foreign immigrants "weird aliens with dubious habits."

He worried repeatedly that his son, with his "blue eyes" and "blond hair," would grow up in an America in which whites had lost the majority.

Sound dubious to you? Me too. And it turns out that Mr Anthony Browne has no problem writing for a website rooted in, and promoting such views. David Neiwert, the American freelance journalist who runs the blog Orcinus, has more to say on VDARE:

Groups like FAIR, VDare, and American English like to pose as mainstream organizations offering "thoughtful" proposals for reforming U.S. immigration policy, but in reality their core -- ideologically, financially and programmatically -- is the same bigoted, racist Nativism that has plagued the nation since the time of the Know-Nothings. They are, in essence, all about putting pearls on a pig.

Neiwert also quotes another SPLC report which shows that another frequent contributor to VDARE is Edward Rubenstein, who works for the far right National Policy Institute:

The institute has published two studies: a critique of affirmative action, which the institute opposes; and "Mass Deportation is a Viable Solution to America's Illegal Immigration Crisis," written by Edwin Rubenstein. (Rubenstein, a frequent contributor to the V-Dare hate site, is president of ESR Research Economic Consultants of Indianapolis and has served as research director for the conservative Hudson Institute, an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute, an economics editor at the National Review, and a contributing editor at Forbes magazine.)

Browne, in short, keeps some very suspect company, and since he writes for a website known to promote nativist, anti-immigrant and racist sentiment, we should question very carefully both his judgements and his policy recommendations. Not least in light of his promotion by the poster-child for thinly veiled fascism, Richard Barnbrooke.

I'm going to dig up more on Brown himself over the weekend, if I have the time. However, for the moment, at least one of his associations seems highly worrying, in light of his own political views, which are of course viciously anti-immigrant.

Why wont hateful lefties just DIE SCREAMING WITH SHARP OBJECTS IN THEIR EYES?

Say what you like about Quentin Letts, you have to give him credit - he's consistently wrong, no matter the issue.

The Letters page of The Guardian, seldom the sanest of arenas, has this week descended to virulent venom.

Unlike the Daily Mail's comment section, where "virulent venom" (surely a redundant phrase) would in fact be an improvement.

there have appeared several letters which gloated at the prospect of Margaret Thatcher's death

Oh no? Really? How terrible. I bet they even gloated about genocide in typically racist terms.

Their vengeful tone, though hurtful about the still very much alive Lady Thatcher, has been instructive. It was a timely reminder that no one does viciousness quite like the Left. Far from the Conservatives being 'the Nasty Party', Labour's preachy brothers and sisters have long deserved that title.

Yes. I absolutely agree. I remember vividly how that Far Leftist Lord Dixton-Smith was hateful towards black people, as indeed is ex-Colonel Patrick Mercer, a notorious Marxist-Liberalfascist. In fact, one can barely move for the number of hateful leftists out there, being all terribly rude and nasty about people*.

The Guardian letters were sparked by reports that Lady Thatcher will be given the rare honour of a state funeral. Even to discuss such arrangements is, let us be honest, a difficult matter.

Indeed. How dare people suggest that Thatcher may die? We all know she will ascend to the Heavens upon a flaming Chariot, in the manner of the Prophet Elijah, once her time among the mortals is up.

Some Guardian readers have taken a markedly less charitable line towards the former Prime Minister.

In contast to Lady Thatcher, who as I recall was rather keen on charity, so long as it didn't involve rich people having to pay for it.

Typical of the response was that of one Chris Gibson, who said that on seeing the headline about a state funeral for Lady Thatcher: 'I thought that the week had got off to the best possible start.' Charming.

Indeed. I often think the best possible start to the week is one where I don't have to look at the pile of shit which reputedly passes for a Quentin Letts article in the Mail. A little perspective is all I'm asking for here.

But the fact such horrible letters were written, let alone published in a national newspaper, tells us something else.

They have Paul Dacre as their editor as well? OMG!

Why is it that socialists, in contrast to their professed humanity and Methodist origins, are so remarkably malevolent? Why is the Left so mean?

"Why is the Left, which I and my employers villify on a basis as being responsible for every social ill in this country, from paedophilia to knife crime to terrorism to littering, so pissed off and nasty towards right-wingers (the all important, yet left out qualification)? I just can't understand it..."

Left-wingers like to talk of ' progressive politics', by which they suppose they mean open-mindedness, but historically they are far more dogmatic than the Right.

Factionalism and drunken intrigue were rampant in the trades unions of old.
On immigration, Left-wingers have been exceptionally illiberal. Commentators and politicians who questioned the pro-immigration consensus were shouted down as racists.

I had to quote that in full, just so you could get a full flavour of the make-believe world Quentin lives in. Apparently, factionalism (and drunkeness, for some bizzare reason) is proof of the Left's dogmatism. Because nothing says "unthinking follower" quite like...uh, spinning off and creating a new group based on minor political or economic interpretation of certain theories.

Furthermore, when people on the immigration debate are making such enlightened comments as:

The British government hates all things British and especially English. Why are we so surprised at this payout and the far smaller ones for servicemen? It is in line with the secret agenda to eliminate any sign of British/English pride.

Then yes, it seems that perhaps, just a few of them, may not be motivated by a deep and abiding concern about depression of wages and stress on local services quite so much as "ZOMG DARKIES!!212!"

The thoroughly decent former Tory leader Michael Howard was cast as something close to a Nazi for daring to suggest that immigration was becoming a problem. His assailants were not shamed by the fact that Mr Howard is of Jewish émigré stock. He'd had the temerity to oppose the Left. He had to be destroyed.

And crushed him we did, like a huge monolithic Red Army. Of course, that Howard was playing dog-whistle politics with the more extreme and xenophobic elements of the right throughout his entire campaign is of no consequence. Context is just leftist tyranny of...something.

Tony Blair's regime was infamously unpleasant to people who tried to stand in its way. Government scientist David Kelly paid for his independence with his life - suicide, we were told, although he was pushed into any such suicide by Labour-ordered briefings

Ah yes, Tony Blair. That chap who is widely admired on the left and considered by some to be the second coming of Marx himself. His deep devotion to the working class, wealth distribution, weakening of social hierarchies and improving social mobility certainly mark him out as possibly more left-wing than Mao himself.

One of the Left's great propaganda achievements over the years has been the idea that it was somehow kinder to support Labour than to be Conservative.

Yes, gosh, I wonder how people ever thought that not supporting the richest and most privileged in society was somehow kinder than doing so? Ooh, my brain hurts, help me figure out this problem Quentin!

It demands communal conformity rather than independent freedom. It seeks to dictate supply rather than allowing the market to find a level. It places the state above the citizen.

And of course, right-wing politicians would never act in authoritarian ways, nor come up with some big, communal idea that everyone must bow down to. You fucking moron.

Some days, I think I may be a prick. Then I realize, if I didn't have to live in a country where idiots like Quentin Letts are paid for shit like the above, and I'm still unemployed, I'd probably have a better outlook on life.


*I'm going to do a follow-up post along this theme soon, as its something I've seen quite a lot in the American blogosphere, and it fascinates me. Also, I haven't forgotten about my promised book review, if anyone was wondering. It's just The Pirate's Dilemma is fairly long, and in depth, and I'm trying to find a job, which is sucking up lots of my time.

Behold the true face of the modern Labour Party

Thanks to Luke Akehurst:

Maybe instead of Labour fielding a candidate in Haltemprice & Howden we should find a Martin Bell type candidate - preferably a recently retired senior police officer, or a survivor or relative of a victim of a terrorist attack, to run under the following 5 word candidate description: "Independent - for detaining terrorism suspects".

I'm fed up with us playing softball with the Tories while they posture and pontificate on this issue. If they want to play liberal they should pay the full political price for it and be eviscerated at the polls for being soft on national security. We should have their stance on this issue on every single poster and leaflet at the next General Election and then see how Davis and his mates feel about a referendum on this issue.

Yup, thats right. The party of Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson and Eric Blair is now aping the Republicans in their desire to show off to the electorate how tough and stern they can be on issues of "national security". Why he just doesn't go around beating his chest and laughing at sissy "liberals" is beyond me - it would be practically the same thing.

I often considered past critiques of the British Labour Party as having a NeoCon disposition as somewhat laughable. Even John Gray limited that description to Tony Blair in his Black Mass book. But since Brown has come to power, with this almost bizzare emphasis on Britishness, British Jobs for British People and pushing ever more stringent national security agendas, I'm starting to think it could be closer to the truth, in the security and foreign policy realms.

This repellent suggestion also reeks of the political manipulation of the 9/11 victims, much of which went towards justifying laws that just as equally as 42 days would have not stopped the event from happening, as well as a weapon to attack dissenters with. I'm glad Brown's government is on the way out if this is the sort of thing that can seriously be floated among the Labour party. I'd rather take a risk on the Tories being frothing nutcases than deal with the ones we currently have.

That said, this issue does seem to have revived some form of support for Labour. The voters seem to be broadly behind it, and while of course it is always a bad idea to guage support based on comment sections in tabloid newspapers (too easy for party political types to astroturf) the fact that a stream of vitriol can be directed at someone of the background of David Davis by Sun readers seems nothing short of extraordinary. I mean, he's anti-EU, anti-gay rights, pro-death penalty, an ex SAS soldier and often makes proclaiments about "moral degeneration." In other words, he's the sort of person the average Sun reader would normally cheer on.

There is no chance that I can see of Davis losing his seat, especially not to a wanker like Kelvin MacKenzie - no matter how much money Murdoch gives him, and how closely the press stick to the government line ("ooh, isn't Davis such an attention seeker? What an egotistical little twat..."). But I still worry about the wider implications of this 'refendum' - with good reason as it seems.

Richard Barnbrook's blog

It seems a little bit of controversy has been sparked in the blogosphere by the discovery of the BNP Cllr and London Assembly member Richard Barnbrook's blog, which is hosted on the Torygraph's site.

I personally am of divided opinion. I've never had any truck with the foolish No Platform policy...I've always felt the batshit insane and hilarious things the BNP wants to do should be publicized far and wide. Some people think that is me having too much faith in the political system and people's ability to think critically, but if its in the open, then its up for debate, and in a Web 2.0 world, its very easy to create a debate. I'm also what some Guardian columnists might call a "free speech cultist" but fuck them. Having principles, as twisted and few though they are was never meant to be easy.

Furthermore, the blogging service is offered to everyone. Unlike say, The Guardian or London Times' websites, where signing up entails a profile that allows you comment, but not add your own articles (relying on invitation for the non-journalists to be given a stage) signing up to the Torygraph service is like signing up to Blogger, in that its not restricted to anyone so long as the Terms of Service are not broken.

On the other hand, I think people have a point when they say that the Torygraph is not like Blogger. It after all, purports to be a news site, and in having an doors open policy (ironically, something the BNP frequently complains this country's immigration policy amounts to), it could easily be abused, while also lending legitimacy to people like Barnbrook, who want to court the Torygraph readers while gaining a degree of respectability for having their logo in the top left corner of the screen. Blogger, unlike the Torygraph, does not have an editorial line, nor does it purport to be a news site, only a blogging service.

Over the past few months especially, I've been reading David Neiwert's excellent blog, Orcinus, and it has helped me clarify some of my own thoughts on fascism in the current context, and especially on the relationship between fascist movments, infiltration of the respectable right and the role of media in all this. His analysis is of course rooted in a US context, but I believe it is still nonetheless useful.

His comments (PDF file, 640 KB) on transmission between the far right and conservatives are interesting

Ideas and agendas began floating from one sector to the other in increasing volume around 1994. I noticed it first in the amazing amount of crossover between between militia types and the anti-Clinton vitriol out of D.C. that eventually built into the impeachment fiasco....This crossover is facilitated by figures I call “transmitters” — ostensibly mainstream conservatives who seem to cull ideas that often have their origins on the far right, strip them of any obviously pernicious content, and present them as “conservative” arguments.

Obviously the most prominent media personalities responsible for such behaviour in the UK would be the likes of Melanie Phillips and Richard Littlejohn, whose rants often hit upon the codewords and phrases of the far right, their fears of an alien outsider plotting to take over the country (whether its the EU or Muslims) and the descent of the country into anarchy because of civil liberties, secularism and liberalism in general and how we are all "going to hell in a handcart" because of it.

And of course, transmissions by their very nature go both ways. The reasons for the likes of the above to do such things are obvious - it widens their audience and gets them a certain about of talked about noteriety. I don't believe such people are fascists - only that they pander to it to increase their reading figures and to appear outrageous without stepping over any definitive lines.

The problem is then, that such ideas get normalized within right-wing discourse and become acceptable - making the mainstream right more radicalized and ripe for infiltration by extremist elements. The memes become talking points which filter back into perception and eventually policy. And that is the role Richard Barnbrook and his "fellow travellers" on the Telegraph will also be taking. While they are not de jure supported by the Telegraph in any way, de facto, their presence on the site will be taken that way by their supporters and, as we have seen already in some of the blogosphere reactions, their detractors too.

You can expect many more thinly veiled rants about the evils of liberalism and immigrants and darkies and homosexuals to come from Richard Barnbrook, and supported by his on-site sycophants (who have already made their presence felt, despite Barnbrook himself only having 3 articles up). The question is, of course, will the Torygraph readers let this slide, or will they actively try to debate and undermine Barnbrook? That is where the focus should be, I believe. I'm still not comfortable with him having a place on the site, for the above reasons, but I'm not against it simply because of the above reasons either. I still believe that his pathetic political views should be combatted by debate, and not censorship, but that doesn't mean I don't think the previously stated worries are not valid, only that I hope they do not turn out to be the case.

And, because I couldn't pass up the chance to showcase some of Barnbrook's frothing at the mouth articles, a few quotes from the good Cllr:

I have no time for these liberals. I despise them.....not for their person, but for their values....for everything that they believe in, although I am not so sure that they even believe it. I am talking about all these dirty politicians and journalists who sit in their homes smoking their drugs and telling themselves they have made Britain better. Well its not. Its a cess-pit and its the young people who have to swim in its filth. Only the dead make the news but there are hundred who are stabbed but only just live. Their lives are wrecked though in many cases. This is liberalism......these are the great values of the left.........they smoke drugs and your children get slaughtered in the streets. It makes me sick. It drags me down into tombstone politics when I would rather be building a better society. It has become so normalised that people think they have to accept it. Well I am going to change it....I am going to clean up the streets, because our society has had enough of their dirty values, their dirty ideas, and their dirty politics.

And:

I have had enough of political correctness. I have had enough of people being afraid to actually say what they really want to say. Yes....It is the immigrants. Labour closed down free speech and criminalised people for telling the truth. Well Labour are in a state of total collapse.

Soon they will be finished and not a moment too soon. Nobody needs to listen to them anymore. The Police chiefs should simply ignore them and not follow orders to boost statistics by criminalising motorists. The real crime is on the streets, and it is the young people who are being attacked every day now by knives and guns.

Well let me tell you that times are changing. This is our city and we are going to take it back. We are going to take all the weapons of the streets even if that means sending in the Army to do it.

The do-gooder liberal human rights lawyers can scream all they want. Human Rights to me, means people being safe to walk down the street. Liberalism to me, means being free from knife and gun attacks. A free society is one where the police can do their job the way they want to do it.

And to think....this moron actually got a lot of votes. *Sigh*...

Who will rid me of this troublesome politician?

Here is an interesting clip of Mike Huckabee, ex-Presidential nominee for the Republican Party, 'joking' in front of the staunchly right-wing NRA crowd about the possibility of an Obama assassination.

Now, I should first of all point out, for any readers, that I am not especially against gun ownership per se, in the UK or America. Yes, I know I have a reputation as a subversive left wing liberal who hates freedom and loves terrorism etc etc but to a degree, I side more with the right-wing/libertarian view when it comes to firearms. Not to mention I did spend part of my misspent youth in the countryside and have been a member of my University rifle club and so actually enjoy shooting too.

But anyway, that's not the point, so I wanted to dismiss the strawman straight away. The point is noting the spread and even acceptance of the "Obama assassination meme" within mainstream political discourse, especially in circles like the above, where Obama is not seen in an especially friendly light.

Now I know you'll be saying "Oh Huckabee is just joking, I thought you Discordians knew about larking about", but to be honest, that's kind of the point. I'm very used to using humour to mask a point, to say something I wish to be known in an indirect and subtle manner. That's often the function of humour in politics, it gives a veneer of deniability to a statement.

Its also one that has been used to death by the American right, such as Ann "lets assassinate a US Judge, teehee I'm only joking" Coulter, Rush "lets not kill all the liberals, just most of them" Limbaugh and other such 'wits' of American politics, like Michael Savage.

So you'll excuse me a certain degree of scepticism when I see the tactic repeated by others.

We all believe Obama is probably the most likely candidate to be targeted, followed closely by McCain (the Middle Eastern groups tend to not operate much outside their own territory, but when they do they are usually very good at it). It's hardly news. He's a charismatic, black man who appeals to a wide constituency of people, comes from a cosmopolitian, is opposed to favourite ventures of the nutjob-right and has a good chance of becoming the next US President. And we know people like the Aryan Nations are still out there, still exist and have people motivated and trained well enough to attempt something like this.

But repititions of the idea that Obama will inevitably face an assassination attempt seem to be aimed more at the idea of spreading this idea of inevitability far and wide, hoping some far-right nut will decide to take one for the Aryan cause and have a go at killing him. Its one step off encouraging it, when repeated like this.

The entire point of modern day, non-state/terrorist assassination is this - that it takes place within an enabling environment and narrative, and is done in a public place to validate the killer themselves. Making continued references to this happening only increases the chances of someone trying to have a go.

Equally bad is the downplaying of the chances of someone killing him. All three US candidates are at risk, its the nature of the game of politics. Killing the potential next President has long been a route to fame for no-hoper's around the world. Suggesting that Obama is perfectly safe and has nothing to worry about, in the same poisonous media climate which is also telling us he is likely to be killed, as it makes an attempt on him look easy and invites more attempts.

Here are just a few examples of the meme spreading from extremist to more mainstream circles

• Neo Nazi, longtime target of Anonymous and friend of Sean Hannity, Hal Turner threatens Obama.

• The notorious Freerepublic wont allow pro-Obama comments, but will allow posts talking about other people (on the left) raising the possibility of his assassination.

(Just as an aside, I think people on the left who continually raise the prospect of his assassination are just as guilty of perpetuating the meme as everyone else, though I suspect their motivation is more benign. Unless they are Hillary Clinton supporters).

• Sean Hannity of Fox News pops up again, this time with some interesting use of language...

"I just feel that with the more we learn about the racial implications in his past, the more likely it is for sure he will be killed."

He all but left out the *Hint hint, nudge nudge, wink wink* from that statement. We all know the implication is that he is a black supremacist is being spread by the right, which is like a lightning rod to any racists out there.

• Jonah "liberals once called me a fascist, so I call them it back now" Goldberg engages in more than just a bit of projection here when he suggests if Obama loses certain people will become unhinged. Maybe they will, but for the moment, it seems more likely a win will unhinge other 'certain people', as the above comments and Greenwald's own article are showing.

• Halfrican Revolution documents how a Unification Church owned publication practically went out of their way to give tips to any nutters crazy enough to give assassination a shot.

• The hilariously named White Civil Rights website also engages in a degree of projection, when they fantasize about Mossad killing Obama. Because thats no way an excuse to talk freely about an assassination attempt at all, is it?

• Even the bloody Torygraph tries to pooh-pooh the chances of an assassination emanating from the right, instead blaming the idea on a mix of conspiracy theory, wish for martyrdom (nice touch, by the way, the Muslim implication there) and generalized paranoia. Obviously Tony Harden doesn't pay much attention to the lunatic fringe, or he'd know how pumped up on this idea many of them are. While no doubt many of the left wing comments implicating the likes of Blackwater or Clinton are nonsense, there is a real radical threat.

• Again, Vanguard News Network, another far-right US site, is spreading the Obama assassination meme under the cover of "tEh Jo0s DiD iT! (oR aT lEaSt wIlL dO!)".

And on and on it goes. I didn't even bother to go to some of the crazier, less well known sites. I thought this should cover it fairly nicely.

As a commentator at the Seattle PI points out, the best thing the media could do in order to play down these fears is not talk about it all the time. Yes, I do realize that makes me guilty to a degree as well, but I'm trying to introduce a phage here, to undercut the meme. By constantly finding ways to bring up the idea, either in terms of denying it having any possibility at all (all US Presidential candidates are potential targets, get over it) or prophesying it as a certainty, is only doing more damage and poisoning the civil discourse.

More on the Crewe by-election

As is hard to miss, I was pretty pissed off by the Labour party Crewe by-election leaflet, more or less pandering to the xenophobic masses afraid of immigrants coming over here to steal their jobs and wimminz.

Fortunately, it seems like the Guardian has caught up on this story too (which was abley covered by the more Tory-friendly press and blogs, it has to be said) and John Harris has an article up on Comment is Free, where he puts this into the context of a government desperate to remain in power by appealing to "chauvinistic and backward-looking parts of British society" to quote Charles Clarke (who is still an authoritarian thug, in my opinion, but at least gains a smidgeon of respectability with this statement).

Harris pulls few punches showing the increasing role of nationalist rhetoric now the Brown government is up against the wall:

the essential Labour strategy is clear enough: not to concentrate on anything progressive or inspiring but to run instead on a mixture of the Dunwoody bloodline, utterly witless class warfare, and the politics of fear. One wonders what the more shrill aspects of the party's campaign will do for Crewe's community relations - but there again, it's doubtful that such thoughts are troubling many Labour high-ups. Misanthropic nastiness, after all, seems to be a central plank of the government's fightback.

This stuff has a pedigree dating back well into the Blair years but seems to be turning ever more ugly. Among the first announcements in the wake of May 1 was a loud Home Office pledge to try to realise Brown's drive for "British jobs for British workers", by forcing employers to prove no Briton can fill a vacancy before offering it to anyone from outside the EU. Soon after, there came Jacqui Smith's bizarre plans to "harass" badly behaved youths using video cameras and a technique hyped as "frame and shame". Going back a few months, one thinks also of James Purnell's proposed clampdown on the long-term jobless, Caroline Flint's priceless proposal that the workshy should be threatened with homelessness, and the government's increasingly baffling drive on "Britishness", in which fine words about inclusion are often overshadowed by the sense of dog-whistles being desperately sounded.

...

While seizing on fears about immigration, Brown has still made no headway on the issue of agency workers, which underlies so many modern tensions. At the same time as maligning many of the nation's youth as yobs, Labour also wrings its hands about their "unlocked talent". Apparatchiks are encouraged to wage class war for the cameras, but the government refuses to talk about compelling the ultra-wealthy to pay their way, or to make any move on, say, the totemic issue of charitable status for private schools. The impression is of politics at its most dried-up and disingenuous. The result: activists and once-loyal supporters decide to leave the party well alone, and floating voters decide that Cameroonian confidence and optimism is much the better option.

...As Labour lays waste to what remains of its progressive credentials, one thinks immediately of that handful of young(ish) Brownites - Ed Miliband, Douglas Alexander, Ed Balls, Yvette Cooper - who usually go out of their way to talk up the party's supposed soul, and the parts of the government's record that reflect it. Where are they, and why won't they speak up?

Even if what they had to say was couched in the obligatory political code, we'd know it when we heard it. Behind the scenes, they must surely alert Brown to a simple choice: cut this stuff out and rediscover that moral compass - or bequeath them a political husk so robbed of its essential identity that it will take at least a generation to even begin to revive it. David Cameron's recent pronouncements are not nearly as surreal as they sound: right now, the Tories really are sounding more progressive than Labour, and that way lies not just electoral defeat, but the prospect of complete wipe-out.

As Labour's popularity continues to go the way of the sub-prime loan industry, I can only see this sort of shrill and nasty rhetoric increasing.

Mecca time nonsense

HOLD THE PRESSES, BREAKING NEWS! PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE THEY ARE FOLLOWING THE DIVINE LAW OF THE SUPREME BEING AND CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE WANT TO PUT THEMSELVES AT THE CENTRE OF THE WORLD!

I mean, who could have seen it coming? Gosh, people who think that they are the truely devoted followers of a non-existant creator want to make the time based on their most holy city the standard time around the world. Who would have thunk it?

I know I'm only contributing to this non-story by talking about it.....but come on. Seriously? This is what passes for news nowadays? Its apparently fascinating enough to warrant 109 new links on Technorati, putting it into the top 5 news links of the day.

Yet....I'm honestly struggling to see why so many people care. Its not even interesting from an anthropological view, because both the Ancient Greeks and Mayans claimed certain shrines of theirs were at the centre or navel of the world. And that's just off the top of my head.

And its not like they're calling on changing the timezones to some completely made up and impractical unit of time that was mentioned in the Koran or anything, although that would be both amusing and newsworthy.

Its just another example of how people, especially religious ones, see themselves as being at the centre of everything. And examples of that abound every day, for someone with their eyes open enough to see.

There's just something about women troublemakers...

I know it's barely been a day since I mentioned the lovely Ruth Fowler as my favourite Erisian avatar of the now, but I thought I should mention this as well, since the whole event has been kicking up a storm state-side.

I speak of the Yale University artist Aliza Shvarts, who recently ignited an online flame war of epic proportions when it turned out she had apparently used aborted fetuses in the creation of her art. Naturally, the 'pro-life' brigade went apeshit, in the same way as they did over Stop My Abortion, and it seemed all very commendable, but rather passe, in the way trolling Christians who freak out at practically anything at all is.

And then, Yale University came out and said not to worry, because it was all performance art anyway and clearly fake and so nothing to worry about. So the pro-lifer's continued to give her shit for being sick in the head or something and the pro-choicer's started taking shots too, for trivializing abortion (strange, if had actually been art, would that have still been their position). And of course, by this point, the media is involved as well. So now its the pro-life lot, pro-choice lot and the media in general who have been trolled.

But then....ANOTHER TWIST! It turns out that Aliza did in fact use the technique originally described, or so she claims. It could, of course, just be another way of continuing the drama and media hysteria over the artwork. It could be drawing people further into a different form of creative fiction than the one Yale University had in mind, one in which all the participants are real, and think it is real, but where the content matter is faked, passed on through varying points of view and interpretation, all with Aliza pulling the strings. Or it could actually be that way. Whichever.

Either way, my congratulations and respect go to her, for taking a rather dull way of promoting art (pissing off the Fundies) and applying a good level of creativity to it. Even more, I express admiration at her ability to both annoy the University and the pro-choice group into the deal.

I am certainly impressed enough to send Ms Shvarts an email to thank and congratulate her for her services to making people hysterically overreact. I'm sure she's recieving a lot of mail (probably most of it from mentally deranged individuals and filled with all sorts of unpleasant material) so its very possible she may not respond, but if she does, and I have her permission to reprint, I will let you know.

And finally, I leave you with some of the humourless reactions of the blogosphere (culled from ED), for your enjoyment.


If you want to do a comparative study of abomination, at least the Nazis of the Third Reich had going for them the mitigating factor of having committed unspeakable evil in a quixotic, whack scheme to "better humanity." At least as they understood it.


I have a certificate of mental illness right here waiting for your signatures. First, we arrest her, then find her incompetent to stand trial, she goes to the mental institution. Let her out to attend trail in about two years, after lots of neuroleptic medication, then fond her guilty of public indecency, she goes to the can for a month, but then we invoke Hendrix V> Kansas, and stick her back in the nut house for another five years. When she come out she has tardive diskensia and looks like a old hag making faces. I call that a just punishment.

Hey, it is my art project


Whether you really will be watching Aliza Shvarts kill her unborn children, or you will be watching Aliza Shvarts pretend to kill her unborn children, you will be watching Aliza Shvarts deny her humanity and present herself as a barbarian, to barbarians. Pia Lindman, you too should be ashamed of yourself. The entire university should. Utterly diabolical. Sick, Nazi-style stuff. The idea that this sort of thing is even conceivable, and at one of the nation's elite universities, shows how far the culture of death has come