If experience in Northern Ireland and Israel/Palestine has taught us anything, it is that engagement is key to the solution of any conflict.
There were many who were outraged when the British Government opened channels of communication with Sinn Fein in the early/mid 1990s. ('Why should we deal with murderers?' etc.) I think history has shown that the Government of the day was correct to do so.
However much the views of your opponents disgust you, a refusal to recognise or engage with them will simply mean that you can never be a part of the solution. Dismissing your opponents as 'vermin' will get you nowhere, as I think this thread demonstrates.
I haven't dismissed anyone as anything. I stopped posting on this thread about 15 pages ago because I got completely pissed off with the way the "debate" was structured.
Mex, naively and mistakenly if you ask me, started this thread in order to get Miss Marple to justify his political allegiances. However for some reason you've all ruled that questions about, and criticisms of, the party he's a member of are in some way out of bounds because he only has to defend his "personal opinions" and not the history and actions of that party.
But Ironside continues to refer to the BNP whenever he likes, advocates voting for them and joining them, links to news stories about them to attack me, but then attacks me if I link to stories about them in my own defence.
So what is the fucking point. A small minded racist bigot gets to have his ego stroked for a couple of days as if his opinion mattered more than anyone elses. There's plenty of small minded bigots that post on this site. A number of which openly admit to being racist and or homophobic. Why haven't they each got a thread of their own where you ask them questions about their personal prejudices?
You all know why. Because they haven't chosen to come onto the site as de facto representatives of fascist political parties. His BNP membership is the only reason this thread was started. It's the only reason most of you are interested in his opinions. But as soon as any question about that party get a little uncomfortable you let him off the hook with the "I don't support that particular policy" excuse.
The party he supports is a pathetic little mob of clueless neo-fascists who stagger from one ill conceived "political theory" to the next with only one common denominator, prejudice and racial hatred.
Griffin himself not so long ago was a part of the "political soldier" movement in the National Front developing with that movement into the International Third Position, all the time advocating a viciously anti-semetic brand of racial hatred, and being prepared to align themselves with anyone that shared that hatred of Jews, (one cover of NF news at that time famously had pictures of Louis Farrakhan, Gaddafi and Ayatollah Khomeini and hailed some mad kind of new alliance of racially separatist nationalist leaders). He's now leader of a party that has changed it's focus of hatred to fit with the nations prevailing racial hate figures, so Judaism is no longer the enemy, but Islam is. Those members of that brave new alliance on the NF news cover are now the biggest threat to civilisation in the world and hated jewish capitalist consipiracy that ruled the world in secret is now forgotton. In fact the BNP will even accept jews into membership. And some idiots with the memories of goldfish have even joined.
They're a bunch of opportunists that prey on the worst tendencies in all of us. Our need for a simple answer to our problems, our prejudices and fears. What they're too stupid to realise is that they're never going to be more than a small but nasty irritant in the future. Facism was used in the past as a bulwark against communism. Fascist partys were encouraged and funded by big business and the state in order to smash the "real" threat of bolshevism. After the lessons of the 1940's it's pretty unlikely that tactic will ever get used again, and with precious little bolshevism on the scene it doesn't really look necessary.
Oh I'm sorry I started talking about the BNP again didn't I. How stupid of me I better stop posting and leave you all to your pointless fucking "debate".
(Incidentally perhaps a few of you should get on U-tube or something and actually watch some political debates because you don't seem to have got the hang of it here.)
