The Race Card
 

I didn't know that the National Front still existed. We have Council elections here next week and today I received this leaflet through my letterbox. It's almost funny - but I had a quick look at their website and that really did me laughing out loud.

Are the National Front still active in England or have they been sucked into the BNP?

What do you foreigners(!), especially Americans with your Presidential elections on the way, think of the leaflet - would those first for words "Vote for your race" even be allowed?

Oh, and whoever delivered the leaflet left my gate open and some bastard's dog used the opportunity to come in and shit in my garden!

One in the garden, one in the letterbox; probably the same guy.

there's only one race.. the human race...

Filthy bastards. I think V has it right.

Never had anything like that through my door. UKIP is bad enough.
They're sly though. I can see my Dad agreeing with many of the above.

And we are losing

Yeah - I can see the KKK putting something like that out.

NF in England was swallowed up into the BNP; or rather the BNP grew out of the NF. NF remained alongside for a while but as far as I know pretty much slipped away over the last few years as a polotical party. I think there is still an active membership, but they don't put up election candidates any more (not in my area anyway). BNP then split in a bigass political feud about the future of the party about 2 years ago. Can't recall the name of the new branching, but that and the rise of less tainted outlets for nationalism (such as UKIP) have weakened the BNP a great deal.

They're all still there. They never truly go away.

Interesting how they focus on issues that are not necessarily unreasonable. Deporting foreign criminals on completion of their sentences ... there's a move for that here. Jobs and housing for local folks, no tolerance for Islamic extremism. Even the obviously unreasonable one, bringing back hanging for paedos, is such a hot-button issue that you think, "well ..." before the revulsion kicks in (if you're anti-death penalty, or anti-death penalty for crimes other than murder). In terms of advertising alone, it's pretty masterful.

Change "Scottish" for "American", I think you'd get some votes here.

Though I'm not extreme in anything, I'm too lazy, I'd be lying if I said I didn't agree with a lot of that.

While the leaflet says, "End mass immigration, start repatriation", the website is more specific by calling for "repatriation of all non whites". I'm not sure where that leaves any non whites who were born here.

That's the point of these leaflets though isn't it? Taken purely at face value a lot of perfectly nice, reasonable people will find that parts of it resonates with them. It's when you look a little deeper, or, if you've some knowledge of the organisation read between the lines, it gets a lot nastier.

About ten or 15 years back, our right-wing ("One Nation") party made some noise demanding much the same, that any visa-holders or permanent residents who are convicted of crimes should lose their residency rights at the end of their sentence.

It was pointed out that this has been law since 1953, or something. :facepalm:

Right on and well said. It's very effective recruiting tool.
Tool being the operative word.

http://www.google.com/?source=mog&gl=us&tab=ww

I've known some really nice people vote BNP. And I've even met the odd seemingly nice and decent BNP member.

The guy who ran for them against my ward colleague, Bryan, a couple of years ago came across as a really pleasant and community minded chap. Local lad, he was well known and well liked. Bryan had coached him and his mates in youth football. I think he was fairly typical of lads in that area, for whom the Labour Party their fathers had joined, just seemed to have left them all behind and joined the middle class revolution.

In that place, the BNP were far more the voice of working-class lads than the Labour Party was. I have lost count of the amount of times people have justified membership/support for them with the caveat: I don't like everything they say, like the racist stuff, but...

interesting...

i thought i was going to enjoy a little rant about using the race card, and the joy of being a middle eastern in north america...

but this is far more interesting.

at first glance, my instinct is to deny that they can have any kind of legitimacy, but then i look at my own country, and... well, i am not sure to what extent our current ruling party - the Likud lead by binyamin - is that different from them.

he has instated the death penalty - not for pedo's or even murderers, but specifically for threatening the life of the PM (himself).
he has provided a partial 1 year government payment for the higher education of army veterans (otherwise known as almost everyone "local"), which is way better then housing.
he has increased the government support the religious right's control over the immigration process (which is racial by nature).
and to say he is islamophobic would be the understatement of the day...

if you'd ask me a decade ago, the idea of him coming into power again would seem incredibly unlikely... but with the left loosing its voting base since the fall of the peace treaties, and the right loosing its leadership, the vacuum was there for him to fill.

In case anyone is interested, 95 people gave our National Front candidate, Mr. McIvor, their 1st preference votes (we use a form of PR in Scotland). This put him seventh out of the eight candidates in the first round with only the Liberal Democrat (68 votes) behind him - yes, the LibDems really are that unpopular around here!

We officially lost our last BNP Councillor a couple of years ago when he went independant. Now he's been voted out in favour of a Labour councillor. We are now fascist free :p

They sing the same song as the French "Front National". Unfortunately, it's not very funny.

In the first round of elections for the Presidence (2 weeks ago), they were credited with over 17% of votes. In 2002, they arrived in second position in the first round and went onto the second that they lost.

Yet, while I cannot say that I like them, they have some proposals that aren't just bullshit. Some might even be workable.

If they can get 17% of votes on a major election, they're not a marginal party. Yet, that's how they're seen by the whole French left wing.

My late father used to say that you should never give power to extremists but, should you begin to hear them growing louder, it's the sure sign you have to do something.

Did he live in Vichy?
(sorry, not a serious question)

We were all quite concerned about Marine Le Pen's popularity over here.
Well, when I say "we" I obviously don't include the sort of people that put a flyer through Rhianne's letterbox, or who presumably would like to send her "home".

I perceive France as having more racial trouble than Great Britain. But you're more flammable than we are. Of you ignore the riots last year, we don't set fire to things all that often. It must come from the culture of having flambe dishes at the table ;)

I kind of want to agree with you, inasmuch as the French are far more likely to move to organised action and civil disobedience than Brits. But, the flipside to that is that british protests are very, very likely to turn into disorganised rioting, and we have a greater tendency to to focus anger on 'wealthy' individuals and their property during such unrest. The looting and burning of shops and small businesses was absolutely consistent with British civil unrest pretty much throughout the modern era.

The French set fire to anything that stays still. A "protest" isn't a protest without some burning cars. And I'm talking old crates, not just flash Mercedes.

But I admit I admire the French for the way they protest. I wouldn't want to live there, but I wouldn't want to live anywhere apart from here. Their political zeal (check out the voting turnout!) and their desire to stay French appeal to me. The way that clashes with immigrants from their former colonies does not.

Then again I can't think of any country that has it right - European or otherwise. Japan and America have similar problems.

That's the point though really. the french know how to protest. And how to maintain protest. Granted it generally does involve setting fire to things.

We don't seem to be able to maintain protest in the same way. It devolves quickly into unfocused rioting and that generally turns into looting.

The french organise benefits claimants into hit squads and raid a supermarket for food. The British randomly loot trainers and vodka, and trash shops in a rage with nowhere to go.

The first time I was impressed with French activism was 20+ years ago.
The banks decided to charge for paying cheques into bank accounts.
Pardonnez moi? said their customers. I don't think so.

They ran magnets or scribbled over the barcodes on the paying in slips.
I might have the exact way of protesting wrong, but the bottom line was that every single cheque had to be entered manually.

The banks backed down. Vive la France.

It's the supermarket dashes that always impressed me the most.

And y'know...that whole Bastille thing...

One of our growing problems is that more and more of these people don't want to be French, they want to recreate their own place.

And also:

Someone in my family had a need for social services. And the person he met told him that unfortunately he wasn't of the right color...

They only rescued four prisoners you know.
But one of them wasn't the Marquis de Sade - he'd been moved to Charenton only 10 days before. He is suspected of inciting the storming by shouting that they were murdering prisoners though.

Nice triv point. Did not know that :p

Four-shmour though. In Ancien Regime France it was nothing less than a social and cultural earthquake. The symbolic value of the Bastille cannot be over-estimated.

I was thinking of playing a race card. But I don't understand how to best do a trifecta. Can anyone help?

to help, one must have useable pertinent data. presented is a vague problem and no facts. Most good race cards come with onboard diagnostics. consult the race card manual or look online for diagnostic software here

Failing that, use a multi meter to verify that all of the components of the race card are functioning to spec. blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blahyour'eallfuckedup.

Ummmm.
I thought TW was funny.

He can be.
Sometimes very.

i was being ironic?

I was thinking of selecting Jews to win, blacks to place, and Muslims to show.

wait a minute... Jews have been treated as a race, even though strictly speaking, they are not. Muslims, though.... I have never thought of them as a race. Unless you actually mean Middle Easterners. What race are those folks anyway? Asian? African? I mean physiologically.

You don't have to be so pedantic do you Jim? It was just a joke...

oh fer fux ache.

:)

Well, I'm sure you're mostly kidding, but it's actually a fun question so I'm gonna take it seriously. It depends on how you define "race." to some people, there's white, black, asian, native american (some divide north and south, some don't), and aboriginal australian. Oceanic/polynesian people get lumped in with either asian or australian. most of the world would disagree with that. For example, most Africans wouldn't consider everyone with dark skin to be part of the same race - and to some extents, that's true, based on some genetic markers. However, ethnic extraction is a better question, I think. European "whites" are the most ethnically unified "race" - eastern europeans, scandinavians, germans, brits, all are more related to eachother than, say, people from far-reaching sides of africa, even if (to us) africans look more alike than russians and irish do. Every other "race" is wildly more varied, and to try to lump them all in as one THING is just stupid. But speaking to broad ethnic divisions among majority-muslim populations, there's Arabs, who populate much of the middle east, and hail originally from the Levant and the Arabian peninsula, and now also populate most of North Africa; Persians, who live in what's now Iran; Kurds, who live across Kurdistan in north Iraq and Turkey; and Turkic peoples who originally hail from central Russia, but now reside across Turkey and central asia. Outside the Middle East, ethnic groups with large Muslim populations include the Indus Valley peoples, who make up the Muslim population of India and Pakistan, and the south asian peoples who make up Indonesia and Malaysia.

Race - as relevant to earlier posts - is not about genetics, where one comes from, family history, etc. Racism is really about emotions.

One with black skin must be a different race even though his closest genetic cousin has white skin. Racism is about judging others only using first impressions. What some call 'race' has little relationship to racism. Only those who are more emotional will associate racism with genetics or ancestors. Then need not confront actual biases.

The emotional judge others by what is first observed combined with personal biases. A conclusion based in emotions (first impression) is the real definition of racism. Others who confront racism start by addressing that problem. Do not make conclusions based upon emotions.

I really hope I manage to peruse that to greater depth when i'm more sober later. Totally interesting. Does it contradict anything I was saying, so I can correct myself without having to read it too accurately?

Of course it does, but as tw hinted, making statements about race using genetics is like trying to explain third grade physics with quantum mechanics. They both have different purposes.

Given that Jewish religion passes down a family line, I think it's not unreasonable to class Jews as a race.

Could be wrong there and won't argue if someone contradicts me factually.

Soz, Jim.
The English race don't get irony. Apparently.

Dilly dang ding dong, they doesn't?

It is illegal for a Member of the Houses of Parliament to refer to another Member as a Daffydowndilly.

Tis true, gadzooks.

That would suggest that race can be defined by social tradition and opted out of. If a family has been Baptist or Buddhist or atheist since before records were kept, it doesn't make them a race. And people can't opt out of what their ancestors gave them... change/hide/alter, yes, but it'll show up in their kids.

I'd be more accepting of Jews as their own race if the argument was based in how the followers of Judaism bred, for lack of a better term. For a very long time, Jews primarily married and bore children with other Jews, excluding people of other physiological types, and they were all concentrated in a relatively small area. They didn't really migrate much of anywhere unless they were exiled from somewhere and then they kept to each other, rather than mix too much with the locals of wherever they ended up. Lots of years of combining the same lines will concentrate features and create a look that 'breeds true', like in show animals. Given that, I can see how the Jewish 'race' can be considered a true race. In their case, it wouldn't be because they're from a certain place, it'd be because they excluded outside influence in their lines.

The biggest exceptions of those would be the those of the sects that gave rise to Christianity and then ultimately set out to make everyone else Christians too. That freed them from taking only Jewish spouses. They could go up to anyone, convince/make them convert if they weren't Christian already and they'd be in a bona fide Christian union, if necessary.

Irony does not explain Muslims. Betting on a Muslim to show is clearly risky. Since Muslim women only show their nose. Betting on one to show only by a nose was never a good bet.

A better race card probably selects a race with a bigger nose. What race has bigger noses? Stereotyping is important.

Maybe Lateen-nose?