BNP Accountability Failure

The hysteria this week has surrounded the BNP. First, there was the issue of whether Nick Griffin should even be allowed on Question Time. Well, of course he should. If his party's values (regardless of how abhorrent most of us find them) appeal to enough members of the British public to get them seats in the European Parliament, then they have earned their right to be on political talk shows. That's called democracy. One of the main reasons that Hitler was able to gain so much support from his entire nation is because Germany felt so severely repressed by the Treaty of Versailles that they would support anyone who was able to take them out of their economic and social depression, even if that person turned out to be the most evil man that's ever lived. To repress Mr Griffin by refusing him a QT seat would only have given him a louder voice to the tone of 'I stick up for the ignored Brits'.
However, after the sensible decision had been taken by the BBC to allow him on Thursday's show, it seemed there was a backup plan to appease all those who thought that public service broadcasting had begun to condone fascism. The plan was to subject Griffin to a partisan verbal massacre. Almost every question was about the BNP, the audience was as politically one-sided as it is possible to achieve, and even David Dimbleby seemed to forego his due impartiality commitment by having deleterious quotes at his beck and call. Eloquence was simply replaced by a mob mentality.
Now let's state for the record that I hate the BNP; I am in fact very left wing. I particularly loathe the BNP's use of World War II iconography and its suggestion that Winston Churchill would have joined their party; that statement doesn't take into account the old, blindingly obvious concept: times change. Churchill fitted into the Conservative Party of the 1940s and was able to fight fascism accordingly; there is no doubt in my mind that if he were alive today he would have the intelligence and the integrity to adapt his political viewpoints to modern times and changing moralities so that he could fit into the Conservative Party today and fight fascists like the BNP today. And it's that kind of considered retort which should be thrown at Nick Griffin, not just shouting and whooping from the crowd while spin doctor politicians from other parties do all they can to coerce the mob into granting them the dubious moral high ground. Griffin needs to be held to account by intellectual debate, not bully-boy humiliation which will only add more fuel to their apparently persecuted fire. Appearing on Question Time should have shown any disillusioned British voters that the BNP was not a suitable electoral alternative by calmly scrutinising and assessing that party's beliefs; an objective which should have been easily achieved considering how corrupt those beliefs are! Unfortunately, I believe that objective failed.

Let 'em fight!

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues to dominate the news. Is it really necessary to deluge us with this unnecessary feud? I can't help feeling that both the Israelis and the Palestinians forgot a long, long time ago exactly what this war was about. Forget the territorial disputes (and that's what it was originally, purely territorial), the two countries simply desire - or indeed enjoy - vengeance, retaliation, and all out victorious demonstrations of power! The UN has been rendered redundant by the United States' unwillingness to condemn Israel because there is a large Jewish community in America. (The UN's veto system is another matter entirely!) But blame has to be apportioned equally between the two rival countries because neither of them has any moral high ground other than "they bombed us so we're bombing them"! It seems that no politicians have any recognition of an idealistic conflict of principles anymore. So, as far as I'm concerned, just let them fight it out amongst themselves. If Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, or any other Middle Eastern country wants to get involved, then let them. The morality disappeared long ago. Until these countries are able to realise the simple principle that killing is wrong, there is little hope left for any of them. Sorry if that sounds a little bleak, but perhaps we should focus a bit more on our own social morality.

From Casinos To Piracy

A casino is set to open in the Midlands any time now; not one of the 'super-casinos' that have been widely discussed as of late, but still the largest such venture to date in the UK. Casinos are bad for society for one simple reason: the average gambler doesn't stand a chance; or, in more common terminology, 'the house always wins'. This precisely represents the moral decay that is currently taking place around us. Only money matters; big businesses and the strengthening of the economy are given high priority over the fiscal affairs of the indebted masses. As long as the casinos are making this country richer, then the government is blind to all other arguments, and the gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen. Personally, I think hardcore gamblers are foolish who ought to learn more willpower and realise that desperation that excessive very quickly gets out of hand; but I still don't want to see free license granted to exploit these people out of their hard-earned cash at every turn. Governments simply demonstrate moral corruption by endorsing this kind of behaviour.

The only gamblers I respect are those intelligent few who are able to temporarily con casinos out of the money which usually resides in the fatcats' grubby paws. Which brings me to...
Piracy of CDs and DVDs. The reason I see a connection here is because I view both these issues as the rich versus the poor; except with piracy the poor are winning! People who, due to working far too many hours in a week or are restricted to a piss-poor minimum wage, don't have the time or the money to go to the cinema every week or buy original discs from the shops at ten pounds a time, are able to gain copies from their friends at much lower cost to be viewed at home at their leisure. Sure, I understand the arguments about organised crime funding terrorism and all that, but all of the 'pirates' that I've ever come into contact with have just been ordinary folk trying to get by with luxuries that they just can't afford. They're decent people who want to watch the latest film without having to steal their kids' lunch money! And anyway, do you really think that the celebrities and multi-millionaire producers give a damn about organised crime? Of course they don't, that's just their sound bite. All they care about is retaining more money and power for their own future; and it scares them to death to think that the little people might be able to take all of that away from them. Bless their little cotton socks if they have to work a bit harder for their millions nowadays and they can't live in mansions anymore. And, to be honest, it's their own fault to begin with; all pirates are doing is setting up their own small businesses and allowing the silent hand of free market economics to run its course. Capitalists have been hoist by their own petard. So up the pirates I say, it helps with redistribution of wealth. Now if only casinos could be razed to the ground...

Abort the Catholics!

Yesterday Cardinal Keith O'Brien, Scotland's most senior Roman Catholic (RC), stated that RC politicians who are pro-choice regarding abortion were no longer particularly welcome in the RC church. He said that abortion was a "social evil", an "unspeakable crime", a "wanton killing of innocents", and that children were being "murdered in their mothers' womb". In one speech, Mr O'Brien managed to set back the morality of Roman Catholics about 40 years.
In 1967, abortion was legalised (along with homosexuality, another thing which sticks in the craw of the Catholic faith) because it was deemed by intelligent politicians that all women had the right to choose whether they wanted to have a baby or not, and by intelligent scientists that the extremely limited level of consciousness demonstrated by a foetus in the first trimester of birth was not nearly enough to constitute murder. Since then, although abortion is quite rightly not something that society takes lightly, it has become generally understood that sometimes giving birth is a really terrible decision for a woman to be forced into. For instance, if a woman were to get pregnant after having being raped, how can any religion say that this is an act of God (probably working in his 'mysterious ways') and that the woman should then have to live with that bastard child for the rest of her life. I wonder what Mr O'Brien would say if one of his female relatives got pregnant like this; would he truly tell her that to have the pregnancy terminated is against God's will and could damn her to Hell?! Surely that attitude is significantly sicker than condoning pro-choice for abortion. The excessive, inflammatory and just downright conceited language that the Cardinal used in his speech could be damaging to young ladies who gave in to temptation one night and then felt manipulated by her family's religious zeal to live with her mistake by never again being given the chance of independence (or at least not for another 16 years). Penalties like this are simply too harsh in a modern society of opportunity. If only there were a gene for religion then genetic screening of foetuses could take place so that all Roman Catholic's could be aborted! This might stink a little of ethnic cleansing, but no more than what RCs believe will happen to us heathens after we die: an eternity in Hell while they bathe in the luxury of Heaven.
Really all Keith O'Brien is doing is preaching a culture of fear. A power-mongering obsessive who can't bear to relinquish his control over the society around him, and would quake in his boots if he had to admit that his own warped upbringing was incorrect. His words are despicable and should make the Roman Catholic faith feel utterly ashamed. But of course they will mew and follow him like blind sheep, because most religious followers lack the capacity for independent thought. Therefore I forward a motion here and now that all primary school pupils, when being taught collective nouns in English class - a school of whales, a coven of witches - are taught the phrase 'An abortion of Catholics'!

Formula for economic repression

1. Pay people exactly the right amount of money so that if they scrimp and save they can just about get by, thereby making them seem ungrateful and lazy if they show concern about the redistribution of wealth.
2. Make all jobs formulaic and similar in their levels of mediocrity so that any hope of leaving one job for another is quickly dashed.
3. Make job interviews conformist so that only by succumbing to a set of scripted answers which the employee can then be held to account with will they ever achieve any level of monetary success.
4. Ensure that alongside the tight-fistedness of the jobseekers' allowance there is also an incredible difficulty of gaining further employment if the loss of the previous job was due to resignation or a demonstration of a free independent spirit. This will guarantee that people live in fear of unemployment or any sense of true choice.
5. If an employee goes to an employer stating that they are in financial dire straits and desperately require more money just to live, ensure that employer states, "Show me what you can do for the business and I'll tell you what the business can do for you." This will sufficiently break their spirit.
6. If an employee finally loses their temper and does something aggressive, focus on their negative personality traits to reassure other people that society is never to blame for mental illness, nervous breakdowns or pure rage.
7. Reward anyone who only cares about money and materialistic gain at the expense of all else.

P.S. Anyone who truly believes any of the above points is immoral, corrupt, brainwashed, narrow-minded or just a complete wanker!