Oct 202009
 

Now we all know that the BNP are the lowest form of scum in the political cesspool … even low and putrid enough that they cause other politicians to feel nauseous. But in a long history of astonishing ineptitude and a quality of thought that would bring shame to any self-respecting cockroach, they have managed a piece of grossly offensive stupidity. They are using various military images to promote their pathetic and ridiculous creed. One of the images used is the that of a spitfire which previously caused a row in early 2009. In addition the BNP have tried to lay claim to the British Legion’s poppy symbol which is also pretty offensive.

The opposition to the BNP using military images comes initially from some old generals. Now I’m hardly a fan of the British military and I’m certainly not normally on their side. But they’re definitely right – using the military images to inflate the BNPs “Britishness” is definitely wrong. And offensively wrong given that many of those involved in the British military (including the WWII military!) were not the kind of people that the BNP would approve of. Personally I’d say there’s a lot to be said to being the kind of person that the BNP would not approve of – after all there is no chance that anyone would mistake you for being one of them!

The BNP would have you believe that the immigration “issue” of today is comparable to the attempted invasion by the Axis forces in WWII. This is preposterous in numerous ways and shows pretty well that the members of the BNP are at best woefully and dangerously delusional. First of all, an invasion is vastly different to a migration; in fact an invasion does not even require permanent residence for many of the invasion force. Even more an invasion is a rejection of our society and standards whereas a migration is an acceptance of the same (the migrant might change his or her mind later on).

Secondly the war against the Axis forces was not simply defeating an attempted invasion of Britain. It was bigger by far than that. The war started before the attempted invasion and went on long after the invasion was turned back. It was very much the realisation that the cancerous beliefs of fascism could not be tolerated and that defeating fascism was of sufficient value that the masters of capitalism felt that allying ourselves with the “evil communists” was the lesser of two evils. Whilst Nick Griffin is no more than the palest shadow of a buffoon alongside someone like Hitler, and the BNP are similarly shown to be inadequate alongside the Nazi party, they are very much cut from the same mould.

Nick Griffin and his mindless thugs (look at their criminal records sometime) would be very happy in a world where Britain had been defeated by Nazi Germany. After all they could persecute their favourite ethnic minorities in any way they wished.

Comparing the “struggle” against immigration to the struggle against fascism and Nazi Germany is a slap in the face of every veteran who fought in WWII.

I notice that the BNP website today still shows :-

  • A red poppy (pah!)
  • A photograph of a spitfire (perhaps not the same photo they used in early 2009 which was flown by a Polish pilot)
  • And a picture of Churchill.

I somehow doubt that Churchill or his descendants would be too pleased about his image being used to popularise the BNP scum. The funny thing is that this great British leader may not have been quite British enough to be allowed to join the BNP – his mother was American and there is a chance that her descendants include Iroquois and/or Jews (neither of which are any form of “stain” of course), and considering his father came from the British aristocracy was likely to be not quite so British as the BNP would like. If you read the BNPs constitution, the clause concerning membership (quite possibly to be removed shortly) restricts membership to a wide variety of different “folk” people (indicating a rather confused grasp on British history), but excludes various proto-French ethnic groupings which could well exclude Churchill (at which he breathes a huge sigh of relief, or would if he could).

The BNPs big “thing” is race. They might well appear on TV or in other forms of media campaigning on other issues, but it’s still written large in their constitution that they want to return Britian to some pre-1948 mythical “white” utopia. Well first of all, the whole white thing is a bit mythical in itself – it’s only when you look at us from a distance that we look white; look a bit closer and you start to see differences (English, Welsh, Scottish, etc.). Secondly Britain has long been a home to people whose ancestors weren’t European.

And it is doubtful that the proto-English that the BNP want us all to revert to were all that concerned about “racial purity”. The Saxon warlord who defeated the last Celtic king around these parts, and went on to found the House of Wessex was called “Cerdic”. His name indicates that his ancestry included some Celtic blood somewhere (the most popular theory was that his mother was Celtic) in addition to his Saxon blood. For the benefit of those whose history is as poor as the BNPs most undoubtedly is, this “House of Wessex” later went on to unite the newly formed kingdom of England – the most important Saxons of the “Anglo-Saxon” peoples.

And now that I’m been writing of the BNP, I’m in urgent need of a long, hot cleansing bath to take away the stench.

Sep 112009
 

Alan Turing was a computer scientist and a homosexual at the very dawn of electronic computing, and contributed enormously to the winning of World War II by being one of those behind the code breaking efforts at Bletchley Park. When you consider his contributions to the war effort and his contributions to the new field of computer science, his sexual orientation was the least important part of him. Yet because of his sexuality, he was prosecuted, lost his security clearance (which was particularly devastating because of the lack of other places he could make his contributions), and harassed by the British security services.

Eventually he committed suicide; almost certainly because of his harassment by society that couldn’t see past his sexuality and see his vast contributions and potential.

There are those who say he shouldn’t be forgiven because he was a homosexual and that is forbidden by god. That position is contemptible and not worth commenting on.

There are those who say he shouldn’t be forgiven because he broke the law of the time. Well the law was immoral and wrong. In many ways we are obligated to break laws that are immoral.

There are those who say he shouldn’t be forgiven because there were many other men persecuted because of their sexual orientation. Perhaps 100,000 men, or even more (oddly enough homosexual women were not persecuted to quite the same extent (although I’d welcome pointers to prove me wrong … well sort of)). There is a point to that objection, but forgiving a particularly shining example of such harassment is the first step on the path of getting all those persecuted men pardoned.

And Alan Turing is a good start to that process because even those who do not like homosexuality can be brought around to believing that Alan at least deserves to be forgiven because of his immense contributions.

But most of all he should be pardoned because he didn’t really do anything wrong, and honoured because of his contributions.

Nov 092008
 

Today is Remembrance Sunday; a day to remember those killed in war. It should perhaps be on the 11th November (this year on a Tuesday), but the British government is too cheap to give us all a day off for remembrance.

As this is the 90th anniversary of the armistance of world war i, it is perhaps understandable that some concentrate on the dead of that war. As a general rule one of the things we remember when we remember the dead of the wars, is that they died for our freedom. For the wars since that is definitely on the true side, but perhaps not for WWI …

After all WWI started when the Austrian-Hungarian “dual monarchy” declared war on Serbia after Serbian military intelligence had been involved in assisting the assassination of a Grand-Duke. Russia was pulled in to support Serbia, and the rest of the European ‘powers’ were similarly pulled into the war.

But that is over simplistic – historians are still arguing over the causes of WWI. But what is clear is that there was initially no great villain that needed bringing down although many of the men who volunteered to fight were led to believe (in the case of Britain) that Germany was some sort of great villain.

To those who survived WWI, Rememberance Day was less a day for remembering those who died for our freedom, than just remembering the dead. It is difficult to appreciate the level of casualties today, but one clue is on the lists of the dead given on memorials in almost every little village. Probably just about everyone living in Britain in the 1920s would have been close to someone who had died in WWI.

To put it into statistical terms, Britain lost 2.1% of its population in WWI compared to 0.93% in WWII.

Some of the blame for the horrendous level of casualties can be placed at the door at the incompetant military leadership who took far too long to adjust to 20th century warfare from their 19th century mindsets. Or in the words of more than a few, the British army were “Lions led by donkeys”.

Jul 242007
 

Format: DVD

IMDB entry: here

A “foreign language” film with subtitles with an absolutely fascinating story set in WWII where a Dutch jew infiltrates the regional German headquarters for the resistance. An incredible number of plot twists and turns, together with a fascinating insight into how life was like for someone on the run in occupied Europe during the war. And even in the aftermath.

A film well worth checking out and don’t let the subtitles scare you off!