June 8, 2009

• The BNP scares the shit out of me

  Big news this past weekend is the growth and spread of socially conservative parties throughout Europe at the expense of socialist and left-wing parties. Amongst these is the British National Party, which earned seats in the European Parliament. Previously a tiny fringe party, the BNP has shown a steady growth in strength and influence since its founding 1980.

  It amazes me that this party exists in this day and age let alone is growing in power.  This party explicitly excludes membership of non-white non-British persons. At least two of its leading members have spoken directly of doubting the holocaust and have made other overtly anti-Semitic statements. One leader was caught photographed with a leading member of the KKK.

  More generally they are very against immigration, come out strongly opposed to affirmative action, and have taken a hard line anti-Arab position politically.  The advocate the repeal of anti-discrimination legislation and assert that there are biological racial differences that determine individual character and behavior of members of the various races. They believe that preference for your own race is a natural part of human nature. Basically in other words they are a pro-Caucasian party. It should also be no surprise at all to hear that they are also very anti-homosexuality.

  But what makes this even more scary is that these people are also State-ists.They believe in social policies that are remarkably “left-like” as in arising from a strong central government taking control of the economy as well as implementing social policies that enforce their anti-immigration stance.

  In other words if you ever wanted to see a Nazi party in the making, this is it.

  And they aren’t the only ones. Throughout Europe other parties that have positions remarkably Nazi-like have gained significant representation. Italy’s People of Freedom, Austria’s People’s Party, Denmark’s DPP, Hungary’s Jobbik party, the Netherland’s Party of Freedom, Poland’s PiS, and Romania’s PRM all have elements of that kind of a culture within them, be it either a strong xenophobic streak or a profoundly anti-homosexual component or a just blame arabs policy.  And many of them still promote liberal, statist economic policies just so long as they are tilted the right way and don’t involve major bailouts. These parties are all scary in their own way. You can read more about them here.

  Most of the support these parties are getting is coming from native citizen (white primariyl) working class individuals and families who see themselves being screwed by the bailouts and the growing income equality gap. Namely those who are both rejecting current neo-liberal capitalism AND at the same time seeing social policies that they see as screwing them specifically and in their minds are created to help everyone of every other race and nationality BUT their own as the real problem. It is those who feel they are unfairly punished for past sins of the holocaust and slavery that they themselves had nothing to do with and see immigration as stealing away their jobs and livelihood.

  What scares me the most is not the moderate success the BNP and those other parties like it have gotten througout Europe.  It’s the very real possibility that a party very much like it could very easily arise in the United States.

  It could arise from either existing major party or from a brand new party. But right now I see one branch of the Republican Party being far closer to this extreme and right on the verge of making the shift to a BNP like party at any minute.

  Right now these Republicans that call themselves “true” conservatives, catered to by loud mouthed radio and television hosts have all the xenophobic, blame the other guy characteristics of any of these other Nationalist parties. However, in the US they have been so far pretty overtly anti-government. This created some severe internal tension in the party when President Bush engaged in policies that strengthed and expanded the role of the central government. These tensions were in part exploited by the Democratic party to win its recent elections. 

  But the Republican party need not be anti-government programs. As they search for a shift to become more “relevant” post their election defeats it’s entirely possible that they might shift the other way becoming pro-State.  From what I see from most of the conservatives I read online who have something to say about the current government, their rage is mostly against the social policies of the Obama administration. That is they take most seriously things like the abortion debate, immigration, and judging from the character assassination currently underway of judge Sonia Sotomayor also the issue of affirmative action is one they strongly identify with. The pro-guns, second ammendment wing of the party is still pretty adamant too, as is the anti-homosexual wing.

  There is some consternation of course about the bailouts. That’s everywhere across the board. Liberals and conservatives both are seeing it as having been a really bad idea nowadays. The problem is, currently conservatives have only been able to say “bailouts are bad” while parotting the old “keep government out” philosophy that we know doesn’t work, which many people still credit as having gotten us into this mess in the first place. But even if it weren’t for those lingering doubts, people who are suffering don’t generally respond well to a “do nothing” strategy of opposition. They want a party that promises to do big things to change things around and make their lives better.

  So what if Republicans start doing that? Rather than being anti-social security, and anti-unemployment, and anti-healthcare they start to come out strongly in favor of State based programs to improve all of those things. As well as promising to help manufacturing and create good high paying jobs for Middle Class citizens? What if rather than decrying the auto-industry, they start to speak up about how it’s a shame and a travesty that the Obama administration let the great GM fail and how the Republicans would work to save jobs for Middle Class Americans? And waht if they combine THAT with the rhetoric of tax cuts that has already proven so effective for them? They’ll argue for eliminating payroll taxes, capital gains taxes, CO2 taxes, gas taxes and sin taxes (well certain ones) all which of course will sound good to the average citizen dying under the weight of a stagnating economy and excessive debt.

  Of course that isn’t really a tenable position. You can’t promise people broad social programs, support of manufacturing, and extreme tax cuts all delivered by the government and balanced budgets and expect that to work out.  The numbers just won’t add up.

  Except you can.  There is a way. Just so long as you promise it only to the people who matter.  Here’s where the xenophobia, anti-immigrant, anti-homosexual, anti-affirmative action, etc. etc. element comes in. You’ll see policies that promise well funded retirements and medical benefits and education for upper middle class mostly white traditional American families but screw everyone else. 

  It’ll start of course with illegal immigrants being the easy targets. They’ll be driven effectively into a permanent underclass eliminating the possibility of the rapidly growing hispanic population threatening the current power structures. Those who don’t flee back to Mexico will become a cheap and exploited labor pool with few to no tax cuts coming their way. The tax structure will be tilted in such a way that they get none of the benefits and incur all the costs all justified by the fact that they’re “illegal”.

  General policy will screw the poor in general. It always does. But unlike in the past, any kinds of problems this economy has will be explicitly blamed on the undesirable elements of society. Meaning inner city denizens and criminals (read blacks), immigrants (mexicans and hispanics), terrorists (arabs), homosexuals (gays), and liberals (anybody else they don’t like). You’ll see policies like universal sales taxes that don’t have food exceptions, or at least no food exceptions for the kinds of food the poor people are likely to be able to afford. You’ll see increased taxes on cigarettes. You’ll see increased penalties for drug use and abuse. You’ll see more and more funding going into police forces and the military. You’ll see a systematic dismantling of programs designed to promote multiculturalism or racial balance in schools or any other institution. Any kinds of scholarships that support a particular race or class or gender will be decried as “racist” so that the majority of new scholarships and grants end up going to the ruling class. You’ll see draconian laws against abortion.  These will push people into back room abortions where death will be all too common an outcome mysteriously unreported of course. Segregation of schools will be implicitly allowed as lower end schools are allowed to district themselves in such a way as to exclude membership from poorer neighborhoods.

  That’s a minimum. When those policies don’t work completely two avenues will be immediately available. First they’ll blame international forces. Arab “terrorist” states abraod of course will be a major target. So will central and south American “communist” states. So they’ll do expansionist methods to try and crush resistance and spread US power abraod. Thus giving us direct access to resources in these other states of course and sending them back home. Red China will of course be villified as well. They always are.

  The other avenue will of course be further oppression at home. Obviously there will be unruly people at home protesting these policies. Their disloyalty will be the problem keeping American from reaching its destined greatness. They will have to be clamped down upon.  First an increase in law enforcement funding. More prisons. More lockups of protesters and anyone of the undesirable classes who commits even the smallest crime that can be used as a pretense. Of course illegal drug users will be locked up first. Especially marijuana users. Cigarettes I bet would become entirely illegal so it can be used as a useful pretense to lockup more poor people.  Anyone who undergoes or performs an abortion will of course be jailed. There will probably be a law that allows anyone who withholds information about an abortion to be locked up. Of course anyone suspected of being an “illegal” whether they are or not will be locked up until it can be sorted out. Similarly all arab citizens found roaming the streets will be emprisoned just to be on the safe side. They might be terrorists after all. Soon a law will be passed making it illegal for homosexuals to marry or even live together or make public shows of affection, this will allow arbitrary arrests of gays as well.

  As these measures increase, unrest will increase as well and soon it will be impossible to even maintain pretenses. Rebellious social elements will just have to be aprehended without pretense. There won’t be enough money or time to hold trials for all these people. So they’ll just be held indefinitely in internment camps. Martial law would eventually have to be called. Soon someone will get the bright idea that it’s far cheaper and easier to simply kill these people.  What justification will they use? Probably some notion of treason or charge of “domestic terrorism” enforced through dummy courts. Assuming they have to have some pretend justification. They may not need to. They’ll just start executing people and dumping their bodies in large ditches.  None of this will be reported. Anyone who tries will be rounded up with the rest.

  And then you’d have it. Effective Naziism. Only a stone’s throw away.

  Of course all of this is idyll speculation. Presumably there’s all kinds of opportunities for well meaning people to stop this madness from coming about long before it happens. Presumably we’ve grown more as a people in general than that and are unlikely to be so utterly mislead by demogogurey and vile rhetoric. Fairness will mean to people more than getting what’s best for me and my people but getting what’s best for the society as a whole.  But you never know. We’ve seen this darkness arise in the past. Judging from the recent elections we can see the remnants are still strong in Europe. And when people are hurting from an economic crises that’s the time when they are most susceptible to that oh so human instinct to find something, anything, to blame for the way their lives have gone wrong and why their lives are so hard.

  It’s always easiest to blame the people who are weakest. The people who don’t fight back. They are the ones who will be exploited first but it’ll spread and spread and spread.

  That’s the risk we ALL have a responsibility to fight against. For if we do not stop it, we’ll be stuck with a future for which we have only ourselves to blame.

  • 6:11 pm
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