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Immigration: When Only a Fascist May Dissent
By David Kelsey / June 10, 2009
The Jewish world is in a tizzy over the reemergence of far-right parties that were elected to the European Parliament. The neocon Michael Weiss quoted Marx, “Once again the English working class has disgraced itself.” The JTA article was replete with offical condemnations.
But perhaps, instead of merely condemning, we should ask ourselves why this is happening. Weiss offers that voting for the BNP is:
one way to piss off the bourgeois city-dwellers who plundered the economy, brought the country under the yoke of the European Union, and acquiesced—this is the uncomfortable part—to the influx of so many unassimilable immigrants.
Yes, Michael, that is the uncomfortable part, isn’t it? So uncomfortable, in fact, that few are willing to address these issues beyond platitudes that preempt a change in policy, as to do so inevitably incurs vicious condemnation for merely raising such challenges.
To publicly question mass immigration is to ensure being labeled a right-wing extremist. And therefore the only people willing to do so are often… right-wing extremists. And therefore the only electoral avenue for protest of mass immigration is by voting for these right-wing extremists. In the U.S., it has often been elements within the Jewish community that have taken the lead in labeling all whom question mass immigration policies as right-wing extremists. Just ask Stephen Steinlight what happens. He was made quite uncomfortable, wasn’t he, Michael? But if Europe is any indication of what we face here—and I think it is–perhaps we need to stop letting our discomfort preempt a serious addressing of these questions, and stop making others who are willing to do so uncomfortable as well. Or our situation will truly become quite uncomfortable indeed.
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Few posts but very interesting ones. It’s good to see agreement about Enoch Powell, a brilliant and gentle man, who was shamefully smeared and anathematized for speaking an inconvenient truth.
David, you succinctly find the heart of the issue. "Protest vote" can also be called negative vote. It happened in the U.S., too. Contrary to what the Obamaphiles delude themselves into thinking, Obama wasn’t elected president because Americans voted for him, but because they voted against the Republicans. The Dems could have nominated anybody except Blago and won, such was the popular animus against the GOP.
As for the BNP, I call it the disgust vote. People are disgusted with politicians’ refusal to address meaningfully the obvious negative impact of excess and indiscriminate immigration, disgusted at being tarred as "nativist" bigots when they protest, disgusted at being talked down to on the issue. They see muliculturalism as an excuse, in the guise of tolerance, to do nothing.
The appeal of fascism is that it is the policy of action. Fascism happens when politics devolve into platitudes and torpor. When the people want government to do something, and government can’t or won’t, they turn to the party that promise to do something. BNP, for example.
David is wrong: the right-wing, whatever their other vices, do not succumb to "p.c. stupification." Political correctness, or political pedantry, is the province of the left.
Joel, immigration problems can be qualitative or quantitative. In California, we object to the numbers. Latinos are fine people. They — I mean the illegals – are just overwhelming the infrastructure. Muslims present a qualitative problem. They are alien, hostile and often in-your-face, whether it be the creepiness of burkas or the ugliness of "Islamic rage" or the barbarisms of "honor" killings or female circumcision or anti-Semitism, which impose themselves on host societies. People who object, like Silvio, are not racists. It’s not about race but about culture, about values, but most of all about behavior.
What provokes people the most is being lied about — being called homophobe for opposing gay marriage or being called anti-immigrant for opposing illegal immigration or being called racist for being hostile to a culture that’s hostile to them. Apparently, Silvio understands this better than the smug, sanctimonious, p.c.-stupefied leaders of the so-called mainstream parties of the West.
As members of a religious based ethnic group, one that venerates the entire Tanach including the Books of Leviticus and Joshua, where do we get off telling the British that they cannot have their own country?Â
Are you going to demand the end of Israel in an act of racial Marxism too?
Frankly, I love the Rivers of Blood Speech. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3643823/Enoch-Powells-Rivers-of-Blood-speech.html
Hey Guys,
Careful with taking the word ‘immigration’ too literally. More often than not in Europe, its a synonym deployed by rightists for ‘minorities’. Its not immigration per se that is being contested as much as multiculturalism in general. Particularly in the UK, which has had a substantial non-white population for decades, now.
I live in Italy, where the use of the term, though aimed at new immigrants, has a dual purpose. Italy’s south Asian and Arab population is far newer than that which exists in the UK, and thus has some relationship to their designation as recent arrivals. Unfortunately, the debate about their legitimacy is being waged as an outlet for prejudice, not as a public discussion about immigration.
Here in Milan, the postering and rhetoric of the right-wing parties – Bossi’s Northern League, and the former Forza d’Italia, (now the PDL) – is testimony to that. ‘Immigrant’ is also a synonym for ‘Clandestini’ (illegal immigrant) and ‘Islam." Last week Berlusconi told a rally in town that Milan ‘looks like Africa.’ His chutzpah was stunning, but by no means unexpected.
These open expressions of racism gives everyone who sympathizes an unbelievable high, particularly given how badly this country is doing economically. It is all about diversion. The danger is when this practice transforms itself into something else far more sinister. That’s the real concern.
Best, Joel
The mainstream left has succumbed to p.c.stupefaction
So too to a large degree has the mainstream right. That is the problem. The entire mainstream refuses to address the problems of mass immigration in a serious way. So that just leaves fringe groups, doesn’t it?
 I would not do you the dishonor of mischaracterizing your argument here
as apologetics for the BNP, but I would direct you to any number of
articles written about them to see just how dire Sunday’s results are
for the UK, the EU, and everyone else.
I appreciate that, but what I am saying is that as long as they are the only ones willing to take a stand against mass immigration, these problems will grow. Noting how extreme these groups are will not stop their growth, because current policies are backing people into a corner. What would help is for the mainstream to become realists on the effects of current immigration policies.
I wasn’t labeling all who question mass immigration policies right-wing extremists, David. (Sorry, I should probably phrase that: "Do you really think I was labeling all who question mass immigration policies right-wing extremists, David? Do you, David?") Nor do I even think many of the working-class Brits who voted for the BNP are that either. The term "protest vote" exists for a reason, even if that sounds euphemistic in this case.
The point I intended was that Labour’s failure to adequately discuss demographics in Britain (Tony Blair’s capitulation to radical imams in London did not help his party’s chances in the North) is in part to blame for the electoral success of an out-and-out fascist, neo-Nazi group. The mainstream left has succumbed to p.c.stupefaction; it’s learned nothing since the days of Enoch Powell’s "Rivers of Blood" speech, which took the tone of Nick Griffin but also anticipated many of the problems we see today.
I would not do you the dishonor of mischaracterizing your argument here as apologetics for the BNP, but I would direct you to any number of articles written about them to see just how dire Sunday’s results are for the UK, the EU, and everyone else.
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