On your use of the word “smear” again, I reiterate, it is not a smear to argue that the IIIT has fallen victim to extremist entryism.

You’re a journalist and you know the value of words. So I presume you know there is a difference between calling something a “smear” and thinking it a “pretty lame article”. The article made certain assertions, before you brandish the word “smear” you would, at the very least, invest in a modicum of factual refutal of those assertions, something you haven’t done. All you seem to be interested in closing down discussion.

By attempting to shut down debate in this manner, you’re preventing meaningful discussion and insightful debate on these issues. That is why we “host” these ideas on the Spittoon.

And what bananabrain said, entirely.

1. i was not “believing everything i saw written in blogs” – i saw something i found troubling and i asked for clarification, because i suspected there was more to it than met the eye. although i have had some clarification, i will need to go a little deeper before i am totally satisfied, but that is unlikely to happen in this environment.
2. i am not trying to “smear” anyone. i am trying to dig below the chatter and build some insight into what is actually going on. i don’t know any of you (including yahya) terribly well, but i would like to think that everyone is engaging honestly and in good faith and for them to think the same as me.
3. i am really not terribly interested in meaningless political posturing and the narcissism of minor differences, like the one between harry’s place and here. i would be quite disappointed if PP and the spittoon ended up sniping at each other continuously.

if one is intending to make one’s living from talking and writing, i would suggest that lazy debating tactics are not the way to go. insightful commentary is not compatible with a doctrinaire attachment to one’s own “side”.

b’shalom

bananabrain

I should hope that Friday’s meeting will address the issue of the failures of the mainstream politics.

The do nothings of UAF are now going to have a conference in Manchester to find out what went wrong. Mind you theyalways have a conference about eight weeks before major elections to decide on the strategy to stop the BNP. That turns out to be a pop concert four days before the election.

The strategy and tactics for containing the BNP have already been worked out and put into place in the Hope Not Hate campaign devised by Searchlight working with the Daily Mirror and the TUC as well as faith groups and all the political parties.

About six years ago a core group started to look at where the BNP was going and devised tactics to counter them. It was recognised that the tactics of fighting fascists on the streets were not going to work because Griffin and the others had moved off the streets into the housing estates.

We had to change tactics to counter them and it was recognised that the old ANL tactics of waving lollypops and shouting ” Nazi scum off our streets” were 70s tactics and weren’t even very effective then as I recall.

It was also recognised that instead of reacting to an election where the BNP were standing we now faced an ongoing campaign. To that end there are now somewhere in the region of sixty or so local groups around the country each based in their communities and able to respond to what the BNP are doing in any given area.

All BNP activity is monitored and countered be it false claims about asylum seekers, letters to local papers, attempts by BNP members to get themselves onto local community groups or whatever.

Come elections the movement goes into top gear which anything up to three and a half million tabloid newspapers and leaflets being distributed around the country in the weeks before the European elections.

Had it not been for this we would be facing hundreds of local councillors, three on the Greater Lodon Authority and as many as six in Europe. What we have is a very successful strategy of containment. More needs to be done but we are not facing meltdown so don’t panic.

What is not being looked at is why white people are voting BNP. There are very legitimate concerns about many things that the mainstream politicians have ignored for too long and which have only been addressed by the far right.

Asylum and immigration, the perceived, and in many cases real, discrimination against white people by the race industry in terms of employment. The demands for all black short lists in every sphere of public life and the funding of non existent groups by Lee Jasper with public money certainly anger ordinary white people.

What it seems is going to happen on Friday is an attempt to reinvent the wheel by people who no nothing about the subject. Do not despair, I will be there to enlighten you all.

Consider Friday to be the organising meeting before the debate.

To try and smear CC as extremist really is the pits. It’s more FrontPageMagazine than anything else.

You certainly shouldn’t read everything you believe in blogs but you should certainly regard them as a useful place to host a range of views and initiate debate and countenance views that go contrary to received thinking. That’s what the comments threads are all about. But first, a point on your cognitive dissonance. To point out examples of entryism by extremist elements in otherwise well-respescted muslim organisations is not calling the entire organisation extremist. But it is a vital part of keeping these organisations accountable and vigilant in maintaining that accountability.

To automatically call the article a “smear” is devaluing the sentiment the post was written in and a lazy way of shutting down debate and discussion. This is tragic coming from a champion of free speech such as yourself.

To try and smear CC as extremist really is the pits. It’s more FrontPageMagazine than anything else.

You certainly shouldn’t read everything you believe in blogs but you should certainly regard them as a useful place to host a range of views and initiate debate and countenance views that go contrary to received thinking. That’s what the comments threads are all about. But first, a point on your cognitive dissonance. To point out examples of entryism by extremist elements in otherwise well-respescted muslim organisations is not calling the entire organisation extremist. But it is a vital part of keeping these organisations accountable and vigilant in maintaining that accountability.

To automatically call the article a “smear” is devaluing the sentiment the post was written in and a lazy way of shutting down debate and discussion. This is tragic coming from a champion of free speech such as yourself.

I get your point.

To destroy BNP it needs to be delegitimised – I agree. Unless we debate them and show them up for who they really are to the existing and potential BNP voters – Isn’t there a chance of lionising them? And how do you tackle that?

I am not challenging you – I genuinely would like to know.

You’re an idiot

To try and smear CC as extremist really is the pits. It’s more FrontPageMagazine than anything else.

Anyway.

For once I think Colin has a point.

Why not invite a BNP representative – the arguments that they come up with are usually very easily refuted.

My aim is not to come to some sort of an agreement or try and find common ground with the BNP. My aim is to destroy them. To de-legitimise them.

So having them on the platform is not only to legitimise them, but detracts from the main discussion – how do we tackle and destroy them.

You seem to be giving the impression on here that you don’t have right of reply Yahya. But you know you have my email and my phone number! So it might be more effective feedback for you to contact me directly rather than leave comments on the Spittoon article on the City Circle on a completely different blog, which I would not have known anything about unless Bananabrain had alerted me.

b’shalom

bananabrain

b’shalom

bananabrain