TG....... Guardian Reader

[Tactical Genius]

I am in the process of buying a new car and been doing a bit of research online with regards to models and specs.
This took me to a Volvo messageboard and in a moment of boredom, i went onto the non=technical bit and lo and behold, there was a debate on the BNP.
In true OTF fashion, i could not resist the temptation to stick my oar in (there were alot of sympathy posts for Nick Griffin with the usualy man in pub casual racism thrown in) so i posted a gently a polite and gentle rebuttle only to be called and i quote.

I suspect, TG, that you don't have any first-hand experience of living and working in one of the most deprived areas of the country, and that you are speaking from behind rose-tinted spectactles and your copy of the Guardian or Socialist Worker, whilst sucking up everything that Question Time and Panorama can throw at you.

I, however, do have that experience. I see the freeloaders, the work-shy, the criminal, and the immoral and everything that they get up to. They are of every colour and creed imaginable, but unfortunately the balance swings in one direction.

Integration, education, tolerance, unity and brotherly love don't work. The other alternative is not very palatable, but it may well be the only one that is left to us.

How does one respond to that?

[Cavalry Trouser Tips]

TG....... Guardian Reader

Do you still have the rose-tinted spectacles? Could you put up a picture of you wearing them?

[wingco]

TG....... Guardian Reader

I suppose you could say "Do better", see how far that gets you.

[EIM]

TG....... Guardian Reader

Hunt them down and kick the shit out of them.

[Houdi Elbow]

TG....... Guardian Reader

You could refute his first statement for a start (you lived in Haringay?)

[wingco]

TG....... Guardian Reader

I wonder if everyone on the Volvo message board has ended up there by accident? What person thinks to themselves, "I have a political grievance to air. Browsers on the website of a popular Swedish automobile shall be the first to hear about this."

[Lucia Lanigan]

TG....... Guardian Reader

This thread title sounds like the wackest Ice T album ever.

I suspect, TG, that you are speaking from behind rose-tinted spectactles and your copy of the Guardian or Socialist Worker, whilst sucking up everything that Question Time and Panorama can throw at you.

Bang. To. Rights.

[Wyatt Earp]

TG....... Guardian Reader

TG, serious as this issue is, is it OK if I have a quick giggle at the Guardian Reader bit?

Blame us. It's obviously catching.

I don't know how to respond. Have you already outed yourself as black? If not, the timing of that announcement might be a good thing to think about: reel the guy in in some way, then whack him over the head with the killer fact.

There must be a load of Hassidic Jews on a Volvo forum. Mind, a lot of them are well weird.

[Guest]

TG....... Guardian Reader

wingco wrote:

I wonder if everyone on the Volvo message board has ended up there by accident? What person thinks to themselves, "I have a political grievance to air. Browsers on the website of a popular Swedish automobile shall be the first to hear about this."

That's class.

[Wyatt Earp]

TG....... Guardian Reader

That last paragraph is sinister as fuck, isn't it? Pure fucking Hitler.

[Guest]

TG....... Guardian Reader

Wait, you are thinking of buying a Volvo......?

[Wyatt Earp]

TG....... Guardian Reader

Leave it, Villain. Car-wise, he's lost to all reason and humanity.

[NHH]

TG....... Guardian Reader

There are messageboards for cars? Would I be right in thinking that these weren't the crucibles where a new left politics is being forged?

[Anton Gramscescu]

TG....... Guardian Reader

In North America, driving a volvo is like screaming to the world that you are a North London Guardianista Ponce. The idea of a volvo-driving bnp cell does not compute.

[Wyatt Earp]

TG....... Guardian Reader

.

[Nishlord]

TG....... Guardian Reader

The only way you can deal with these people is to call them out on their racism, and claim they're not racist enough and they're actually hiding something.

Accuse this man that he only wants a Volvo because its spacious interior alows him to fit his entire family into it, so they can all go to the Job Centre together to claim their benefits - that YOU pay for.

[Amor de Cosmos]

TG....... Guardian Reader

Antonio Gramsci wrote:

In North America, driving a volvo is like screaming to the world that you are a North London Guardianista Ponce. The idea of a volvo-driving bnp cell does not compute.

Bloody hell, I'd better tell the wife. I'd got her convinced thought it was the NDP tree-huggers step up from a Suburu.

[Tactical Genius]

TG....... Guardian Reader

"TG, serious as this issue is, is it OK if I have a quick giggle at the Guardian Reader bit?"

Hahah, I suspect that it will be more than a quick giggle.

"I don't know how to respond. Have you already outed yourself as black? If not, the timing of that announcement might be a good thing to think about: reel the guy in in some way, then whack him over the head with the killer fact."

No, i have not and probably wouldnt unless it became an issue.
Plus it would give him an opportunity to dismiss my comments due to my persecution complex and chip on my shoulder.

I just politely responded to his points and ignoring his jibes.
He is from Burnley too, so i am cutting him a bit of slack.

Some interesting comments there regarding the postal strike too.

[Max Payne]

TG....... Guardian Reader

Does this mean that the BNP Forums will be full of Swedish Car drivers discussing airbags, braking distances and whether Daim or Plopp is the best in-car snack?

[Wyatt Earp]

TG....... Guardian Reader

Tactical Genius wrote:

Plus it would give him an opportunity to dismiss my comments due to my persecution complex and chip on my shoulder.

Yeah, good point.

[West End Zuma]

TG....... Guardian Reader

So if the BNP want to send him back to the cocoa farm then somehow it's irrational to feel persecuted. Interesting twisted logic.

[wingco]

TG....... Guardian Reader

That this whole BNP thing has even reached the Volvo website has led me to wrestle with half-formed feelings about the whole issue of "debate", its efficacy and relevance especially when dealing with the far right. I think that a lot of ground was naively, needlessly, even cynically (hello, Mentorn) ceded when the BBC effectively decided that the issues raised by the BNP were "up for debate".

Without necessarily resorting to the establishment of Thoughtcrime, or trying to get right up in the face of the referee known as Impartiality, I think there should have been a more robust assertion that when it comes to racism, whether disguised or not, there is no longer any debate, any more than one debates the merits of paedophilia or human sacrifice. It behoves a big agency like the BBC to enforce that. After all, the very fact that their own recruitment policies and programming demonstrate that they are not neutral on this matter.

The far right will never be debated to death. That bloke TG quotes earlier on is clearly deaf to persuasion from a messageboard. I actually imagine him as a more ineffectual variant on the Travis Bickle type, lonely and terrified by feral youth, trying to raise the terrors of the earth on a keyboard. That's not to say that people on the far right aren't capable of redemption, but it's more likely to come in the form of an epiphany, the sort that converted Ray Hill, the former Deputy Leader of The British Movement, who turned informant against the far Right when he was moved by the plight of a black family by the roadside in South Africa. An ounce of demonstration is always worth a ton of explanation.

Er, discuss . . .

[Tactical Genius]

TG....... Guardian Reader

One of the responses to my post below.

"As for Nick Griffin, OK, hes got a fair few skeletons in the cupboard but he says what he means and seems a damn sight more trustworthy than the mainstream polititians, no matter how distastleful people find him. The BNP seem to be doing something right anyway. They are gaining support and becoming more credible by the day. All they need is a few less shaven heads and a more credible leader and Labour and the Tories could find themselves in real trouble."

the thread can be seen here.

http://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showthread.php?t=82096&page=6

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

TG....... Guardian Reader

hah, you have to be a member

[Guest]

TG....... Guardian Reader

I think there should have been a more robust assertion that when it comes to racism, whether disguised or not, there is no longer any debate, any more than one debates the merits of paedophilia or human sacrifice. It behoves a big agency like the BBC to enforce that.

But this is why they keep trying to make it about immigration, and they keep trying to separate out their "concerns about immigration" from racism. Pretending it's about economics or whatever. As it happens I do think most objections to immigration have something to do with disguised racism and would be very happy to see the Mail and the Express treated as if they were extolling paedophilia or human sacrifice every day. But it would be a bit difficult to argue that immigration shouldn't be a matter for debate? And these racist rags depend on that, and so does the BNP. I hear a lot of objections along the lines of 'when you say it's all just racism you're closing down the debate that needs to happen' and so on.

I don't know what the answer is.