Harry’s Place

this is not much of a surprise - just look at the Greens elsewhere in Europe, they are easy bedfellows with the far right. In Latvia until recently the Greens were in the coalition government as the Latvian Farmers’ party under the slogan “This Land Is Ours” - they are of a piece with the goths in England and elsewhere in northern Europe who so easily move over to “blood and honour” - just visit a goth shop in Cornwall or similar and you will find Celtic crosses, yes, but worse than that.

This seems very harsh on the Greens to me. To say that “their Parliamentary candidate in Cheltenham, Keith Bessant, was exposed yesterday as a member of the BNP” invites the interpretation that they have a current candidate who’s also a BNP member, when the fact is he’s a former candidate who’s since joined the BNP - yes the time difference may have been only 2 years but that’s the same as the time between Oswald Mosley leaving Labour and his forming the British Union of Fascists.

I think they’re culpable over Tony Gosling, but in the absence of evidence that Bessant was expressing BNP views while in the Greens, and that they didn’t notice or did notice but didn’t care, then I wouldn’t blame them for his later joining the BNP.

“A third man, Barrie Davey of the Isle of Wight, is noted as having run in a local election as an “Independent Green Party” candidate. We have not to our knowledge ever had any contact with Mr Davey, and he has never been a member or candidate of the Green Party.”

Now if this local election was in the last few years we wonder how the Returning Officer” acepted this as a legitimate party description.

GW

“That means there was less than two years in which Bessant metamorphosised from a Green Party Parliamentary Candidate into a far-right BNP Member.”

A BNP council candidate in my town, Alexander Copland, claimed in his election literature to have been a member of the Green Party but left because he thought they didn’t promote the rights of the “indigenous” inhabitants. He also put a photograph of himself outside the local church in his leaflet, but that church actually campaigns against racism and fascism. There are cross-overs from many parties to the BNP (including Labour), but that should not reflect badly on these parties. It just means there are freelance lunatics in politics who sadly get positions within parties because no-one else wants to do the work. I don’t think these people tarnish the image of the parties they were once associated with.

“Is the Green Party so desperate for candidates that they take anyone willing to stand?”

I once stood as a council candidate for the Greens and got over 7% of the vote, but was not a member - I’d just been invited to stand by the local party contact because they wanted to contest every seat in the county. They are shoddily organised because they are, in principle, anti-hierarchy and strive as much as possible for internal consensus. As such, it is little surprise that the odd freak joins up and takes advantage of the situation for their own gain. But I’ve not met any Green party member who is racist, far from it. They mostly seem to be good-natured, sincere, earnest, well educated and sometimes annoyingly self-righteous when it comes to recycling, transport, lightbubs and watching television.

The Green Party stands against racism, anti-Semitism

So the reason the ‘Green’ party has national antisemitic policies is …?

because he thought they didn’t promote the rights of the “indigenous” inhabitants

Interesting, those scare quotes. This contempt by N1 chatterati towards the indigenous people of this country is largely to blame for the increase in BNP votes.

“I’d just been invited to stand by the local party contact because they wanted to contest every seat in the county. They are shoddily organised because they are, in principle, anti-hierarchy and strive as much as possible for internal consensus.”

And now they’re seeing the consequences of such idiocy.

As such, it is little surprise that the odd freak joins up and takes advantage of the situation for their own gain.

But why does nobody notice? Don’t alarm bells go off before the person is put forward to stand for local government.. or Westminster(!!!)?

GW - alas they did, I remembered it at the time because I thought it was odd (although I didn’t know he was a BNP member obviously).

The article states “I don’t believe that Bessant had some weird Damascene experience within a year of fighting an election for the Greens and decided to become a white nationalist instead.” Unfortunately that’s exactly what happened.

Or to be more precise he had a nervous breakdown, left the Greens, then later joined the BNP for two weeks, then left again (but it seems got left on their members list) and did not re-apply to join the Greens as local members had made it clear he was no longer welcome.

A sad story - but not one of the Greens and the BNP being quite similar kinds of organisation.

But why does nobody notice?

David Icke as national spokesman would be a hard act to follow, wouldn’t it?

“A sad story - but not one of the Greens and the BNP being quite similar kinds of organisation.”

I don’t think I’d suggest that for one moment.

I would.

They mostly seem to be [...] well educated [...]

DAN

That’s the more important bit, I think. We know better and don’t need advice on how to spot racists and political cranks.

did not re-apply to join the Greens as local members had made it clear he was no longer welcome.

SAD STORY

A man in an emotionally fragile state who had served the party in two General Elections and, from what you say, had had a brainstorm and was now trying to repair his position as an activist?

No surprise. Imagine a movement with an unprovable, semi - mystical, passionately held set of beliefs, determined to impose them on not just their own country but ze whole vorld.
Don’t mention the thaw.

I don’t think I’d suggest that for one moment.

Why not? Environmentalism and fascism have long been closely associated. They share a misanthropic outlook. Some contemporary environmentalists have written of their hopes that the huamn population will be reduced by billions, either by disease or more “interventionist” measures such as population control. The Nazis were very proud banners of hunting and vivisection, issues close to the hearts of many Greens. Hitler was a vegetarian nutcase (although he did like his fish on occasion). You are doing a sterling service highlighting the overlapping memberships of these ugly reactionary groups, Brett. Keep up the good work.

““The Green Party takes membership applications in good faith ….”

which is a rather naive view for a grown up national political party to take

I hope that the Greens and other political groupings will scan the BNP list for any “crossover” members or infiltrators, relying less on that gullible “good faith” and a bit more on political common sense

“Why not?”

Because I have friends who are Green Party supporters and they’re not fascists or loonies.

Isn’t the problem this?

1. What is the point of the Green Party?

I’d have a real difficulty knowing what the Green Party is for. There’s real brand confusion here. The Greens are a sort of radical-but-still-fluffy version of the Liberal Democrats.

They’re in favour of democracy and against racism and for welfare and stuff like that. Then they’re - obviously - ‘green’, so you’d expect them to be funny about GM food and nuclear power and all that. They’re probably a bit Naomi Klein too. Er. They’re in favour of traditional things and the old ways and thinking small.

Because they don’t stand for a recognisable set of clear ‘green’ core beliefs - like Social Democracy, Socialism, Modern Conservatism, Liberalism - it is difficult to predict where they’ll stand on anything.

They’re also a very broad church - so they will happily include Green Anarchists, Green Socialists, people who think that animals should be emancipated, people who think of themselves as druids, people who think we ought to recycle more, people who think that WE DO NOT KNO THE FUL STOREY ABOUT 9/!!, and so on.

All parties are broad coalitions, but the Greens are more nebulous than most.

2. The Greens are Too Ambitious

The Greens make a reasonable showing and in a PR system, and a large council, they’ll get a few on. They also know that they can take a few council seats by taking advantage of voter fatigue with the main parties, and hard working charismatic candidates in others.

But, in reality, they’re just not a national party. They’re not large enough. They’re not serious enough. I mean, they had a Principal Male and Principal Female Speaker. What is all THAT about?

3. They attract lunatics

All parties attract lunatics. Some reach positions of power, or near power. Look at Michael Meacher!

I’d guess that the apolcalyptic vision of Green politics, plus the enormous spectrum of difficult political beliefs that sit within the Green Party, makes them more tolerant of and open to political kookiness.

If you don’t know what you stand for, you find it more difficult to point to a specific set of beliefs and say “That’s not Green!”

I mean, what would “not green” look like? A person who really really thought that hemp was the solution to the worlds problems could happily sit in the Green Party alongside a person who was keen on microlending, and both might plausibly say that they were what being green was all about. They might be joined by a pagan witch, and a person who was preoccupied by the Surveillance Society, and they’d still think, “Yup, one of us”

We’ve all seen, recently, how people on the Left just DON’T recognise Nazis - unless they actually wear lederhosen and sing the Horst Wessel song. So if a guy turns up - like Gosling - rambling about Mossad being behind 7/7 and neocons and how the Protocols are merely anti-Zionist, many of them really will honestly just have thought - “what an interesting man”. Some will have thought “I bet he’s on to something”.

4. How lunatics get selected.

If you’re a party that spreads itself thinly, has no real chance of obtaining real power, attracts lunatics, is tolerant of lunacy, and doesn’t have enough of a sense of what it is about to say to a Nazi - “I know your game, eff off”, you’re going to end up putting some of them up for election.

Frankly, it is difficult to get people to contest elections. It is lots of work for very little. I’d guess that a good proportion of the people who volunteer to stand for election are nutters. It is just that in a large enough party, there’s some choice, and so the nutters rarely get selected.

Was Bessant always a bit like that? I really do wonder.

Lots of people have breakdowns, but usually that madness manifests itself in having an affair, getting involved with drugs, gambling, religion.

I’d think that to make the intellectual and political step of becoming a member of the BNP, you’d have to have at least some leanings in that direction already.

I’d very much like to hear from Mr Bessant anyhow.

Although people like John Little, who suggest that environmentalism and fascism are closely related and share the same misanthropic outlook, are idiots, I think the Green movement is more effective as a pressure group than as a political party. They’re not likely ever to gain office, or even an MP, and I think they’d be better off providing practical advice for all voters rather than losing deposits in elections.

Hitler was a vegetarian nutcase (although he did like his fish on occasion).

I said this facetiously, and Papa Goebbels (a.k.a. Graham) took it seriously. Hitler wasn’t. He was on a low-meat diet, though, to reduce his farting.

“Is the Green Party so desperate for candidates that they take anyone willing to stand? ”
Probably yes. I would not be surprised that almost any one could be a council candidate in an unwinable seat for any party.
My brother was a candiate for the Lib Dems when he was 22 and was planning to leave the area quite soon - he was just a paper candidate though.
“3. They attract lunatics

All parties attract lunatics”
True. Look at Jenny Tonge.

“A man in an emotionally fragile state who had served the party in two General Elections and, from what you say, had had a brainstorm and was now trying to repair his position as an activist?”

Seems, well… nasty, doesn’t it?

“Interesting, those scare quotes. This contempt by N1 chatterati towards the indigenous people of this country is largely to blame for the increase in BNP votes.”

Anyone who is born here is indigenous, but the BNP define “indigenous” in narrow terms to exclude people on the grounds of ethnicity and religion. I’ve no sympathy for those who frame politics in terms of “indigenous” versus “non-indigenous” - I think they should be completely ignored.

“Environmentalism and fascism have long been closely associated.”

The Pope uses this idea to denigrate pagans. Because the Nazis used ancient myth to legitimate their rule, Nazism is rooted in paganism, according to him. It opens the way for persecuting people who are not Nazis. The Nazis were also into nudism, but nudism is not Nazi. The Nazis loved sex, but sex isn’t Nazi, etc, etc. Likewise being an environmentalist is not akin to being a Nazi.

“And now they’re seeing the consequences of such idiocy.”

I think the Greens are making a transition towards being a more organised party. The decision to elect a leader is a step in this direction. But they want a different kind of politics based on direct and open democracy, which means leaving yourself open. As for standing for election, the Green strategy has been to support any member who wishes to stand for any election, including paper candidates.

They are a small party so they are not exactly in a position to have a selection procedure. But perhaps they will vet candidates more, although I don’t think we can expect them to know if someone will go off the rails in the future. There are plenty of Tory and Labour people who have done nutty things (anyone remember Miranda Grell?), but because there are more of them they tend to be ignored.

“The Greens make a reasonable showing and in a PR system, and a large council, they’ll get a few on.”

The Greens have more councillors than the BNP.

“The Greens have more councillors than the BNP.”

ALLEGEDLY!!

Sorry, don’t mean that, I just couldn’t resist!

Let me recommend some reading, ladies and gentlemen:

How Green Were The Nazis? (Ohio University Press)

Pretty damn Green, it turns out.

To be fair to them, the Greens are genuinely opposed to the sort of thing the BNP stands for. However there is a notable exception. They have a small but influential vanguard of activists who fiercely promote a very paranoid analysis of banking and finance, the evils of usury and so forth, very similar to what you will hear from the far right. This issue is one that has historically been a recruiting tool for fascists among the left, and it is quite possible that this is what has been going on here.

The Nazis were also into nudism, but nudism is not Nazi. The Nazis loved sex, but sex isn’t Nazi, etc, etc. Likewise being an environmentalist is not akin to being a Nazi.

Sure, but the question being posed is why fascists might be attracted to the Green Party. The answer might be that they share some common assumptions about the relationship between society and nature.

There are plenty of Tory and Labour people who have done nutty things (anyone remember Miranda Grell?), but because there are more of them they tend to be ignored.

There was one Tory MP who in 1981 wrote in his diary:

Yes, I told (Spectator editor Frank Johnson) I was a Nazi. I really believed it to be the ideal system, and that it was a disaster for the Anglo-Saxon races and for the world that it was extinguished

.

Personally I preferred Gyles Brandreth’s diaries.

I thought the greens (and the LibDems) aren’t a political party because they don’t represent the power aspirations of a group. Like in the old days, labour represented the unions and tories the CBI. Nowadays they both represent Rupert Murdoch. But who do the greens represent? Penguins? They don’t vote. And the LibDems represent the flagellatory guilty conscience of the middle classes, which mostly goes to sleep come polling day.

“The answer might be that they share some common assumptions about the relationship between society and nature.”

Which is what? That mankind should not use more resources than the planet can spare? That mankind should not do irrepairable damage to the environment? That we should put the need for sustainability above the desire for economic growth? Some fascists may believe this, but so do people across the political spectrum.

“That we should put the need for sustainability above the desire for economic growth? Some fascists may believe this, but so do people across the political spectrum.”

Indeed, and since the three large parties all seem to have advocates of this good sense within, it draws us back to the question of what the Greens are for, now that environmentalism is mainstreamed. As was said earlier, perhaps they’d be more effective as a lobby group.

Which is what? That mankind should not use more resources than the planet can spare?

That’s a good start. The Greens popularise the notion that society is living beyond the means available to it and using up scarce resources, while the fascists popularise the notion there are too many people in the country given the number of jobs and housing available, and immigrants should go home.

It’s hardly rocket science to see that these are essentially the same ideas, is it?

Although people like John Little, who suggest that environmentalism and fascism are closely related and share the same misanthropic outlook, are idiots

They are not closely related, however a Green party member did explain to me that (in his words) originally the Green movement was a right-wing conservationist one, to get the plebs off the land, and some members really do say they wish that human populations were decimated (in order to save the planet), which is pretty far right by most standards.

He’s not an idiot at all, he’s right in that the the two DO converge absolutely in the misanthropic scale. This was from the horses’ mouth as it were.

How’s this for convergence, google “Libertarian National Socialist Green Party”

No Platform for NO and Stuart Little! :)

“the revelations that their Parliamentary candidate in Cheltenham, Keith Bessant, was exposed yesterday as a member of the BNP.”

Let’s be a bit careful. Even the BNP have said that list isn’t reliable, and some names had been added to provoke mischief.

But if he really was a member, the BNP must have been discretely wetting themselves laughing, and the Greens need to clean up their act right now. Once you are running a party which admits members of other parties, all bets are off.

From n a z i . o r g

Environment
The deep ecology movement restated what the NSDAP believed: that in order for humans to exist without destroying their environment, it had to be placed on equal footing with humans, recognizing in addition that its space requirements were greater as while humans are one species, nature is uncountable interlocked species, creating a codependent, eternal whole.

For this reason our goals regarding the environment are to decrease the human land-use footprint, decrease our use of resources and reprocess our waste so that we do not introduce it to the environment. These are simple goals with complex implications.

There must be a leadership factor other than profit-motive.

When our guiding principle is profit, nature and our own integrity take second place and are pushed aside by the need to use more, sell more, buy more. A National Socialist government returns leadership to the culture and people, and relegates money to its role as a mechanism for achieving those ends. Land use should be a question of a logical use of the land to benefit the society as a whole, not whose profit can be made from another fast-food restaurant or discount store. Further, without excessive profit motive, products will be designed to last longer and thus produce less eventual waste.

Population must regulate itself.

If we do not check our breeding, we will overrun the earth. There are two factors in managing population; the first is quantitative, the second, qualitative.

There are literally too many humans on planet earth. Every generation begets another, and thus population grows exponentially despite natural and social (poverty, warfare) factors. Our current population occupies too much space and even if placed on vegan diets, too many resources, and produces too much waste, to avoid irretrievably damaging our ecosystem. Although there is in theory space for more, earth is treated best by a population of under a half-billion people, which provides enough for every nation on earth to have a reasonable population.

Second, our population has bred dysgenically, in that there are many people capable of little but having jobs and buying things at discount stores, and few who have a creative impetus and intelligence and character to match. If we are to limit our population, it does not make sense to do so in some egalitarian fashion like a lottery, but to pick from among us those who have excelled and encourage them to breed while others do not. This ensures that every future generation will be stronger, smarter and of better character than the last. These people by their inclination will be respectful to nature, as intelligent people of good character tend to be.

To a modern mind, this policy seems inhuman and threatening, but considering that overpopulation and degeneration of our breeding stock will ensure us all an equal apocalyptic fate, or worse, an life of ongoing boredom and failure, these inhuman concepts provide for a better future for all people. Those who cannot contribute are spared the burden of breeding, and given more time and money to focus on their own wants; those who are born in the future will be of a higher quality. The reduced human population will coexist with nature and, by breeding more stable and capable individuals, begin again to approach the heights of culture and meaningful life experienced by those in ancient populations.

There must be government which can act quickly and decisively on environmental issues.

No democracy will act to offend its citizens, who for the most part are composed of people who see only their own lives and, being unable to balance the whole in their decision-making (most can barely handle themselves), will act for themselves first and by that decision, exclude the collective and our environment from the equation. Further, democracies move slowly because they are forced to state every decision in terms of the lowest common denominator, provided oversimplified, incremental changes which are as often as not reversed by the next elected official. No dictator could be so incompetent as to reach a par with democracies in terms of environmental and cultural damage.

This will reverse both the selfish individualism that has gotten us to this state in history, and the domination by money of government resulting from the tendency of people to vote for what they think gives them the highest degree of income. A saner political system will subsidize those who have need and are worthy, and will guarantee a living for the average person so they are not forced into economic competition with others, and can focus on being better at their livelihood, at being friends and parents, and members of the community.

Our livelihoods must not rely on exploiting existing resources.

We view natural resources as products in a store: something we purchase, use, and discard. We simply find it, pay for it, and then consider the transaction over. A more sensible view is to see natural resources as an ongoing process, for example the forest that grows and produces timber: we can selectively take trees, but we cannot cut too many down, or the forest dies. Similarly we must view our food sources such as fish and game as living systems in their own right. The correct way to use these is not to exploit existing resources, but to determine what we need and cultivate independent systems for producing it in an ongoing and humane manner.

This also applies to the animals that are currently kept in tiny spaces, fed chemicals and the remains of their own kind, and used to generate vast profits. The industries and people who currently make their living from these tasks will continue to do so, but in a more logical fashion that is less destructive to the environment and to their personal spirit. What pride and self-respect is there in slaughtering caged animals with bolt-guns and electrocution ponds?

Aesthetics of our society must reflect the natural ideal.

When we build boxy plastic and steel empires to replace the rolling and diverse natural landscape, we are stating as clearly as any philosophy or political propaganda that we are opposed to nature and want to assert our own deathless order in response. This is not only a fantasy, but also cultivates in us an alienation from nature, such that we fear dirt and defecation and death and cannot deal with them on a psychological level. Any future civilization must have architecture that emphasizes the diversity and structural beauty of nature, and must integrate its dwellings and offices and shops with truly natural space, instead of a few planted trees surrounded by miles of concrete, glass, plastic and metal.

Our spiritual system must harmonize with nature.

Modern spirituality operates by defining death as alien, and by creating forms of intellectual compensation, by which one considers an eternal life or a moral absolute as superior to the order of nature. By thus avoiding the issue of death, such religions become dominated by it, and are correctly called death-religions, in no small part because they bring death to nature and thus to the original soul within each of us. Mainstream Christianity and Judaism seek to dominate nature, while Buddhism and primitive superstition seek to submit to it. It is better to find a balance, and to find for ourselves a place within nature as independent spiritual and moral agents, according to its principles.

This does not mean that we wish to wholly exclude religions such as Christianity and Buddhism and Hinduism from our belief, but that we believe it must be recognized that what we have now are interpretations of an original colored by the prejudices of our society, and that therefore we can return to the original interpretation and place it in a correct light. Nature and tribe and family come before abstract spiritual values, especially those which promise things not observable here on earth, and religions must be re-interpreted to reflect these values, which are most likely closer to the original state of those religions.

I do not know the details of the story (and would not tell them if I’d knew) but it would seem that this man was not in his normal state during the 2 weeks where he joined the BNP.

I know the Greens quite a bit because I am a member. It is true that it is a broad church and that we have probably more than our share of nutters.

However, the response of the Chair here seems to me to be appropriate and “grown up”. As Brett, I am looking forward to know more about the results of the investigation which followed his previous post. I understand that a procedure is effectively happening and I will follow that up.

I think that many people are joining the Greens for a very basic reason which is that climate change is an extremely serious threat that requires immediate as well as long term difficult political decisions that are simply not going to be taken without strong pressure. Taking seats from the Lib Dems and Labour is a good way to increase the pressure especially if it is to put in place people who are not nutters but hard-working politicians who are prepared to make the case for these decisions.

This is what we are doing in Liverpool and I hope in many other places around the country.

I don’t think (I would be happy to be corrected if I am wrong) that Caroline Lucas has made any attempt to climb down from this statement in May 2008:

Financial and moral support from the United States means that Israel has been able to act with relative immunity, hiding behind its incendiary claim that all who criticise its policies are anti Semitic..

Israel says that “all” who criticise its policies are anti-Semitic? Really? Where?

She continues:

This does a great disservice to the many Jewish people who support the principle of universal human rights, and who oppose the current policies of the Israeli state.

Does she attack the policies of, say, Saudi Arabia or Iran for doing a “disservice” to Muslims who oppose them?

It’s a nasty call for collective religious responsibility, isn’t it?

Indeed, and since the three large parties all seem to have advocates of this good sense within, it draws us back to the question of what the Greens are for, now that environmentalism is mainstreamed. As was said earlier, perhaps they’d be more effective as a lobby group.

The three large parties certainly do contain advocates of environmentalism but that doesn’t mean it actually translates into policy.

“If we are to limit our population, it does not make sense to do so in some egalitarian fashion like a lottery, but to pick from among us those who have excelled and encourage them to breed while others do not. This ensures that every future generation will be stronger, smarter and of better character than the last. These people by their inclination will be respectful to nature, as intelligent people of good character tend to be.”

I wonder what party these intelligent people of good character who are allowed to breed will belong to? I don’t think the Greens have ever gone in for eugenics in that way.

I find the argument:-

Greens like trees
Nazis like trees
Therefore Greens=Nazis

both illogical and silly. I’m an ardent cyclist and very much support transport policies that encourage cycling and trains over private cars. For all I know, the BNP has an identical transport policy. If I find out they do am I supposed to shriek, Christ, I never knew I was a Nazi, bring me my 4×4 and ditch the bike?

” The Greens popularise the notion that society is living beyond the means available to it and using up scarce resources, while the fascists popularise the notion there are too many people in the country given the number of jobs and housing available, and immigrants should go home. It’s hardly rocket science to see that these are essentially the same ideas, is it?”

How can they be the same ideas? It is true that we, the human race, are using up scarce resources and that burning these fossil fuels is a major contributor to climate change. How on earth has this anything to do with the BNP’s platform?

“The three large parties certainly do contain advocates of environmentalism but that doesn’t mean it actually translates into policy.”

When I stood for election as a Green, all parties started campaigning for the Green vote, particularly the LibDems who went on to implement a very green agenda when they got into power in the district elections. I like to think that my candidacy had an effect on the mainstream parties.

“… the unpalatable truth is that a lot of environmental thinking over the past half century has been underpinned by an unhealthy preoccupation with the breeding propensity of Asians and Africans.

They were, it was often held, polluting the human gene pool as well as the planet. Such thinking was not fringe: it involved some of the great names of the environment movement.

So the American academic Garrett Hardin said in his classic and still-revered environment text Tragedy of the Commons in 1968, “Freedom to breed will bring ruin to all.” It must be “relinquished to preserve and nurture other and more precious freedoms.”

Lest we have any doubt who should do the relinquishing, he wrote elsewhere about how college students should have more children than those with low IQs.

Or take Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb from the same era. That book said the world could no longer feed itself and called for population control “by compulsion if voluntary methods fail.”

Meanwhile the British book Blueprint for Survival, published by the Ecologist magazine, sided with the demagogue-of-the-day Enoch Powell in calling for “an end to immigration”. Far from being ostracised as a right-wing tract, its recipe was supported by Friends of the Earth and Peter Scott, the TV wildlife king and founder of the World Wildlife Fund.”

More here for the naive like Dan and Player …

“… the unpalatable truth is that a lot of environmental thinking over the past half century has been underpinned by an unhealthy preoccupation with the breeding propensity of Asians and Africans.

They were, it was often held, polluting the human gene pool as well as the planet. Such thinking was not fringe: it involved some of the great names of the environment movement.

So the American academic Garrett Hardin said in his classic and still-revered environment text Tragedy of the Commons in 1968, “Freedom to breed will bring ruin to all.” It must be “relinquished to preserve and nurture other and more precious freedoms.”

Lest we have any doubt who should do the relinquishing, he wrote elsewhere about how college students should have more children than those with low IQs.

Or take Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb from the same era. That book said the world could no longer feed itself and called for population control “by compulsion if voluntary methods fail.”

Meanwhile the British book Blueprint for Survival, published by the Ecologist magazine, sided with the demagogue-of-the-day Enoch Powell in calling for “an end to immigration”. Far from being ostracised as a right-wing tract, its recipe was supported by Friends of the Earth and Peter Scott, the TV wildlife king and founder of the World Wildlife Fund.”

More here for the naive like Dan and Player …

“… the unpalatable truth is that a lot of environmental thinking over the past half century has been underpinned by an unhealthy preoccupation with the breeding propensity of Asians and Africans.

They were, it was often held, polluting the human gene pool as well as the planet. Such thinking was not fringe: it involved some of the great names of the environment movement.

So the American academic Garrett Hardin said in his classic and still-revered environment text Tragedy of the Commons in 1968, “Freedom to breed will bring ruin to all.” It must be “relinquished to preserve and nurture other and more precious freedoms.”

Lest we have any doubt who should do the relinquishing, he wrote elsewhere about how college students should have more children than those with low IQs.

Or take Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb from the same era. That book said the world could no longer feed itself and called for population control “by compulsion if voluntary methods fail.”

Meanwhile the British book Blueprint for Survival, published by the Ecologist magazine, sided with the demagogue-of-the-day Enoch Powell in calling for “an end to immigration”. Far from being ostracised as a right-wing tract, its recipe was supported by Friends of the Earth and Peter Scott, the TV wildlife king and founder of the World Wildlife Fund.”

More here for the naive like Dan and Player …

Hitler was a vegetarian nutcase (although he did like his fish on occasion).

As already mentioned Hitler was a “vegetarian” for two reasons (one, Wagner’s idea that the original sin was the departure from his natural food (vegetables etc) as famine casued people to eat meat is unlikely to be found amongst the Green party members of Clapham. The other (a stomach ailment) possibly could be.

Any attempt to prove the nazis “green” credentials is likely to fall down over Hermann Goering’s well-known desire to shoot any animal on sight at one of his several hunting lodges (Carinhall, Hockreuth etc) indeed Goering’s own Reich Hunting Law (Reichsjagdgesetz) of 1934 still forms the basis of German laws on hunting today.

Asking why the Greens can’t spot the odd Nazi is like asking a bowl of fruit and nuts to keep an eye out in case the cashew is a little fruity.

Seriously, who would notice - they did not notice David Icke was a raving nutter for years.

And there are plenty of overlaps between Greens and Nazis. I once worked for a local council in another country which was strongly influenced by the Greens. They were concerned that the native ducks were interbreeding with imported ducks. Their solution? Yep. We rounded them up and gassed them. It seemed logical to me at the time.

Asking why the Greens can’t spot the odd Nazi is like asking a bowl of fruit and nuts to keep an eye out in case the cashew is a little fruity.

Im going to steal this and pass it off as my own.

hahahahahahahaha

beautiful!

I’m an ardent cyclist

Fucking nazi. Just like Boris Johnson. Get some decent walking (n.b. NOT marching) boots and you’ll be alright.

(Sorry, couldn’t resist; special offer on the Sienese Chianti at the local emporium)

You have become a character out of Reggie Perrin.

“Interesting, those scare quotes. This contempt by N1 chatterati towards the indigenous people of this country is largely to blame for the increase in BNP votes.”

Oh ha ha ha. Can you please stop allowing these obviously fraudulent posts from someone determined to tar me as some kind of Blimpish arse-wipe. As if I would say something as crass as that!

I didn’t get where I am today, etc

I thought he was Ignatius R. Reilly. Make up your bloody minds. I’m off to the Grotshop.

A green party of genocide - The Nazi War on Cancer
They were enthusiasts for public health and preventive medicine. They believed that additives, preservatives and junk foods caused cancer, as did petrochemical waste and artificial lifestyles. They campaigned for healthier eating habits (more high-fibre bread, less meat). They set up mass X-ray screening campaigns, notably for tuberculosis and breast cancer. They promoted herbalism, homoeopathy, and other “back to nature” remedies. They were into ecological conservation (including “save the whale”) and opposed torturing animals in lab experiments. Who were these enlightened champions of positive health and bio-correctness? They were the Nazis. …

The start of the modern German Green movement was a subsequent to the Nazi party environmentalists wing. These ideas didn’t start with the Nazis but they embraced it. Before they did get into the Bundesdag in the early 1980’s they did try to clean up these links but not all.

A healthy lifestyle fits well with the nazi ubermenschen idea, healthy food and physical exercise and so forth. Even Hitlers dog Blondi is claimed to have been a veggie.

The Greens and various neo fascist movements share much about romanticizing folklore conservatisms and heimat culture ideas sort of the lost paradise destroyed by consumerism, aliens or what ever and heavily spiced with a misanthropic outlook.

The perpetrator in the Finnish school massacre 2007 was inspired by Pentti Linkola a Finnish eco-fascist, the latest Finnish school massacre 2008 also seems like the perpetrator was of similar eco-misanthropic ideas.

Auvinen on some forum short before the massacre:
“From: Sturmgeist89
Note: I might not agree with everything what Linkola says and this video is meant to be informative. Anyway, he is one of the few Finnish people who I respect.

Kaarlo Pentti Linkola (born December 7, 1932 in Helsinki) is a radical Finnish environmentalist and a dissident, who has often been accused of ecofascism. He has written widely about his ideas and is well-known in Finland. He lives a materially very simple life and works as a professional fisherman. Linkola is a misanthropist who blames humans for the destruction of the environment and he has promoted ideas such as genocide for saving the environment and to keep the population in control. He strongly promotes deindustrialization. His ideal of society is a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by a small educated elite, where the majority of the population has the living standards of the Middle Ages, where consumption is limited only to renewable resources, and where “defective” people are killed.

Let me explain why I don’t think this is good enough

That means he was in a high-profile, public-facing, leadership position in the party for about 7 years!

horrifying

he said a few ‘odd’ things about the ‘gay mafia’ or ‘the new world order’ or ‘Jewish bankers’ and no one noticed!

ugly possibility

terribly seriously worried

freaking out

Okay, clearly the guy should be burnt at the stake and the Green Party should publish a 70 page statement describing in minute detail how it will root out this all pervasive menace in the party.

Brett seems to be vying with David T in writing tabloid style hyperbole. Over 1000 words of pompous absurdity over a matter of almost complete irrelevance. So there are odd people in Green Party. Well I never!

I am sure Brett will continue with his delusion that its only the Greens that have this problem, but if you thumb through the pages of Private Eye (which more entertainingly follows local scandal), fruitcakes can be found in all three parties. Hurrah. Madness all round! There’s enough material there to keep Brett spluttering and huffing and puffing for years to come.

Following John Little’s logic on why Greens = Nazis:
Men with small mustaches like Hitler are therefore Nazis.
Men with large mustaches like Stalin are therefore Communists.

I do agree with Benjamin that a bit too much is being made over the odd Green Party member who was or became a Nazi.

I will bet folding money that the list has ex-Labour members and supporters on it, and of course Lib Dems have their problems too. In pockets of BNP strength in Yorkshire and East London, its not ex-Greens who are predominantly their supporters that is for sure.

But as a Labour supporting blog, you are not going to get forensic analysis of that here. To HP the BNP are racist (true, but an inadequate analysis in itself) and if they can be used to smear the Greens, so much the better. But any Labour problems here? What you talking about, mate?

As for criticism of banking, that does not necessarily denote antisemitism, unless you think criticism of banking is automatically anti-Jewish, which is absurd. Sometimes it is, sometimes not.

Following John Little’s logic, I suppose the best way to be an anti-Fascist would be, as KB Player proposed, to consume every resource and pollute the world as much as possible.
Perhaps John Little believes as President Reagan’s first Secretary of the Interior, James Watt supposedly did, that it does not matter if all the Earth’s resources as used up since Jesus will return before they are and make the need for such resources unnecessary?

How silly of KB Player and David All: I never said that “Greens = Nazis”, I said that there were some common assumptions in their ideologies that sometimes led them to misanthropy.

For example, Garret Hardin in his famous Tragedy of the Commons said “Freedom to breed will bring ruin to all.” He argued that it should be “relinquished to preserve and nurture other and more precious freedoms.” Who would have the right to a family? College students with higher IQs.

Paul Ehrlich in The Population Bomb, another early doyen of environmentalism, also argued for population control “by compulsion if voluntary methods fail.”

An early British environmentalist magazine, The Ecologist, published a book called Blueprint for Survival that sided with Enoch Powell in opposing immigration. It won support from Friends of the Earth and Peter Scott, the founder of the World Wildlife Fund.

And more recently the British press have run a number of stories recounting how ordinary people have been dragged through the courts for failing to follow some of the most petty of environment regulations.

So it’s little wonder that some environmentalists might find the authoritarian and misanthropic BNP rather more hospitable to their Green beliefs than some tree-huggers would like to imagine, is it?

Incidentally, Tim Blair has linked to Brett’s posts on the Greens and the BNP.

Always on the look out for a good laugh, is the wonderful Mr Blair!

To be fair, HP has made progress in covering the BNP more. It now needs to go even further; drop its partisan Labour politics, and look at Labour and the BNP. Since 1997 and 2005, the BNP has more than quintupled its vote in General Elections, and has gained many more local councilors. This during the period of over 11 years of Labour in power.

Obviously, if you are Labour supporting blog, and you focus on the BNP and Greens, a minor issue, while missing the broader picture including Labour and the BNP, this raises some suspicions.

Seriously, who would notice - they did not notice David Icke was a raving nutter for years.

To be fair, I think the point with David Icke is that he wasn’t like that for many years. Leading a conventional and uncontroversial life in the broadcasting world, he was a middle England favourite presenting BBC sports programmes. It’s not terribly unusual to dabble in a little politics, and he had media skills to boot. During his time as a Green Party spokesman he wasn’t particularly controversial. It was only after that that he had some sort of personal metamorphosis into what he is today, with the Green Party a distant memory.

Sure, but the question being posed is why fascists might be attracted to the Green Party.

It seems to me that fascist sentiments can grow from any pool. Oswald Mosley was a Fabian for several years. Eventually they leave and do something else. In terms of ideology there is cross-pollination from all sorts of areas - no doubt green ideas too.

To be fair, HP has made progress in covering the BNP more. It now needs to go even further; drop its partisan Labour politics, and look at Labour and the BNP.

Or at Labour ministers blatantly playing to the BNP’s constituency by spouting ignorant tabloid-style bollocks about asylum seekers.

The wretched Phil Woolas (where the hell did they dig him up from?) claims he’s not a Powellite because he says he wants to “heal”. He does that by attacking lawyers and charities trying to help asylum seekers, and blaming the delays in the asylum system not on the authorities, but on another group of foreigners - “economic migrants”, which he conveniently slices and dices for the purpose.

“Failed asylum seekers” (such as those sent back to such incredibly safe countries as Iraq and Zimbabwe) are deemed “economic migrants” gumming up the system.

Ah yes, it used to be just the Conservatives who habitually blamed the victims, the penniless, the unfortunates, the anonymous, the disenfranchised, those without say, for whatever cock-ups they made; now this crap is spouted from all sides. If in doubt blame foreigners for other foreigners problems - nothing to do with the government.

During this time of Labour’s poisoned rhetoric, the BNP has been growing strongly. So is the Labour Party’s policy of appeasement on immigration and asylum working? That’s quite apart from any moral issues so called socialists or social democrats may have with it (don’t laugh).

http://www.amazon.com/How-Green-Were-Nazis-Environment/dp/0821416464

“ some members really do say they wish that human populations were decimated”

As Clive James says of the use of `decimated’ in Martin Goldhagen’s books `Hitler’s Willing Executioners’, “if only it had been that few”. The population of the UK is about sixty million. The Green population reduction fringe choose a variety of numbers for `sustainable’, but fifty-four million, the result of decimating the population, is not amongst them. More usual numbers are about twenty million.

When asked, of course, if they intend to reduce the population by sixty percent by gassing or shooting, they get rather upset. But then, the Green policy on sustainable rates of breeding tend to sit ill with their objection to `chemicals’…

1) The BNP position themselves as an ‘anti-establishment party’, and are fishign in the fringe pool of politics.
2) Green ideology generally stems from Romantic anti-capitalism, which aspires to put social principles/values up and against asbtract capital. Some aspects of “National Socialism” adopted similarly Romantic anti-capitalism stances.
3) In fact both adhere to ultra-capitalist ideology ina ssuming ultra-scarcity, and the need for national markets, ratehr than seeing abundance and the abolition of the commodity as the way round the current social ills/impasse.
4) All fringe party’s suffer from some of this, I’ve mentioned how an ex-member of the SPGB was later heard to have joined the BNP, which is very strange, as the SPGB have a membership test and won’t allow people to join who wouldn’t pass such questions as “the emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind, without distinction of race or sex.”

The “Green Wing” of the Nazi Party
“The National Socialist “religion of nature,” as one historian has described it, was a volatile admixture of primeval teutonic nature mysticism, pseudo-scientific ecology, irrationalist anti-humanism, and a mythology of racial salvation through a return to the land.”
…
“A study of the membership rolls of several mainstream Weimar era Naturschutz (nature protection) organizations revealed that by 1939, fully 60 percent of these conservationists had joined the NSDAP (compared to about 10 percent of adult men and 25 percent of teachers and lawyers).”

John Little wrote:

“Let me recommend some reading, ladies and gentlemen:

How Green Were The Nazis? (Ohio University Press)

Pretty damn Green, it turns out.”

Don’t get it do you. Greens are libertarians (so no surprise that the Green Party “takes membership applications in good faith”) whereas the Nazis (National Socialists - yes, that’s right, leftwing socialists) are authoritarians.

http://www.moral-politics.com/xpolitics.aspx?menu=Political_Variations&action=Draw&choice=PoliticalVariations.Moral_Socialism

“what it is about the Party that seems to attract these nutters?”

The Green Party is attracting new people into politics. Some of them will be nutters. The Green Party will either help mould them into useful activists, or chuck them out according to the statement above.

What’s your problem with nutters? We’ve got a vote too! Or are you on some kind of weirdos eugenics program of your own?

“The Green Party will either help mould them into useful activists, or chuck them out according to the statement above.”

Is it too much to ask that the moulding process be completed before these people are put forward to chair local branches, speak to the press, or stand for council seats or for parliament?

“A study of the membership rolls of several mainstream Weimar era Naturschutz (nature protection) organizations revealed that by 1939, fully 60 percent of these conservationists had joined the NSDAP (compared to about 10 percent of adult men and 25 percent of teachers and lawyers).”

This is a little bit naughty. Such groups (as opposed to individuals like teachers and lawyers) would have been abolished when the Nazis came to power and their members forced to join the nazi party and its replacement organisations if they wished to keep their same village/town etc meetings going. The most famous organisation this happened to was of course the boy scouts. Should we look up what percentage of the scouts decided to join the Hitler youth and conclude from that that all modern day youth movements are Hitlerite?

“they did not notice David Icke was a raving nutter for years.”

As soon as Icke declared himself to be a messenger from God, the Greens banned him from speaking on their behalf, ending his role as a party spokesman. Before then, there had been little reason to suspect he held such views - he had been a sportsman and a television presenter.

The Green Party does not adopt a Malthusian view of human society or any of the social Darwinist concepts that informed Nazi ideology. They certainly don’t believe that the black man is inferior and should perish or that the UK should close its borders to them; quite the opposite: they think that Africa can feed and sustain itself if it was allowed to realise its full potential without the constraints imposed by IMF structural adjustment programmes or globalised capitalism. Now, we can argue about whether this is achievable, about whether humanity can really survive without global trade and industrialisation, which the Greens are ideologically averse to. But to portray their platform as associated in any way with Nazism is a plain lie. There are a range of Green ideologies, but the ones identified with the Nazis are not those upheld by the Green Party.

Benji on straw man duty as ever. This time pretending that by highlighting this Green party case it means HP are saying there are no other weird people in any other political party. Of course they are not. HP have written about loons in every political party over many years.

The truth is Benji thinks it’s only okay to slag off the government; everybody else and suddenly it’s most unfair.

That’s right Dan. I made a similar point about David Icke earlier. The person coming out with that particular comment about David Icke and the Greens may assume that folks are not clear about the chronology, or that individual may not clear about it. I attended a Question Time session in 1989 featuring David Icke and other representatives of political parties. Icke simply articulated Green Party policy - agree or disagree, but it was nothing untoward.

Remember when I found that post of yours on a David Icke forum, Benji?

The issue of fascist entryism in the greens has been known about for years. If someone like Gosling was in labour or the tories he would have been out on his ear in 5 seconds. Disagree, Benjamin?

You found one purportedly from me, Mike, that you got rather excited about. I am rather relaxed about having an internet stalker, it’s rather amusing.

Anyway, old boy, clearly Icke has lost his marbles (although at least he got rid of the dubious perm). I only offer the mild suggestion that he lost his marbles them after his period as Green Party spokesman.

If someone like Gosling was in labour or the tories he would have been out on his ear in 5 seconds. Disagree, Benjamin?

Quite possibly. I think the thing about Gosling is that he is bizarre. However less bizarre racists have been known to reside in the Tory party for a lot longer than 5 minutes.

I mean quite possibly you are right, son.

Of course, the Greens have fewer resources, and are keener for recruits perhaps. This has an effect. Moreover, I am not sure how Leninist the party structure is, compared to Labour’s famous central control, which is pretty tight and keeps folks in line. The more damned democracy and decentralisation and these things can happen, you know.

I believe the list contains 11 former conservative councillors, 4 former labour councillors and 1 former Lib Dem election agent.

Will David T demand explanations? After all, these are rather more senior posts than “failed candidate”.

I do think the Greens attract more zany conspiracy theorists than other parties. However, with the modern “pothole politics” so common in council elections, “local campaiging” candidates can end up anywhere in the future.

Also, there is a pressure to find candidates to contest all wards. For most of the large parties this will not be a real problem in many areas. However, in those areas with lower memberships this can be a real difficulty for all parties. Also, in areas with little strength it is likely there is neither the number nor experties to run a proper vetting process. This means being a paper candidate is not very meaningful.

Since the greens are tiny in most places, this is true of them in most places and really takes away from the whole gotcha factor. Possibly they would be well advised to not allow unvetted paper candidates to speak on the parties behalf without consulting with some central committee, but no doudt greens would declare that anti-authortarian nonsense.

What? Anyway due to where I live I’ve had the pleasure of seeing this wingnut on the ballot paper in front of me. I don’t want to see that again, but I don’t have confidence that the greens will address this. Or the borderline anti-semitism they have on board.

What? was directed at Benjamin 12:14.

Venichka - if I get any boots your arse will be the first to feel them.

The back to nature element of Nazism was part of German culture, which has a strong element of Wordworthian style romanticism. I don’t think you got the same in eg Italian fascism.

In practice of course Nazis industrialised as fast as they could build armaments factories because the philosophy is warlike and expansionist. Very unlike the Greens, who tend to be pacifist.

I think that the reference to the Nazi ‘green’ movement goes back to the Wandervogel.

In general I would say that the Greens have a lesser proportion of nutters than, say, UKIP. Mind you that is a high standard to meet!

So there are no extremists in the Labour or Conservative parties?!Half of the bloody cabinet have previously been Communists. Now that’s much more shocking in my mind than a racist in the Green Party.

Putting up a religious nutcase who believes in the protocols has NOTHING to do with democracy and decentralisation. I never thought I’d live to see the day when I’d see the sort of sewer politics my parents generation had with the blackshirts, but what do you know - here we are. And its got a nice smiley “nuclear power - no thanks” badge instead of a thunderflash.

I am not sure how Leninist the party structure is,

Back in the late eighties, pissed off at Ruddock being gifted the local safe seat, I joined the Greens in time for the election at which the party intended to stand a candidate calling himself “Philip Makepeace.” I was told to contact him and get on with leafleting and putting up posters and generally running the campaign - so we did - just the two of us. That was how the Green party was run then (if not now.) Had we been Nazis we could probably have caused an enormous amount of embarrassment. It was only when I met other members of the party (who were msotly middle-class right-on Mary Whitehouses with a Hitlerian attitude to smoking (amongst other things) that I decided this whacky lot were not for me and found other trees to hug.

I believe the list contains 11 former conservative councillors, 4 former labour councillors and 1 former Lib Dem election agent.

Ah hah! That means that in the fascist stakes the Tories are well ahead, but Labour leads the ‘left’ on four, the Greens are on one and a half (counting Stanton as a half), and the Lib Dems one. Brett is beavering away as I speak on a post roundly condemning the Labour Party and calling for a full investigation; I expect the post to be at least 1000 words.

Apparently Bessant joined the BNP because he thought Griffin’s climate change policy “was more radical”.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5gHyA75zx3bck3P0SXfSPKNHGyKTQ

“How, then, he managed to obtain a position of some responsibility in the Green Party is a troubling mystery.”

Let me help Brett. One of the men was already the Chairmman, the other was the Secreary - so there was only the dog to go! Mind you, they migjht have done better to put up the dog!

I’d say this means that there is a significant danger of middle-class hippies who think the world is going to pot and that too many Polar bears are drowning joining the BNP as a protest.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5193723.ece

Not only were these people able to be selected, but they were able to sit and serve as Labour and Conservative Councillors! This despite the shocking political trajectory we now know they were on and therefore should have easily been able to tell beforehand because people cannot lie or change their views drastically.

Clearly the party leaderships must now convene a full investigation and review of selection procedures, as this shows they are vulnerable to being full of wackos and have no control over their own membership.

Not only that, Tinter. One of the parties runs the bloody government! There are veritable truck loads of material for Brett’s customary hyperbole.

relax Benji, it is all a storm in a teacup

Tinter, is anyone really surprised when a right-wing Tory or a UKIPper defects to the BNP? Even when once in a blue moon when a small-time Labour councillor does so, it is to be expected in a party as large and as broad-church as Labour. But the Green’s are supposed to be a left-wing, progressive party.

When High Church Anglican Anne Widdecolme became a Catholic it was hardly that newsworthy. If Richard Dawkins did the same, it would be something to discuss, no? See the difference?

Even when once in a blue moon when a small-time Labour councillor does so, it is to be expected in a party as large and as broad-church as Labour. But the Green’s are supposed to be a left-wing, progressive party.

Comedy gold. Yes, the ‘progressive left wing’ the Greens, as opposed to non-progressive ‘broad church’ Labour. That’s okay then. A Labour councillor compared to big time Keith Bessant, a twice failed a parliamentary candidate, not elected to anything, but according to Brett, in a “a high-profile, public-facing, leadership position”.

What’s more bizarre? Brett shrugging his shoulders about Labour and the BNP, or getting into a sweat about some non-entity ex-Green? No wonder this blog is listed in Bloggers4Labour. Got to toe the party line.

Tell me Brett: where are the BNP’s biggest pockets of support? Yorkshire and East London, or Brighton Pavilion?

“I do think the Greens attract more zany conspiracy theorists than other parties.”

They also attract some pretty intelligent people who are trying to think outside the box. And frankly, I’d rather be at a Green party meeting where people actually listen and debate (and you’ll find a high per capita rate of university degrees), rather than a meeting of the other parties where the party line is usually dictated from the podium. In my casual involvement in the Green party nearly a decade ago, I’d never heard one racist word uttered by anyone and I find it hard to understand why anyone devoted to racist politics would be attracted to this party, even if they had sympathy for the deep ecology movement.

I think what irks me about the Greens is the rather holier-than-thou attitude some members have, how they adopt a sense of moral superiority and boast about how much junk they’ve recycled. It’s a kind of competitive puritanical environmentalism and I found myself frowned upon because I bought a nice big MPV, installed uPVC windows in my house and put my baby in disposable nappies. That attitude annoys me and I think could put people off the Greens. But are they Nazis? No way.

“the Green’s are supposed to be a left-wing, progressive party.”

They are a broad church. Some are, in fact, champions of the co-operative movement, which is a form of capitalism. I don’t think the Greens are necessarily ideological opposed to capitalism, although some like Peter Tatchell are.

“No wonder this blog is listed in Bloggers4Labour. Got to toe the party line.”

Yeah, cos I’d never criticise Labour right? That’s why I kept quiet about Miranda Grell. You got me.

Brett- So its shocking that the Greens have BNP defectors because they are so left wing and progressive and also riddeled with right wing conspiracy theorists? This is not a defensible position.

So elected labour councillors are small time, but Green constituency chairs and Parliamentary candidates who get 2% where the greens probably have 4 members are a serious issue?

When some paper candidate for the greens eventually moves on to the BNP, thats not news. If someone who actually mattered did, then that would be news.

I don’t understand. The Greens, despite having less resources, must ensure they never select anyone, even for internal party positions like local Chair, who may eventually join the BNP. Parties with the capacity to vet, on the other hand, get a free pass.

I think, Brett, you are simply inventing a different standard for a party you dislike.

so labour has what, 160,000 members? At least 4 defectors to the BNP. 1/40,000.

So all the greens need to do is increase their membership till they reach Bretts standard for broad! I am sure if the BNP membership list is scoured at least 4 more labour defectors can be found who weren’t councillors, given the BNP’s areas of strength. So all the Greens need to do is recruit another 10,000 members and Brett won’t have a problem- they will now be “broad” enough to permit such an error.

I think this is a good policy. Large parties have BNP, eh, they’re just so broad; small parties have them, major scandal. As a member of a major party my endorsment of this position is wholehearted!

In the broader scheme of things, Brett, if you want to get into sweat about ex-members of respectable parties ending up with the BNP, isn’t it slightly more worrying that a chunk of the BNP intake is from mainstream parties that actually run things - in the case of of the Tories and Labour, national governments - rather than another a minor party?

Osmosis between the BNP and Labour and the Tories is perhaps a bit more telling; that goes for ex-Labour and Tory supporters actually voting for the BNP too.

That’s why I kept quiet about Miranda Grell.

And not just her.

“Osmosis between the BNP and Labour and the Tories is perhaps a bit more telling; that goes for ex-Labour and Tory supporters actually voting for the BNP too.”

The largest portion of BNP votes appears to be from ex-Labour voters. While the Tories have tended to have more racists than Labour in their ranks, there appears to be less Tory>BNP defection in votes, perhaps because the BNP’s racist ideology is regarded by many Tories as too vulgar and crude and perhaps because of the class issue.

Note Benji doesn’t deny approvingly posting a message about one of David Icke’s book on his forum.

“I think, Brett, you are simply inventing a different standard for a party you dislike.”

So now I dislike the Greens?

Interesting - here I was getting into trouble with the Socialist Party for criticising them for misrepresenting the Greens, who, incidentally, I voted for on that occasion.

http://brettlock.blogspot.com/2006/05/long-story-tall-story.html

I’m not a party-political animal. I say what I think.

Benji is so transparent. Because the green party are on his good liberals list, along with the likes of Ralph Nader, Jenny Tong and Diane Abbot, he thinks nobody should be allowed to criticise them about anything.

That’s how crap his politics are.

Benji, if you’ve ever read a mag like private eye you’ll know that politicians are fair game. We don’t want your 19th deference, thank you very much.

“The Green Party has revealed one of its former parliamentary candidates joined the British National Party because he believed its climate change policy ‘was more radical’.”

I think that rather confirms what I have been arguing, doesn’t it?

I thought you were arguing that some greens might find the BNP more “hospitable” to their beliefs -not that some extremists are always looking for the most extreme position.

Thats fine. I think the greens policies would be calamitous if implemented and that they are a bunch of insular, unrealistic middle-class types.

But acting as if having had one or two activists drift off then join the BNP is some kind of serious scandal is simply not credible. No party can or has prevented this, save the leninist sects who succesfully prevent most ordinary people joining.

“The Green Party has revealed one of its former parliamentary candidates joined the British National Party because he believed its climate change policy ‘was more radical’.”

I think that rather confirms what I have been arguing, doesn’t it?

Well what you’ve been saying is that Greens and the far right have a fair amount in common. So naturally I’ve taken you to be an optimistic glass half full type who believes in giving credit where it’s due, and raising a cheer for those few people on the far right who believe in conservation, preserving the environment and so on, and therefore have their good points despite their other views.

Thank you Brett for a revealing article.

I’m not a party-political animal.

You post on party political blog. Both David T and Brownie are self confessed Labour partisans; HP is listed on Bloggers4Labour; at the last General Election, Harry regurgitated Labour Party propaganda straight from party HQ - by his own admission.

This rant on the Green Party and this Bessant non-entity is frankly absurd. Full of hyperbole, exaggeration, and non-sequiturs. Over 1,300 words of it. It’s almost like a spoof of “investigative journalism” cut and paste blog style. But instead of being about something important, it’s fake controversy.

Yeah, well I distribute leaflets etc for the Labour Party in local elections. I don’t think anyone would mistake that for love of Gordon Brown. Still I suppose it makes me another of Benj’s New Labour minions.

Incidentally, on Green loonies, I note that the man who practically is the all-time patent-holder of the term, Larry O’Nutter (Larry O’Hara) has actually done a *very valuable* job in attacking the 9/11 Truth Campaigners and hunting down the green fash.

You post on party political blog.

No Benji. Brett posts on a blog where the only requirement is to be “loosely Eustonian”. It is you who wishes to make it a Labour party blog (possibly in order to validate your irrational hatred of the Labour party?)

Graham

Do you deny that:

Both David T and Brownie are self confessed Labour partisans (David T even used the term partisan to describe himself recently);

HP is listed on Bloggers4Labour;

At the last General Election, Harry regurgitated Labour Party propaganda straight from party HQ - by his own admission.

There is nothing wrong with being a Labour partisan blog. I am just clarifying the position. As for my “hatred” for the Labour Party - not so.

As I stated before: Vote Labour if in a tough fight with a Tory. That’s hardly enthusiastic I know, but I don’t hate Labour.

If David T and Brownie are Labour Party partisans is that proof that Brett is party political? Isn’t it proof that David T and Brownie are party political? I mean, the clue is in the question, isn’t it.

Benji

Are you telling me that I am a member of the Labour party who was not told that the only requirement for posting on this blog was to be “loosely Eustonian”? Good luck trying that one on Wardy and Ven (although as your target seems to be Brett and I don’t remember him ever saying he was even connected with labour God alone knows what you are on about!)

If David T and Brownie are Labour Party partisans is that proof that Brett is party political?

No, I was just pointing out that admirably ‘non-partisan’ Brett posts on a somewhat more partisan blog. Well, we should see if HP have got bored of Labour by 2010.

Benji.

You are as mad as a hatter.

Of course skip back 6 months to the London mayoral elections and the criticism would have been that it wasn’t partisan enough.

Good luck trying that one on Wardy and Ven

Definitely not a partisan but I’m fairly sure (not 100% about 2001) that I’ve voted Labour in the 4 General Elections I’ve been eligible to vote in.

Graham

If HP is not a partisan blog I look forward to it removing its listing on Bloggers4Labour, and in the next general election, or other elections, not reproducing Labour Party propaganda - or if it does, having other party’s propaganda on it too.

We shall see. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating.

Of course skip back 6 months to the London mayoral elections and the criticism would have been that it wasn’t partisan enough.

That was an internecine Labour fight. Revenge on Ken. Boris was just about palatable enough to make that viable option, through gritted teeth.

who were msotly middle-class right-on Mary Whitehouses with a Hitlerian attitude to smoking

That’s right - objecting to having your lungs damaged by selfish little shits is right up there with concentration camps.
What a tosser.

That was an internecine Labour fight. Revenge on Ken. Boris was just about palatable enough to make that viable option, through gritted teeth

Drivel. You don’t know that - you don’t even live here. Plenty of people voted for Boris because they like the cut of his jib, whether or not they regard Livingstone as a racist, corrupt shit.

Benjamin, how about we accept that this is a Labour-leaning blog, but that doesn’t stop Brett from being able to say truthfully that he personally isn’t party fucking political?

And here is Nearly Oxfordian to show that some people are even crazier than Benji….

That Hitler didn’t like smoking is a matter of historical fact. Relax and learn to be a pointless geek before you do yourself some self harm with all this pent-up hatred for the truth.

Plenty of people voted for Boris because they like the cut of his jib, whether or not they regard Livingstone as a racist, corrupt shit.

Yes, I know. I was referring to a smallish band of Labour folk who had it in for Ken as part of a internal party scrap, not the general population.

Oh, OK, fair enough, my fault.

Benjamin, how about we accept that this is a Labour-leaning blog, but that doesn’t stop Brett from being able to say truthfully that he personally isn’t party fucking political?

Oh, go on then.

If HP is not a partisan blog I look forward to it removing its listing on Bloggers4Labour, and in the next general election, or other elections, not reproducing Labour Party propaganda - or if it does, having other party’s propaganda on it too.

Benji. At the last election nobody stopped you spouting Lib Dem propaganda. I remember arguing constantly with you that Labour was the best bet for the poor and you saying that the poor did not matter and what was needed was to teach Tony Blair a lesson. There were many people who chose a party and argued the toss about their polices on HP - that would not have been possible on a “partisan” blog.

And here is Nearly Oxfordian to show that some people are even crazier than Benji….

That Hitler didn’t like smoking is a matter of historical fact. Relax and learn to be a pointless geek before you do yourself some self harm with all this pent-up hatred for the truth

You pathetic little illiterate moron. Hitler’s dislike of smoking is about as relevant as his liking for dogs (I fully expect a twerp like you to start calling dog lovers ‘Hitlerian’ also).
You’d better sue your primary school teachers for leaving you so ignorant that you don’t even know what ‘Hitlerian’ means.

I remember arguing constantly with you that Labour was the best bet for the poor

Not exactly a surprise to see you spouting this crap. ‘Labour’ is now the party of the rich and wannabe rich, cosying up to every robber baron within hailing distance. McOneEye has been shafting the poor for years.

“Hitler’s dislike of smoking is about as relevant as his liking for dogs”

Well as you got all weird about a comment that some Green party members had a “Hitlerian dislike of smoking” I’d say it was about as relevamt as relevant can be

Unless you are a loony tune with little idea of what he wants to argue about but just wants to say anything at all- which of course Nearly Oxfordian - you are!

Not exactly a surprise to see you spouting this crap.

That’s right - it is called ” a viewpoint”.

Try developing one sometime - you may even end up making a comment on HP which has some connection to what is being talked about!

Good luck!

You post on party political blog. Both David T and Brownie are self confessed Labour partisans

Don’t be silly, Benji. HP is at best vaguely pro-Labour, tacitly supporting them during the last general election, but not much else. There are more posters on this blog that are not members of the Labour party than are.

Lets see all these posts where they propagandise for the Labour party? There aren’t any. It’s hardly a partisan blog; the last post David T did about Labour was about traitors to the nation.

There were also some posts up in support of Obama during the American election; does that make this an Obama blog? Are you a partisan Obama supporter because you joined in with the talking points about John McCain?

The fact that you turn a little bit of criticism of the Green party into a Labour conspiracy theory demonstrates perfectly who is the big partisan here. You are a rabidly anti Labour conspiracy theory loon who reads David Icke books.

Fuck off, dumbo. You can’t even construct an argument.

That was to ‘my teachers failed me’ Graham.

Graham,

Well, I don’t think I really say that, and at any rate I am a commenter, not an author of the blog - and authorship and posting is what I am referring to.

During the 2005 election I did not post Liberal Democrat propaganda on my own blog, even if that’s what you think I was spouting here.

I don’t have any link to the Lib Dems, I am not a member, or on any email list. However, there was at least one occasion when Harry admitted to copy and pasting stuff sent to him by Labour onto HP. Another post featured a Labour poster.

Why would anyone attempt to construct an argument with a pointless yob who couldn’t understand one such as yourself?

I realise that your mother is a teacher who has specialised in failing inner-city kids for years but hey - she gets a pension out of it.

People broadly on the left might once have said something good about the Labour party during an election five years ago! What a conspiracy you have unravelled, Benji!

tacitly supporting them during the last general election

It was a bit more than tacit.

As I say, Mike, if HP is not a Labour supporting blog it can remove itself from Bloogers4Labour.

Anyway, I am quite happy to accept what Wardy said: HP is a Labour leaning blog, and not all its posters are partisan.

Benji. The best that you could say here is that the most consistent posters make no secret of their support for the Labour party whilst some of the other posters sympathise with said party. This is a left-leaning blog where all arguments are chewed-over and very little is ever ruled offside even though we often get absolutely rabid lunatics taking out their frustrations on the contributors….

Its not a conspiracy Mike. I just wanted to clarify matters.

Graham

No, I am not saying HP restricts debate in comments - far from it. I was talking about the posters and authorship.

The only thing you have clarified is how much of a tit you are, and that you are wrong - this is not a partisan Labour blog.

Glad to clear that up for you.

I was talking about the posters and authorship.

Well Benji you have told us that two contributors out of (God knows how many - especially if we include the arts blog) are Labour supporters and that comments are not restricted on the basis of political outlook.

So how this is a partisan Labour blog is very difficult to imagine.

Benji, I repeat again: there are more authors of this blog that are not in the Labour party than are.

There are more anti Labour posts than they are pro-Labour posts. It’s hardly a partisan blog. A partisan blog is like Luke Akehurst;’s blog.

Giving a few bits of support during a general election, like you did for Obama, does not make you a partisan, you moron.

I love it when you flip like this. Everyone can see what you’re about.

Benjamin

You post on party political blog. Both David T and Brownie are self confessed Labour partisans; HP is listed on Bloggers4Labour; at the last General Election, Harry regurgitated Labour Party propaganda straight from party HQ - by his own admission.

Could be Benjamin.

However I find the constant flow of informative articles backed up by relevant links exhilarating. I enjoy hypocrites and bigoted persons being exposed whatever color they are and whatever political leanings they have. And I have seen persons from left and right exposed here.

So I don’t really care to much about the political leanings of the exposers. If however, the ‘exposers’ were proven extremists, I would take their exposes with a pinch of salt.

That is not the case here.

Peter Tatchell has probably had more posts on this blog than Brownie. Brownie doesn’t really post on this blog.

David T, who I believe is the only other Labour member, if he indeed still is, is not a partisan animal. He’s more of a specialist subject guy who deals with single issue campaigns.

Peter Tatchell is a member of the green party.

It is of course Benji’s strange relationship with (and aversion to) David T that all this is really about.

You pathetic little illiterate moron. Hitler’s dislike of smoking is about as relevant as his liking for dogs

Not really. He only liked one dog but he disliked all smokers.

David T, who I believe is the only other Labour member, if he indeed still is, is not a partisan animal.

He said himself he was a partisan Labour supporter. I have no aversion to David T. I am on good terms with the old boy.

Anyway, look guys, we shall see when the election comes round!

He’s not an old boy, he’s only just turned 40…

I don’t know that you can argue that Hitler even liked Blondi considering what eventually happened to her. Adolf probably thought she would go over to the Russians after his death. The idea of Stalin walking her round the Kremlin must have been far worse than the destruction of Berlin going on all around him (and lets face it for a “green” that in itself must have been a bit of a downer. )

Anyway, look guys, we shall see when the election comes round!

What we will see when the election comes round (I suspect) is about half the political contributors to this blog rallying around the only democratic socialist party whilst writing posts criticising aspects of that party’s time in power.

Hardly “partisan” in any sense that the word is used or appears in a dictionary.

The expression “Partisan politics” usually refers to fervent, sometimes militant support of a party, cause, faction, person, or idea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partisans

What a wanker.

Get a clue, Benjamin. If you don’t know what a partisan blog is like, check out that sad excuse for a website known as Lenny’s Tomb. Personally I suspect HP bloggers to be a bunch of dangerous reds hiding under my bed, as I think I have made clear on a few occasions, but it’s by far the most entertaining political blog around, as the compulsive visits by the likes of you and johng demonstrate, and perhaps the bloggers who create it might have something to do with that?

Benji thinks we are all reds too - he’d much rather put his trust in some safely MI5-run crew like the SWP.

Dan - to get back to Greens - what I have found with the ones I’ve known is that they are often very well informed about technical matters eg energy or transport while often being very ill-informed about political and historical matters eg Cold War politics and the reasons for their existence. However, that’s my own private straw poll and it’s years out of date.

He can’t think of anything to say so his attacks people’s character and motive. He plays the man, not the ball.

As has been demonstrated, this is not partisan Labour blog - the author the piece, Brettm is not even in the Labour party - but even if it was, so what? That means everything you write is void? How absurd.

It’s a sad day when politics is reduced to this.

Benji is a troll. He just flits from one objection to another. You cannot satisfy him. That’s why 25% of any discussion thread will be “Benjamin” related…. 40% if you count futile efforts to respond.

“Benji is a troll.”

I don’t think there is anything deliberately offensive in what he has said. At least, there are far more offensive people commenting here.

“He just flits from one objection to another.”

So?

“That’s why 25% of any discussion thread will be “Benjamin” related…. 40% if you count futile efforts to respond.”

Well, 25% of the discussion thread is being taken up with this crescendo of histrionics about nothing at all. You have the option just to drop it and let it go. It’s only a comment on a blog.

Sod this cross arguement. The question what defines the greens place in the political spectrum is simple :-

Does “Zyklon B” damage the enviroment ?

GW

So?

Dan, are you new around here?

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/openhouse/2008/11/green-fascism.html

Heh… another train crash a la Benji

Fascists who are into conservation are better than fascists who aren’t. Non-fascists who are into conservation are better than non-fascists who aren’t. Being into conservation is better than not being into it. Being into fascism is worse than not being into it. That’s that cleared up.

Fascists who are into conservation are better than fascists who aren’t.

Ah! So you think Hitler better than Goering do you?

What a giveaway!

Well obviously Hitler had two dogs, I have two dogs, so we have literally everything in common. I won’t hear a word said against the man. And wasn’t he a vegetarian? Well good for him, I say, although of course that does mean that Linda McCartney was at the Wansee Conference, egging everyone on.

You wouldn’t put it past Heather Mills being there though would you?

As has been demonstrated, this is not partisan Labour blog

Fair enough, I will accept Wardy’s description of it as Labour leaning blog. There is strong evidence of this of course. The founding member Harry was/is a Labour supporter, possibly a member, who by his own admission posted Labour Party publicity material and press releases at HP in the last election. Current head honcho David T is a Labour partisan by his own admission. Brownie is a Labour supporter.

It is also listed on Bloggers4Labour.

So I think its fair to say its at least Labour leaning, as Wardy suggests.

Not sure why you chaps keep playing this down - its not that embarrassing supporting Labour these days is it? ;-)

Benji is a troll.

Of course I am Brett; after all, I disagree with nearly everything you write at HP - shocking stuff. :-)

There seems to some misunderstanding that I was accusing the blog of being boring, unworthy, etc. No, I was simply establishing that it is Labour leaning. Steady on, lads.

Brett: If you really thought Benji was a troll, you’d ignore him and so would everyone else.

No, I was simply establishing that it is Labour leaning. Steady on, lads.

Well. I don’t know about Labor leaning but LEFT.

Not Right-wing as some of the animals on David T’s CI(F) blog characterized Harry’s Place.

It is so symptomatic of the extreme left wing loonies who frequent CI(F) to label anything, (which is almost everything), that is to the right of them, as Right-wing.

Brett: If you really thought Benji was a troll, you’d ignore him and so would everyone else.

I don’t think this follows. If someone dedicates a good proportion of their free time to trolling a blog it is obvious that sometimes their comments will get a response.

Hahaha The Guardian tries to get pay-back. And boy is it lame…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/nov/20/bnp-far-right-labour

The leaked British National party list contains the names of individuals who are former members of all the mainstream political parties in England, it emerged today.

Shocking stuff, The Guardian. Now, did any of these people actually do anything at all in their respective parties? Or did they just pay the membership fee and never spoke a word to another member?

The second paragraph answers my own question! I must be a hasty low expectation mo-fo when it’s comes the Grauniad.

A former constituency chairman for the Conservatives, a former Labour prospective parliamentary candidate, and a church minister who had been at various times a Green, a Conservative and a Liberal Democrat, all went public on why they had switched parties in the wake of the leaking of a BNP members’ list.

Lionel Buck said he was chairman of Ashfield Conservative association in Nottinghamshire for about four years, joining the BNP two years ago. He told the Guardian: “The way the country is at the moment, there is no major party, whether it be Conservative, Labour or Liberal Democrat, looking after the indigenous population.”

Andrew Emerson said he had been due to fight Chichester in Sussex for the Labour party in 1997 before illness ruled him out, but joined the BNP in 2005, when he had been the party’s candidate for Broxbourne, Hertfordshire.

Linda McCartney was at the Wansee Conference, egging everyone on.

Not a vegan then.

Um.. er… but if this blog isn’t at least vaguely “for Labour” then why is it on “bloggers4labour”?

Sorry, forgot to add the oblig “zomfgds I cant beel1eve I agree with Sonic^H^H^H^H^HBenjamin”

Um.. er… but if this blog isn’t at least vaguely “for Labour” then why is it on “bloggers4labour”?

Because, as you will see if you visit “Bloggers4Labour” their slogan is “uniting all Labour supporting blogger” and not “uniting all labour supporting blogs”.

Although having said that Hakmao, Normblog and Pootergeek are also on the “Bloggers4Labour” blogroll.

The mind boggles.

Um.. er… but if this blog isn’t at least vaguely “for Labour” then why is it on “bloggers4labour”?

That’s a good question. It may date back to the Iraq war thing, or the fact that the authors of bloggers4Labour will link to anyone who has been vaguely pro-Labour at some point, in order to present a mass pro-Labour blogging movement - which unfortunately, unlike on the right, there isn’t. There’s only about two partisan Labour blogs on the entire web.

The original guy who ran this blog was also an Old Labour type.

The very fact that Benji turned this into an irrelevant discussion about the Labour party shows you what a spin doctor he is. He would rather attack people’s affiliations to distract from anyone criticise people he considers to be good liberals. He’s a bit like Fox news for liberals.

Benji can never speak about American politics ever again because he supported Obama talking points during the election campaign.

Are there any more wide ranging political blogs on the net than HP, which allows posts from Green party members and has an open door policy on comments? Certainly none of the blogs Benji used to hang out at. Better keep quiet about that, eh?

Is it too much to ask that the moulding process be completed before these people are put forward to chair local branches, speak to the press, or stand for council seats or for parliament?

Er yes, quite a bit too much actually. Human frailty is a given, you are suggesting it is just an option.