neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 27 Nov 08 - 10:45 AM

""The dilemma I have is: should members of avowedly racist organisations be allowed the freedom to police black people, teach black kids, look after elderly and infirm black people and so on? Can we trust them to do the job fairly, to the best of their ability and to give their black clients/pupils/patients etc the same quality of service and care they would give their white counterparts?""

Manitas, I think, has the right of it.If these types get into policing, teaching, or similar positions, surely someone will notice that an inappropriate situation has arisen, when their political affiliations come to override the professional requirements.

I do tend to regard religious fundamentalists in the same light as political extremists, but surely they have to be treated as individuals and dealt with in response to what they do, not what they believe.

This argument has been played out before in respect of homosexuals, and there seems to be (with a few exceptions) a consensus that, unless they try to convert others, there is not much of a problem, and, given that I have yet to meet a proseletysing gay, I have no problem with that.

Banning groups for their beliefs is supposed to be one of the things this country stands against. I for one don't want to see that change, unless there is a much more compelling reason than the destruction of a political movement that is more an object of derision, than a credible threat.

Dijit

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 27 Nov 08 - 11:04 AM

Diane Easby,

"Nor do I want people like David Hannam who is high up in a racist organisation hijacking the genre to:

(a) raise BNP funds at his barbecues and
(b) sing lyrics which extol how nice the English countryside would be if only immigrants weren't blotting the landscape."

I wish it was that simple, but the BNP has a much nastier programme in mind for folk music than just raising BNP funds. These scumbags are genetic determinists, whose primary aim is the ethnic purification of Britain. IE., they believe that everything British comes about because of the racial/genetic makeup of the British. Therefore, just like Hitler and the Nazis before them, they believe that in order to reinstate true 'Britishness', they have to eliminate all traces of 'foreign' culture. That is widely known already.

What seems to be less widely understood, and what perhaps concerns us more directly as members of Mudcat, is that the BNP also believe that British folkways - and the forms which they take - are a natural consequence of said British genetic makeup. In other words, the 'reinstatement' of a racially pure Britain necessarily involves the 'reinstatement' of racially pure British folkways.

Yes I know it's codswallop. It's very dangerous codswallop. The last time anyone tried to put a programme like that into force it cost the lives of 55 million people in the second world war.

BTW., somebody opined that, since a large part of our musical folklore is bound up with Gypsies and Travellers, we have a natural bulwark against BNP ideology. Don't believe it. If the BNP ever get their hands on power, they will intern the entire Gypsy and Traveller population on the grounds of racial and social degeneracy, and they will wipe all traces of Traveller musical culture from the record. Just think how empty the shelves of the Vaughan Williams memorial Library will look if these bastards get their way.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 27 Nov 08 - 11:18 AM

That must be the first time I've been criticised on this forum for being restrained.
I wonder what the outcry would have been had I said what I really think which is more or less what Fred said?
As it happens, I spent most of the 70s pursuing the BNP's predecessors, the National Front (including sitting through "public order" cases in the courts) and churning out "investigative" pieces.
There's still rather a lot of convincing to do, especially when someone tries to equate the evil of fascism with homosexuality and uses the unbelievable throwaway line that they're both OK as long as the adherants don't try to "recruit" others.
Excuse, in which century are we living, and did WW2 not happen?

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 27 Nov 08 - 11:31 AM

Pardon my lack of restraint. I too spent a good part of the 70s fighting the National Front and Colin Jordan's British Movement (both groups were pretty active on Mersyside, where I come from). What's more, I grew up in the aftermath of the second world war and I am still haunted by some of the footage of the concentration camps that used to get shown on tv in those days. Remember that clip where they were shovelling the corpses en masse onto the backs of lorries?

Yes I'll give the BNP the right of free speech, but I reserve the right to organise against them.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Kampervan
Date: 27 Nov 08 - 11:39 AM

I don't think that you need to apologise Fred.

It's an evil ideology practiced by people who are trying to appear reasonable so that they can suck in others who, for whatever reason, don't question the real motives for its existence.

As others have said, freedom of speech is essential but it brings with it the need for constant vigilance.

K/van

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 27 Nov 08 - 11:51 AM

"Yes I'll give the BNP the right of free speech, but I reserve the right to organise against them."

Spot on, Fred. My thoughts entirely.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Paul Burke
Date: 27 Nov 08 - 11:57 AM

I've stayed out of this until now, because I don't think the problem is at all simple. Back in the 70s and 80s, we flattered ourselves that we saw off a far stronger and more overt attempt to install racism and social authoritarianism, by exposing them for what they were. But then we had a great deal of help from a then still strong Labour and Trades Union movement, who still knew what they stood for. And what they stood for was the interests of working people- of all ethnicities- and that the interests of the "indigenous" working class were no different from those of the "immigrant" working class.

The Labour party has since distanced itself from the tattered remnants of the Trades Unions, and concentrates on a technocratic approach to job creation and protection. Hazel Blears (I think) actually said that one of the good things about migrant workers was that they keep down wage demands from the indigenous workforce. This is rather a long way from the spirit of Clause 4.

In Langley Mill, Heanor, Blackburn, etc. ordinary people, know little of the "other" cultures that are now an integral part of British society, and often have little contact with them even when they live alongside them (they don't very much in Heanor), other than what they are told by the media, who use "bogus asylum seekers", "floods of Eastern Europeans", etc. as profitable marketing tools. They feel betrayed by the Labour Party, simply because they have been, so they are little inclined to listen to squeaky appeals for racial tolerance. Into the gap steps the BNP (note no geese this time round), and both the main parties are in fact quite happy to see this, as it might frighten their own dissidents back into line.

One of the results of the 1970s/80s struggles was a promotion of minority ethnic culture and a quite correct insistance that it was of equal value to indigenous cultures- especially as most indigenous people's culture was by then of a mass- market, consumerist, throw- away nature. But in their haste to acknowledge minority cultures, many cultural specialists felt it necessary to denigrate all indigenous cultures as somehow inherently tainted, even racist. So when Shirley Collins was involved in music in education in the South- Esat, she found herself frustrated in trying to promote traditional, local song in schools- it was seen as patronising and demeaning minorities. The people who saw it this way, note, weren't the kids- it was the educational authorities, who probably wouldn't have known a traditional song from the instructions on boil-in-the-bag rice.

I think one of WLD's frustrations is that he has been aware of this longer than most of us, who (speaking for myself) have been quite happy in my own little bubble of traditional Irish and British music, and not at all concerned how it relates to wider problems. Until, for example, a friend who knows little of folk went into a singing session on the fringe of a minor festival, and gradually noticed that those shanties mentioning "n*****" were sung with special frequency and gusto, and that "patriotic" themes were much in evidence. Hasty exit.

the developing economic crisis will certainly recruit many to extremism, and because of the fractured, sectional rather than class, view of society that has been deliberately developed, that is likely to mean racist groups (of which the BNP may prove one of the milder ones) for the whites, and jihadism, or whatever their background dictates, for non- whites. It's a bleak outlook, when you see what it brought about in Yugoslavia, which back in the 80s was an advanced industrialised society seen as a prime candidate for integration into Western Europe when the opportunity arose.

WLD is right, if we are to avoid disaster we need to work out ways of getting through the isolationist barriers. And the folks of Heanor might often be poorly educated and limited in outlook, but they aren't daft, and won't be patronised.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Sleepy Rosie
Date: 27 Nov 08 - 12:45 PM

Paul Burke, cheers for that excellent post.

I've heard it said that some ethnic groups get really pissed-off at those local authorities, whose patronising bungled attempts at demonstrating how PC they are, merely result in generating animosity towards the very ethnic groups whose interests they claim to be promoting. It's a case of "Please get OFF my fecking side!"

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Nov 08 - 02:08 PM

"You think it's as simple as singing songs from different cultures and then they'll go away? Let me translate it into a US context. The KKK come along and start hijacking fine American tunes to promote their filthy, racist cause. You sing them Kum Ba Yah or We Shall Overcome or some such. They say "ok" and go off and be nicely multicultural. I don't think so."

I'm bowing out of this thread for now, thank you (company coming), but I may be back. But before I go, this is not what I was talking about at all. I am not so stupid as to think that all anyone has to do is sing a couple of inane songs and the nasties will suddenly see the light. I know just how nasty the nasties actually are, in whichever country they manifest themselves and whatever name they chose to go under.

For Chrissake, give me some credit!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 27 Nov 08 - 03:21 PM

I don't think the "nationalists" (as Don Firth refers to them, though I find this rather a mild term for a bunch of filthy racists) actually give a toss whether he sings the blue national song book, and he is very much missing the point to bluster about his "right" to perform these songs and how no-one's going to tell him he can't. Don Firth won't be getting up their noses because they haven't the faintest idea who he is or whatever anti-fascist work he's been involved in "over there". Their aim, put simply, is "fascism in one country" and the US of A is of no relevance to them.

What Hannam and his cronies want to do is to subvert English culture and use it for their own ends. An American dipping into it is neither here nor there. Sorry, you're just not important to them. Some of us are on the list to be rounded up, forced to listen to WAV then shot long before they even think of you. Enjoy your turkey.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Nov 08 - 03:36 PM

Diane, you are still not getting it and are completely mischaracterizing what I am saying. Leave that sort of thing to people like David Franks.

So I used a somewhat mild term, "nationalists" rather than "fascists." Do you know how many times people here on Mudcat have got on my case for calling fascists "fascists?" I guess you just can't please some people.

So simmer down, stop picking on me, and address the real issues.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Nov 08 - 04:02 PM

I listened to "The Moral Maze." Most interesting.

Diane seems to resent my comments (perhaps she feels that because I'm an American, I'm butting into a private fight), but this sort of thing is a global issue.

There is a sufficient number of Lee Barnes's soul-mates here in the United States, and in just about every other country. What he said and how he said it is nothing I haven't heard before. The rantings of the Hayden Lake, Idaho enclave of neo-Nazis, a similar bunch of "survivalists" in eastern Oregon, and people such as white supremacist David Duke commenting that the day Barack Obama was elected president was "a black day for the white race in America." And I have debated people like this face to face. So the ranting of Lee Barnes is nothing I haven't heard before.

I'm quite sure I'm on a few lists of people to be rounded up just as Diane says she is.

I don't give a damn about whether I'm important to them or not. My interest in this is that if the BNP is successful in their aims, that will offer a great deal of encouragement to the local fascist vermin. A few decades back, I think Churchill said something about preferring to defeat the fascist aggressors on the continent so you wouldn't have to fight them at home.

Don Firth

P. S. And we're not having turkey.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: trevek
Date: 27 Nov 08 - 04:02 PM

Drummer, I agree about the need for vigilance but I still feel it questionable that some of the socialists I have encountered sang the praises and argued for the rights of (sometimes illegal) groups which were involved in paramilitary activity and hate crimes (because they were cool enough to be acting against the elected UK government)but then said legal organisations such as BNP should be silenced.

Like yourself, I had family fight (and die)in the war against the Nazis but if we talk about lineage then surely Communism might also be seen as a questionable belief based on what Stalin did, The Catholic Church etc.

On the BBC Moral Maze programme there was a question asked, "Do you have so little faith in the power of argument?" This is what I feel, it is a lazy and dangerous thing to ban someone because we don't agree with their views. Rather than push education and debate and increase vigilance we just ban it.

We need to be aware of the possible infiltration of our folk scene by these people and be vigilant, not make the mistake of thinking it is unlikely or insignificant.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 27 Nov 08 - 04:19 PM

I've been addressing the "real issues" here in England for the past 40 years, campaigning, marching, organising, writing and shouting. I just don't think you get what these are when you worry that somebody or other might be trying to curtail your repertoire. If you call that "picking on you" then I'd say you're far too sensitive to engage in the anti-fascist struggle where the going gets rough and tough.

In all that time I've never heard a fascist even mention music (except D Franks but he hasn't a clue what he's on about). I'm glad to say I've never met Mr Hannam (unless he was one of the thugs at Rock Against Racism). From their published works, though, it's pretty damn clear what they're aiming at and people like you don't even figure on their list of priorities. Back to the turkey.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 27 Nov 08 - 04:27 PM

. . . and I don't "resent" what your saying. I just don't see that it relates particularly to the actual topic.

What ARE you eating?

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 27 Nov 08 - 04:29 PM

Being aware of infiltration of nasties is all fine and good. Just what does one do if faced with one or more rabid facists in a folk setting?

Do you refuse to perform until the bastards leave (passive aggressive)?
Do you face them down and tell them exactly what you think of them (suicidal)?
Do you go out and damage their cars while they are inside (criminal)?

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 12:44 AM

Hors d'oeuvres, chicken Kiev, sweet potatoes, two vegetables, (peas with mushrooms and John's special recipe for brussel sprouts), raw vegetable plate (carrots, celery, olives), and choice of four wines, followed about an hour later by dessert (two kinds of pie, pecan and pumpkin) with French vanilla ice cream and Ethiopian coffee. Seven people altogether, Phoebe (a long time friend), Bernice (one of my guitar students) and her sister Mary, Nora (another longtime friend and neighbor), John (long involved in folk music and a free-lance writer), with, of course, my wife Barbara and myself. Much good conversation on a wide variety of subjects. I hope you also had a pleasant day.

Basically, I was addressing the musical aspect of the question as dictated by David Franks who, if not a "card carrying member" of the BNP, seems to advocate their position, not just on music but on political matters in general, and registering my objections to it, while at the same time attempting to elicit more information from people such as Diane on the BNP's efforts to make use of English folk music for their own purposes. Apparently I didn't make myself clear, because I find myself under attack for presumably dwelling on what Diane considers to be a trivial aspect of the conflict.

So—exactly how is the BNP attempting to use folk music for their own purposes? In some detail please, how are they going about this? What are they doing?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 04:26 AM

Apart from what's already been mentioned, I'm not privy to their intentions.
Their known activities include:

(a) fund-raising barbecues where they sing jolly songs about removing the blot of immigrants from the countryside
(b) placing references to high-profile English artists and even sound clips on their sites without permission, trying to create the impression that these performers support them
(c) setting themselves up as "torchbearers of culture" (as quoted by Joan) and
(d) pandering to the lowest level of social prejudice (as outlined by Norman).

They're not (yet) storming into festivals as they did RAR gigs 30 years ago but rather latching on to various artists, whether they like it or not. Usually not.

We don't do Thanksgiving here, though I've been known to live for a week or more on a freezer pack of minced turkey as a cheap form of protein. Last night I ate a samosa as I walked down the road. No parties.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 04:59 AM

Aha! Youre talking about the IRA, Trevek. Aren't you?

In the 1970's when there were bombs in going off in Brum and other places on the mainland, I had clubs in and around Birmingham. To be honest I felt very defensive about my friends who were Irish singers, cos I knew they were getting loads of shit for just being Irish. I knew one guy who gave up singing for 20 years - because he had encountered so much hostility, and even threats of violence. Being Irish in the 1970's was a 'hard old station'. Perhaps some people would back me up on that one.

When being Irish became fashionable in the 1990's. I tended to think - well they had their bit of luck coming. They deserved a bit of a break after all those years in the shit.

I know one Irish singer who is a member of the Peaace league or something and he won't touch songs about the IRA. Personally I think its difficult because you have to face it, the rebel ballads are amongst the most beautiful songs ever written.

Frankly I think they underplay it. One day, just for something to do - I went through the list of names, roll call of IRA men in the The Galtee Mountain Boy in Wilipaedia....absolutely amazing stories of escapes and assasinations, and personalities.

I see it as a different sort of thing from the BNP. The IRA was concerned with Ireland, these BNP guys want to kick ass on the home turf. Just this week the chairman of something or other in our local paper has gone over to the BNP from the Labour party.

As someone said, its a consequence of Blairisation of the labour party. The mining Unions and manufacturing unions generally have lost their economic hold on the Labour party, and the claret swiggers(as they used to call Roy Jenkins and his euro pals) - well they feel free to ignore what was a huge trenche of traditional labour voters.

Basically the Labour Party is doing what the folk revival did years ago. They are distancing themselves from people they see as unintelligent and probably unimportant.

To my mind the situation is more serious than it ever was in the 1970's. Some good decent people are being attracted to and joining this party that has a solid basis of thugs and fascists.

Probably the fastest growing partty in the country.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 05:43 AM

Don, what they've done is far more insidious than the overt racism of the 80s. They have re-invented themselves as the acceptable face of racism, and have presented themselves as the solution to the kind of paranoia and delusional "news stories" about asylum seekers and immigration whipped up by reactionary newspapers like the Daily Mail. They have tried to rescue the notion of English nationalism from its sullied image of the 80s (an image that they themselves were largely responsiblefor, of course), and tried to present their form of patriotism as something representing the values of all nice, middle-class people.

In this spirit they have tried to align themselves with the "folkways" of Britain. They will complain that, while you can get funding for multicultural arts projects, there is no respect for English traditional arts (this is not true, but it's a myth that's been perpetuated for a long time). They talk about freeing classrooms from a "PC agenda" and making sure children are taught about their own culture.

I can already hear Richard Bridge saying "What's wrong with that?"

The problem is, there are different ways to approach nationalism and traditions. One, the BNP way, would have you believe that English culture and traditions should be the only ones taught in schools and celebrated in our festivals and carnivals. They believe in the dominance and supremacy of the indigenous culture. The other approach, which i think many of us who work in this area would advocate, is to try and promote and celebrate English traditions as part of the whole mix of cultures and heritages which exist on this island. I am passionate about indigenous traditions, and I think it's very important that they form part of the national identity - but I do not believe in their dominance or superiority.

When I talk about the BNP hijacking folk to support their agenda, this is the kind of thing I mean. Using it to engineer some construct of Englishness which not only separates some people on this island from others, it also says "Because this belongs to us, it makes us better than you."

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: TheSnail
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 06:29 AM

I did some googling and it's worse than I thought -

http://bnp.org.uk/2008/07/excalibur-launches-new-music-line/

The track lists are here -

https://excalibur.bnp.org.uk/acatalog/audio.html

Do the people on these records know?

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Paul Burke
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 06:29 AM

It also means that attacking it head on, waving red banners and screaming Nazi, is almost certainly not the way to deal with it. Their support is largely a protest against political disenfanchisement- they are represented by no mainstream party. The left was destroyed as an alternative by Thatcher, Blair and almost as much by the (usually very middle class) fringe left parties of the 70s/80s. What sensible person would want to associate with the SWP, IMG, WRP? They partially agree with the BNP story: after all, don't the daily papers tell them that there's too much immigration, blacks shoot each other over drugs, Asians are all jihadists etc? The vast majority would personally never harm anyone unless provoked, and like the communists of the 1930s they don't believe that the party's core is rotten.

If that seems naive, remember that many of us celebrated the triumph of the insurgents in Southeast Asia- until we had Pol Pot rubbed in our faces.

Back in the 70s, the support of famous names like James Hunt (Formula 1 champion) and Buster Mottram (another Brit who didn't win Wimbledon) couldn't make the National Front respectable, because of its overt fascism. The BNP are much harder because they are careful to keep the real agenda hidden, and decent folk can be taken in by the populism on show. They wouldn't REALLY make Jews wear yellow stars, would they?

What this means for music is hard to ascertain. Trad folk is mostly irrelevant in East Derbyshire, not many people listen to it. Country music is quite popular, pub rock and 50s/60s/70s pop nostalgia far more so, and I suspect that the BNP target those fields already. As WLD says, it would take a brave (and resourceful) musician to take on some of the pubs/ clubs in the area with any message that could offend some local heavy.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 07:19 AM

""especially when someone tries to equate the evil of fascism with homosexuality and uses the unbelievable throwaway line that they're both OK as long as the adherants don't try to "recruit" others.""

Thank you Diane, for showing once again, that you respond to posts without really reading them.

In no way did I, even inadvertently, equate Fascism with Homosexuality. Nor did I say they were both OK.
I said that similar suggestions were voiced and that the idea of banning was rejected.
That is not the same as equating the two.

I consider carefully how I make a point, and I do NOT use throwaway lines.

In the case of Homosexuality, my opinion is that it is none of my business, unless a pass is made, and that ain't gonna happen because they have no interest in "straights".

In the case of Fascism, Nazism, Communism, etc., my opinion is that they are equally abhorrent, equally dangerous, and equally insidious, but I still have reservations about starting down that very dangerous road, of banning those with whom we disagree.

It has never been successful in improving the situation, and whenever it has been tried, has always gone much too far.

Don T

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 07:41 AM

""The other approach, which i think many of us who work in this area would advocate, is to try and promote and celebrate English traditions as part of the whole mix of cultures and heritages which exist on this island. I am passionate about indigenous traditions, and I think it's very important that they form part of the national identity - but I do not believe in their dominance or superiority.""

Pertinent, sensible comment Ruth.

This IS the way to get results, but there is one aspect of the situation which gets in the way of this excellent solution, and it is this.

The PC brigade have been so focussed on minority ethnic groupings that they have ceased to recognise the plain fact that "white British" is also an etnic group.

Once they can be persuaded to publicly espouse that idea, there will no longer be reason for white Brits to feel left out in their own country.

Government has a role to play in ensuring that looking after minority interests does not lead to the majority being pushed into the arms of these sleazeballs because nobody else seems to care about them.

Perhaps it is government we should be tackling, because it could mean cutting the legs from under the British Nazi Party, without losing any of the freedoms won in defeating their forebears.


Don T.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 08:03 AM

"The PC brigade have been so focussed on minority ethnic groupings that they have ceased to recognise the plain fact that "white British" is also an etnic group."

As someone who works in this area and is as "PC" as they come, Don, I simply don't recognise that comment - at least in terms of the arts. I do think that there was a concerted effort to remedy the under-representation of other cultures present in Britain in the arts, and that some perceived this as a threat to "white English" culture. But what does "white English" culture mean? At a venue where I worked that had a very strong world music programme, we also had a huge strand of classical music, which even got its own brochure.

I think the fact that "high art" has been valued far more than folk arts for many generations in the UK has been a far bigger threat to English indigenous traditions than multiculturalism or the "PC agenda" has ever been. English people have thrown away what other cultures perhaps valued more highly. Now we're trying to claw some of that ground back.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 08:04 AM

"Do the people on these records know?"

If not, they're about to find out...

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 08:29 AM

making sure children are taught about their own culture

Whose own culture?   Has the BNP lately taken an ethnicity head count in today's classrooms? Of course they would not permit any non-British in the classroom, would they?

It is clear RB does not agree with BNP agenda. Read his first post more carefully, please. There is a danger of getting carried away in any ideology, if it leads to hate and violence. this includes anti-BNPism.

Re PC agenda, it is pretty well known that English tradtion, takes a back seat in the classroom, to a more global culture inthe curriculum. Simply the government's sad attempt to squash racism which as already said in this thread only serves to make it stronger. But what would you do? If you know how to blend both fairly then please make suggestions.

This all reminds me of Baptists way back in the day. They were quite isolationist. I remember preachers telling parishioners not to get too involved in politics (a worldy thing). Baptists are pretty fundamental. Look where that lead. It bred a splinter of moral majority that soon took over. We all know where that went. Jerry Orwell, Rush Limbaugh and George dubbya

As RB said above... this is difficult stuff.

We all neet to work at understanding, learn from mistakes made by self and others and practice and model tolerance.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 08:37 AM

"It is clear RB does not agree with BNP agenda."

I wasn't suggesting that he does...read MY post again.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 09:13 AM

Well I would like to see the BNP banned from Mudcat, that's certain.
It always arouses ire, and interjections from people who are great on theory and crap on experience on the ground.
You need to live in the areas where the BNP is strong to know the what when and why. No amount of reading, sociology degrees, or apocryphal stories, will deal with this threat.

JM

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 09:13 AM

Looking at that collection of records in those links The Snail gave us - sort of blend of National Front and National Trust.

There's no doubt that the BNP brand of fascism is much more dangerous than its predecessors. The danger lies in an evident awareness of the kind of stuff that pisses off ordinary people, and the need to put that under the counter, or even throw it out. And a parallel recognition of the stuff that appeals to people, and can pull them in.

Including a version of "The Streets of London" in a CD "Ballads for the New Britain - A compilation of cover versions of nationalist standbys"; or "Hal an Tow" as part of "A superb collection of patriotic songs by an array of Great White Records artists". That kind of thing is clever and threatening.

I think in fact that it is actually quite useful to look across the Atlantic for parallels and warnings about how it is possible for the far right to build up support among a swathe of ordinary people by hijacking symbols and images and tying them in with resentments and fears. And as a result came to dominate much of mainstream politics.

Stopping the BNP is going to take clear-eyes intelligence. And I think that the signs are that the folk world needs to play quite a significant part in that.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 09:27 AM

I did wonder whether you were so suggesting, Ruth. I am glad to be reassured that you were not.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 09:28 AM

"The PC brigade"

I wish someone would tell me who these people are. They get blamed for everything. I'm a Guardian-reading left-of-centre social worker - do you perhaps mean me? If so please tell me why fascism and racism is my fault and why your argument is not a cheap shot and a cop out. I blame the likes of the Daily Mail for perpetuating this crap, personally.

"there will no longer be reason for white Brits to feel left out in their own country"

So why as a "white Brit" should I feel left out in a country where the vast majority of the population, including most MPs, captains of industry, judges, union leaders, jounalists, police, aristocrats, land owners are white Brits? It's largely Thatcherite and New Labour "white Brits" (and "white Brits" have never been an homegenous grouping despite what the BNP would like us to believe) who have created the current cultural and political climate that has disenfranchised a proportion of white working class Brits (along with a fair few black and asian working class Brits, too, let us not forget!).

I think Paul Burke's analysis above is spot on.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 09:28 AM

"Well I would like to see the BNP banned from Mudcat, that's certain.
It always arouses ire, and interjections from people who are great on theory and crap on experience on the ground."

You know what they say, John: don't like it, don't read it. Please don't presume to pontificate, from Scotland, about what may or may not be the experience "on the ground" of the people who post to these threads.

I'd like to see the prim and proper, Daily Mail-reading, Mary Whitehouse, anti-BBC brigade banned from Mudcat and all. We don't always get what we want.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 09:35 AM

Richard, I think I understand largely where you're coming from. You would like to see English culture and traditions better understood, taught and represented - and so say all of us. The point I was making is that the BNP is trying to hijack this relatively moderate idea, and the relatively moderate individuals who believe in it, for their own nefarious ends.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 09:38 AM

Spleen cringe - well said.

Mcgrath - I have just let Simon Care know that the Albion band are on a CD being promoted by the BNP. I don't think he's going to be amused. I'd love to know how many of those artist are aware tha ttheir work is being used as racist propaganda.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Leadfingers
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 10:03 AM

Interesting to see that Margaret Barry is on one of the CDs ! And I always thought she was from Traveller stock !!!Or didnt the BNP do its research properly ?

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 10:12 AM

they've clearly picked up on some CDs which have been packaged for places like Past Times and the National Trust, but are marketing them alongside their own racist label "Great White Records". The problem is that the way they're being marketed makes it looks as though they've been produced by the BNP. And that would imply the consent of the artists, which most certainly has not been sought.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 10:27 AM

I see that they have also been astute enough to include a number of Bob Dylan songs on their "Best of BRITISH Folk". Since they hold his work in such high regard why were such pieces as "The Ballad of Hollis Brown", "Only A Pawn in the Game", "Oxford Town" and "With God on Our Side" not included. I also can't find "I Pity The Poor Immigrant"
I also see that they have got the buck to include "Dirty Old Town" - written by Ewan MacColl, kinell.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 10:27 AM

Spleen Cringe
The P.C. Brigade:-
Those who would officially remove from our everyday working vocabulary words, apart from derogatoty terms, that have been part of our language for millenia because it "might offend someone".

Those who would ban the use of well established latin or foreign text from council official and public documents because people may not understand them. (Surely the thing to do is to educate to ensure people do understand them).

Those who would, off their own back and without reference, ban the religious or social rites that a community or the nation has always enjoyed because it "might offend someone".

Those in education who would shy away from telling the whole history of nations ,warts and all, because one side of the story "might be uncomfortable".

And perhaps on a more humourous tack, those who would enforce the use of signs on w.c. doors informing people who don`t know what gender they are, day to day, which toilet to use.

These are just a few examples but I`m sure there are more.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 10:29 AM

I lived in England for a lot longer than you have Ruth, I'm no blow-in.
I don't presume knowledge I don't possess.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: TheSnail
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 10:32 AM

Ruth is right. For instance The Best of British Folk is produced by a company called Pegasus. See here - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Best-British-Folk-Various-Artists/dp/B000FS9PDK but that's certainly not the way it looks on the Excalibur site. They seem to be using a few legitimate records to give credibility to their own crap.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 10:35 AM

Leadfingers. "Interesting to see that Margaret Barry is on one of the CDs ! And I always thought she was from Traveller stock !!!Or didnt the BNP do its research properly ?"

The BNP wouldn't know who Margaret Barry was if she'd got up off the floor and kicked them in the crotch.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 10:36 AM

Maybe there'd be a way of turning this in a positive way. I'm quite sure that probably without exception the people who the BNP are implying are on their side in this way will be angry at this.

Maybe there would the the potential of generating Folk Against Racism activities which would directly and explicitly challenge and repudiate this, and would involve people who have been targetted in this way, along with others who object to having the music they love treated as a tool for the racists.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Banjiman
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 10:47 AM

"Maybe there would the the potential of generating Folk Against Racism activities which would directly and explicitly challenge and repudiate this, and would involve people who have been targetted in this way, along with others who object to having the music they love treated as a tool for the racists."

I like this idea alot. Anyone fancy taking it forward?

Paul

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Leadfingers
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 10:49 AM

I think I might just list all the artists on those CDs , and try an E Mail to them asking if the ARE aware !

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 11:03 AM

Terry, it's in hand. Simon Care is already contacting several of the other artists. No, they did not know. But whether they have the power to do anything about it is another matter.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 11:13 AM

"Maybe there would the the potential of generating Folk Against Racism activities which would directly and explicitly challenge and repudiate this, and would involve people who have been targetted in this way, along with others who object to having the music they love treated as a tool for the racists."

I would certainly be interested.

BTW., the BNP are said to have a big demonstration planned for Liverpool some time in the fairly near future. If I can find out when I'll let people know.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 11:14 AM

I dunno about you, John, but this thread would seem to be about the attempts of the BNP to hijack English traditional music. As a direct outcome of the thread an example was uncovered and is now being dealt with. Result.

"great on theory and crap on experience on the ground."

You don't know what anyone here might be getting up to in real, practical ways. You don't know our political histories, or what we might have done in the past. So clearly with this statement you are presuming knowledge you don't possess.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 11:45 AM

IF I had mentioned any names you would have a right to be offended, as I did NOT mention any names, and you assumed the mantle of the insulted, perhaps you should look to your self as to why it upset you.

Subject: RE: neo-fascist-folk, please illuminate.
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 28 Nov 08 - 11:50 AM

Folk demonsrtation against facism and racism is a fantastic idea.
Why stop at single demonstration.

Why not include information in programmes of little beer and folk fests? Why not broach the subject in folk clubs and create some sort of charter? Why not ask artists to include statements in sleeve notes of their albums? Why not talk to schools and parent associations and ask to do demonstrations of morris and folk music? Invite parents from all ehtnic background to visit a practice or session?

Just a thought or twenty.