The BNP and a controlled media
I have been updating last month's post on the British National Party with information as I come across it. One piece of information seems quite significant, but doesn't seem to appear on the Net: BNP leader Nick Griffin's statement in the "Keighley" video (2004) indicating his ideas about the media under a BNP government. If my transcription is accurate, Griffin said that once the BNP is in power at Westminster,
. . . then we make the laws, then we control the television and the newspapers, and we can make sure that what has been happening in Keighley is on television, in documentaries, night after night after night after night, until the British people really realise the evil of what these people have done to our country, until they say right, now we really are going to sort it out.
The significance of this is that the main distinction between a so-called elective dictator, such as a contemporary British Prime Minister, and a full-fledged dictator is that an elective dictator is subject to criticism from an independent media. Thus it seems that Griffin was envisaging something close to a full-fledged dictatorship. Periodic elections are of limited use if the airwaves are pounding the virtues of the ruling party (among other things) into the voters' heads, "night after night after night".
Admittedly, the existing mainstream media also lacks political diversity, and this has probably enfeebled democracy rather drastically. Nevertheless, because it is controlled by a different set of people from the government, it can hold the ruling party accountable for corrupt practices, for example.
Anyone who expects the traditional moderation of the British people to ensure restraint in the policies of a BNP government should probably bear in mind the apparent intention of the BNP to assume control of the media. Voters endlessly bombarded with the BNP view of the world would probably approve of almost anything the BNP wanted them to.
Update (07/17): There is a long argument about the nature of the BNP in this 200-comment Dhimmiwatch thread which started on June 28th. (Also covers "memic penumbras".)
Update #2 (07/25): Here is the website of a new "Popular Alliance" party that appears to be attempting to fill the gap in the British political spectrum between the Conservatives and the far right. So far the Popular Alliance is sufficiently minor that there is not much information available on it on the Web other than at its own site. There have apparently been a number of attempts to make a go of such parties in Britain in recent years (UKIP, Veritas, English Democrats) with little success to date.
Update #3 (07/26): (Deleted)
Labels: BNP
posted by Mr. Spog | 3:04 a.m.
3 Comments:
And you honestly do not think that liberal multiculturalists do not control
the media now?
A belated reply since I don't check for comments very often:
In the event that you see this reply, I suggest you (re-)read my paragraph above beginning "Admittedly, the existing mainstream media also lacks political diversity..."
My point is that there is a very great difference between a free but ideologically monolithic media and and ideologically monolithic media directly controlled by the state. The latter case represents a much more concentrated and dangerous form of power.
It would be understandable that a right wing party might want to do some housecleaning at the BBC after it took power, for example, on the grounds that the BBC has failed to carry out its original mandate of reporting impartially. But to announce that it will take control of the newspapers, and presumably the private broadcasters, as well? That sounds like the programme of a would-be dictator who wants to bend the nation to his personal will. It makes a mockery of the BNP claim to be a protector of the tradition of free speech.
Admittedly, I didn't explain this very well in my post.
Post a Comment
<< Home