TV technicians' union plans BNP Question Time demo

[1968]

The TV technicians' union has attacked the BBC's decision to invite BNP leader Nick Griffin on to Question Time and pledged to join a demonstration against the recording of the programme.


Bectu said it would support any of its members who refused to work on the programme, which will be transmitted on October 22.


General secretary Gerry Morrissey said: "We believe there should be no media coverage of the BNP and I have raised this issue with the director general, Mark Thompson.


"He said they have been invited on to the programme because they have won elections, but we strongly disagree.


"We will be arranging a demonstration and lobby outside the Question Time studios and we will be working with anti-fascist groups to ensure there is a significant turn out."


Positive move. Especially if cameramen, lighting, sound etc.. refuse to work on the show.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5iG7d9frbk9r_h8XQ2hu1GFoK3tjg

[Hit The North]

This is welcome news and, hopefully, the unions will lead a no-platform blackout of the programme.

This is especially important now that the bourgeois parties have decided to share a platform with Griffin:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/sep/27/straw-debate-bnp-griffin-question-time

Still, at least Vanguard1917 will be pleased that Gordon Brown and Jack Straw have decided to scab against the no-platform for racists and fascists.

[bricolage]

This is especially important now that the bourgeois parties have decided to share a platform with Griffin.

Of course they have, you sound surprised.

[Hit The North]

Of course they have, you sound surprised.

Written text doesn't "sound" like anything. And I'm not in the slightest bit surprised.

[bricolage]

Written text doesn't "sound" like anything. And I'm not in the slightest bit surprised.

Yikes. Safe for the pedantry.

[Hit The North]

Yikes. Safe for the pedantry.

You were the one who decided to weigh in with some unsubstantiated shit.

[bricolage]

You were the one who decided to weigh in with some unsubstantiated shit.

Meh, it looked like you were surprised, apparently you weren't. Let's have a cup of tea instead...

[Hit The North]

One sugar, dash of milk, please.

[bricolage]

One sugar, dash of milk, please.

Sugar! I'm with Orwell on this one;


Lastly, tea — unless one is drinking it in the Russian style — should be drunk without sugar. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself a true tealover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt. Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water.Although I feel I've completely derailed the thread so I'll leave it now and let people get back to shouting Nazi Nazi...

[Hit The North]

Don't you think the BNP are Nazis?

[bricolage]

Don't you think the BNP are Nazis?

I think they are fascists. I think Nazism was a specifically historical phenomenon that can't just be blanket applied to all far right groups. I also think terminology issues like this are pretty irrelevant in the grander scheme of things.

[Holden Caulfield]

Written text doesn't "sound" like anything. And I'm not in the slightest bit surprised.

BtB in another thread "the SWP isn't full of intellectually snobby wankers, bla bla bla, no holden I can lend you something, you borrow it... tisk tisk"

:)

Anyways its not a crime to not think the BNP are Nazis, because they're not, in the same way the Liberal Democrats aren't Whigs arguing for the working class not to have the vote.

[Hit The North]

BtB in another thread "the SWP isn't full of intellectually snobby wankers, bla bla bla, no holden I can lend you something, you borrow it... tisk tisk"

:)



Fuck off :)


Anyways its not a crime to not think the BNP are Nazis, because they're not, in the same way the Liberal Democrats aren't Whigs arguing for the working class not to have the vote. Who's being the "intellectually snobby wanker" now? I'm not interested in an academic designation of the exact nature of the BNP. Wtf does it matter whether we call them fascists or nazis? In fact, wtf is the actual difference when Griffin and the rest of the BNP leadership are obvious anti-Semites and have, in the past, appropriated Nazi symbolism?

Save your "analysis" for your undergraduate essays.

[bricolage]

Wtf does it matter whether we call them fascists or nazis?

To an extent I agree with you it doesn't, however at the same time when they are called Nazis it does tend to devalue the argument at hand and instead indicate a reliance on hyperbole and 'sloganism' (if that is a word).

It's just unnecessary and when there are a multitude of much better arguments to use against the BNP I don't see the relevance in the Nazi one.


In fact, wtf is the actual difference when Griffin and the rest of the BNP leadership are obvious anti-Semites and have, in the past, appropriated Nazi symbolism?

Bin Laden is a anti-Semite, does that make him a Nazi? And the Nazis appropriated Hindu symbolism, does that make them Hindus?


Save your "analysis" for your undergraduate essays.

Parring the par.

[Hit The North]

Bin Laden is a anti-Semite, does that make him a Nazi? And the Nazis appropriated Hindu symbolism, does that make them Hindus?


Last time I heard that defence was from a representative of the BNP.

[bricolage]

Last time I heard that defence was from a representative of the BNP.

Your point being? The BNP call for troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan, should we stop saying that too?

[Pogue]

This is brilliant. I hope they do strike. Worker's power stopping the BNP from gaining this coverage would be a fantastic display of how direct action anti-fascism can be done.

I think fascist is the better term for the BNP by the way. I don't particularly object to people calling them Nazi as an insult, or talking about the Nazi ideolgoy of the leadership, but fascism suits what they are and what they are doing better.

Anyway good stuff on this, a strike combined with a solid demo outside the studio would be quality.

[bricolage]

Anyway good stuff on this, a strike combined with a solid demo outside the studio would be quality.

And a lot better than calling on the state to do the job for us.

[Pogue]

And a lot better than calling on the state to do the job for us.

of course :)

[Hit The North]

Your point being? The BNP call for troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan, should we stop saying that too?

That's a completely different issue. You seem to be arguing that we should use the spurious arguments they employ to distance themselves from their disgusting roots. Why do you want to do their work for them?



This is brilliant. I hope they do strike. Worker's power stopping the BNP from gaining this coverage would be a fantastic display of how direct action anti-fascism can be done.
It's the template :thumbup1:


I think fascist is the better term for the BNP by the way. I don't particularly object to people calling them Nazi as an insult, or talking about the Nazi ideolgoy of the leadership, but fascism suits what they are and what they are doing better.I don't want to derail this thread, but exactly what is the difference between fascists and nazis, except for their different national origins? Hitler learned from Mussolini but once Hitler took power, Italian fascism became the junior partner. Are you arguing that Hitler wasn't a fascist? Let's not forget that the term Nazi comes from a sneering corruption of Nationalsozialismus. That's right, "Nazi" was a term used by German and Austrian anti-fascists to denigrate German and Austrian fascists. The UAF are merely carrying on that tradition.


Anyway good stuff on this, a strike combined with a solid demo outside the studio would be quality.
It certainly would.

[PossiblyLeft]

This is sort of rediculous if you guys are able to crush his ideologies then do so in debate... you seem to be running scared of the BNP.

[Spawn of Stalin]

Nobody is scared of the BNP, but having them on a show like Question Time only serves to legitimise their disgusting politics. We shouldn't forget, the BNP have an answer for everything, if anyone in the audience asks Griffin to justify his racism (and they will ask), he will find a way to answer, he will end up looking good, and he will win votes in the general election next year. Did you hear the debate between Weyman Bennett and Simon Darby a while back? The BNP are master deceivers, giving them a platform will only further their cause. I hope plenty of BBC workers defy this sick decision made by the management, that should be quite a big blow, but a good display of solidarity is required on our part too, hopefully the union can get a nice big turnout on the day.

[bricolage]

That's a completely different issue. You seem to be arguing that we should use the spurious arguments they employ to distance themselves from their disgusting roots. Why do you want to do their work for them?

I'm not doing any work for them, I'm saying that I will make an argument based on whether or not I believe in it not whether or not someone else makes the same argument.


Are you arguing that Hitler wasn't a fascist?

No I never said that. In the same respect there are lot of nationalists but not all nationalists are fascists thus not all fascists are nazis. Historically there are differences (alongside, of course, a number of similarities) between Nazism and fascism, mainly in that Italian fascism saw the state as the end all of society to which all should be directed, whereas in terms of Nazism it was the volk.

Nazism is a historically specific ideology of Aryan nationalism, anti-semitism and Germanic expansionism. Other groups who have taken this on either completely misunderstand what it originally stood for or can be grouped under the spurious and broad term of 'neo-nazism' which I would argue is qualitatively different to Third Reich Nazism.

[bricolage]

Nobody is scared of the BNP, but having them on a show like Question Time only serves to legitimise their disgusting politics.

Since when did Question Time convey legitimacy? If that were the case then Labour, the Tories, the Daily Mail, whatever ever else they normally have on there would all be 'legitimate'. Rather, we create our own legitimacy, from the bottom up, and none of it extends to the people they tend to have on Question Time. If the mainstream parties want to 'legitimise' the BNP then they'll will do that, but it's up to us to reject their spheres of engagement and start creating our own in which we can finally have full control over what is legitimate and what is not.

[Spawn of Stalin]

We might not like it, but when a politician appears on such a well respected production, with such a huge audience, on publicly funded telly, it does give them a degree of credibility, and yes, Labour, the Tories, and the Daily Mail, are all generally pretty credible in the general sense. Just because we, as socialists, don't like something, it doesn't make it false.

[bricolage]

We might not like it, but when a politician appears on such a well respected production, with such a huge audience, on publicly funded telly, it does give them a degree of credibility, and yes, Labour, the Tories, and the Daily Mail, are all generally pretty credible in the general sense. Just because we, as socialists, don't like something, it doesn't make it false.

The might gain bourgeois credibility but as soon as they legitimise the BNP they can all be grouped together and universally rejected. Remember here we don't want people to just rise up against the BNP we want them to rise up against the whole system that has spawned them and if people who despise the BNP can identify them as intrinsically linked to all the other mainstream parties and media there is greater scope for such universal rejection.

[Omi]

I think the resistance of the organized workforce together with anti-fascist groups against a fascist party who try to gain mainstream acceptance, is one of the best forms of anti-fascist organizing and a huge oppertunity for the anti-fascist left in England. Good luck on the day and keep us posted.:thumbup1: