as of this moment, not so much.

Granted, you won’t find that song there, but “radioblogclub” has a good music library and an embeddable player.

The fact is, Seb is everyone’s favorite guy.

As far as I can tell (watching British politics from afar as I sometimes do) most of the National Front support migrated to the BNP, which has been surging in popularity lately. And the real downside to that is that there’s no longer much of a left, skinhead or otherwise, to oppose them (“New Labour” being about as successful on that score as New Coke). Sort of like what’s happening here in Ah-merkha – the righties are becoming middle of the road and the crazy rightites are becoming the new right: witness Michelle Malkin filling in for Bill O’Reilly last night.

It’s happening in France, where there’s noise that Jean-Marie Le Pen is going to be a serious contender for the presidency in the next election, and it’s happening in the Netherlands, where the far right is behind most of the anti-Muslim agitation that’s been going on there of late (see Fortuyn, Pim on that one).

The Poles are putting right-wing Christians into all sorts of government ministry positions, Russian nationalism – replete with its usual trappings of anti-Semitism and contempt for other Slavs – is on the rise, Germany’s moving away from the commitment to its social safety network that it’s held since WWII, even in the face of the economic disaster that was unification, and the Japanese are bringing back the nationalist pride element into their national curriculum.

It’s starting to feel like everyone’s just decided that WWII happened in some alternate universe, so it therefore has nothing to teach us here in the real world. And the really scary thing about the resurgence of the global far right this time around is that there just isn’t any far left anymore to oppose or balance them out.

I was never cool enough to be a punk of any sort (the generally shameful display of nerdiness I’ve just put on here standing as evidence of that), but there’s not much I wouldn’t give at this point to have a lot of young people spontaneously start listening to Oi again. If things keep up this way too much longer, we’re going to need a lot of kids in the streets telling the Nazi punks to fuck off.

Brad just wants the traffic to surge before it is withdrawn altogether.

I’d like you to program that song in Bush’s alarm clock.

Oh, Gavin, you’re the only one who makes my traffic surge.

Actually, Gavin, the only thing that seems to truly slow down the commentariat around these parts is one of Retardo’s think pieces, where every link is another ten thousand word essay and all the good lines are “inside baseball”. Otherwise, we’re right there with ya…

mikey

A good pie fight will thin the participants out also….

Although I guess the comment count goes WAY up, it’s usually only two people.

“As far as I can tell (watching British politics from afar as I sometimes do) most of the National Front support migrated to the BNP, which has been surging in popularity lately.”

Thankfully, the BNP is still a tiny fringe party, with less than 1% of the national vote, and no seats in Parliament. (Some of the far-right parties in other European countries are more like 15-20% and have been part of governing coalitions.) The BNP’s media coverage vastly outweighs their significance.

“And the real downside to that is that there’s no longer much of a left, skinhead or otherwise, to oppose them (â€?New Labourâ€? being about as successful on that score as New Coke).”

There’s a large activist left in England (the anti-war, anti-corporate globalization and environmentalist movements are all very strong), and while it has not had a huge electoral effect so far, there is a growing movement by members of Labour who are unhappy with Blairist centrism.

“Sort of like what’s happening here in Ah-merkha – the righties are becoming middle of the road and the crazy rightites are becoming the new right: witness Michelle Malkin filling in for Bill O’Reilly last night.”

Hopefully the last election was just the beginning of a wider repudiation of the Republicans. A lot of people who were centrist or apathetic or even moderate Republicans have been so repulsed by the Bush policies that they are now supporting Democrats. I think Bush and the conservative movement are down to the true believers.

“It’s happening in France, where there’s noise that Jean-Marie Le Pen is going to be a serious contender for the presidency in the next election,”

He’s not. Sarkozy’s law and order message has won over much of Le Pen’s support, and the left and liberal vote won’t be divided ten ways this time. Le Pen will be lucky to get 10%.

“and it’s happening in the Netherlands, where the far right is behind most of the anti-Muslim agitation that’s been going on there of late (see Fortuyn, Pim on that one).”

Pim Fortuyn wasn’t far right, his bigotry against Muslims aside. His main message was that the immigration of socially conservative Muslims into the Netherlands threatened its tolerance of homosexuality, free sexual culture in general and drug use. On most issues Fortuyn was on the left.

I am less in touch than I once was, but I still listen to The Police every now and then. Their early songs were punk before they delved into reggae. Check out these lines from Rehumanize Yourself:

Billy’s joined the National Front.
He always was a little runt,
now he’s got his hands in the air with the other (c-word that rhymes with runt).

By the way, Fugazi is on indefinite hiatus. I guess they figured they could sit this one out. Time to form a punk band!

At least you admit you suck, Gavin. That’s a start.

Brad sucks too, just less.

I know there’s a pretty solid left/anti-war/socialist coalition in England, iceman – it’s just that they’re almost as unrepresented in their government as we are over here on this side of the pond. It’ll be interesting to see what Labour does after they kick Blair to the curb – but I’m not particularly optimistic at this point.

We’ll see about Le Pen – electorates around the world are swinging further and further to the right. As far as I can tell, it seems like everybody’s completely misreading this last election in the U.S., where all the new faces that got put into office represent a far-right swing away from traditional Democratic stances. The ’06 elections represent disgust with perceived Republican corruption, not an embrace of a Democratic platform, I fear – but once again, it’s a matter of wait and see. The chattering classes are convinced that the Dems won’t win the Executive office without aiming their pitch at the red state voter, and this last election seems to indicate that this advice is being taken to heart.

I hate to sound alarmist…..I just can see few reasons not to be a bit alarmed at this point. I hope you’re right and I’m wrong. We’ll see.

Shut up, Jillian. You are so fucking stoopid.

What’s all that about pie?

Quoth Jillian:

I know there’s a pretty solid left/anti-war/socialist coalition in England, iceman – it’s just that they’re almost as unrepresented in their government as we are over here on this side of the pond

(un)sadly, no! Blair’s insistence on Decider-style tyranny over his own back-benches aside, anti-war representation in the Commons is nowhere near as anaemic as it is in the States. Compare the Campaign Group‘s roster to the kind of representation equivalent views get in Congress. And we’re not even talking about more-liberal-than-not views here, that’s solid, unapologetic leftism.

– Chris

That is definitely excellent news, Chris – thanks!

I know there’s a lot of dissatisfaction with Blair, but d’you think it’s due to his general high-handedness and what I usually call his “speech impediment” (as in “it’s really hard to understand what Tony Blair is saying when he tries to speak with Bush’s dick in his mouth all the time…must be a speech impediment”.), or d’you think it’s due to general dissatisfaction with his decidedly NON-Labour outlook on policy?

That’s the real problem I see here in the states…people aren’t interested in a return to more traditional left-wing Democratic policies, as far as I can tell – they just don’t like the Republican insistence on permanent war. It’s going to take a serious, deliberate, long range educational program to turn the tide in America, and the Dems are too stupidly slick to be able to pull it off anymore. Whatever happened to the fireside chat tradition, anyway?

Dunno if that makes as much sense as I’d like it to…I’m still waiting for that second cup of coffee to kick in.