Myths About Dealing with the Far Right

[rpannier]

This is taken from a Guardian Article titled:
10 myths of the UK's far right

There are several points in the article that fit nicely in any locale:

1. Assuming everyone who votes for a fringe right-wing party is a racist. Many people vote for fringe parties because they feel ignored by the mainstream parties. When housing, jobs, etc seem to be of less importance to representatives of the major parties, people look elsewhere to the parties/people who are addressing their needs, their worries.
In fact, as noted in the article, when you base your whole argument on that premise in confirms to the peripheral supporters that their needs are not important to the political elite.

2. 'Tough Talk' keeps these right-wing fringe groups at bay:
Au contraire mon frere it does the opposite. Making immigration a national issue, accusing a minority group of getting special perks, or having lower abilities, playing to jingoism only emboldens and strengthens these fringe groups.
- when the Lib Dems in Tower Hamlets, east London, offered housing for "sons and daughters", it opened the way for the BNP to win a seat in Millwall.
- In 2002, when David Blunkett accused asylum seekers of "swamping" British schools, it did not stop the BNP making its breakthrough in Burnley.
- When the Labour government then decided to "triangulate" BNP voters, the problem spread.
- In 2006, after Margaret Hodge claimed her constituents couldn't get homes for their children because of immigration, the BNP won 11 seats on Barking and Dagenham council.

- The growth of racist, fringe groups proves the failure of multiculturalism
In most countries throughout history the rise of lunatic fringe hate groups rise as they see their purity waning. In one 1950's documentary on Germany, more than 1 in 4 weddings in 1929 in Munich were between a Christian and Jewish German. Wealth is often a greater factor than race in the rise of these groups.
As the economy gets smaller and people go looking for good jobs that are becoming more scarce, racist groups get a bump. In America, poor whites were often told they should be grateful they weren't black. i.e. Starvation may suck, but you'll starve as a white guy.

- Not all right wing groups are fascists, as not all leftists are Stalinists, Communists or Trotskyites.
Allowing the discussion to delve into simplistic rhetoric prevents dealing with the issues that lead to the rise of groups like the BNP in the UK or the American Party in the US. When the economy gets progressively worse and political organizations are unable or unwilling to deal with these issues, people go looking for organizations that will.

[No Elephants]

1. I agree for the most part, but have a bit of embellishment, if you will.

I agree totally that, for example, being a Republican or even a Tea Partier, does not necessarily mean you are a racist. Nor does being a Democrat mean you are not a racist.
On the other hand, I may have a need to look down on someone because my culture does not value me because I am, for example, poor and/or not high in social stratum. And that need may lead me to look down on someone because of race, and/or gender and/or sexual orientation and/or some other factor.

That my bigotry had a socioeconomic cause does not make my bigotry any less real. Then, let's say other people had something to gain from fanning the bigotry of people like me, so my bigoty had rewards and a subculture of its own. If so, my bigotry might well grow and become, for me, unshakeable "reality." It might not disappear if the externals all changed.

Would I be less likely ever to become a bigot if there were plenty of everything to go around for everyone? Not sure.

Seems to me like almost everyone feels a need to feel superior to some "other" for some reason. even if it's only Republicans feeling superior to Democrats and Democrats feeling superior to Republicans.

In the opposite direction, I used to feel inherently inferior to my older sister because she had freckles and wore eyeglasses and I didn't. (That factoid also fits into the "be careful what you wish for" category.)

But, what do I know? I am not a sociologist. That is only my personal, untutored impression of most people.