I'm ashamed to be half English*

After spending the morning not quite being able to take in the fact that my region will now be represented at the European level by a man who believes that The Holocaust was actually just a big fat porky pie made up by a bunch of Jew-loving bleeding heart lefties...(fuck. he really did get in.)...I signed into farcebook to discover that the burning issue at hand, according to one Manchester 'radical', is not the election of a right-wing fascist as a Member of European Parliament, but the fact that the anti-BNP Hope Not Hate campaign was set up by the Daily Mirror.

Let's take a look at this point by point:

1. Anyone capable of setting up and logging onto an online networking site is also capable of using Google...and a simple one page search will reveal that this 'hidden mastermind' of the HnH campaign has in fact been running it openly for three years. Ah - so the conspiracy theory begins to fray. [SFX: faint but persistant sound of a barrel being scraped]
   
2. Isn't it so much easier to rail against everything and everyone than to have to deal with differences while trying to keep your eye on the bigger goal? That's a leading question, sure. I'm no big Mirror fan, but even angry knee-jerk I can see that every time people with a common interest (like, um, not living in a fascist state) begin ripping each other apart for simple sport we. are. doomed.
   
3. The BNP may be simplistic racists, small minded bigots, and hatemongers, but they aren't stupid. They see an open door (cheers for that New Labour) and they walk through it. Easy. Everytime I hear someone laughing about their 21 year old crew cut councillors, I shudder. The punchline to the joke falls flat when they just keep getting elected.
   

So why bother writing this at all? Another pointless tirade, directed elsewhere, using up energy.

Well, the energy is there, crawling under my skin. I feel sick. I feel angry.

And I suppose writing here is part of my recent attempts to grow up a little and resist responding directly to inflammatory emails/listserv posts/hysterics posing as politically astute citizens.

For the next five years at least, it's pretty clear that we've got a much bigger problem on our hands than conspiracy theories and the vested interest of the Daily Mirror.

Anyway, dear readers...if tirades aren't your bag, you really should've learned by now to stay away.

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Canadian translation section:

BNP = British National Party.............."rights for whites" etc...think Ralph Klein, worse, with an English accent

Daily Mirror = redtop tabloid paper. Sample headline: "Horny rhino falls in love with car"

Who is this guy she's talking about? = Nick Griffin, BNP leader, and now representative of the North West of England.

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*quoted from Mancunian poet Mike Garry's poem of the same title. If I could remember or find the whole poem, I'd post it here. He's more eloquent than I with his rage.