Fuck Politeness

So for a long time now I’ve been thinking about doing this kind of blog, political rants and arguments, hopefully amusing.

One of the things that put me off (apart from my aforementioned laziness) was the issue of safety. A friend of a friend had a left wing blog/website, and was copping some pretty nasty death threats from Neo Nazi groups. There were a few stories in the media about arrests of Neo Nazis and death threats they’d made to left wing writers. 

Now on the one hand I don’t flatter myself that my writing is of any particular significance. On the other hand – these dudes appear to be crazy and I don’t think they weigh things up on a rational basis…before deciding you should die.  

So – anyway, one of my concerns was keeping my anonymity. Which I think I may already have blown. But this is beside the point. It got me to thinking…left wing people are always portrayed as radical and dangerous, and yet – and feel free to contradict me with some evidence – you so rarely hear of left wing death threats against right wing writings.

And also there’s something about how left or right wing the writings need to be before attracting threats of violence.  A left wing blog joking around and taking the piss out of current politics, and advocating zany ideas like “Hey kids, discrimination ain’t cool” garners significant numbers of scary loonies making nasty threats. A similar level of “right wing-ness” to me would be most mainstream news articles whereby anyone claiming that there has been a whitewash of history is derided as being a lunatic, as deluded…or am I crazy?

Actually, you know that’s even *more* right wing.  The left wing argument that everyone should have access to fundamental services and be treated with respect is, it would appear to me, rational, inoffensive and doesn’t harm anyone. The right wing news article slamming anyone who contests official history is offensive to those writers/academics who have challenged the dominant view (in that they are being called stupid/ignorant/deluded etc), and more importantly is massively disrespectful to the stories of those people challenging the dominant stories of history, who are asking to be heard, and for their experiences to be recognized. 

So…getting back to the point…take these two as equivalent (even thought they are not equivalent in their impact and offensiveness and the reach of their ideas, and that’s another point worthy of its own post)… there are death threats leveled at the left wing group. But when’s the last time you heard of one of the many, many right wing “opinions” columnists or “historians” (ahem) – who slag off those daring to challenge the dominant stories of national history – being bombarded with death threats by a left wing group?

Now I’m sure there are isolated incidences, but it seems that right wing groups are much more interested in menace as a tactic, than left wing groups. And yet everyone panics at a left wing protest. 

So to take a reasonable point and reduce it to a smart arse one liner – is this the evidence we’ve all been waiting for? That right wing=crazy fuckers?? Are they, as a group statistically more inclined to be a little bit ‘insane in the membrane’? Well, sorry kids, I’ve got no conclusion. Just like starting arguments. For that to happen I’d actually have to have a reader or two. Perhaps I should alert the nearest Neo Nazi group.  Anyway, on a completely unrelated and tangential note:(the LOTR reference in the title is the link) check out the link below if you’re interested. A vid of Legolas and Aragorn set to “Hungry Eyes” – so, so good. It’s a romance meant to be. Epic. Oh boy, now that would be a vid worth watching. Gonna go ponder that some more and leave you to check it out (or not) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbstkXowlAc Hope the link works, as previously mentioned, not great with tech stuff    

Tags: death threats, extremism, history, left wing, Lord of the Rings, neo-nazis, protest, respect, right wing