If you tolerate this...? The BNP are tools.

This is, I guess, a "Guest Post" of sorts. Actually, it's simply a reprinting (with permission, for once) of a comment made on the Green Left discussion list, but we Wombats thought it worth reproducing here and too good an opportunity to miss. (We're in the process of beefing up the posting quality, content and style - less reproductions, more comment. This is just the start...)

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by Duroyan Fertl

Britain's political answer to Homo neanderthalis - the BNP - have proved once again that fascism feeds on the dust left behind by the passage of evolution.

Apparently they can only understand eight words at a time. According to NME:

"The far-right political party were hosting a video on their website, and on a youTube account, under the heading 'The Cesspit Called London' which was soundtracked by the band's 1998 Number One single 'If You Tolerate This, Your Children Will Be Next'.

Ironically, the lyrics to that song concern the International Brigade – the group of volunteers, including Welsh farmers, who went to Spain to fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War."

IRONICALLY!?!? If the knuckle dragging morons actually had the cerebral skill to understand English (now *that's* irony), they might have heard that the song in question is not only dedicated to the struggle against fascism, taking its name from a slogan on an anti-fascist poster from the Spanish Civil War, it also contains one of the best lines ever written in pop music: "So if I can shoot rabbits/ Then I can shoot fascists". YouTube link.

Of course, the Manics - who grew up in Thatcher-loathing working class Wales, living (well the lead singer, anyway) on the same street in Blackwood as Neil Kinnock, played in Cuba in 2001, met Fidel Castro, dedicated an award to the National Union of Mineworkers' Arthur Scargill (and later donated money to his Socialist Labour Party), and knocked the musical shit out of Blair's Nu Labour ("Change your name to New/ Forget the fucking Labour") - demanded that the offending material be taken down, which it was.

While we're on the topic of political commentary in music (viz Stuart's Lily Allen post), the Manics remain - in my opinion - simply the best in that field, over two long decades now... While the sharpest political commentary might not always make the Top of the Pops, sometimes it does:

Suffering a long love-hate relationship with the British music media (which loved to hate them because of their social comentary, their call for revolution, and their criticism of the truly shit noise that passed for the musical output of most of their contemporaries), the Manics released a deliberately "secret" stand-alone single in November 1999.

They forbade their music company from publicising it, allowing it's existence to be known only through their fan base. The record was deleted on the day of release and the song - The Masses Against The Classes - went straight to number one, and stayed there for 16 weeks. 'Nuff said, really.

The Manics have a new album - Journal for Plague Lovers - coming out in May, including left-over lyrics from their former rhythm guitarist, Richey Edwards, who disappeared 14 years ago.

Oh, and this: