Being Unreasonable

A while ago I wrote a post in which I urged us liberal leftie types to stop pussy footing around right wing extremists and religious fruitcakes and instead take them on at their own game: by being unreasonable back to them. My inspiration was the BBC reporter who ranted and raged at the Scientologists. He had the right idea, if they try and shout you down, shout back louder. If they abandon logic, just shout gibberish back at them. Preferably gibberish interspersed wit a few catchy phrases which will stick in the public consciousness. If you hear these nuts on a radio phone in spreading their bile, phone in and reply in kind. I'm happy to say that people in the public eye are finally beginning to came around to my way of thinking. Only yesterday I saw Billy Bragg on TV telling an interviewer that we need to 'fight fire with fire' with regard to right wing racist bigots. Right on! Throw some bricks through their windows and see how they like it. Organise mobs of multi-racial liberals to wave placards saying things like 'Racist Bastards' and 'White Trash', whilst shouting abuse, outside their houses.

It's not just Billy Bragg. A couple of weeks ago I stumbled home from the pub and switched on the telly to find myself confronted with the sight of Keith Allen hurling expletives at the Westboro Baptists (the US loonies who go around disrupting the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq on the grounds that they had been fighting for a country which has legalised and endorsed the 'evil' of homosexuality). I only caught the last five minutes of this documentary, so I don't know whether he did this through the entire programme, or whether it was an isolated incident. Knowing Keith Allen, I suspect it was the former. I could almost feel sorry for the Westboro Baptists. Having already had Louis Theroux wandering around their set-up looking bemused, they probably thought Allen was just another of those eccentric bumbling Brits. Little did they know, he's one of Britain's biggest arseholes. Nevertheless, despite generally disliking Keith Allen (despite having a soft spot for his daughter Lily), there's no denying that when he harnesses his obnoxiousness to demolishing appalling bigots like these, no self-respecting liberal can do anything other than applaud him.

But does all this mean that Sleaze Diary's influence is spreading? Actually, I find the idea of Keith Allen reading this blog deeply disturbing. However, on the off-chance that we do exert some kind of influence, I'm going to propose some more anti-bastard measures. Taking a leaf out of the 'Economic League's' book (they were a right-wing 'think tank' who maintained a database of left-wing 'subversives' - trade union activists, left wing lecturers, etc - presumably in preparation for that right wing military coup, when they'd all be interned in concentration camps and/or shot), I think we on the left need to start doing the same thing with regard to the racists, fascist and conservatives. Indeed, we should go further and take a leaf out of the pro-life and animal rights nutters' books, by posting their details publicly on the web. That's right, let's see how they like having their addresses made available to every nutter in creation...