A RACIST BASIS FOR BEING ANTI-IMMIGRANT?

Nicholas Watt reports in the The Guardian that the British National Party, with its anti-immigration and anti-foreigner platform, will receive a big boost from having its leader, Nick Griffin, as a guest on BBC Question Time.

"The British National party will receive a pre-general election boost in the opinion polls, ministers fear, after more than 8 million people watched the far-right leader Nick Griffin's appearance on Question Time on Thursday evening."

Nicholas Watt reports on Griffin's subsequent statements:

"In contrast with his emollient remarks to minority ethnic members of the Question Time audience, the BNP leader stridently condemned the decision to record the show in London.

""That audience was taken from a city that is no longer British," he said. "That was not my country any more.

""Why not come down and do it in Thurrock, do it in Stoke, do it in Burnley? Do it somewhere where there are still significant numbers of English and British people and they haven't been ethnically cleansed from their own country.""

Obviously, Griffin is accusing immigrants, especially those from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, of engaging in "ethnic cleansing." As if people of whatever race or ethnicity had no right to enter and live in Britain and be considered "British."

Griffin reminds me of Lou Dobbs of CNN here in the US who rants and rails against Latino immigrants. Underneath all the bluster and complaint, I get the idea that Dobbs' animus towards Latinos is really a prejudice against those of darker complexion than he or who speak a a native language other than English.

AHMADINEJAD CALLS ISRAEL CRUEL AND RACIST

I don't understand the walk-out and protest by several country delegations today during the talk by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the United Nations Conference on Racism. What caused the walk-out was when Ahmadinejad said that Israel was cruel and racist. Can anyone seriously disagree with this statement?

As to being cruel, look at Israel's actions in the three-week attack on Gaza this past January. The shooting of women, the killing of children, the closing of Israel/Gaza crossing points with the result that civilians in Gaza could not flee the bombing and the shelling. The dropping of white phosphorous bombs. The destruction of homes, schools, mosques and even police stations.

As to being racist, Israel seems to want to kill all Palestinians and rid itself of the problem of how to allow non-Jews to live and work within its borders. Consider that Israel will not allow any construction materials into Gaza. This means that the Palestinians whose homes were bombed and destroyed by Israeli war planes are living out in the open or in tents or in their ruined houses. One could reason that Israel wants to get rid of all Palestinians.

So Ahmadinejad calls Israel cruel and racist. Does this allow the hawks and neo-cons in Israel to call for war upon Iran? That's the next call we are going to hear - the call to bomb Teheran, kill all Iranians and establish Israeli hegemony in the Middle East.

REPUBLICAN ATTACK ON OBAMA FOR LIPSTICK REMINDS ME OF SOUTHERN RACISTS ATTACKING BLACK MEN FOR DISRESPECTING WHITE WOMEN BY LOOKING AT THEM

This tempest in a teapot that the McCain people are stirring about Barack Obama and his remark about lipstick reminds me of the experience of many a black youngster in the deep old South. A young white lady walks by, a black man happens to look her way, and all of a sudden, the white Ku Klux Klan is accusing the man of disrespecting the white woman.

There is little difference between McCain coordinator Steve Schmidt's campaign against Obama and the white domination and denigration of blacks in the South.

The lipstick on a pig comment was clearly not directed against Palin, but what if it was? It is harmless enough. She was the one who originally said that lipstick made the difference between a hockey mom and some mean attack dog.

The Republicans under Schmidt are trying to belittle and embarrass Obama into apologizing. But Obama is right, there is nothing to apologize for. It is John McCain and Sarah Palin who should apologize to Barack Obama.

McCain's people are like the racists in the old South who were always trying to put down the uppity Negro.