While Lord Bassington-Bassington tends to find the hairless apes populating planet Earth amusing, there's no denying that this rock orbiting the Sun has its share of idiots. Some of these idiots are members of the dogmatic left (and no, we're not talking about
worker-dandies or other sensible leftists) whose idiocy can lead them to produce blog posts
like this.
So to make matters perfectly clear (readers of normal intelligence can just skip the rest of this post) here's a short statement from Lord Bassington-Bassington.
I AM NOT A FASCIST.
Thank you.
More entertaining posts will appear soon.
To those people the world is either black or white. They haven't heard of the color grey.
ReplyDeleteReading this article you feel Von Thronstahl (a band that is gone too far) is the same thing as Dernière Volonté. And listening to neofolk automatically makes you a facist by association.
I voted left all my life and I don't listen to certain neofolk groups that I think have crossed the line. There are different kind of neofolk fans, some of them, like me, have nothing to do with facism.
It would be naive to think neofolk has nothing at all to do with facism (and I have heard neofolk fans say this). Some bands don't hide their convictions and are really flirting with a certain kind of extreme european nationalism.
BUT it is stupid to say that all neofolk is necessarly facist music. I doubt very much bands like In Gowan Ring have anything to do with facism. Even tough he played with the very controversial Blood Axis.
Precisely. I have addressed the matters on this blog several times. Neofolk is underground music, and like many forms of underground music there's lots of weird stuff going on. This is part of the fun, but there's a line somewhere and Von Thronstahl is way over it. I dislike their music, too.
ReplyDeleteI've had some problems posting a response to those silly accusations, it might very well be technical problems (I am not very tech-savvy, to put it mildly). So I'll post the response here as well.
…
To the author of this blog post:
Today, I did something I’ve never done: Googled my own blog. And found this blog post. While this post would be unintentionally hilarious for anyone who even remotely knows me, or knows of me, for foreigners it might be convincing. Hence, I’ll set the record straight.
“the blog persistently furthers the idea of a better ideal, and that ideal is never multi-cultural.”
This is a blatant lie.
If you had bothered to actually look at my blog, you would see that it supports Sikhs,
(http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.com/2011/09/tartan-tuesday-now-with-turbans.html) and speaks up for Muslims (http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.com/2010/05/norway-now-civilized-country.html) and (http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.com/2008/12/hommage-asad.html). There’s even a separate tag called “Islamic insights”, dammit! I also speak up for other maligned and misunderstood religious minorities, like Thelemites, Satanists, Neo-Pagans and Mormons (http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.com/2009/12/queen-of-eldritch-horror.html)
I’ve also made it perfectly clear where I stand politically.
http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.com/2010/01/neofolk-politics-and-metapolitics.html
http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.com/2011/08/welcome-back.html
Yes, much of this is silly, but so is the entire blog. That someone would attempt some sort of political exegesis of a blog written by someone pretending to be a drooling, droopy Basset hound is bizarre enough, but that this political analysis didn’t even bother to take into account any of the actual political/religious writing on the blog is beyond understanding.
I tend to like old-fashioned things and as Lord Bassington-Bassington is a kind of parody – exaggeration, if you will – of myself I think it’s important to put in some balance to avoid confusion.
http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.com/2009/01/toast-to-progress-part-ii.html
http://lordbassingtonbassington.blogspot.com/2009/01/toast-to-progress.html
I don’t really understand how I could make such things even more clear, apart from posting articles saying “I AM NOT A FASCIST” daily.
It's a problem with two sides.
ReplyDeleteThe idiots outside the neofolk scene trying to hunt closet facists (like we care if someone is secretely a facist). Those people are exactly what they pretend to "hunt". People with an agenda, ready to use propaganda and disinformation to stir shit and shut up people with different opinions.
But really the source of the problem is the people inside the neofolk scene. These people know exactly the symbols they are playing with. And these are the people who have made neofolk what it now is.
Reminds me of a Douglas Pearce, wearing proudly a certain mustache a few months ago. Its just childish... and pointless.
Maybe I lost my naivety about this music. But I feel neofolk has lost the poetic ambiguity it had when it began. Anyway, where I saw some sort of poetic ambiguity or second level of meaning I don't see much anymore.
That's what I love about your blog by the way. You keep it a neutral ground where the important thing is music. And please continue in this direction. That's what neofolk needs.
Thanks for those words. Yes, I agree. There are people who try to use neofolk for political purposes, but luckily they make crappy music.
ReplyDeleteThe whole ambiguity thing has been done to death, and uniforms rarely look good on people who aren't in the military. I do make an exception for Douglas P., though - for me he is some sort of cultural institution who should be preserved exactly as he is, and he stands above his imitators like Elvis stands above Elvis impersonators.
The future for neofolkers is turning into gentlemen (and ladies).
Leaving aside the question of whether an entire genre of music can possibly have one unified political current for a moment, I take issue with PD's assertion that,
ReplyDelete'the blog persistently furthers the idea of a better ideal, and that ideal is never multi-cultural.'
I'm not going to comment on the content of your blog for the moment, Lord BB, but rather express my sadness that hoping for better is somehow seen as fascistic. I strive for a better ideal and, no, my ideal is not multicultural. Multiculturalism is a divisive ethos which separates people along cultural lines. This in turn masks the real divisions of society: class. Multi-culturalism is the polar opposite of everybody rubbing along together in perfect harmony. It encourages segregation, unfairness, inequality and racism hence the reality that multiculturalism is in fact the preserve of the right.
The liberal left's obsession with identity politics is shameful. No wonder the working class ridicules them. We simply want fair treatment for all.
Thanks for the comments, my dear Worker-Dandy. To be better and live in a better society is what we all hope for, I guess. And of course there is nothing inherently Fascistic about that.
ReplyDeleteAnyone who can look at my humble Chronicles and see a fascist blog has to either deliberately ignore almost anything remotely political on it, be unable to read (though I’ll admit the writing on this blog isn’t exactly crystal clear) or be absolutely blinded by dogma. I don’t know what I think is worst.
While I’m not a Marxist and tend to think Marxist-inspired thinkers tend to overstate class, class IS a reality (I’m just reading Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier, incidentally) and I share your distaste for multiculturalist ideology. But flawed and (let’s admit it) apartheid-like that that ideology is, a reality where different cultures rub shoulders is not something I freak out about. My beloved Norway has always been multi-religious and multi-cultural. The idea that Norway is now terribly different because we have a tiny percentile of the population who are Muslims (whether practicing Islam or just being called Mohammed) and/or have darker skin tone is, to my mind, a lie that both the anti-racist left and the anti-immigration/islam right both perpetuate.
Especially after 22/7, which was intended as the first shot in a sort of civil war, Norwegians need to get along, whatever our faith (or lack of such), political inclination and skin tone. I haven’t been politically active in many years, but have become so after the tragedy of Utøya. I am a patriot, and I reject anyone trying to make Norwegians take up arms against each other.
Here's a link, if you'll permit, to a far more eloquent case against multiculturalism and identity politics than my gin-sodden brain can manage.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.iwca.info/?p=10146
Thanks! I'll read it tonight. For some reason, my favourite critics of multiculturalist ideology (Keenan Malik, for instance) come from the left.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I'm looking at your blog in both IE and Firefox and the background seems to have gone haywire; ie it's the dark brown wallpaper throughout so the text is almost invisible.
ReplyDeleteYes, I am aware of this problem and will try to have it fixed.
ReplyDeleteOh, and I have now read the article you recommended. While I'm not in full agreement with the class things in it (not being a leftist myself), the critique of the failings of the left is spot-on. The blog seems to represent the kind of leftists I grew up around, the type who would defend what is best about the West (even if they had an unfortunate tendency to romanticize dictatorships).
ReplyDeleteThe comment field was hilarious, the notion that the EDL is a Zionist plot is so silly. I mean, if the Jews were as powerful and clever as anti-Semites would have you believe, surely they wouldn't have their front groups wave Israeli flags?
The very act of denial is somehow suspect. And you know to what I'm referring.
ReplyDeleteAs it is, it looks as if some weak-hearted chaps are starting to hedge their bets.
Are you guilty of crimethink?
No, I don't get you.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure some people don't like my opinions on a range of subjects - politics (slightly right wing), religion (atheist but with respect for decent religious people) and footwear (preferably with full leather soles). That is fine. But I prefer to be criticized for my actual opinions, not for what people fancy that my opinions are. It makes for better debate, and saves time.
Also, being accused of somehow being an ideological comrade of Anders Behring Breivik is not much fun. I've spent a lot of time criticizing opinions such as he holds.
LBF: It's early in the morning, and I typed something before I've had my first cup of coffee. This is always a bad idea.
ReplyDeleteI've woken up a bit more now, and I think I see what you're getting at. And you're mistaken. I'm not hedging my bets because of what happened last summer, if that's what you're implying. If you look at the history of this blog, you'll see that it has consistently rejected the sort of worldview it's been accused of supporting. One of the first posts published was a rejection of anti-Muslim sentiment, for example. I mean, there's a separate tag for "Islamic Insights", for heaven's sake.
This has nothing to do with fear of "crimethink" or being "faint-hearted", it has to do with what I happen to believe and has believed for a number of years.