Director Spike Lee in an interview with Jeremy Paxman hits the nail on the head.

Paxo – “That doesn’t mean he does it because the President is black though is it?”

Spike – “Look, how long have you been Black?”

“I’ve never been Black”

“Thankyou very much so from someone whose been living in America for 2 years and whose ancestors were slaves for a hundred years, I’m trying to answer your question, racism still exists in the United States of America”

Theres a lot of things Socialists can criticise about Obama, but so far most attacks on him have come from the Conservative and Far-Right in the United States and a lot of it is based on racism.

For example – accusing him of being Kenyan born and not a US citizen, being a jihadist Muslim and that he has a “deep seated hatred of white people”. That last charge comes from Glenn Beck, a Fox News professional psycho who makes Bill O’Reilly look like Tony Benn by comparison.

Obama is probably gonna sell out on his health reforms because he doesn’t have the will or the ability to take on the US Health Insurance lobby. Even if his reforms did go ahead, it would not be the incorporation of private healthcare into a National, Universal, free of charge Health System which every other first world country apart from the USA enjoys.

Nevertheless when Obama is attacked by the right on racist and pro-market grounds it’s important Socialists respond to and rebut their arguments as the Obama camp has been useless at doing so, particularly over healthcare.

Still maybe Spike is a bit harsh, there will be a significant section of opposition to Obama which might not be racist but just nuts – like the one third of New Jersey Conservatives who think Obama is the antichrist

District 9 is a film I have been excited about for months now.

South African director Neill Blomkamp and producer Peter Jackson (of Lord of the Rings fame) have made a tale of an alien ship that becomes stranded hovering over a near future Johannesburg. The main part of the film takes place 20 years after their arrival, and the aliens are confined to a disgusting slum outside the city, with legal segregation from the human population enforced by a massive corporation and its paramilitary mercenaries, Multi National United (MNU).

What excited me about the film was the possible combination of exciting visual effects and action with an intelligent and original sci fi story using allegorical aliens to discuss South Africa’s difficult racial history and present.

The final result certainly lived up to all my hopes in terms of an action sci fi adventure. However, its stand politically with regards to racism left a bit to be desired.

Visually, District 9 is probably the best example of a certain kind of film making that has been infecting cinema for around a decade now-cinema verite style shaky cameras. Starting with the Blair Witch Project through Cloverfield, the Bourne films and even the new TV incarnation of Battlestar Galactica, the faux documentary has been used with varying success. The thing that makes it work in District 9 is that it intercuts this with interviews with various corporate heads, academics and local people giving it the feel of a real documentary.

The talking heads introduce the starting point of the film-the forced relocation of the aliens by MNU to a virtual concentration camp in the wilderness. Leading this effort is Wikus van der Meurwe (Sharlto Copley), a South African office bureaucrat charged with overseeing the operation. Wikus isn’t one of the terrifyingly played white mercenaries of the company, but he is still a casual racist who openly refers to the aliens by the derogatory name of “Prawns”, and isn’t afraid to ruthlessly enforce human domination over the aliens. He’s the type of ordinary, unremarkable man that could easily have been a member of the Gestapo or indeed an enforcer of Apartheid.

The story of the film involves Wikus in a cathartic transformation that leads him to seeing things from the aliens’ perspective and ending up fighting alongside one of them who has been covertly preparing the way for them to be able to finally leave Earth. Whilst never becoming a fully good guy, Wikus is compelled by self interest to see things in a new way.

One thing that makes me really hopeful about this film is that it was, both visually and in the story, very original, but was made for what is, by the standards of Hollywood blockbusters, a modest $30 million. It proves that the current obsession with remakes, reboots and flogging dead horses in sci fi cinema really is a result of laziness rather than some total failure of creativity.

The problem I had with this film is that the director’s political position remains pretty opaque. The aliens themselves live in a disgusting rubbish dump, where they brawl, steal and get high on cat food. It’s difficult at first to view them sympathetically, which obviously raises questions about them as allegorical representations of black people. Ultimately, their hope for salvation from this situation lies in the actions of a (somewhat) enlightened outsider, and a lone intelligent leader. It’s at least implied in the film that the quasi-insectoid aliens operate in a caste-like way, and that most of their leaders are dead, leaving them shiftless slum dwellers.

But, on the other hand, it is necessary to make aliens feel alien, and as the film progresses we do get drawn into the world of District 9 and the daily grind and oppression faced by the aliens. All the action takes place in real world locations in Johannesburg. As director Blomkamp says:

“In my opinion, the film doesn’t exist without Jo’burg. It’s not like I had a story, and then I was trying to pick a city. It’s totally the other way around. I actually think Johannesburg represents the future. What I think the world is going to become looks like Johannesburg.”

The real problem lies with the depiction of the Nigerian gangsters who have moved in to exploit the aliens. They are brutal, exploitative and violent. Fair enough, they’re gangsters. What is pretty disgusting is that they are obsessed with gaining the power of the aliens, employing “witch doctors” and eating raw alien organs in pursuit of their technology. On top of this we’re told they run prostitution rings to “service the aliens sexually.” Black people who are superstitious and sexually voracious? Sounds depressingly familiar from over a century of Hollywood’s stereotypes.

Apartheid is constantly visually referenced in the film with signs such “For humans only” over much of the city. But the ability of the film to be any kind of an intelligent comment on Apartheid and current South Africa is pretty fatally undermined by the obviously questionable racial stereotypes it has of human black people.

However, apart from probably the other (relatively) low budget underdog Moon, District 9 definitely is the best sci fi release of the year, and one of the best in a good while. The evil corporation truly are racist capitalist and evil, and watching them getting attacked by incredible alien weaponry is pretty thrilling to watch. District 9 definitely shows it’s still possible to make an exciting, original and intelligent sci fi blockbuster without spending the GDP of a small country. My only qualification would be that it wasn’t as intelligent or politically progressive as I was hoping for. Its definitely one to go see in the cinema, as long as you’re thinking critically about some of the things it puts across, and really gives me hope for the future of science fiction film making.

The Mock The Week team. Just out of shot, death camps.

Well, not exactly. BNP head honcho has been invited on to Question Time. It’s not unsurprising – the BNP got 6% of the vote, almost a million voters backing them and 2 MEP’s to the European Parliament. It was the first time a fascist party has won national representation.

Griffins like a Tyrannosaur, his vision is based on movement

The BNP may have been shut out of the media 10 years ago, as a fringe racist party increasingly they’re getting coverage above and beyond their vote.

After failing his joint honours in Sports Science and Art at Paisley tech, layabout student Hitler was invited on to Call My Bluff. 4 years later he started a war of annihilation on two fronts

BBC Radio had an hour long phone in in on the BNP during the Euro Elections, where callers were allowed to make racist attacks unchallenged – apart from the incompetent radio host who took a while to remember/be told Griffin had a conviction for inciting racial hatred.

Nick showing a cheeky bit of man boob here in a tight white t shirt.

Thats what people should remember in the “freedom of speech” debate – freedom of speech should not include freedom to incite violence or hate against someone, regardless of whether or not it’s been giving a Nazi PR job.

Nobody on the BBC would consider giving a spot on desert island discs to a radical Islamist preacher on the basis that their organisation was technically legal.

And the tabloid press didn’t defend the right of Islamic fundamentalists to march through London condemning the west on the basis of “freedom of speech”. Neither did they Iranian regimes disgusting Holocaust denial cartoons. In fact an Arab group is facing criminal charges for distributing a cartoon denying the Holocaust

And the reason for that is quite simple – most people in the UK don’t accept people who support blowing them up on tubes, discriminating against them on the basis of religion etc should have the freedom to organise to make that vision a reality.

So why should Black, Gay, Muslim etc people sit back and let people who want to deport, firebomb, and persecute them have their “freedom of speech”?

That’s still the aim of the BNP despite their “modernisation”. Griffin still says he wants to return the UK to it’s “white” status before WW2. He now argues he is against forcing blacks to leave by compulsion – the previous BNP policy – but says BNP policy now is “assisted repatriation”.

The fact is though that millions of Black and Asian people aren’t going to return to their “countries of origin” no matter how much they are paid. How many Scottish Catholics would go back to Ireland, rip up their connections to family and friends, and start again in a whole new country?

Imagine that suggestion for third generation Pakistanis – not only would they be moving to a country thats totally different from the UK, but where they would almost certainly have a lower standard of living than here.

The only way to return the UK to being 99% white is through intimidation and discrimination against ethnic minorities. No other method will achieve the goal of an all-white UK, and the BNP know it.

The BNP still want to ethnically cleanse the UK, they are just a lot more “New Labour” about selling themselves. If there’s one thing Socialists should watch wi Nick Griffin in it, it’s this you tube video where he outlines quite well the BNP strategy of rebranding themselves.

Griffin – talking to KKK members – outlines how he is interesting in “sellling the BNPs” ideas, not “selling them out”. He correctly argues that no one will back deporting all black people today, but in the future if their ideas hold sway this goal could be achieved later.

Some folk think that sticking Nick Griffin on Newsnight, Question Time etc will do harm to the BNP as their ideas can be challenged. But the reality is the BNP have had media coverage by the truckload and their balance sheet from it is overwhelmingly positive.

Griffin may be a racist, a fascist but he is also extremely able and articulate in phrasing his ideas and message in a sellable form. He has taken the far-right out of the back rooms of pubs and into the European Parliament.

He will be able to incite hatred against the Muslim population of the UK if he is allowed on Question Time. People who want to deny the freedom to exist free from fear of racist violence for millions of people in the UK shouldn’t have the freedom of the airwaves.

Of course denying the BNP airtime won’t stop them. It’s probably too late in many areas, where the BNP have substantial local support.

The BNP have to be beaten in their strongholds in England by Socialists campaigning for decent jobs, houses, education and freedom from crime for many of the people who currently vote BNP, and change the frame of the political debate so its the bankers who have stolen billions who face the heat, not immigrants and Muslims.

But where the BNP are weak, in Scotland for example, they should be confronted. That doesn’t mean bricking them, but it does mean using your right of freedom of speech to politely tell anyone who is going to take a BNP leaflet that one war against fascism should be enough.

But he looks evil! And he’s not white! What happened to British Justice, blah blah Diana, blah blah Gordon Brown blah blah PC gone mad

Muslims – remember, even if a court and a jury finds them innocent, they’re still probably guilty.

Nick Griffin / Tony from Dinnerladies

It has today been revealed that recently elected British National Party MEP Nick Griffin has run into difficulties with taking his seat in the European Parliament.

The British National Party, known for “not being racist, honest”, had two of its members elected in the recent European elections. Andrew Brons, elected in the Yorkshire and Humber constituency, has already taken his seat despite initial problems finding which part of “foreign” the parliament was in.

Problems arose for Mr Griffin shortly after the election when he was required to travel to Brussels. Despite initial excitement over his election, the party leader has repeatedly said that he “doesn’t want to go” because he “won’t know anyone”. Even though he has been told that lots of people at the parliament would be new, Griffin has stuck to his guns and refuses to go. The mother of the “not racist”, Mrs Ethel Griffin (102), told us yesterday how it wasn’t the first time her son had acted in such a manner:

“He’s always been like this. I remember the first time he was supposed to go out with his friends to shout abuse at Asian families. He moaned all morning that it would be rubbish and that he didn’t want to go. Of course, when I finally managed to persuade him he had a whale of a time and needless to say he’s been at it nonstop since then!”

The European Parliament recognises that after each election many of its members will be new and possibly not familiar with their colleagues or their surroundings. For this reason the first session after elections begins by all members saying their name, their favourite food and an interesting fact about themselves. This is then translated into all of the EU’s 23 official languages and is followed by lemonade and Jaffa Cakes.

Even with these measures in place, Griffin still refuses to attend parliament. The British National Party has issued a statement saying that they are “doing all they can to resolve the situation and are not racist, honest”. Griffin himself refuses to comment and so an empty seat remains at Brussels for the foreseeable future.

“In one of the statements, John Doe 2, who worked for Blackwater for four years, alleged that Mr Prince “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe” and that his companies “encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life”.