Curious designs (or how the devil may be in the advocate who argues that change is all we need)

Alex posts this tonight.  He argues that the BNP are a shameless mob.  But the fit between the nationalist appeals of the BNP - not their policies, their discourse - and the country-lovin' appeals of the Obama Democrats (well, any Americans come to that) is really not all that dissimilar.  The BNP version of the website in question currently quotes Churchill thus:

"We will defend our island, whatever the cost may be.  We will never surrender."

These are stirring words, but navel-gazing nevertheless.  The splendid isolationism which has often characterised Anglo-Saxon politics can only exist on such island spaces.  The UK and US both can afford to contemplate the luxury of distance because the UK and US both are - in their own very different ways - substantially island peoples.

If the BNP can effectively "steal" Obama's visuals, it is only because at some level Obama's visuals easily fit the BNP narrative.  And that it is so easy for the BNP to wear Obama's clothing is something that perhaps should worry us on a quite different level.  "Organising for America" sounds great when from its overbearing archness you discount the necessary patriotism - bordering on jingoism - which tends to infuse any American political discourse.  But if you transpose such patriotic fervour to the UK, then it all begins to sound frighteningly different.

The power of appeal to ordinary citizens, in the hands of someone I believe is as honest, good and decent as Obama, is something we can all use to the betterment of a wider society.  But once these structures are in place, once other oppositions learn the lessons, once these powerful channels of communication are replicated by those whose objectives are quite different from those we would wish to achieve ... well, then the matter becomes quite another.

Then we realise that every bright side has a dark side, every gain a potential loss, every two steps forward a necessary stumble back.

Every sword is double-edged.

Obama's appeal to the people is thus potentially as frightening as the BNP's threat to stand up for Great Britain.

Not because of Obama himself and what he and his team would like to achieve now.  Rather because of who might follow in the future, who might apply the lessons even more effectively, who might use the discourse to then massively undo the achievements.

You may use emotion to enthuse the masses.  The question is to what purpose do you then put that enthusiasm?  And can you even control it once the masses get a taste for it?  The BNP think they can.  In a virtual world, cheaply and two-dimensionally narrated, they may be right.  Change is a simple idea.  They say the devil is in the detail.  But, these days, the devil may finally be in the advocate who argues that change is all we need.