THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

PARTIES: NICK GRIFFIN AT CLEMSON | nationalsalvation.net

Mr. Griffin is head of the British National Party.

I drove a hundred miles or so and stayed at the motel overnight to hear Nick at Clemson, South Carolina. Nick was so tired he could hardly make the speech, but it was still worth it.

He was only able to afford to take one bodyguard with him, my buddy who looks like a Sherman tank's big brother, and they are going to Detroit next, where there will be trouble.

I listened to Nick, not just as the ideologue I am, but also as one who made his living in practical politics. There was rot in it, but the rot interested me. He said "It's not about race," but I have written the same thing in speeches for dozens of congressmen, senators, and the president.

That's politics, gang!

Lincoln can be quoted as taking every position from condoning slavery to black suffrage. Picking apart speeches is not important. Elections take place in REAL TIME, so you write for the time you are in.

Mr. Griffin said that the BNP got total of 500,000 votes recently and elected 44 local officers.

I know all about picking those figures apart.

Still, I was overwhelmed.

The American perspective can be useful to you in this respect. We are in a better position to see the progress of electoral revolution.

In your parliamentary system a party which is in the minority, even if it is enormous, appoints as many ministers as a party which consists entirely of one person in the loony bin, i.e., none. So electoral grassroots rebellion is not an ongoing theme there.

Here, everything from graduated taxes to prohibition to abolition showed up in minority parties, TINY minority parties, before it became national policy. The Free Soil Party, which was the predecessor to the Republicans, got about one percent of the votes in 1848.

Your 500,000 would be a giant in that process. I believe half the electorate stayed home, which would make the 500,000 casting a vote for SOME office for BNP as much as 3 or 4 percent of the electorate.

Remember, each person doing that is forfeiting his vote on the major parties, so it is quite a long way to go. The conventional wisdom is that if you vote for a minor party, you are "throwing away your vote."

But big parties only address marginal issues.

In American history, the only people who USED their vote to make any difference were the ones who cast it for minor parties, for those parties represent the big issues of the future. Believe me, real politicians NOTICE if one percent "throw away their votes" on a single issue!

The BNP is well on its way.