The EDL

That's the English Defence League, if you're wondering. In the past few years, various far right groups have sprung up -mostly in the old Soviet Bloc countries and Russia itself- a few have even gained various minor forms of political office but mostly they were dismissed as racists with unnecessarily short haircuts and a bad attitude, you know, "if we ignore them, they'll go away" And by and large, they did go away, or at least, lost interest in their "cause" and faded into the background.
Great. All is well in the world.
Well...........no.
The far right has been experiencing an upturn in popularity in the past 18 months or so, with groups in Italy and France -whilst not being exactly what you would call prominent, they have definitely been making themselves heard, and making themselves known. And most worryingly, they've been gaining support. Which leads me to the EDL. When I first heard of these guys, maybe 18 months ago, they presented themselves as a non-violent organisation opposed to extremism in all it's forms. Sounds good, doesn't it? Ok, I had misgivings about the name and use of overly patriotic/nationalistic imagery -but I thought, you know, that was just me (I'm never one you could accuse of being overly nationalistic, I think it's a silly concept, frankly).

The reality of the EDL is somewhat different. Here's a member opposing extremism in all forms, and without the slightest hint of irony in his actions.

These idiots are nothing more than a rebranding of the old National Front, Nick Griffins foot soldiers.
The sad thing is, people are supporting these "people" and their actions, whether that's due to economic pressure, peer influences or good old fashioned stupidity, I don't know.  But if you're out there on the interweb and happen to run across this, look at that picture and ask yourself if he's who you want to associate yourself with.
Oh, by the way, there's also a Scottish Defence League. I won't be joining. They probably wouldn't want me anyway.

Not even a hint of comedy