Owen Jones

I’m pleased because at the least the truth will come out now.

So it turns out that it was just mindless male violence. Quelle surprise, men behaving badly.

Not a targeted homophobic hate crime.

Weird that OJ hasn't come out and said that, as bad as it was that he was attacked, transmen (or even all transgender people) of course have it worse.

This was his comment when one of the lesbians who were attacked on a London bus used their platform to draw attention to how men who identify as women have it worse than lesbians.

"This is so inspiring. One of the women attacked in the homophobic, misogynistic bus attack writes an amazing piece challenging transphobia, racism, and capitalism itself. It ends by asking us to remember three murdered trans women of colour. Amazing".

And yet when Jones is attacked, there's no hint of using that platform to challenge transphobia, racism and capitalism. He is not asking us to remember murdered trans people of colour.

I wonder why that is, since he lauds bloodied women for calling attention to how some males have it worse. Inspiring, apparently.

And yet he won't do it himself.

Such a bad thing, to be against people doing dangerous experiements on our kids eh.

Also was sorry to hear of the attack though. I would say I hpoe he recovers soon but he seems recovered already, though maybe not in his head as I know when I was assaulted as a teen, my head was fucked up for a while and I was so jumpy and that. Glad to hear of the arrest. If it was as close to a pb as it sounds, the cctv should have caught it so it makes it 'better' that it was there, rather than in an alley or something. I use better as, well I can't think of another way to put that.

Good news indeed - I'm glad they've made arrests.

Once again - Owen, I may not agree with a lot of what you say, but I was very saddened to hear you'd been attacked. That should not happen to anyone.

I'm glad they have been able to bring some people in for this. 3 arrested, though the news reports were that 4 were involved in the assault.

BBC News - Owen Jones: Three arrested over London pub assault
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49515313

Yes, it should be a no-brainer that an assault on anyone is awful. We are dealing with manipulative liars though, so we have to spell it out: twatting Owen Jones or anyone else is shitty behaviour.

Decent people already live by those widely accepted social norms to not have to issue verbal disclaimers as they pass through life.

It's more that decent people assume that even their political opponents will not excuse and minimise violence when they get beaten up. AWAs celebrated the assault on Maria and openly discuss murdering and battering us, yet at the the same time they accuse us of wanting trans people to die. Our opponents are not decent people and will smear us at every turn. Silence would be deliberately misconstrued as approval because they do not obey normal social and political rules of engagement, so we have to speak out in condemnation, because we do not approve and I for one will not sit silent whilst they smear me.

Certainly in my case Buzz I am at least partially making my statement to contrast with the comments of Mr Jones regarding violence by others towards people whose views he disagrees with

My (earlier) point is if your mate got beaten up, you wouldn't feel obliged to stand up and make a formal statement so she or he knew you officially condemned people being beaten up before you got on with helping them. Ditto a stranger on the street.

Decent people already live by those widely accepted social norms to not have to issue verbal disclaimers as they pass through life.

Yet here we have poster after poster doing exactly that.

All violence, however it was motivated, is to be condemned without question or prevarication. Every. Single. Time.

I dislike Owen Jones intensely and try to spend as little time as possible thinking about him.

These statements are not contradictory.

It doesn't actually matter whether he's exaggerating, or how bad it was. Violence - whether a huge beating or a small one which "could have been worse" or even the mere threat of it (online rape threats for instance) - creates a climate of intimidation which is the opposite of the openess needed for a fair and just society to function. We shouldn't get drawn into debates about how bad it was, whether he's exaggerating, whether it was in fact right wingers, or homophobes, or just lairy blokes on a night out - it's all wrong.

(I am distinguishing my emotional response which is, frankly, rather underwhelming in this instance, due to OJ being so happy to remain silent about the violence directed towards gender critical women, from my political response, which is that regardless of how I personally feel about the victim, the violence itself is wrong, wrong, wrong.)

I would guess: not an organised attack, but some drunk and lairy people who disagree with him politically. Like, they spotted him, went "Oi, there's that wanker" and landed a few punches. It seems like he was specifically singled out from among his friends, so it makes sense to assume that has something to do with his public persona.

So more of a drunken scuffle than a full on beating, hence him not being particularly badly injured. I don't see a lot of reason to doubt his story. And much as I dislike Owen Jones I can forgive a bit of exaggeration if it's happening, because i'm pretty sure if something like that happened to me I would be exaggerating the hell out of it. Not even consciously, it's just that for a person who isn't physically violent an event like that is very high drama.

The authoritarian left aren't normal rational people.

No, that's true.

My feeling though is this need to preface things has become very weird really, we've become generally habituated to making them. Often IME not to separate ourselves from radical leftists but to appease certain leftists. It's like a habit.

Thank you for the link, very apt! I hadn't heard of the Knight Templar trope before.

'Blinded by themselves and their ideals' reaching the point of 'tyrannical sociopathy' about nails it.

But normal, rational people aren’t bigots, homophobes, transphobes or endorsers of violence as a starting point.

The authoritarian left aren't normal rational people. I say this as a life-long trade unionist and socialist who despairs of my so-called fellow travellers. Antifa and their ilk are not rational people, they are a kind of cult. They have become the thing they claim to despise: violent, intolerant and bigoted (see dictionary for actual meaning of "bigot" meaning one who refuses to listen to opposing views), and authoritarian. The Knight Templar trope applies here.

I think he was really assaulted, in all likelihood but I also don't think it's wrong to ask questions when a persons' story doesn't seem to make sense. That doesn't apply just to OJ.

What Buzz and Floisme said. When women complain about sexual assault and harassment and identify acts (such as knee touching) that are individually ambiguous as forming part of a pattern of male entitlement and abuse, we get gaslit to hell and back. We mustn't gaslight others.

BuzzShitbagBobbly - couldn't agree more!

I’ve realised why I am getting so narked with all the pp saying how they abhor violence and that they wish it hadn’t happened and how awful blah blah.

Because this is just yet another example where we have to “prove” something blindingly obvious for the record.

I don’t recall any instance of anyone here wishing physical harm on OJ, or issuing threats of violence or rape or murder. Not one museum exhibit of weapons we’d use to smash his heads in Not one t shirt saying “kill LOJ”. Not one Tweet saying “OJ needs to DIAF”

Yet time and time again we feel obliged to preface anything we say with “of course I am against violence”, or “I am 100% not homophobic” or whatever.

But normal, rational people aren’t bigots, homophobes, transphobes or endorsers of violence as a starting point. We don’t go through the real world making advance preliminary statements about everything to prove we are not xxx-ist or yyy-phobic.

It‘s only in this climate, where violence and threats are routinely given out to us by aggressive, entitled activists, that we have to differentiate ourselves from it. Because by not saying it they assume we are just like them.

Fuck that.

He’s probably had loads of threats though.

Reminds me of Frasier when Maris is complaining about why she doesn’t need a body guard.
‘Just keep being yourself and you'll need one...’

He/his persona is to agitate. So it could be as a result of his job.

I would expect some sort of evidence as to why he thought a particular group attacked him.

I would expect the same of a feminist attacked in the street if she was saying it was for a particular reason but the attackers hadn't been identified.

It does make sense as he has had threats made to him previously and he was targeted.

Someone being physically attacked is never ok, even if they’re a dickhead who has previously condoned violence against others

A journalist being attacked because of the views they hold is particularly terrifying and should worry everyone, in the same way as when the journalist Julie Bindel was attacked because of opinions she holds

Or could have been anyone really. Maybe he pissed someone off in the pub. Maybe he was rude to someone and they spotted him. He seems quick to point the finger without evidence.