To think Owen Jones is childish

[sandrabedminster]

Owen Jones storms off sky news

I don't even get what his issue is, he's invited on to discuss the headlines and then runs off as he doesn't like how much attention the biggest story is getting.

The Christian right in the USA is indeed scary. But you can usually avoid them when visiting the USA by going to any well known tourist destination (the entire metropolitan East Coast, all of coastal california, most major cities, any major theme park etc etc etc).

Avoiding the US purely because of the Christian right is like avoiding Scotland because boats don't go to Stornoway on a Sunday. Or because Edinburgh university has a Conservative association. Or avoiding London because David Cameron lives there.

It's all in a days work for most Republicans. They can condemn it as an act of barbarity which has nothing to do with gun control laws, as they do every terrorist attack or mass shooting.

"I just read that one of the actors in The Bridge has stated that he is uncomfortable filming in Malmö because of growing anti-Semitism."

Interesting example to pick.

To all those who've not heard of Owen Jones before you may need a bit of his back story. He's employed regularly say 2-3 times each a month on sky and on bbc news to review the papers. He may have been due to appear on Sunday or it's possible he was asked specially. I can't remember what his usual night is but he's often on with Julia H-B.
He is always like this, his angry young man persona gets boring pretty quick. He rolls his eyes, stamps his feet, is generally misogynist and talks over people like they're idiots.
He was given time to say his piece, both Julia and Mark accepted the shooter was homophobic but then they tried to expand to compare with Isis and Bataclan. When he said you don't understand as you're not gay I thought Harry enfields character Kevin was reviewing the papers as he'd turned from stroppy toddler to stroopy teenager. They objected to not being able to empathise. I don't have a cock and balls but I can and do wince if I see someone taking a kick to the unmentionables. I don't know how it feels but I can empathise. so he pulled a paddy to try and get his own way. When the paddy didn't work he escalated and stormed off. Stormed off from a job he was paid to do.
It appears he only supports terrorism if it's IRA versus the Govt and it doesn't suit him for this to be terrorism rather than homophobia even though it's homophobic terrorism because it's right on to support angry young Muslims until they start shooting lgbt people. Much easier to say lone homophobic gunman.
He's an idiot and I won't watch him on the papers if he's Invited back. He's still whining. See his piece today in the Guardian.

Re. the Republicans. There's a guy on Twitter twitter.com/igorvolsky who has retweeted all the messages of condolences from Republican senators with an added message of how much each of them has been paid by the NRA. As well as a list of senators who voted against treating attacks on LGBT people as heat crimes.

Id like to know how many Christian religious right throw people off buildings in the states and shoot them down and stone them YES.
Being comfortable with gay people and killing them are two different things. I know people who are not comfortable with gay people but would never ever dream of curtailing or wanting to deny them the freedom to marry or do as they wish

Hush, ego.

You're not being thrown off a building, so just sit down and consider yourself lucky, eh?

YAB completely U. He wasn't being childish at all. I'm amazed he stayed as long as he did. JHB should be ashamed of herself (she won't be though). This was a hate crime. And seeking to airbrush that aspect of it is despicable.

But Ego, you're avoiding the question.
How many LGBT people have been stoned to death or thrown off buildings ( by Christians ) in the USA this year? Or even in the last 10 years?
Have you got any figures?

Just to go back to the IRA thing for a while- I'm not sure how many of you would like to be held to account for things you wrote when you were 16.

I don't actually know what his views on the subject are now.......l...

Nobody said discrimination was ok. They just said it wasn't remotely like the discrimination that occurs in middle eastern countries and /or Muslim countries.

The ease of life for a gay person living in Afghanistan is as far from that of the average American as to be at opposite ends of the spectrum. But both places are admittedly on planet earth so as far as that goes, they are comparable.

Julia HB is a smug arse. I couldn't sit on a sofa with her for five seconds. Is that childish?

How many LGBT people have been stoned to death or thrown off buildings ( by Christians ) in the USA this year? Or even in the last 10 years?

anywhere in the world.

compared to Isis and Muslim countries.

Bertrand, do you apply that 'free pass' logic to people who have been misogynist or racist in their past? 'Who knows what they think now'?

No. But I do not think people should be held to account for things they say when they are 16.

That's 16- as in still at school 16.

They may well still feel the same. But I would need adult data.

Having only recently come out in my own life and experienced massive panic attacks about even telling people I absolutely love and have always been supported by, I do think that people who haven't had this experience probably don't fully understand how absolutely personal it is and hard to be in a position where you are making something deeply private (sexually, intimately) public and what it means to have people debate that.

I was so far in the closet my whole life I was living on the far side of Narnia. I still went to gay bars and did gay things but being out was as terrifying to me as death for what people would think of me.

It is hard not to feel it. And yet the person who did this had bipolar and so I feel compassion for his illness having experience of depression myself and I also feel compassion for the Muslim community as Muslim friends who would absolutely disapprove of my sexuality have at times in my life been the rainbows in my clouds in an entirely different way.

It is not either/or, it is both/and. Of course it affects us all as fellow humans as should the hurt felt by Muslims that the children of Syria receive far less public comment much of the time - certainly no lit up buildings and the like or the hurt and pain of survivors of Mh difficulties hearing this man described over and over as a lunatic... But shared lived experience does support a different perspective in our human psychology. We always respond more viscerally to experiences on the global stage perpetrated against 'people like us'. Just human nature. We would all get this upset about the things we believe make us truly ourselves.