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.

[iPost]

I think the "who wasn't a Muslim" interjection he came out with may mean that he was particularly keen to present a view that it was a homophobic hate crime ...that just happened to be committed by a Muslim.

Whereas the press, and the other people on stage, we're taking the view that the atrocity was an act of religiously motivated terrorism, focused specifically in this instance on the radical Islamic hatred of gay people, rather than all the other kinds of people (i.e. most of them) that they hate.

Personally I think it is too early to say if the shooter's homophobia was the casue of his reported religious justifications, or if his religious outlook exacerbated/encouraged/caused his hatred of entire groups of people. We simply don't have enough information. We may never have enough information.

However it doesn't seem like he was the sort of person who found it hard to find groups of people to hate. Certainly his former wife and colleague's interviews point to him having been none too keen on gays, emancipated women and black people.

[YourPerception]

The only person interested in silencing people was OJ. When he couldn't silence others he silenced himself.

[ArmfulOfRoses]

I'm surprised he lasted as long as he did tbh.

[SilverBirchWithout]

I don't usually like him but I often agree with him. He was obviously very upset, before he walked off, he did articulate well his point that the focus should be on the hate crime element of the atrocity.

The other two people in the studio perpetually kept shutting him down, the presenter said some really stupid and quite offensive things, he was right to walk out.

[UnderTheGreenwoodTree]

Julia Hartley Brewer was horrible, I think I'd have stormed off.

[teafuelledradical]

The thing I'm wondering is why they did shit him down as they did. I wonder if it's part of a 2016 narrative that says 'we're all progressive now, we've got same sex marriage and everything so homophobia is a thing of the past, so we can't really put this atrocity down to homophobia because we're over that now, aren't we?' - it's a really compelling myth because it makes us feel good, and superior to previous generations. And it blinds us to the homophobia that is still very, very real and very deadly in various parts of the world.

[APlaceOnTheCouch]

Generally I think Owen Jones is childish. He is petty and self-obsessed. That doesn't mean he never makes good points or that he never writes eloquently.

In this case, the appropriation of other's grief makes me uneasy tbh. A good spokesperson could have acknowledged that this attack was an attack on LGBT as well as an attack on Western values, as well as an obvious outcome of the US's lenient gun laws.

It's difficult to persuade people of your argument if you've stormed off the set. It also made Owen the story - something that he seems very good at doing.

[BaboonBottom]

Just watched it, he seems to be fighting with himself?! He is making no sense in his argument, I'm not even sure what he's arguing about? He's just ranting that everyone else is wrong and they don't understand as they aren't gay. But people can understand, they can empathise. They can understand why the LGBT community feel more vulnerable at the moment. It doesn't make it a greater or lesser attack because it was against gay people. One life lost in this sort of attack is one awful senseless loss regardless of what the reason for the person doing the shooting.


I don't think the others said anything wrong, they were discussing it as they would any other awful attack on any group of individuals

[teafuelledradical]

Shut him down I mean!

[molyholy]

Owen Jones is not a twat! He is actually one journalists opinion I value (my opinion, I know). Anyone read his books? It was a homophobic attack and they were dismissive of it. That's why he got angry and walked off. I think he was right in doing so.

[Surferjet]

you don't understand this because you aren't gay

I can't believe he said that
So anyone who isn't gay doesn't understand homophobia?

[YourPerception]

It's all about the power and control the victim has in his generation. The other two were older and not into target game.

[rumbelina]

teafuelled he'd definitely have walked off if they did that!

[BertrandRussell]

"But people can understand, they can empathise"

Yes they can. On this occasion, they didn't.

[TheFairyCaravan]

He was completely right. Why did they refuse to acknowledge it was a homophobic attack? If I was Owen Jones I'd have walked off sooner.

[mamamea]

He lies and denies and says this is a 'twisted view of Islamic fundamentalism'.

It absolutely is NOT. This is a MAINSTREAM view. No, most Muslims are not going to kill gays, but here in Indonesia the reporting of this shooting on Facebook has been greeted with a lot of 'laughter' emoticons and similar. Not to mention that one of the most popular politicians in the country here posted on his Twitter a Hadith to kill homosexuals. And NO, Twitter took NO action against this incitement to murder. Twitter are staffed by like minds such as that of Owen Jones - useless idiots whose instincts are to lie, lie, lie and deny the reality of Islamic bigotry. We should NOT be in denial. There is NO credible moderate strand of Islam. Yes, many Muslims are moderate, but Islam as it is promulgated is NOT a moderate movement - moderate voices do not ring out.

[Helmetbymidnight]

The presenter tried to portray this as an attack on 'people having fun'

No it wasn't. It was an attack on gay people.

Why not say that?

As for the comparisons with other attacks, I've seen it on here several times- I've been told that the attack on the people in the Jewish supermarket/museum/school in France were not deliberate attacks on Jews.

I don't understand this standpoint.

[YourPerception]

It was acknowledged as a LGBT attack. He didn't want them to discuss the gun laws or the religion of the terrorist.

[JasperDamerel]

They weren't though. When Owen Jones tried to talk about it being an attack on LGBTQ people, they kept brushing it aside as irrelevant when the important thing was that it was an attack on people having fun.

And framing it terms of an attack on Western values is to ignore the fact that the Prople in that nightclub have as much to fear from the Christian Right in the U.S. As they do from radical Islam.

[BertrandRussell]

"It was acknowledged as a LGBT attack. He didn't want them to discuss the gun laws or the religion of the terrorist."

No it wasn't.

[carryam]

He walked off because the presenters were downplaying it as a homophobic attack, which it was. Lots of lesbian and gay people are angry about the way the presenters were.

[teafuelledradical]

Helmet, my suspicion is that the kind of people who deny that attacks carried out in specifically Jewish places are the kind of people who think that antisemitism stopped after WW2. If you believe that something doesn't exist (eg antisemitism), you can't allow for it as a factor in your responses to the world.

[YourPerception]

OJ gave a very long monologue at the beginning about it being a LGBT attack. Did you watch only a small clip?

[teafuelledradical]

Sorry, my sentence got a bit muddled there. Hope you understood what I was trying to say!