To think there's too much left wing dissonance

[LefthandRight]

Feminist but support women hating philosophies and cultures
LGBT friendly except for the L part
Want to make minorities feel safe except for the Jewish community
Believe in the NHS but go private when needed
Think we should continue atoning for colonialism but mention Germany and WW2 and its like....move on already
Hate unearned privilege but it's handy I'll be left a property
Applaud multiculturalism but seek out monoculturalism in my holidays
Avoid palm oil as it kills trees but I must have a Christmas tree
Eat vegan because factory farming is disgusting....except the stuff that goes into my rescue cat food
Believe women shouldn't kneel to the standards and demands of the patriarchy, but I still remove my body hair, its my choice after all

You’re right - I shouldn’t have implied it’s all left leaning people. It’s not, and I apologise. But I ONLY see this opinion expressed by left leaning people. That’s what I meant

And that kind of behaviour is completely unacceptable. But so are the utterances of people on the right slating all asylum seekers as young, male, likely to be sexual predators. That's called Islamophobia and it is also a thing. The point being that there are awful people on both sides of the political divide and yet here we are - on yet another Mumsnet thread heavily slating only the left. It's exhausting.

The point being that there are awful people on both sides of the political divide and yet here we are - on yet another Mumsnet thread heavily slating only the left. It's exhausting.

Pointythings Really? There are loads of threads on mn about how appalling the Tories are and anyone who votes for them, invariably with plenty of comments from you.

As we know, the right wing is famously not antisemitic.

People have all sorts of extreme views - but people are never cancelled, deleted or called out for hate against Jewish people. Islamophobia is dealt with, it is socially unacceptable. It is considered racist to collectively blame Muslims for, for example, the atrocities that happen in Saudi Arabia. Yet Jewish people including European Jews must be answerable for Israel’s actions.

@Barbadossunset and aren't the Tories objectively awful? They've been in government for 14 years and their record is pretty stark. And just for clarity: by Tories, I mean the current Westminster Conservative government. I do not mean my small c conservative friends and family. I do not mean everyone who is politically, economically and socially to the right of where I stand. But this goverment? I'll say they're awful every single day that they remain in power, because they are. And they have been as awful to women as they have been to everyone else who isn't rich and powerful.

That doesn't mean there aren't a few decent Tory MPs still around, and if someone is lucky enough to have one I can see why they would vote that way - but voting is a huge responsibility and everyone has to consider the consequences.

Which is why I voted independent in my local elections, not Labour.

Exactly - there is no safe space for Jewish people.

The left is supposed to be progressive, it is supposed to advocate for minorities and the persecuted, it is supposed to be progressive - yet it is JUST as anti-Semitic as the right. I EXPECT the right to be racist. I don’t expect this of the left.

Pointythings sure but I don’t know why a thread with right wing views is any more ‘exhausting’ than one with left wing views.

This is true to some extent. But I think that at the same time, there has been a very strong push for years now to make claims that people who have political problems with Israel on an ideological level are antisemitic.

So for example, people who think that nations based on ethnicity are a bad idea, or that it was never reasonable for the west to interfere with the political arrangements in the Middle East, or that even if it was reasonable in principle, it was never workable.

All these are view-points people can hold about other groups and political units without being told they are bigots, but there has been a very tight relationship claimed between any questions about ideological support for a concrete political arrangement in the here and now, and hating Jewish people and/or the Jewish religion.

Once that idea of that relationship has taken hold, it is always going to be difficult to extricate the two elements.

Actually I retract my last statement - somehow the right is LESS anti-semitic than the left. But then again the Tories hate poor people and want to make them poorer so it isn’t exactly a win.

3 out of the last 5 Tory PMs didn't know what a woman is.

PM May put Self ID on the table. She believes that "woman" is a feeling that men are entitled to and can opt into.

PM Johnson refused to say that only women have a cervix.

PM Sunak said that women are whatever Boris Johnson says. <<I know that this is serious but Sunak's answer is my favourite out of all the answers because its so surreal and out there.>>

I have no idea what PM Cameron and PM Truss's answer were to this question.

Do you think that such slippery fuckers who are able to lie so easily and who lead a misogynistic party, with a deeply ingrained rape culture and record of making women's lives harder and ceding our rights to men will be doing the best thing for women? Really?

there has been a very strong push for years now to make claims that people who have political problems with Israel on an ideological level are antisemitic.

A push from where? I, And plenty of my family and Jewish friends including those living in Israel, absolutely abhor the Israeli government’s actions. In the way I don’t want to be assumed a Tory lover, Israeli people don’t all like to be assumed to support the actions of their government
.

The issue I personally find (and FYI Jewish people should be listened to when they talk about anti-semitism) is that people use their anti-Israeli (and by this I mean anti people living in Israel which is not the same as condemning Netenyahu) beliefs to perpetuate anti-senmitism and when challenged do this doe-eyed “Me? Anti-semitic? Never! Wherever did you get that idea?”. They also, IME, often usually swallow the exact same propaganda that the Nazi’s dripped into magazines, cartoons, radio programme etc in the 1930’s - that Jewish people are just there to steal things from other people are We Need to Do Something About It. It’s the very reason why, when Jewish people were marched into ghettos in Eastern Europe, rather than saying “WTF this is wrong, let’s do something!” people simply stood on the streets, clapped cheered and threw yhibgd at them. Jewish people are very aware how many times this has happened in history and how easily it can happen again. We have a right to be scared even by low level anti-semitism under the guise of anti-something-else-entirely.

The rest of your post just sounds like a word salad excuse for holding Jewish people collectively responsible for the Israeli government.

But why do you expect the right to be racist?

If you look at people's political views in terms of demographics, non-white people are very often more conservative overall, in terms of their social, and even economic views.

There are plenty of non-white people in the Conservative Party, including the PM.

Sometimes I think the left gets a pass on this stuff because they label themselves progressive and anti-racist. But they come out with some pretty awful stuff when someone non-white holds the "wrong" political views.

@AwfullyWeeBillyBigchin Biological sex IS immutable and binary. Medical anomalies don't prove there is more than one sex. Intersex people via DNA and chromosomes are still either male or female. You are spreading misinformation and need to speak to Biologists. We don't say that because a baby is born with three legs, that's proof that humans are not bipeds. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.202200173?af=R&fbclid=IwAR3DlVFV6LZbzap3C4EQRruB3s3dtBkGMlkQn_iNGl7W9AlISi16XZJD9AU

https://www.theparadoxinstitute.com/watch/is-intersex-a-third-sex

@TooBigForMyBoots yes people are reluctant to accept how anti-women Tories are. I think they get confused because Trump stated TW can’t be women. But AFAIK no Tory leader has ever stated this?

Its a shit show.

The Tories need to go. I have already stated anti-senitism, even in low levels, terrifies me to the core. And Labour haven’t gained my trust back yet (though I don’t believe Starmer is personally anti-Semitic like Corby was).

There is not one single Biologist who will say sex isn't binary. You are deeply ill-informed and spreading misinformation. 'Variations' ie MEDICAL ANOMALIES, are the exception and do not disprove sex is binary. You are a science denier.

Yes they are. No one can change sex. 97% retain their penis and testicles. That is MALE. End of story. They most certainly damn well are not women!!

But why do you expect the right to be racist?

Because it’s basically their USP. Their priority is stopping boats, and not once in his party conference speech did Sunak mention the word ‘poverty’ even though in some areas of the UK there are more children living in poverty than not.

A party can still be racist with POC in it.

I agree with you about the left getting a pass. They aren’t anti-racist, IME.

Well said.

The fact people weaponise the experience of intersex people - who are intersex because of BIOLOGY not identity - to make their anti-women point and gaslight the world into thinking being a woman isn’t a thing is fucking gross.

@VanityDiesHard I do not classify trans women as men.

They are men biologically and anatomically. What is the difference between a male with male DNA and chromosomes with a penis and testicles who identifies as a man, and a male DNA and chromosomes with a penis and testicles who identifies as a woman?

Tell us the pathway that a male magically transmogrifies into a woman?

A transwoman is a male in every single way, the only difference is his fantasy in his head and his say so, that women are expected to trust. As if trusting men at their word has never gone bad for women over the centuries....

It’s actually Monty Python esque isn’t it to have these beliefs. I have no time for people trying to Win By Semantics

Perhaps I was unclear, but as far as your word-salad accusation, I certainly don't hold Jewish people in general, or even Jewish people in Israel, responsible for everything, or even anything in particular, the government of Israel does. Like any democratic country, citizens at some level have influence on the state, but that doesn't hold for individuals. And as far as I am concerned that is nothing to do with their Jewishness as such, although they themselves may see them as connected.

As for who is pushing the idea I suggested - plenty of individuals, they show up on MN all the time, but also some Jewish organizations. "Official" definitions of antisemitism often get trotted out which essentially say, any qualms about Israel, politically, are a form of antisemitism.

I am not talking so much about specific actions the government takes, though that can come into it. But lack of support for Israel as an ideological construct is clearly seen as antisemitic.

My point is that whether or not anyone in this thread agrees or disagrees with that, as a definition of antisemitism it clearly links political support for a particular nation-state with the Jewish people as a whole. And yes, actually I am aware that there are and always have been plenty of individual Jewish people who don't agree with that, and who are even not supporters of Israel ideologically, but that's neither here nor there as far as the effect this kind of rhetoric has had on how people think.

For women (who are oppressed on the basis of our sex), it most certainly matters what sex a male is. Especially for rape survivors and women and girls who need safety and privacy.

No one is 'assigned' a sex at birth. Doctors don't stand there arbitrarily distributing a sex. Sex is assigned the moment the sperm enters the ova. Sex is OBSERVED at birth. You sound brainwashed and a science denier and could do with learning biology.

I’m itching to see the definition of a woman that is not

1. a circular argument (ie a woman is someone who says they’re a woman) and
2. A depressing gender stereotype

Never seen one yet.

To the science deniers - the babies who experience FGM in infancy. Why do you think it’s those specific set of babies who experienced that? Did someone ask their gender before mutilating their body?

@Barbadossunset the frequency of Labour bashing threads on MN has absolutely exploded now that we are closer to a GE and the polls are not improving for the Conservatives. That's what is exhausting.

Actually this thread is one of the best I've seen for a while in that there is quite a lot of exchange of views, but so many are just 'Oh Labour are so bad because Keir Starmer is boring' or something like that - it's desperate, exhausting stuff and some of it is deeply suspect.

Actually this thread is one of the best I've seen for a while in that there is quite a lot of exchange of views.

That is true and it’s not always the case. I haven’t been on the Brexit threads for ages but it used to be the case that anyone pro Brexit or pro Tory was seen off the thread by the regulars and I presume it’s still the same.
So as you say, it’s good to have an exchange of views.