Tommy Robinson Invited to Israel

[Mercurial123]

Really?!! And the PM is now labelled Palestinian...

www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-minister-calls-keir-starmer-palestinian-after-pm-slams-tommy-robinson

This, this, this and this.

so Israel killed Charlie Kirk? When is a conspiracy theory not a conspiracy theory. Sounds like blame the Jews again to me.

I didn't say that, funny that you would though.

It’s all over the net. Gotta love those conspiracies.

Hmm. I'm not sure whether Yaxley Lennon hates Jews or not. Certainly all the NF , BNP people I ever met were irreconcilable antisemites. But that was decades ago and these realignments do happen. His old colleague Nick Griffin says baldly that YL is funded by Zionists . But is that just sour grapes?
Little Tommy Ten Names has turned Griffins old obsession into a great success ; he is rich , famous and powerful , while Griffin is virtually unknown these days.

This exchange is a perfect example of what I meant when I said people are pushed to the extremes and become entrenched in their position.

Personally I think ‘left’ and ‘right’ are impossible to define right now. I used to be Left but no way am I joining the Hamas death cult weirdos.

@DwarfBeans - when you say you 'used to be left' I assume that is because you believed in things like social justice, equality, well funded, high quality public services, wage growth and workers rights?

Has all that changed because you don't agree with the view some people on the left have about what's happening in Gaza?

I am assuming you went on the Rasie the Colours march because you are concerned about immigration and the poor state of our public services?

If my assumptions are correct, why would you throw your lot in with Farage and the ERG Tories?

They are complicit in causing the issues with immigration and the decline of our public services and would, in a heartbeat, destroy all of the things that the left traditionally fight for.

While there were Hamas supporters chanting racist, antisemitic, vile nonsense on the Palastine marches, the majority of people were just concerned about tragedy of what is happening in Gaza and can't abide the actions of and Israeli government that has openly called for and enacted the ethnic cleansing of the Palastians through displacement.

You may disagree with them on that particular issue, but it doesn't make them a 'Hamas Death Cult' or negate all of the other areas in which you do agree.

It was a protest for all white supremacists and their supporters to congregate together, as well as those too ignorant and uninformed to know any better. I assume you were one of the latter. Did your flag survive the day?

@OneNattyReader

The far right are incredibly skilled at creating or taking an issue, amplifying it and then manipulating people's entirely valid concerns to bring them over to 'their side'. It's been happening since the 1980's when the Republican's in the US recognised that they needed the votes of the southern racists and Christian nationalists to gain and hold onto power. They also knew, as did Thatcher's Tories that they could, when in power, reduce tax for the wealthy, diminish public services and then blame it on the left.

We saw it in the 80's with the demonisation of the unions and we are seeing it now with the demonisation of immigrants.

They are experts in manipulating public opinion, made easier by the stranglehold they have on the media.

The Raise the Colours marches were organised by far right extremists but it is a wrong to label all of those who attended as that, just as it is wrong to label all of those who attended the Palastine marches as supporting Hamas.

If we are not willing to listen to and acknowledge the legitimate concerns of the majority of people on both sets of marches, if we just name call and label everyone in divisive terms.who don't 100% agree with us things will never get better.

'Pro-Islamist'

Really Gloria? Your imagination has no bounds.

If you read my post, you'd see I spoke of those who attended who were too ignorant to know better.

Zionist. Another word thrown around as an insult these days. Shouldn’t we all be zionists in the true sense of the word?

From what I’ve read online this is the story (no idea if it’s true, it’s just what they say)

TR claims EDL had members of all colours. That it wasn’t about racism but anti jihadist. He banned members of the National Front and BNP. In the end they conspired against TR so he quit. He claims he is not racist.

What is interesting is listening to his experiences inside prison. He claims people are being radicalised inside prisons. Personally I think university students are being brainwashed and radicalised today by a number of ideologies.

These are not new claims and it is based on a reality. But this has been news for at least 20 years. There is absolutely Islamic radicalisation in UK Jails. TR isn't saying anything new and specific communities that are at particularly high risk of this stream of radicalisation have been trying to talk about it for years.

https://archive.voice-online.co.uk/article/black-british-and-radical

But their conversation is more along the lines of this is what happens when a disenfranchised population seeks a sense of understanding and what seems like empowerment.

Precisely!

It is very difficult for most people to understand how these girls ended up where they did. So many of them came from troubled backgrounds and already had significant trauma which made them easy to manipulate.

On the surface, it does appear that some of them 'consented' because they took drugs, drank alcohol, kept returning etc. People think they must be complicit because they wouldn't have fallen for it, or their daughters would never do something like that and they wouldn't allow it.

They don't see the complexities of the trauma that underlies the girls behaviour or the skilled manipulation of the groomers. It wasn't a case of these girls being picked up at a park and raped by 20 men that same night. The groomers befriended them, plied them with drugs, alcohol, food and money, often acted in the role of 'boyfriend' before slowly pulling the girls deeper and deeper in - like boiling a frog in water.

Then, when the girls did get out and seek help, they weren't seen as victims and were treated with contempt by the police and social services. Many of them ended up returning to the groomers.

Because it is such a complex issue, cognitive dissonance kicks in. The general public don't want to blame the girls, but they also don't want to or can't recognise the role that the wider societal culture played, in creating the trauma that made the girls susceptible and then refusing help. By recognising that it is an embedded issue in society, as a member of that society, we become complicit.

So the likes of Tommy Robinson come along and start saying its all about the Muslims and the immigrants and all of a sudden people have someone they can blame that is different to them - it no longer feels like they are looking in a mirror.

@BloominNora I did not go on the march, as I previously stated. I do agree with you actually that we need to listen to each other. Okay I’ll lay my stall out:

I read a lot about October 7th. Why? Because MSM seemed to be brushing it under the carpet and that’s my curious mind to seek out what they don’t tell us. I was horrified. To this day I am not totally convinced there is a genocide, just an ugly war with casualties. I have lost all faith in truth and propaganda is at an all time high.

The same people I know who attend pro-p rallying also defend Kneecap etc and have not said a positive word about the current potential peace progress. Nor did they ever condemn Hamas nor demand the release of the hostages. No doubt some protesters were just anti war but I think there’s a lot of hate and I think it will be interesting to see what happens and how they justify continuing the hate marches.

But what are people doing about it? They’ve infiltrated the universities. We’re screwed.

So true.

The thing is if their son or husband or someone got caught up with one of these girls, they'd say that the girl was the one who corrupted the man involved. They would not see that as a man, their husband, son, whoever, was drawn to her vulnerability in the same way the other groomers were. This is about predatory men.

I have been astounded at some of the men that I know personally who are being vocal on this topic. Cognitive dissonance isnt the term. I think it is more like psychosis.

People haven't cared about it because it is only when something like Lee Rigby occurs that it actually matters to the wider population. When it only affects the Black community for instance, and they'd like some governmental support with tackling some of the risk factors, nobody cares.

Lee Rigby was murdered in 2013. And yet here we are in 2025 with people waving Islamist terrorist flags on the same streets 😔

Yes - I did see that.

Calling people ignorant and uninformed as an insult is part of the issue. It doesn't recognise the skill the 'right' have in manipulation and narrative control.

Using insults rather than putting forward a counter argument is not going to change minds. Calling people uneducated and unsophisticated is just going to further entrench them in their views. It provides 'evidence' that the educated elite are just sneering at them, so they turn to 'men of the people' like Farage.

He doesn't sneer at them and call them stupid. He appears to understand their concerns and gives them a focus for their frustrations.

The average reading age in this country is 9 years old. The teaching of critical thinking skills in schools has never been great and has been further diminished in schools over the past 15 years.

Expecting the majority of people to understand such complex issues, to independently know where to look to research and how to identify and understand biases within what they are reading is completely unrealistic.

Most people will just Google or form their opinions based on what they see in the press or on social media and the 'right' are very, very good at amplifying their voices and seeming to offer sensible solutions.

The 'left' have to start using the same tactics and stop calling people ignorant and uninformed - because they aren't.

Those are factual terms. You can be objectively ignorant and uninformed. It may be difficult to see oneself that way, but if one is adamant that they aren't there because they are racist, then few other options are left.

If there were no racists there, why did Filipino nurses going into work at St Thomas’ require a police escort to get them past a drunken crowd yelling “we want our country back” at them?

My point was that these were conversations in the communities affected before 2013. Probably from early 2000s. It didn't become a public conversation until Lee Rigby. Even Germaine Lindsay sort of went unnoticed as person who is Muslim, but not of Arab or Asian descent.

Nobody cares about things that happen to socially disadvantaged people until it affects those who are the most socially advantaged. That's why you only hear about it when a soldier is killed in the streets.

Ignorant literally means uneducated and unsophisticated!

Even if you think it is 'technically factual' the use of those words is insulting and inflamatory, particularly in the way you did.

Nobody is going to listen to someone who insults them, it just sends them even further into the arms of the people that don't insult them.

But then you must know that and understand the psychology behind it - because if you don't and have used those words, without taking the time to understand how the manipulation of the right works and why people are flocking to them, then by your own definition, that would make you ignorant and uninformed right?

The same source you googled actually starts with something else, care to share the entire definition it gave you?

Is that just a cherry pick? Some estimates put the total number of attendees at closer to 1 million. Twenty five arrests and a handful of arseholes out of a million people? And we all know that instigators are sent out to crowds. I personally know an undercover cop who has told me how they put people in crowds. Do you think other groups don’t? Yes some would be racist but not all.

Let me say one final time… I did not go to the rally. But you can’t ignore this amount of people. How many others are there who feel the same who didn’t go? Stop arguing and insulting and start listening. I can’t stand Farage but you’re driving people to vote for him.

Universities have always been hotbeds of activism and I have memories of earnest and very privileged types peddling the Socialist Worker at university, the ones that often went into politics straight from university. Science students tended to be too busy for it.

But this is inevitable when curious minded people with a lot of passion and very little perspective come across a cause they can be persuaded to care about? The more people you can persuade to care by pushing whatever psychological buttons they have, the more powerful your movement. Very few people aspire to that power thankfully, but they're the ones you need to worry about.

I found Hany Farid's Ted talk about AI photos very interesting and perhaps you would too.
And bearing that in mind, Orwell fans will appreciate 'The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.'

The evidence we have of a war thousands of miles away is filtered many more times than the evidence we see on our doorsteps.

You are quoting 25 arrests right?

Who makes the arrests?

These guys:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgq06d44jyo.amp