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Labour and anti-semitism

999 replies

LeLaluifleur · 10/04/2016 09:15

Apologies for DF links but ignoring the lowbrow style 'journalism' for a minute, I am perturbed about these reports.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3531852/Labour-councillor-20-suspended-claims-called-Hitler-greatest-man-history-latest-anti-Semitic-scandal-hit-Corbyn-s-party.html#comments

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3532042/Ignorant-Godless-Hateful-Corbyn-s-contempt-Jews-disgrace-withering-attack-Labour-leader-donor-backed-party-400-000-2015-Election.html

I like Corbyn a little bit but judge his cavalier attitude to anti-semitism harshly.

Has anti-semitism become cool among labour supporters or something? What is being done about the anti-semitism coming from some labour politicians and how to deal with the Islamist flavour of anti-semitism as displayed by Labour councillor Aysegul Gurbuz (and others) for examples who posted statements such as this on twitter :

"Ed Miliband is Jewish. He will never become prime minister of Britain."
"Adolf Hitler was praised as the ‘greatest man in history".

Shock Sad

OP posts:
grinkle · 01/05/2016 17:44

Well, it's Diane Abbott. The reality is that Corbyn's days may be numbered after this week's elections. And if Corbyn leaves, with any luck, some of the worst of his fellow travellers may head back to the fringes from whence they came.

Woodhill · 01/05/2016 18:26

In exactly the same way as you talk about any other issues with our resorting to racism. Simple, no?

Interestingly, some Labour lefties have this down to a tee wrt Islamist terrorism making damn sure not to say anything 'racist' or 'islamophobic'. The very same people who shout 'racist' at anyone who dares to question some of the less savoury conservative Islamist practices seem to be unable to see how a lot of ant-zionsit rhetoric is in actual fact anti-Semitic and don't allegedly know how to discuss political issues without resorting to anti-semitism. Really odd.

Spot on Cheri, my sentiments

JewryMember · 01/05/2016 19:58

I think claig's highlighting of victimhood hierarchy explains everything we need to know about the wincing dichotomies facing the Left, and how they have ended up in this awful mess. I mean, it must be beleaguering to have to support women, women-hating Muslims, gays, gay-hating Muslims, the transgender community and those who don't want to piss alongside a penis in public bathrooms.

Ricardian · 01/05/2016 20:11

This ludicrous story is a prime example of Oxford students behaving like shits in the guide of being right-on, and the people leaping to his defence show how intersectionality needs to be improved,.

www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/2016/05/01/On-Rhodes-must-Fall---and-why-you-should-treat-your-waiter-or-waitress-well

TL;DR: black SJW, leader of Rhodes Must Fall, humiliated white minimum wage waitress and brags about it. It's not only shameless racism, but completely fails to "check your privilege", and shows that being a complete shit is no bar to an Oxford degree. Note the boasting about how non-binary they all are, too. Utter, total scum.

JewryMember · 01/05/2016 20:49

What a wanker.

Ricardian, can't see anything about non-binary in the article.

Ricardian · 01/05/2016 21:11

You need the full Facebook posting, for example here.

LOL wow unable to stop smiling because something so black, wonderful & LIT just happened! And of course, the catalyst was a radical non-binary trans black activist – Wandile Dlamini – from the Rhodes Must Fall movement. Because trans activists have BEEN the ultimate blessers of this decolonial struggle!

"Radical non-binary trans black activist" presumably means "cunt".

claig · 01/05/2016 21:21

Thiere is an article by Daniel Greenfield, an American conservative, called the Minority Victim Value Index. It takes the victimhood hierarchy slightly further in its discussion of the victim value index. It seeks to explain the place of groups within the victimhood hierarchy.

I don't know if it is correct or not, but it says that suffering is not what places a group at the top of the hierarchy, which is why native Americans are relatively low down in the hierarchy, but it says that disruption is what places a group above another.

It says that the left, the progressives, are in a revolution against the current order and therefore value disruption above suffering as a means of overthrowing and influencing the current order.

If you look at Corbyn, Livingstone and McDonnell, they were all to some extent sympathetic to the IRA, for example, with McDonnell making a very poor taste joke about Thatcher and the IRA attack on her.

Puzzledandpissedoff · 01/05/2016 21:22

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the guy in that article actually a Rhodes scholar himself? In other words someone who was happy to take money from the fund but then spew bile like this? Hmm

JewryMember · 01/05/2016 21:27

"Radical non-binary trans black activist" presumably means "cunt".

I just woke my baby up guffawing!


SpringingIntoAction · 01/05/2016 22:22

grinkle

Here are some more of the 'excuses' I've heard

  1. It's OK, Naz Shah apologised (sometimes includes' to her local synagogue')
  2. There is just as much anti-Semitism in the Tory party
  3. The Tories are also racist - they are Islmaphobic
  4. It's all been initiated by Number 10 / Blairites because Jeremy is so popular at local level
  5. It's a Blairite conspiracy to make Labour lose the May elections so they can take over the party.
  6. It's just an attempt to smear the Labour party.
  7. Some fringe historian has confirmed that ken was correct.
Shock

I never knew until this week that anti-semitism was such a widely held view and I have been utterly astounded to hear people ring in to phone-ins and appear on TV attempting to mitigate or deny there is a problem.

Who are they trying to kid?

It's also unfathomable to me that prominent Jewish people have been attracted to that party when there is so much 'history' of anti-Semitism in the party that everyone seems to have known about.

This has been a real eye opener to me.

Iflyaway · 01/05/2016 22:45

I'm just disgusted by the whole thing...

Whatever their excuses. Fuck off.

Hate all fascists.

There is no excuse for any of their hatred.

Same shit, different day. Northern Ireland, Chile, Argentina IS, etc.

DarlingCherieLiebling · 01/05/2016 22:53

"It says that the left, the progressives, are in a revolution against the current order and therefore value disruption above suffering as a means of overthrowing and influencing the current order."

Claig this makes a lot of sense to me. Thank you.

Ricardian · 01/05/2016 22:55

Points 11 to 16 are well made. I think the "but the Tories are bad" excuse is particularly stupid: we're supposed to be better than that. It's certainly the case that being a flat-out holocaust denying anti-Semite wouldn't get you thrown out of the BNP: indeed, it's probably compulsory. But the argument "wah wah wah, poor old Ken is being traduced for things that are OK in the BNP" is hardly convincing.

However, I'm less sure about point 10. Shah has spent most of her life in an echo chamber of casual anti-Semitism. Given that Jeremy Corbyn "accidentally" gave money to a holocaust denier and John McDonnell "accidentally" praised the IRA bombing campaign, both because they live in an echo chamber of hard-left fuckwittery, I'm inclined to give Shah a small amount of slack based on being raised in a rather more all-enveloping echo chamber and the fact that she hasn't (so far as I can see) either (a) said anything similar since being elected and (b) immediately and without equivocation not only apologised but articulated why it was wrong, as well. I'm not saying I find the argument convincing, but I wouldn't reject it out of hand.

As to "it's all a wicked plot by 4%ers / Bitterites /etc", words fail me. Did Liz put a gun to Ken's head and force him to spout Nazi shit on live TV? She always strikes me as quite a gentle woman, and not someone to be found in Islington with a Glock 19 and a bad attitude.

claig · 01/05/2016 22:55

Darling, it is worth googling that article. It is quite disturbing in its conclusions but it does make you wonder if that is part of what is going on.

Lycaenidae · 01/05/2016 23:07

Er, claig, perhaps in the current climate I am being overly sensitive to language, but I don't like that article at all.

sultanknish.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/the-minority-victim-value-index.html

Perhaps the author isn't a racist, but ...what do you think happened in 2008 when a completely inept hack blew through Hillary Clinton and John McCain on a pledge to end the wars and repair our relations with the Muslim world? Why exactly do you think the Democrats chose a man with no experience except a few books about growing up in a Muslim country and Hussein as his middle name? certainly wouldn't be out of place in an article that was racist: there's no mention of birth certificates and the rest of the lunatic baggage of the American far-right, but one feels that is only thanks to good editing. It's also particularly stupid as an argument from a man whose (presumed) party (a) nominated Sarah Palin as a VP candidate, whose achievements make Obama look like a latter day Metternich and (b) usually spends several hours a day making up arguments as to why Hilary Clinton is unfit for office as the local dog-catcher, so suddenly using her as proof of Obama's mediocrity isn't terribly consistent.

I also find the photograph of a cabin on the London Eye very odd.

claig · 01/05/2016 23:21

'perhaps in the current climate I am being overly sensitive to language, but I don't like that article at all'

I am not keen on parts of it either, but nevertheless, I do wonder if it is partly true.

The author isn't keen on Obama but I am not sure it is because of racism. I don't think the author is a Republican specifically. He probably sees Obama's policies as being partial to Iran etc and as a move to as he says "repair our relations with the Muslim world".

I think the article does partially explain how some progressives could turn a blind eye to some of the things that Hamas, Hezbollah and the IRA did while still extolling progressive values.

claig · 01/05/2016 23:34

'as to why Hilary Clinton is unfit for office as the local dog-catcher, so suddenly using her as proof of Obama's mediocrity isn't terribly consistent'

He mentions Hillary, not because he thinks she is good, but because he thinks she is better than Obama, specifically because it is widely believed that Hillary will be tougher on Iran etc than Obama was.

Ricardian · 01/05/2016 23:53

I am not keen on parts of it either, but nevertheless, I do wonder if it is partly true.

Yeah, parts of it are true, in the sense of truisms. Do people pay more attention to causes that threaten to, or actually do, blow shit up? Yes, but that's hardly a unique failing of the left: I might be wildly out on a limb here, but the Muslim community in the UK was treated with kid gloves during the Rushdie affair, and it's hard to see an argument that says that the government of the era were milk and water liberals, given that in 198889 Thatcher was pretty much at the rancid apogee of her reign. Even in the US, large amounts of peaceful middle-class protest over Vietnam achieved pretty much nothing, but the rioting in inner city black neighbourhoods in the same period drew forth substantial social and political change; the president 196874 was Tricky Dicky, again hardly a liberal.

I think it's also close to a truism that the left, in particular, has a lot of posh boys who don't want to get their hands dirty or their expensive shoes scuffed, but have a massive and vaguely homoerotic hard-on for rough boys who don't mind a fight. Corbyn and McDonnell would be a clear case in point here, in that they appear to have spent too much time masturbating over pictures of bearded ruffians from Hamas (oh, he may be a naughty boy, but he's so authentic), but it's hardly unusual: Seamus Milne and George Galloway both have massive boy-crushes on Stalin ("you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs", and so on) and he died before they were born. Wet kids who got beaten up in he playground fantasise about revenge on those that laughed at them, and nothing says revenge quite like the systematic killing of entire social classes.

Sartre, I think it was, skewered anti-Semitism as being the ideology that means that even a halfwit can be part of an elite, and it was Thomas Mann who summed up their thinking as being "‘I might be nothing, but at least I am not a Jew.’" Corbyn, McDonnell and Livingstone share inadequate educations which I suspect make them both undiscerning (cf. Brenner, who is a fool) and bitter (cf. Jews, what with all the controlling the media and so on). Milne and Abbott don't have that excuse, but both appear desperate to be respected as forces: did you see Abbott's pedantic correction of Marr this morning over the precise wording of her title (hint: a shadow minister has about the same power as someone working the tills at Sainsbury)?

JewryMember · 01/05/2016 23:57

I haven't yet read the Victim Value Index by Greenfield but am finding this hierarchy of suffering stuff fascinating. Please, if this thread fills up, can we have a Part II?

Off to read..

claig · 02/05/2016 00:04

'Do people pay more attention to causes that threaten to, or actually do, blow shit up?'

Yes, but reactions differ. Thatcher was tough against the IRA and banned Sinn Fein from speaking on British TV etc, whereas some of the current Labour leadership would not have done so.

Even Che Guevara who is a hero to leftwingers like Galloway etc was violent and a revolutionary overthrowing the status quo violently rather than democratically.

What explains some leftwingers sharing of platforms with Islamists or IRA etc who are against liberal values when the leftwingers themselves are liberals?

SpringingIntoAction · 02/05/2016 00:06

Er - Ricardian. Let's get one thing straight. I listed those rancid reasons as pathetic excuses I've heard Leftists spouting in the media - not because I believe any of them.

Just wanted to clear that up before you start dissecting them.

I am having my eyes truly opened by some of the views/excuses people prominent on the Left are making about this disgraceful behaviour.

Disgusted.

Ricardian · 02/05/2016 00:09

I listed those rancid reasons as pathetic excuses I've heard Leftists spouting in the media - not because I believe any of them.

I don't think anything I wrote implied you did, did it? Hmm

grinkle · 02/05/2016 00:10

Heard my conspiracy theory mentioned on R4 tonight - in the news or analysis bit just after. That the whole thing might with Ken might be a ploy to make Jezza's forthcoming local election losses look less embarrassing. It also occurred to me - talking of conspiracy theories - that it might be a ploy to actually get votes from anti-Semitic Muslims (hope not - very depressing thought). On the grounds there may well be more of them than there are Jews.

All very strange.

One thing this whole business has really brought home to me is the gulf between left and far-left. We're used to spotting it on the right - the gulf between the Tories (electable) and the BNP (joke, spoken of in shocked tones) is huge (in theory at least). But the gulf on the left has been less obvious, partly because most of us don't really get to see what the hard left is up to. But I hang out on a left-wing forum and this affair has really brought home to me the ways in which the far-left are really not normal, as in people I would ever wish to spend a minute with - the gap between the far-left and far-right is far, far smaller than between either the far-left and Labour or the far-right and the Tories. The political spectrum really is a circle and the far left and right really do merge into one another exceptionally well. Quite scary. The amount of naked racism and tendency to glorifying dictators is terrifyingly similar on both the far-left and far-right. I suppose this is obvious in theory, it's just it's rare one sees it quite so clearly in public - the far-left, at least, usually prefers to wear a bigger figleaf over its racism and stupidity.

I don't think I've been making myself very popular on the forum. I will go and challenge anti-Semites most tiresomely! And won't allow that it's all just fine 'because of Israel'. Hmm

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