Owen Jones

[JoanWilliams75]

How can he be so obtuse? I can only assume he has never spent time with children?

twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1115021165398056960

I would guess: not an organised attack, but some drunk and lairy people who disagree with him politically. Like, they spotted him, went "Oi, there's that wanker" and landed a few punches. It seems like he was specifically singled out from among his friends, so it makes sense to assume that has something to do with his public persona.

So more of a drunken scuffle than a full on beating, hence him not being particularly badly injured. I don't see a lot of reason to doubt his story. And much as I dislike Owen Jones I can forgive a bit of exaggeration if it's happening, because i'm pretty sure if something like that happened to me I would be exaggerating the hell out of it. Not even consciously, it's just that for a person who isn't physically violent an event like that is very high drama.

It doesn't actually matter whether he's exaggerating, or how bad it was. Violence - whether a huge beating or a small one which "could have been worse" or even the mere threat of it (online rape threats for instance) - creates a climate of intimidation which is the opposite of the openess needed for a fair and just society to function. We shouldn't get drawn into debates about how bad it was, whether he's exaggerating, whether it was in fact right wingers, or homophobes, or just lairy blokes on a night out - it's all wrong.

(I am distinguishing my emotional response which is, frankly, rather underwhelming in this instance, due to OJ being so happy to remain silent about the violence directed towards gender critical women, from my political response, which is that regardless of how I personally feel about the victim, the violence itself is wrong, wrong, wrong.)

All violence, however it was motivated, is to be condemned without question or prevarication. Every. Single. Time.

I dislike Owen Jones intensely and try to spend as little time as possible thinking about him.

These statements are not contradictory.

My (earlier) point is if your mate got beaten up, you wouldn't feel obliged to stand up and make a formal statement so she or he knew you officially condemned people being beaten up before you got on with helping them. Ditto a stranger on the street.

Decent people already live by those widely accepted social norms to not have to issue verbal disclaimers as they pass through life.

Yet here we have poster after poster doing exactly that.

Certainly in my case Buzz I am at least partially making my statement to contrast with the comments of Mr Jones regarding violence by others towards people whose views he disagrees with

Decent people already live by those widely accepted social norms to not have to issue verbal disclaimers as they pass through life.

It's more that decent people assume that even their political opponents will not excuse and minimise violence when they get beaten up. AWAs celebrated the assault on Maria and openly discuss murdering and battering us, yet at the the same time they accuse us of wanting trans people to die. Our opponents are not decent people and will smear us at every turn. Silence would be deliberately misconstrued as approval because they do not obey normal social and political rules of engagement, so we have to speak out in condemnation, because we do not approve and I for one will not sit silent whilst they smear me.

Yes, it should be a no-brainer that an assault on anyone is awful. We are dealing with manipulative liars though, so we have to spell it out: twatting Owen Jones or anyone else is shitty behaviour.

BBC News - Owen Jones: Three arrested over London pub assault
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49515313

I'm glad they have been able to bring some people in for this. 3 arrested, though the news reports were that 4 were involved in the assault.

Good news indeed - I'm glad they've made arrests.

Once again - Owen, I may not agree with a lot of what you say, but I was very saddened to hear you'd been attacked. That should not happen to anyone.

Such a bad thing, to be against people doing dangerous experiements on our kids eh.

Also was sorry to hear of the attack though. I would say I hpoe he recovers soon but he seems recovered already, though maybe not in his head as I know when I was assaulted as a teen, my head was fucked up for a while and I was so jumpy and that. Glad to hear of the arrest. If it was as close to a pb as it sounds, the cctv should have caught it so it makes it 'better' that it was there, rather than in an alley or something. I use better as, well I can't think of another way to put that.

Weird that OJ hasn't come out and said that, as bad as it was that he was attacked, transmen (or even all transgender people) of course have it worse.

This was his comment when one of the lesbians who were attacked on a London bus used their platform to draw attention to how men who identify as women have it worse than lesbians.

"This is so inspiring. One of the women attacked in the homophobic, misogynistic bus attack writes an amazing piece challenging transphobia, racism, and capitalism itself. It ends by asking us to remember three murdered trans women of colour. Amazing".

And yet when Jones is attacked, there's no hint of using that platform to challenge transphobia, racism and capitalism. He is not asking us to remember murdered trans people of colour.

I wonder why that is, since he lauds bloodied women for calling attention to how some males have it worse. Inspiring, apparently.

And yet he won't do it himself.

So it turns out that it was just mindless male violence. Quelle surprise, men behaving badly.

Not a targeted homophobic hate crime.

I’m pleased because at the least the truth will come out now.