Why Shouldn't I Vote for George Galloway?

Backjob

Well-known member
Jesus to use the word "myopic" in a post which implies that Blair is relatively bad as far as politicians go is pretty amusing. I mean compared to Chirac, Bush, Clinton, Major or Thatcher the guy is a fucking saint (not to even mention Mandelson, Blunkett, Howard or Letwin). Obviously he's an arsehole - he's a politician. But as arseholes go, he at least keeps the rim clean and doesn't drop too many sloppy turds on our faces.

I find it hilarious that people claim to be "disappointed" by Labour since '97 - I mean what the fuck did you expect? Sudden transformation of Britain into an anarchist utopia and free drugs for all? All we can ever hope for is relatively principled pandering to the moronic electorate as opposed to actively taking the piss.

The only thing that makes sense is to vote for a minority party like the Greens in order to bolster the protest vote and raise awareness of an issue.
 

bassnation

the abyss
Backjob said:
Jesus to use the word "myopic" in a post which implies that Blair is relatively bad as far as politicians go is pretty amusing. I mean compared to Chirac, Bush, Clinton, Major or Thatcher the guy is a fucking saint (not to even mention Mandelson, Blunkett, Howard or Letwin). Obviously he's an arsehole - he's a politician. But as arseholes go, he at least keeps the rim clean and doesn't drop too many sloppy turds on our faces.


i'm not sure how exactly you define not dropping "too many sloppy turds on our faces" but theres a lot of people dead because of that man, we've been lied to and our civil liberties have become even more eroded than they were under the tories for christs sake. i don't know how you feel, but i certainly don't feel sanguine about it.

Backjob said:
I find it hilarious that people claim to be "disappointed" by Labour since '97 - I mean what the fuck did you expect? Sudden transformation of Britain into an anarchist utopia and free drugs for all? All we can ever hope for is relatively principled pandering to the moronic electorate as opposed to actively taking the piss.

a lot of people expected more from a party that was instrumental in setting up the welfare state, a party with its roots in working class struggle - i'll make no bones about it, this is something i placed a lot of importance on earlier in my life.

a lot of people are so disillusioned that they've given up on politicians completely, which brings me to your other point on a "moronic electorate" - personally i think the apathy comes from above not below. who is there these days to represent the working class? or even the underclass, a group dissensus likes to patronise at regular intervals.

calling ordinairy people moronic just because they no longer engage with an uttterly corrupt system is just the kind of attitude and level of discourse i'm beginning to expect from this forum.

Backjob said:
The only thing that makes sense is to vote for a minority party like the Greens in order to bolster the protest vote and raise awareness of an issue.

thats as much use as a chocolate teapot - for all the scorn you pour on to an apathetic and "moronic" electorate, they are using their vote in an as useful way by discarding it as you are by voting green.

and you accuse me of living in a dream world by expecting more from labour!

imo, the only use of our extremely limited democratic system is to give the current incumbents a boot up the arse every so often as well as voting tactically in areas where it looks like the bnp might get in. beyond that its useless and we should organise to change the system long term but you already knew that didn't you?
 

k-punk

Spectres of Mark
Backjob said:
Jesus to use the word "myopic" in a post which implies that Blair is relatively bad as far as politicians go is pretty amusing. I mean compared to Chirac, Bush, Clinton, Major or Thatcher the guy is a fucking saint (not to even mention Mandelson, Blunkett, Howard or Letwin).

Uh, don't think so... Blair is much, much worse than Thatcher. Blair has done nothing to dismantle anything bad that Thatcher did but a great deal to continue everything bad she started. Thatcher attacked vested interests; Blair produces them. Class mobility has DECLINED under that Islington smugonaut.

To be a little parochial for a moment, the damage Blair has done to education is vast. He has continued Thatcher's politicization of education, increased bureaucracy and reduced quality while 'widening access' (yes, to a vastly worse, increasingly ragged service). Even over the last four years, things have declined by massive increments. Go into a school or college and you'll see teachers dragged down by the weight of bullet-pointed managerialist 'initiatives'. All of the institution's energy goes into meeting Blair's Stalinist quotas: it's now almost part of a teacher's job description that their basic function is to produce statistics that will ensure the govt is re-elected....

As for Blair AS OPPOSED to Bush... how does that work?

Yeh, he's better than Clinton, but who few could be worse than that smarmy lying sleaze...

Course all of this is a distraction from the real issues, which are structural, not personal.

But then kapitalist parliamentarianism is a distraction from those issues, so...
 

jenks

thread death
k-punk said:
To be a little parochial for a moment, the damage Blair has done to education is vast. He has continued Thatcher's politicization of education, increased bureaucracy and reduced quality while 'widening access' (yes, to a vastly worse, increasingly ragged service). Even over the last four years, things have declined by massive increments. Go into a school or college and you'll see teachers dragged down by the weight of bullet-pointed managerialist 'initiatives'. All of the institution's energy goes into meeting Blair's Stalinist quotas: it's now almost part of a teacher's job description that their basic function is to produce statistics that will ensure the govt is re-elected....

.
too fucking true kpunk - sat through an hour long meeting on tuesday to be told we're all facing a pay cut cos the govt's workload 'agreement' has bee so successful!!! bit of a shock to us as we wallow along in misery.
if anybody thinks the punkster is exagerrating about the statistics issue i point you to last year's english sats fiasco - just trawl the TES archive for the full story
 

bo!ne

Member
there's a number of things I disagree with Galloway on but there's far more I agree with him about. Was I the only one cheering at the telly (along with half the studio audience) during his demolition of Margaret Hodge et al on Question Time t'other night?

The wider point not really picked up yet by this thread (tho touched on by bassnation) is whether (a) people broadly of the Left, who e.g. are anti-privatisation, anti-war, pro-wealth redistribution, social justice etc are represented in any meaningful way by the three mainstream political brands. if the answer to this is No, then (b) is there some value in forming a political current which brings this huge disenfranchised constituency together to more effectively and collectively struggle for a world more in keeping with our values, via both elections AND via marches, protests, strikes and so on?

erroneously dismissing anyone who wishes to do so as minority cranks, or grotesquely charicaturing such a project as having to align oneself with (shock horror) "the SWP" and "Muslim Brotherhood" is to be lazy, ignoble and a friend of Bush and Blair.

as for quoting the cretinous Johann Hari (another brave supporter of the great war of Iraqi liberation) with his 57th-hand recycling of the old "Lenin led to Stalin" shtick to support your argument, well...

Vote Respect! Or if they aint standing in your area, get involved in stopping the BNP nazis getting anything out of this General Election. (www.uaf.org.uk)
 
Hate mob attacks Galloway

Hate mob attacks Galloway


The bitter election battle in the East End has spilled into violence, with extremist Muslims and anti-war protesters targeting George Galloway and Oona King.

Anti-war campaigner Mr Galloway was forced to take refuge from Islamic militants who denounced him as a "false prophet".

The former Labour MP said "the police saved my life" after supporters of radical group Hizb-Ut-Tahrir clashed with members of his Respect party last night.

Labour's Ms King had her car tyres slashed and the vehicle was pelted with eggs by a gang of youths angry at her support for the Iraq war. Both incidents triggered fears for the safety of Mr Galloway and Ms King as they prepared for a stormy hustings meeting in Bethnal Green and Bow tonight.

Labour's 10,000 majority in the seat is under serious threat from Respect and the contest has been marked by some of the most vitriolic campaigning in the general election.

Mr Galloway was electioneering on the Osier council estate in Bethnal Green last night when a gang of 30 Muslim fundamentalists, who claim voting is un-Islamic, surrounded him and his supporters.

The men said they were angry at Mr Galloway's attempt to woo Muslim voters. They said they were "setting up the gallows" for him and warned any Muslim who voted for his anti-war Respect party that they faced a "sentence of death".

After a fight broke out between the two groups, police were called and Mr Galloway was forced to hide in his car in an alley until the violence calmed down. Two men were later arrested.

One resident said: "I heard shouting and looked out into the street to see a large group of Asian men. Many of them were fighting.

"There were punches and kicks thrown, then a large number of police arrived and broke up the riot."

Speaking to the Standard minutes after the attack, Mr Galloway said it was clear the men were worried that he could become MP for an area with a large Muslim population.

"I was meeting people who live in the flats. Hizb-ut-Tahrir suddenly filled the room and blocked the door. I tried speaking calmly. They then said I was parading as a false prophet and served a sentence of death on me. They were claiming I was representing myself as a false deity and for this apostasy I would be sentenced to the gallows," he said.

"They said they were setting up the gallows for me. Thank God my daughter was not with me. She was in the car outside. Otherwise there would have been nobody to call the police. The police saved my life." The former MP is challenging Labour's Oona King in the seat on 5 May, but Hizb-ut-Tahrir has declared that it will fight his bid.

Mr Galloway, who is due to share a platform with the leader of Hizb-ut-Tahrir on Saturday at a debate on Muslims and politics, said he was being targeted because he offered a democratic solution to Muslims. Hizb-ut-Tahrir is not illegal but it has been banned from university campuses for stirring trouble between Jewish and Muslim students. It supports Palestinian suicide bombers.

Last night's incident came hours after another group of Muslim men disrupted a general election media meeting of the Muslim Council of Britain. A group thought to be followers of cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed attacked the Council, claiming no one should vote in the election.

Ms King came under attack from Respect supporters at the weekend, it emerged today. One Labour activist, Mohamed Chowdhury, said: "We left the area to chants of "Oona get out' and 'get out of our estate' and were attacked with eggs again. However, when we returned to the car in Toynbee Street we found it covered in eggs. As we got in the car, more eggs were thrown".

Police are investigating. Witnesses claim the youths wore Respect badges, but there is no suggestion that Mr Galloway knew about or condoned the violence.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/18034715?source=Evening Standard&ct=5


Seeing Galloway swing would be hilarious. So, I'm hoping he wins and has to risk life and limb at MPs surgeries for the next four or five years.
 
Heard on BBC news the other day

Heckler: Why are you a friend of Saddam Hussein?
GG: I'm not a friend of Saddam Hussein
Heckler: But you shook hands with him.
GG: I'm shaking hands with you now, but you're not my friend.

Can't beat logic like that.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Even AA Gill's been funny:

GG: "We're the ghost of Labour."
AAG: "What, you mean you're dead?"

Hustings tonight, 7.30pm. People's Palace, Queen Mary & Westfield Campus.

I'll be there, in Oona's camp.
 

luka

Well-known member
the 'extremist muslims' attacking galloway were oliver craner and his cronies dressed in fake beards.
retract the fatwa craner, this has gone too far.
 

bat020

Active member
Bethnal Green & Bow

Respect........................George Galloway......15801..........35.9%
Labour..............................Oona King............14978..........34.0%
Conservative.................Shahagir Faruk.........6244...........14.2%
Liberal Democrat..............Syed Dulu..............4928...........11.2%
Green..............................John Foster.............1950............4.4%
Alliance for Change..........Ejiro Etefia................68..............0.2%
Independent....................Celia Pugh................38..............0.1%
 
O

Omaar

Guest
George Galloway and Jeremy Paxman -

JP: We're joined now from his count in Bethnal Green and Bow by George Galloway. Mr Galloway, are you proud of having got rid of one of the very few black women in Parliament?
GG: What a preposterous question. I know it's very late in the night, but wouldn't you be better starting by congratulating me for one of the most sensational election results in modern history?
JP: Are you proud of having got rid of one of the very few black women in Parliament?
GG: I'm not - Jeremy - move on to your next question.
JP: You're not answering that one?
GG: No because I don't believe that people get elected because of the colour of their skin. I believe people get elected because of their record and because of their policies. So move on to your next question.
JP: Are you proud -
GG: Because I've got a lot of people who want to speak to me.
JP: - You -
GG: If you ask that question again, I'm going, I warn you now.
JP: Don't try and threaten me Mr Galloway, please.

etc...


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/blog/4519553.stm
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
JP: I put it to you Mr Galloway that Nick Raynsford had you to a T when he said you were a "demagogue".
GG: Sorry?
JP: Nick Raynsford. You know who I mean? Nick Raynsford. Labour MP?
GG: No, I don't know who you mean.
JP: Never heard of him.
GG: I've never heard of Nick Raynsford, no.
JP: What else haven't you heard of?

Genius.
 

gabriel

The Heatwave
baboon2004 said:
JP: I put it to you Mr Galloway that Nick Raynsford had you to a T when he said you were a "demagogue".
GG: Sorry?
JP: Nick Raynsford. You know who I mean? Nick Raynsford. Labour MP?
GG: No, I don't know who you mean.
JP: Never heard of him.
GG: I've never heard of Nick Raynsford, no.
JP: What else haven't you heard of?

Genius.

genius? who?

funny how much the transcript read like a drunken/stoned conversation. must have been really late...
 

craner

Beast of Burden
An utter fucking fool gloated at me, "we've liberated Brick Lane!"

Oona was like, "I guess I look forward to seeing Galloway's face when I hand over 20,000 case files on Monday morning."

I was like, damn.
 
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bassnation

the abyss
oliver craner said:
An utter fucking fool gloated at me, "we've liberated Brick Lane!"

Oona was like, "I guess I look forward to seeing Galloway's face when I hand over 20,000 case files on Monday morning."

I was like, damn.

i feel sorry for the bethnal green constituents - thats two pathetically self-serving career politicains they've had in a row now. a pox on both their houses.

just out of interest, do you always refer to people who disagree with you (of which there must be many) as utter fucking fools, or was it just the heat of the moment with all this electoral excitement?
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Well no, I have a large arsenal of insults. It was specific to the person in hand, i.e. he warranted nothing more than low-grade stock terms. Good question, though.
 

bassnation

the abyss
oliver craner said:
Well no, I have a large arsenal of insults. It was specific to the person in hand, i.e. he warranted nothing more than low-grade stock terms. Good question, though.

well yeah, and to your credit (and everyone else here) - these debates are extroadinarily polite and well mannered, much more so than other forums i've been involved with, so maybe i was out of order picking up on one little thing. :)
 

craner

Beast of Burden
And is communalism a healthy way to conduct politics?

The funny thing is:

People like Paxman accuse Galloway of running a campaign based on stirring up racial prejudice, a la, in an obscure but potent way, " how do you feel about unseating one of only two black female MPs?" (a prosterous question, I grant you)

and it makes it easy for him to sidestep the real issue:

which is that he did run a racially-divisive campaign, not based on Oona's ethnicity, but by exploiting and encouraging the Bengali opposition to the war and, more so, reform in the Middle East and Islam. This reform is not racist at all: it's fundamental. Ask the moderates. (I have.) (Which also made the hardcore Islamist backlash so ironic and delicious, although I felt a twinge of solidarity for Galloway, for once we shared the same enemies, sort of. Except: Catholic and Islamist: how many degrees distant , really?)

All the major parties address communities as a whole. Even the Tories do.

That's the difference. It's a distance.

(Also, it reminds me of the Bolton furor: all this bluster about his outragous statements obscures the important questions his nomination raises. i.e. what's he actually saying? what's his point? (well he wants to keep 28 stories of the UN building...that's something) ...i.e. this debate is a good opportunity to work out how and why the UN fails so spectacularly
 
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