Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Lol.

You know, of all the times you've accused me of being an apologist for racism, imperialism, kicking puppies in the face etc. etc., I don't think I've ever just told you to fuck off.

I bet there's an excellent Yiddish word for someone who can dish it out but can't take it.
 

droid

Well-known member
Right, so lets take a look at what youve done here.

This counterfactual only works in the context of a parallel universe where a dictator attempted to eradicate white people from the face of the earth, though, doesn't it?

Clearly referring to Hitler, to which I replied:

"Yeah, its not like Zionism predates Nazism by about 50 years or anything.

A direct response to your specific assertion. So then you decide to move your goalposts to include 'all antisemitism', and then invent a strawman that has nothing to do with anything I said

Are you seriously trying to pretend the foundation of Israel had nothing to do with certain events of the early 1940s? Or that anti-Semitism was invented in Germany in 1933?

I mean, someone reading your last few posts in this thread might be led to think Israel was founded for no other reason than that Jews just like to feel they're a bit different, special and better than everyone else... :rolleyes:

We've been through this before, so clearly the best thing is just to ignore your wilful distortions, but no, once again to go all in and invent something I didn't say, whilst also deciding to slander me as racist at the same time:

At the same time, droid's 'Israel exists purely because Jews are racist' narrative is itself historically ignorant and shamefully racist.

I did not create that, or any narrative, I simply pointed out a fact. You can make the argument that the foundation of Israel, like the foundation of Croatia, Serbia, Kosovo etc. as ethno-states was justified, but it cant be denied that it is implicitly racist.

So yes, please fuck off with your tiresome distortions, fallacies and slander.

I bet there's a yiddish word for someone who's so lacking in self awareness that virtually every argument they make is riddled with intellectual dishonesty.
 

luka

Well-known member
it's not a lack of self-awareness it's a mission to obfuscate distort and derail. it's a consistent pattern over many years. its willful sabotage.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
early (sporadic) muslim persecution of jews is hardly the same as modern antisemitism is it.

in modern antisemitism the archetypical jew is an eternal omnipresent conspirator.
 

luka

Well-known member
mr tea gets paid 25p by the state for every post he makes gumming the gears of dissensus and muddying the pellucid waters of perfect thought
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I did not create that, or any narrative, I simply pointed out a fact. You can make the argument that the foundation of Israel, like the foundation of Croatia, Serbia, Kosovo etc. as ethno-states was justified, but it cant be denied that it is implicitly racist.

Israel, as it was constituted in 1947 and continues to be constituted, is implicitly racist. On that point I agree.

But to discuss even historical, pre-1947 Zionism as if it arose out of nowhere - and to blithely compare it with white supremacism with no acknowledgement that, unlike the latter, it was a response to centuries of racist victimisation and eventually genocide - is such a huge omission that it becomes a statement in its own right. And a statement that suggests some ugly prejudices.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Maybe, but anti-Semitism is uniquely conspiratorial, global and persistent, and led to the most comprehensive and species-shaming* genocide in human history.

Otherwise...yeah.

*I just think of that part of Gilbert's Holocaust book when he recounts the trained dogs shrinking from attacking children against the orders and beatings of their SS owners
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Maybe, but anti-Semitism is uniquely conspiratorial, global and persistent

I agree that anti-Semitism operates in unique ways and the conspiracy form is unique (in the sense that the conspiracy runs that Jewish people are more powerful rather than , but I find this comment a bit bizarre.

You don't think white supremacy is global? Interesting. As to its persistence as "the longest hatred", that's largely for specific historical demographic reasons, not because you can somehow 'rank' different types of racism.

And (returning to the UK situation specifically) whether or not you want to group anti-Semitism and other forms of racism, all forms of discrimination of this kind need to be treated with equal gravity. As long as Boris Johnson, Zac Goldsmith and the rest do not face strong public calls to be expelled from their party for (in their recent cases) Islamophobia, then a feeling that discrimination has been weaponised for political intent, and not in the interests of protecting victims of discrimination, will persist.
 
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luka

Well-known member
well this is the point isnt it you cant weaponise racism against tories becasue racism is part of the brand just as anti-racism is part of the labour brand. it's why the smear works. whereas boris johnson could say wogs go home and no one would bat an eyelid. business as usual.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I agree, but the smear only works as long as (i) Labour are stupid about this, and accept the framing of the smear [which they pretty much have done]; (ii) in the wider world anti-Semitism and racism are treated as totally different entities, which kind of relies upon the treating of 'race' as somehow real, rather than just a machine of Othering, which is also used against Jewish people*. Also lots of debate in the US about the elimination of non-white Jews from any conversation about anti-Semitism, and the unstable white privilege that some Ashkenazi Jews can have - e.g. https://forward.com/opinion/404482/white-jews-stop-calling-yourselves-white-passing/

*Also of course in the context of the Holocaust (following on from Craner's comment above), then the Nazi definition of who was 'really' Jewish under Nuremberg Laws departed from any religious/cultural concerns, and instead had strong parallels to the rules of hypodescent in the US under slavery.
 
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luka

Well-known member
i think because the information supply still largely passes through the filters of the media, and the media are all complicit and invested in the smear, there's a limit to the amount labour can do.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
definitely right about the mass media complicity (the Guardian in particular can just fuck off with its description of any dissenters as 'fringe' Jewish groups - what does that even mean?), but even then I think Labour haven't projected a clear message via their own channels. Did they call for an independent evaluation of racism and anti-Semitism within all political parties, which is imo what they should have done - to reframe the issue in a similar way to which misogyny across the political spectrum has been examined recently? It's possible that they did and the media didn't cover it, but surely some of the press would have had to cover the story had Corbyn banged on about it every single week.
 
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Woebot

Well-known member
definitely right about the mass media complicity (the Guardian in particular can just fuck off with its description of any dissenters as 'fringe' Jewish groups - what does that even mean?)

it is weird that the guardian haven't given labour more support i agree.

it does seem a little like the trump/russia thing in a perverse respect - driven by media churn - clear even to the most rabid that there isn't much in it:

Q: are labour GENUINELY anti-semitic? A: no.

Q: did Russian meddling REALLY win the election for Trump? A: no.
 

droid

Well-known member
The question wrt Russia is about collusion as opposed to influence. American hypocrisy aside, its becoming clearer each day that there was collusion - Trump even admitted as much on twitter recently.

In terms of influence, its impossible to say, there was a confluence of factors of which dark money/targeted ads/foreign interference/voter suppression were just one aspect, however, considering that Trump won by razor thin margins in swing states by a total of about 100,000 votes, it would be foolish to discount the possibility that Russian voter manipulation may have had a significant role in delivering those margins.
 
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