Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
One from the Biscuits wank-bank, eh?
Keir Starmer
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
At the risk of going over what's very, very old ground by now, I'm afraid you'll have no truck convincing me Corbyn was the victim of "smears" if by that you mean "people quoting things he actually said and finding them objectionable for entirely valid reasons."
Yeah, the anti-semitism stuff wasn't fake either. It was weaponised against him definitely as it was a weak point but he was hoist by his own petard really. He should have moved rapidly away from some key allies who said dodgy stuff early on but he was just too weird and proud to do so. Same mentality that was evidenced on that Piers Morgan clip.
It's always somebody else's fault, Tea, remember.
And yes, I want to redo the stuff the same way I want to punch myself in the groin.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Each to their own, Dan. I'm not going to kink-shame you.
maxi
Well-known member
Theres a good chance then because that's not what I mean.
Yeah old ground but thats why you should just watch that video as it puts it to rest. Or the book. Deals with all the points quite definitively.
The mistake he made was conceding points when he should have been strongly dismissing the manufactured crisis as the nonsense it was.
maxi
Well-known member
Its the "crisis" part that was fake. of course you could find examples of antisemitism within labour. The crisis revolved around claims that labour had a particular problem with it, that corbyn himself was antisemitic, and that he neglected to address it properly, which was all ridiculous.
It originated with accusations from pro israel groups which discredit anyone who says a word against the state, so its tragic the smears were absorbed by even people on the pro palestine left.
Dont have to discuss but it does relate closely to what's going on right now and how these smear campaigns operate. Everything we're seeing now discrediting protesters and anyone opposed to Israel is running on the same model.
It also devalued the meaning of the term "antisemitism"
maxi
Well-known member
He wasnt weird and proud lol it was the opposite, he was weak and yielded to pressure when he should have stayed firm and called out the smears as smears
you do see the same issue in the piers morgan thing though yes.
His only fault was an excess of virtue, right? "Yeah he was just too nice!" - rather than intransigent and thick with regard to criticizing allies who'd said dreadful stuff with regard to AS.
My main problem with the kind of critique you've posted is it's such a disavowal of responsibility. I can absolutely accept it was used against him - that's politics, its fucking unpleasant, a similar thing is being done against Starmer rn wrt the Gaza vote - but there was no fault? I don't buy it.
My main problem with the kind of critique you've posted is it's such a disavowal of responsibility. I can absolutely accept it was used against him - that's politics, its fucking unpleasant, a similar thing is being done against Starmer rn wrt the Gaza vote - but there was no fault? I don't buy it.
maxi
Well-known member
Nope again thats not what im saying. He has plenty of faults. But not caring or acting against racism isnt one of them.
You need to go through the details to disentangle all the lies and distortions, its a combination of many things, obv neither of us want to do that now. but 'bad news for labour' does it well, its a collection of essays, or jamie stern weiners analysis of it. Also this free book https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2679-antisemitism-and-the-labour-party
It's important to understand how they operate because exactly the same thing will be done again to any left wing leader with similar views on Israel.
You need to go through the details to disentangle all the lies and distortions, its a combination of many things, obv neither of us want to do that now. but 'bad news for labour' does it well, its a collection of essays, or jamie stern weiners analysis of it. Also this free book https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2679-antisemitism-and-the-labour-party
It's important to understand how they operate because exactly the same thing will be done again to any left wing leader with similar views on Israel.
I am literally arguing rn on Twitter with someone who is trying to tell me Starmer is a Zionist who's funded by Israel. Might it not be that his (extremely bad) decision to whip against the Gaza vote was an attempt to appease Jewish sensibilities after years of evidence free assertions like that from Corbynites? What seems more likely? I wonder (between the bouts of despair).
I just say that to point out that this kind of thinking is endemic to the Left as expressed online anyway. The Right yes of course are worse but in a different way.
I just say that to point out that this kind of thinking is endemic to the Left as expressed online anyway. The Right yes of course are worse but in a different way.
My main contention that I think still stands up is the kind of Leftism Corbyn does lends itself naturally to conspiracism which then turns easily into anti-semitism. This pov comes out of reading (second hand I'll admit) the analysis of people like Moshe Postone, who says it's a perennial problem with the far Left He was writing with reference to Germany but his ideas still seem to fit here. I'm not that interested in picking apart the smears so called - the AS is kinda ideologically upstream of that IMO.
There are also a couple of decent books on Labour anti-Semitism which acknowledge it was a problem - Daniel Randall's and David Renton's (the latter is still a JC supporter).
maxi
Well-known member
Definitely aware of that conspiracism strain. It does exist. But I don't think it's as prevalent as you do maybe. the kind that leads to antisemitism is still more likely to come from the right. If it was decided that the AS crisis campaign needed to be used to discredit any other political leader, a tory for example, it would have been easier for them to do than with corbyn
The Postone stuff kinda points out the distinct quality of AS that sits with left wing politics - it's a naive critique of power/"the socialism of fools" etc. You get the same with the right of course, but it's more explicitly racist.
Interview with Postone here: https://www.workersliberty.org/files/100205postone.pdf
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
Back on KS in general - one of the things that I think should be worrying about him even for people who are broadly on board with his politics is that his strategy seems to be to i) point out how shit everything is at the moment and ii) unambiguously rule out anything that Labour might do once elected that could actually do anything about it. And it's hard to see how this works as a long-term strategy, assuming that they actually get elected, given that a lot of people will actually be hoping to see some sort of change.
mixed_biscuits
_________________________
What, like with Theresa May?
maxi
Well-known member
exactly. if things like this > https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...s-johnson-antisemitism-plymouth-a9226106.html > had been latched on to by pro Israel groups alongside both parties and the media as a way of destroying her credibility, alongside trawling all public comments and social media posts by every member of the conservative party as a way of exposing the party as a supposed hotbed of antisemitism, they would have been able to do it. but there wasn't an incentive to do it because she wasn't challenging power
maxi
Well-known member
there was never any data to suggest levels of antisemitism were higher in the labour party than the conservative party. that's one of several reasons why the claim that there was a 'labour antisemitism crisis' i.e. a problem particular to labour, was false.
with an organisation as big as labour was at the time, half a million members, you could probably make a case for virtually any claim you wanted by going through every available statement by every member. if they wanted to make a case labour had a 'fatphobia' problem they'd probably be able to manufacture that too with enough effort. the AS crisis was a dedicated smear campaign initiated by pro Israel groups then opportunistically exploited by both conservatives and right wing labour as a way of bringing down the corbyn project.
with an organisation as big as labour was at the time, half a million members, you could probably make a case for virtually any claim you wanted by going through every available statement by every member. if they wanted to make a case labour had a 'fatphobia' problem they'd probably be able to manufacture that too with enough effort. the AS crisis was a dedicated smear campaign initiated by pro Israel groups then opportunistically exploited by both conservatives and right wing labour as a way of bringing down the corbyn project.
droid
Well-known member
The British state is now providing political support and actively participating in a campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocidal slaughter, exceeding anything Assad did in Syria or what the Serbs did in Sarajevo, certainly orders of magnitude worse than Russia in Ukraine, arguably one of the most bloody and appalling military actions since WWII - against a captive people no less.
Say what you like about Corbyn, but he would not now be making the British people complicit in such an appalling atrocity.
Say what you like about Corbyn, but he would not now be making the British people complicit in such an appalling atrocity.