version

Well-known member
It doesn't seem to have happened to anywhere the same degree as with the Jews but there are or were a fair few Jesuit conspiracies.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
that's a good example

the key difference there being that Jesuits aren't an ethnicity or polity to themselves. there's no such thing as having Jesuit blood.
 
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padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Did anyone follow the stuff with Ilhan Omar in the US
she's definitely in that space where she's said some things that are uncomfortable

the things she was talking about - the undue influence of AIPAC - aren't necessarily wrong, it's more how she said them

unlike Corbyn she almost instantly apologized and made a real effort to distinguish between valid critique and anti-Semitic tropes. she partially pled ignorance, which I can believe.

she's more like a person I might not agree with all the time, but would be willing to hear out on any issue because she seems to have consistent principles, including against bigotry of all kinds.
 

version

Well-known member
Corbyn often seems to dig the hole deeper when he attempts an apology. He can be a bit slippery.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
no one accuses, say, the Swiss of secretly running world despite their proliferation as bankers

Jews are perceived as both insular/clannish (not untrue, depending on the Jews) and as rootless cosmopolitan outsiders

it's the combination of punching upward, and vulnerability

the perfect foil on which to blame all your problems

Reminds me of the line in Eco's essay on "Ur-Fascism" about how fascism demands an enemy that is "simultaneously too strong and too weak".
 

version

Well-known member
"If he were killing a mouse he would know how to make it seem like a dragon."

-- Orwell on Hitler.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Corbyn often seems to dig the hole deeper when he attempts an apology. He can be a bit slippery.

I think is the remarkable thing about this whole mess. A decision was taken to deny/deflect on the entire issue and that's led in our adversarial online culture to rapid polarisaiton with a whole community of people shouting the odds that's it's all a smear (often run and orchestrated by the Israeli govt - obviously a winning stance to take in an argument about anti-semitism) - and we have effectively a major political party saying we don't give a damn about your concerns to a whole community. Pretty fucked up.

On the other hand, how could they have owned the positions Corbyn took, things he said? Was struck by how this shows what an outlier Corbyn must've been in the Labour Party. If had any kind of ambitions within the party, he would've never have said or done those things but there he is, a few years back, clutching that wreath, inviting the IRA to Parliament etc etc.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Reminds me of the line in Eco's essay on "Ur-Fascism" about how fascism demands an enemy that is "simultaneously too strong and too weak".
I'd never read that, thanks. Jews also fulfill the requirement per Eco that an enemy be simultaneously "inside and outside".

that may be what makes Jews unique - the only group that fulfills both strong/weak and inside/outside

i.e. Jesuits were both strong (influence) and weak (actual temporal power), but categorically outside

whereas Muslims in Western countries can be seen as inside/outside - divided loyalty etc - but the 2nd largest religion on Earth can't be described as "weak"

and indeed has been a realistic - if not likely - existential threat to the West at points in history; the same goes for Catholicism in re: majority Protestant countries

so you add that unique combination of perceived qualities of Jews to the historically determined role as financiers and bang, there it is
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Was struck by how this shows what an outlier Corbyn must've been in the Labour Party
yeah I don't doubt the guy's sincerity

the crazy part isn't that a politician holds these views, it's that he's somehow become leader of Labour Party

yall will know better than me but I can only imagine that's a lot to do with disgust @ Blairism, general trends left in mainstream left-centre parties, etc, and not just Corbyn himself

granted there have been crazy things happening in mainstream electoral politics everywhere for awhile now
 

luka

Well-known member
Corbyn thinks, not unreasonably, that a subjugated population has a right to use violence. Northern Irish Catholics. Palestinians. Black South Africans under apartheid.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
the crazy part isn't that a politician holds these views, it's that he's somehow become leader of Labour Party

Think how crazy it'll be if he becomes PM. And yeah, disgust over Blairism is about right, especially Iraq. He's absolutely been in a minority in the party, but then Ed Milliband had the bright idea of opening up the voting to increase engagement and - boom!

And Luke, on your points, that seems to be the case. But there's such a dissonance between this position as he held it and the role of PM. That circle can't be squared. So its responded to with denial, stonewalling, all played out on social media.

What I find really dumb is there seems to be assumption that colonial violence and abuse of power should only be contested if the West does it. I'd have more respect for it if it was rooted in a passion for universal human rights. But they don't count if your anti-Maduro in Venezuela, opposition fighters in Syria etc etc.
 

luka

Well-known member
You mean a dissonance in that Britain was an imperial power and is an agent state of today's dominant imperial power?
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Just what I was on about above. Corbyn personally - Lifelong enemy of imperial power/the UK's exercise of that power is put in charge of same power.
 

luka

Well-known member
Having said that a Britain less attached to the maniacal pursuit of imperial power might be quite nice.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
Yeah. I can see that.

I am generally concerned about Russian influence and i wonder how that'd play out. I see more slippage away from the idea of universal human rights. An effect or perhaps intention of the Syrian conflict seems to be a systematic downgrading of norms about human rights violations, standards of truth and so on.
Mind you, it's not like the Tories aren't knee deep in dirty roubles - there was a story about Johnson burying some reports on Russian influence earlier today IIRC.

I could imagine this playing out dometically like Trump and the FBI - at war with his own advisors. Not that I think he's as malign or insane as Trump, mind.
 

luka

Well-known member
Things are looking bad. First time in my life I've felt scared. Well, except being a child and expecting the Russian nukes to fall every night.
 

version

Well-known member
Things are looking bad. First time in my life I've felt scared. Well, except being a child and expecting the Russian nukes to fall every night.

Were you one of those people permanently scarred by Threads?
 
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