Jeremy Corbyn

[Mr. Tea]

And Baboon, for heaven's sake, I see you're still banging the "But the Tories...!" drum. I'm pretty sure no-one who posts here with any regularity would deny that the Tory party is full of racists and always has been, and that it's taken a noticeable turn for the worse in the last few years as the party has effectively neutralized Ukip by adopting much of their rhetoric and some of their policies. But in a thread titled 'Jeremy Corbyn' this just amounts to whataboutery. By all means start a thread titled 'Tory racism', or even 'Tory racism and media double-standards', but to insist that it's necessary to add "but of course the Tories are worse" every single time the problem of bigotry in the Labour left or left-wing organizations generally is brought up is just pointless and tiresome. It's like, yes we know that, thanks, now can we talk about the issue at hand?

 

[baboon2004]

It's only tiresome and pointless if you haven't understood the point, tbh. Of course it's relevant if the accusations of anti-Semitism are wholly party-politically motivated and have nothing whatsoever to do with actually combating racism - and that's a massive part of the issue at hand.

It was an attempt not to deal with individual instances of racism, which is of course absolutely necessary, but to smear an entire party for the purposes of electoral gain, and to divert attention from the obvious. Smears you're fascinated with for some reason.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...vention-by-jim-murphy-blairites-a7059486.html this occasion is pretty indicative in terms of the instrumentalisation of anti-racism as a political weapon, shorn of any interest in actual racism (came from within the LP obviously in this example)

 

[john eden]

I dunno, I have no in-depth knowledge of the inner workings of the party. At any rate, a lot of people felt he took too long to respond, whether it's up to him to kick people out of the party or not. A quick google turns up a Guardian story starting with "Jeremy Corbyn is facing demands to force Ken Livingstone out of Labour for his comments linking Adolf Hitler and Zionism...", which seems to imply Corbyn at least in theory has some influence over decisions on whether to expel a party member, which seems reasonable for an elected party leader and not particularly Stalinistic in itself.

And I'm still waiting for you to quote the post where I called Corbyn a Stalin apologist.

Well maybe spend some time with the rule book of the party you have been out knocking doors for, instead of hate wanking over media pieces slagging off your leader?

Maybe also don't join a party whose disciplinary process is unduly influenced by the media, too? Trial by tabloids, is it?

You were banging on about rehabilitating Soviet Russia up the thread, which I accept wasn't about Corbyn, but probably it will only be a few more pages before you invent some connection between Corbyn and that. I mean the Sun had had down as a Marxist extremist on the cover on election day.

Apparently Ed Miliband was a scary communist a few years ago, how times change.

 

[Mr. Tea]

"Hate wanking"? FFS, do you want to be any more melodramatic? My attitude to Corbyn, as anyone who's actually read my posts rather than cherry-picking a few to get righteously furious about, is that he's been a mixed blessing. He has, undoubtedly, energized a large section of the electorate, especially the youth vote, and for that he deserves a great deal of credit. He's pulled off an amazing result given the dire predictions just a couple of months back, that's undeniable. It's also undeniable that Labour still lost the election by 55 seats. The question is whether Corbyn can appeal to a big enough percentage of swing voters - centrist Labour voters, wavering Tories, people abandoning the Lib Dems and SNP - without alienating too many of his diehard supporters, and manage the balance enough to win the next election.

I've been at pains to point out that my main problem with him is not even the man himself but some of the company he keeps - you even, grudgingly, admit this and yet still want to convict me of slandering him - and his willingness to prioritise old hard-left allegiances at the risk of pushing away many people who might otherwise vote for him. You can bleat about the tabloids till you're hoarse but it doesn't overcome that fundamental niggle.

 

[luka]

Mr Tea voted Tory

 

[john eden]

Mr Tea voted Tory

Well that would certainly explain his insistence on the party leader (daddy or mummy) being at the centre of the disciplinary process.

 

[luka]

Spank me father

 

[DannyL]

Hatewanking nonwithstanding, I think Tea is right about the allegiances with people like Milne and Murray (it's the latter who called for solidairty iwth North Korea btw). This colours Labour's Syria policy or rather the lack of same. That's the "material consequnces" of these allegiances if you like. It'll be interesting to see what kinda ructions there are in the party in coming months as Corbyn's essentially pro-Russian faction battles it out with the standard Labour pro-NATO positions. I know there's the appearnce of a collective love in the party at the moment, but these are deep ideological differences, invisible to Corbyn's fanbase. I posted a few links about this upthread.

I'm not really sure about the anti-semitism stuff, haven't followed it closely. On one hand, it did look like a convenient stick to beat Corbyn with. On the other hand, pretty sure they're are a bunch of people in Stop the War and allied organisations who are not too fussy about slagging off the Je..., sorry, "Zionists" and blaming them for all the world's ills. Pretty easy to get into emotional denouncements of the about the global banking system and the "Rothschllds" (nudge, nudge) if you waste time arguing with these people.

 

[droid]

The anti semitism issue was covered in depth earlier in this thread, although it seems people have forgotten the outcome of that discussion.

Do you have any comments about the 3-400 civilian deaths due to bombing during the Raqqa offensive and UN allegations of war crimes against US and SDF forces including the use of white phosphorous in a heavily populated area which almost certainly constitutes chemical weapon use? More Putin/Assad propaganda?

 

[DannyL]

Of relevance:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/a-million-people-should-take-10623852

https://colinrtalbot.wordpress.com/...nnell-insurgency-strategy-after-the-election/

 

[DannyL]

The anti semitism issue was covered in depth earlier in this thread, although it seems people have forgotten the outcome of that discussion.

Do you have any comments about the 3-400 civilian deaths due to bombing during the Raqqa offensive and UN allegations of war crimes against US and SDF forces including the use of white phosphorous in a heavily populated area which almost certainly constitutes chemical weapon use? More Putin/Assad propaganda?

I could make a comment but I'd ask do you have any comments that aren't just fucking whataboutery?

 

[Mr. Tea]

Do you have any comments about the 3-400 civilian deaths due to bombing during the Raqqa offensive and UN allegations of war crimes against US and SDF forces including the use of white phosphorous in a heavily populated area which almost certainly constitutes chemical weapon use? More Putin/Assad propaganda?

A direct consequence of Trump's election to POTUS, obviously - something the Russian state was not uncomplicit in. Massive indiscriminate bombing like this wasn't happening while Obama was in charge.

But as Dan says, this is pure whataboutery. Do civilian deaths inflicted by American forces makes those caused by Syrian government, Iranian and Russian forces matter less? Who here is cheering on the USAF?

 

[DannyL]

I thought about posting some of the stuff about Raaqa when we were arguing but I decided not to. I've been reading about this stuff for a few days mostly coming from Syrian activists. I take them seriously as they don't seem to take sides before the fact as to whether they care about an atrocity or not.

 

[droid]

I could make a comment but I'd ask do you have any comments that aren't just fucking whataboutery?

Its just you seemed extremely agitated about the use of chemical weapons against civilians when you could use them as a tenuous attacks on a perfectly reasonable call for investigation, but seemed strangely silent when anti-Assad Syrians & the West do the same thing.

 

[droid]

I thought about posting some of the stuff about Raaqa when we were arguing but I decided not to. I've been reading about this stuff for a few days mostly coming from Syrian activists. I take them seriously as they don't seem to take sides before the fact as to whether they care about an atrocity or not.

Ah right, OK, not a textbook example of the principle of 'benign, nefarious and constructive bloodbaths' at all then. My apologies.

"Constructive bloodbaths" are those that serve the interests of U.S. power; "benign bloodbaths" are largely irrelevant to these concerns; and "nefarious bloodbaths" are those that can be charged to the account of official enemies and are thus useful for mobilizing the public.

The first-order prediction of a propaganda model is that constructive bloodbaths will be welcomed (with perhaps some clucking of tongues and thoughts about the barbarity of backward peoples), benign bloodbaths ignored, and nefarious bloodbaths passionately condemned, on the basis of a version of the facts that need have little credibility and that may adopt standards that would merely elicit contempt if applied in the study of alleged abuses of the United States or friendly states.

 

[DannyL]

Syria Solidarity have a pragmatic response to atroctiies like Raaqa: http://www.syriauk.org/2017/05/track-syria-air-attacks-publish-radar.html

 

[craner]

The new US configuration from Trump down has no compunction in just bombing the shit out of "enemy cities" in the manner of Russia. This is surely undeniable.

 

[luka]

No offence Danny droid is a proper weirdo but you're not ready to throw down the gauntlet to that irish weirdo

 

[craner]

It's a totally different mindset and calculus to even the second assault on Falluja in 2004, which was heavy and involved white phosphorous, but coalition forces at that time at least made an effort to warn civilians to leave the area as soon as they could. No justification, of course, but even they paid some attention to the collateral. No longer the case it seems.

 

[DannyL]

Its just you seemed extremely agitated about the use of chemical weapons against civilians when you could use them as a tenuous attacks on a perfectly reasonable call for investigation, but seemed strangely silent when anti-Assad Syrians & the West do the same thing.

But Corbyn's call for an investigation isn't "perfectly reasonable" - it's clear what happened. To refuse to acknowledge this provides cover for the perpetrators. It's as if I started going "we don't really know wha'ts happening in Raaqa, maybe it's the Russians, maybe it's North Korea, oh the fog of war". Such a position would quite rightly get called out as bullshit.