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When will this shit end?


Chrisp1986

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22 minutes ago, Mark E. Spliff said:

From what I've seen of Maxine Peake and Rebecca Long-Bailey, they seem like decent women who retweeted false information in good faith - i.e. they genuinely believed it, and retracted it when they found out they'd been had by politically-motivated trolls.  If every politician got sacked for making genuine mistakes, that would be an instant and absolute cure for social distancing at Party meetings.

Peake retracted it, Long Bailey didn't. They may be decent etc., but they are just part of the blame Israel for everything brigade cause that's simpler.

Here's some jewish liberal type's take on it.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/26/sacking-rebecca-long-bailey-labour-antisemitism-keir-starmer

 

Edited by steviewevie
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3 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

Peake retracted it, Long Bailey didn't. They may be decent etc., but they are just part of the blame Israel for everything brigade cause that's simpler.

Here's some jewish liberal type's take on it.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/26/sacking-rebecca-long-bailey-labour-antisemitism-keir-starmer

 

Why didn't she just stay clear and not say anything. So stupid of her.

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9 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

Peake retracted it, Long Bailey didn't. They may be decent etc., but they are just part of the blame Israel for everything brigade cause that's simpler.

Here's some jewish liberal type's take on it.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/26/sacking-rebecca-long-bailey-labour-antisemitism-keir-starmer

 

That "jewish liberal"'s headline states that this sacking proves that Labour 'is serious about anti-semitism.'  He then goes on to say absolutely nothing about anti-semitism.  He only talks about criticism of the state of Israel.

Let's put this another way and see if I can get the ball over the net.  I'm a member of Amnesty International, and I find it difficult to eat my breakfast when I get my latest newsletter telling me about what fun and games the Saudis have been up to this month.  I hate the Saudi state with a passion.  However, I'm neither Islamophobic nor racist against Arabs.  One doesn't make you the other.  Exactly the same applies with criticising the state of Israel: you can be part of your 'blame Israel for everything brigade' without being antisemitic.  You may be wrong to be a member of that brigade, but that's a debate about history and geopolitics, not about racism.

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6 hours ago, Mark E. Spliff said:

 ... I'm happy to support Starmer because it's necessary for victory - the majority of the electorate are basically morons who put empty slogans and haircuts before any true understanding of economics or politics.  However, is a victory built on capitulation to the extreme right worth winning?

3 hours ago, Radiochicken said:

To translate your last sentence into something not as exaggerated: “should you play the game you’re actually in - first past the post - to gain power to make positive change actually happen rather than let the “extreme right” win for decades?”

The answer is... yes.

 

 

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10 minutes ago, EasyUserName said:

 

 

 

I'm going to need a bit more persuasion before I pay out for a full subscription to your 'discussion recap' service - the two quotes you've chosen are already right next to each other a few posts up.  Plus, you missed a bit:

3 hours ago, Mark E. Spliff said:

I agree.  I'd take Starmer over Corbyn any day as he can win.  I shouldn't have phrased my question as a binary choice between Starmer or standing up to the far right.  You can easily have both - the Labour party have a strong Jewish movement who're chomping at the bit to stand up and show the British public that criticising Israeli right-wing hardliners doesn't make you an anti-semite.

 

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4 minutes ago, Mark E. Spliff said:

I'm going to need a bit more persuasion before I pay out for a full subscription to your 'discussion recap' service - the two quotes you've chosen are already right next to each other a few posts up.  Plus, you missed a bit:

 

You are correct, I missed the comment bit - apologies. 

 

I mean to say: Is the focus on the win, or the technically. 

 

There seems to be plenty of argument in the media on the actual "meat on the bones" issue - the question of is it / is it not anti-semantic etc.

 

Less so on the "what does it take to win".

 

 

 

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No worries.  I'm in absolute agreement with you on the need to win elections as the number one priority.  However, that's why I'm so bemused about this whole issue - I believe it's yet another one that Corbyn made a complete balls-up of in the last election.  The right wing press were filled with pro-Israel lobbyists, with no love for Labour, determined to convince us that criticism of Israel meant antisemitism.  Labour's response should have been to tell them to fuck off, or better still from a publicity point of view, get Jewish Voice for Labour to tell them to fuck off.  Explaining that you can criticise the policies of a state without hating the ethnic/religious groups associated with it is really not that difficult.

Starmer really doesn't need to continue with this absurd situation.  He's going to get a massive political windfall when Brexit turns to shit, so even if he wasn't successful in explaining to the public what is and isn't antisemitism, he could still afford to face down the right-wing attacks.  In my opinion, he knows this, but is simply using this issue opportunistically to fight an internal power struggle.

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11 hours ago, Mark E. Spliff said:

That "jewish liberal"'s headline states that this sacking proves that Labour 'is serious about anti-semitism.'  He then goes on to say absolutely nothing about anti-semitism.  He only talks about criticism of the state of Israel.

Let's put this another way and see if I can get the ball over the net.  I'm a member of Amnesty International, and I find it difficult to eat my breakfast when I get my latest newsletter telling me about what fun and games the Saudis have been up to this month.  I hate the Saudi state with a passion.  However, I'm neither Islamophobic nor racist against Arabs.  One doesn't make you the other.  Exactly the same applies with criticising the state of Israel: you can be part of your 'blame Israel for everything brigade' without being antisemitic.  You may be wrong to be a member of that brigade, but that's a debate about history and geopolitics, not about racism.

do they make shit up about the Saudis?

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1 hour ago, steviewevie said:

do they make shit up about the Saudis?

You're actually making me doubt my confidence in how easy it would be to explain the difference between racism and criticism of a State to the great British public...

I'll persevere regardless: in answer to your question, I'm pretty confident that Amnesty don't make up fake stories about what the Saudi State has been up to.

However, even if Amnesty were found to have spent the past 50 years exclusively publishing made-up stories about how the Saudi courts have been sentencing kittens to death, that would obviously be wrong, but my conclusion would be that they really, really don't like the Saudi State - not that they are either Islamophobic or racist against Arabs.

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1 hour ago, Mark E. Spliff said:

You're actually making me doubt my confidence in how easy it would be to explain the difference between racism and criticism of a State to the great British public...

I'll persevere regardless: in answer to your question, I'm pretty confident that Amnesty don't make up fake stories about what the Saudi State has been up to.

However, even if Amnesty were found to have spent the past 50 years exclusively publishing made-up stories about how the Saudi courts have been sentencing kittens to death, that would obviously be wrong, but my conclusion would be that they really, really don't like the Saudi State - not that they are either Islamophobic or racist against Arabs.

even if Saudi Arabia was the only majority muslim state, and was identified as being set up as a state for muslims...and the point being made was that Saudi Arabia was at fault for something it had no connection to?

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1 hour ago, Zoo Music Girl said:

Sorry to be stupid but what's the incident rate?

Sorry, just the number of people in the community they believe are positive based on a study they are doing randomly testing households. 
 

They can’t actually be sure it isn’t going back up in the past two weeks. 
 

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/england25june2020

Edited by Chef
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Just now, steviewevie said:

even if Saudi Arabia was the only majority muslim state, and was identified as being set up as a state for muslims...and the point being made was that Saudi Arabia was at fault for something it had no connection to?

Absolutely.  Continuing with my ridiculous hypothetical example: in order for Amnesty to have crossed into the realms of racism/Islamophobia, they'd need to have been making stuff up to argue that religious beliefs, cultural practices or ancestry of the Saudi people made them malevolent or inferior.

That Tweet Neil's posted above is exactly the same as your Guardian columnist: trying to make a case for anti-semitism by citing criticism of the Israeli state.  The two are not the same.  You, and Neil's Tweet, have now introduced the suggestion that, because Israel is identified as the only state specifically set up for Jews, criticising it is antisemitic.  You should know better than to go along with a specious argument like that - It's just a cynical ploy to effectively gag any criticism of the Israeli state. 

I'll call out antisemitism when I see it.  But we both know that you can't cite a single thing that Peake or Long-Bailey have said which is antisemitic, and I don't think you genuinely believe either of them has any dislike for Jews.  That's why I find it so frustrating that a discussion about admittedly bullshit allegations about the Israeli state has turned into accusations of antisemitism.

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10 minutes ago, Mark E. Spliff said:

Absolutely.  Continuing with my ridiculous hypothetical example: in order for Amnesty to have crossed into the realms of racism/Islamophobia, they'd need to have been making stuff up to argue that religious beliefs, cultural practices or ancestry of the Saudi people made them malevolent or inferior.

That Tweet Neil's posted above is exactly the same as your Guardian columnist: trying to make a case for anti-semitism by citing criticism of the Israeli state.  The two are not the same.  You, and Neil's Tweet, have now introduced the suggestion that, because Israel is identified as the only state specifically set up for Jews, criticising it is antisemitic.  You should know better than to go along with a specious argument like that - It's just a cynical ploy to effectively gag any criticism of the Israeli state. 

I'll call out antisemitism when I see it.  But we both know that you can't cite a single thing that Peake or Long-Bailey have said which is antisemitic, and I don't think you genuinely believe either of them has any dislike for Jews.  That's why I find it so frustrating that a discussion about admittedly bullshit allegations about the Israeli state has turned into accusations of antisemitism.

ok, well...whatever.

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15 minutes ago, Mark E. Spliff said:

Absolutely.  Continuing with my ridiculous hypothetical example: in order for Amnesty to have crossed into the realms of racism/Islamophobia, they'd need to have been making stuff up to argue that religious beliefs, cultural practices or ancestry of the Saudi people made them malevolent or inferior.

That Tweet Neil's posted above is exactly the same as your Guardian columnist: trying to make a case for anti-semitism by citing criticism of the Israeli state.  The two are not the same. 

I absolutely agree.

But that's not all there is to consider. You also need to ask what relevance it has, and why it's included.

Why does it matter where US cops get their training? Do they not have their own agency? How is Israel responsible for cops killing blacks, when it's been going on since before Israel existed?

There's plenty of things to legitimately blame Israel for. US cops killing blacks isn't one of them.

It's funny how it's always Israel being fingered for bad things happening in the world, huh?

Edited by Neil
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Just now, Neil said:

I absolutely agree.

But that's not all there is to consider. You also need to ask what relevance it has.

Why does it matter where US cops get their training? Do they not have their own agency? How is Israel responsible for cops killing blacks, when it's been going on since before Israel existed?

There's plenty of things to legitimately blame Israel for. US cops killing blacks isn't one of them.

If it wasn't for Israel everything would be awesome.

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56 minutes ago, Chef said:

Sorry, just the number of people in the community they believe are positive based on a study they are doing randomly testing households. 
 

They can’t actually be sure it isn’t going back up in the past two weeks. 
 

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/england25june2020

Thanks!

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Guilty as charged - I'm as biased against the State of Israel as it gets. That's not good, and I'm sure I've unknowingly spread some falsehoods about Israel as a result.  I (like Peake and Long-Bailey) deserve to be shot down in flames for my blinkered and entrenched political world-view.  But I have absolutely no feelings of dislike towards Jewish people. If anything, my unconscious bias towards Jewish people is strongly positive, largely down to my tastes in US comedy. If you believe me, then my work here is done: you can hate a state without hating its people.

Edited by Mark E. Spliff
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1 hour ago, steviewevie said:

even if Saudi Arabia was the only majority muslim state, and was identified as being set up as a state for muslims...and the point being made was that Saudi Arabia was at fault for something it had no connection to?

So if there were some sort of, I don't know, Islamic State, then criticising that would be Islamophobic?

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23 minutes ago, Mark E. Spliff said:

Guilty as charged - I'm as biased against the State of Israel as it gets. That's not good, and I'm sure I've unknowingly spread some falsehoods about Israel as a result.  I (like Peake and Long-Bailey) deserve to be shot down in flames for my blinkered and entrenched political world-view.  But I have absolutely no feelings of dislike towards Jewish people. If anything, my unconscious bias towards Jewish people is strongly positive, largely down to my tastes in US comedy. If you believe me, then my work here is done: you can hate a state without hating its people.

Is there any need to hate Israel for the actions of US cops?

I don't reckon there is, so perhaps you should ask yourself why anyone would want to deflect things in that way, and where that sort of narrative might have originated.

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35 minutes ago, Neil said:

Is there any need to hate Israel for the actions of US cops?

I don't reckon there is, so perhaps you should ask yourself why anyone would want to deflect things in that way, and where that sort of narrative might have originated.

That's a fair point, but when I do that, it seems to be that the narrative is that the US are working with a foreign entity with a scary secret service to learn how to attack black people. If that's the narrative, then Israel is the obvious go-to, on account that they're the only foreign power with a scary secret service that the US regularly works with. 

The reality is that the US secret services are fare more scary than Israel's, but clearly the narrative doesn't allow acknowledgement of that.

Alternatively it's a narrative crafted maliciously by people concerned at the US's close relationship with Israel.

Neither one has to mean anti-semitism is involved.

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