As John Oliver said ‘proof that not everything sounds smarter in a British accent’
Oh one other gem.
Ive had to learn a little about Anarcho-Syndicalism, because the theory floating about in the fringe is that Corbyn is actually an anarcho-syndicalist, and that would explain what is going on.
I just got bored arguing with @kedaha (oh look! cool new feature of Discourse!). So whatever.
Re: Corbyn conspiracy theory against him
When you look at the circumstantial evidence, when the Guardian, the default lefty newspaper, joins the rest of the press in savaging him, then there must be something substantial in there.
It just looks to me he was very half hearted when campaigning for Remain, even when the party line is Remain. You see Cameron almost always but not Corbyn. And they lost the working class vote, and that is the core constituent of Labour party (or any labour party). That sounds like a huge Labour loss. Nonetheless there is always a horse racing aspect when the mainstream media report this kind of thing.
Re: Boris Johnson as foreign secretary
I think Brexiters deserve that. You want Brexit, so you get the poster boy of Brexit negotiating with EU for just that (whether Boris Johnson personally believes in Brexit is another matter, perhaps that’s the way May “punishes” Johnson: make him do something he doesn’t genuinely believes in). May’s government looks to be a “national unity” (or Conservative Party unity) government, so there has to be a few Brexiter in there.
@geggis I can’t quite nail it down. He can’t put forward his messages or vision strongly or clearly enough. Without a unified message, his disparate views only serve to alienate a lot people as the media (among others) just fixates on what comes across as unpopular or salacious. Any politician will have views that you as a voter will find distasteful or offputting, but they generally have a core that you can identify with or feel a sense of belonging to.
Corbyn lacks that to a large extent, beyond being anti-establishment and anti-populist.
@playingwithknives Have you read nothing on the Spanish Civil War? Anarcho-Syndicalism is covered quite extensively in any halfway decent book on it.
@Soma Of course. It must be boring to argue entirely without facts, merit, evidence or any sort of logic. I do understand.
Empathy requires understanding, something you have singularly failed to demonstrate thus far.
You can’t seriously be suggesting that you have empathy for the Greeks, or that Soma doesn’t.
Wow, even the staunch left-wing Daily Mirror is giving Corbyn a kicking now.
What were you in your previous life? :)
I don’t think it’s just spin by pro-Netanyahu people. I’m anti-Netanyahu, but think this is a real problem.
The press conference on the Chakrabarti Inquiry into Labour antisemitism impacted my views on this issue. Corbyn is either antisemitic or else he’s a tone-deaf politician, blind to the presence of obvious rhetorical land-mines and unable to exercise any sort of command or presence in a room.
Corbyns economic advisory team on “Corbynomics”. Piketty (never once consulted by Corbyn) and Blanchflower were two of the bigger names.
The Guardian sum up the current woes. The comments are one track and range from “Blairite media conspiracy” to “Zionist media conspiracy”, and not a single one addresses the online hate mob that are Corbyns supporters.
The party is no longer even capable of providing a space for a respectful political discourse. Some of its MPs and elected officials are receiving death and rape threats, many from those who appear to be supporters of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
Last week, the party took the unprecedented step of suspending constituency party meetings until after the leadership election so as to avoid the risk of intimidation and abuse at local level.
It is a grim state of affairs when one MP, Luciana Berger, received an email message saying: “You’re going to get it like Jo Cox did”; when party representatives detail the abuse and intimidation that they have been subjected to; when constituency staff have to contend with bricks being thrown through windows at their place of work.
Much of the abuse is aimed at female MPs and many Labour insiders cite a growing misogyny among some of those activists who are deploying social media to campaign on behalf of Corbyn.
The Labour leadership needs to be emphatic and persistent in denouncing this fetid, vile atmosphere that has emerged –coincidentally? – since they came to power 10 months ago.
Corbyn voted against a secret ballot for the vote by the party’s national executive committee on whether he would need to secure nominations from his parliamentary colleagues to go on the leadership ballot – despite female representatives on that committee pleading for a secret ballot for fear of further harassment.
No one emerges from this well.
Not Corbyn, who has lost the support of 80% of his parliamentary party. Nor his opponents in the Labour party who have failed to articulate a clear, compelling alternative or settle on a candidate who might reasonably be expected to at least offer some degree of leadership in a party that is now led by a small group of embattled men with no interest in winning elections.
Corbyn, the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, and the director of strategy, Seumas Milne, and a variety of ultra-left entryists are exercised by an urge to create an extra-parliamentary social movement.
The last paragraphs echoing the comments about Lansman, McDonnell, Mason and Schneider I made earlier in the thread.
If you support Corbyn you are not supporting a parliamentary opposition party, you are supporting a fringe party of protest. Please leave Labour and create a party suited to your needs instead of destroying over a hundred years of proud Labour history.
It appears neither you nor Soma understand empathy. It most certainly is not sympathy, nor is it solidarity.
Yes, I am indeed arguing that Soma does not have empathy with Greece as a nation, or the Greek as a people… He feels ‘solidarity’ with and pity for them because of his a priori beliefs on EU/Greece.
(Can’t quote anything from the piece without formatting errors. And a caveat, I’m neither pro nor con Corbyn.)
Empathy is typically defined as sharing feelings with another. Solidarity is typically defined as unity in feeling or action.
I think the conclusion is pretty obvious. I am not sure you understand what either word means.
Typically doesn’t equal google’s answer to ‘empathy dictionary’ magnet. It seems that not only do you not understand empathy, you also do not understand solidarity or ‘typically’.
MW definition:
Here is what the Oxford dictionary says:
[quote]Usage
People often confuse the words empathy and sympathy. Empathy means ‘the ability to understand and share the feelings of another’ (as in both authors have the skill to make you feel empathy with their heroines), whereas sympathy means ‘feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else’s misfortune’ (as in they had great sympathy for the flood victims).[/quote]
Collins:
In case it wasn’t clear, nowhere does empathy necessitate agreement with the factors involved in creating a situation, nor with the proposed solutions. I can empathise with a drug addict who was abusive to a partner and child, without agreeing that it was solely the drugs fault for his continuing addiction, or that he deserves no punishment. Indeed, I can empathise without having any feelings beyond understanding and sharing their feelings.
Can we end this meaningless segue? If not, perhaps you can create a thread somewhere on common misuse (and misusage) of english words. I’ll be happy to illustrate how you do not understand the meaning of the word ‘solidarity’ in there, if you deem it necessary. Hint: solidarity typically refers to a social or political phenomenon, not an emotional one.
I always thought that certain populations (aka Ireland and Spain) want a harsh crack down on Greece because of the harshness that the EU treated them.
I’m afraid you are wasting time with that one. There was never real acknowledge of the suffering of the Greeks, and worst of all he (I’m assuming that’s a he) doesn’t even know he has no empathy towards them.
If your car break down in desert, you can bet he will “empathise” with you but do nothing to help you. Maybe he will even throw a dictionary at you while speeding past you, urging you to read up on the dictionary meaning of those words.
Which is pretty much what I said. You boldface understanding as though it is the most critical component. But MW also offers this definition
“The ability to share someone else’s feelings.”
which you somehow overlooked when you visited their website. But how? It’s near the top of the page, in fact. And it doesn’t mention understanding at all. I wonder why you didn’t quote it.[quote=“magnet, post:956, topic:78214”]
Solidarity is typically defined as unity in feeling or action.
[/quote]
Well, I know you scorn the typical usage, so let’s have a look at the Oxford definition again:
“Unity or agreement of feeling or action, especially among individuals with a common interest; mutual support within a group”
Huh, that sounds kind of familiar, too. I wonder why you didn’t offer that definition. You were quoting Oxford earlier, weren’t you? Did you happen to look up the definition of solidarity before deciding to reframe the debate in terms of typical usage?
Perhaps it doesn’t fit into the argument you are trying to peddle? If only the dictionary had a term for someone who willfully buries a fact right in front of his eyes, in a vain attempt to score a rhetorical point.
An article by the Independent about attack media and anti-Corbyn bias… pretty much along the lines we’ve been discussing.
That report from the tankies at the LSE?
I’ll go with theory 1.
The Independent is the only pro-Corbyn outlet at the moment as the owner shut down the paper and handed over their website to the interns and grads.
The other Corbopositive outlets are The Morning Star, Canary and Novaramedia. The first of which has a… rich history (bless, im being kind), and the second two are hard left versions of Infowars/Prisonplanet, crazy conspiracy theory heavy news.
Edit: I love this and have to link.
How the Morning Star reported the fall of the Berlin Wall.
