The Everything Else P&R

Ooh, arseholes like that piss me off. There’s a stretch of road on my way to the station that always collects a deep puddle when it rains, and I’ve been drenched on a few occasions by inconsiderate motorists.

Strange that in all that stuff you posted, I don’t see any evidence that Corbyn is an anti-Semite.

I don’t actually think he personally is, in the sense that he bears no animus against jews, nor does he seek to whip up/use hatred against jews. He just doesn’t appear to see antisemitism as in any way wrong or worth addressing. (And that is the absolute most generous interpretation I can place on his actions!)

On the other hand he is intensely loyal to his long term allies. Given the long-term association of Israel and the US and the fact Corbyn has always been an “anti-imperialist” it’s hardly surprising that many of his past allies have sought to whip up and use jew-hatred as a political tool and embrace antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Even when his close allies McDonnell and Lansman have said there is a problem he’s never really done anything that I’ve seen. Similar to Brexit, he does and says the bare minimum that he thinks he can get away with politically.

Jeremy Corbyn:

“Racism is racism is racism. There is no hierarchy - no acceptable form of it. I have always fought it in all its forms and I always will. But while we respond to hate with universal principles we must also remember people’s particular experience, if we are too ensure that not one person feels vulnerable or excluded from their natural political home.

“The Jewish community has made an enormous contribution to our Party and our country – Jewish people have been at the heart of progressive and radical politics in Britain, as elsewhere, for well over a century.

“But they are also a minority amongst minorities and have had good cause to feel vulnerable and even threatened throughout history. This should never happen by accident or design in our Labour Party. Modern antisemitism may not always be about overt violence and persecution, though there is too much of that even to this day. We must also be vigilant against subtler and invidious manifestations of this nasty ancient hatred and avoid slipping into its traps by accident or intent.”

Sounds to me like he cares about it.

If he actually cared, rather than just playing lip service, you’d think he’d do something about Mr. Topple et al. who would have no place in a non-anti-semitic Labour. Hence Aceris’ remark about him doing as little as possible.

Topple works for Corbyn? Or not?

Thus the absence of evidence that Corbyn is a bigot proves he’s a bigot. Well done!

In truth, I can’t make any sense of your posts. Is Steve Topple in the Labour
Party leadership? Is Damien Enticott an ally of Corbyn’s, and does Corbyn endorse Enticott’s views? Maybe you should try to be more clear?

I can point to the actual statements made by Trump to draw the connection between him and his followers. I can point to the actual people appointed by Trump and the damage they do. I can point to the actual policies implemented by Trump to illustrate his racial animus.

You don’t seem to be able to offer a clear answer to the question ‘how does that implicate Corbyn?’

This is some pretty weak fucking sauce IMO. I think if you’re going to declare someone a bigot, you should be able to offer some evidence of him actually saying bigoted things or doing bigoted things.

@tomchick

I don’t think I’ve ever called on a mod here, but I’m very uncomfortable engaging with this account in regards to quoting. It’s an unusual request of course, but so is UK political issue that sees death threats and anti-Semitic terrorism.

I’ll leave my posts up for the rest of day to put some context around this post, but this is such a serious issue I’ve made a huge mistake engaging with people like Gibson about it.

Somebody explain what’s happening here?

http://gifimage.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/slapfight-gif-4.gif

It’s a start, but I think I’ll need more gifs to truly understand what is going on.

I’m unclear what you’re asking here, but if there’s anything I can do to help, let me know. If you’re just sending a heads-up that you’re about to delete a bunch of your posts, that’s certainly your prerogative, and you never need to clear it with a mod.

-Tom

I’ve deleted any quotes from you from my comments.

Thank you. Will clean up when I get home.

Which is a shame, because even if I don’t fully agree with your hypothesis, I also admit my understanding of the internal politics of British parties is far less than yours.

What it comes down to for me is this, I simply do not know enough about British antisemitism to judge one way or another. You certainly present the case that Labour is, if not guilty of fostering it, at least guilty of not curbing such behavior. I also know that there are factions that are incentivized to try and paint such a picture.

So is Labour especially bad? Maybe, maybe not. I hope the answer is no, because then it presents a slate of really shit choices across the board for UK voters. I don’t think I need to belabor the problems of the current Tory party. Anyhow I appreciated the information you bring, as it would be something that is completely invisible to many Americans. While there are always bad actors in any party, see the Democratic DC rep who blamed Jews for global warming (wtf?), but it is broadly easy to see that racism and xenophobia are not welcome at the party level for the Democrats, while intrinsic in the Republican Party. So the idea of the British left being home to racism is quite perplexing from my perspective across the pond.

No, not really, I count one person who is a ‘free-lance journalist’ rather than an actual Labour Party member or official, one person who is a minor party fixture in the hinterlands who is currently disavowed, and one person who is in the leadership and is in the process of being disavowed. Corbyn can hardly be blamed for either of the first two, and it seems likely he’ll boot the last.

The amazing thing about the anti-Corbyn rhetoric is how closely it matched the insanity of the anti-Obama rhetoric. Corbyn is, depending on the speaker or the day of the week, a committed Marxist terrorist member of the IRA and the PLO and an anti-Semite who kicks dogs for pleasure. Soon enough he’ll be Kenyan.

It’s not so much Labour as Corbyn’s immediate circle and fellow travellers on the far left - and far from all of them.

The current situation clearly is bad by British standards, because Corbynites like McDonnell and Lansman are saying it is and trying to make sure something is done.

If Willsman does go it will because enough people on the far left made enough of a fuss - and this will probably have to happen every single time this kind of thing comes up. A few words from Corbyn and Willsman would be gone (my understanding is his loyalists now control the NEC and disciplinary panel) - but it’s clear he won’t do this.

If there were a lot of instances of this but they were dealt with properly by the disciplinary process I would count it in Corbyn’s favour - the fact that his far left views have attracted these people to the party is in no way his fault. That’s pretty evidently not happening though.