Is playingwithknives trolling or what?
and what’s your basis for that? These STW people are literally frothing at the mouth lunatics.
Assad couldn’t do any wrong “he’s a doctor for heavens sake”. The froth starts at 0:20.
You think the syncretic networks / red-brown alliances don’t exist? This is all well-documented.
Beely is a paid hard left Assadist propagandist, Hopkins one of the premier far right media figures in the UK.
and actual Syrian refugees are having to write letters to the opposition front bench telling them of their concerns for their position. Akkad is the BAFTA award winning documentary filmmaker and refugee.
and STW are funded by the Kremlin.
Um, no he’s not. Apologists and defenders of the Putin regime are completely on topic for this thread. It’s perfectly possible to oppose the strikes without peddling conspiracy theories and nonsense false equivalence.
I think its incredibly noteworthy that the US far right and Trump, and the UK hard left and Corbyn and far right are pro-Putin/sympathetic to Putin. Albeit for some different reasons, but on Syria why are Alex Jones frothing anti-war rants any different from that womens anti-war rant? Shouldn’t we be concerned when the hard left and far right sing from the same hymn sheet ? We all know the impact of Red-Brown alliances in history, just as Poland.
Is Corbyn sympathetic to Corbyn, since when? I read his editorial in the paper this morning (Guardian, Observer, don’t remember) and he was simply suggesting opting to bomb empty buildings was kneejerk and ineffective, and that going along with Trump was being complicit with an erratic simpleton. No where did he absolve Putin of wrongdoing or cosy up to him in any way. Which is typical for Corbyn, a nuanced argument (imagine that) aiming for long term results and not rhetoric. That said, and as always, I’d love to see decisions Corbyn would make were he the one at the helm, because the benefit of being a backseat driver is that you don’ t need to turn the wheel.
Since about 1982 m8. This thread doesn’t need a summary of 3 decades of Corbyn’s anti-West activities, so just read up on how it evolved from the Soviet Union to Russia, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba etc and make your own mind up. It’s all a matter of public record. Its up to you decide what his stance is, hates war? Admiration of dictatorships? hates America? defending the innocent from Western aggression? Its up to you.
A picture (or 2) speaks a thousand words.
Director of Communications and Strategy for Labour, and Corbyn’s principal advisor and oldest friend Seumas Milne. Read up on his work, especially around Russia and Crimea. Do read up on his other main advisor Andrew Murray (Murrays wife currently is the Chairman of Communist Party of Great Britain-ML* whose Syria flyer i linked above) and the others driving Corbyns foreign policy too. People like Declan Hayes, his Syrian advisor who runs propaganda ops for Assads Ministries (when he’s not being deported from Thailand for doing what ever middle ages single white men do when they get deported from Thailand).
and a hint to why Corbyn might be sympathetic to Assad and Putin.
*note on obscure leftie culture for Americans. Communists are bad, but Communist Parties with ML (Marxist-Leninist) tagged on their names are the worst. Lots of Stalinists. I’ll engage with Trotskyists (indeed I do, the AWL guys are ok on certain matters but Stalinists are fucking horrible.
Corbyn’s sympathy to Putin is often caveated - he will occasionally denounce Russian human rights abuse in general terms or similar. The telling thing is that it’s clear those caveats don’t play into his policy positions - without exception when you remove them his argument doesn’t suffer.
In the same way Donald Trump’s main source of “facts” appears to be Fox News, Corbyn’s, on foreign affairs, appears to be RT. He will routinely parrot the Russian line - I don’t think this is a matter of conspiracy so much as that their arguments serve his cause. The facts are against Russia - so both RT and Corbyn want to throw the facts into doubt.
Simply compare his response to allegations of atrocities by Syria or Russia to his response to allegations of atrocities by the US or Israel and his position is very clear. When it comes to the former he says we must wait for “more evidence” and says any kind of action would be “premature” or risk “escalating the situation”. He demands we should go through the UN, but forgets to mention why the UN avenue is blocked. When it comes to the latter, not so much.
He’s not opposed to the use of force for political ends - witness his support for the IRA and Hamas. He’s a pacifist of convenience, because the military forces of the west are employed towards goals he opposes.
Denying that Corbyn is sympathetic to Russia is like denying that Assad gasses civilians.
I dont think the Americans understand how much Corbyn hates the USA.
It’s his defining ideology, and has driven the anti-West anti-Imperialist movement he is the founding father of, and lead up until 2015. Around foreign policy everything they think and do is rooted around the central tenet that the US is responsible for all of the worlds ills and must be destroyed. The enemies of the US are his friends.
if you want to hear what Corbyn sounded like before 2015, listen to his BFF George Galloways radio show.
I know people love to think of Corbyn as their Magic Grandad, but his history and his associates are all on the public record and should make people at least ask some internal questions.
Well, fair enough, until I do my own digging, I don’t have a perspective on his past, only his debates and media of the last three or so years. But in that timeframe he has repeatedly made, as they sound to me, fairly rational arguments. Perhaps if his critics wouldn’t decry him as the fork tongued socialist devil they’d be more listened to, as when I listen to Corbyn speak I hear mostly an even keel moderate sensible narrative; for example, the criticisms of anti-semitism (attributed to him personally), sound to me less racially motivated as they are conflated with anti-Israeli government foreign policy, and so I’m left wondering what the heck they’re going on about. It’s like if you told me Trump was a secret intellectual, and left at odds with what he actually says into a microphone, it’s a confusing disparity.
If David Duke (another supporter of Corbyn) started saying sensible things in the last few years would you really look at those words in isolation? Or talk about Trumps racism without looking at Trumps racist associates and racist supporters, or what Trump did and said before the election?
Did you know Alan Bull’s “Muh Holocaust” denial posts and pictures of him demonstrating outside the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC were seen with his candidate selection file and signed off by each and every selective, compliance and governance position in Labour, from his peers in Peterborough CLP right up to the Head of Disputes and the NEC Board of Governance?
Do you know the whistleblowers who complained about his Holocaust Denial posts and headlined this are now facing Disciplinary charges for “bringing the party into disrepute”?
That is what Corbyn brought to Labour. He might not be caught yelling slurs against Jews but he has normalised an culture of anti-Semitism throughout his supporters, and allowed top to bottom institutionalised and systematic anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.
Someone got pwk on about Corbyn again. Ah well, in another day or two the thread should be back to normal.
Sadly, pretty much.
I don’t think there are many people Russia actually pays to parrot a line - sure, some Twitter bots maybe. But beyond that, those promoting RT viewpoints either:
a) Find the RT arguments serve their cause (e.g. Corbyn)
b) Hold that viewpoint anyway, for some bizarre reason, and just have money and platform provided to them (e.g. Farage)
Godess forbid the next Prime Minister of Britain being a man who hates America and sympathises with Putin and Assad being a cause for concern.
Unless you are one of his cultists and want the thread to be renamed to “Russia is getting more good, we’re the evil ones thread”?
I don’t doubt that Corbyn has his flaws. But you have…a bit of a thing, dude.
And frankly, I don’t see “being against US hegemony” being all that much of a negative. Now, if that comes with actual Russian sympathy (yes they’re worse, no it’s not worth arguing about), that’s a different thing.
But honestly, your hate for the guy makes me not read anything you post on the subject, because it always seems to come back to “this guy Corbyn had a beer with in 1995 is a piece of shit” or “some loosely Labour-aligned nutter said something abominable and Corbyn won’t denounce him!”
I find such thin evidence from biased sources unconvincing at best. Maybe I’m misreading the situation – I am across the pond, after all, and would be borderline far-left politically in the UK – but your crusade strikes me as character assassination by virtue of guilt-by-association, which I just don’t buy.
The siloviki, criminal gangs and Russian hackers are heavily interlinked. Their sophisticated socmedia psyops are run by the gangs, controlled by the siloviki and politicians but directed by the SVR. Remember the head of RBN was the son of the Speaker of the Duma? That’s not the only link. The groups and companies these gangs/siloviki control run the actual troll factories. Putin sits round the table with their bosses. His “cabinet” meetings are ministers, oligarchs, siloviki and gangsters. The Russian State at the moment is a large and complex beast but don’t just look at the stuff thats branded as a government agency or entity.
He employs these people, and gives them power and authority. Declan Hayes isn’t someone he had a beer with 20 years ago, he’s his current Syria advisor. Seumas Milne rules HQ and directs all policy and media. Andrew Murray sits in his day to day meetings and wrote large chunks of the manifesto.
This is like discussing Trump and ignoring Bannon, Gorka, Spencer and the rest of those reprobates. This isn’t just about Corbyn, its about Team Corbyn too.
I’m beginning to suspect that PWK is not a fan of Corbyn.
We’re centrists, the last of the Blairites. When i look at my peers on socmedia we’re mostly Gen X progressives who did well in the Blair years. Corbyn and co are our enemies from the 80s battle for Labour we won (allowing for Blair) when Militant and the hard left were expelled. Corbyn was a hangover from those days and remained a dissident backbencher until his election as leader. They won the second battle for Labour so now we’re the Labour dissident backbenchers. Swings and roundabouts innit.
By the logic that “Assad’s a doctor, so he can’t be a criminal shitbag,” that doctor who sexually abused all those gymnasts is also innocent. :rolleyes:
Have you read “Fall Out” by Tim Shipman (Times journalist)? In it, he writes that after the last GE - when Corbyn did not lose anywhere near as badly as most thought he would - Blair put his head in his hands and said “I don’t understand this country any more”.
Most of the young Gen-X/old Millennials (so 30-45 I guess?) who would have voted Blair seem to have joined the Lib Dems, but that party is on the ropes. The Tory party seem to have moved as far away from Blair as they can, albeit on a different axis. Politically, the country is in a real mess right now from the perspective of anyone who liked left-wing social policies combined with centre-ground economic ones.