What's that British Press, Nothing To Say, Nothing At All?

[filghy2]

Didn't Zelensky just call for a 'pre-emptive strike" against Russia? And long with him, NATO will fight till the last Ukranian
Tell me about clowns again?

What if the US had taken this view about helping your country against Germany in WWII? It sounds like the sort of argument the American isolationists were making at the time.

[Stavros]

Whilst you'll have no arguments from me about brexit, that has little to do with the internal subterfuges employed within the administrative arm of the party PLP. A bit more than a few "trots and marxists" having a dingdong!
Not that you're still, though, eh!

Fair enough, but I think you underestimate the inability Corbyn had to re-structure the party organization at HQ. He would have had to sack most of the staff and appoint people who shared his 'vision', but this would have been depicted as a Stalinist purge and alienated a lot of Constituency PLP's in the process. The cultish way in which Corbyn was treated was a deliberate plan by Momentum to capitalize on the frustrations people have had with Labour since Blair transformed the party. It is somewhat ironic that when Livingstone was leader of the GLC and planning with his lieutenants to de-select Reg Freeson in Brent East, one lefty told me it was essential to get Livingstone into Parliament to give the working class leadership, while another deplored the act as he considered Livingstone to be, in reality a 'one man band' whose personal ambition was actually more important than the Revolution. Guess who was right?

I gave up and haven't voted for them since 1997, but others stayed the course, not least those in Momentum I knew when they were Trotskyist activists in my North London constituency. That they had not changed their views after 40 years and losing four elections in the 1980s, and even winning four elections after 1997, shows that they were, and are immune to change. They read the Manifesto, the Transitional Programme, State and Revolution and The Wretched of the Earth when they were at the LSE in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and decided to change the world. One wonders how often they changed their underwear.

But when they got the control of the party they wanted, they couldn't re-arrange the deck chairs in HQ.

[Stavros]

It's amazing how many old lefties still seem to reflexively sympathise with the Russian position just because it is anti-Western. Have they not noticed that Russia is now pretty close to a fascist regime? To the extent the regime has any ideology other than enhancing the power and wealth of the ruling elite, it is obviously Russian (white Orthodox christian) nationalism. Have they not asked themselves why Putin to so popular with the far right?

Putin's anti-Western imperialist rhetoric is just risible. Russia is about the most brutal imperialist regime around, and has been for the past three centuries or so.

You make a good point, and this is also a reply to Broncofan's response to one of my earlier posts.

The Marxist Social Democratic Federation was one of the founding members of the Labour Party, but had no support from either Marx or Engels when it was formed -largely because Marx took a dislike to Henry Hyndman, and even though his daughter Eleanor was a founding member of what became the SDF in 1881 which then split in 1884, establishing what must be a British tradition of revolutionary parties being formed and then falling apart as its cadres argue with each other until they can't sit in the same room. By coincidence, one of its founders, George Lansbury was the grandfather of Angela Lansbury who died this week.

Needless to say, the Labour Party rescued them (and Lansbury) from irrelevance, but the Marxist legacy in the Labour Party was weak too, until the Bolshevik coup of 1917 and its subsequent success and so-called 'Revolution' -that's the one where the Autocracy of the Tsar was replaced with the Autocracy of the Communist Party, the Orthodoxy of the Church was replaced with the Orthodoxy of Marxism-Leninism, and Russian Nationalism replaced by Russian Nationalism, aka 'Socialism in One Country'.

Whether you trace the lineages through the official Communist Party, or the Balham Group or the immigrant Trotskyists of the 1940s -Ted Grant (South Africa), Gerry Healy (Ireland), or Tony Cliff (aka Yigael Gluckstein, Palestine)-, what they all have in common is a fundamental belief that Revolution is a good thing, and that the Bolshevik Revolution is the model that can't be beaten, as the French and American Revolutions were 'merely' bourgeois affairs. And for some, 'entering' the Labour Party became their only reason to live. It gave them the access to 'the Masses' they otherwise did not have.

The British left become so intoxicated with the Russian, and 'Third World' Revolutions it lost touch with its own past, where Socialism was not a Marxist project but shaped by ideas of fairness at work, with regard to the re-distribution of wealth, and the rights of the citizen which surely is a consequence of the 17th Revolution, though it was not a 'bourgeois' revolution, and the concept of Liberty that it created in the public discourse does not sit well with any version of Leninism that has been the spine of, and the curse of the Left since the 1920s.

It is therefore no surprise if Corbyn is instinctively suspicious of anti-Russian politics, even though the Russia that succeeded the USSR is in political terms the polar opposite of what Corbyn would claim to want, as noted by filghy2 above. When it comes to Russia, they just can't let go of their feelings, or maybe deep down Corbyn wants to see the USSR resurrected?

In addition, there is an anti-American element to Corbyn and the British left's positions on a range of issues, helped by the woeful consequences of the US in Vietnam, which is where Corbyn cut his demo teeth on the streets of London, and yes, so did I, and though I made it to the speeches and the concert by the Social Deviants in Trafalgar Square, I missed out on the Battle of Grosvenor Square a day later. Follow through the (alleged) US involvement in the military coups in South American in the 1970s, the relentless support for Israel -from 1977 no longer a Socialist state worthy of defence by the Left, though in reality Begin's victory split the Labour left re Israel- and you can see how in a perverse way, some on the Left, notably the Spartacists, welcomed the USSR's involvement in Afghanistan and saw yet another American Imperialist adventure to be opposed, ditto Iraq twice over.

It may an obsession with structural politics that has led so many on the left, but I hasten to say not all, to focus on the Geo-Politics without paying attention to the detail. It is possible to be sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, but also critical of the various factions of the PLO who after 1967 and into the 1970s did everything they could through violence to lose the friends and allies they needed, though it was also a demonstration of political failure. One could sympathise with the 'plight' of Catholics in Northern Ireland and want the whole miserable history of Anglo-Irish relations to end, but in the detail why would a Socialist, whose fundamental principle is international, support a Nationalist cause?
If Corbyn never addressed this issue, neither did Livingstone, it was because they saw the 'Troubles' as a continuation of British Imperialism, and were persuaded that Sinn Fein was a Socialist party that was not just going to liberate Northern Ireland but the rest of Ireland too.

And just to give this illusion some Stout, Corbyn was and remains opposed to the very European Union whose membership of the Single Market Ireland has not only benefited from, but enabled it to reduce its dependence on the UK. History thus records that the 'Irish Revolution', if you want to call it that, has been facilitated by the EU rather than Sinn Fein and its military wing. Further proof, dare I say it, of how detached from reality Corbyn has been.

[Jericho]

But what is the message? If it were purely hard fact you would not have to link hours worth of video. [/QUOTE]

Not even when there's hours worth of facts?
Subverion of democracy and how it was done.
I don't know, could you fit Watergate into a three minute soundbite?

The message is the almost total lack of mainstream media interest in a political scandal (Even if it's bollox (remember Panorama)?

And what I find strange about the whole thing is that the Corbyn cult complains about the media but suddenly a network that is owned by a government that treats migrants so badly it's been called modern slavery is trustworthy.

Here we go, shooting the messenger again.

Aljazeera are about as credible as any other news outfit (take that for what you will).
Though how many of those others are prepared to release the documents on which their investigations are based on?

So I guess my question is, why does something that Al Jazeera packaged and put together to express their viewpoint mean more than the actual things that members of the party have done.[/QUOTE]

I think you missed out the 'allegedly' there.
Or perhaps after the Corbyn Cult crack, you didn't?

As for the Ukraine stuff, you're on weaker ground there.

Yeah, 2022, when trying not to promote a war into a nuclear war became a shit-take.

[Jericho]

What if the US had taken this view about helping your country against Germany in WWII? It sounds like the sort of argument the American isolationists were making at the time.

If you want to play what if, Adolph Hitler would have developed the nuclear bomb, Sony would still be making bicycles and if I wanted a radio, I'd buy American.

But back to that "premptive strike".

[Jericho]

It's amazing how many old lefties still seem to reflexively sympathise with the Russian position just because it is anti-Western. Have they not noticed that Russia is now pretty close to a fascist regime?

And whilst the conservatives were stuffing their arse pockets with Russian money, and one Tony Blair, was cosying up to Putin, there was one 'old lefty' in Parliament calling it out.
Wonder who that was?

[Jericho]

Fair enough, but I think you underestimate the inability Corbyn had to re-structure the party organization at HQ.

Trust me, that's the one thing I have absolutely no illusions about.

[broncofan]

I think you missed out the 'allegedly' there.
Or perhaps after the Corbyn Cult crack, you didn't?


Yeah, 2022, when trying not to promote a war into a nuclear war became a shit-take.

A while ago I linked some of the evidence for you. I'm not sure it's actually worth talking to you about this. You had a head of disputes at the NEC (Christine Shawcroft) who decided she wanted to defend a Holocaust denier who was running for councilor. You had a councillor who said 'talmud Jews need executing". I linked about fifteen of these cases, one of a councilor saying Hitler is a great man. Here is one I never linked of a guy who said " don't give your soul energy to the parasitical Rothschild Zionist vati lunatic nonce controllers." He was a council candidate. People like this were all over the place.

https://antisemitism.org/labour-selects-billy-wells-who-defends-ken-livingstone-and-says-its-the-super-rich-families-of-the-zionist-lobby-that-control-the-world-as-council-candidate/

What's worse is that when I told you stuff you clearly hadn't heard you didn't say "geez that really is awful. I'm sure this must be very upsetting to Jewish people but I think it's not that common among most members." Instead it's the same old line about how everyone is out to get your party, including your own media, and 90% or so of Jewish people who talk about this. You also had a clp that voted against a motion to to condemn the shooting at Tree of Life synagogue because it focused too much on antisemitism. I actually live two blocks away from the synagogue, 11 of whose congregants were murdered. It still hasn't had a service and I believe it never will again.

I noticed you said nothing about Press TV, which Chris Williamson is on. He is broadcasting on a network that has promoted the view that Jews created covid to target Iran.

But notice that the people you're talking to have actually engaged in political discussion. You've posted videos you can't summarize, you ask why this forum isn't talking about French protesters wearing vests, and once said you can solve antisemitism.

Whatever, your movement failed bc the people in it lacked interest in political issues and fell for cheap demagoguery and worse. Your leaders can't even condemn Russia, think that the only reason Iranian women are protesting their regime is because of Zionists, and you had very little except spite going for you.

[broncofan]

But nobody is going to watch 3 hours of video to decide whether they agree with your point just like you wouldn't read a book if I linked it. It's unreasonable to expect anyone to check any external link, video, or article that will take more than 15 or so minutes of a person's time.

[broncofan]

The message is the almost total lack of mainstream media interest in a political scandal

It's not a political scandal except in your head. Most people when they see officials praising Hitler, denying the Holocaust, or talking about "lunatic nonce Rothschild" something or other do not try to create a separate conspiracy narrative or go on the attack.

Did it ever occur to you that the info must have caused some upset to me that I still remember more than a dozen of these cases and their facts years later? Did it occur to you it must mean significantly less to you that you don't remember them or care about them even after I provided you a bunch of links? I can go back to them.

Anyway, everyone in this thread is against nuclear war, but nobody except you thinks Ukrainians would have been fine if they just didn't fight back.