Thought for the Day

[Stavros]

Can someone explain to me what it means to say Theresa May has a Zionist slave master agenda? I don't see it as containing content. Is this actually defensible? I'm looking at this stuff and the responses to it and it is something out of a nightmare.

It must come from the claim made by Jackie Walker in 2016-

Walker faced complaints after writing on Facebook in February 2016, in which she said: “Millions more Africans were killed in the African holocaust and their oppression continues today on a global scale in a way it doesn’t for Jews… and many Jews (my ancestors too) were the chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade which is of course why there were so many early synagogues in the Caribbean.”
https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com...the-holocaust/

Walker has since modified her remark to admit she ought to have added the word 'amongst'-

But she made one mistake. She should have said 'amongst the financiers ... and many Jews, my ancestors too, were amongst the chief financiers of the slave trade', because that is a fact."
https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/j...burgh-1.442461

Jackie Walker has since been expelled from the party.

I don't know much about Lisa Forbes, other than that she must now undergo 'anti-semitism training' (! what?) and was selected from an all-female shortlist of candidates, and that whoever allowed her name to be on the list knows nothing about 'due diligence'. Given the prolific amount of information we leave about ourselves on social media, the time must come when candidates be subjected to that due diligence to uncover what they have said or written or approved of in the past. Even if she is not anti-semitic, to approve of that kind of statement is not 'radical chic', it is brainless. And if she acts without thinking first, how can she be fit to be an MP? Peterborough Labour Party has had, shall we say, an 'interesting' approach to election organization in recent years, and their scrape through last Thursday can not hide the serious problems this party has with Corbyn as leader.

[broncofan]

I don't know much about Lisa Forbes, other than that she must now undergo 'anti-semitism training' (! what?) and was selected from an all-female shortlist of candidates, and that whoever allowed her name to be on the list knows nothing about 'due diligence'. Given the prolific amount of information we leave about ourselves on social media, the time must come when candidates be subjected to that due diligence to uncover what they have said or written or approved of in the past. Even if she is not anti-semitic, to approve of that kind of statement is not 'radical chic', it is brainless. And if she acts without thinking first, how can she be fit to be an MP? Peterborough Labour Party has had, shall we say, an 'interesting' approach to election organization in recent years, and their scrape through last Thursday can not hide the serious problems this party has with Corbyn as leader.

It actually wasn't in response to Jackie Walker's comments. I don't think slave-master here was used to comment on the role of Jewish people in the slave trade but rather to mean "overlord". I think the person whose video she was responding to was saying Theresa May is controlled by a cabal of Jews and that she herself was a puppet or in more extreme terms, slave to these people.

I think what's missing is the gestalt when someone actually looks at the networks that you find this information in. Yes, as a general matter it is possible to like ugly stuff online without reading it carefully. But the density of conspiratorial ugliness in which these comments are found often means one has sought out the information.

When the comments are plucked out of the networks in which they're found, it sometimes looks like a one-off, even if it's the zillionth occurrence of similar behavior. But when you see thousands of accounts, travelling in the same circles, posting the same memes, and following the same accounts of people who have been suspended (and should have been expelled) it has a different appearance. What it looks like is a network of people trading in poorly thought out conspiracy theories engaging in persistent low level harassment of Jewish people who didn't ask to see the stuff.

I'll give a couple of examples of what I've experienced, though it couldn't be used formally as evidence, it gives some clue why each individual case doesn't look independent to a statistical though I acknowledge not unanimous, majority of Jewish people.

1. A Corbyn supporter responding to the Willsman stuff saw a tweet of mine and called me a Khazar. The Khazar hypothesis is something people can speculate about, though there's not much support for it and it's not provable at this point. But it's different to respond to a random Jewish person by insisting that they shut up because they're a Khazar phony.

2. Corbyn supporter who told me it's not anti-Semitic to say American Jews run the world because it's as much a criticism of Americans as Jews. When I said it is, they told me I'm shameful and that calling this anti-Semitic trivializes real anti-Semitism.

3. Someone who insisted the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is true. Again, I was told I should be concerned about real anti-Semitism.

4. In response to the Chris Williamson circulating a petition for Atzmon someone yelled at me "He's a SEMITE, you're an anti-Semite for criticizing Atzmon." Atzmon has said such appalling things, it's not controversial..I don't really care about Atzmon's background as much as his views...but it's notable this person didn't insist he's a Khazar.

5. Being put on a list of Tory Zionists.

6. A half dozen times when I've responded to something, getting a meme in my notifications of an Israeli woman saying "anti-Semitism is a trick" that the Israelis use. This meme has circulated on neo-Nazi forums for years, and is often used in response to unambiguous anti-Semitism pointed out by a non-Israeli Jew.

7. Being called a baby killer and apartheid lover apropos of nothing, except for the cases we're talking about, which hardly raises the issue of Israel's foreign policy.

There's also the fact that I've seen low-level twitter celebrities who support Corbyn, have follower numbers in the thousands, and have engaged in Holocaust denial.

Now someone might think: is this as bad as Neo-Nazis who talk about killing Jews, as well as other minority groups. Why not focus on that? They should be a focal point for law enforcement and be kept away from political positions. But it's extremely alienating to see such widespread tolerance for conspiratorial anti-Semitism, that has made its way into the mainstream networks and is propagated by people who claim to be anti-racist.

This is what I've seen and experienced when I've tried to discuss some of these cases on twitter. But it's not just what I've seen and experienced, it's been documented and forwarded to Labour by other people in many cases.

[Stavros]

Broncofan, you are plugged into this more than I am as I don't have a twitter account and registered a Facebook account but have never used it. I assume that Walker is part of this trend that distorts historical evidence, or just makes it up, and that her remarks on slavery and the Jews is part of this stuff about 'Zionist slave masters'. I can't say I want to know more than that, other than to wonder how we got to a situation where this kind of comment has become so common.

I can understand when it is part of the once-redundant, now revived conspiracy theory concerning the Jews, because in a real sense that never went away, but was discredited for so many years because of the Holocaust. It was also the preserve of the 'right' which meant those who felt sorry for Hitler, and who retain theories of race that privilege white people over all the others, and which tend to regard Jews as part of a long-established plan to take over the world, just as Black people are condemned to a life of crime because they have criminal genes, or some such rubbish. How anyone on the left can subscribe to such theories is beyond me, and as a critique of Israel it is nonsensical, as Israel did not exist during the slave trade, to take that example, and Israel has enough problems without dragging in the Protcols of the Elders of Zion, the Khazar thesis or some worn out claim about 'the Rothschilds'.

The growth of the internet is clearly making this easier to happen than before, when Lyndon Larouche was a notorious figure but his crazy and offensive ideas limited to publications and obscure radio shows. I am not sure what the purpose of twitter is, it seems to me to reduce complex arguments on every subject you can think of, to slogans and shouting matches which retard any progress in debate.

And I believe every generation needs to know what the Holocaust really was, what its roots were, and how the ideas that gave rise to it can, if not challenged at every event, flourish again. Hegel's belief in a long, progressive journey of enlightenment may have had its moments of negation, but it seems to me the negation of actuality at this level today, runs the risk of turning the clock back. If the trend that has seen the emergence of the rhetoric and the laws emerging from the US is part of a wider trend across Europe, Asia and Africa, the advances we thought we had made in the 1960s are in real peril. The phrase 'Never Again' that was attached to the Holocaust has been attached to Obama, and not just because he was a Democrat. So far, the violence has been sporadic and episodic rather than co-ordinated, but on more than occasion I have read of dire warnings that if Brexit is not deilivered 'the people will rise up' or words to that effect. 'Tommy Robinson' is seen as part of this potential vanguard, alleged supporters of the English Defence League which he used to lead, have been blamed for football hooliganism the other day in Portugal, he himself was involved in a punch up the other day yet he is a hero to an organization like the Middle East Forum in the US because Daniel Pipes regards anyone campaigning against Islam as a friend.

To make it worse, there are radical Muslims in the UK who are a gift to Pipes and people like him. The current allegation in Peterborough is that a Muslim who was part of the election organization for the by-election has been engaged in a rigged postal vote which secured Lisa Forbes victory. These Muslims are also being accused of having links to Anjem Chaudhury and promote anti-semitic views. I don't know what the truth of this is, but it has been known for some time that the literature produced in Saudi Arabia that is used in some Madrasas in the UK and across the world is deeply anti-semitic, but Saudi Arabia is now in alliance with Israel and Tom Kaine has alleged the US foreign policy on the Kingdom is determined by the money they give to the President to get what they want (nuclear technology) -so the duplicity of Saudi Arabia goes unchallenged, becoming part of a conspiracy theory too.

In the case of Brexit, which is part of this trend, I see the prospect of failure becoming part of the narrative -not because it is a badly managed process with impossible goals, but because when it fails, it will be the fault of 'those people' who wanted it to fail - in the UK 'the establishment', in Europe, 'George Soros' and, of course, 'the Germans'. The division of 'them' and 'us' is not just designed to identify different segments of society who have benefited or lost from globalization, it uses those 'markers' to suggest that what has been lost is an original identity -that 'mass immigration' has diluted the 'national character' to the extent that 'our white christian' civilization is now at risk.

It is in effect, a revival of fascism in its original form, not the desperate measures Mussolini took to make it work -you can see it in the campaigns of Steve Bannon, and in the writings of Roger Scruton, where, without a trace of irony, people who are part of this trend claim they are protecting a 'Judeo-Christian' civilization from the one threat that has superceded Communism as the greatest threat of all -Islam. That Christians slaughtered Jews, expelled them from the country, allowed them back in but to live in ghettoes, limiting their participation in the economy -precisely what the Nazis did prior to the Final Solution- does not to me create in Judeo-Christian civilization the basics of civilization itself: respect for human life, equally valid for all.

The left has lost political representation across Europe at a time when economic disadvantage ought to be succeeding at the ballot box -which it has in Denmark but not in Germany, France, the Netherlands or Italy. It seems to me that by falling into a culture of victimhood and blame, the left has lost any positive agenda for the future which it needs if it is to counter the current 'populist' trend -instead of being part of this nauseating anti-semitism, it should be fighting it; instead of calling for reparations and impeachment, it should be laying out a plan for the next 25 years that everyone can relate to and support. I cannot believe some of the paper thin drivel I often hear from Labour, it is as if they have been so battered by Brexit they cannot think at all. I am still not sure if the Labour Party is a Leave or a Remain party. What I am sure about is that I am glad I severed my ties to it in the 1980s and have no voted for it since Blair. It has become a party of cowards unfit for public office, and I see no hope for the UK over the next 5-10 years only instability and economic decline.

[buttslinger]

There are all kinds of smart, and all kinds of stupid, and Trump is about to unveil his latest stupid gift to his flock, the mass deportation of illegals. The final solution.
Suggested reading: Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad

[bluesoul]

A former senior adviser to President Barack Obama has said that the president is deeply concerned about the direction of the U.S., and that the two-term president plans to be involved in Democratic efforts to defeat President Donald Trump in the 2020 election.

https://www.newsweek.com/barack-obam...arrett-1444717

ummmm... not a good idea.

[buttslinger]

I wish Obama was Prez like I wish I was 21 again, that ship has sailed.
I honestly don't see any Democratic hopeful that is up to the real task of maintaining LBJ's great society, even Obama had to skyrocket the national debt to get along, maybe it was BIG BUSINESS who killed Hillary, not PUTIN, they're sure reaping the benefits now.
When Bernie is President, we will all be friends again, and we will all be broke.
No one from this forum would be allowed to babysit the kids of Trump's base.
Yeee-haw!!!!!

[broncofan]

I am not sure what the purpose of twitter is, it seems to me to reduce complex arguments on every subject you can think of, to slogans and shouting matches which retard any progress in debate.

Twitter is exciting because its format permits so little text that the interactions actually seem like face to face conversations. With so little written it also permits the viewpoints of hundreds of people to fit into a very small space. But what does it do for complex arguments? Imagine trying to write what you wrote in 280 characters, about three sentences?

It also allows for an exquisite combination of sophistry and bullying. Imagine asking someone to provide you evidence or disprove a logical fallacy in such a small space. Anyone earnest who wants a conversation is swamped by any liar and their cohorts who prefers to repeatedly ask for evidence they don't want to see.

For an example of how twitter obliterates nuance, consider this common comeback. When someone concedes something but uses the word "but" to disagree in part, twitter users will point out they've used the word "but". To them the use of the word "but" means that the other person isn't even conceding the part they are in fact conceding. What they are demanding is complete endorsement of what they've said without any distinction or clarification. The format of twitter does that already, where thousands of views are crammed into a discrete set of categories.

[broncofan]

When someone concedes something but uses the word "but" to disagree in part, twitter users will point out they've used the word "but".

I'm telling you the demand that other people disagree without using the word but is a twitter tic. An example:

Imagine someone is accused of being an embezzler and you want to acknowledge that embezzlement is a very serious crime while disagreeing with the particular accusation:

Me: "I think embezzlement is a very serious crime but I don't think party C actually embezzled".

Person B: He just said "I think embezzlement is a serious crime BUT"....lol doesn't sound like the words of someone who takes embezzlement seriously lol

You can imagine that is not a worthwhile or honest conversation...

[trish]

(Twitter) is terrible for all the reasons you mentioned BUT

I’ve no first hand experience with twitter. I only see the tweets that make it into newspapers, television broad casts etc. and those are usually particularly egregious examples. I can’t imagine (without cringing) what Trump’s twitter coverage of the Democratic Debates is going to be like. The format is terrible for all the reasons you’ve mentioned, but in the hands of a first-rate liar and troll it can become an effective propaganda machine. It seems almost forms of social media have become weaponized and designed to fractionalize us beyond recognition. (I’m in the middle of reading Neil Stephenson’s “Fall: or, Dodge in Hell” which develops a extreme variation of this issue).

[Stavros]

For an example of how twitter obliterates nuance, consider this common comeback. When someone concedes something but uses the word "but" to disagree in part, twitter users will point out they've used the word "but". To them the use of the word "but" means that the other person isn't even conceding the part they are in fact conceding. What they are demanding is complete endorsement of what they've said without any distinction or clarification. The format of twitter does that already, where thousands of views are crammed into a discrete set of categories.

I agree with you, but...