Thought for the Day

[broncofan]

You can't damn the entire party because of one CLP Chair, but it her case is hopeless, not least her pathetic excuse: "Ms Collins claimed she had shared the articles to "create an interesting discussion" rather than to express her own opinions."

And not just Labour- the Brexit Party sacked its first Treasurer for his anti-Jewish slurs, and at least two of its MEPs "have appeared on an internet radio show that promotes Holocaust deniers and antisemitic conspiracy theorists."
https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com...-report-finds/

https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/s...uence-1.487848

I appreciate what you say. The stuff about the Brexit party members going on the Richie Allen show is troubling.

Even if Ms. Collins were more senior in the party there is nothing one can do to prevent such comments before they're expressed. A party can only respond but they have to lead and I'm not convinced at the robustness of their disciplinary process.

People get suspended (and not expelled) when it's obvious their offenses are severe, malicious, and deliberate and they continue to hang around. Why is someone like Laura Stuart in the article above not persona non grata in left-wing circles? Why do these same cast of characters show up to grassroots events and the people who complain about anti-Semitism are vilified and screened out as troublemakers? Shouldn't someone who says the stuff she said be pushed out of anti-racist activism and hang out instead with the alt-right or their equivalents?

The problem is that from my observation anti-semites who have been disciplined are more popular among Labour supporters than the people who condemn them. I don't know what can be done about that.

[Stavros]

I find myself in a position where what I thought was not possible has become real. When I was a member of the Labour Party in the 1980s anti-Semitic remarks would have been unthinkable. In addition to what we learned as we grew up, our parents generation were first hand witnesses to the wars, the revolutions and the genocides of the 20th century, and knew who was responsible for crimes, and why. To find the same accusations against Jews of the 1930s resurrected in the 21st century is a shock, to the extent I cannot explain it other than it is caused by ignorance, an unforgiveable ignorance- or a genuine hatred of the Jews to rival the bleak hatred of Muslims that has expanded since 9/11.
I don't even understand it as being part of the criticism of Israel. I have said before there are plenty of real political issues that concern Israel to debate without losing one's reason in conspiracy theories. I am also puzzled as to how anyone claiming be a supporter of what is supposed to be a social democratic, maybe even a socialist party, can be associated with the ideas and the language of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and/or the Third Reich. To wish it away as 'interesting' will not do, because it is not remotely interesting, it is garbage, and always has been.

But I am also astonished that at a time when Capitalism is failing, European socialist parties are losing rather than winning support, as if the left has run out of ideas, and is incapable of offering the people a sane, rational vision of what the 21st century has to offer. Here in the UK, Jeremy Corbyn seems fixated on the revival of 1970s policies, oblivious to a world in which driverless, electric cars will become normal, along with driverless trains (overground and underground) and computer-operated aeroplanes. The simple demand to raise taxes and spend more on social services sounds reasonable, but where is the imaginative thinking about the education and the curriciulum the children of today need if they are to prosper tomorrow, or the demands of health care as more and more people live beyond the age of 80, while their younger cohorts are beset by obesity and 'lifestyle' health probems? For what is 'lifestyle' and how does it evolve, from whatever it is today to what it may become?

But even if you set aside socialism, the so-called 'conservative' parties have thrown away their values, seen at its most raw in the naked racism that overwhelmed the Republican Party in the US when Obama became Presidet, which no longer values Human Rights -a term officially deleted from government announcements-; which supports dictatorship over democracy, participates in the violation of the rule of law at home and abroad, and allows the President and his family to fill their pockets with tax-payers money and condemn all attempts to expose the truth of its extent as unwarranted intrusion. It is as if the US never really believed in rights, the rule of law, or democracy, and that all the Republican Party is doing now is being honest about its politics and saying 'so what? What are you going to do about it?

It is too early to know if the rage against falling living standards is caused by globalization, and will be remedied by conservative goovernment; just as I see no hope of improvement through nationalist attempts to shut the world -and its 'struggling masses'- out of 'Our Home'; but the war against truth is certainly something else I never expected to see.

Can we really imagine the day is coming, when to defend the draft-dodging coward from Queens, someone will claim the Vietnam War never happened, that it was all 'fake news'? When the answer to the question is yes, we know we are all in deep trouble.

So the specifics of the anti-Semitism we have now is bad enough, that it is part of a broader campaign (co-ordinated or not) against the truth must make us wonder who or how anyone benefits from it, and why we seem powerless to send back to the impotent margins of society, those who seek to dominate us all with their policies of revenge and hate, derived from lies, that benefits only a few people, so rich they don't care.

[Stavros]

If the President is impeached by the House of Representatives, does that mean he will not be invited to deliver the State of the Union speech in the New Year?

[broncofan]

Thought of the day: Peejaye downvote the rest of them. You only got about 3,420 more to go! I'm glad you're reading....much better than blocking people you disagree with.

[Stavros]

He is at it again:

The United States has spent EIGHT TRILLION DOLLARS fighting and policing in the Middle East. Thousands of our Great Soldiers have died or been badly wounded. Millions of people have died on the other side. GOING INTO THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE WORST DECISION EVER MADE.....

....IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY! We went to war under a false & now disproven premise, WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. There were NONE! Now we are slowly & carefully bringing our great soldiers & military home. Our focus is on the BIG PICTURE! THE USA IS GREATER THAN EVER BEFORE!

I guess that is why

The US announced Friday it would send additional troops along with enhanced air and missile defense systems to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in response to the attack on Saudi oil facilities, which the US has blamed on Tehran.
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/09/20/p...ons/index.html

So is the US decreasing or increasing its military presence in the Middle East?

[Stavros]

And for those of you who wonder where the weird nonsense about the Kurds not being there for the US on the beaches of Normandy, at Inchon or Vietnam, the argument is not even his -what, you mean 'the President' has no original ideas?- but some provocative Republican called Kurt Schlichter who wrote this article in something called Town Hall. Read it and at least get an insight into the ignorance that deplores US involvement in the Middle East at the same time as it is being deepened not relieved. Oh, and though it might only have been marginal to the main theatre in Europe, the Kurds did play a role in the military engagement of Rashid Ali's pro-Nazi coup in Baghdad in 1941 -and helped the same Iraqforce as it was called, end Vichy rule in Syria, not least in the Kurdish heartlands of the North-East. But hey, why should any historic facts get in the way of a pugnacious defence of a man who it seems to me, puts the resources of the US at the disposal of Saudi Arabia, in exchange for, hmmm, what -'lovely dollars'?

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurt...-wars-n2554328

[Stavros]

President Trump on 2016: "And I didn't need Beyonce and Jay Z. And I didn't need Little Bruce Springsteen."

If Bruce Springsteen is 'little', what is he?

[broncofan]

Chris Williamson's resignation letter is a disgrace to honesty and yes decency.

In it he claims that the JDL, a terrorist group that originated in the U.S., and Britain First, led the campaign to get the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism adopted!

Does he honestly think that the only people who support the IHRA definition of anti-semitism are the JDL and Britain First? Does he really think they led the campaign to get it adopted?

More than 2,000 people liked this disgraceful, cobbled together pile of conspiracism to obscure the types of things Councilors and MPs have really gotten suspended for. Awful stuff.

[Jericho]

If that puts your knickers in a knot, this will really raise your blood pressure.

Labour should have never adopted the IHRA definition.
Even it's own author, Kenneth Stern said it was never meant to define antisemitism, and as such, isn't fit for purpose.

You want to stop antisemitism, stop fucking weaponising it.

You've seen exactly the same thing happening in your own country with A.O.C.

Chris Williamson's resignation letter is a disgrace to honesty and yes decency.

In it he claims that the JDL, a terrorist group that originated in the U.S., and Britain First, led the campaign to get the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism adopted!

Does he honestly think that the only people who support the IHRA definition of anti-semitism are the JDL and Britain First? Does he really think they led the campaign to get it adopted?

More than 2,000 people liked this disgraceful, cobbled together pile of conspiracism to obscure the types of things Councilors and MPs have really gotten suspended for. Awful stuff.

[broncofan]

If that puts your knickers in a knot, this will really raise your blood pressure.

Labour should have never adopted the IHRA definition.
Even it's own author, Kenneth Stern said it was never meant to define antisemitism, and as such, isn't fit for purpose.

You want to stop antisemitism, stop fucking weaponising it.

You've seen exactly the same thing happening in your own country with A.O.C.

Nobody is weaponizing it. Saying that the JDL led a push for something that 85% of the Jewish community wanted is anti-Semitism. If you don't like the IHRA you can argue about why but you shouldn't conflate members of the Jewish community with a terror organization.

Your party has had Holocaust deniers elected to office, violent threats from a Councilor, and a recent Councilor that called a Jewish woman Shylock. Every week it's some fresh example.

Just do your best in life. No need to blame us. Where have I said anything about AOC? I've said many MPs and Councilors in your party are anti-Semitic. And they are.

I've voted for the Democratic party my entire life and will continue to. I would not vote for a party where elected officials are saying Hitler is a great man or openly admitting they don't like Jews and being re-admitted.