Mick Hall on why he decided to resign from the British Labour Party.

My decision to leave the LP was not an emotional act. I signed up to support Jeremy Corbyn and the policies he advocated, and not once have I regretted this. 

What I didn't sign up to do is support a toady of the British establishment, someone who accepted one of its major honours which help perpetuate class prejudice and division, a system which ruins and blights so many working class lives. 

I'm a socialist republican - is there any other kind? -  an Internationalist, and anti-imperialist to my bones and I was never going to remain a member of a party led by a man like Starmer. 

Having said this even I was a little surprised at his speed and direction of travel since becoming party leader. Taking this into account I felt I had no option but to resign immediately from the party. As a comrade, Trevor, said when he resigned, I needed to make a point!

What is to be done? If Corbyn socialists are to remain in the party let alone the odd one in the Cabinet, the Starmer leadership will demand ever more concessions from them. This will undoubtedly result in the socialist policies of the Corbyn years being hollowed out.

If they stay in and fight by forming a faction they will be forever fighting a rear guard action. It's worth remembering even with a sizeable section of the membership behind them they will face considerable opposition internally, and from UK State agencies: the MSM and foreign intelligence services like the CIA and Mossad, all of whom will put their not inconsiderable resources behind Starmer, the Blairites and the flotsam and jetsam which supports him.

In my opinion the LP is a busted flush. Writing as someone who is no longer a member and without arrogance, the best option for those comrades who remain in the party is to agitate for leaving the party in an orderly fashion to form a new organisation. Corbyn Labour's policies remain popular with a sizeable section of the membership and the electorate, but in the latter case the Labour party does not, and why would it when powerful forces within and without have been trashing its leadership for the last four years. 

I would ask those comrades who remain do they really want to spend their future time in the party mirroring this wretched behaviour? I doubt it. Much better to strike out in a new direction, surely?

Luta continua.

Mick Hall is a veteran Left Wing activist and trade unionist.

Just So I Am Clear

Mick Hall on why he decided to resign from the British Labour Party.

My decision to leave the LP was not an emotional act. I signed up to support Jeremy Corbyn and the policies he advocated, and not once have I regretted this. 

What I didn't sign up to do is support a toady of the British establishment, someone who accepted one of its major honours which help perpetuate class prejudice and division, a system which ruins and blights so many working class lives. 

I'm a socialist republican - is there any other kind? -  an Internationalist, and anti-imperialist to my bones and I was never going to remain a member of a party led by a man like Starmer. 

Having said this even I was a little surprised at his speed and direction of travel since becoming party leader. Taking this into account I felt I had no option but to resign immediately from the party. As a comrade, Trevor, said when he resigned, I needed to make a point!

What is to be done? If Corbyn socialists are to remain in the party let alone the odd one in the Cabinet, the Starmer leadership will demand ever more concessions from them. This will undoubtedly result in the socialist policies of the Corbyn years being hollowed out.

If they stay in and fight by forming a faction they will be forever fighting a rear guard action. It's worth remembering even with a sizeable section of the membership behind them they will face considerable opposition internally, and from UK State agencies: the MSM and foreign intelligence services like the CIA and Mossad, all of whom will put their not inconsiderable resources behind Starmer, the Blairites and the flotsam and jetsam which supports him.

In my opinion the LP is a busted flush. Writing as someone who is no longer a member and without arrogance, the best option for those comrades who remain in the party is to agitate for leaving the party in an orderly fashion to form a new organisation. Corbyn Labour's policies remain popular with a sizeable section of the membership and the electorate, but in the latter case the Labour party does not, and why would it when powerful forces within and without have been trashing its leadership for the last four years. 

I would ask those comrades who remain do they really want to spend their future time in the party mirroring this wretched behaviour? I doubt it. Much better to strike out in a new direction, surely?

Luta continua.

Mick Hall is a veteran Left Wing activist and trade unionist.

41 comments:

  1. To paraphrase the comedian Graham Elwood, joining or staying in the UK Labor Party, like joining or staying in the US Democrat Party, and thinking you’re going to change and reform them from within to better help working class people, is a lot like joining or staying in a criminal drug cartel in Columbia or Mexico and thinking you’re going to persuade them to stop dealing cocaine and sell baby formula instead.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The reality is that Jeremy Corbyn led Labour to its worst electoral defeat in Decemeber 2019 since 1935 and that, among many reasons, Corbyn himself was a massive turn-off on the doorsteps in many of what used to be safe Labour seats behind the so-called Red Wall.

    I think Mick is taking a honest approach by leaving Labour and seeking to form another campaign/pressure group on the Left. Good luck with that. I see Momentum is splitting up. Sound familiar

    Far better this than the hostile takeover of the Labour Party by the far left in September 2015; the appointment of former Tankies to prominent positions in the Leader's Office, the development of a culture of intolerance and conformity around the personality cult of the Sainted Jeremy; the underhand takeover by CLPs (such as my one in Colchester) by Momentum slates and, lastly, the grotesque interpretations of "anti-imperialism" in the form of the antisemitism scandal (and no it was not the invention of Mossad, CIA, Blairites or any other hidden hand) and the giving of free passes to Russia and the Assad regime.

    As laid out in Clause One of its Constitution, the Labour Party exists to win power through competitive elections in order to represent the interests of and improve the lives of those who need a Labour Government i.e. the working and non-working poor and other disadvantaged social groups.

    The reality is that the Left can only advance by using (while not uncritically accepted) the institutions of the post-1945 liberal internationalist order. In the context of the UK, there can only be a parliamentary road to socialism; the 20th and early 21st century are littered with the debris of unparliamentary routes.

    The Labour Party has no divine or natural right to exist. To become relevant to real people's needs there needs to be greater alignment between the PLP, the membership and, most crucially, Labour electors and former electors.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There’s much proof UK Labour, like other parties, is corrupt:

      Corruption in UK Politics
      www.transparency.org.uk › plugins › includes › download

      Political scandals in the United Kingdom
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_scandals_in_the_United_Kingdom

      As well as criminal:

      British Parliamentary approval for the invasion of Iraq on 18 March 2003:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Parliamentary_approval_for_the_invasion_of_Iraq

      But no proof of UK Labour under Corbyn being anti-Semitic:

      No antisemitism in the UK Labour Party
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_UK_Labour_Party

      Even Dr. Gabor Maté, a Holocaust survivor, says it’s bullshit:

      Antisemitism Allegations Against Jeremy Corbyn 'Complete and utter nonsense!'
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-n5YiCRIujo

      But leave it to Boris & Barry to persist with this smear.

      Delete
  3. Mick,
    I agree with everything you have pointed out about the Party and the State, but what is this 'new direction'?
    The fact is that 'There is no parliamentary road to socialism'. That socialists are involved in a party which primarily does its business through parliament is not from any belief that we can transform society through elections. We need to be in organisations of the mass of the working class people, in order to win them to our ideas. Can we do this outside the party which is the natural home to the masses? Hasn't this been tried before, especially in the Blair years?

    I'll be staying in the Party in the meantime, until either I get expelled or some realistic alternative emerges.

    Comradely, Mike

    ReplyDelete
  4. Mike,
    I hope you and yours are well comrade. If the Corbyn experiment proved one thing as you wrote 'there is no parliamentary road to socialism, I would add not without a massive push from the outside, some thought momentum might fill this space but it wasn't to be. What is this new direction, it is to early to say. I'm hoping there will be a burst of extra parliamentary action. For me staying in a party which is led by a knight of the realm was a circle I couldn't square. Others like you Mike will stay in the party and fight and I wish you well with that.

    Respect and comradely regards

    Mick

    ReplyDelete
  5. Eoghan

    Or leave it to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission which will report on Labour Antisemitism probably in June to continue with "the smear".

    There is a welter of evidence compiled by the Jewish Labour Movement , the academics Dave Rich and David Hirsh, the Community Security Trust mand, the blogger David Collier and other on the extent and nature of antisemitism in Labour Party during the Corbyn years both on online forums and in Constituency Parties where Jewish MPs Luciana Berger and Lousie Ellman were driven out of the party.

    I refer you to the articles I have writter for TPQ on Labour Antisemitism.

    ReplyDelete
  6. The whole British machine was used to discredit Corbyn. Even the LP apparatchiks in LPHQ worked against him. They use the propaganda against Syria, Russia and China. The gullible public are taken in by it. The LP is done. The new leadership have adopted the Israeli ten commandments. I have left because I don't think the LP can be salvaged. The leaked report shows the extent of the corruption at the top so we'll have to see what happens next. I'm not optimistic.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Corbyn did a very good job in descrediting himself over Brexit and his past dubious connections with the Provisional IRA/Sinn Fein, jihadi hate preachers, conspiracy theorists, Press TV and his obvious dislike of the majority of the PLP who reprdesent Labour Parties not the Corbyn cult in the CLPs.

    Eddie, you talk about the whole Britisn machine using "the propaganda against Syria, Russia and China". Other way round, I suggest. It is Russian trolls who helped propel Trump to power; it is Putin who is backing far right nationalists across Europe in order to undermine the post-war liberal order; it is Putin and his troll army that have assisted the war crimes of the 21st century's second mass murderer and lied about the Syrian White Knights.

    Of course, the real giveaway in your post, Eddie, is your comment "that the new leadership have adopted the Israeli ten commnandments." Ah yes, the far left obsession with Israeli/Zionist plots as well as adulation of any mass murdering regime or terror group that is deemed to be "anti-imperialist" (Western of course, not Russian or Chinese).

    The new leadership is at long last getting to grips with the antisemitism crisis which has so disfigured Labour and building bridges again with Jewish communities.

    The public are not "gullible". They looked at what Corbyn offered and did not buy the shopping list of unrealistic promises or his forked tongue on Brexit.

    I suspend judgement on the leaked document until the internal inquiry into its provenance and leaking has finished. It will not alter the fact that the rise of Corbyn to leader brought with it the importation of antizionist elements from the fringe into the mainstream Labour which became the wellsprings of the far left (maybe even far right) antisemitism in the party.

    There should be no place for racists of any sort in the Labour Party no for fellow travellers of despots of any kind; including Putin, Assad and Saddam Huxsein.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Barry,

    You’re wishing upon a Zionist star.

    Shocker that.

    But saying the UK Labour Party is anti-Semitic is like saying…

    Don’t go to McDonald's because they sell hot dogs.

    There are good nutritional reasons for not eating at McDonald's.

    But it’s not because they sell hot dogs, since they don’t.

    A majority Conservative Party Committee no less has already ruled:

    The committee acknowledged that there was “no reliable, empirical evidence to support the notion that there is a higher prevalence of antisemitic attitudes within the Labour party than any other political party”.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/oct/16/jeremy-corbyn-antisemitism-chakrabarti-inquiry

    And these are pro-Israeli Conservatives.

    So, so much for your dumb ass articles.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Eoghan

    You will have to do better than plucking quotes and snippets to make your case supplemented by your trademark juvenile insults

    Like putting together a coherent and evidence based response in narrative form to the cases that I and other TPQ contributors that you disagree with.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Barry,

    You simply have no credible or reliable evidence that the UK Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn was anti-Semetic. Ergo, you're delusional.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Barry,

    Pluck this coherent & evidence based response to your narrative:

    The Weaponisation of Labour Antisemitism | by David Graeber, Ph.D.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6oOj7BzciA

    And take a good look at who you're in political bed with:

    i.e. Johnson, Netanyahu, Thatcher, Reagan, etc.

    Lay down with dogs get up with fleas.


    ReplyDelete
  12. Eoghan

    Once again you avoid the hard work of analysis, falsifiable research and dealing with nuance as you piggy pack on somebody's else's work which, as I have said in another thread, I actually find a lot of favour with.

    About "credible or reliable evidence" about Labout AS; the Jewish Labour Movement submitted to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission evidence from hundreds of witnesses of antisemitic incidents from intimidation of Jewish and pro-Israel party members at party meetings and abusive social media posts and from up to 70 whistle blowers on the failings in and interference with investigation of these claims. This dossier is available publicly (I stand corrected).

    Also the Community Security Trust has compiled a research report "Networks of Hate" which maps out the connections between Facebook Groups like JC4PM and "Palestine Live" where Holocaust denial, Mossad was behind 9/11 and ISIS and many other Jew hate tropes were sprayed around like confetti. There is also Professor Alan Johnson's study of Contemporary Antisemitism which fits Labour's problems into its ideological niches. I have copies of both documents.

    There is also books by Dave Rich and David Hirsch on Comtemporary Left Antissemiitism which I cite in my "dumbass articles". There also works by Julia Neuberger on "Antisemitism. What It Is. What It Isn't. Why It Matters"; Deborah Lipstadt "Antisemitism. Here and Now" and Keith-Kahn-Harris "Strange Hate. Antisemitism, Racism and the Limits of Diversity" which sites Corbyn's Labour Antisemitism in global and historical context.

    Eoghan, from your street corner, barstool "Republican" pulpit you say that I am political bedfellows with Johnson, Thatcher, Netanyahu with no evidence whatsoever. But there again people who inhabit your warped ideological and ethical space do not need evidence.

    But as someone who trumpets your antizionism ad nauseam; look at who you are sleeping with politically: Nick Griffin, David Duke, ISIS, Iranian mullahs etc.(this can all be verified) Now with that sort of company you will pick up a virus and rapidly transmit it. But your rabid nationalism and disline of actually existing Irish people would suggest that you are already a carrier of this virus.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Barry,

    You should have stopped here:

    B.G. said: “…intimidation of Jewish and pro-Israel party members.”

    But that would’ve required you to actually think instead of reflex.

    Nice try though at falsely conflating anti-Zionism with Anti-Semitism.

    Which is exactly what Dr. Graber has warned about.

    Are you at least getting paid to do this?

    Or are you just naturally pathetic?

    Since you yourself “…piggy pack on somebody's else's work”.

    As if you’re some kind of immaculate inception who writes in a vacuum.

    You even cite the very pundits and politicos Dr. Graber warns about:

    Professor Alan Johnson – another pro-Iraq war Trotskyite who tries to rally pro-imperialist sentiment among the left and equates opposition to the State of Israel with antisemitism:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Johnson_(political_theorist)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euston_Manifesto

    David Rich - who is a Zionist caricature according to the Israeli Gilad Atzmon who says:

    “Lying for the cause appears to be a kosher procedure for him.”

    https://gilad.online/writings/2017/11/9/ultra-zionist-reviews-being-in-time

    David Hirsh - who wrote in The Jewish Chronicle:

    “The trashing of Israel is a trashing of us all.”

    http://bostonreview.net/politics/david-r-k-adler-no-existential-threat-jewish-life-britain

    Keith Kahn-Harris – who also conflates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism:

    “This is the of antisemitism that we have seen in sections of the Labour Party, where “good” (anti-Zionist) Jews are held close and “bad” (Zionist) Jews rejected and abused.”

    https://www.thejc.com/comment/comment/if-you-are-the-right-kind-of-jew-you-re-empowering-racists-1.485201?highlight=Keith+Kahn-Harris

    And you lecture me on nuance. LOL!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Barry,

    Now here is some nuance for you:

    Fighting anti-Semitism can be its own Trojan horse for an uncritical Zionism.

    By David Adler

    http://bostonreview.net/politics/david-r-k-adler-no-existential-threat-jewish-life-britain

    Pro Zionist lobby are working hard at losing friends by alienating traditional allies of the Jews in combating antisemitism by putting the ‘right’ of Israel to pursue the Zionist nightmare and blatantly break international law above truth, justice and fairness.

    http://sceptical.scot/2016/10/zionism-anti-semitism-and-the-left/

    This idea that Zionism isn’t a racist ideology would find some resonance for those who understand it as an ideology of national liberation but the truth is that the ideology of Zionism comes with a set of historical claims which validate its belief that the homeland for the Jew’s is in Palestine. This led to the belief that Palestine was “A land without a people for a people without a land”. The fact that there were a people already on that land, which was verified by various Jewish delegations during the Ottoman times, shows the level of dehumanization that came with Zionism because the idea that you can just erase the existence of a large group of people based on their ethnicity is one of the most vilest forms of racism.

    https://mizansblogdotcom.wordpress.com/2016/09/26/my-thoughts-on-david-richs-the-lefts-jewish-problem-jeremy-corbyn-israel-anti-semitism/

    In his lecture, Imperial Continuity – Palestine, Iraq and U.S Policy, Professor Edward Said as was asked if Zionists have a historical claim to the lands of Israel, he replied by saying:

    “Of course but I would not say that the Jewish claim or the Zionist claim is the only claim or the main claim. I say that it is a claim among many others. Certainly, the Arabs have a much greater claim because they’ve had a longer history of inhabitancy and actual residence in Palestine then the Jews did. If you look at the history of Palestine…..you’ll see that the period of actual Israelite…..dominance in Palestine and that amounts to about 200-250 years. But there were Molobites, there were Jebuzites, there were Canaanites, there were Philistines, there were many other people in Palestine at the time and before and after. And to isolate one of them and say that’s the real owner of the land, I mean that is fundamentalism…so I think a people who have a history of residence in Palestine for a certain amount of time, including the Jews, yes, and of course the Arabs have a claim….but nobody has a claim that overrides all the others and entitles that person with that so-called claim to drive people out, that’s the point”

    https://mizansblogdotcom.wordpress.com/2016/09/26/my-thoughts-on-david-richs-the-lefts-jewish-problem-jeremy-corbyn-israel-anti-semitism/

    ReplyDelete
  15. Eoghan

    Gilad Atzmon's antismetic views are so vile that he has been disowned by the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign and the Socialist Workers Party who were formerly his cheerleadeers.

    I know for a fact that Professor Alan Johnson was opposed to the Iraq War because I heard him say so at the launch of the Euston Manifesto in 2006.

    Neither David Adler, Edward Said or Dr Graber disagree with the idea of a Jewish homeland in historic Palestine on the basis that Jews as well as Arabs and other groups have lived there. I also agree that no one group has the right to claim ownership of the entire territory; this applies as much to Jewish nationalist fundamentalists who claim the whole area as Judea and Sumeria as it does to Arabs who wish reclaim the whole of Palestine from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean sea. Both mean effectively the negation of each other's national group right to be there.

    Antisemitism and antizionism are distinct but can and often overlap. Denying the Jewish people the right to self-determination in the form of the State of Israel as a liferaft state (as opposed to land grabs and settlements on the West Bank of the Jordan) is identified as a form of antismeitism in the IHRA declaration.

    Keith Kahn-Harris has put his finger on the nature of Labour and contemporary left antisemitism: Jews to pass a cricket test on their attitude to Israel before admission to the community of the good.

    I support a two-state solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict. Do you, Eoghan.

    But of course you are a bit of an authority on sporting nationalities into 'good' and 'bad' sorts with your constant denigration of Irish people (the majority) who do not share your aspirations for a pure, "Republican" idyll as "Vichy" Irish, Stoop Downs, colonial c....ts

    But you are hardly a moral authority of any ethnic cldensibng crinew committed by any from of nationalism as a supofrter of the afrmed sgtruggle and its and its associated ethnic atocities.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Barry,

    While Johnson may have been initially against the Iraq invasion…

    He and the rest of the Euston Manifesto signatories...

    Supported its occupation:

    Broadly speaking the group asserted that the Left was over-critical of the actions of Western governments, such as the military presence in Iraq, and correspondingly was overly supportive of forces opposing Western governments, such as the Iraqi insurgent forces. The document says "we must define ourselves against those for whom the entire progressive-democratic agenda has been subordinated to a blanket and simplistic 'anti-imperialism' and/or hostility to the current US administration."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euston_Manifesto

    In short, they want what they can’t have: i.e. the right to invade places on pretexts without being called imperialists.

    Even their use of the phrase "Iraqi Insurgent" is telling.

    Since it was authored by the US Defense Department.

    To rob Iraqis of the notion they had a national right to resist.

    As opposed to Vichy Iraqis (imagine that).

    Alan Johnson himself went on to write:

    “We suffer from neoconitis and we badly need a cure. The disease was diagnosed by Roger Cohen, writing in the New York Times. "Neocon", he pointed out ‘has morphed into an all-purpose insult for anyone who still believes that American power is inextricable from global stability and still thinks the muscular anti-totalitarian US interventionism that brought down Slobodan Milosevic has a place.’"

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/jan/15/onneoconitis

    US President George H.W. Bush called it the “Vietnam Syndrome”:

    i.e. Americans not wanting to invade and mass murder others.

    Like that’s a bad thing? And isn’t it interesting…

    That Trotskyite internationalists & Neo-con interventionists agree.

    The former being mostly utopian draft dodgers…

    The latter being mostly war mongering draft dodgers.

    But please don’t think I’m a pacifist.

    Since I think they should all be shot before they kill millions more.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Barry,

    Anytime a Jewish person asserts him/herself as anti-Zionist…

    They’re immediately marked down as a Jew-hating Jew or Anti-Semite.

    It’s an old story and Israelis themselves aren’t exempt from this.

    Gilad Atzmon served in the 1982 Lebanon War as an IDF combat medic.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilad_Atzmon#cite_note-WanderingBook-16

    https://books.google.com/books?id=rTbtBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT7&lpg=PT7#v=onepage&q&f=false

    It was a life changing experience for him.

    Much like Vietnam was for a lot of Americans.

    To paraphrase the cartoonist Walt Kelly:

    “They had met the enemy and he is us.”

    As such these veterans are seen as radical subversives.

    Who are credible threats to dominating narratives.

    Hence all the usual vim & vitriol that’s directed against them.

    By people like you.

    Yet fellow Israeli Oren Ben-Dor wrote in 2008:

    "I am firmly convinced that these vulgar attempts at silencing of Gilad and other courageous voices offends against supremely thoughtful, compassionate and egalitarian intellectual endeavours."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilad_Atzmon#cite_note-WanderingBook-16

    That all said, I ideally support the "One State Declaration".

    Which calls for 1 democratic state in the whole of Israel & Palestine.

    Because I don’t support any kind of apartheid anywhere.

    But practically speaking this “1 state” would have to be preceded by…

    An equal economic confederation of two different political states…

    Over a long period of time if not indefinitely.

    Much like the EEC later evolved into the EU.

    In fact, it’d be a good idea if the EU officiated this confederation.

    With the usual carrots & sticks for compliers and transgressors.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Eoghan

    And any tine an Irish person opposes obligatory nationalism and condemns the atrocities committed in its name is met with the usual array of epithets such as "West Briton", "Castle Catholic", "souper", "collaborator" and "Vichy Irish" by people like you.

    Why is it legitimate for some to dissent from nationalism and not for others in your world?

    It is quite possible to have opposed the invasion of Iraq without giving blank cheque to what eventually became the Al-Queda/ISIS dominated Iraqi resisitance. As the experience of Afghanistan under Soviet occupation and that of Cambodia in the early 1970s; the indigenous "national liberation" forces of today can become tommorrow's genocidaires.

    The point that Alan Johnson, the late Professor Norman Geras, the Euston Manifesto signatories and commentators like Nick Cohen and the Canadian Terry Glavin make is that post-Cold War and post 9/11 the anti-imperialist left has abandoned progresssive demoratic forces such as secular forces in Iraq such as the Kurdish peshmerga, womewn's rights groups and turms a willful blind eye to the atrocities committed by the Milosevics, Assads and the clerical fascists of the Taliban, Hamas and Heznbollah because of their all-encompassing anti-Westernism.

    It is within this worldview that the antizionist "Israelis evil, Palestinians pure" narrative is framed.

    Btw, I do not think anyone should be shot for their political and philosophical views even those I despise

    A quick Google search for Gilad Atxman (an excellent saxophinist btw) will reveal the depths of his Jew hatred and the extent to which he has alienated himself from other antizionsistxs by saying things like "What if Hitler was right all along". What do you the title of his book "The Wandering Who" is a reference to if not the rootless, "Citizens of nowwhere", nomandic antisemitc trope of time immemorial?

    When you talk of "crying wolf" in relation to Luciana Berger (a lie in itself) you should know that this courageous woman had to have rape and other personal security alarms because of the welter f threats to her life and body she got from racist scumbags of the far right and far left.

    I no more pay no attention to what fundamentalist religious nutjobs like Neurei Kartai and other ultra-othodox Covid-19 spreading Orthodox Jews have to say about Israel/Palestine than I do to the Christian Zionism and Dispenationalism of nutjobs like Pastor John Hagee. Both sets legitimise antisemitism. Be assured that my views on Israel/Palestine are not formed by interpretations of any Holy Book.

    Lastly, the last eight lines of your last post is probably your most sensible, constructive contribution to TPQ ever.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Barry,

    In my world? When as an adult have you ever not had the right to dissent from Irish nationalism in Ireland? Seems to me, like a lot of mouthpieces from Fine Gael, you want what you can’t have, i.e. the right to dissent from Irish nationalism without suffering insult and ridicule for it. But your choices have consequences.

    There is a reason England and other countries execute traitors for treason. And there is a reason Sam Adams’ Massachusetts Minutemen are universally hailed in the US as revolutionary heroes but Irish Republicans like Gerry Adams in Ireland are not. The Minutemen won and completely pushed the Brits and their loyalists out of the US. The IRA did not win or push the Brits out entirely (at least not yet), and so there is a greater degree of West Britons in Ireland among Irish than in the US among Americans.

    But in no way do I think Irish nationalism or any nationalism should be obligatory for anyone any more than internationalism should be. I wonder though why anyone wouldn’t support their own nation’s sovereign independence? Seems to me that should be a given. I do not think though that you should be executed or imprisoned for treason because we are at peace more or less. However, your highbrow self-loathing, which is all your “right to dissent from (Irish) nationalism” really is, is fair game for political critique.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Barry,

    You cling to this imperial fig leaf that “It is quite possible to have opposed the invasion of Iraq without giving blank cheque to what eventually became the Al-Queda/ISIS dominated Iraqi resistance.” But why do you and your friends like Alan Johnson get to decide what another country’s national resistance gets to look like?

    Here are US President Ronald Reagan's Remarks After a Meeting with Afghan Resistance Leaders on November 12, 1987 where Reagan called for “…all foreign troops to withdraw” from Afghanistan, and the Chief Afghan Mullah also in attendance rightly added:

    “We do not accept the foreign preferences of others.”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9RWtx8myQc

    That national liberation force then is the same as today!

    And they are saying the same things now as they said then.

    Moreover, your example of Cambodia is telling because the US and UK have backed and opposed Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge from 1970 to 1979 and onward. So much then for your claim that “…the indigenous "national liberation" forces of today can become tomorrow's genocidaires”. Since it is just a phony distinction for having more imperial adventure abroad. And as always of course done under the cloak of international rescue and saving progressive democratic forces like the Khmer Rouge and those “moderate Syrian rebels”:

    Everyone Is Denouncing the Syrian Rebels Now Slaughtering Kurds. But Didn’t the U.S. Once Support Some of Them? - By Mehdi Hasan, October 26, 2019

    https://theintercept.com/2019/10/26/syrian-rebels-turkey-kurds-accountability/?comments=1

    It is within this cynical worldview that imperial geopolitical and genocidal games are played for other people’s land and resources. And isn’t it interesting that there is always an educated class of persons willing to rationalize and blow smoke for imperial governments in that regard?

    ReplyDelete
  21. Barry,

    And if your views about Israel and Palestine aren’t formed by the so-called holy books, then they may as well be. Since not every critique of Israel and Zionists is an anti-Semitic trope.

    For instance, From Time Immemorial is a book by Joan Friedman Peters in which she argued that Palestinians are largely not indigenous to modern Israel and therefore do not have a claim to its territory. So why not make fun of it? Since the book was criticized by some scholars such as Norman Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky, Edward Said and Yehoshua Porath. Not surprisingly, before she died Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu told her he was deeply grateful for her important contribution to the Jewish people and the State of Israel:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Peters

    It is within this “worldview” held by Jewish religious racists like Benjamin Netanyahu and Naftali Bennett that the "Israelis pure, Palestinians evil” narrative is framed. And anyone who critiques it, like Gilad Atxman does, is smeared as anti-Semitic or as a Jew hating Jew. Atxman has only ever tried to provoke thought and discussion. But like any prisoner who escapes from Plato’s Cave he has a long way to go in getting people like you to stop worshiping myths and falsehoods.

    Such as your claim that Luciana Berger is a courageous woman who didn’t cry wolf on the Labour Party. Fact is, like uber-Blairite John McTernan, she intentionally did her best to undermine Jeremy Corbyn and she suffered no more than a lot of unpopular politicians do. You don’t think Tony Blair also gets a lot of shit for all the evil he has done? And would you call him courageous?

    At any rate, as long as right-wing Jewish racists rule Israel with the help of their Zionists allies from abroad – rest assured no sensible or constructive contributions for ending the conflict there will be ever be considered. So, stop being their useful idiot.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Eoghan

    As somebody who has never had to live with the rape and death threats that Luciana Berger had to live with you have no moral authority to accuse her of treason and crying wolf against the racist thugs who drove her out of the Labour Party. She and other women Labour MPs like Ruth Smeeth, Joan Ryan and Stella Creasy suffered rather more "than a lot of unpopular politicians.

    As somebody who did not grow up in Northern Ireland and live with the consequences of the brutality and thuggery of the Provos (and Loyalist and state terror forces, you similarly have no moral authority to attack those who in the SDLP and others took the path peaceful politics. Nor have you any right to use the expression "self-loathing" or should I say "self-hating" Thanks for lifting the threat of execution or imprisonment now Ireland is supposedly at peace. A pity so many were not so lucky. I wonder have you had any personal experience of the tragdedy that NI went through for so long. I think you should watch your words here, they may have consequences.

    I will repeat again, though I am not expecting you to listen, that supporting the right of the State of Israel to exist does not equate to supporting the actions of any Israeli government let alone the the current right-wing nationalist incumbenbts who enjoy no support whatsoever from the Jewish Labour Movement and kindred organisations.

    To quote Michael Walzer Anti-zionism is bad politics for reasons as it instead of accusing Jews of controlling the US government, starting wars, killing children, being more loyal to Israel than the countries they live in etc it substitutes "Jews" with "Zionists" , "Rothschild-Zionists" or the "Israeli lobby".

    I really do not like doing personal, Eoghan, but designating me and people like me as retrospective legitimate targets for the Provisional IRA which is effectively what you meant by your execution comment reveal you to be a thoroughly nasty piece of work as does your traducing of Luciana Berger.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Barry,

    Stop lying!

    I never accused Ms. Berger of treason.

    I simply said and proved she is just another dishonest politician.

    Like so many!

    And none of the politicians you list were driven out of the LP.

    They chose to go as part of a public stunt to undermine Corbyn.

    And none of them were beaten, shot or assassinated.

    So, they didn’t suffer more than a lot of unpopular politicians do.

    Except in your fevered mind.

    Where no doubt you think the IRA is behind every tree.

    Sorry, but like a lot of your Fine Gael & SDLP fellows…

    You want what you can’t have: i.e. respect for collaborating.

    Forget about it because that will never happen.

    No more than it did for Vichy French or former ARVN personnel.

    And I say that despite not growing up in France or South Vietnam.

    But like a lot of Brits & Brit wannabees you have double standards.

    So much so you threaten me for merely pointing that out. LOL!

    ReplyDelete
  24. Barry,

    And there you go again equating anti-Zionism with Anti-Semitism.

    Worse, you really think “… the current right-wing nationalist incumbenbts who enjoy no support whatsoever from the Jewish Labour Movement and kindred organisations.”

    Versus this report from the UK’s Independent:

    Don’t believe the hype about Israel’s Labour Party being progressive…

    The leader of Israel's main opposition party, Labour chair Avi Gabbay, is currently making headlines for all the wrong reasons. Yesterday, Gabbay told Israeli television that he opposed discussing the removal of even the most isolated illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The remarks came a day after Gabbay told a meeting of party activists that “the Arabs have to be afraid of us”. He added: “They fire one missile – you fire 20. That’s all they understand in the Middle East”. On Saturday, meanwhile, Gabbay vowed to never enter into a coalition with the Joint List, a Knesset group dominated by parties representing Palestinian citizens. The Israeli Labor Party is often presented as a “moderate” alternative to Benjamin Netanyahu – so what’s going on here? In one sense, it is not a big surprise; Gabbay, after all, has already previously served in a Netanyahu cabinet, as I noted when the Labour leader won the leadership election in July. Some predicted Gabbay would seek to attract Likud supporters. But beyond Gabbay’s immediate goals, his series of blunt interventions is a valuable opportunity to subject the Israeli Labour Party to the kind of critical scrutiny it often avoids, particularly in the West, where some – like the Jewish Labour Movement and Labour Friends of Israel – support the party as “progressive” allies in the search for peace.

    https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/israel-palestine-labor-party-gabbay-netanyahu-settlements-two-state-bds-movement-a8005136.html

    So, which is it?

    Have you been fooled or are you fooling too?

    Since I can forgive the former but not the latter.

    To quote John Mearsheimer:

    "[w]e fully recognised that the (Israeli) lobby would retaliate against us" and "[w]e expected the story we told in the piece would apply to us after it was published. We are not surprised that we've come under attack by the lobby." He also stated "we expected to be called anti-semites, even though both of us are philo-semites and strongly support the existence of Israel."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Foreign_Policy#Mearsheimer_and_Walt's_response_to_the_criticism

    And speaking about a thoroughly nasty piece of work…

    Never forget Jonathan Pollard:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Pollard

    Because no nation should tolerate traitors or treason.

    In any way shape or form.



    ReplyDelete
  25. Eoghan

    You said "I do not believe you should be executed or imprisoned because we are more or less at peace" suggesting that in a "war situation" that I presumably should be for presumed "collaboration". A war that I have the impression that you are itching to resume leading to the deaths of brave truth seekers like Lyra McKee whose life like 3,500 plus before her was so brutally cut short.

    You can play fast and loose with the facts around geo-politics all you like; I don't give a toss actually. But I do when you use threatening language to me and then seek to deny it.

    Bottom line, mo chara, is that you have more than implicitly made threats to my person. Like I said before, you need to take more care with the words you use on this forum as consequences.

    Anthony

    Is it acceptable on this forum; is it free speech to say that certain neo-con American politicians should be "shot"? Is it acceptable to sat "I do not believe you should be executed or imprisoned because we are more or less at peace".

    And Eoghan your last two lines could easily have been used and were by rabid Brexiteers against the judges and MPs and courageous litigants such as Gina Miller. Because that is the sort of milieu you belong to.

    I stand over every thing I write in my articles and posts; your invective is a function of your chronic inability to put together reasoned and coherent arguments, relying as you do on ad hominem attacks, and your anxiety when your worldview gets challenged.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Barry - yes it is acceptable as it is an opinion. In the US capital punishment is legal. Having an opinion that some murderous politician should be shot is considerably less dangerous than advocating nuclear strikes as say John Coulter has in the past suggested. Eoghan is not inciting people to violence. It is an internet debate where things get said. If you were to say Assad should be shot, it would be the same - or somebody else saying Netanyahu should be shot - it is mere opinion.

    It is also acceptable for Eoghan to say he doesn't think you should be shot. I'd have a greater difficulty if he were to say you should be shot and advocated that somebody do it. Are we to take Eoghan's suggestions as possessing any more substantive intent than say some bible basher wanting you hanged because you strongly advocate abortion? For a free speech advocate you sail very close to the wind of closing down discussion. It is the internet - an online pub where all manner of discourse is exhibited including the incoherent and bombast. It is not the vicar's t
    ea party where you are going to get scones and no bricks.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Anthony

    So making personal attacks as opposed to political and ethical argumentation is "having an opinion"? Would white supremacists, neo-Nazis, Islamist extremists or other religious nutjobs advocating stoning of adulterous women be allowed to express their "opinions" on this forum? I would put in this category John Coulter's advocacy of corporal punishment for "delinquent" children.

    I go back to what I have said before; other weblogs (I reference Slugger O'Toole) have a policy of "play the ball not the man". I have no problem with my writings and opinions being challenged; I do have a problem with being called a "collaborator" and with the clear inference from Eoghan that given a "wartime" situation, I and people like me should be executed or imprisoned. At the very least, Eoghan should clarify if that was or was not his intent.

    Ok let Eoghan and others act as they wish to. I reserve the right to respond in any way I see appropriate.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Barry - I don't think you get it. The internet is a different space. It is more like a pub than a university. If you choose to go to the pub then expect rowdy customers. Eoghan has said very little that would raise an eyebrow. Religious whack jobs have expressed their vile views on this forum, including anti-gay, anti-women sentiment. It is a site that promotes free inquiry which you have difficulty dealing with. John Coulter is free to advocate corporal punishment every bit as much as you are free to advocate what is in his view child murder. If you want the dainty, nice blogs you can always go to Slugger. No one is forcing you to stay here. If Eoghan thinks in a wartime situation you should be executed, he is free to do so. Just as you and John Coulter are free to back Israeli war criminals. This is how ideas develop - not by running around with a firehose dousing every idea that burns your sensitivity. If we were to follow your logic no one could come here and advocate capital punishment or people burning in hell.




    ReplyDelete
  29. Anthony

    It is not free inquiry that I have a problem with; it is attacks on my person and character made by people who want to firehose ideas I wish to develop because their sensitivity gets burned by them.

    Pubs do have rules of behaviour as well.

    Btw, I do not defend war criminals or war crimes of any description despite what certain contributors may believe.

    This is the last comment I am making on this thread as I do get how TPQ works.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Barry - develop your ideas and ignore your critics. If the criticism is as ridiculous as you claim it to be then by the fact that you have drawn it, more power to you. But it seems to me you have difficulty coping with criticism and are eager to take offence. That doesn't work in a free inquiry environment. Pubs have rules but not the type of rules you want where people have to be thrown out for the mere transgression of offending you.
      You are an ardent defender of the war crime regime of Israel. We don't censor you for it but you seem not to like it being pointed out and endless rants about anti-Semitism do not cut the mustard. You have simply failed to be unpersuasive in your argument against Eoghan on some of these points and many will suspect that it is what draws your ire rather than name calling which has been pretty mild as of late. You don't have to engage with him. But if you do engage don't be gurning when it doesn't always go your way.
      You know I have very little sympathy for your position on this matter after your last escapade.

      Delete
  30. A.M. said: “Eoghan has said very little that would raise an eyebrow.”

    Damn, I have to step up my game!

    ReplyDelete
  31. Eoghan - part of the last comment was simply an insult. Rework if you want it carried. The blog does free inquiry not free insult.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Anthony,

    I disagree! It was more than just insult.

    Free speech includes ridiculing liars and propagandists.

    Otherwise it's not free speech.

    And you just got through stating to B.G. here:

    A.M. said: "Pubs have rules but not the type of rules you want where people have to be thrown out for the mere transgression of offending you."

    Now you're censoring me for merely offending him?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Eoghan - it was a mere insult. You are not being censored. You are free to submit it to Bates & Wilkes
      Ridicule and offend ideas all you wish but not people by calling them infantile names.
      If you genuinely feel you are censored go to one of those nut job conspiracy theorist sites where you can insult to your heart's content. You will not be doing it here.

      Delete
  33. Anthony,

    Nice try, but I called him no names let alone infantile ones.

    That's just your own free speech commentary.

    As is your claim that it should be in Bates & Wilkes.

    Read what I wrote more closely than you did.

    And it had nothing to do with conspiracy theory.

    Worse you really think you're not censoring me here.

    Ah well, you once said:

    "There is no coming to consciousness without pain."

    So let's see if I can wake you from your slumber.

    Counter-culture comedian Lenny Bruce once said:

    “It’s the suppression of the word that gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness.”

    https://www.quotetab.com/quotes/by-lenny-bruce

    This libertarian sentiment was echoed later by comedian Bill Hicks:

    “Erase all lines!”

    Bill Hicks BBC Interview (in a pub no less)

    [BBC being “kind of liberal” vs. Hicks being libertarian]

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoCezQAF5AA

    And like a lot of Irish & British people…

    You may have unwittingly inhaled some of this BBC dust.

    But free speech has always been an antidote against…

    “…elevating the civility of discourse”

    Which is nothing more than BBC euphemism for censorship.

    That doesn’t even happen on Fox News:

    Debate of Christopher Hitchens vs. Ralph Reed

    (on pieties and the death of the Rev. Jerry Falwell)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doKkOSMaTk4

    Surely the TPQ can do at least as well.

    And unite to harshly defeat untruthful information like:

    George Clooney for UDUMBASS call 1-800-720-0622

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Drqiss4_tg&feature=youtu.be

    But if B.G. is a special needs child in need of your assistance…

    Then just say so and I won’t be so harsh on him.

    Because I too think we need to handicap the handicapped.




    ReplyDelete
  34. Eoghan - a complete waste of your time. I don't read past your name. Bottom line - you play by the rules or you go elsewhere. You'll bully nobody here. Have a nice day.

    ReplyDelete
  35. Anthony,

    The rules?

    So, OK to gratuitously insult millions on free speech grounds.

    But no satirizing a dishonest political West Brit here.

    Go figure:

    Ex-IRA man to post Muslim cartoon on net

    “McIntyre said: 'The spur for us was a manifesto against totalitarianism that writers such as Salman Rushdie signed up to in response to the violent reaction over the cartoons. We wanted to show solidarity with those writers who were prepared to stick their necks out in defence of free speech.’”

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/mar/12/muhammadcartoons.northernireland

    They showed among other things the Prophet mounting a 9 year old girl:

    https://thesuperjesus.wordpress.com/2010/05/12/more-prophet-muhammad-cartoon-madness/

    Did you publish any of those cartoons in Bates & Wilkes?

    Look, you’re too big a guy to be going out on the skinny branches…

    For B.G. unless of course he is mentally handicapped.

    Now if you can publish all of this and that…

    Then kindly go back and publish my reply to B.G. as I wrote it.

    Since I'm sure you had no problem reading past my name...

    On the checks I've sent you to help defray TPQ's costs.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Eoghan - talk to yourself all you want. You are probably the only one reading you. Have a nice day.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Anthony,

    You can only hope because you're without any plausible argument.

    ReplyDelete