Jeremy Corbyn's time is up

[mauvais]

That just looks like you're denying it, though, or being paranoid. I like the blog? linked to recently that lists each of the accusations and succinctly the specifics of why it's wrong. After you've demonstrated that you can start looking at why.

You might have to knock a few down to prove a point but it's folly to get bogged down in it - I think that's CR's point and if so he's right. The opponents can serve this stuff up forever, and it doesn't matter if it's weak, has mistakes in it etc, because it's just spam, whereas the response will be seized upon if it's lacking. There's no point engaging with it because overall the only outcomes are negative.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

You might have to knock a few down to prove a point but it's folly to get bogged down in it - I think that's CR's point and if so he's right. The opponents can serve this stuff up forever, and it doesn't matter if it's weak, has mistakes in it etc, because it's just spam, whereas the response will be seized upon if it's lacking. There's no point engaging with it because overall the only outcomes are negative.

Semantic denial of service attack.

They can generate flak at a lower cost (effort etc) than you can produce a reasoned response.

 

[mauvais]

Semantic denial of service attack.

They can generate flak at a lower cost (effort) than you can produce a reasoned response.

That, and as per the old cliche about terrorism or whatever it's from, 'they only have to get it right once'.

And not just cost in effort but in reputation. Whatever comes of it, success or failure, noone will ever negatively remember whoever it was (see) that complained about their office being entered. So if it flops, no harm done.

 

[two sheds]

I'd like to see that blog, I've missed it I think. Could someone please put the link up again? Thanks.

I thought I'd bookmarked it but can't see it - can anyone do the honours?

 

[two sheds]

You might have to knock a few down to prove a point but it's folly to get bogged down in it - I think that's CR's point and if so he's right. The opponents can serve this stuff up forever, and it doesn't matter if it's weak, has mistakes in it etc, because it's just spam, whereas the response will be seized upon if it's lacking. There's no point engaging with it because overall the only outcomes are negative.

I still think you have to point out the lies first. Anyone who's read the press stories is going to start from them being true. If we start from 'ah but *why* are they saying that?' it makes us look like defensive and dishonest.

A good list of the accusations and their refutations I think is central, along with things like the LSE research. You've then got something to start off from - evidence that the accusations are spurious, *then* you can go into why people are doing it. They need to know that the accusations are wrong first, though.

It has to be succinct (which the references I saw were), and they're also interesting/entertaining to read. They show what the papers have alleged and just how they distorted the story, which is a good lesson in how papers work more generally and a solid base to ask why they're doing it all.

 

[redsquirrel]

Fuck you, why is it a silly image, not that this place doesn't have its quota of them, just pathetic this constant sniping from a few unreconstructed bores.

It's a silly image because nobody besides you had a clue of what it was an image of. If you want to make a point then fine but fucking make the point rather than just posting up some image unexplained.

 

[mauvais]

I still think you have to point out the lies first. Anyone who's read the press stories is going to start from them being true. If we start from 'ah but *why* are they saying that?' it makes us look like defensive and dishonest.

A good list of the accusations and their refutations I think is central, along with things like the LSE research. You've then got something to start off from - evidence that the accusations are spurious, *then* you can go into why people are doing it. They need to know that the accusations are wrong first, though.

It has to be succinct (which the references I saw were), and they're also interesting/entertaining to read. They show what the papers have alleged and just how they distorted the story, which is a good lesson in how papers work more generally and a solid base to ask why they're doing it all.

You're drawn into playing the game on someone else's terms. It's inescapable.

Consider this: who - in the real world of apolitical non-obsessives - cares if they accessed someone's office? Who cares if Jeremy Corbyn himself did it in a rage like a besandaled bicycling Liam Neeson? What, nobody? So don't legitimise it and don't give any import by attaching a response. The game isn't the story, it's the campaign.

Imagine you're commander of a military base in Afghanistan or somewhere. Every few days a ragtag bunch of insurgents appear, take potshots at the base then run away again. No damage is ever really done. You have a choice: pursue or not?

Don't, and the attacks keep coming. You look weak to all kinds of people.

So you make the rules of engagement that attackers will be pursued. Nine more attacks, nine successful pursuits, bunch of dead insurgents. Number ten though and a soldier gets kidnapped, used as propaganda and killed live on the internet.

And what did you gain?

 

[eoin_k]

I'm taken aback by quite how cynically a large chunk of the women in the Parliamentary Labour Party have been prepared to instrumentalise gender and sexual politics. I don't expect them to take class politics seriously or have any sort of economic vision beyond neoliberalism, but I imagined that more of them would have been sincere in their liberal feminist values. But if you genuinely believe that male violence against women should be addressed and that social mobility includes giving women equal access to labour markets, shouldn't you avoid cynically manipulate these issues for political gain?

 

[DotCommunist]

I think there is value in allowing the labour right and their willing press friends to go completely radio rental with the accusations and smears. The other choice is engage and end up being mocked for eating a bacon sarnie. What do you have to lose by ignoring them? What do you have to lose by engaging?
weigh it up. They'll crucify you either way and any engagement will just be combed over for ways to spin it that you rim the devil

time will tell if it works, but watching the press grow ever more shrill is excellent. Wail on sunday today suddenly becoming champions of bangladeshi textile workers in shit conditions and shitter pay. Really.

 

[two sheds]

I think a lot of people will be put off by stories of homophobia, Momentum supporters spitting at people, abusing women, throwing bricks through windows, death threats against MPs, abuse of women MPs, and the like.

When people bring these things up and you can just refute them by pointing them to the where they're shown to be lies, why wouldn't you? After you've shown they're lies you can start discussing why they're doing it. You can't discuss why they're doing it before the people you're talking to realize that they are lies/distortions.

 

[brogdale]

The whole project smear strategy suggests that Corbyn's 'decent chap' ratings have held annoyingly (for them) firm in their focus group work. Though they may be convinced by post-truth politics, they're ignoring the fact that project fear failed one month ago.

 

[Patteran]

That, and as per the old cliche about terrorism or whatever it's from, 'they only have to get it right once'.

And not just cost in effort but in reputation. Whatever comes of it, success or failure, noone will ever negatively remember whoever it was (see) that complained about their office being entered. So if it flops, no harm done.

'Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always. Give Ireland peace and there will be no more war'. Statement after Brighton 1984. I've got it in my head that it's a Franz Fanon reference/paraphrase, but a quick google finds no proof of this.

 

[ska invita]

It's a silly image because nobody besides you had a clue of what it was an image of. If you want to make a point then fine but fucking make the point rather than just posting up some image unexplained.

seemed perectly self explanatory to me, given the context of this thread - the bbc making out a corbyn rally was a lot smaller than it was...and its clear the source of it was "someone off the internet made it"

I think treelover deserves a break......

 

[Casually Red]

I'm taken aback by quite how cynically a large chunk of the women in the Parliamentary Labour Party have been prepared to instrumentalise gender and sexual politics. I don't expect them to take class politics seriously or have any sort of economic vision beyond neoliberalism, but I imagined that more of them would have been sincere in their liberal feminist values. But if you genuinely believe that male violence against women should be addressed and that social mobility includes giving women equal access to labour markets, shouldn't you avoid cynically manipulate these issues for political gain?

Not if you're a cynical bastard with an inherent belief in the rightness of the establishment and your place within it . No . Look at McGinn . Every bit the outsider who's brought up fully aware of what damage the British establishment has wrought . And yet he's in awe of it . Because it let him in . And for that kindness hell be it's staunchest defender . A true believer . Same as the rest of them. They're fully co opted by a shitty system . Plus a commitment to feminist values without an equal commitment to class and socialist values is just little more than identity politics and posturing . It's an empty stance with no real conviction . It's a card they play one day for one purpose and the next for another . It's all cynicism .

 

[two sheds]

I'd like to see that blog, I've missed it I think. Could someone please put the link up again? Thanks.

Found it: Archive: Disputing Claims of Thuggery levelled at Jeremy Corbyn Supporters

cantsin pointed to it in the excellent imaginary invented / concocted abuse thread ( Corbyn/Momentum/all) thread

Take an example - someone says to you 'So why isn't Corbyn condemning his supporters for throwing a brick through Aaargh's office window? Eh? Eh?' How do you respond?

 

[Casually Red]

I think a lot of people will be put off by stories of homophobia, Momentum supporters spitting at people, abusing women, throwing bricks through windows, death threats against MPs, abuse of women MPs, and the like.

When people bring these things up and you can just refute them by pointing them to the where they're shown to be lies, why wouldn't you? After you've shown they're lies you can start discussing why they're doing it. You can't discuss why they're doing it before the people you're talking to realize that they are lies/distortions.

Corbyn has a platform for change . They don't want him talking about that. They're controlling the narrative. They can churn out one lie after another endlessly . They want him bogged down endlessly explaining away other irrelevant personalised stuff .

It simply doesn't matter whether he refutes it successfully or not. There'll be yet another lie along 2 minutes later .It's about controlling him, caging him in . Dictating his agenda for him. And they're doing it with the direct assistance..at the very least..of a heavily biased media which will ensure any reply he makes is spun to his detriment . If he dances to their tune he's fucked, simple as.
This is war and knowing which battles to fight will determine whether he wins or not. He can't win this name calling battle, they have all the advantages and what they dearly want is to draw him onto the ground they've prepared for him . He needs to stand back from that . To an extent. Not to get personally sucked right into the middle of it. To stay calm and measured and stick to his message . To talk about that instead .

This stuff is the essence of no win for Corbyn .

 

[two sheds]

Yes I agree with Corbyn's message but how can he not condemn his supporters spitting at people? That's just disgusting - what sort of country are we going to have when he's in power if you have his supporters going round spitting at people and he doesn't even condemn it?

 

[two sheds]

This was the problem Doctor Carrot said he came up against the other day. Sounds like he had trolls in the discussion but you've got the onlookers viewing too - we need some sort of response to them and I can't see anything better than refuting the allegations wherever you can. Then you can go on to the more general points.

But anyway, I've said my piece.

 

[Casually Red]

Yes I agree with Corbyn's message but how can he not condemn his supporters spitting at people? That's just disgusting - what sort of country are we going to have when he's in power if you have his supporters going round spitting at people and he doesn't even condemn it?

He has roundly condemned all such actions in a blanket fashion . Regardless of from which side they originate. He didn't send anyone to do it or remotely encourage it, therefore he has no obligation to take ownership of such specific actions . None . And to do so in an environment were all sorts of dirty tricks and smears are in abundance he'd be very foolish to do so . We know very little about the actual backgrounds of such allegations or the anonymous individuals who are supposed to have done it. Or what their agenda is . Taking ownership of them would be very foolish indeed. He's condemned all such actions till he's blue in the face. I fail to see how you haven't heard that .

 

[coley]

Yeah this is what has bugged me a lot. There's this constant stream of how well this abuse is documented, how relentless it is and blah blah but I've not seen any of it documented. Guy last night was saying things like 'I've seen the abuse on my friends timeline, it's sickening and beyond the pale' and yet no evidence is produced. I don't doubt there's some utter cunts sending death threats but I doubt their even reaches into the hundreds and how many are signed up Corbyn supporters? Being called a cunt, told to shut up or whatever is of course forceful and yes a bit abusive, or at best disrespectful but these people have painted it as if it's some sort of siege. It's part and parcel of online debate, well it is on here anyway haha and it's certainly part and parcel of being a politician. Be nice if it wasn't but politics isn't all nicey nicey touchy feely, despite what Corbyn may want. What do they expect him to?

Corbyn: 'I call for a nicer, kinder politics'
Smith: 'Yeah, don't be abusive'
Twitter Person @Smith 'Fuck off you empty suited, grasping cunt sock'
Smith: 'This campaign of abuse is terrible. Corbyn must do more'
Corbyn: 'Abuse has no place in the Labour party from any side of it. We are a family that needs to unite'
Smith: 'This isn't enough, more needs to be done'
Twitter Person @Smith 'Stop being an anti democratic arsehole and unite behind the party then'
Smith: 'Boo-Hoo a person said a nasty thing to me on Twitter'
Corbyn: 'I don't do abuse it has no place'

On and on it goes

Too true, anybody but anybody, can tweet or Facebook an offensive message, the supposed abuse could be coming from Donald Trump supporters FFS, how progress has managed to implicate Corbyn supporters in this 'alleged abuse' clearly indicates a cosy relationship between them and the right wing leaning media (ie most of the buggers) and the right wing establishment in general.
A clear demonstration of the forces who are prepared to align,even more sharply, against even a small move towards an even society.
The upside is,they seem to be shitting themselves

 

[coley]

Nice one. I working about 10 yards away in the band tent and forgot to add my ball to the corbyn pile. so support is at least one ball greater than the picture suggests!

Owen has only got one ball, the other is....
Sorry, grabs coat

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

seemed perectly self explanatory to me, given the context of this thread - the bbc making out a corbyn rally was a lot smaller than it was...and its clear the source of it was "someone off the internet made it"

I think treelover deserves a break......

Seconded.

 

[two sheds]

He has roundly condemned all such actions in a blanket fashion . Regardless of from which side they originate. He didn't send anyone to do it or remotely encourage it, therefore he has no obligation to take ownership of such specific actions . None . And to do so in an environment were all sorts of dirty tricks and smears are in abundance he'd be very foolish to do so . We know very little about the actual backgrounds of such allegations or the anonymous individuals who are supposed to have done it. Or what their agenda is . Taking ownership of them would be very foolish indeed. He's condemned all such actions till he's blue in the face. I fail to see how you haven't heard that .

Yes that's good. Also Coley's last but one post.

I'd still add "(for examples you can see Archive: Disputing Claims of Thuggery levelled at Jeremy Corbyn Supporters on how far they'll go)" though

 

[coley]

What's the point of you?

Encouraging pre teens to get involved?

 

[mauvais]

I think a lot of people will be put off by stories of homophobia, Momentum supporters spitting at people, abusing women, throwing bricks through windows, death threats against MPs, abuse of women MPs, and the like.

When people bring these things up and you can just refute them by pointing them to the where they're shown to be lies, why wouldn't you? After you've shown they're lies you can start discussing why they're doing it. You can't discuss why they're doing it before the people you're talking to realize that they are lies/distortions.

I don't deny that there will be damage incurred by not constantly engaging in a top-down fashion - but the risk/reward balance is very poor. Plus you can't refute something anyway when it's merely he-said-she-said, either in substance or significance. You can't show that Jeremy is doing enough to tackle Twitter abuse because waiiiit it's a stupid construct in the first place. Can't win.

And I'm not saying it shouldn't be tackled at all, just not symmetrically. To the extent that they can make a success of this at all given the odds, I think the whole pro-Corbyn entity is actually doing a decent job of playing this game, not getting entrenched in tit-for-tat and leaving activists and commenters to put the truth out there. I think on balance that's won them some public support (either explicitly or via the absence of the opposite)

 

[coley]

And you think a Labour party that is so cowed by Tory success that it refuses to oppose them on anything of worth is more effective? Why not just join the Tories if that's what you want anyway?

Can't think why most of the PLP just don't do that and get a lot of the forthcoming Shyte dispensed with.

 

[DotCommunist]

Just an unformed musing here but feel free to correct me those who know better.

Blair managed to bring onside a large chunk, a very large chunk of the p/b. Cool Brittannia, remember that shite? But retained labours w/c vote cos 'fuck it, its labour, better than the tories'

It seems to me that they have lost that w/c labour vote, not everywhere and not so simply but I'm no psephologist.

The kendalls, the burnhams, the owens- they aren't talking to the vote labour lost in droves are they? They are still reaching out to the m/c swingers. Much as with the astonishment and and anger from those quarters about the brexit vote. We never exist untill we are use or impediment to be removed

 

[two sheds]

I don't deny that there will be damage incurred by not constantly engaging in a top-down fashion - but the risk/reward balance is very poor. Plus you can't refute something anyway when it's merely he-said-she-said, either in substance or significance. You can't show that Jeremy is doing enough to tackle Twitter abuse because waiiiit it's a stupid construct in the first place. Can't win.

And I'm not saying it shouldn't be tackled at all, just not symmetrically. To the extent that they can make a success of this at all given the odds, I think the whole pro-Corbyn entity is actually doing a decent job of playing this game, not getting entrenched in tit-for-tat and leaving activists and commenters to put the truth out there. I think on balance that's won them some public support (either explicitly or via the absence of the opposite)

Yes fair play.

And adding 'and most important of are the policies, which all the media flak is sort of designed to obscure - if they weren't making up stories about the supporters they'd have to address his policies <cue Bernie Gunther list in his thread>. Those tend to be popular with the people he explains them to, but not so popular with the tory party and the owners of the national papers.

 

[coley]

Indeed, though there was some discussion about swapping rooms it seems. I haven't seen McDonnell of Corbyn responding to any of these claims for a few days as our broadband is too fucked to watch clips. I suspect they are just getting overwhelmed and haven't got the time to research or construct a proper defence. They probably need a little team beavering away to do rapid rebuttals, though without getting dragged in too much. McDonnell's speech to camera was probably the right tone.

Just as an aside, it's an interesting question: how should left parties and party groupings play all this shit? New Labour - not left obviously - had a clear strategy of insinuation with the media owners, some kind of mechanism for rebutting dodgy stories - and outright bullying of key correspondents from Alistair Campbell. Very little of this is either desirable or possible for the Corbyn team, so what do they do? Probably not much they can do other than putting out statements, dealing with favourable press contacts and running things through social media. As with so much of the Corbyn thing, the unexpected nature of the victory meant he had no plans or team in place.

And with the unrelenting hostility from most quarters he and his team have had had no time to do anything but spend time rebutting,frankly ludicrous, allegations of bullying, racism and god knows how many other 'isms'
It's very deliberate, keep him on the back foot so he isn't allowed to articulate well thought out policies and when he offers thoughts on policies, tear him to pieces on the assumptions that the pundits have read into what he actually didn't say.
The right wing media and establishment have always been a cowardly bunch, but Corbyn seems to have driven them into overdrive, he must be doing something right

 

[eoin_k]

Not if you're a cynical bastard with an inherent belief in the rightness of the establishment and your place within it . No . Look at McGinn . Every bit the outsider who's brought up fully aware of what damage the British establishment has wrought . And yet he's in awe of it . Because it let him in . And for that kindness hell be it's staunchest defender . A true believer . Same as the rest of them. They're fully co opted by a shitty system . Plus a commitment to feminist values without an equal commitment to class and socialist values is just little more than identity politics and posturing . It's an empty stance with no real conviction . It's a card they play one day for one purpose and the next for another . It's all cynicism .

McGinn's cynicism is breathtaking, but pointing it out has limited value: anyone who is likely to be receptive to the point will already get it.