Jeremy Corbyn's time is up

[Kaka Tim]

He missed an opportunity there: that police van is (badly) parked on a double yellow line. He should have whipped out his Freeman on the Land non-Birth Certificate, and made a citizen's arrest of the 5 coppers arresting him. Tsk. I'm sure there must be some 1348 law about tying your sheep to bollards that could have been unrecognisably bent and twisted to suit the purpose.

Was this the last sighting of Dr Jazz?

 

[two sheds]

Can't make a citizen's arrest if you renounce the validity of citizenship itself. Or do they just make it up as they go along?

It's ok if you spell your name on the form in capitals or cross your fingers behind your back. Judges will accept either.

 

[J Ed]

It's ok if you spell your name on the form in capitals or cross your fingers behind your back. Judges will accept either.

Don't forget pretending that the courtroom is a boat and that you are a man overboard

 

[inva]

Yeah, what I meant was it's presence within the Left. My experience is that it was peripheral at worst with likes of David Icke and that guy in Bristol (who I think posted here briefly) only getting a toehold in the fringes of the Green movement.

At least until the very end of the 90s onwards when Indymedia started to go a bit weird and the whole "We are all Hamas " and Respect type bollocks started filling the gap left by an exhausted anti-cap scene.

It just seems to have gradually got closer and closer to the "mainstream" of what passes for the left/protest scene than I ever recall.

A real indicator of how weak we are right now imo, and makes me very glad that I'm working outside the scene now. Maybe that needs to be "outside and against" hmm?

A few muddled thoughts on this from my experience:
as others have said it really seemed to erupt after 9/11 (though due to my age I wouldn't really remember it before then anyway), but as you rightly point out the weakness of the left and I think its alienation from the working class and the neoliberalisation of sections of it prepared the ground for the right situation to bring it out into the open.

Neoliberalism and the mutual turning away of the working class from the left and the left from the working class paved the way for an individualised politics concerned with the moral failings of 'elites' and an alienated world view leading to the key question of why everyone else can't see what the 'leftist' can. It's a breeding ground for classist conspiracy theory. Some of the ingredients are ever present among the liberal left - the brainwashed masses reading the Sun or the Mail etc, the liberal obsession with cobbled together 'facts', and smug explanations going even so far as to assert that 'right wingers'/'conservatives' are genetically disposed to reject them. Politics can become transformed into a comodified individual awakening.

It seemed as though the legacy of cold war anti imperialism provided the initial focus for its expression post 9/11, with the war on terror, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq etc. Obviously the 9/11 Truth stuff, but also a wider tendency where the decayed remnants of global socialist/working class struggle became warped and re expressed in all kinds of bizarre ways (suspect there was always this tendency, but now the counter influences have to a large extent vanished). I remember contorted leftist defences of Ahmadinejad. This is where I first encountered it I think - with what I thought of at the time as uni student Chomsky fans who liked posting links to znet. Stop the War/Respect provided another wing.

Another strand is Anonymous, which in my view has been quite important in normalising conspiracy theory and to a degree anti semitism. The development of Anonymous has strong roots in 9/11 conspiracy theory and right wing anti semitism/racism, both seriously and as a 'joke' of sorts. Early exposure arrived through the Jews Did 9/11 website which got them on Fox News as I remember, as well as racist/sexist etc trolling. The Ron Paul presidential campaign in 2007/8 provided another opportunity for right wing conspiracy theory to coalesce within Anoynmous and an early venturing into overtly political action. The left wing version such as it is kind of arrived with the anti-Scientology protests which were around the same time as the Ron Paul campaign. It then ventured into various other protests, and there was related stuff like the LulzSec hackers (and an FBI informant), which again I remember leftists defending and getting excited about, in spite of their attacks against ordinary people.

The point with that is that whereas I don't think all Anonymous members/supporters are anti semitic, it has roots in it and conspiracy theory more widely, but also it emerged from an internet culture where anti semitism was (and likely still is) rife, and where it was virtually never challenged, or what challenges there were got attacked as by 'outsiders'/'fags' who didn't get the joke. So I think it was normalised, and where Anonymous has been incorporated into the wider liberal left that normalisation has followed to some extent. This was visible in Occupy etc, where you may remember the Ron Paulist/libertarian right wingers and the more leftist incarnation were both present (at least early on), both at times united around crank money theories and anti semitic banker stuff for example.

 

[two sheds]

Don't forget pretending that the courtroom is a boat and that you are a man overboard

pushed out by someone who's hysterical

 

[squirrelp]

You know, the fact that scientific publications might have the integrity to publish a "dissenting view" (and think about how your average 9/11 troofer treats views that dissent from their narrative) does not automatically mean it's scientifically valid. Anyone going from "published into a scientific journal" to "must therefore be true" is demonstrating an appalling degree of naivety.

Not to mention that this is a rather classic example of the way in which the "truther" movement is very, very happy to cherrypick its sources - Big Science is bad, corporate, and trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the sheeple most of the time...but then it does something which the conspiraloon tendency can drag in as part of its scattershot argument, and all of a sudden, it's "Hey, but it's science!".

See also creationism.

It's a fair point.

I guess my observation was the telling of people to ignore the scientific publication and use google instead, as cid did, is the exact reverse of the usual exhortation.

 

[not a trot]

Neoliberalism, wtf is that all about ? Why is it not being discussed more in the media, why are the working classes not discussing this down the pub. More to the point, why is Corbyn not mentioning it at every opportunity.

 

[treelover]

A few muddled thoughts on this from my experience:
as others have said it really seemed to erupt after 9/11 (though due to my age I wouldn't really remember it before then anyway), but as you rightly point out the weakness of the left and I think its alienation from the working class and the neoliberalisation of sections of it prepared the ground for the right situation to bring it out into the open.

Neoliberalism and the mutual turning away of the working class from the left and the left from the working class paved the way for an individualised politics concerned with the moral failings of 'elites' and an alienated world view leading to the key question of why everyone else can't see what the 'leftist' can. It's a breeding ground for classist conspiracy theory. Some of the ingredients are ever present among the liberal left - the brainwashed masses reading the Sun or the Mail etc, the liberal obsession with cobbled together 'facts', and smug explanations going even so far as to assert that 'right wingers'/'conservatives' are genetically disposed to reject them. Politics can become transformed into a comodified individual awakening.

It seemed as though the legacy of cold war anti imperialism provided the initial focus for its expression post 9/11, with the war on terror, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq etc. Obviously the 9/11 Truth stuff, but also a wider tendency where the decayed remnants of global socialist/working class struggle became warped and re expressed in all kinds of bizarre ways (suspect there was always this tendency, but now the counter influences have to a large extent vanished). I remember contorted leftist defences of Ahmadinejad. This is where I first encountered it I think - with what I thought of at the time as uni student Chomsky fans who liked posting links to znet. Stop the War/Respect provided another wing.

Another strand is Anonymous, which in my view has been quite important in normalising conspiracy theory and to a degree anti semitism. The development of Anonymous has strong roots in 9/11 conspiracy theory and right wing anti semitism/racism, both seriously and as a 'joke' of sorts. Early exposure arrived through the Jews Did 9/11 website which got them on Fox News as I remember, as well as racist/sexist etc trolling. The Ron Paul presidential campaign in 2007/8 provided another opportunity for right wing conspiracy theory to coalesce within Anoynmous and an early venturing into overtly political action. The left wing version such as it is kind of arrived with the anti-Scientology protests which were around the same time as the Ron Paul campaign. It then ventured into various other protests, and there was related stuff like the LulzSec hackers (and an FBI informant), which again I remember leftists defending and getting excited about, in spite of their attacks against ordinary people.

The point with that is that whereas I don't think all Anonymous members/supporters are anti semitic, it has roots in it and conspiracy theory more widely, but also it emerged from an internet culture where anti semitism was (and likely still is) rife, and where it was virtually never challenged, or what challenges there were got attacked as by 'outsiders'/'fags' who didn't get the joke. So I think it was normalised, and where Anonymous has been incorporated into the wider liberal left that normalisation has followed to some extent. This was visible in Occupy etc, where you may remember the Ron Paulist/libertarian right wingers and the more leftist incarnation were both present (at least early on), both at times united around crank money theories and anti semitic banker stuff for example.

Really good post, but i would say there are some amazing people in Momentum who are disgusted and dismayed by what is going on most recently. I also think you seem to be talking more about the U.S.

 

[ViolentPanda]

well - we can only do what we can. I think you (and violent panda) identified a lot of antisemitic tropes, particularly within CP stuff, that a lot of people on urban weren't fully aware of. Most of us lefties on here have social media interactions with people in and around momentum - so its a basis for challenging it from people who are generally seen as pro-Palestinian and pro corbyn. Every little helps.

I don't know about frogwoman , but my biggest fuck-off point is the minority of people who use "Zionist" and "Jew" interchangeably. That isn't ignorance, it's malice, given that a significant minority of Jews are anti-Zionist. A lot of the "basic" anti-Semitism, conversely, is ignorance - it's the sort of ignorance that believes folk tales because they're easier to digest than reality; the sort of ignorance that prefers a scapegoat that can be seen and felt, rather than admitting that you're being screwed over by a state whose primary interest isn't in you, but in perpetuating itself.

 

[ViolentPanda]

The phrase 'conspiracy theorist' is a pejorative designed to shut down legitimate enquiry - it's designed like that. And it gets us self-censoring, as you say. I suggest ignoring all that.

After all what is in Nexus years ago might be in yesterday's Europhysics News

No, conspiracy theorist is a label that can be used as a perjorative. It wasn't designed as such. A designed perjorative is "fuckwit" or "shitcunt". The only use is offensive.

Legitimate enquiry is also a label with multiple uses. For example, I recall a poster on here labelling his constant posting of "truther" material as "legitimate enquiry", even though it was fairly obvious that his "enquiry" was bounded by his preconceptions and beliefs about 9/11.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Classic cognitive dissonance reaction.

As you were.

"Cognitive dissonance", a concept from cognitive psychology now commonly used by non-psychologists as a dismissal, such use often denoting a degree of cognitive dissonance in the user themselves, with regard to people not accepting their minority beliefs.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Let's bring it back to jeremy corbyn.

That WPC only has one leg!

 

[ViolentPanda]

I didn't know but looks like there's a long history of people claiming that Jews were chief financiers of the slave trade and should carry a special guilt for it. It has no basis in fact at all but it's been said a lot over the years, mostly by people like David Duke and on unashamedly fascist type websites, or specialist sites like 'jew watch'.
Far as I can see it's either ok to repeat that sort of claim or it's not ok.
If it's not ok when white supremacists say it, then we really do live in strange times when so many people are willing to argue that its totally different when Jackie Walker makes the same mistake.

It has a minor basis in fact, regarding the sources of finance for early Portuguese colonialism - most money came from the crown and the nobility, but some came from Iberian Jews (many of whom within a century migrated to various Italian city-states), who were good enough to borrow money from, but not good enough to not be victimised by ignorant pre-enlightenment churchy types.

 

[ViolentPanda]

A few muddled thoughts on this from my experience:
as others have said it really seemed to erupt after 9/11 (though due to my age I wouldn't really remember it before then anyway), but as you rightly point out the weakness of the left and I think its alienation from the working class and the neoliberalisation of sections of it prepared the ground for the right situation to bring it out into the open.

Neoliberalism and the mutual turning away of the working class from the left and the left from the working class paved the way for an individualised politics concerned with the moral failings of 'elites' and an alienated world view leading to the key question of why everyone else can't see what the 'leftist' can. It's a breeding ground for classist conspiracy theory. Some of the ingredients are ever present among the liberal left - the brainwashed masses reading the Sun or the Mail etc, the liberal obsession with cobbled together 'facts', and smug explanations going even so far as to assert that 'right wingers'/'conservatives' are genetically disposed to reject them. Politics can become transformed into a comodified individual awakening.

It seemed as though the legacy of cold war anti imperialism provided the initial focus for its expression post 9/11, with the war on terror, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq etc. Obviously the 9/11 Truth stuff, but also a wider tendency where the decayed remnants of global socialist/working class struggle became warped and re expressed in all kinds of bizarre ways (suspect there was always this tendency, but now the counter influences have to a large extent vanished). I remember contorted leftist defences of Ahmadinejad. This is where I first encountered it I think - with what I thought of at the time as uni student Chomsky fans who liked posting links to znet. Stop the War/Respect provided another wing.

Another strand is Anonymous, which in my view has been quite important in normalising conspiracy theory and to a degree anti semitism. The development of Anonymous has strong roots in 9/11 conspiracy theory and right wing anti semitism/racism, both seriously and as a 'joke' of sorts. Early exposure arrived through the Jews Did 9/11 website which got them on Fox News as I remember, as well as racist/sexist etc trolling. The Ron Paul presidential campaign in 2007/8 provided another opportunity for right wing conspiracy theory to coalesce within Anoynmous and an early venturing into overtly political action. The left wing version such as it is kind of arrived with the anti-Scientology protests which were around the same time as the Ron Paul campaign. It then ventured into various other protests, and there was related stuff like the LulzSec hackers (and an FBI informant), which again I remember leftists defending and getting excited about, in spite of their attacks against ordinary people.

The point with that is that whereas I don't think all Anonymous members/supporters are anti semitic, it has roots in it and conspiracy theory more widely, but also it emerged from an internet culture where anti semitism was (and likely still is) rife, and where it was virtually never challenged, or what challenges there were got attacked as by 'outsiders'/'fags' who didn't get the joke. So I think it was normalised, and where Anonymous has been incorporated into the wider liberal left that normalisation has followed to some extent. This was visible in Occupy etc, where you may remember the Ron Paulist/libertarian right wingers and the more leftist incarnation were both present (at least early on), both at times united around crank money theories and anti semitic banker stuff for example.

In the UK, there's also the weight of subtle and not-so-subtle anti-left indoctrination within education and the workplace - something that's always been an issue, but the influence of which has expanded greatly in the last 35 years.

 

[squirrelp]

No, conspiracy theorist is a label that can be used as a perjorative. It wasn't designed as such. A designed perjorative is "fuckwit" or "shitcunt". The only use is offensive.

Ah but ViolentPanda any truthseeker worth his salt knows that the phrase 'conspiracy theories' was introduced by the CIA along with the propaganda strategies for dealing with those who believe them in a 1967 memo.

In 1967, the CIA Created the Label "Conspiracy Theorists" ... to Attack Anyone Who Challenges the "Official" Narrative | Zero Hedge

 

[inva]

In the UK, there's also the weight of subtle and not-so-subtle anti-left indoctrination within education and the workplace - something that's always been an issue, but the influence of which has expanded greatly in the last 35 years.

what sort of thing do you have in mind? anti union stuff? the old ways by which I think some were socialised into left wing/class politics have broken down post 70s, I suppose.

 

[Cid]

It's a fair point.

I guess my observation was the telling of people to ignore the scientific publication and use google instead, as cid did, is the exact reverse of the usual exhortation.

Because actual dismissals of this stuff have been done time and time again. On here and elsewhere. Your convictions have presumably weathered 15 years of exasperated mates, stacks of evidence and well constructed arguments taking apart each element of controlled collapse theories. I.e it's not worth arguing with you. In the unlikely event that anyone wanted to check the provenance of the article they can use google to find information about where the article was published and who wrote it. Google is not a terrible way of finding information, you just need to know how to filter it, get down to original sources, as with wiki etc. Most people who've weathered the storm that is urban p&p are able to do this to at least some degree.

Basically what I was saying is 'this has been done before, fuck off derailing the thread'. Which purpose I have now been defeated in.

 

[inva]

Really good post, but i would say there are some amazing people in Momentum who are disgusted and dismayed by what is going on most recently. I also think you seem to be talking more about the U.S.

thanks treelover. I've tried to avoid following internal Labour Party/Momentum stuff too much, but to be clear though it's difficult to tell at times I think this is a minority tendency within that and the left more broadly.

With the role the internet now has US politics has definitely exerted a big influence. Of course it gets applied in different ways depending on the context, but in terms of the background I think it is quite US-centric at least from what I have experienced.

 

[ManchesterBeth]

Still waiting for timeforanother to expand on their point re: muslim antisemitism.

 

[frogwoman]

Ah but ViolentPanda any truthseeker worth his salt knows that the phrase 'conspiracy theories' was introduced by the CIA along with the propaganda strategies for dealing with those who believe them in a 1967 memo.

In 1967, the CIA Created the Label "Conspiracy Theorists" ... to Attack Anyone Who Challenges the "Official" Narrative | Zero Hedge

Thats a right wing ayn randist site that promoted an isis video as a good background on the gold standard.

 

[treelover]

Its clear that many Momentum supporters need to have victims and betrayers, i wonder how many of them were in Left Unity.

btw, this poster wouldn't even allow comments on his meme.

 

[killer b]

Who are these people you keep quoting treelover? Do you know how representative they are of the wider organisation?

 

[Idris2002]

Thats a right wing ayn randist site that promoted an isis video as a good background on the gold standard.

NB, this REALLY HAPPENED.

 

[killer b]

this poster wouldn't even allow comments on his meme.

an outrage.

 

[treelover]

Who are these people you keep quoting treelover? Do you know how representative they are of the wider organisation?

Thats the million dollar question, just don't know how representative, its certain though that any later Momentum mass event/meeting will be very fractious and could lead to a split.

 

[killer b]

Thats the million dollar question, just don't know how representative, its certain though that any later Momentum mass event/meeting will be very fractious and could lead to a split.

Why is it certain when you don't know how representative these dickheads are?

 

[killer b]

If all the hysterical racists decided to split, it'd be great for momentum anyway wouldn't it?

 

[Idris2002]

an outrage.

Also, an inrage.

 

[frogwoman]

Thats the million dollar question, just don't know how representative, its certain though that any later Momentum mass event/meeting will be very fractious and could lead to a split.

A split over antisemitism? Yeah right.

What will end up happening is people will either ignore the bad stuff or drop out. Or both.

I don't think a split would necessarily be a good thing btw. I just wish it would all go away.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Ah but ViolentPanda any truthseeker worth his salt knows that the phrase 'conspiracy theories' was introduced by the CIA along with the propaganda strategies for dealing with those who believe them in a 1967 memo.

In 1967, the CIA Created the Label "Conspiracy Theorists" ... to Attack Anyone Who Challenges the "Official" Narrative | Zero Hedge

Zero Hedge. About as credible as prisonplanet, just slightly more literate.
Do some research into the JFK assassination and you'll see from contemporaneous reporting that the term pre-dates 1967 by 4 years.