Jeremy Corbyn's time is up

[butchersapron]

Yeah well I too see his reasonableness as a major potential problem when coming up against the likes of Putin and Assad. That coupled with an anti-imperialism stance could turn out to be disastrous wrt to foreign policy. I wouldn't go so far as hate though, I'm prepared to cut him some slack in the hopes of getting something resembling a fairer deal for the majority of us here in the UK.

There is no going up against them - reasonably or otherwise - he is one of them. That's what the anti-imperialist left is.

 

[teqniq]

Haha fair enough but what honestly at this moment in time is a realistic alternative? Not much as far as I can see, and we are desperately in need of one.

 

[butchersapron]

Haha fair enough but what honestly at this moment in time is a realistic alternative? Not much as far as I can see, and we are desperately in need of one.

Don't start down that give me an answer to all the problems please. I'm not a trot. I can hate corbyn and his politics while recognising both the potential for labour electoral victory and one being led by him being better than a tory victory or one led by some labour non-entity. The latter being a utopian likelihood that the liberals on here cling to like a piss stained blanket in fear of possibly getting a clean one. None of this means i have to defend the prat or shut down my criticisms.

 

[teqniq]

I am not expecting you to come up with answers it's just a bit of idle speculation on my part and I am genuinely interested in your criticisms, I think to some extent we share the same misgivings.

 

[chilango]

I'm with Butchers on this one. Even as a kid I couldn't stand the "trendy lefty" Labour left that Corbyn was part of.

Corbyn himself? I don't buy this friendly Grandad image. He's been around too long up to his eyeballs in nasty fucks.

So, whilst I personally wouldn't use the word "hate". I'd certainly say I couldn't stand the bloke or his politics.

 

[Wilf]

He was a fringe candidate and got elected largely because 1) there no other good candidates, 2) people from the fringe joined up and voted for him.

In some ways he was the fringe candidate - in the context of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Given how modest his policies are, that says a lot about them and the whole defeatist neoliberalism they have been signed up to for a couple of decades. Like Butchers, I don't like his politics or the way it has diverted the energies of many on the left, but describing him as fringe is meaningless. The levels of support he got in the leadership elections and the near miss in 2017 show that his policies and approach are anything but fringe.

 

[danny la rouge]

I'm with Butchers on this one. Even as a kid I couldn't stand the "trendy lefty" Labour left that Corbyn was part of.

Corbyn himself? I don't buy this friendly Grandad image. He's been around too long up to his eyeballs in nasty fucks.

So, whilst I personally wouldn't use the word "hate". I'd certainly say I couldn't stand the bloke or his politics.

Yup. Don't see why I have to defend him or his kind: they're not my allies.

 

[Rob Ray]

I think one of the most freeing things in my political life was realising that I didn't have to defend gobshites just because they were "fellow travellers".

(Though that said, it's equally important to remember we're all human, and go after what is said and done with context in mind, rather than overuse the political boxes we'd like to impose on people.)

 

[TopCat]

Yep. Same with Benn but more.

Benn for me was just an embarrassing aristo who devalued socialism every time he opened his gob. Often wondered if he was a plant.

 

[brogdale]

I hate him, his pathetic pretence of let's all just be reasonable bollocks - it grates like thatchers soft voice. I also hate his politics - not the soft domestic resulutionary socialism - that has an honourable tradition - but the red in tooth and claw disgusting anti-imperialism.

Can tell I’ve been away a while when I need to ask for help with a butchersapron post!

So, here goes...presumably most on the libertarian left would subscribe to anti-imperialist reflexes, so what aspects of Corbyn’s anti-imperialism is it that most repels you?
Genuinely interested...obvs.

 

[danny la rouge]

Can tell I’ve been away a while when I need to ask for help with a butchersapron post!

So, here goes...presumably most on the libertarian left would subscribe to anti-imperialist reflexes, so what aspects of Corbyn’s anti-imperialism is it that most repels you?
Genuinely interested...obvs.

Anti-Imperialism 2.0: Selective Sympathies, Dubious Friends

 

[Geri]

The ‘Anti-Imperialism’ of Idiots

This left exhibits deeply authoritarian tendencies, one that places states themselves at the centre of political analysis. Solidarity is therefore extended to states (seen as the main actor in a struggle for liberation) rather than oppressed or underprivileged groups in any given society, no matter that state’s tyranny. Blind to the social war occurring within Syria itself, the Syrian people (where they exist) are viewed as mere pawns in a geo-political chess game. They repeat the mantra ‘Assad is the legitimate ruler of a sovereign country’. Assad – who inherited a dictatorship from his father and has never held, let alone won, a free and fair election. Assad – whose ‘Syrian Arab Army’ can only regain the territory it lost with the backing of a hotchpotch of foreign mercenaries and supported by foreign bombs, and who are fighting, by and large, Syrian-born rebels and civilians. How many would consider their own elected government legitimate if it began carrying out mass rape campaigns against dissidents? It’s only the complete dehumanization of Syrians that makes such a position even possible. It’s a racism that sees Syrians as incapable of achieving, let alone deserving, anything better than one of the most brutal dictatorships of our time.

 

[brogdale]

Thanks both; very useful.

I thought this passage from the Al-Shami piece was well put:

This left exhibits deeply authoritarian tendencies, one that places states themselves at the centre of political analysis. Solidarity is therefore extended to states (seen as the main actor in a struggle for liberation) rather than oppressed or underprivileged groups in any given society, no matter that state’s tyranny.
​

So it’s selective anti-imperialism that’s the issue with Corbyn, then?

 

[danny la rouge]

Thanks both; very useful.

I thought this passage from the Al-Shami piece was well put:

This left exhibits deeply authoritarian tendencies, one that places states themselves at the centre of political analysis. Solidarity is therefore extended to states (seen as the main actor in a struggle for liberation) rather than oppressed or underprivileged groups in any given society, no matter that state’s tyranny.
​

So it’s selective anti-imperialism that’s the issue with Corbyn, then?

I think I've labelled it in this thread before as statist foreign policy: "the statist left". The above sentence describes it perfectly.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Hodge ended up with a majority of 8000 in 2005, I'm sure it wouldn't have been that high without the groundwork the canvassers put in, but it's a bit of a stretch to say she almost lost Barking.

2010, at which time the BNP had 12 cllrs there.

 

[ViolentPanda]

'One of the most diverse constituencies in the nation'

OK, well done you, but what's your point? Where were you when Ed Milliband was barracked into telling the Eastern European communities in this country that permitting their existence here was a mistake? Where were you on this anti-semitism that was apparently festering away for decades before it became the cause celebre for blue labour, a cabal you coincidentally happen to be a figurehead for? What about immigration prisons, invented on the watch of your party?

In a strong field of cynical, unprincipled, careerist twats Umunna continues to forge ahead. In some ways I worry more about him than I do about the likes of Boris Johnson.

One of the most diverse communities in this country, whose decision - BAME and white alike - to spontaneously celebrate the death of Margaret Thatcher in Windrush Sq, was denounced by the so-in-touch Tory toerag Labour Centrist fuck.

 

[kabbes]

If you're going to hate, hate accurately.

This sentence encapsulates why I love you, butchers.

 

[imposs1904]

Yep. Same with Benn but more.

What about McDonnell?

 

[killer b]

2010, at which time the BNP had 12 cllrs there.

The majority was 16000 in 2010. Hodge was never anywhere close to losing the constituency. Which isn't to say there was never a problem with the BNP in the area - but it shouldn't be overstated.

 

[butchersapron]

What about McDonnell?

Same. But with added i don't get why people love him - even the Wise brothers rate him. I can see it with Corbyn - for a lot of the liberal left he's an fairground mirror that reflects back in an idealised manner. There's not that with JM though. I do recognise that he is a better and wider thinker than Corbyn though.I'd have a pint with him. Not Corbyn,

 

[butchersapron]

Can tell I’ve been away a while when I need to ask for help with a butchersapron post!

So, here goes...presumably most on the libertarian left would subscribe to anti-imperialist reflexes, so what aspects of Corbyn’s anti-imperialism is it that most repels you?
Genuinely interested...obvs.

Thanks to Danny and Geri for the links that put it better than i could.

 

[Toast Rider]

Same. But with added i don't get why people love him - even the Wise brothers rate him. I can see it with Corbyn - for a lot of the liberal left he's an fairground mirror that reflects back in an idealised manner. There's not that with JM though. I do recognise that he is a better and wider thinker than Corbyn though.I'd have a pint with him. Not Corbyn,

Why shouldn't people love him?

 

[ViolentPanda]

The majority was 16000 in 2010. Hodge was never anywhere close to losing the constituency. Which isn't to say there was never a problem with the BNP in the area - but it shouldn't be overstated.

She got a thumping majority because campaigners - anti-fascists, Trots, the bloody lot - from all over the UK converged on her bloody constituency and canvassed it into the ground for a month or more preceding the election.

 

[Theisticle]

Here’s another good blog in line with al-Shami’s excellent blog (though it does focus on Cockburn there’s a wider point in terms of the framing of the civil war).

Left-Wing Orientalism: The Curious Case of Patrick Cockburn

 

[killer b]

She got a thumping majority because campaigners - anti-fascists, Trots, the bloody lot - from all over the UK converged on her bloody constituency and canvassed it into the ground for a month or more preceding the election.

Door knocking in the month before the election might have shifted things by a point or two, but you know it can't do more than that. It's great that the BNP were routed in Barking, but it's claiming Hodge nearly lost the seat just isn't true, and misses as much of the picture as the blairites lauding Hodge as some sort of mighty antifascist warrior herself.

 

[Pickman's model]

Door knocking in the month before the election might have shifted things by a point or two, but you know it can't do more than that. It's great that the BNP were routed in Barking, but it's claiming Hodge nearly lost the seat just isn't true, and misses as much of the picture as the blairites lauding Hodge as some sort of mighty antifascist warrior herself.

So you didn't notice the turnout in 2005 was 50% and in 2010 more than 10% higher. Disappointing.

 

[killer b]

I did, but it's not really relevant to the point I was making, which was that Hodge was never in danger of losing, and that more forces were in play than a (no doubt vigorous and effective) doorstep campaign by antifascist campaigners.

 

[Knotted]

Here’s another ggoal in line with al-Shami’s excellent blog (though it does focus on Cockburn there’s a wider point in terms of the framing of the civil war).

Left-Wing Orientalism: The Curious Case of Patrick Cockburn

The theory that the regime was attempting to alienate the Sunni majority as part of a tactic to sectarianise the conflict is just plain silly. Yes they released jihadis to rhetorically marginalise the opposition and to set up a third front but no they didn't engineer the Muslim Brotherhood or the various soft Islamists who were dominant in the opposition from the start. That's not to diminish the heroism or the egalitarian goals of the demonstrations or even of some of the combatants, just to acknowledge the problems that were there.

Listening to supporters of Syrian armed opposition (or at least those who write in English) is like listening to flakier parts of the Labour left. Just swap Assad for Zionists (decoded:Alawites for Jews). Same conspiratorial make up.

 

[Shechemite]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...-speak-at-momentums-corbyn-festival-0rr8m7wqb

(Pay walled but you get the gist from the first paragraphs)

 

[Shechemite]

And our Ash being oh so radical