Labour & Anti-Semitism.

[two sheds]

Not sure I understand the question. But if you are asking “was Bakunin antisemitic?”, then the answer is of course that he did say antisemitic things. He was also Slav nationalist for a period. Did these attitudes remain with him? Well, they are contradicted in other examples of his writing. I’m not so interested in individual morality or blame. People can change. I’m interested in societal forces.

Yes but that's not the same standard that Corbyn and Labour are being held to. It's no defence for Corbyn to have said antisemitic things but contradict them in other examples of his writing.

I was going to quote from both Marx and Bakunin but the quotes themselves are so unpleasant that I won't. Orders of magnitude worse than anything Corbyn's said. If a Labour supporter had defended him in the way you just did they'd be accused of making excuses for antisemitism. And supporters of Labour are interested in societal forces too.

Again I'm not saying I'm behind what I'm saying but that's the standard Corbyn and Labour have been held to. You said Corbyn was painting himself into a corner - I see it more that he was painted into a corner by the media and by the right of the party.

 

[killer b]

you fucking clown.

 

[danny la rouge]

Yes but that's not the same standard that Corbyn and Labour are being held to. It's no defence for Corbyn to have said antisemitic things but contradict them in other examples of his writing.

I was going to quote from both Marx and Bakunin but the quotes themselves are so unpleasant that I won't. Orders of magnitude worse than anything Corbyn's said. If a Labour supporter had defended him in the way you just did they'd be accused of making excuses for antisemitism. And supporters of Labour are interested in societal forces too.

Again I'm not saying I'm behind what I'm saying but that's the standard Corbyn and Labour have been held to. You said Corbyn was painting himself into a corner - I see it more that he was painted into a corner by the media and by the right of the party.

We’ve had 154 pages of this particular line. You’ll excuse me if I bow out of repeating myself.

I had hoped the thread was moving on. But if it’s going to go back round in circles, I’m out.

 

[two sheds]

you fucking clown.

You're happy with the double standards then?

 

[two sheds]

We’ve had 154 pages of this particular line. You’ll excuse me if I bow out of repeating myself.

I had hoped the thread was moving on. But if it’s going to go back round in circles, I’m out.

Have we? I've not seen this asked before.

 

[Pickman's model]

We’ve had 154 pages of this particular line. You’ll excuse me if I bow out of repeating myself.

I had hoped the thread was moving on. But if it’s going to go back round in circles, I’m out.

it's the coriolis effect on the internet

 

[danny la rouge]

If a Labour supporter had defended him in the way you just did they'd be accused of making excuses for antisemitism.

I’m not defending Marx or Bakunin. I’m not interested in doing so. I apologise for giving the impression I was. That’s my fault.

 

[killer b]

I don't give a fuck about your 'double standards' and dickhead comparisons with people who've been dead for hundreds of years. Real, living jews and actual present day antisemitism in modern left-wing political movements is what we're talking about. Seriously. Talk about something real rather than trying to divert it into whatever idiot thought just crossed your mind.

 

[Knotted]

Agree. imo its much worse now, loads and loads of people who never had a problem with jews before, probably never even thought about them, now hold us responsible for the destruction of the corbyn project. thats what actually hurts. And that's where Corb's statement could be said to be right, about the overblown media attention hurting jews. It’s just not what he meant.

That's my sense unfortunately. I've seen similar from non-Corbynist Labour loyalists.

 

[two sheds]

I don't give a fuck about your 'double standards' and dickhead comparisons with people who've been dead for hundreds of years. Real, living jews and actual present day antisemitism in modern left-wing political movements is what we're talking about. Seriously. Talk about something real rather than trying to divert it into whatever idiot thought just crossed your mind.

So you're denying there are any modern communists or anarchist antisemites? I've seen defences similar to that about Labour left, with the accusation that it's refusal to accept antisemitism.

If you can't see the parallel then you certainly don't give a fuck about 'double standards'.

 

[frogwoman]

.

 

[two sheds]

Sorry froggy but I'm just trying to point out that the relentless focus on Corbyn and the Labour left in the media with one set of standards could quite easily have been focused on revolutionary socialists. In just one post Danny had to apologize for giving the wrong impression. It's fucking easy to happen.

 

[killer b]

So you're denying there are any modern communists or anarchist antisemites?

Why are you making things up?

 

[killer b]

In just one post Danny had to apologize for giving the wrong impression.

lol, you are really this thick.

 

[frogwoman]

Yea 'revolutionary socialists' can be, and often are, just as bad. But then I don't think I stated otherwise.

 

[two sheds]

lol, you are really this thick.

I’m not defending Marx or Bakunin. I’m not interested in doing so. I apologise for giving the impression I was. That’s my fault.

 

[two sheds]

Yea 'revolutionary socialists' can be, and often are, just as bad. But then I don't think I stated otherwise.

Indeed, you've not - then why the constant focus on Corbyn and the Labour party with revolutionary socialists not ever being mentioned?

I'd say it's probably because there is antisemitism among revolutionary socialists and anarchists but it's lower level than in the rest of society. Which is what also seems to be true of the Labour party.

 

[frogwoman]

Corbyn really ain't the victim here BTW. And I have stated, repeatedly, that this long predates him.

 

[two sheds]

Agreed.

 

[frogwoman]

I don't know, because he was the leader off the opposition and therefore the most public example of this tendency maybe.

 

[Knotted]

My memory of it is he seemed to be dealing with it proportionately and tried to speed the process along even, only to be sabotaged by Labour Party HQ , no?

The idea that the responsibility for the disciplinary side of things should fall on the leader's office never made sense to me regardless of how badly party HQ behaved.

But even then, why are we thinking of this problem in terms of Labour Party discipline? To play devil's advocate a bit, does it even help kicking anti-Semites out of the LP? If they find a forum for their views elsewhere on the left, they're not just going to go away. There's a definite online social network of these types and they still get a broader hearing.

 

[mauvais]

How can you be so certain? It's possible but I doubt it. I'm sure there'll be something but this idea that there's some kind of massive tide of AS, that Jewish labour party members have to experience, I just don't see evidence for it. I'm not on twitter though so maybe I miss it but twitter is just a crank-magnifier, it can let a few thousand nutters run riot but they're nothing numerically are they?

What does this mean? What would constitute numerically significant?

You don't need a very high volume, quality or broad spread of abuse for it to have meaning. Nor does it always have to be directly to you personally. Come on, this is basic.

 

[killer b]

.

Danny always bows out of a worthless argument gracefully is all. We could all learn from him. I'm too pissed off not to call an idiot a fucking idiot today though, sorry.

 

[killer b]

Come on, this is basic.

five years on this and we aren't even at basic yet.

 

[co-op]

I really find this kind of stuff pretty depressing. Is your first reaction when any woman complains of receiving daily abuse to demand evidence? I guess it probably isn't. What's the difference?

I think I have reasonably good antennae for anti-semitism, especially the less obvious coded stuff - often unconscious imo - and I've heard incredibly little in the Labour Party, tbh none that I can remember. So this "daily struggle" against anti-semitism just doesn't accord with my own experiences, limited though they are. The times I have heard anti-semitic stuff - oblique usually - where at things like Occupy, or STW marches where intensely anti-Israeli stuff seemed obviously in the zone of anti-semitic to me (allowing AS to be a subtle thing and hard-to-define precisely sometimes) and I guess some of those people ended up in the Labour Party under Corbyn. But I'm talking oblique here - things like Matt Taibis description of Goldman Sachs as a bloodsucking vampire squid on the face of humanity or whatever his phrase was, that to me deployed anti-semitic imagery & attached it to a Bank with a Jewish-sounding name, people seemed to me to revel slightly in this phrase there was something visceral about it (I'd always ask, how about Barclays? What have they done for humanity lately?). But this is the kind of unconscious anti-semitism that could easily be passed on by ignorance rather than any open anti-Jewish intent, if anything it just reveals how much latent anti-semitism there is in our culture - these kinds of phrases just 'feel good'.

And I don't think your comparison (ie would I dismiss a woman's complaint of harrassment) is good; this whole issue has been massively politicised within the Labour civil war, it means it's quite hard (impossible?) to take anyone's word just on good faith, there's been far too much bad faith and it just seems at odds with my experience. Maybe I was just lucky.

 

[two sheds]

Danny always bows out of a worthless argument gracefully is all. We could all learn from him. I'm too pissed off not to call an idiot a fucking idiot today though, sorry.

Yep because you don't want to defend your double standards. You're happy calling people antisemites but you don't even want to look at antisemitism within your political community.

 

[killer b]

I'm not a communist?

 

[two sheds]

Ah ok, not a revolutionary socialist or an anarchist either? What is your political persuasion?

 

[killer b]

I'm a member of the Labour Party.

 

[killer b]

(although tbf the cancellation of my membership is imminent)