Blair must be hanged as a war criminal.
In the style of “Cathago delenda est”
You need the radicals to keep that overton window in place, and the hard leftists have been completely abandoned since the early 70s. I want a couple pundits showing up every night on NBC news declaring that we should abolish private property and completely disband the military.
Because otherwise, you end up with the situation we have now, where a 3% tax increase is considered a radical leftist idea, and we’re seriously treating disbanding the department of education as if it’s a moderate position.
4 Likes
Tell you the truth mate, I wont do it. Its not about ideological purity - its about being taken for granted and for a ride. I have my policies and I will lobby/campaign for them with utter single mindedness. Let the Dem center try any of that lesser evil crap and they get another Trump or whatever.
Republicans shore up their base and reward their supporters. Time for the Dems to give something to their support rather than their corporate sponsors.
1 Like
So you are suggesting I do vote in US elections? I’m sure that Republicans will react really well to that!
My problem was also with the local government, who did not take reports of a vulnerable person seriously, and my local councillors who did nothing to help when asked (not that it stopped one of the fascists who attacked me from trying to kick down their doors for being part of the gay agenda. I wish they had tried that a year earlier, the prison sentence would have saved me a lot of grief.)
How did we get from
to my attitude being defeatist? My political beliefs are similar to Murray Bookchin and Rojava, but that is not what I am asking for. I am trying to meet people half way (actually more than half way). It would be nice it the Third Way Liberals did the same.
4 Likes
No, just your own. If you like your Labour candidate, more votes will tell him or her how much. If you don’t like them then there are probably other potentials around you can try to convince to run.
How did we get…to my attitude being defeatist?
It was the “non voting” and Waiting for Godot references. I agree with statements upthread (from you and others) that reformists need radicals to pull them to the left; as Alinsky puts it,
Action comes from keeping the heat on. No politician can sit on a hot issue if you make it hot enough.
However, he also pointed out that
“Power comes out of the barrel of a gun!” is an absurd rallying cry when the other side has all the guns.
Literal revolution is not going to happen, and you don’t make progress by stamping your feet. Progress comes by convincing the people who hold power that the only way they can keep power is by moving in your direction, and that means political pressure, working within the system.
Where did I say that there would be a revolution?
I was pointing out that the revolutionaries keep the reformists from becoming status quo conservatives.
I also do vote, just not for Labour. Having said that (and changing my opinion from what I previously said) I just found out that Jeremy Corbyn was invited to seder with Jewdas, a left wing group of practicing Jews who have a history of fighting against anti-semitism. He was still criticised for this because Jewdas are very anti-Israeli nationalism too. While I do not deny there is anti-semitism in the Labour Party, there is also a group who believe that the Labour Party should unquestioningly support the Israeli state. Neither are acceptable to me, and I have more respect for Jewdas than any nationalist group regardless of country. It looks like Jeremy is making an effort after all, even if he does have a history of poor judgement.
ETA:
1 Like
Being invited to a seder is not the same thing as making an effort. Even belatedly going to the seder is not the same thing. As for Jewdas, the complaints about them transcend their positions on Israeli politics, but I personally have no problem with them, and don’t think Corbyn can be criticised for accepting their invitation, as long as he or his spokespeople don’t try to count it as evidence of his taking actual action on the problems in the party.
(Added after mycommute home: Let me add that if I lived in England I would still vote for Corbyn (or the local Momentum candidate), despite the fact that over the last couple of years he has proved not very interested in this issue of personal interest to me. He would still be the viable candidate whose policies best align with my preferences.)
1 Like
The traitor Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Your argument is invalid.
What did you ask for, from whom, in response to what specific situation? You mentioned being beat up by fascists, but didn’t give any details to how “third way liberals” (your term) failed you.
It wasn’t just getting beaten up, it was death threats posted though my door, bricks thrown at my windows, abuse shouted at me in the street. The cops wouldn’t do anything other than log that a crime had been commited and say they couldn’t do anything about it despite knowing who did it.
The council (at the time it had a Labour majority, but was NOC) had a responsibility to rehouse me somewhere safer, and I went to talk to them about it with my police reports, filled in the forms and did everything correctly.
Nothing.
I went back to ask what was happening.
They reassured me that they were doing everything they could. Then nothing.
Repeat this several times with an increasing amount of police reports.
I talked to my local councillors. Nothing.
By this point I was actively suicidal, one time I tried jumping off a high bridge but was stopped and talked out of it. According to law, I should have been right at the top of the rehousing list but still nothing happened.
I seriously made plans to just abandon the house I was living in, and move to live on the streets of a different city because I figured that things couldn’t possibly get worse. That didn’t happen because of a friend saw what was going on and got me out of there, after a year of hell and my mental health destroyed. I was technically homeless but at least I wasn’t surviving on the streets.
I keep saying I will write about the whole year and just link to it every time it is relevant, but I keep putting it off because the PTSD will get really bad. Instead I just repeat bits of it and my PTSD ends up getting bad anyway.
Technically it’s Stephen Skowronek’s term, and it was popularised by Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. They claimed to be focusing on equality issues instead of traditional socialist issues, yet in mine and other peoples experience they failed at that because they were not focusing on those socialist issues. Comfortably middle class people had an improvement in quality of life (at least until 2007) but the rest of us never really experienced that.
6 Likes
Honestly it’s kinda disgusting that you even asked.
3 Likes
I mean it was kinda put out there – but if it’s too private, I totally understand. But it was used as the basis for a lot of the argument, and considering it was put out in the public sphere, I thought I’d ask.
I shouldn’t find this as heartening as I do.
The usual defense of Corbyn on the charges of being soft on anti-semitism in the party is that if there is an issue, its not the leader’s job to police it but the NEC’s job. I knew Corbyn back in the day and I can assure you he doesnt have a racist or anti-semitic bone in his body. If there is a valid criticism its that he doesnt have bones at all. I suspect a lot of the criticisms he sustains on this issue are from those who wouldn’t support him anyway and are just looking for a stick to beat him and his support with. Which means you are one of the few making this criticism that I have to take seriously.
So how would you like Corbyn to act on this question? What steps would you suggest? And forgive if I just made a totally banal intervention into the debate.
1 Like
It isn’t really for me to say as I no longer live or vote there. There are plenty of smart progressive Jews living in England who are trying to come to grips with this right now, and I promise you they are just as upset about the way Corbyn’s people have been handling this as are Netanyahu’s buddies on the right. Perhaps more so, as it represents a fundamental betrayal. I can only hope that people like Rhea Wolfson and Joshua Garfield can be given a clear lead in making policy with teeth on this going forward.
Corbyn’s biggest problem is that this isn’t something new in his circle, and whatever he decides to do he should have done a couple of years ago. It will be very hard for him to establish any sort of credibility on this. Corbyn (and some other leaders in Labour) have simply blown off the complaints in the past, have even offered support for members found to have belonged to antisemitic groups or engaged in hate speech (look at the Christine Shawcroft situation). Only now when it is becoming an existential political crisis are they reacting. That creates a huge credibility gap. It might be too late to fix it; notice that Momentum has been slightly distancing itself from Corbyn the last couple of days.
All of this is why I said that progressive Jews in England are facing the same kinds of decisions that people on the left are facing in the US. My personal belief is that in such cases you have to try to put the problematic aspects of the leftmost candidate out of your mind when casting your vote, but then do what you can to make sure you get a different choice next time.
3 Likes
Oh really? In the eyes of whom?
As Jewish Labour party members in Islington North we know from experience that our MP, Jeremy Corbyn – a strong believer in human rights – respects and values minority communities here, including our Jewish one. We are sure that the same applies to his leadership of the Labour party.
We are dismayed by unbalanced media reporting ahead of the local elections of allegations of antisemitism against Jeremy. We believe this partly results from his legitimate criticism of Israel’s cruel and racist treatment towards its Palestinian and Bedouin populations. This is because one definition of antisemitism includes criticism of the Israeli state as racist. We reject that definition. Indeed, many Israelis criticise actions of their state.
Any genuine antisemites and racists among the 600,000 members of the Labour party should be challenged and, if necessary, expelled. The recommendations in the Chakrabarti report will greatly help deal with such abuse.
We dissociate ourselves from the accusations of antisemitism made against Jeremy by the Board of Jewish Deputies and some Labour MPs. We confirm our confidence and support for Jeremy as MP and as a future prime minister of this country.
Signed:
Jenny Kassman Finsbury Park branch
Julia Bard St George’s branch
Cllr Kaya Comer-Schwartz Junction branch
Louisa S Kaplin Junction branch
Julian Lousada Highbury East branch
Sue Lukes Highbury East branch
Professor Mica Nava St George’s branch
Jenny Richardson Tollington branch
David Rosenberg St George’s branch
Monika Schwartz Junction branch
Professor Lynne Segal Highbury East branch
Professpr Annabelle Sreberny Highbury East branch
Ruth Steigman St George’s branch
Annette Thomas St George’s branch
Dr Gillian Yudkin St George’s branch
Professor John S Yudkin St George’s branch
1 Like
Oh good, you found a letter that shows that the UK Jewish community is not 100% in agreement on this. How unusual for a group famous for its lockstep uniformity of agreement on contentious issues!
To answer your question: in the eyes of many. This is clear to anyone who has been closely following this over the last few years.
So they’re what, 95% in agreement?
You’re of course free to sneer and mutter as darkly as you like about Corbyn’s supposedly poor choice of supposed friends as you join the right’s smearing of him with a murky charge of guilt by association, but your lack of substantiation renders your claim less than convincing.
2 Likes
It is profoundly offensive for you to tell me that my outrage over the recent antisemitic blunders by Corbyn and his people is just politically motivated. First of all, it is clearly ridiculous as my posts have been about how as a progressive I would vote for Corbyn anyway. More important, you are suggesting that I am just using my identity falsely as a front for my genuine feelings about this matter. Shame on you.
As for evidence, there is plenty of polling about the community reaction to Labour blunders in recent years, with (for example) 80% of UK Jews thinking that “the Labour party is too tolerant of anti-Semitism”. And that’s before the latest outrages.
4 Likes
She abandoned the idea, that simple, and in fact ridiculed it during the Democratic primaries. Make of that what you will.
1 Like
Here’s the actual article if you want to try to see how they defined that Economic dimension axis.
