General Politics Discussion (IV) [ARCHIVED] • Page 1422

At least some places know not to rehabilitate war criminals

 

@Dominick

 

Baltimore is a great city! But, we’ve been having a lot of white people move in, which has caused a decline in its greatness.

 

But what about the influx of croc stores and rocky mountain chocolate factories?

 

Well shit, and here I am interviewing for a position in Maryland...

 

Heh, I have two friends that work at Under Armour who moved there from the midwest.

 

Trump privately presses for military to pay for border wall

Lmfao. So not only is Mexico NOT paying for it, but Trump also wants his base's precious military to pay for it. With this and signing of the omnibus, how is his approval rating going up with right wingers?

 

First of all we have to understand exactly what this row is about and its context: Corbyn made a facebook post, or something, in 2012, opposing the removal of an antisemitic mural. Specifically, the bankers were depicted with stereotypically Jewish features (although nowhere near as stereotypically Jewish as, for example, the Goblins in Harry Potter, which are straight out of Der Stormer) with the eye of the pyramid symbol behind them. When the mural was brought up again now, 6 years later, (surely in good faith), Corbyn's response was deemed "unacceptable:"

You can judge for yourself the character of this apology, which since has been reiterated in progressively stronger terms.

The mural is clearly, to me, antisemitic, especially because of the inclusion of the eye of the pyramid symbol. However, noting that it takes a moderately closer look than perhaps other antisemitic imagery might to reveal its antisemitism, I can see how a non-jew might have a bit more trouble identifying it. To me, it is easy, as a Jewish person who looks for these things. But as the thread lightning linked yesterday notes, these things are often coded and dogwhistled and it takes a kind of vigilance that is hard to keep up to for some people. But, given Corbyn's subsequent disavowals and rededication to anti-antisemitism, I don't see this as justifying the week long media circus over it.

Futhermore, one must also note that antisemitism among the right wing in the UK is extremely more pernicious and malignant than among the left. The same thread Lightning linked goes into this. Because of this, any honest interrogation of antisemitism in the UK as a whole should spend much more time on the right than the left. Of course, some see their role as to weed out antisemitism specifically on the left because they see themselves as part of the left. This is valuable and necessary and noble. But we should be noting the discrepancy in coverage of antisemitism among the two parties by journalists or NGOs who claim to be on a crusade against antisemitism in the UK generally, but who spend a massively disproportionate amount of time on the left.

Of course many of these same people are influenced by Israeli lobbyists who have an obvious vested interest in attacking Corbyn, a candidate who has spent his career as a backbencher campaigning for Palestinian solidarity as much and as loudly as anything or anyone else. It is a hard line to walk in a situation like this to both condemn the obvious antisemitism of the mural and its overblown coverage due among other things to the influence of Israeli and zionist groups. Many non-Jews on the left have a lot of trouble with this issue and fall into denying antisemitism exists where it obviously does in an attempt to seem sufficiently against Israel. It is a work in process and I implore people to read as much as they can from leftist Jews about these things.

As for this article specifically, lets start with the author. Can we divine her intentions in this article based on her previous work? What is her previous work? The vast majority of her work, as far as I can tell, is in the Guardian, and is cultural in nature. Googling her name and "Israel" reveals two articles from the guardian: one which is essentially retread in the article currently in question, so addressing it would overlap with the discussion of the article. The second is an article which makes a very good point, in a way that legitimizes some critiques that I wouldn't, but a good point nonetheless. That point is that, expecting Jews to tell you their position on Israel, to have a particularly strong opinion on Israel, in any direction, is antisemitism. Identifying Jews as a whole with the country of Israel or demanding they specifically, in a way you wouldn't do with gentiles, "explain their values" in non-political contexts is antisemitism. It's not a bad article.

So the author isn't a member of the JDL or anything. There's nothing in her background to assume bad faith, like if they had happened to be a massive Blairite partisan, a frothing at the mouth "annex Judea and Samaria" zionist, or JK Rowling. So, lets get to the article, which lol.

Interesting that she doesn't link any examples of this, so its impossible to comment on it definitively. It reads to me however as an obvious exaggeration of pushback that she received that probably ranged from well reasoned critiques of the influence of the Israel lobby and how this story is overblown, to probably a fair amount of antisemitism. But again, no way to tell definitively without digging through her twitter which I refuse to do.

First of all - reading this sentence, would you have any idea that this was referring to a facebook post about a mural from 6 years ago? No, you would think he is actively endorsing antisemitic actions ('behavior') which is ongoing ('once again'). This is not the case. Of course public opinion forced to do this, because the 'incident' (facebook post) was 6 goddamn years ago. Expecting him to correct bad posts from 6 years ago without public opinion pushing him to do so is ridiculous and certainly not a standard Tories are held to.

Give me a god damned break. Raed Salah was mayor of a muslim town in Israel. A god damn mayor. But of course, Israel, that fair, not racist, not antisemitic country, ruled by rule of law that affects all equally, muslim or jew, palestinian or ashkenazi. We know all this...right? A conviction of a high profile muslim public figure in Israel must reveal the true evil within him. Funnily, if you follow the links maze that the Guardian creates in all their articles, from "greatest hits">"a very honored citizen," you start getting obviously unreputable blogs like this one. Note that he was charged, not convicted, in Israel. Here's more from another blog the Guardian eventually links to. The idea that Raed Salah is a figure deserving of universal condemnation based on vile antisemitism is unsupported.

Re: Hamas and Hezbollah, yes, and Nixon met with the communists. A peace advocate must meet with both sides, full stop. Nothing is else needs to be said.

Re: Iranian state TV, you could have a whole conversation on the morals of appearing on TV stations you disagree with. Personally, I think NBC is an awful corporation that stumps for war whenever they can. I would go on MSNBC if they offered me a platform to spread leftist ideas (they wouldn't). Here's the article linked about those appearances. Judge for yourself the evil of going on TV and spreading antisemitism like, "I am against the foreign policy that says certain European nations and the United States have the power to invade and rule the rest of the world.” How very evil.

Re: Rev. Stephen Sizer, Corbyn wrote a letter defending a guy who posted a dumb, antisemitic link, who also had at one point been a reasonably respected academic who published works in respected presses about Christian Zionism. The letter seems to imply Corbyn is under the impression he mistakenly posted the link instead of another. I can't find this letter anywhere that doesn't link back to Stephen Sizer's personal blog, or much reporting on it at all outside of the telegraph and the mail. I'm skeptical of this in the first place, but assuming the letter is real and accurate, and that Corbyn's implied belief that the link was posted mistakenly was wrong, this is an actual issue. This person's social media posts probably should not be defended (although, like Chomsky, perhaps he got bogged down in free speech idealism). Here is an example of something which may be a real issue. 1/4 so far.

Re: facebook groups, this is the same issue as the mural issue, because one of these groups is where he made the comment in question. This is, apparently, the one comment he ever made in any of the three groups he was in. Worth noting that you can be added to facebook groups without your approval by their members. Expecting Corbyn, a 68 year old man, to be able to deftly navigate facebook groups on an account which is surely constantly inundated with similar requests and adds from randos doesn't make sense to me. I've addressed that the mural is antisemitic, but if he (or myself, honestly) was randomly scrolling by it on facebook, its content could be missed. And Corbyn's comment does not even address the content of the art, but its removal.

Weird, then, that they have, but I can't find any of your articles on it. Boris Johnson is the god damn Foreign Secretary. That alone is 10x the scandal than all of these things put together.

 

Based on Twitter reactions the vast majority just read the headline and assume this is coming from the left, as opposed to a Republican.

 

The gall of an author who created a race of short, hunched, big nosed banking goblins out of thin air and made a billion dollars off it talking about this stupid fucking mural at all is absolutely breathtaking

 

lol

"Working knowledge of social media, especially Twitter is a plus, as is a better than average knowledge of the adult film industry and a collection of Playboy magazines from 1985-2010. Must look the part - Gregory Peck or Tommy Lee Jones type."

 

a casting call or a lawyer ad?? YUGELY successful.

lol

 

Folks,

Mark: I was so compulsive about Tasha being my soul mate that I didn’t fully process that Eliza was gone for good.

Eliza: I moved in with my parents in Queens. Told everyone it was over. I honestly didn’t even want to talk to Mark about what went down. I was so done.

Mark: I invited Tasha for drinks to tell her there was no wedding and Eliza and I were over. She was bummed out. And then she got really weird and was like … “Um, okay so … can I leave now?” I remember feeling so embarrassed that it was all so one-sided. I had been living in some delusion and the bubble burst that night. Big time. I walked home feeling completely alone. I was sobbing. I was my father. I ruined everything.

Both Sides of a Breakup: He Thought the Wedding Planner Was His Soul Mate



I fucking love this shit.

 

"I thought falling for the wedding planner and starting a new life with her would be like that movie, Spaceballs. Instead it's been a painful and disturbing ordeal, like that movie The Wedding Planner."