63

Anatomy of a Failed Coup in the UK Labour Party

by Richard Seymour, for TeleSurTV

Worst. Coup. Ever

As the Chilcot Inquiry report is released to the public, those MPs attempting to depose Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn—their leading lights inescapably sullied by having supported the war—are suing for peace. Over a week of high-profile resignations, statements, demands, pleas and threats have seemingly done little but consolidate Corbyn’s position. In record time, it has gone from being a coup to a #chickencoup to a #headlesschickencoup.
This could be the biggest own-goal in the history of British politics. Journalists steeped in the common sense of Westminster, assumed that it was all over for Labour’s first ever radical socialist leadership. How can he lead, they reasoned, if his parliamentary allies won’t work with him? This, in realpolitik terms, merely encoded the congealed entitlement and lordly presumption of Labour’s traditional ruling caste. Even some of Corbyn’s bien-pensant supporters went along with this view. They should have known better.
The putschists’ plan, such as it was, was to orchestrate such media saturation of criticism and condemnation aimed at Corbyn, to create such havoc within the Labour Party, that he would feel compelled to resign. The tactical side of it was executed to smooth perfection, by people who are well-versed in the manipulation of the spectacle. And yet, in the event that Corbyn was not wowed by the media spectacle, not intimidated by ranks of grandees laying into him, and happy to appeal over the heads of party elites to the grassroots, their strategy disintegrated. This was not politics as they knew it.
The befuddlement was not for want of preparation. From even before his election as Labour Party leader, there were briefings to the press that a coup would be mounted soon after his election. And in the weeks leading up to the European Union referendum, Labour Party activists reported that they were expecting a coup to be launched after the outcome was announced, regardless of what the result was. This seemed like a half-baked idea—there was still no overwhelming crisis justifying a coup attempt—and so it turned out to be.
Undoubtedly, part of the rationale for hastening the attempted overthrow was the looming publication of the findings of the Chilcot Inquiry, which was expected to be harshly critical of former Prime Minister Tony Blair, of the justification for the invasion of Iraq, and of the relationship with the Bush administration. Given the role of the Parliamentary Labour Party in leading Britain into that war, against fierce public and international opposition, and given its role in supporting the subsequent occupation, this was a bad moment to have Corbyn at the helm. In the event, Corbyn survived to make a dignified statement apologizing for Labour’s role in the disaster and promising to embark upon a different foreign policy—one quite at odds with that supported by the pro-Trident, pro-bombing backbenchers.
As the grim analysis of Chilcot spooled out into the public domain, backbench Labour MPs stood by their fallen leader. Ian Austin, a Blairite MP from Dudley, heckled during Corbyn’s speech to exhort him to “sit down and shut up”. As for others, “good faith” was the cri de coeur: Mr. Blair never acted in anything but the best of faith. Indeed, no one ever does. Blair, for his part, criticised what he described as an “addiction” to believing the worst about everyone. Here, indeed, is a man who has been able to see the good not only in President Bush, but also in Mubarak, Putin, Nazarbayev, even Qadhafi for a while. Under other conditions, Saddam Hussein would undoubtedly have been “a force for stability.” This is the problem with “good faith”: it can justify any contortions of morality or logic, and any body count. But there is little doubt that Blair emerges hugely damaged from the Inquiry which, in stressing that the invasion of Iraq was a war of choice, opens the possibility for a war crimes prosecution. And by the same reasoning, all of those MPs who supported the war, or voted to prevent the Inquiry from taking place, are discredited.
To understand how the coup failed so badly, finally screeching to a halt under the shadow of Chilcot, is to understand something about the crisis of politics. The puzzle, when Corbyn was first elected leader, was how could it possibly be that Labour would choose a hard left leadership for the first time in its history, at a time when the British Left was historically weak? On every count, the Left was doing badly. It had been eviscerated during the Thatcher years, losing in numbers and organisation, its publications folding, and had entered a dismal diminuendo thereafter. The organized labor movement, the bulwark of the Left’s hopes, was in a similar bad way, as union density and strike rates had declined year-on-year.
However, the decline of the Left’s fortunes and the rampant success of the neoliberal centre was also concurrent with a growing crisis of representative democracy, as more and more of the state’s functions were taken out of democratic control and handed over to Quangos, businesses, and unelected bodies. Millions of people, no longer seeing much real choice on offer, began to boycott the electoral system. Party elites retreated into the state and into the manipulation of news cycles, having less and less to do with mass politics.
In the context of the Labour Party, the result of this was that a generation of political leaders emerged who were experienced as special advisers, think-tankers, policy wonks and spin doctors, but had little real understanding of how to motivate activists and communicate with the broad public. In government, they were all too often advocates of state policy against their own popular base—tendency peaking with the Iraq war. And after years of having been embedded in the failed New Labour experiment, they were badly discredited among Labour members and among young people radicalizing in response to post-credit crunch austerity. Corbyn emerged in 2015 as the only leadership candidate who still understood how Labour politics was done, while also having a sense of how to fuse these methods with social media communications. And so it has proved again. The coup plotters knew all about how to manipulate old media, but they were at a loss when Corbyn stood firm, ignited his base, and thousands hit the streets in his defense, from London to Hull.
In the context of the Labour Party, the result of this was that a generation of political leaders emerged who were experienced as special advisers, think-tankers, policy wonks and spin doctors, but had little real understanding of how to motivate activists and communicate with the broad public. In government, they were all too often advocates of state policy against their own popular base—tendency peaking with the Iraq war. And after years of having been embedded in the failed New Labour experiment, they were badly discredited among Labour members and among young people radicalizing in response to post-credit crunch austerity. Corbyn emerged in 2015 as the only leadership candidate who still understood how Labour politics was done, while also having a sense of how to fuse these methods with social media communications. And so it has proved again. The coup plotters knew all about how to manipulate old media, but they were at a loss when Corbyn stood firm, ignited his base, and thousands hit the streets in his defense, from London to Hull.
What a strange time in British politics. The outcome of the attempted overthrow of Jeremy Corbyn is thus a hugely improbable and unexpected strengthening of the Left. Since the EU referendum result, 200,000 people have joined the Labour Party, the great majority of them supporting Jeremy Corbyn. Total membership is now approximately 600,000. The shadow Cabinet has become more left wing, more multiracial, and more female. Corbyn’s own standing, having withstood the extraordinary barrage of attacks and even some friendly fire, has emerged greatly strengthened. The coup plotters, weak and disorganized by their own miscalculations, disgraced by their links to and affinity with a discredited past, are an undignified mess.
Worst. Coup. Ever.

Richard Seymour is a London-based author and broadcaster, most recently author of Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics. He has a PhD from the London School of Economics, and is online editor of Salvage.

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Filed under: empire watch, Europe, latest, UK
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physicsandmathsrevision
physicsandmathsrevision
Jul 13, 2016 11:49 AM

Quote: “…There is no racist conspiracy, for heaven’s sake. That’s just a childish diversion for fools and bigots….”
Can you please explain to this fool and bigot why a story like the below will NEVER get exposure on mainstream press or TV outlets?
http://www.mintpressnews.com/new-idf-chief-rabbi-says-soldiers-can-rape-arab-women-wartime-boost-morale/218362/

Bernard
Bernard
Jul 13, 2016 4:17 AM

Talking of Sayanim, the invasion of Iraq was 100 per cent the work of Zionist agents embedded in the US power structure. Saddam Hussein had to go because of his policy of paying compensation to Palestinians whose houses had been bulldozed by Israeli security forces in response to actions taken by their relatives in the Second Intifada which began in 2000 (remember that? – the first use of suicide bombing in the ME) and which had Israel desperate and scared shitless. Try finding that in the Chilcott report.

stuartbramhall
stuartbramhall
Jul 12, 2016 10:54 PM

I just heard the news a few hours ago. The Labour Party executive has just voted that Corbyn will automatically be included on the ballot without the endorsement of 51 MPs. I don’t think the Labour Party leadership had much choice with all the talk of Corbyn supporters splitting away to form a 3rd party.

hblinken
hblinken
Jul 11, 2016 6:38 PM

UK – Jeremy Corbyn regrets support for Hamas & Hezbollah
did he have to humble himself and they still kicked him when he was down!

Richard Le Sarcophage
Richard Le Sarcophage
Jul 12, 2016 1:04 AM
Reply to  hblinken

All they want is TOTAL obedience. Anything else is, of course, ‘antisemitism’.

physicsandmathsrevision
physicsandmathsrevision
Jul 12, 2016 1:48 AM

Savagely put … but unfortunately, I fear, accurate.

Seamus Padraig
Seamus Padraig
Jul 12, 2016 1:18 PM
Reply to  hblinken

I really hope Jezza doesn’t continue backing down every time they come after him. I appreciate the fact that his position in the party is still not very secure, so I am willing to cut him some slack for now. But sooner or later, he’s going to have to stand up to these unconscionable bullies.

physicsandmathsrevision
physicsandmathsrevision
Jul 11, 2016 1:24 PM

The Mandelson/Sainsbury/Levy/Sugar/Hodge faction could probably just about tolerate Corbyn’s left-wing mindset. What can NOT be tolerated, however, is his habit of treating Hezbollah and Hamas as if they are real human beings with genuine victimhood issues that require addressing. They would rather smash Labour into unfixable bits than tolerate this.
This element of Labour’s war is never mentioned.
I wonder why?
We are, however, allowed to be told that ‘Anti-Semitism’ is “a problem” inside the Labour Party.
Political Correctness (i.e. the Jewish FORBIDDING of opposition) is alive and well inside the Labour Party and even on this otherwise admirable site.
This reality, most unfortunately, DEFINES our political and media culture .. in fact it defines reality throughout the entire western world … and, if cowardice continues to rule, will define our collective destiny too … and this will be, most certainly, a disaster for anyone outside the dominant proto-tyrannical fold.
Ordinary Jewish people are NOT responsible for this. They are a shield behind which creditor and cultural oligarchs hide. They and the rest of the brainwashed masses (who do unfortunately support their real enemy) need to realise what is being done to them by this dominant elite and start demanding answers. Jews and the typical westerner have internalised the commands of their enemy.
Imposed TABOOS and HERESIES should not be tolerated. The reason we cannot debate certain issues (the Fractional Reserve banking scam, major terrorist outrages such as 9/11, human gas chambers) is because great lies must be protected in order that society proceeds from false assumptions (that serve the interests of the same revolutionary elite).
Our society is little different from the world of Medieval mind-control. All that’s missing are Satan-serving witches requiring execution. Opps, sorry … we’ve got them too…. ISIS/Daesh…. an entity WE created when we destroyed the richest country in Africa by arming the Islamic extremists we pretend to be fighting.

headrush69
headrush69
Jul 11, 2016 5:02 PM

Political Correctness (i.e. the Jewish FORBIDDING of opposition) is alive and well inside the Labour Party and even on this otherwise admirable site.
I don’t think that’s true at all. There is considerable criticism of the Israeli government on this site. How could it be otherwise when they and the US are intimately linked? Virtually every article criticises US influence over world affairs and if you go further and follow some of the references the Israelis soon pop up.
I’ve yet to see any directly antisemitic comments here either. I see that as a good thing, especially given the true meaning of the adjective.
I for one must say that the Israeli government is despicable in their actions and ideology. They were on the brink of being willingly given their homeland by the Arabs of the region. They couldn’t wait and just took it. The only country to recognise them at that point was the US.
Then to add insult to injury, they invaded Egypt!
Since that inauspicious start, nothing they’ve done has engendered trust of faith in their agenda.
Is that too politically correct?

physicsandmathsrevision
physicsandmathsrevision
Jul 11, 2016 5:17 PM
Reply to  headrush69

The article fails to point out that the war against Corbyn is essentially Jewish…. as is just about every “centrist” initiative in this country.

headrush69
headrush69
Jul 11, 2016 5:23 PM

That’s true. But I think the article doesn’t go into the “who” very deeply at all. It’s more concerned with the complete failure and disorganisation of the plotters given their previous practice at media manipulation. That they used the antisemitic approach and still failed is worthy of discussion in itself.

Catte
Catte
Jul 11, 2016 6:30 PM

What does “essentially Jewish” mean? That all Jews are anti-Corbyn? That all anti-Corbynites are Jewish? No, of course not.
I suspect you’ll say that “Jewish money” is behind the coup. Which will turn out to mean Wall St/Big Bank money. Because of course many banks are owned or run by Jews.
So, what is your claim intended to clarify or convey?
Do you consider the fact these anti-Corbynites may be Jewish to be more pertinent to this issue than the fact they are wealthy?
Do you think non-Jewish elites are less of a threat to democracy and freedom than their Jewish counterparts?
If not, what benefit do you see in dividing this issue along racial rather than wealth-accumulation lines?

Richard Le Sarcophage
Richard Le Sarcophage
Jul 12, 2016 1:14 AM
Reply to  headrush69

‘Antisemitism’ is a complete invention, a device designed to cow and intimidate, and vilify any who dare criticise Israel’s barbaric behaviour and contempt for the true ‘International Community’. The manner in which ENTIRELY spurious accusations of ‘antisemitism’ are being used to attack Corbyn and his allies, with the full complicity of ‘Labour’ figures whose first allegiance is plainly to Israel and the entire Rightwing MSM, tells you where real power resides in the UK and the West as a whole. Follow the money, the political ‘contributions’ and retirement rewards like those that made Blairzebub a multi-millionaire. Needless to say, Judeophobia, the hatred of all Jews no matter what their character or behaviour, just because they are Jews, is odious and stupid. Just like Islamophobia, but the Rightwing MSM tells us that such hatred of Moslems does not exist, while we swim in an ocean of ‘antisemitism’, all opinion polls to the contrary being conveniently ignored.

Catte
Catte
Jul 12, 2016 2:01 AM

Anti-semitism is an invention?
You aren’t exactly building a strong baseline of credibility here you know 😕

physicsandmathsrevision
physicsandmathsrevision
Jul 12, 2016 2:19 AM
Reply to  Catte

From Protocol 9 of the great “forgery” … so says David Aaronovitch anyway
… THEIR ANTI-SEMITISM IS INDISPENSABLE TO US FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF OUR LESSER BRETHREN. I will not enter into further explanations, for this matter has formed the subject of repeated discussions amongst us …
Someone in the late 1800’s seemed to think that without ‘anti-Semitism’ Jews themselves might be of a mind to recognise how they are being abused by their OWN leadership. Thank God for the likes of Gilad Atzmon, Israel Shamir, Paul Eisen etc..
I hate reproducing this stuff .. it’s horrible … but how do you make an argument to someone who willfully ignores available evidence, never mind the teachings of the man our culture used to recognise as ‘The Messiah’?

Catte
Catte
Jul 12, 2016 2:33 AM

This is becoming a debate about semantics. And not a very intelligent one. Anti-semitism might be – at root – too broad or inaccurate, or even an “invented” term (as if all terms are not invented by someone). But everyone knows what the word is used to convey in popular usage. Rightly or wrongly it’s used to convey “Judeophobia” as Richard calls it. Which is, as he also says, inexcusable.
Having heard you out and taken the trouble to discuss things with you, I think it’s now clear your “analysis” as presented seems to devolve upon little more than crass and incoherent notions of racism toward Jewish people. As such it’s intellectually, ethically and politically worthless. Please don’t waste more of your or our time on it.

Richard Le Sarcophage
Richard Le Sarcophage
Jul 12, 2016 5:34 AM
Reply to  Catte

If you’d read my argument you would see that I differentiated between the ‘antisemitism’ device, which even Israeli politicians admit is a propaganda canard invented to intimidate and vilify opponents of Israeli crime and Jewish bad behaviour, and ‘Judeophobia’, the real category, the hatred of all Jews simply because they are Jews, which, of course, is wicked and stupid like all such hatreds. ‘Antisemitism’ explicitly declares ALL criticism of ALL behaviour by ANY Jew to be illegitimate and only motivated by a senseless hatred based mostly on envy. It implicitly asserts that Jews, unique (as ever) among all human groups are incapable of bad behaviour, even error, that would be justifiably condemnable. Or as a Jewish Holocaust survivor once observed, ‘Antisemites used to be people who hated Jews, but today they are the people who the Jews hate’. I hope I’ve cleared that up for you.

Catte
Catte
Jul 11, 2016 5:20 PM

This site has no problem with critiquing the government of Israel, and we deplore those on both sides who seek to conflate such criticism with anti-semitism. Unfortunately your comment does just that when it describes the “Jewish FORBIDDING of opposition”. If you don’t want the issue clouded with overtones of racism, then don’t use racial definitions in place of political definitions.

physicsandmathsrevision
physicsandmathsrevision
Jul 11, 2016 5:27 PM
Reply to  Catte

The Cultural Marxism in which we are drowning is almost entirely a Jewish invention. We are controlled by lies and taboos. Reference to Jewish power and domination over our politics being one such element of the political correctness we are meant to observe. The only things worth saying are those we are forbidden from saying. Organised Jewry has constructed the mental prison in which we find ourselves. Therefore saying so is NECESSARY.

headrush69
headrush69
Jul 11, 2016 5:53 PM

Yes, saying so is necessary. But, using inflammatory language doesn’t help, it just gets offensive.
Not all who follow the Jewish faith are culpable for Israeli actions, just as most Muslims are not terrorists and most Christians aren’t fundamental wackjobs.
So using the blanket terms jew or jewry doesn’t do much for your argument. Attack the people concerned, preferably by name and shine a light on their actions. Many Israelis deplore their governments actions, as many British deplore our politicians, and I wouldn’t expect many other countries to differ in that respect. It bugs me that I’m associated with our governments actions simply by dint of being born here, but no one spits the word “British” at me and then attacks my entire way of life.

physicsandmathsrevision
physicsandmathsrevision
Jul 11, 2016 6:31 PM
Reply to  headrush69

The ‘anti-Semitism’ curse is used to discourage criticism or even mention of the Jewish power that blights our civilisation, enslaves us in debt and mires us in perpetual war. What euphemism do you suggest we should use when we are trying to expose the reality of the racist conspiracy that dominates just a out everything we rage against?

headrush69
headrush69
Jul 11, 2016 6:47 PM

What euphemism do you suggest we should use…
How about none? Use peoples names and political affiliation. That is sufficient. Raging against a whole religions membership is exactly what the assholes hide behind. You lose the argument immediately when you speak as you do.

Richard Le Sarcophage
Richard Le Sarcophage
Jul 12, 2016 1:25 AM
Reply to  headrush69

You’re quite correct. Many decent UK Jews abhor the filthy tactics used to tar Corbyn, a life-long anti-racist, and friend of Jews as an ‘antisemite’, but they are suppressed and the MSM narrative is that ALL Jews are Likudniks, totally supporting Israel, that moral beacon and ‘Light Unto the Nations’, cowering in their homes, frightened by marauding gangs of ‘antisemites’. What that does, and what the moral cowardice of those afraid of allowing a free and honest discussion of Jewish elite power in the West, particularly the Anglosphere, does is simply encourage Israeli intransigence, aggression and barbarity, and the arrogant presumption of omnipotence and total impunity of the Israel Lobbies in the West. Forty years of this power wielding has destroyed several Middle Eastern countries, killed several million innocents, and left Israel feared and despised around the world, a situation that suits the goy-hating Israeli and Diaspora extremists from Netanyahoo down, but does the Jewish people no good whatsoever. Of course, in fact, it does just the opposite.

Seamus Padraig
Seamus Padraig
Jul 12, 2016 12:24 PM
Reply to  headrush69

“Not all who follow the Jewish faith are culpable for Israeli actions …”
I think physics already made much the same point earlier:

Ordinary Jewish people are NOT responsible for this. They are a shield behind which creditor and cultural oligarchs hide. They and the rest of the brainwashed masses (who do unfortunately support their real enemy) need to realise what is being done to them by this dominant elite and start demanding answers. Jews and the typical westerner have internalised the commands of their enemy.

No sane, fair-minded person would blame all Jews indiscriminately for the actions of an elite, just as no sane, fair-minded person should ever blame all whites for the actions of Hitler. It’s just not right.
But physics and some of others here have a point: we (society, that is) have allowed the fear of hurting some people’s tender little feelings to distort, subvert, and in many cases, render impossible a frank and necessary discussion of a variety of critical issues–such as what’s happening in finance, media, academia, and foreign policy. All of these are fields were persons of Jewish descent are vastly overrepresented relative to their numbers in the general population, and we think that at least partly explains some of the strange developments in these fields over the last generation or so.
What’s happening to Corbyn is just a typical example. There is no evidence whatsoever that Corbyn is a judeophobe or any kind of racist at all. But he is a sincere advocate for Palestinian rights, and that is what’s driving this bogus narrative about ‘out of control anti-semitism in the Labour Party’. This is an attempt to silence and/or intimidate him–and by extension, us–into backing down on Palestine. (And in case you think that Corbyn has met with Hezbollah and Hamas representatives just to ‘stick it to the Jews’ as our thought-controllers would say, I would like to remind you all that he also met with IRA people back in the 80s when it was distinctly unfashionable to do so in Britain.)

Catte
Catte
Jul 12, 2016 12:41 PM
Reply to  Seamus Padraig

You acknowledge the “antisemitism” allegation is used to try and silence rational debate and criticism of Israel and its genocidal fascist policies towards its own citizens. Yet you think the best response to that is to complain about how many Jews there are in public life?
You don’t realise you have just handed over the moral high ground to those wanting to make this all about race?

physicsandmathsrevision
physicsandmathsrevision
Jul 12, 2016 1:32 PM
Reply to  Seamus Padraig

Thanks Seamus. You put that better than I did.

Catte
Catte
Jul 11, 2016 6:16 PM

Your sophistry is staggering. At one and the same time you seek to distance yourself from racism by claiming that “ordinary Jewish people” are not to be blamed, but then invoke the race of those you consider responsible for Cultural Marxism in a way that can only obscure real issues and pander to lowest common denominator forces of hatred.
In focusing on the race of these alleged perps rather than their economic or political allegiance you are performing the same service for the ruling elites as are those currently turning non-violent protests into race riots or those taking pot shots at both sides on Maidan Square – fracturing us along racial/gender/cultural lines, turning us against each other instead of uniting us against our oppressors.
If you want to criticise Israel, cultural Marxism or any other state or ideology then please feel free to do so here. But racist reductionism is not encouraged – because it serves only those interests that already have enough people doing their bidding.
We haven’t deleted your comments though, while many sites would, because we believe in open debate.

physicsandmathsrevision
physicsandmathsrevision
Jul 11, 2016 7:13 PM
Reply to  Catte

It needs saying that the forces promoting ‘anti-racism’ are themselves rabid racists. Anyone who has studied Cultural Marxism should understand this. The charge of rabid racism does not apply to all or even most Jews but distinctly DOES to those at the powerful core of the group who are God only knows what … Satanists or something.
Treating these things as merely a struggle between ideas ( though it is that too) plays into the hands of the oligarchs who hide behind the Jewish people. Respecting the curse is playing by their rules, a fight in which, from their perspective, there are NO RULES only INTERESTS.
Enough already. I expect to get banned for saying these things which, to me, confirms the very point I am trying to make (and often forbidden from making).
If there was not a major problem, the issue of what can and cannot be discussed would not arise.

Catte
Catte
Jul 11, 2016 7:47 PM

We don’t ban people here. We just urge them to try and see reason 🙂
Just ask yourself what you hope to achieve by accusing a race of racism.

physicsandmathsrevision
physicsandmathsrevision
Jul 11, 2016 8:05 PM
Reply to  Catte

If you pay close attention that’s not what I’m doing. I’m saying the idea of anti racism is being used to protect a group of people who hide behind ‘the Jews’, who, like ourselves, are witless victims of this ruling oligarchy. This group are at war with humanity. Their self-seeking game playing is rendered into a kind of racism by the observable fact that the visible face of this monstrous bunch us over-populated by people who present themselves as Jews.

Catte
Catte
Jul 11, 2016 9:04 PM

I am paying close attention, and that is why I know you are saying no such thing! You have repeatedly claimed “the Jews” as an implicated group in phrases such as “organised Jewry” and an “essentially Jewish” move to unseat Corbyn. If this is your idea of refuting racist tropes then you need to rethink your approach.
Yes, racism is being used as a diversion – so stop allowing yourself to be diverted!
No more to say on this matter, and I really don’t have time for what is becoming a witless display of empty rhetoric

physicsandmathsrevision
physicsandmathsrevision
Jul 11, 2016 10:05 PM
Reply to  Catte

In the context readers should easily understand that the reference is to Jews within the elite who appear to dominate that elite.
What you’re saying is “avoid this carefully prepared trap” rather than expose or challenge it.
i.e. let them continue to win.

Catte
Catte
Jul 12, 2016 1:48 AM

You need to explain why you believe the fact they are Jews is more important than the fact they are elites. Are you saying non-Jewish elites are better? Are you saying being exploited by Jewish billionaires is worse than being exploited by Gentile billionaires? What significance are you attaching here, and what justifies your claim it’s not simply racism – ie prejudicial conduct toward human being based on nothing bu their ethnicity?

Vaska
Vaska
Jul 11, 2016 7:01 PM

The “cultural Marxism” trope, a staple on certain English-language Russian websites such as Russia Insider, completely fails to come to grips with the actual cultural trends in the West of the past 40 years or so. It in fact obfuscates both what the infamous “culture wars” in the USA (and in a much milder version in Canada, too) were caused by and the intellectual forces behind them, all of which derived from the superficially liberative French structuralist turn in the 1960s that culminated in the doctrines of deconstruction and the subsequent dissemination (through our institutions of higher learning/intellectual training) of a most thorough-going epistemological relativism the West has ever known. It constitutes the hidden ideology of power today.
The social and indeed political importance of what may otherwise appear to be merely academic matters lies in the fact that these doctrines provide the intellectual grounds on which the currently practicing generations of Western journalists, diplomats, economists, jurists, sociologists, historians, etc. have learned to deny the very possibility of truth — with the real-world consequences we now see in our mass media and in the behaviour of our political elites each and every day. Marxism in any of its forms has absolutely nothing to do with it.

physicsandmathsrevision
physicsandmathsrevision
Jul 11, 2016 7:38 PM
Reply to  Vaska

The editor of a magazine called Culture Wars, E. Michael Jones traces the intellectual development of these ideas in the USA during the post WWII world. He calls his YouTube series , ‘Goy History of the World’s as I remember and though he does not refer to Marxism this development has everything to do with the Work of the Frankfurt School of Psychology. These people were Marxists .. but not the original kind of economic Marxists. They worked out how societies could be overcome and centrally dominated by every kind of cultural divide-and-rule. Mass migration, anti-racism laws, promotion of homosexuality, identity politics and every other way of undermining genuinely representative politics was invented by these people. It is fair to say they have more or less won the war they have waged against their unknowing quarry … that’s us.
It is not the morality they have promoted that is grossly problematic. I am against racism, nationalism , prejudice against gays etc….. What is intolerable is the provable malign intention behind their faux-morality. These people are Satan imitating God. The clearest proof of the wickedness of the oligarchs promoting this can only be proven by open and fair debate on issues we are forbidden from discussing. 9/11, 7/7 other false flag Gladio events and most astonishingly (I called the person who told me this ‘mad’) the existence of human gas chambers during WW2. There weren’t any, as scientific analysis, contemporary documentary evidence and the Bletchley Park decrypts fulsomely demonstrate. The only reason to believe in these obscene fictions are confessions extracted under torture and from the dead who could not deny the words attributed to them, the declarations of provable liars … oh, and 70 + years of the most and well-funded intensive propaganda imaginable…actually, not quite true … the nightmare fantasy was only launched against the public mind in earnest in the late 1960’s. I remember it well. Hitler said that if you want to get away with a lie it really has to be a very big one.

Vaska
Vaska
Jul 13, 2016 12:37 AM

The Frankfurt School has never had the influence which the French (post-)structuralists, especially the ones associated with Heidegger’s brand of existentialism, have had on North American and British academia. Moreover, all of the main members of the Frankfurt School were culturally fairly conservative. It was Marcuse who coined the term “repressive desublimation” and Adorno who wrote “Minima Moralia”.

Seamus Padraig
Seamus Padraig
Jul 12, 2016 11:58 AM

Brilliant comment, physics! Thanks.

leruscino
leruscino
Jul 11, 2016 11:59 AM

Blairites need put in a locked cage & taken out to sea – when nobody is looking & if the cage went overboard ?? So be it!
That said Corbyn really has his work cut out with the MSM utterly in the hands of the Corporate Elite who created Blair & Thatcher equally for their ends.
Grass roots will save Corbyn as day by day the people awake to see the prospect of WW3 being shoved down our throats by MSM.
BREXIT showed that 52% are awake !!

Charles McLeod
Charles McLeod
Jul 11, 2016 8:37 AM

I certainly wouldn’t describe JC as ‘hard left’ or a ‘radical socialist’. We’ve become so used to centre, right of centre, blue Labour / Blairites and just plain right wing politics in the UK.

Harry Chokko
Harry Chokko
Jul 11, 2016 8:14 AM

@reinertorheit
To quote your own well-considered and erudite words … “Got a point to make about [Seymour and Corbyn], have you, reinertorheit, you little arse??? ”
Grow up and engage in a debate using ideas, arguments, and opinions … but get off of the name-calling cheap schoolyard nonsense. And posting your bile three times in a row while contributing nothing to the dialogue surely must be some form of achievement.

reinertorheit
reinertorheit
Jul 12, 2016 12:16 AM
Reply to  Harry Chokko

Riding to the rescue of your cheap smear chum Seymour, are you? Do let us know when you and Seymour have something more than a factless gullt-by-association claim about Blair and Putin? Or just shut your ignorant Russophobic neocon gob, Harry.

proximity1
proximity1
Jul 11, 2016 8:00 AM

Only in the weird wake of Thatcher-&-Blair-ite politics is Jeremy Corbyn something from the “hard Left.” He’s utterly moderate in his mildly socialist views. Most of post -war British policies from ’46 to ’68 are to the Left of Corbyn.

Mike Parr
Mike Parr
Jul 11, 2016 1:12 PM
Reply to  proximity1

I agree, his policies seem pretty standard stuff for that period – which shows how sick the Uk body politic has become – perhaps it is time to turf out those that have been corrupted by the Westminister bubble.

joekano76
joekano76
Jul 10, 2016 11:39 PM

Reblogged this on TheFlippinTruth.

reinertorheit
reinertorheit
Jul 10, 2016 11:30 PM

Here, indeed, is a man who has been able to see the good not only in President Bush, but also in Mubarak, Putin,

That must by why Blair personally authorised the ‘refugee’ status of Akhmed Zakayev, the Chechen terrorist wanted in Russia for over one hundred murders in his own right – not even counting those in which he assisted. This unlovable louse is now living in leafy Wimbledon – despite being wanted for machine-gunning women in a Russian maternity hospital. He has repeatedly broken the terms of his refugee status by using the WImbledon flat and facilities to claim responsibility for numerous terrorist atrocities. But Tony Blair just winked at all of those.
Richard – you are a know-nothing twat. I suggest you don’t write about Russia any longer.

reinertorheit
reinertorheit
Jul 10, 2016 11:13 PM

Here, indeed, is a man who has been able to see the good not only in President Bush, but also in Mubarak, Putin

Got a point to make about Putin, have you, Seymour, you little arse??? No-one has ever heard of you, or the non-existent TV channel you claim to report for, you pathetic little worm. Putin’s Russia is in Syria today, saving your fucking arse from being blown up. So fuck you, Richard Tosser Seymour. Fuck you.

reinertorheit
reinertorheit
Jul 10, 2016 11:10 PM

So. Jeremy Dustbyn merits being Labour Leader on the basis of not having supported an illegal war in which millions died. Meanwhile the scrote is lining up to support NATO, the EU, EU sanctions against Russia, and TTIP – and we are supposed to be overjoyed to have Dustbyn as Labour Leader?
You are asking the wrong question.
Labour is finished.. This gravy-train rabble of expense-gobbling freaks is not fit to represent the British people. Not one of them. And especially not the war-whore Angela Eagle.
John Gutbucket Prescott – “Lord” Prescott, as we are supposed to call this greasy obese scum – tells us (now) that the Iraq War was apparently “illegal”. Strange that he did not notice this when he was Deputy Leader at the time Tony Blair was invading Iraq, isn’t it?
Come on, wheel out Eddie the Shit Izzard in his purple dress again? That’s just what British voters are ready to support – a talentless war-mongering tosser transvestite, who is as funny as a dose of meningitis.

Seamus Padraig
Seamus Padraig
Jul 11, 2016 1:17 PM
Reply to  reinertorheit

” Meanwhile the scrote is lining up to support NATO, the EU, EU sanctions against Russia, and TTIP …”
Is all that really true? It’s kind of unusual for Trident opponents to be big fans of NATO. And where did you hear about Corbyn backing TTIP? That would be really shocking. I haven’t heard that at all.

Bendy Beauty
Bendy Beauty
Jul 11, 2016 7:26 PM
Reply to  Seamus Padraig

I suspect he heard it in his fevered imagination… Corbyn has outright rejected TTIP only very recently http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/corbyn-has-rejected-ttip-even-as-he-campaigns-to-remain-and-the-eu-needs-to-listen-a7063176.html

Seamus Padraig
Seamus Padraig
Jul 12, 2016 8:09 PM
Reply to  Bendy Beauty

Thanks for the link, Bendy.

reinertorheit
reinertorheit
Jul 12, 2016 12:18 AM
Reply to  Seamus Padraig

Jeremy Dustbin was campaigning unequivocally for Britain to remain in the EU. That put him in the same group as Jens Stoltenberg, General Secretary of NATO, and in alongside the TTIP lobbyists.

Seamus Padraig
Seamus Padraig
Jul 12, 2016 8:14 PM
Reply to  reinertorheit

No, reiner, it’s not exactly the same thing. There are plenty of people in Europe who are pro-EU but anti-TTIP. Morever, just because you leave the EU doesn’t automatically mean you’re safe from TTIP. I mean, the US is a party to TTIP and they’re not in EU, right?
As far as NATO is concerned, I went to WikiPedia and answered my own question:

Corbyn would like to pull the United Kingdom out of NATO,[219] but has acknowledged that there is not an appetite for it among the public and instead intends to push for NATO to “restrict its role”.

So I guess we could call him a ‘NATO-skeptic’.

reinertorheit
reinertorheit
Jul 13, 2016 2:40 AM
Reply to  Seamus Padraig

Wrong, it’s exactly the same thing. Corbyn was campaigning for the EU on the same day that NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg gave a televised speech ordering Britons to vote for remaining in Europe – or else the EU would be overrun by invading Russians.
Corbyn is a sack of NATO-loving shit, no different to Tony Bliar. As you post yourself, he is more than ready to reach a accommodation with the NATO scum. Just like Tony Bliar.

physicsandmathsrevision
physicsandmathsrevision
Jul 13, 2016 9:23 AM
Reply to  reinertorheit

Quote: “…Corbyn is a sack of NATO-loving shit, no different to Tony Bliar. As you post yourself, he is more than ready to reach a accommodation with the NATO scum. Just like Tony Bliar.”
Umm, certain, umm lack of rigour (maybe, perhaps) to this post.
Is Corbyn ‘a sack of TRIDENT-loving shit’? Does his attitude on this still leave him defined (in your universe) as a “NATO-loving shit”?
Actually, to be fair, I’ve discussed this with my friend Jeremy and you are mostly correct.
Yes. He does love NATO.
I can reveal as an absolute fact that he fully supports the contemporary structures of warring sub-global blocs provided all front lines during the coming WW3 are manned by politicians armed with rubber truncheons.
There.
Now you know.

Seamus Padraig
Seamus Padraig
Jul 13, 2016 1:02 PM
Reply to  reinertorheit

I’m willing to give Corbyn a crack at being Labour Party leader for a while before I judge. I can’t put a man who opposed the Iraq War in the same category with the Blair Creature.

kevin morris
kevin morris
Jul 10, 2016 10:23 PM

I agree with almost everything you say, but in my humble opinion an important error has crept into your viewpoint.
Labour needs communicators- of course it does, but if the party has any chance of achieving government again, it needs actually to listen to those it has ignored for many years. If not, there is a real danger that UKIP will sweep the board, The party was formed to represent the interests of ordinary working people. I f it doesn’t learn to do so once more, Labour is finished, whoever leads it.

Vaska
Vaska
Jul 11, 2016 7:41 PM
Reply to  kevin morris

Corbyn is very popular among UKIP supporters, actually; Labour may very well get their votes if he remains its leader at the next general election.

kevin morris
kevin morris
Jul 12, 2016 9:58 AM
Reply to  Vaska

I agree, but there is a huge difference between ‘being popular’ and presenting good reasons for them to vote for Labour. Most of those UKIP supporters once voted Labour and know what policy changes need to be made within Labour for there to be anything like a wholesale return to the party.
A good friend of mine and a right winger for the past 35 years after years spent in Spain enlightened him on the way denouncements to the anarchist police were used to settle old scores during the civil war there. He has some fondness for Corbyn and actually shook Jeremy’s hand when he met him on the platform of Preston station some weeks ago- but will that recognition of Jeremy’s thoroughgoing decency become transformed into a willingness to vote Labour? Somehow I doubt it

Theodorakis
Theodorakis
Jul 10, 2016 7:17 PM

I hope this gives a chance for a Labour renewal and growth. UK’s elite was ostentatiously battered by behind-the-scene forces, just look at the red cards Boris Johnson, Farage and eventually Cameron got. Such a complete wipeout is an obvious attempt to keep the game going, while causing total cognitive overload in the public. And some useful on-stage chaos.
I hope Corbyn survives this cleanup. We know it can be deadly, RIP Jo Cox. And I hope the puppet masters get their reckoning.

bevin
bevin
Jul 10, 2016 6:32 PM

“…The shadow Cabinet has become more left wing, more multiracial, and more female…”
Old habits die hard: ‘more left wing’ suggests political questions, of interest to working people generally, are involved.
‘more multi racial, more female remind us that the newly minted Doctor Seymour is still up to his ears in the Blairite nonsense of identity politics.
The likelihood is that, left to themselves, the Constituency Parties will choose candidates on the basis of their commitment to socialism, their personal character and their connections with the people they represent, the MPs that Blair and Mandelson forced on the party were both ‘female,’ like Harriet Harman who insisted that Labour abstain from voting against cuts in the living standards of the poor, and multi racial, like Chuka Ummuna who is both a neo-liberal and an elitist.
Identity politics needs to be put back in its box: Seymour has the demonstrated agility to change his political positions: this is another for him to somersault on.

Bendy Beauty
Bendy Beauty
Jul 11, 2016 7:31 PM
Reply to  bevin

I think the pointing out of the change in make-up of his shadow cabinet since the “coup” is an important retort to the Blairites who were themselves pushing the BS agenda that his previous shadow cabinet wasn’t ‘female’ enough. It’s ironic that it’s more varied without them and a nice poke in their respective eyes.

Amer Hudson
Amer Hudson
Jul 10, 2016 6:30 PM

Good summary. But I fear you have let off lightly the co-plotters in the the media: they were instrumental in instigating, disseminating, and spinning this coup. And it isn’t over yet. The attempts will go on. The neo-liberal and Zionist supporting mainstream press simply can’t let Corbyn be. And it is they, not the rebel, pigmy Labour MPs, that are the real issue here.

Richard Le Sarcophage
Richard Le Sarcophage
Jul 11, 2016 4:25 AM
Reply to  Amer Hudson

Absolutely. The centrality of false and vicious accusations of ‘antisemitism’, the complete congruity of the putschists inside the PLP with ‘Labour Friends of Israel’, and the bile directed at Corbyn by Israel-Firsters in the MSM tells you that Israel and its sayanim and Sabbat Goyim will NEVER tolerate ANY Western leader independent of Israeli control, or who treats Israel’s victims as human beings. I imagine that some Kidon team is already training for the eventuality of Corbyn surviving the attempted coup.