65

Still Running Wild

W Stephen Gilbert

The issue of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party has not gone away, nor will it. It first arose ahead of the local elections in 2016, the first electoral test of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. The local elections of 2017 were subsumed under the general election campaign, but the matter recurred before the local elections this year. There are further such elections next May, when it may be expected to resurface with new supposed outrages from the past.

There is a very simple reason why this will happen. As a means to damage Corbyn and to weaken his chance of leading the party into the next general election, it is a proven success. It is very tricky for him to refute decisively: denial is readily twisted into the ineffectual state of being deemed to be psychologically “in denial”. Corbyn’s long-established support for Palestinian self-determination is readily reframed as opposition to Israel and then parlayed into an existential threat to the Jewish state. His widely recognised reputation both as an anti-racist and as a straight talker – two of his great strengths – is readily tarnished as the charges against him accumulate. His conception of leadership is based on democracy, justice and a hearing for all, which stays his hand when he might reasonably wield a big stick, decry his enemies and expel alleged wrongdoers. Instead, he turns the other cheek, even to those who abuse him to his face, eschews personal criticism of others and insists on the party bureaucracy dispensing discipline according to the regulations.

Because all civilised people agree that anti-Semitism is morally bankrupt, any suggestion of it is apt to generate heat ahead of light. Where it occurs, it must be condemned, opposed and curtailed. And of course it does occur, in the Labour Party as everywhere else. But every Labour supporter knows in her heart that Labour’s history has depended more extensively on Jews that has that of any other political organisation in Britain, that to suggest that anti-Semitism is “rampant” and “endemic” in the Labour movement is a calumny intended only to damage its leader and which, in its repercussions, hurts the whole party. It is further overlooked that false accusations may be just as wounding and resented as the enmity and detriment of prejudice.

Because of the Palestinian dimension, Jews who do not support a two-state solution do not support Corbyn. There are also Jewish organisations like the Board of Deputies and the UK Jewish press (under its current editors) that actively support the Conservative Party. For such as these, contention within Labour is its own reward. By the same token, there are Labour MPs who are exploiting the Jews for their own ends, leeching off the emotion of the anti-Semitism paroxysm unleashed over the summer.

That this is opportunism is clear enough. Some of us recall the vile attacks in the press made on Ed Miliband when he was party leader, attacks the anti-Semitism of which was barely confined to a subtext. The most naked defamation was against Miliband’s late father as “the man who hated Britain”, a nation which, as a refugee, he had served fully in World War II, unlike the father of the editor of the Daily Mail. What we do not recall is any sustained outcry from Labour MPs, any demonstrations on Fleet Street, any confrontation wherein Paul Dacre was called an anti-Semite to his face. Many now sitting on the backbenches then served in Miliband’s shadow team; though they found him a bit too left wing, they thought they would be able to rein him in in government. Attacks on him kept him in his place for their purposes. Corbyn is much more of a threat to their retirement directorships in big pharma, academy schools and outsourced jails. He must be stopped.

I am told that I cannot understand the ‘hurt’ caused by the alleged hatred in the Labour Party because I am not Jewish. As a gay man, I do know what being a pariah is like. 78 nations and territories presently make male homosexuality illegal and ten of them punish it with the death penalty. Yes, the Islamophobes concede, but look what happens to faggots in Palestine: they get thrown off buildings. No, that’s Daesh in Iraq and the Levant. There is no record of such horrors in Palestine. It’s true that in Gaza, homosexuality is illegal, a hangover from the laws introduced under the British mandate. Unless they agree to being coerced into spying against their own people, Gazan gays entering Israel are routinely returned. In the West Bank, though, a very light touch is applied over sexual transgression, legally if not socially. Following Jordan’s lead, same sex relations were decriminalised there 67 years ago, 16 years earlier than in Britain and 37 before Israel. It’s a fact that the West Bank is considerably more sexually progressive than, say, Northern Ireland.

I don’t know how many countries presently have laws against being Jewish – none that I know of. But I do know that neofascism is on the march in many parts of the world – via Pegida in Germany, Front National in France, xenophobes and other kinds of fundamentalist in government in Italy and several mittelEurop countries. This is very different and very much more serious than what is actually happening in the Labour Party or indeed anywhere else in Britain; serious for Jews and for LGBT people alike. Those who are concerned about the wellbeing of Jews in both Israel and the diaspora face much greater threats among the nations in whose community most of the previously evoked MPs wish to stay. As prime minster, Corbyn would lead our country against these eruptions as a matter of principle. That’s what his backbench enemies would deny us.

These are unexpectedly comforting days for the banking class. The left can no longer safely characterise the money people as pantomime villains because Jeremy Corbyn has criticised them, and as all bankers are apparently Jewish and Corbyn’s every observation is more or less anti-Semitic, it follows that capitalism has become a sacred cow. Such inconvenient facts as that Corbyn’s remarks about being a threat to bankers were first made last year and that his particular target was Morgan Stanley, well-known to be a gentile company, do not detain those who wish to blackguard Corbyn and neither should they detain us. Justice is not relevant to this matter.

By extension, musical theatre is also now impervious to question. All the major composers and lyricists of Broadway and Hollywood song and dance were Jewish (save for Cole Porter) and by association the British contributors to the form, as well as Lionel Bart who was indeed Jewish, are now protected, however goyish they might be. Scoff at Jesus Christ Superstar or Half a Sixpence at your peril. And then of course clothes are not referred to as shmotte for nothing. Have a pop at someone’s outfit and you’re sure to be hauled up in front of the disciplinary committee of the Jewish Tailors’ Association, no matter that your victim was the House of Givenchy or Ozwald Boateng.

Who would have guessed that speaking out about the denizens of high finance, the musical or haute couture might become politically incorrect? Truly, we live in strange times.

W Stephen Gilbert is the author of Jeremy Corbyn – Accidental Hero [Eyewear] and a delegate to the Labour Party Conference

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Tom
Tom
Sep 25, 2018 9:31 PM

I have seen bullies at work in ordinary life and often their tactic is to embarrass victims with fake, but vaguely plausible, claims so that the victim submits for fear of the smears being repeated. Most of the voters probably don’t even really know what anti-semitism is, still less care about it – but I wonder whether the smear campaign isn’t in fact aimed at unsettling and cowing Corbyn himself, on the matter of anti-racism that he deeply cares about? Either way, I hope this vicious, McCarthyite campaign gets the response it deserves at the next election.

Zoltan Jorovic
Zoltan Jorovic
Sep 24, 2018 10:51 PM

What the media and the chattering classes seem not to get is that the majority of the British population are just not interested in this whole “scandal” or “controversy”. Most really don’t care because a) they are not affected one way or the other, b) they can see through a smear when it is as heavily laid on as this is c) most aren’t jewish d) the majority actually have a sense of fair play and can see that Israel is mistreating and oppressing the Palestinians and tend to favour those who support the underdog and e)they are bored by it.

harry stotle
harry stotle
Sep 24, 2018 4:39 PM

“Because all civilised people agree that anti-Semitism is morally bankrupt, any suggestion of it is apt to generate heat ahead of light.” – that’s because the word is imbued with so much baggage it is virtually impossible to discuss it rationally.

In the attack against Corbyn it is obviously employed as a form of emotional leverage.

The reasons are two fold – primarily as a means to enable our right wing establishment to contiue their decades long project of asset stripping (since Corbyn may rock the boat in this regard, however marginal this effect might be) – and secondly to deflect attention away fom human rights abuses in Palestine.

Once upon a time Jews were brutally persecuted but this is simply no longer true certainly in Israel or the US or western Europe although the orchestrated campaign against Corbyn may run the risk of stirring up latent antipathies.

George Cornell
George Cornell
Sep 24, 2018 6:55 PM
Reply to  harry stotle

And maybe it should Harry. No one should have to endure this kind of whispering simpering character assassination, nor should they be expected to turn the other cheek.
First they came for the opponents of Israel, then those who refused to let then get away with outrageous acts, then…

mog
mog
Sep 24, 2018 2:36 PM

Open Selection killed by the unions and the NEC.
Someone claiming to be a ‘trade union lawyer’ on Twitter states :

The position was unanimously agreed by the NEC at the request of Jeremy Corbyn . Momentum backed it. If the conference had voted down the rule and open selection had been put Unite would have voted for it. But that did not happen.

twitter.com/niamh1517/status/1044151861845139456

Basically the entire membership are pissed off, betrayed, many will not campaign for their MPs in the election that is currently being wargamed. Before the conference the sentiment was that this decision would make or break the Corbyn project. Last snap election (2017) there was not even time for trigger ballots, or even candidate selections. We might see the whole barrel of bad apples up for re-election.

How did this happen? Anyone?

BigB
BigB
Sep 24, 2018 3:13 PM
Reply to  mog

Conference, my friend, Conference. Compositing (or composting?) of member’s motions, NEC backroom committee dealing, union block voting …democracy in action …or inaction? 🙁

mog
mog
Sep 24, 2018 3:29 PM
Reply to  BigB

Composting….
…maybe they are mulched on JC’s allotment (?).
Rotten tomatoes all round.

mog
mog
Sep 24, 2018 3:32 PM
Reply to  BigB

Composting…
…maybe they are mulched on JC’s allotment (?).

Rotten tomatoes all round

BigB
BigB
Sep 24, 2018 3:29 PM
Reply to  mog

Anyway, Rosa Luxemburg pointed out the pitfalls of the parliamentary route to radical change a hundred years ago. It can’t be a criticism of you, because I made the same mistake myself: thinking, this time it will be different. If nothing else, it has been a radical education, or perhaps re-education in my case …because I said the same thing decades age – but I won’t be fooled again [cue Roger Daltrey!]

I’m now an advocate of a Gramscian/Luxembergian vanguard: even with all the pitfalls that entails. Otherwise we are waiting for Godot …or the “concentration camp and the graveyard” …and I ain’t quite ready for either yet!

mog
mog
Sep 24, 2018 3:37 PM
Reply to  BigB

I should know better.
Don’t fancy the camp either, but I am losing my concentration, and thinking of going and living in a field.

postkey
postkey
Sep 24, 2018 10:58 AM

In 2013 Jeremy Corbyn was one of just 25 MPs to sign an Early Day Motion calling on BBC Manchester to reverse its decision to cancel a Jewish community radio programme.

https://www.parliament.uk/edm/2012-13/195

However, ‘this’ has been ignored?

” John Mann details how Jeremy was told on a number of occasions what was happening to children in Islington, but like nearly everybody else Jeremy did not take appropriate action. ”
http://www.drsallybaker.com/uncategorized/close-your-eyes-and-make-a-wish/

“Jeremy’s election agent Derek Sawyer was a business partner of paedophile Derek Slade who was imprisoned for sex offences against boys (see post ‘Another Episode Of Friends’). The Islington whistleblower Dr Liz Davies maintains that she told Jeremy of the abuse of children in care in the Borough, but Jeremy did not act on her concerns.”
http://www.drsallybaker.com/uncategorized/the-turn-of-the-screw/

George cornell
George cornell
Sep 24, 2018 11:24 AM
Reply to  postkey

The anti-Semite nonsense about Corbyn is more of the “when did you stop beating your wife” sophistry favoured by elements of the MSM. Much has been written about how hard it is to prove a negative or disprove this kind of allegation. Before you can turn around, attack animals sift through all aspects of his life and if they find nothing but integrity, they are prepared to equate disgust with Israel to wanting all Jews exterminated.

It is very much like the endless recurring reports of anti-semitism being on the rise. According to the MSM, it is always on the rise. So much so, it has completely blocked any Jewish influence on governments, disadvantaged Jews so they are ailing financially and in need of handouts, eradicated all from positions of influence and power, and has enfeebled the capacity to support Israel?

postkey
postkey
Sep 24, 2018 4:21 PM
Reply to  George cornell

“YouGov polls show anti-Semitism in Labour has actually REDUCED DRAMATICALLY since Jeremy Corbyn became leader
By
 Tom D. Rogers
 –
 29th March 2018”
https://evolvepolitics.com/yougov-polls-show-anti-semitism-in-labour-has-actually-reduced-dramatically-since-jeremy-corbyn-became-leader/

George Cornell
George Cornell
Sep 24, 2018 6:43 PM
Reply to  postkey

Yes thanks, and when have you ever seen a story about its reduction in the MSM.?

mog
mog
Sep 24, 2018 9:16 AM

I actually have no problem, in principle, with Labour members pushing for a ‘people’s vote’ on Brexit, and if Corbyn supports his member led policy then I think that is democracy in action. I think it could happen too, as the party bureaucracy will facilitate it to happen (unlike open selection), and there are plenty of pro-Corbyn members who want out of Brexit. (I say ‘in principle’ because of course the whole thing is overlaid with layers of political shinanigans.)
I do though agree with those who say that it would be political suicide for Labour and that it will lead to political violence in the UK with Jacob RM at the helm. It would be time to join the gym and get some self defence training.
Some people think that democracy only works when people vote for what they personally want rather than what they think is best for most people. Sounds like the Left Hand Path to me.
The hall of mirrors just keeps getting wobblier.

BigB
BigB
Sep 24, 2018 10:44 AM
Reply to  mog

It would be post-democratic political suicide: not least because around 90 of the PLP are from Brexit constituencies …the party could implode. It is yet another spineless pandering to populism and mauvaise-foi alignment with the imperialist Master power principle: without taking time to build a genuine coalition of the oppressed (a la Freire).

Becoming a peripheralised corporate imperialist protectorate with no real autonomy or self-sovereignty: and a pan-EU (that is for the anglo-French and German unaccountable possessing classes) military and foreign policy is my fucking nightmare. I do not know what anyone else feels, but I saw a glimpse of that future-negating policy in action last week off Latakia. Never mind, it was my imagination, because we did not have a sub in the area …but my bad dream was a foreshadowing of the way it will be with a sub-imperial EU Military Unification and expanded inter-operable NATO terrorism. One morning we won’t wake up.

My “hand wringing” aside: perhaps we should just practice ‘democracy’, and enjoy these shortening Autumnal days …with not a care for the coming Winter?

mog
mog
Sep 24, 2018 11:23 AM
Reply to  BigB

I don’t have a dog in the fight.
On principle I support Leave on grounds of democratic deficit in EU system. Politically, I see no way out of EU to the Left, only to the Right, and that is not a path I want to go down. I didn’t cast a vote.
Labour voters were 65% Remain, and I suspect that was even higher in the membership. The medja and the PLP centrists obviously going to push for this this week, big time. The Bennite position in the party on Europe is still in a minority I would suggest.
So ‘democracy’ ?
I have been posting the UKColumn article about military unification around – h/t to you for that.
Mirrors facing mirrors.
It is like the antisemitism thing, there is no way out for them without a flat out confrontation with the UK (and EU) establishment, backed by a huge surge in active membership. Neither happening.

George cornell
George cornell
Sep 24, 2018 11:51 AM
Reply to  mog

Using a metaphor that comes from illegal dogfighting where the punters bet on a dog to kill its opponent and tear it to bits seems inappropriate, if you don’t mind me saying. I believe it is an Americanism to boot with redneck ?Texan origins. It has been used by populist politicians from places where it continues, to project the speaker as one of the people. I am sure that was not your intention.

rilme
rilme
Sep 24, 2018 12:37 PM
Reply to  George cornell

I don’t have a dog in this race.

mog
mog
Sep 24, 2018 1:31 PM
Reply to  George cornell

George,
No fan of any fighting or any blood sport.
But I wonder if the metaphor might prove accurate, say, in a year’s time.
If Brexit is stopped by Labour, the Liberals, the Greens, the SNP, the capitalist establishment, there will be blood.
Americanisms…..what ever next !

George Cornell
George Cornell
Sep 24, 2018 6:49 PM
Reply to  mog

Let’s hope for a bun fight instead, and I do have a bun in that fight.

Makropulos
Makropulos
Sep 24, 2018 8:34 AM

“Who would have guessed that speaking out about the denizens of high finance, the musical or haute couture might become politically incorrect?”

Not a surprise. The bastards have always shamelessly jumped on whatever horse happens to be deemed popular.

And as for the Labour/anti-Semitism blather not going away – well, of course it won’t. Nor will the “The Russians put Trump into power” blather or the “The Russians have launched a chemical attack on us” blather. We can be as sure of this as we can be sure that Blair will continue to grind out his “concern” over the airwaves.

RPD
RPD
Sep 24, 2018 6:42 AM

I suspected that Jeremy Corbyn was good. However, I underestimated the man … he must be the only one that I am aware of that can be both Pro-Semite and Anti-semite simultaneously. The Palestinians are Semites. The lineage of the pot-puree of Khazakian trolls and Eastern-Europeans might not be.

Robyn
Robyn
Sep 24, 2018 9:40 AM
Reply to  RPD

There’s no point reminding people that Palestinians are semites too. Language changes and Israel has co-opted anti-Semite to mean anti-Jew/Israel/Zionist etc.

BigB
BigB
Sep 23, 2018 11:22 PM

Conference week is getting off to a flying start: Jeremy Corbyn would back members on a post-democratic “People’s Vote” on Brexit …that’s democracy in action!

Francis Lee
Francis Lee
Sep 24, 2018 9:15 AM
Reply to  BigB

More like that’s social-democracy in action. Labour through its adoption of the IHRA has now become a pro-zionist outfit. Moreover, its position on Brexit is now pandering to the most reactionary globalization forces in both the media and the PLP. It is a pathetic, heavily infiltrated approval-craving mess, led by someone seemingly bereft of principles and ready to do the bidding of the powers-that-be. But that’s social-democracy and the centre-left for you. All over Europe there has been a capitulation by social-democratic parties to the Soros empire of zionist globalizers. The list: PS (France) SPD (Germany) PSOE (Spain) PASOK (Greece) Syriza (Greece) all little good boys, pro EU pro NATO pro-IMF, WTO, BIS. Social democracy is a busted flush in which we should no longer entertain any illusions regarding change.

BigB
BigB
Sep 24, 2018 10:21 AM
Reply to  Francis Lee

Indeed Francis, the EU is a rapidly militarising (using our defence budget, according to David Ellis in evidence to a Commons Select Committee) to become a sub-imperial, neoliberal, supra-sovereign superstate …to whom we are already ceding our military capability, and with it our defence procurement and Foreign Policy. Contra the insulting elitist proposition that we did not know what we were voting for: some of us did. Were this widely known, that we are preparing to become a peripheralised, vasalised, corporate imperialist protectorship …it should really put paid to any Brexit (without the exit) negotiations …we should leave, and re-locate (if it were possible) as far away from the EU as possible.

One only has to look at the pedigree of those who want us to stay: B.Liar, Brown-noser, should be enough.

The UK economy is based on cheap credit (monetising debt); which we re-distribute among ourselves, in a largely service economy. The possessing classes siphon off what they can as various forms of rent, so we monetise more debt, and so forth. According to Tim Morgan: we are monetising debt at the rate of £5.20 per every £1 of GDP growth, whilst our per capita wealth is down at least 10% this century. In other words, we are creating more and more debt to make ourselves poorer. We are living in a borrowed future, that we have no moral right to be monetising …we are foreclosing the future for our children and the Unborn (who may well remain Unborn if we carry on as we are.)

The idea that the EU is part of the solution is not just politically illiterate: it is fast becoming a crime against humanity. We are not the last generation to inhabit this world, though our exceptionalism and future-blind short-termism may yet make that so.

The criticism stands against me that my views lead to the concentration camp and graveyard. My countercriticism would be that everyone forming a mass movement behind the Labour party, which is to say that everyone exhorts the very system of exploitation that created the potentially fatal rupture of the three ecologies of mind, environment, and economy …can only lead to one fatal outcome. Genius plan.

We need a deeper critique than the populous pandering, practico-inert, imperialist bourgeois socialism the Labour party is manifesting. We need to address the mind, the economy, and the environment as an ontological holism; from a systems overview perspective. The question should not be: how do I get the system to work for me? Instead: how do I get the system to work for the whole (not just the current existing Few, the Many, including the Unborn)?

The answer to that can only be via a new system, with values antithetical to the current hegemonic cultural system od ultra-violence, dehumanisation, and exploitation. Maybe if the people created their own future system, with the values they chose and cherish, not those imposed by the current Suicidal System …maybe then we would have a chance?

bevin
bevin
Sep 24, 2018 4:31 PM
Reply to  BigB

“.. everyone forming a mass movement behind the Labour party, which is to say that everyone exhorts the very system of exploitation that created the potentially fatal rupture of the three ecologies of mind, environment, and economy …can only lead to one fatal outcome. Genius plan.”

I’m guessing that what you mean by this is that the Labour Party is, and always has been, complicit in the expansion of the capitalist system.
There is more than a little truth in this. The same can be said of the Trade Unions. It is all very sad and easy to understand as well. There is a tendency for us to exhaust every alternative possibility before we choose the right one. Someone should write a book about it.
In the meantime what do you propose? By which I mean, really, because I suspect we all understand that the alternative to capitalism is something very different, what do you propose that we do?
We know that you regard joining the Labour Party as a complete waste of energy. And I presume that you have already learned that the same is true of joining one or more of the sects to its left and right.
So what is to be done? Do you think that contributing to these forums is enough to bring about change?

BigB
BigB
Sep 25, 2018 10:08 AM
Reply to  bevin

[Apologies, Bevin: I did not see your comment until this morning].

No, contributing to forums is a pastime: not the be all and end all of a liberational praxis.

The Labour party made it perfectly clear to me that it did not welcome my singular brand of socialism by dis-inviting me from meetings (I live in a rural community, I raised some matters of foreign policy and the emails stopped: so I did not know which one of the four or five pubs to meet in). So I am not at all against political activism. As for fringe parties, I flirted with the SWP back in the day (pre-rape crisis) …as for the Greens…. so you are right about “sects”. In my experience, even ‘Engaged Buddhist’ groups and fora, steer well clear of politics, particularly radical politics. For ‘Engaged’, I read bourgeois and conservative. So I kind of painted myself into a corner, so to speak.

What do I propose we do? The best answer I can give is counter-intuitive: nothing.

Clearly, not literally nothing. But action itself cannot bring about a universal humanist future. Inaction (which is a bad-faith negated form of action) clearly can’t. Non-action, to create a linguistic distinction, is the path to the future …and on that path the future is already here.

Action, that is volitional or wilful action, cannot allow the future to arise. Just the opposite: it reproduces the conditions and values of the past and imposes them on the present. The past imposition becomes the conditional present: which, in turn, allows only an incremental gradualist modification – mediated by the values of the past. This can be for better, or worse: as a systemic generalism …it has been a steady worsening.This is a past oppression and suppression of our universal humanity. The remembered present, or perhaps better, the mis-remembered and mis-recognised present, prevents the future we want arising (it ceaselessly arises anyway, even if unrecognised). The conditions and values of the past belong to the oppressor: which could best be identified as the self-concept …an individuated self-concept that has been hierarchically subordinated to the Master power principle. We are the Slaves and subjects to our own volitional or wilful action, inasmuch as we retain the internalised and habituated conditions and values of the past …values, that we may not realise, are not even our own. They certainly do not favour us.

[The value system of oppression can best be exemplified by the Cartesian Enlightenment Principles: where each is a subversion and inversion of what is claimed …where Humanism becomes Inhumanism; Justice becomes Injustice; Morality becomes Immorality; Freedom is Oppression; War is Peace; and so forth. ]

So, if we throw off our fictional cognitive chains (of the conditioning past and its conditional present): the future is already here. That future, in its embodied cognition, is normative and generative. The values of a universal humanity flow from the neutral (neither wholly passive; nor wholly active) apprehension of the unconditioned present, not the volitionally active mis-apprehension of the past. If we can clear our minds of the conditions of our oppression, we are already free.

If we retain the values of the past: activism becomes and endless cycle of re-activism …reproducing the same old oppressions, no matter how righteous the intention may be. As an example, I give you our entire history. Our conditions are not improving, just the opposite. We are in a negative dialectical spin: trapped in a “cycle of deathly repetition” [Guattari]. Who knows where it will end, but it will end …badly. Unless we do something radically different.

And that is what I would like to avoid, for not wholly altruistic reasons …we are all in this together. At the risk of overwriting this comment: we face the rupture (possibly fatal rupture) of the three ecologies of mind, economy, and environment. The redundant past ontological dualism views these as largely separated fields; to be tackled individually (by separate sets of experts or single focus groups: with separate plans of action and activism; they even have their own specific dialects or separate ‘discursive sets’ to distinguish them). A new radical ecosophical politics would tackle Guattari’s ‘Three Ecologies’ as one, as he himself advocated. Mind, economy, and environment are inter-relational co-mutual dependencies: balancing one requires balancing all.

If we are going to critically and consciously interact with reality, which we must: then should it not be from such a point of balance and equilibrium? Action, which leads to the reproduction of past oppressions, can then become embodied enactivism of the future …such a critical intervention, were it to reach its own critical mass (and it only has the reproduction of past values to prevent it) …well, then the future is already ours, and it is already here.

It is not what we do, but how we do it. And the only time to do it is Now!

Harry Law
Harry Law
Sep 23, 2018 9:01 PM

For more information on these racist bigots [the Jewish Labour Movement] see here https://freespeechonisrael.org.uk/who-are-jewish-labour-movement/#sthash.EAkgfoTm.dpbs

Harry Law
Harry Law
Sep 23, 2018 8:03 PM

The Jewish Labour Movement [JLM] one of the main instigators of the ‘get Corbyn campaign’ are affiliated to the Israeli Labour party and the World Zionist Organization both of whom support the illegal settlements in the West Bank. So, in fact the JLM are affiliated to groups who are supporting grave war crimes in breach of article 49.6 of the Fourth Geneva Convention[1949] now also incorporated in the ICC act UK .The World court [International Court of Justice, ICJ] delivered an opinion in the ‘wall case’ 2003] by 15 Judges to zero [including the US Judge Blumenthal] that the wall constructed by Israel in Palestine is in breach of the Geneva conventions, because it is illegal to transfer citizens of the occupying power into occupied territory. Could I become a member of the Labour Party if I accused the JLM, Ruth Smeeth, Luciana Berger et al,. of supporting grave war crimes?

retrospin
retrospin
Sep 23, 2018 7:55 PM

“These influences have created Zionazism, or Judeofascism if you prefer, the most hate-crazed ideology this side of its cousin, Saudi Wahhabism.”

I agree with Mulga, whose brain is hardly mumbled.

Take a look —

Islam and Zionism – Two Sides of the Same Coin
Ceaseless War Against “The Other” – All Others

in the Talmud we find this exchange:
Rabbi Chezkia asked, ‘How must we fight against them (the goy)?’ Rabbi Jehuda said, ‘By wise counsel thou shalt war against them’ (Proverbs, ch. 24, 6). By what kind of war? The kind of war that every son of man must fight against his enemies, which Jacob used against Esau—by deceit and trickery whenever possible. They must be fought against without ceasing, until proper order be restored. Thus it is with satisfaction that I say we should free ourselves from them and rule over them.” (emphasis added)
//
In the Islamic texts we find these (and thousands of other similar passages):
“Fight them (unbelievers) until there is no more discord and the religion of Allah reigns absolute . . .” ( Koran 2:193) (emphasis added)

Muhammed: “I have been ordered to wage war against mankind until they accept that there is no god but Allah and that they believe that I am His prophet and accept all revelations spoken through me. (Hadith, Abu Muslim 001.0031) (emphasis added)

John
John
Sep 23, 2018 6:53 PM

The more things like this are pushed the more I stop caring about the holocaust. They went through one and want to do it to others and not just Palestinians either

eddie
eddie
Sep 24, 2018 12:07 AM
Reply to  John

Agreed, but such are the times we are living in.
The reckless people in power, all right-wing, make it easier to understand how a particular religious group were evicted from everywhere they ever congragated..

mog
mog
Sep 23, 2018 6:40 PM

Inspired character creation by J K Rowling:
“Lethal White,” the fourth book in Rowling’s Cormoran Strike mystery series, written under the pen name Robert Galbraith, features a pair of hard-left political activists who believe “Zionists” are evil and have a stranglehold on Western governments.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-j-k-rowlings-new-novel-a-villain-is-an-israel-hating-anti-semite/

George Cornell
George Cornell
Sep 23, 2018 4:19 PM

There have to be more words in the English vocabulary for these matters. Some people want death to the Jews, all Jews. Some want death to some Jews. Some want death to many people, some Jews included. Some just don’t like Jews, some don’t like some Jews. Some would defend Jews vigorously against prejudice even though they don’t like them. Some don’t like people with the aggressive selfish characteristics ascribed to some Jews. Some don’t like the behaviours exhibited by Israel or the same behaviours exhibited by anyone else. Some don’t like people incapable of empathy for others, Jew or Gentile.

Some don’t like Israel, the subject of a record number of motions to condemn at the UN, probably all of which would have passed but for the Ametican Jewish lobby’s influence on US foreign policy. Does this mean the world is anti-Semitic or does it mean that the behaviour of Israel revolts the rest of humanity?

But all of these are lumped under the term Anti-Semite by anyone seeking to thwart their interests (or perhaps those who perceive their own interests being thwarted).

The cheapening of the term has made it nearly meaningless. Corbyn seems just fine to me.

Seamus Padraig
Seamus Padraig
Sep 23, 2018 12:31 PM

Who would have guessed that speaking out about the denizens of high finance, the musical or haute couture might become politically incorrect? Truly, we live in strange times.

Punching up is the new punching down.

Seriously though, the Zionists are making a very risky manoeuvre here: they risk exposing themselves as the ones who control finance, media and politics. If they think they have trouble with PEGIDA and Viktor Orbán, wait until they have to deal with an outbreak of real anti-Jewish populism!

elenits
elenits
Sep 24, 2018 6:28 AM
Reply to  Seamus Padraig

This is the most relevant sentence:
“It is further overlooked that false accusations may be just as wounding and resented as the enmity and detriment of prejudice.”

I would suggest that most people are totally indifferent to jews, who are definitely not a suffering or victimised group anywhere in the world that they live, despite their paranoia – rather, the opposite. My point is that people respond to situations where people or groups are in danger or maltreated – as they should. This includes the Palestinians. much to Israel’s displeasure.

Big B
Big B
Sep 23, 2018 11:32 AM

Second, there are people who have come to see capitalism and imperialism as the product of conspiracy by a small shadowy elite rather than a political, economic, legal and social system. That is only a step from hoary myths about “Jewish bankers” and “sinister global forces”.

Compare the textual inference above, with this below (taken from the current essay):

The left can no longer safely characterise the money people as pantomime villains because Jeremy Corbyn has criticised them, and as all bankers are apparently Jewish and Corbyn’s every observation is more or less anti-Semitic, it follows that capitalism has become a sacred cow.

Well, I see capitalism as a political, economic, legal and social system, that favours a “small shadowy elite”. Ergo, I must think that elite are all “Jewish Bankers”: but I do not. To make the second excerpt conform with the first therefore, I would have to change the operative word ‘criticised’ (bolded) for ‘characterised’ – being as JC is the author of the first text.

To put that in plain English: Jeremy Corbyn himself “characterise[d] the money people as pantomime villain[s]” Therefore, capitalism HAS become a Sacred Cow. He did so by taking out full page articles in the Evening Standard, and later the Guardian. Articles Mr Gilbert clearly has not read, otherwise it would reflect in his writing (to which his current essay stands diametrically opposed: he has written an alternative factual POV).

The current author has elided and glided over the IHRA capitulation, and the broadening of its deliberately fuzzy-logic, and woolly ‘working examples’ …which have already been extended – by Jermy Corbyn himself – to include anti-capitalist critiques, and also cover-up the obvious Israeli involvement in 9/11 (in the Guardian). In doing so, Mr Gilbert, tries to create a contrafactual false dichotomy between JC’s perceived and actual position. Thus, it is a distorted vision, typical of the SKWAWKBOX mentality.

His actual position is one more in line with the IHRA, and its Zionist racist charter (now the Labour Code of Conduct); which he has personally extended to a ‘new left antisemitism’ that includes anti-capitalist critique and investigation into the obvious Israeli involvement in 9/11. This is a monstrous regression and attack on the freedom of speech and expression. Many of the views freely expressed on this and other forums would result in expulsion from the Labour party, not just mine.

It seems to me that support for the Labour party is contingent on misrepresentation and misrecognition of inconvenient fact. It is a distorted ‘fairground mirror’ representation of reality: a reality wherein the Labour party is more aligned, if not contiguous, with the Master power principle than is comfortable to perceive. To perceive Labour as an alternative to the capitalist imperialist hegemony is indeed a grand distortion of consciousness; resulting in a bad-faith alignment with power. An alignment that amounts to being politically and ecologically illiterate.

If better (though not by much) than Treason May’s venal bourgeois imperialist lickspittles: it is still not a confirmation of a radical progressively ecological anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-war polity …a far, far from, distorted perception and cognitively blind view.

vexarb
vexarb
Sep 23, 2018 12:36 PM
Reply to  Big B

“Fit to govern? / Bleed, bleed, poor England.” — with apologies to MacDuff.

bevin
bevin
Sep 23, 2018 1:40 PM
Reply to  Big B

Thank you for defining ‘logic chopping’ by giving us this example.

Big B
Big B
Sep 23, 2018 3:41 PM
Reply to  bevin

Bevin: you could a) ignore me if I irk you so much:or b) enter into dialogical conversation and frank exchange of views, as I invited a few weeks back. You seem to want to do neither, but continue to post auto-contrarian and counterproductive snide. That is your prerogative.

Fair warning: after this the gloves come off …because I have no more time for your Sandernista sheepdogging for imperialism and ersatz-capitalist tone policing of mine and other comments.

If you’ve got something constructive to say: I welcome your opinion and would gladly embrace the cross-fertilization with your in-depth knowledge of history. We could learn much from each. We do not have to agree …in fact, it’s better if we don’t, for learning purposes. You never know, we meet reach a higher level synthesis were your POV and mine transcend their initial essential difference?

Only please respect that some socialists, like me, are environmentalists too, and I do not see the economy apart from the environment. Or the mind for that matter: it is an old socialist flaw that we can only improve our consciousness by improving the conditions of our relations around production. How’s that working out in its post-production redundancy?

Environmental considerations integrated: capitalism and mirror-capitalism (what you call socialism) are unidimensional misrepresentations of fact: a misrepresentation that can only end in the fatal rupture of one, or all three ecologies of mind, economy, and environment. We must tackle all three together if we have any chance of avoiding the concentration camp or graveyard, to use your rhetoric.

This might be unpopular to you, you know, to actually think critically. But reflexively and virtually herding people back into the pseudo-sanctuary of the very economic calculus and rationale that created the very triple ecological crisis we face …well, we might as well relocate to the graveyard now as follow your advice.

[Apologies to anyone else reading this, and thinking I am over reacting to a seemingly innocuous comment …but this has been coming for months.]

Big B
Big B
Sep 23, 2018 6:37 PM
Reply to  Editor

By all means, the last thing I want is a flame war. I ignored the false accusation that I had said Jeremy Corbyn was an MI6 agent (or the like); I responded to the prose of “the last whinings of a snivelling Trotskyite” (or the like), with an invitation into dialogue. My comment above was really in place of my response on another forum: which got mangled. In which Bevin concluded:

What will lead nowhere but to the concentration camp and the graveyard is hand wringing and lamentation at the inadequacy of others and the impossibility of changing mens minds. And the treachery of leaders- which is something that only ever concerns the led and those anxious to be shepherded into the future.

What irritates me is the lack of engagement. By all means disagree, even if he thinks my POV will lead to the concentration camp and the graveyard, but do so in a constructive way. But so far, Bevin has never responded when I respond to him. I am not about argumentim ad hominem; but I am not about turning the other cheek. By gloves off I mean I will deconstruct his comment as coming from an assumed position of superiority. I will show how his seeming POV (he never actually seems to state positive his view: does he have one apart from contra mine and others?) is literally not grounded: including environmental concerns is a game changer for 21st century politics. The ship is sinking and many, like Bevin, want us to play quoits on the deck of the Titanic.

All I want is to see if there is substance to his POV: but I will keep it civil with kid gloves on and refrain from ad hom. 🙂

mog
mog
Sep 23, 2018 6:24 PM
Reply to  Big B

No need to apologise in my opinion Big B.
Would be interested to read a respectful exchange of opinion between two commenters from whom I learn so much.
To me it is the old ‘outsider/insider problem’ : the argument that to make change in a society like ours we need to get hold of the reins of power; vs. the argument that by merely sitting down at the table of power one is compromised and condemned to watch as the orginal intention slips away.

I’ve got no definites. If open selection fails this week (as it looks likely to, to me) then not only will free expression be a thing of the past but democracy will actually be slipping backwards in the party. I suppose everyone has to draw their line.
For me the line was seeing this debate from last year’s conference. Accelerationist claptrap, magical thinking, ignorant religiosity:

Big B
Big B
Sep 23, 2018 8:43 PM
Reply to  mog

Yes, I seem to remember discussing the above with you at the time. As well as a Monbiot offering, which actually superseded the Mason/Harvey debate, if you can call it that.

I’m currently studying the Artificial Super Intelligence phenomena: I call it the ‘ASI Ubermensch’: which is the logico-progression of the Cartesian machine-age mind; mixed in with a heavy siliconised injection and willful misreading of Nietzsche (and the Darwin he was reading at the time). Call me a bio-Luddite: I’d prefer it if we actually discovered what it is to be human before we try to become trans-human and post-human …which may be too late.

Information and technology could help breakdown the tech imperialism and corporate tech monopolies, with what the techno-liberationist anarchists call “hard leaks”. Free information, freely and infinitely reproducible could decentralise and supersede capitalism. Then the Third World can reproduce their own tech on 3-D printers (for free) and break free of the corporate imperialist chains …which is a good thing.

The dark side, which would have to be taken into account, is that the next step in our evolution could entail the dominance of the ASI Ubermensch, which is the ultimate machine-age mind.

We do not need technology to be free of the machine-age, or computational Stone Age mind. All that is required is to stop imposing the conditions of the machine-age past on the present: then the future is liberated and generative …and along with it technology and science. The question we must ask of technology v universal humanity is, as always: which is to be Master: and which is to be Slave?

So far in our development, we have always managed to choose the wrong answer. Probably because only a few of the historic Overman have considered themselves eligible to make the choice for us. The potential Eternal Recurrence of the Singularity of the ASI Ubermensch is too frightening to even contemplate. And its algorithmic surveillance and censorship modules are already active.

O well, forgive my musings: according to some, if stop thinking for ourselves, and we all join the Labour party …and leave it to the grown-ups in the global governance architecture of imperialism to do our thinking …it will all be fine!

Looking forward to Conference! 😉

mog
mog
Sep 24, 2018 7:32 AM
Reply to  Big B

Yes, I seem to remember discussing the above with you at the time.
Repeating my self there. Never a good sign.
Maybe when the ASI Ubermensch comes fully online it will not only delete people like me for high probability of antisemitic thought occurance, but will deal with all repeat postings and duplication.
Then again, we should be thankful for all the efficiency savings that will come from the Uber-borg, that and the end of any kind of politics. I can get on with finishing my shed, finally.
Think of poor Andrew Marr though.
Poor Andrew Marr.

BigB
BigB
Sep 24, 2018 9:02 AM
Reply to  mog

What about the vegan Cyborg, your erstwhile mate George? Only a bio-computational machine could be pro-environmental and pro-NATO at the same time: without causing a meltdown in its circuitry!

When he cycles to work, the dynamo is not powering his lights …it’s charging him up for a day! 😀

mog
mog
Sep 24, 2018 9:21 AM
Reply to  BigB

Only a bio-computational machine could be pro-environmental and pro-NATO at the same time: without causing a meltdown in its circuitry!
If I see him down in Wales I will ask him about the fate of Russian mammals and see what happens.

BigB
BigB
Sep 24, 2018 12:55 PM
Reply to  mog

Cue electronic meltdown and ad infinitum repetitive “does not compute” most like!

elenits
elenits
Sep 24, 2018 6:32 AM
Reply to  Big B

Spot on Big B:

“a reality wherein the Labour party is more aligned, if not contiguous, with the Master power principle than is comfortable to perceive.”

Emily Tock
Emily Tock
Sep 23, 2018 9:31 AM

Slight correction: George M. Cohan was Irish catholic…

Willem
Willem
Sep 23, 2018 9:13 AM

Fortunately there is also another sort of politician in the UK than Corbyn. Her name is Theresa May. And

‘Theresa May’s problem is that she is fundamentally a decent, functional human being. She is not struck down with the Messiah complex. She does not lie easily or well.’

Not according to the satirical editors of the Onion, but according to the ‘objective’ independent, who are always right of course.

Fair dinkum
Fair dinkum
Sep 23, 2018 8:27 AM

Meanwhile, the anti humanity of the Israeli hierarchy casts an ugly shadow over the entire planet.

leruscino
leruscino
Sep 23, 2018 6:46 AM

The Media in general have failed to realise that today being an “Anti-Semite” is a secret badge of honour among the significant & growing majority of voters as the blatant crimes of Israel increasingly go un-punished !

Francis Lee
Francis Lee
Sep 24, 2018 1:47 PM
Reply to  leruscino

Yes, the zionist tactic is like the boy who cried wolf. In the all-encompassing smearing of their opponents as anti-semites they are overplaying their hand and creating more anti-semites. Be careful of what you wish for, it may not be what you bargained for.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Sep 25, 2018 2:45 AM
Reply to  Francis Lee

The Zionazis would be ecstatic if their filthy campaign did produce real Judeophobes. Thir existential fuel is hatred, and the more they provoke, to justify their own insane hatefulness, is always welcome to them.

King Kong
King Kong
Sep 23, 2018 4:06 AM

The British press has sunk to new lows in the concerted smear campaign on Jeremy Corbyn.
The Zionists in Israel have immense power.
Ceterum censeo Israelinem esse delendam says I, quoting Cato the Elder, but directing the anger at our present greatest threat to stability and peace.

elenits
elenits
Sep 24, 2018 6:37 AM
Reply to  King Kong

Cato the elder: Ceterum censeo Israelinem esse delendam = I think Israel must be destroyed.

bevin
bevin
Sep 23, 2018 3:01 AM

” I do know that neofascism is on the march in many parts of the world – via Pegida in Germany, Front National in France, xenophobes and other kinds of fundamentalist in government in Italy and several mittelEurop countries.”

And, you might have added, in Israel where the governing party Likud and many of its coalition partners trace their origins back to the Jabotinsky Revisionist zionists who were avowedly fascist. In fact Prime Minister Netanyahu’s father was Jabotinsky’s secretary.
Writers often express their surprise at the ease with which the Israeli government relates to Hungarians who revere Horthy, Ukrainians who honour Hitler and Bandera or Poles from the anti-semitic Pilsudski tradition. But there is no mystery here: they are all part of the same tradition. And no state has more fascistic policies and practices than Israel.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Sep 23, 2018 3:31 AM
Reply to  bevin

There are dimensions to this EVIL campaign that are never dared to be mentioned. First, not all Jews think like Netanyahoo and the UK Jewish grandees who are leading this fight. Many agree with support for the Palestinians suffering under unending racist barbarity. Many oppose neo-liberal capitalist hatred of others. And many know that Livingstone spoke the truth, Wadsworth said nothing ‘antisemitic’, and nearly all the other examples of ‘antisemitism’ are outright fabrications. But these ‘self-hating Jews’ have been expunged from existence by a fakestream media hate-machine of infinite wickedness.
Then there is the reality that ‘antisemitism’ itself is these days nothing much but a mechanism to vilify, intimidate and destroy anyone who dares criticise the Israeli Zionazi regime, one of the vilest on Earth, or any Zionazi chieftain, or any of their mass murderous crimes against humanity. It is also, brazenly, being used as a means to outlaw, even criminalise, any criticism of Israel, or Zionazism or any Jew, anywhere, no matter how plainly vile their behaviour is. Judeophobia, the hatred of all Jews, no matter how fine they be as people or innocent of any wrong, is, of course, morally wrong and despicable.
And, of course, it is never dared to be mentioned that frenzied hate campaigns, against Corbyn, BDS, ANY supporters of Palestine etc, by the Zionazis, themselves grow out of sheer, unadulterated, hatred. Hatred that grows from the basic Judaic hatred of and contempt for the goyim, the basis of the religion for 3500 years, and emphatically of Talmudic, Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox Judaism, and from the typical European settler hatred of the indigenous who must be displaced or exterminated so that the Western ubermenschen may steal their God-ordained lebensraum, and of any who dare support the sub-humans who must be displaced by the Herrenvolk, and, lastly, and most understandably, out of the fear and hatred that grew from the Nazi Judeocide.
These influences have created Zionazism, or Judeofascism if you prefer, the most hate-crazed ideology this side of its cousin, Saudi Wahhabism. It is no wonder the two are such close allies, as Israel was with apartheid South Africa, and is with ‘Exceptionalist’ America, the third arm of the real Axis of Evil.

Benge
Benge
Sep 23, 2018 12:28 PM
Reply to  bevin

Many of the most visible activists against Corbyn are members of recently revived Likud Herut UK.
Jabotinsky and Begin fans. The MSM’s lack of interest in any Jewish complainant’s politics results
in a completely unbalanced view of Jewish opinion, and disguises the real motives for most of the complaint.
Recently a couple featured on the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme, posing as Mr and Mrs Average who announced they werel leaving Britain in fear, were just such activists. It’s as if being Jewish meant sharing
a single politics, an attitude which unblances the whole debate. (and which could be seen as anti-semitic.)

bullion23
bullion23
Sep 23, 2018 1:51 PM
Reply to  Benge

I can not understand the cowardice of the defenders of freedom and democracy in UK who let themselves be intimidated by the fascist bullys with their insidious campaigns and their witch-hunts through which they hang the anti-Semitic label to their opponents, witch-hunts that are initiated like always by the own witches (in this case, the fascist witches). Why don’t the Labor Party counterattack by simply ignoring that smokescreen and exposing the bad practices of conservatives and neoliberals? I don’t know exactly the situation in the UK, but it can not be very different from the situation in the EU where big banks and their affiliated funds manipulate the real estate markets, stock markets, etc with their privileged information that they obtain from public institution officials such as those of the European Central Bank. Ministers, International Monetary Fund officials, directors of the central bank are part of the same clique and favor the big fascist corporations like General Electric that financed the Nazis or Choisepoint that helped to install Bush in the White House. As well as military contractors. (it is urgent to democratize these big companies by law, which means that they must be the employees and shareholders and not big executives the ones who dictate their policies)

We must keep in mind that in many Muslim countries whose economy and infrastructure have been destroyed by NATO military interventions the only source of funding for many men (especially if you are Sunni) is to join the ranks of ISIS. Who knows if they did not have that in mind when they destroyed states like Iraq! They are creating armies of terrorists with their war campaigns. We musn’t forget that sovereign funds like those of Saudi Arabia and Qatar have a stake in large European companies. They are not only impoverishing people, they are playing with our lives.

elenits
elenits
Sep 24, 2018 6:46 AM
Reply to  bullion23

ISIS is a US/Israeli creation of proxy fighters who they introduced to the world in 2014 via a 3-part you tube series by Murdoch-owned VICE. However, yes, many desperate Iraqis, impoverished by US / Israel’s war, joined up for the sake of the ISIS salaries to support their families. Please ask yourself – since when do genuine resistance groups offer salaries?

rilme
rilme
Sep 24, 2018 12:22 PM
Reply to  bullion23

The Good Party, if there were one, would stand up and demand an end to semitism. It is racist, it is divisive, and it leads to antisemitism. It is horrible that any of this is necessary in the UK.