love* in the time of plague (and by love* i mean brexit* and other dreary matters of uk politics)

you know you are politically vulnerable, you know you are associated with AS via Corbynism (rightly or wrongly: my view is that there were a *lot* of bad faith AS attack lines on Corbyn) and yet...

I love to know what the timeline was. Was anybody in the press was asking for her head bar a few Lab right cranks at midday?

Incredibly defensive, you can just see the press having a field day on a number of issues in an electoral campaign xps

Defensive or offensive, you decide.

I think it fell into his lap.

Jim - this has been doing the rounds, but pretty much what Peake was drawing attention to.

https://www.amnestyusa.org/with-whom-are-many-u-s-police-departments-training-with-a-chronic-human-rights-violator-israel/

xp

It goes back to what Ogmor said about Lady Astor and Rachel Reeves. I suspect that would not have been treated the same way but that's probably more to do with Astor than Reeves. No one's going to use a dead, rabidly antisemitic, Tory MP as a stick to beat Labour because it might cast some shade on the bullshit illusion that the Conservative Party has never been antisemitic.

It was going to be weaponised against Labour regardless - like NV said the decision is about the realpolitik here. No one seriously believes RLB is antisemitic, including Starmer I suspect.

Jim - this has been doing the rounds, but pretty much what Peake was drawing attention to.

https://www.amnestyusa.org/with-whom-are-many-u-s-police-departments-training-with-a-chronic-human-rights-violator-israel/

xp

― xyzzzz__, Thursday, June 25, 2020 12:01 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I know about this stuff, but it's not what Peake said.

and i should say it’s reasonable to suppose that starmer was just looking for an excuse.

I feel it’s important for me to clarify that, when talking to The Independent, I was inaccurate in my assumption of American Police training & its sources. I find racism & antisemitism abhorrent & I in no way wished, nor intended, to add fodder to any views of the contrary.

— Maxine Peake (@MPeakeOfficial) June 25, 2020

My guess is that RLB is also fully aware she fucked up because she didn't treat this as a hill to die on. Quite the opposite.

If it was purely a factional play he would have quietly demoted her later - and maybe was planning to - but also wasn't going to turn down to opportunity to look tough and decisive on antisemitism.

An apology/mea culpa from RLB would have been enough imo, the reasons behind the sacking are stupid and destructive but this is the world we live in.

(xp) Bit late for that Maxine, yer mate got her jotters because of you!

Jim - have you tried reading?

why didn't we get this kind of shitstorm and a head rolling when DomCum used that AS foghorn "the likes of Goldman-Sachs" in his widely read blog and countless other incidents like the The Spectator running a Wehrmacht cleaning piece by Taki, the current tory leader of the house turning up at neo-nazi fundraiser. I just give up tbh. Peake isn't the most articulate actor in a profession where most of them talk utter shite, but Antisemitic? Maybe I'm turning into a crank, but this is complete shite!

I have a real dread of being the “I don’t get what’s antisemitic about this??” guy, and I can see what people are saying about how it doesn’t display the best political instincts on rlb’s part, but I thought the clarification was fine. As noted itt starmzy has RTd spectator pieces.

It sucks cause it’s the first sign of life LOTO has displayed in weeks

no i think that’s otm - it serves as another reminder that an awful lot of this is playing the UK media space.

also i think it’s less about maxine peake (most people would go “who?”) than the decision to retweet her by a member of the shadow cabinet seen as the main significant representative of corbynism now.

xp

Jim - have you tried reading?

― xyzzzz__, Thursday, June 25, 2020 12:10 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

the Israeli secret services taught this specific kneeling on the head technique is peake's specific claim. this isn't supported anywhere. don't come the cunt with me

saying something in the vicinity of the truth doesn't make it true

Idk user wins, it doesn’t take a big brane genius to wonder why US police departments are taking policing training from Israeli units employing counter terrorism tactics, or even why an Irish-Mancunian might ping off the history of militarised police tactics being exported across borders to subjugate undesirables. I mean, call it my bias or upbringing or what have you, but that’s where my mind. Still, I’m glad it’s given people looking in on this thread some material to be snide about in others, and thankfully antisemitism has been sent packing by the noble Brits. As usual.

I think that if you accept the story that Israeli security have trained US police departments the question of whether they taught them that specific move becomes trivial at best - surely no one is suggesting that the current anger at the US police is exclusively, or even mostly, about them using this move? The point is about collaboration between these two organisations, period.

Likewise I don't see anything in Peake's statement that suggests she thinks US police wouldn't be able to brutalize the black population without help, or indeed that Israel is "behind" US police brutality; she was talking about structural racism on a global scale and how oppressive forces collaborate with each other, not casting one as the puppet of the other.

It's an interview where I guess MP is promoting something and being asked about politics and it's the thing of saying something in a compressed way that she read and didn't fact-check all the way through so it ends up being perhaps not a whole truth to the nth degree, but she seems to be making a point of global violence against minorities at this time and using this factoid to make further connections. I don't see the problem and the knee manoeuvre is besides the point xp

i did already kind of touch on this upthread but that was hours ago

Post by scampos mentis (gyac) from love* in the time of plague (and by love* i mean brexit* and other dreary matters of uk politics) on ILX - love* in the time of plague (and by love* i mean brexit* and other dreary matters of uk politics)

Sigh. Quote from a recent lrb piece about policing in NI.

Not exactly irrelevant to point out that police brutality is exported and practices shared worldwide. US police definitely took interest in the things that were considered acceptable for Catholic citizens in Northern Ireland, after all.

The rubber bullets that US police officers have been firing so freely were initially designed for use by the British security forces in Northern Ireland, where they killed 17 people. RUC patrols carried weapons, wore flak jackets and drove around in armour-plated vehicles, foreshadowing the militarisation of US policing.

Yeah gyac and others have made the broader point about the global exchange in exciting new police brutality techniques in a much better way than Peake did.

I wonder whether its specifically the use of the phrase "secret service" that got my crank radar up this morning (like, we're they even trained by the Israeli secret service as opposed to the Israeli army or police? Or even the US army?) Once you start making explicit secret service links you're getting perilously close to dodgy shadowy conspiracy territory.

She stopped short of saying Mossad at least.

yeah it’s been better explored here than elsewhere: i guess another way to look at it is

1) maxine peake interview where she shared what she thought was a reasonable view about how heavily militarised societies commercially help each other with techniques and mechanisms for oppression. *really* doesn’t help to single out israel tho. US police force is known for importing new military technologies (like chokeholds, like tanks) because it is overfunded, and because the US military would like to sell legacy gear and the police force is a good customer. israel as a militarised space is an obvious commercial partner in this, as is presumably russia and other professional law and order and military forces

2) sense or otherwise of sharing article which even mentions israel on social media by a member of the shadow cabinet perceived, rightly or wrongly, to be aligned with AS vulnerability on the Corbyn wing.

Think that’s understandable, but definitely more suggestive imo of an undereducated view on the matter (though ofc intent and unconscious racism are often mutually exclusive, so).

Yeah I think that making the point that systemic racism is global is not the same as “Jews did George floyd” but there is a thing about certain leftists immediately reaching for Israel that we all will have encountered - still think the clarification should be enough. I’d feel better if I thought this “zero tolerance” will be applied consistently

xp point 2 is extremely concerning, esp in context of upcoming annexation. So if Corbyn says something (which he will) and if Starmer faces cries to expel him (which he will), then where’s the option to deescalate?

yes to both gyac and wins. i think it’s a mixture between the fact we’re trying to manage good faith analysis (what is true here?) in a bad faith space (what is pragmatic here?). this leads to all sorts of tensions of analysis even where people are trying to comprehend what’s gone on in a good faith and honest way

(xp) Don't put ideas in his head (Starmer's that is)

Also people on the left are generally on board with the idea that otherwise well-meaning people can casually or unthinkingly say low-key racist or sexist things even when they'd be horrified to be thought of as either. I don't think it benefits anyone to bat away similar incidents of antisemitism because the person speaking happens to be on the left - these conversations need to happen in the open and a witch hunt mentality works against that because people just get defensive.

xp point 2 is extremely concerning, esp in context of upcoming annexation. So if Corbyn says something (which he will) and if Starmer faces cries to expel him (which he will), then where’s the option to deescalate?

RIP bournemouth

Starmer needs the left and BAMEs votes. But it does need organisation of the left as a group, and that isn't currently there.

xp point 2 is extremely concerning, esp in context of upcoming annexation. So if Corbyn says something (which he will) and if Starmer faces cries to expel him (which he will), then where’s the option to deescalate?

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-us-police-training-end-knee-neck-protests

how can anyone not be terminally disillusioned with this disingenuous, tired old charade of never-ending bullshit from all sides but mostly from right-wing media goons who've somehow captured the voice of reason role and who dictate the policies of every major political party right now

fuck this. four years until an election, the uk is falling apart, there is anger and energy right now, do something.

In terms of organisation an example iirc 100 mosques threatened to abstain from voting Labour. Starmer will almost certainly be confronted with Kashmir xp

Which he’s already been weak and shit on. Fuck him, don’t care anymore.

Yes, but again he will need to turn that one around. That's my point.

A huge part of the right-wing motivation for pushing this line is the disengagement of British Muslims from the political process, both in the sense of using past criticism of Israel as a bar on specific Muslims being selected as elected officials (dossiers collated on activists going back to college social media, vast numbers of vexatious complaints designed to hold up / stop appointments, etc) and in the sense of ensuring that ‘courting Muslim votes’, used time and again against the Corbyn wing, is seen as inherently suspicious and disreputable.There’s no way Starmer’s going to square that circle.

been wondering whether active opposition to labour in order to force these ghouls out might not be the best option at this point

Calmly posting as Lab get 30% in four years time

Please. You’re waiting for the full weight of the DPP legacy, real and false, to drop. Interesting Starmzy was soft on actual Tory frontbenchers spreading far right videos about him though, even more so today.

I can’t imagine who they’re going to get in for Education. Anyone from the left is going to be undermined immediately and will know it, anyone from the right is going to be viewed with enormous suspicion by teachers off the bat. They’re going to have to find the most perfectly calibrated nobody.

That's a soft left speciality

about 100 Labour MPs shout "hold my beer" in unison

xxp

someone with J k Rowling energy, but more tory!