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

Yes. But she keeps stressing that "hand of Israel" is a racist trope, regularly and knowingly used. Has anyone here come across it?

Yes that's an incredibly misleading use of punctuation, she didn't say that.

My suspicion is that the decision was taken months ago to immediately fire the first frontbencher who did something like this regardless of who it was. I'm not convinced that making a martyr out of RLB was in the plan, not at this point at least.

Not as such but sure the idea of The Jews influencing events worldwide is an old trope. Nothing to do with Peake's statements tho.

xpost

Mirwitch is smearing RLB by leaving 'hand of Israel' in there.

xps = cranks probably use it.

cancel culture gone mad

Fucking Starmer.. Man... Burtenshaw so otm.

I hope he backtracks for the sole reason that LJ has to glue his membership card back together lol

Basically this comes down to RLB being principled and brave by refusing to remove the tweet after clarification. If I was in her position I'd probably think sod it and just do it. But as has been said, it seems like Starmer has had it in for her, if reports are to be trusted. so if it wasn't over this it would soon be something else. In a sense the issue of a/s is a red herring here. It's about left purging.

It might have helped if she'd read the entire interview first.

It might have helped if she'd read the entire interview first.

Highly doubt this was an oversight on her part and not damage control after the right smelled blood on this.

Which is I think my only issue with RLB's stance - Peake's statement is fine and not anti-semitic even if she was wrong about the specific training. I get RLB didn't want to get involved in a big to do over that but that's clearly backfired.

I'm afraid she's just not very smart in that case.

Anyway, it's a win-win for Starmer, he gets to boot the last link with Corbyn out of the cabinet and to come over all The One Man Who Can Defeat Anti-Semitism.

Had my brother and sister-in-law and their friends on Facebook giving it, "Result!"

All the people who don't vote Labour now then?

Thank God antisemitism has been defeated.

All the people who don't vote Labour now then?

I don't know who my brother voted for in the last election but I'm pretty certain my sister-in-law didn't vote Labour! I could definitely see them voting Labour with Starmzy as leader though.

I'm afraid she's just not very smart in that case.

None of them are particularly smart, in some ways it's the worst thing about them all

My suspicion is that the decision was taken months ago to immediately fire the first frontbencher who did something like this regardless of who it was.

you think if rachel reeves made her astor comments last week instead of in february she'd have been booted?

and ofc interesting to compare the response to RLB linking to an interview approvingly on twitter in which peake mentions the links between US policing and Israeli security with the (obv non-existent) response to shadow minister for apprenticeships and lifelong learning toby perkins publishing official campaign leaflets saying "I was disgusted that Travellers were extorting thousands of pounds to leave illegal camps. Now I've won cross party support for legislation to end this vile practice that robs businesses and landowners."

🚮

i’m going to break rank slightly here. i think she was stupid to retweet if she read it, and stupid if she hadn’t, this is especially the case if she was politically vulnerable.

rlb has got quite appealing form, to which i’m quite sympathetic, of knee jerk facing mancunian arts people (MES!) but as i say, bloody daft in the circs.

on the peake interview, as i think matt dc said, reaching for an israel connection, when US police are killing black people without any need for other reference points, is totally unnecessary and does feed into a soft AS.

also, and here it’s hard to say how much she was deliberately hamstrung by the party, but up against one of the worst tory cabinet ministers, she hasn’t performed noticeably well.

i like RLB. i’m *really* disappointed to see her go. it’s a strongman move i’m not sure starmer is in a position to make. but narratives other than “ffs RLB!” don’t make much sense to me.

knee-jerk *faving

This is quite good on a next step.

"Solidarity with Palestinians and with black people in the USA, victims of a single imperial system, is a basic principle for socialists. SCG members who remain on the frontbench, cannot pretend to be brave moles – they do not burrow but gnaw." https://t.co/CLnI7i59uR

— New Socialist (@NewSocialistUK) June 25, 2020

idk i kinda get the imperial angle but what is to be gained by melding the BLM movement with Palestine? it sounds like it will create an entire front of weaknesses unlikely to progress either set of interests in order to do what? make a point about imperial militarism used domestically?

You're not breaking rank with me btw.

no i meant to note that.

the linking of the struggle for black liberation and the Palestinian struggle has been made time and time again and is just a common trope on the left: see Mandela, Angela Davis.

retweeting an actor saying a dumb, made-up thing linking Israel to the George Floyd murder, was a really fucking stupid thing to do. RLB is v much a protege of corbyn in that she makes unforced errors frequently

xpost i guess i do have a problem using the word “imperial” wrt israel. it’s a highly militaristic state that has imo committed war crimes. but imperial is a *really* bad word to use wrt to a jewish state, mainly tho not exclusively because it is adjacent to the language of global rule of jewish conspiracy theories. it also doesn’t really meaningfully align with US imperialism either military or financial.

I mean also the line is just one line in the piece which is, you know, a fairly long feature, but still, how could she miss that line and the connotations her linking to a piece with that line in it???

it also doesn’t really meaningfully align with US imperialism either military or financial.

― Fizzles, Thursday, June 25, 2020 11:47 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

?

i assume Fizzles means Israel isn't an imperial state rather than whether it benefits from US imperial policy

I can see why just re-tweeting without careful framing (which can be used to discredit BLM by the wrong ppl) wasn't the best move but this whole episode is more of an issue with how MPs use social media to me.

Ultimately Starmer has weaponised AS in a factional way again. He gains nothing but applause from the wrong people. But that is the way he is running things, which might not have been clear to RLB, idk xps to Fizzles

"retweeting an actor saying a dumb, made-up thing linking Israel to the George Floyd murder"

Except she was not doing this.

as i said at the start, from Starmer's perspective this was the right move with very little down side

Too right.

I can see why just re-tweeting without careful framing (which can be used to discredit BLM by the wrong ppl) wasn't the best move but this whole episode is more of an issue with how MPs use social media to me.

Too right x2.

"retweeting an actor saying a dumb, made-up thing linking Israel to the George Floyd murder"

Except she was not doing this.

― xyzzzz__, Thursday, June 25, 2020 11:52 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

which part of what I said was wrong?

xps (and yes thanks NV) sorry maybe that was a bit compressed. i think it’s reasonable to call the US an imperial power. That imperialism expresses itself through global military presence and aggression. It also expresses itself through the fact, enforced by both the GFC and Covid, that the dollar is the only global currency - they are effectively the global lender of last resort, which gives them extraordinary power.

i don’t think these expressions of neoliberal imperialism are really applicable to israel. the logic of israeli aggression, taken to morally hateful consequences and fundamentally at odds with its originating zionist principled, is that of creating a safe space for the jewish people. the application of this logic has been the oppression and murder of the palestinian people. i do not think this represents a similar category of imperialism as the US.

i think blending the two creates all sorts of confusion. it may align, at a high level, with marxist notions of hegemony, supporting that theory at the expense of articulating more local differences doesn’t seem to me to be worth the candle.

Too right.

/I can see why just re-tweeting without careful framing (which can be used to discredit BLM by the wrong ppl) wasn't the best move but this whole episode is more of an issue with how MPs use social media to me./

Too right x2.

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.

it's only a very small country even if it is technically a warfare state, so Imperial is pushing the definition somewhat and does have dodgy "global" connotations.

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

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.