OutByEaster? Posted February 23 Moderator Share Posted February 23 2 hours ago, magnkarl said: I think you'll find that in the scope of things a lot more innocent people have died. Probably ten times that in Ukraine where Putin's bombed a hospital a day since 2022 (figuratively). I guess that depends on how you'd define innocent - the Ukraine conflict certainly has a lot more casualties, but in terms of civilian deaths, they're at very similar numbers with Israel set to overtake Russia around the end of this month. Not that it's a competition, or that the two conflicts are really in any way comparable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magnkarl Posted February 24 Share Posted February 24 (edited) 14 hours ago, OutByEaster? said: I guess that depends on how you'd define innocent - the Ukraine conflict certainly has a lot more casualties, but in terms of civilian deaths, they're at very similar numbers with Israel set to overtake Russia around the end of this month. Not that it's a competition, or that the two conflicts are really in any way comparable. There’s more kidnapped Ukrainian children since 2022 than total casualties so far in Gaza. I agree, they’re not even comparable, and neither is the public outcry. A lot of that, in my humble opinion, is because the champions of Gaza are in this weird space where a Western democracy is always the oppressor, even if they’re attacked by the world’s second military power. Add to that that a lot of money has been spent on the groups typically supporting Palestine by states like Russia and Iran and you’ve got 1 million people protesting every week for a conflict which in a relative scale is nothing new. Edited February 24 by magnkarl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post blandy Posted February 24 Moderator Popular Post Share Posted February 24 10 minutes ago, magnkarl said: There’s more kidnapped Ukrainian children since 2022 than total casualties so far in Gaza. I agree, they’re not even comparable, and neither is the public outcry. A lot of that, in my humble opinion, is because the champions of Gaza are in this weird space where a Western democracy is always the oppressor, even if they’re attacked by the world’s second military power. Add to that that a lot of money has been spent on the groups typically supporting Palestine by states like Russia and Iran and you’ve got 1 million people protesting every week for a conflict which in a relative scale is nothing new. I think that's different from my interpretation. It seem to me like a long oppressed people naturally garner more sympathy and support from folk who tend to side with the "masses of normal people" ( the left). Whereas Ukraine has seen governments supply huge amounts of aid and arms to them, it's the other way round with Israel, where the civilian victims are not helped as much, but the oppressors are more supported by the governments of the west. In essence there's huge hypocrisy in condemning Russian barbarity, but silence over Israel's actions in killing 10s of thousands. Labour is caught up in that, not because they're the government, but because they might be quite soon and so feel they need to also recognise the barbarity of Hamas quite forcefully. They're right to do so in the basic regard that Hamas are abhorrent and what they've done and do is abhorrent, but it's led to Labour losing sight of the values they want to support. It's like they can't work out what the right answer is to the question "who is wrong, the ones who killed and maimed on a massive scale in October, or the ones who killed and maimed on an even massiver scale in response?". 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post chrisp65 Posted February 24 Popular Post Share Posted February 24 1 hour ago, magnkarl said: There’s more kidnapped Ukrainian children since 2022 than total casualties so far in Gaza. I agree, they’re not even comparable, and neither is the public outcry. A lot of that, in my humble opinion, is because the champions of Gaza are in this weird space where a Western democracy is always the oppressor, even if they’re attacked by the world’s second military power. Add to that that a lot of money has been spent on the groups typically supporting Palestine by states like Russia and Iran and you’ve got 1 million people protesting every week for a conflict which in a relative scale is nothing new. Rant in coming: Who are these shady champions of Gaza? Does that include me because I went on one of these hate marches? Look at your words in your second para and switch sides on the claims, would that look a little bit, off? Let’s look at a counter claim: Starmer said he introduced his wrecking amendment that caused the Westminster farce after having spoken directly to the Israeli President. Can you imagine the state of the media if Corbyn had done similar, having spoken to politicians from the West Bank? Labour, claiming to be doing the right thing for international diplomacy and statesmanship, bollocks. Don’t lose the votes, don’t lose the MP’s, don’t lose the tory biased media, don’t lose the money. Can you imagine the reaction to the SNP introducing a wrecking amendment on Ukraine, after having spoken to Russian politicians? All in a debate that had about as much real influence as one of these hate marches, or a sixth form cake bake. That we can even call the regime in Israel a western democracy is to me, just bizarre. It’s no more a western democracy than South Africa is, or was. Poor plucky Israel, no foreign money for protestors, influence, positive spin media coverage, bombs and tanks for them. There is no point in the whataboutism of other conflicts. I know we all do it at times, I do. That we are less interested in Sudan or Myanmar is our problem, not the problem of executed medical staff, the kidnapped, or refugees murdered in their tents, or murdered families with makeshift white flags. The IDF, the Israeli government, Hamas, Iran, they can all go **** themselves. They’ve killed tens of thousands of civilians between them, we should be hunting them all down, or treating them all with the same disdain and only talking to them whilst holding our collective western democratic noses. Every time I try to give examples on both teams, for balance, I’m conscious my examples against Israel are more numerous. But then, they’ve been at this ethnic cleansing for 5 months now. I guess even with the demonstrable threat to journalists lives, there are bound to be more examples to quote. What’s the end game? What happens when eventually Israel get to a quantity of blood they are content with. Will there never be another rocket fired again? What if there is another rocket? Will that mean Israel lost? Will it mean Israel then need to kill another 30,000? It’s the politics of a bully with a bloody nose, wounded and shamed in to being an even worse bully with no idea how to end the spiral. 3 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
omariqy Posted February 24 Share Posted February 24 Interesting how they are trying to frame it as Islamists taking over and intimidating. I’ll let the Jewish Voices for Peace that organises our local protests know that they’re Islamists (whatever that means). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magnkarl Posted February 24 Share Posted February 24 (edited) 8 hours ago, chrisp65 said: Rant in coming: Who are these shady champions of Gaza? Does that include me because I went on one of these hate marches? Look at your words in your second para and switch sides on the claims, would that look a little bit, off? Let’s look at a counter claim: Starmer said he introduced his wrecking amendment that caused the Westminster farce after having spoken directly to the Israeli President. Can you imagine the state of the media if Corbyn had done similar, having spoken to politicians from the West Bank? Labour, claiming to be doing the right thing for international diplomacy and statesmanship, bollocks. Don’t lose the votes, don’t lose the MP’s, don’t lose the tory biased media, don’t lose the money. Can you imagine the reaction to the SNP introducing a wrecking amendment on Ukraine, after having spoken to Russian politicians? All in a debate that had about as much real influence as one of these hate marches, or a sixth form cake bake. That we can even call the regime in Israel a western democracy is to me, just bizarre. It’s no more a western democracy than South Africa is, or was. Poor plucky Israel, no foreign money for protestors, influence, positive spin media coverage, bombs and tanks for them. There is no point in the whataboutism of other conflicts. I know we all do it at times, I do. That we are less interested in Sudan or Myanmar is our problem, not the problem of executed medical staff, the kidnapped, or refugees murdered in their tents, or murdered families with makeshift white flags. The IDF, the Israeli government, Hamas, Iran, they can all go **** themselves. They’ve killed tens of thousands of civilians between them, we should be hunting them all down, or treating them all with the same disdain and only talking to them whilst holding our collective western democratic noses. Every time I try to give examples on both teams, for balance, I’m conscious my examples against Israel are more numerous. But then, they’ve been at this ethnic cleansing for 5 months now. I guess even with the demonstrable threat to journalists lives, there are bound to be more examples to quote. What’s the end game? What happens when eventually Israel get to a quantity of blood they are content with. Will there never be another rocket fired again? What if there is another rocket? Will that mean Israel lost? Will it mean Israel then need to kill another 30,000? It’s the politics of a bully with a bloody nose, wounded and shamed in to being an even worse bully with no idea how to end the spiral. And no one disagreed with that point, the issue was taken with the fact that people think the UKs opposition party is going to influence Israel when USAs president can’t. There’s plenty of things to say about Labour, but to hinge any sort of realistic blame on them for Israel’s actions is just reaching. It’s a projection of their feelings about Israel (which is most often totally fair) on someone who has no power over the killing in question. Which is why I wrote that I hope they find their balls on Gaza, funding for Ukraine (which tbh is not even up to the knees of our fellow European allies), Sudan and Myanmar, amongst other conflicts, when they get into power. Gaza is a part of the foreign policy that they’ll need to get right, but it’s not as singular as yourself and many of the protestors for Palestine wishes it to be. In the scope of things, Ukraine is both more important politically, more deadly and a threat to the UK than Gaza, IDF and Hamas, or Iran for that matter. The shady champions of Gaza are many, most of them paid by Iran, George Galloway, Chris Williamson, various outer left groups and the constant barrage of Hamas/Iranian propaganda on platforms like x, amplified by people who thinks whatever they’re reposting is always true. Israel has their own versions but they’re nowhere near as popular or widely spread as the people in question. As a sample size, take this forum's posts on Israel, how many times have you seen tweets by the Quds network posted ignorantly without a thought compared to for example the Israeli Advocacy movement? They both post such blindingly obvious propaganda for their side that it’s beyond belief, yet only one of them is propagated and retweeted millions of times in the UK. Edited February 24 by magnkarl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted February 24 Share Posted February 24 1 minute ago, magnkarl said: And no one disagreed with that point, the issue was taken with the fact that people think the UKs opposition party is going to influence Israel when USAs president can’t. There’s plenty of things to say about Labour, but to hinge any sort of realistic blame on them for Israel’s actions is just reaching. It’s a projection of their feelings about Israel (which is most often totally fair) on someone who has no power over the killing in question. Which is why I wrote that I hope they find their balls on Gaza, funding for Ukraine (which tbh is not even up to the knees of our fellow European allies), Sudan and Myanmar, amongst other conflicts. Gaza is a part of the foreign policy that they’ll need to get right, but it’s not as singular as yourself and many of the protestors for Palestine wishes it to be. In the scope of things, Ukraine is both more important politically, more deadly and a threat to the UK than Gaza, IDF and Hamas, or Iran for that matter. What have you misread that makes you think I wish Gaza to be the singular most important cause? I have regularly moaned about the slow reluctant drip of aid to Ukraine. I would give neither side in Palestine any military assistance of any kind, I would encourage and celebrate a Ukraine ‘win’. For clarity, my most important ‘political’ cause, if you need to rank them in some linear order, is neither. It’s sacking off the bin fire of Westminster, but this isn’t really the forum for that. But it’s not a linear ‘to do’ list, you can pursue more than one interest at any one time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magnkarl Posted February 24 Share Posted February 24 3 minutes ago, chrisp65 said: What have you misread that makes you think I wish Gaza to be the singular most important cause? I have regularly moaned about the slow reluctant drip of aid to Ukraine. I would give neither side in Palestine any military assistance of any kind, I would encourage and celebrate a Ukraine ‘win’. For clarity, my most important ‘political’ cause, if you need to rank them in some linear order, is neither. It’s sacking off the bin fire of Westminster, but this isn’t really the forum for that. But it’s not a linear ‘to do’ list, you can pursue more than one interest at any one time. Israel and Palestine is a dumpster fire which in my humble opinion is stopped by beating Russia. Hamas is/was strong because of Iran, Iran is kept afloat by Russia, BN is in power because of Hamas and all this misery could be properly stopped once and for all if we could focus on knocking Russia out of this totalitarian tail spin and killing/kidnapping/murdering and displacing Ukrainians at a rate which dwarfs the conflict in Gaza. I hope Labour can find some balls on Ukraine, and if our other allies can too it’ll likely also stop Iran and Israel’s death match in the Middle East. A weak Russia is a weak Iran/Hamas, and a weak right wing in Israel. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ml1dch Posted February 24 Share Posted February 24 The various factions of the Judean People's Front appear to devastated by this defection to the Red Tories. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lichfield Dean Posted February 25 VT Supporter Share Posted February 25 3 hours ago, ml1dch said: The various factions of the Judean People's Front appear to devastated by this defection to the Red Tories. Splitters 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted February 25 Moderator Share Posted February 25 On 22/02/2024 at 19:10, chrisp65 said: when non of it actually makes any difference other than the optics for your potential voters. Zackly. If any of the parties wanted to (try) and make a difference they’d just sit down with the others and agree a joint statement- they all don’t want more killing, they all want hostages freed and they all want aid to be let in. But instead they’re all playing games for votes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villan95 Posted March 1 Share Posted March 1 (edited) Galloway wins the Rochdale by election then Edited March 1 by villan95 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supermon Posted March 1 Share Posted March 1 Shows what a shambles Starmer is as he is is hardly much different to the Tories. We need more alternative parties than the usual 3 that just churn out the same old shit and don't actually look out for people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted March 1 Moderator Share Posted March 1 53 minutes ago, supermon said: Shows what a shambles Starmer is as he is is hardly much different to the Tories. We need more alternative parties than the usual 3 that just churn out the same old shit and don't actually look out for people. How does it show that? Genuine question. There was no Labour candidate standing. The prospective Labour candidate was hooded out of labour for spouting conspiracy theory bollex, but it was too late to pick a different one. The Green candidate was similarly hoofed. Galloway is a populist and previously hoofed for being antisemitic, there was a Tory who, well, is Tory and various other unsuitable numpties. The voters had no good choices. It's a mess,b but not really reflective (IMO) of what you say. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jareth Posted March 1 VT Supporter Share Posted March 1 Do we think Labour were winning that if their candidate hadn’t been antisemitic? It looks like a strong win for an opportunist candidate campaigning on a single issue strongly in step with a majority of constituents. Labour will surely be relaxed but it does show they will lose votes on the issue of Gaza. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blandy Posted March 1 Moderator Share Posted March 1 13 minutes ago, Jareth said: Do we think Labour were winning that if their candidate hadn’t been antisemitic? It looks like a strong win for an opportunist candidate campaigning on a single issue strongly in step with a majority of constituents. Labour will surely be relaxed but it does show they will lose votes on the issue of Gaza. The former labour candidate had no infrastructure or support or campaign help. Given other recent by election results and the 10000 odd majority, then yeah, he would have romped it. I dunno if what he said was antisemitic, but it was definitely idiotic and betrayed a kind of brain gap that you'd hope an MP would be above. It'll be interesting to see how the explanations play out over the next few days. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
desensitized43 Posted March 1 Share Posted March 1 2 minutes ago, blandy said: The former labour candidate had no infrastructure or support or campaign help. Given other recent by election results and the 10000 odd majority, then yeah, he would have romped it. I dunno if what he said was antisemitic, but it was definitely idiotic and betrayed a kind of brain gap that you'd hope an MP would be above. It'll be interesting to see how the explanations play out over the next few days. But ironically what he said would have gone down very well with the demographics of Rochdale. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ml1dch Posted March 1 Share Posted March 1 (edited) 31 minutes ago, Jareth said: Do we think Labour were winning that if their candidate hadn’t been antisemitic? It looks like a strong win for an opportunist candidate campaigning on a single issue strongly in step with a majority of constituents. Labour will surely be relaxed but it does show they will lose votes on the issue of Gaza. He wasn't campaigning on a single issue. In half the constituency he was campaigning on a "stop Starmer's Israel killing our brothers and sisters in Palestine" ticket, in the other half he was on a Trumpy "go Brexit, I-know-what-a-woman-is, smash the grooming gangs" one. Because he's an opportunistic piece of dog-shit. Edited March 1 by ml1dch 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jareth Posted March 1 VT Supporter Share Posted March 1 26 minutes ago, desensitized43 said: But ironically what he said would have gone down very well with the demographics of Rochdale. Well exactly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jareth Posted March 1 VT Supporter Share Posted March 1 21 minutes ago, ml1dch said: He wasn't campaigning on a single issue. In half the constituency he was campaigning on a "stop Starmer's Israel killing our brothers and sisters in Palestine" ticket, in the other half he was on a Trumpy "go Brexit, I-know-what-a-woman-is, smash the grooming gangs" one. Because he's an opportunistic piece of dog-shit. Are you labelling those that voted for him as belonging in either of those stereotypes and couldn't possibly be previous Labour voters? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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