General Election 2017

[chrisp65]

 

end of moral argument

 

[magnkarl]

6 minutes ago, peterms said:

Please spare me the concern about sharing platforms with bombers.  The British Government was directly paying people it knew to be actively involved in murders, over many, many years.  Politicians frequently meet, form relationships with, and seek to work with some very unpleasant people.

The idea of this orchestrated, pearl-clutching faux outrage dominating the headlines while our PM sells WMDs to Saudi Arabia to murder Yemeni children is frankly sick-making.

Don't play along with it.

Okay, so one wrong makes another right? I think we should hold all these people accountable as people who represent our population. I don't like what we're doing for Saudi Arabia either.

But it's cool, let's all not hold Abbott and Corbyn, as well as May, accountable for anything because it's been done before. That is an extremely slippery slope my friend and a desperate attempt at getting out of a hole that Corbyn and Abbott has made for themselves. We made a booboo, but look at the booboos that all these other people made too!!

Edited May 28, 2017 by magnkarl

[PompeyVillan]

1 minute ago, peterms said:

Please spare me the concern about sharing platforms with bombers.  The British Government was directly paying people it knew to be actively involved in murders, over many, many years.  Politicians frequently meet, form relationships with, and seek to work with some very unpleasant people.

The idea of this orchestrated, pearl-clutching faux outrage dominating the headlines while our PM sells WMDs to Saudi Arabia to murder Yemeni children is frankly sick-making.

Don't play along with it.

This is how I see it and excellently put. 

[peterms]

2 minutes ago, Risso said:

he, McDonnell and Abbott all very openly and publicly were in support of their eventual aim of a united Ireland.  At least McDonnell has been open enough to apologise for his remarks.  Corbyn's mealy mouthed defence of his record is stomach churning and just a bare-faced lie.

Well, which is it to be?  He was openly and publicly in support of a united Ireland, or that he's lying about it?

What exactly is wrong with supporting a united Ireland, attending marches and events in favour if it?

Nothing at all.

He has made it plain that he disagrees with the tactics of the IRA to achieve that aim.

Of course the aim of the current tory campaign is to pretend that there's no difference between supporting the political aim, and approving the tactics used by some.  Disingenuous, indeed.

[colhint]

I don't think  are showing support for a united Ireland if you only talk to one side. I actually think you are harming the situation if you parade yourself with people who have committed atrocities. I think that might well piss off the people on the other side.

[Risso]

44 minutes ago, peterms said:

Well, which is it to be?  He was openly and publicly in support of a united Ireland, or that he's lying about it?

 

He openly supported it, and now he's lying about it.

[peterms]

27 minutes ago, colhint said:

I don't think  are showing support for a united Ireland if you only talk to one side. I actually think you are harming the situation if you parade yourself with people who have committed atrocities. I think that might well piss off the people on the other side.

Yes, I think a lot of people would feel that.

However, the role of talking equally to people on both sides is not one which is open to many people.  It is that of a neutral, an honest broker, like the US politician who played a central role in managing decommissioning talks.

Another necessary role is played by people sympathetic to one side, who can encourage them along a path they find it difficult to take.  There is some brief discussion of that here, specifically in the context of McDonnell's much-criticised remarks.

Quote

Following the Sun's coverage, McDonnell gave Paul a statement which sought to put his comments in the context of the crisis in the peace process at the time:

 In my speech I aimed to address republicans in terms they would understand. My message was that they had been successful in bringing about negotiations and that all those who contributed to this goal had won respect. Along with others, I am hoping to create the kinds of formulations through which the IRA, the loyalist paramilitaries and the British army can all depart the scene without a sense of abiding grievance. No side will move if movement is portrayed as humiliating surrender.

That effort has now been distorted into an alleged expression of support for the slaughter of innocent children. Let me be clear, I abhor and condemn the killing of innocent human beings. My heart goes out to all those who have lost friends and relatives in the Troubles.

How decisive an intervention by an MP at a small public meeting in London would have been in these terms is open to question, but as an analysis of the situation at the time it should not be dismissed. If the peace process was to get past the decommissioning logjam, it was IRA members who would have to be persuaded.

It is this internal dynamic within republicanism that is missed by Corbyn and McDonnell's critics. It is sometimes said that they were not working for peace because they engaged the leadership of Sinn Feín, rather than the SDLP, and that this encouraged republicans to continue the war. In reality, in working with Sinn Fein, they were working with the very people whose dialogue with grassroots republicanism was essential to the IRA ceasefire, and who needed to be able to demonstrate political influence to show that there was an alternative way forward. The SDLP itself tacitly recognised this through its own engagement with Sinn Fein in the Hume-Adams dialogue.

To dismiss the significance of republicanism's internal dynamics, it is necessary to assume that the Sinn Fein leadership could simply order the IRA membership into the very difficult position in which the Basque nationalist group ETA finds itself today: unilaterally disarming for no obvious political return. Given the history of IRA splits, this was always an unlikely scenario.

Some people like to pretend that we should never talk to people who use violence.  When politicians say that, they are always (because they clearly know better) stating a position they know to be wrong.  Moving away from conflict always requires negotiation, which is preceded by all sorts of activities and discussions to make negotiation possible - except in the  usually vastly destructive cases where complete victory makes negotiation unnecessary.

Saying you shouldn't talk to people who have committed atrocities is usually a recipe for the continuation of atrocities.

And saying you shouldn't have talked to such people decades ago, while you are personally actively supporting people currently committing atrocities on a far greater scale, as Theresa May is doing, is beneath contempt.

 

[peterms]

2 minutes ago, Risso said:

He openly supported it, and now he's lying about it.

He's lying about having supported a united Ireland?  Could you point me towards where you're getting that, please?

[magnkarl]

25 minutes ago, peterms said:

He's lying about having supported a united Ireland?  Could you point me towards where you're getting that, please?

In the same argument I'd like you to find anything that states that Corbyn worked with both sides in this conflict. The difference here is that all the people, even Labour supporters, that aren't fervently defending Abbott/Crobyn/McDonnell have explicit quotes and pictures from these 3 that states that they supported the IRA. At some point even the most staunch defender of a cause has to at least see a bit of the problem that so many people are arguing. Abbott and Corbyn are making no effort to put these things to bed, like Abbott this morning, so people have questions.

It's turning into a "I don't want Labour to lose face" argument rather than what the real problem is here. No matter the party of the politician, we should not be fueling conflict by taking sides and be supporting Hamas, IRA, Saudi Arabia and so on. In this case Corbyn has a long, very spotted history of doing so, and people have all the right in the world to question that without getting shouted down by momentum members in debates around the country. Just because our governments have made mistakes before doesn't give Corbyn/May a get out of jail free card to keep making the same mistakes - and arguing with people who are pointing that out is putting you in quite a desperate light.

Edited May 28, 2017 by magnkarl

[Awol]

6 minutes ago, peterms said:

He's lying about having supported a united Ireland?  Could you point me towards where you're getting that, please?

He's lying about not having met members of the IRA. You know this.

It's got nothing to do with Saudi Arabia (a loathing we share), nothing to do with him trying to bring about peace (as the quotes from those involved on the Republican side make clear - see Blandy's earlier post) and everything to do with his support for them. Even now he can't make the clear statement that he condemns the actions of the IRA, but qualifies his response by saying he condemns all violence.  

He's a groupie, a fan boy attempting to bask in what he perceives as the reflected 'glory' of so called liberation movements. That's why he attended memorials for dead terrorists and why he likes the company of Hamas and Hezbollah. He talks about peace while associating himself with men of violence.

As Blandy neatly put it he is a wrong 'un and imo is on the same level as the moral cowards who 'like' Jihadi snuff videos from the safety of their mum's basement.

 

[TrentVilla]

 

 

[Awol]

4 minutes ago, TrentVilla said:

 

 

HMG: Good morning, do you still want to destroy Israel and kill all the Jews?

Hamas: Yes

Hezbollah: Of course.

HMG: I see.

Meeting ends.

[TrentVilla]

 

Old Jeremy seems to have a fair few questionable friends and I'm not talking about Dianne Abbott.

The IRA stuff isn't an isolated example as this clip shows as does his attendance at a memorial service for one of the Munich 72 attackers.

[magnkarl]

Just now, Awol said:

HMG: Good morning, do you still want to destroy Israel and kill all the Jews?

Hamas: Yes

Hezbollah: Of course.

HMG: I see.

Meeting ends.

Memo given out at end of meeting: This was a peace discussion meeting, the fact that Israel wasn't here means that we all agree on all the above points. A plan to enact this agenda will be forthcoming once I'm done talking to some fellow friends from Dundalk.  Thanks, JC.

[peterms]

14 minutes ago, Awol said:

He's lying about not having met members of the IRA. You know this.

See above.  The claim being made by people like Johnson (see his tweet) is about him meeting McGuinness.  When he met him, McGuinness had claimed to have left the IRA years before.

And of course the claim made against Corbyn is about holding a meeting with then-current members of the IRA in order to show support for their methods, not about having met them for talks like Whitelaw or for whatever undisclosed purpose Hurd met them.  Nor is the claim simply about having been at the same event with them, or stood behind them in the queue at the post office.  The claim, which people like Johnson try to make by insinuation rather than in terms, is of supporting the murders carried out by the IRA.  You know this.  And you know it's false.  And you also know it's being made in order to distract attention from things like the current state of panic in tory ranks at the incompetence of their campaign, the dreadful state of the economy over the last seven years of mismanagement, and so on.

It's also the case that the claim is being made that Corbyn lied, because polls are showing that people are starting to trust him more than May, and this goes to the very heart of the one-dimensional campaign planned by May's tiny circle of advisers.

As for groupies and reflected glory, these are the images that come to mind:

[Awol]

8 minutes ago, TrentVilla said:

 

Old Jeremy seems to have a fair few questionable friends and I'm not talking about Dianne Abbott.

The IRA stuff isn't an isolated example as this clip shows as does his attendance at a memorial service for one of the Munich 72 attackers.

F'cough, did he really???

[magnkarl]

4 minutes ago, peterms said:

Oh my, is that 3 prime ministers in pictures in front of two British battalions and one driving a British tank? Forces which they command as the PM? APPALLING!!! Someone should do something!

 

Yes I clearly see the lines to how this is similar to calling Hamas and Hezbollah friends. Joke of the day, right?

Edited May 28, 2017 by magnkarl

[magnkarl]

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/home-affairs/terrorism/news/86282/diane-abbott-corbyn-met-ira-members-their-capacity-sinn

Quote

The Shadow Home Secretary's remarks appeared to contradict Mr Corbyn's assertion yesterday that he had never met with the Republican terrorist group. 

The Labour leader has come under fire for his past association with militant Republicans, including inviting convicted IRA terrorists to the House of Commons just weeks after the Brighton bombing in 1984.

In an interview on the BBC last night, Mr Corbyn insisted he had "never met the IRA" and had done his best to help negotiate a peaceful solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland. 

'ACTIVISTS IN SINN FEIN'

But this morning Ms Abbott appeared to contradict that assertion, telling LBC radio: "I think that his understanding is he met with them in their capacity as activists in Sinn Fein."

 

[Guest av1]

I've always voted labour, but i simply cannot bring myself to vote for a party run by Corbyn and Abbott. 

Its saddens me that i have no option but to not vote at all, given that all 3 major parties are all as incompetent as each other. 

 

[Risso]

Just now, av1 said:

I've always voted labour, but i simply cannot bring myself to vote for a party run by Corbyn and Abbott. 

Its saddens me that i have no option but to not vote at all, given that all 3 major parties are all as incompetent as each other. 

 

My father-in-law, a dyed in the wool leftie, has just said much the same thing.