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Off Topic UK / EU Future

Discussion in 'Watford' started by Leo, Feb 13, 2018.

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  1. Leo

    Leo Well-Known Member

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    not sure that local elections in mid Parliament have any relevance - the ruling party always get decimated.
    The disgusting inability of Labour to sort out their anti-semitism is probably attacked as much if not more from the Labour side as the Tory - after all anti-semitism is across the political divide. It just happens that Corbyn is blind to it in his party -he has acknowledged that - but wont be able to be after all this - so a good thing.
     
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  2. yorkshirehornet

    yorkshirehornet Well-Known Member

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    I guess so but have the Israeli propaganda machine managed to put smoke and mirrors in the way of some of their terrible actions... 16 Palestinians were shot dead yesterday <rose>
     
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  3. Leo

    Leo Well-Known Member

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    The Israeli state though is fairly horrible. Their treatment of Palestinians across the years is unforgiveable. There is though a clear difference between being anti-semitic and being against the action of Israel.
     
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  4. colognehornet

    colognehornet Well-Known Member

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    We need to sort out exactly what anti semitism means Leo. Is it a racial expression, or a religious one, or is it about a nation ? If I criticize the government of Nigeria, is it a racist statement ? There is no reason why Israel should be the only country on this planet which is immune to criticism simply because people are afraid of being called anti Semitic. If it is used as an ethnic concept then the Palestinian Arabs are also Semites - so is the Israeli state anti Semitic, is Islamophobia anti Semitic ? Were Karl Marx and Rosa Luxemburg (both ethnically Jewish) anti semitic, because they were against the religion - and both denounced it ? The problem is that there are so many possible ways of being called anti Semitic.
     
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  5. Leo

    Leo Well-Known Member

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    I do not think it is too complicated. It is not the nation. It is not racial as not all semites are Jewishas you say. It is religious. You are knocking down a straw man. It has already been agreed that Israel and anti-semitism are not hand in hand. Throughout the last two thousand years - long before the sate of Israel - Jews were persecuted.
    I think their connexion with banking and interest on money may have fanned the flames of religious hatred centuries ago. Certainly the extreme left wing /communists (as in common parlance) have always hated what they called international Jewry. The extreme right hate them too for different reasons.
     
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  6. colognehornet

    colognehornet Well-Known Member

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    The problem lies with the fact that both Christians and Moslems were, in the past, forbidden from living from interest and so money lending became a Jewish profession, also because they were barred from many other professions. On the other hand, people of Jewish descent have had a proportionally high representaion in the development of Socialism. Israel has a socialist past, and even today has a much larger percentage of state ownership than you would normally find in the West. How many Socialists learned their trade on Kibbutz's of the past ? We need to reconnect the Jewish-Socialist tradition. We also need to face up to the uncomfortable historical fact that some Socialists of the past have been all to happy to bring 'Class War', and 'Race War' together when it was convenient to do so. In fact both Marx and Engels were rabid racists, when it was clear to them that an ethnic group were not capable of developing a proletarian consciousness. What we now know as the holocaust was practically advocated by Engels. Which raises lots of questions about our definitions of 'left wing' and 'right wing'.
     
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  7. Leo

    Leo Well-Known Member

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    I know why Jews became moneylenders. Charging interest was considered dirty and so people who did it were shunned - and as Jews were the only ones technically allowed to do it they got the blame. Not their fault but simply a fact. It helped cement hatred of Jews - the people and religion.
    Connexions with socialism etc are irrelevant. As we have both acknowledged the extremes - right and left - are prone to hatred and phobias against minority groups and anti-semitism is a part of that. During the war Jews suffered persecution from both ends of the spectrum fascist Germany and Communist Russia.
     
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  8. Leo

    Leo Well-Known Member

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    The point at issue for the moment though is Jeremy Corbyn. He is not one of the most intellectual people around. He knows he does not like Israel and supports the Palestinians (I have to confess to being in that camp mostly myself). What he is unable to do though is to rise above that and make the distinction we have made above about anti-semitism and anti-Israelism (new word). He is beginning to understand his error and hopefully will come out more and more strongly against anti-semitism while still being able to explain how abhorrent many of Israel's policies are. Personally I believe JC is a very kind and honest man and I am sure he does not have a drop of anti-semitism in him. As a party leader though he has to show others what is not acceptable.
     
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  9. colognehornet

    colognehornet Well-Known Member

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    I do not think that Corbyn would differentiate between people according to either their ethnic or their religious origins Leo. His brand of socialism does not allow for hierarchies, or for the idea that one group of people are 'better' than another. We need clear dividing lines as to what is anti Semitic and what isn't - because there is no other grouping with such a clear association of race=religion=nation, and we do not want these themes to be constantly running into each other. As an aside Leo, you were wrong in your last text in labelling the Soviet Union vs. Nazi Germany as two ends of the spectrum - the subsequent left wing intelligencia has successfully cast Nazi Germany as an example of the extreme right, but its origins were not so, they didn't use the word 'Socialist' to describe their movement purely because it sounded good.
     
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  10. Leo

    Leo Well-Known Member

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    Nobody is talking about any people being "better" than another. Racism, homophobia, sexism, anti-semitism are simply ignorant prejudice.
    I think many of us have no trouble taking nation and race out of the ant-semitic context. It is jews and judaism. Primarily religious.
    On Nazi Germany I agree that their title and roots were "national socialist" but most of us consider fascism a trait of the right so am content with that for what it is worth. The ultra nationalism is what defined them. In no way were they a people's movement but a simple dictatorship once in power.
     
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  11. colognehornet

    colognehornet Well-Known Member

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    Taking 'nation' out of the equation is easy Leo, but 'race' ? This implies that anti semitism is not racism, but rather religious bigotry. By that token Hitler was not an anti semite because his definition of them was a racial one - unbelievably an ethnic German could have converted to Judaism and not be persecuted for it - this sounds hard to believe, but it was true. What we term as 'left wing' and 'right wing' have changed through time. Originally the left would have been the rising bourgiosie as against the ruling landed classes and the monarchy. In later days being left wing implied collective ownership of the means of production - nothing more, nothing less - no mention of multi culti whatsoever. After World War 2, in response to immigration, and to distance itself from the Nazis, the term left wing began to take on it's present connotations. If anti semitism has only a religious background, then why does it use the expression 'Semite' which is an ethnic term and not a religious one ?
     
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  12. Leo

    Leo Well-Known Member

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    Why then are only Jews the subject of anti-semitism? Half the region and more is semitic. The slogans and daubings on the walls in Germany targeted "Jude" not semites. It was Jews. Nobody in German who was not a Jew would have been brave or foolish enough to convert to judaism so your comment is a moot point. I am bored with the left- right debate - as with the strict definition of communism. The man on the Clapham omnibus knows what he understands by the terms and that is good enough for me if not a strict legal definition.
     
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  13. colognehornet

    colognehornet Well-Known Member

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    Who is 'The man on the Clapham omnibus' Leo ? The point is with regard to Nazi Germany, the term Semite was not really in use in Central Europe at that time, whereas Germany had about 6 million Jews living there - there were no other Semites there. The aspect of 'Jewishness' in Germany was decided by the ethnic origins of the mother, and was something which could not be escaped from - converting to Christianity or to Atheism would not have helped them. So it was essentially used as a racial, biological expression.
     
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  14. Leo

    Leo Well-Known Member

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    Man on the Clapham Omnibus is a well known phrase meaning the average joe public - the person you would meet in a pub or bus, not the intellectual with 50 books and degrees behind him.
    It is not about Nazi Germany - read Shakespeare and Merchant of Venice. Jews were hated and despised throughout christendom and beyond for hundreds if not thousands of years - the Nazis just made a professional job of their hatred. It was Jews of the Jewish faith who people hated. Jews who converted and inter-married "disappeared" off the hatred radar. It certainly predates any racial or biological comparison. In bygone centuries everything was about faith.
     
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  15. colognehornet

    colognehornet Well-Known Member

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    In bygone centuries maybe, but not in Nazi Germany. The poison of the Nazis was biological - Hitler did not give a monkeys about religion, in actual fact, on purely theological grounds, he despised Catholicism as much as Judaism. The main targets of the Nazi racial theory were the Gypsies, the Jews and the Slavs - all as ethnic groups. But we are digressing horribly here Leo - we agree that Corbyn is not anti semitic (whatever we agree that term as meaning). But we would need to use the term more specifically if hurling this charge at others in the Labour Party. We agree that criticism of Israel is not anti semitic in nature - can you give examples of where party members have gone further than this ?
     
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  16. Leo

    Leo Well-Known Member

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    I do not see the point in specific examples - how many would you need to accept a case had been made? One, ten, a thousand?
    It is the culture of the party that concerns people as Corbyn is out of step with many in the Labour Party as his support for the Palestinian cause leads him to be slow in recognising the difference between anti Israeli government and whatever some members of his party feel about Jews in general. He had the same problem over the EU where his personal position differed considerably from mainstream Labour supporters and also on Trident. His real problem is he has principles he finds hard to compromise and that makes leadership difficult. Hence why he finds it necessary to use Momentum to remodel the party on his lines but unfortunately for him he will always be a more comfortable rebel than leader
     
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  17. andytoprankin

    andytoprankin Well-Known Member

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    As a Labour Party member, I have not heard anything anti-Judaism or anti-Jew - not slightest thing. There is a lot of very severe criticism of Israeli ‘policy’. To suggest those who criticise Israel are necessarily anti-Judaism or anti-Jew is deliberate misdirection from the criticism. Criticism of Israel is not limited to Labour members either. Are the Liberals seen as anti-Judaism? Within my local branch in North Hertfordshire, Corbyn is very popular.
     
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  18. Leo

    Leo Well-Known Member

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    Watching the news this morning Poland, Austria, Hungary and the Italian opposition all have quite serious issues with the EU - particularly its institutions. Why could they - and no doubt others have been more accommodating when the UK was seeking changes in the EU rather than to leave. It is clear that across Europe there is quite a lot of support for a less centralised and bureaucratic structure - which is what ultimately the UK was arguing. One size does not fit all.
     
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  19. oldfrenchhorn

    oldfrenchhorn Well-Known Member
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    Yet the regular surveys that are done across the whole of the EU show that 68% feel that they are happy to be citizens of Europe as well as their national countries. Denmark which is most similar to the UK with various opt-outs has seen the level of support for the EU grow from a 44 for, 37 against a year ago, to 55 for, and 27 against now. Maybe it is down to the economies doing well or people have seen the split in the UK population. As you say the opposition parties will have alternatives to put forward, although many are critical, they do not want to leave. The FN here stood for leaving, but when that didn't work changed their policy to staying in.
     
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  20. oldfrenchhorn

    oldfrenchhorn Well-Known Member
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    Without wishing to raise a storm, I will report on what I see happening today. Within the past month the UK ambassador held a meeting in Paris to outline where the UK/EU discussion had got to. Similar meetings have been held in other countries. He was talking to expats who were worried about such things as how they could live in one EU country and work in another. The meeting was due to last an hour but extended to three hours. At the end he promised to feed all the information back to government in London.

    This is a real problem for many. My son in law works legally in Switzerland and can claim resident status there, although he is registered as a French resident also. Anyone who lives on a border that they cross for work is also affected.

    Today David Davis was in front of the Lords Brexit committee that is chaired by someone I know and respect greatly. He said that he had only just become aware of the problems regarding cross border work and living. This problem has been known, discussed at many levels, yet the Brexit chief has only just found out about it. Maybe the three hours spent in Paris with the ambassador were time well spent.
     
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