EU election

[Silvanus]

Snipped

What an enormous amount of waffle and rationalisation for treating extremist/racist endorsements on one side as unacceptable, and on the other side as a distraction.

Salah is the leader of a group that is part of a national liberation movement [...]

Oh, leading a group in opposition to an oppressive force gives one an exemption for extreme racism, does it? Because... Navalny also did that.

correct me if I'm wrong

You are wrong. Let's go through some choice statements again, from different times:

"We have never allowed ourselves to knead the bread that breaks the fast in the holy month of Ramadan with children’s blood. Whoever wants a more thorough explanation, let him ask what used to happen to some children in Europe, whose blood was mixed in with the dough of the holy bread." --- speech, 2007

"A suitable way was found to warn the 4,000 Jews who work every day at the Twin Towers to be absent from their work on September 11, 2001, and this is really what happened! Were 4,000 Jewish clerks absent by chance, or was there another reason?" ---- article, 2001

"The unique mover wanted to carry out the bombings in Washington and New York in order to provide the Israeli establishment with a way out of its entanglements." ----Ditto

"[Homosexuality] is a crime. A great crime. Such phenomena signal the start of the collapse of every society. Those who believe in Allah know that behavior of that kind brings his wrath and is liable to cause the worst things to happen." ---Ha'aretz Interview, 2003

"We have to ask those who talk about murder for the sake of the family honor – mainly feminist organizations – what they did to prevent the murder of family honor itself... Some of the people who invented this concept are encouraging anarchy in the society"

Here he is laughing and reminiscing about drawing a big swastika behind a Jewish teacher.

state-run slave camp? You mean a prison? We have those all over the United States.

You do indeed have "penal labour" -- also known as slavery-- camps in the US. Not to the extent of Russia, which is a world leader in that avenue. Of course when they exist in the US you rightfully condemn them; when they exist in Russia, talking about them is a distraction I imagine.

Oh, I know what you find so distasteful about Salah: he advises Arab Israelis not to participate in Israeli politics. Crime of the century.

Hmmm, no, its the extreme racism and bigotry. All this waffle doesn't change the fact: you'll condemn a centrist endorsing racists, but will condemn anyone who criticises a leftist endorsing racists.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Pointless waffling

I notice you still haven't provided any reason to believe your initial claim. You're wanting to get lost in the weeds over semantics instead of saying what demographic of the far left is antisemitic. Because again, I couldn't find anything.

That's fine, you're not required to. But then surely you also realise neither am I required to buy into your assumption of perfect moral cleanliness and ideological consistency. The hard left's political opponents definitely aren't required to buy into your assumption either.

You can get terribly upset that these political opponents say critical things about your side, but it's just pointless hysteria to scream at them that they're all supporting the Nazis. If you want to do that, your main accomplishment will be to have other people think you and yours are a bunch of sanctimonious, shrill pricks who are best ignored or opposed. (And therein lies a significant reason for why the hard left can be unpopular.)

"The hard left is just as cynical as the center, look at how Melenchon only marched for antisemitism in 2019!"
"The 2023 march was a giant genocide apology and plea for the government to not allow criticism of a foreign government."
"Pointing that out just makes you look shrill and unlikable, you should just assume everything I say is correct since I'm perfect!"

Yes, when people consistently lie like you, it's worth opposing. When those lies are in service to electing Nazis, doubly so. Centrists will go on long tirades about the left not voting for them and getting Nazis in power, I would say turnabout is fair play, but the centrists entire shtick is to pretend to be allies to the left and make things look like infighting instead of just being a third force in politics. Just one that happens to benefit the right more than the left.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Oh, leading a group in opposition to an oppressive force gives one an exemption for extreme racism, does it? Because... Navalny also did that.

lmao. Liberals will believe any horseshit.

Navalny was leader of the white nationalist/personal opportunist 'opposition'. he wanted to replace Putin with himself in a more cordial relationship with the West with the associated sacrifices that entails (they wouldn't be his sacrifices, after all). That is so very much not the same thing as the decolonization of Palestine (or some intermediate step toward it). I don't think you answered whether you think the IRA is equivalent to the KKK. Calling Navalny of all people some kind of opposition to oppression raises that question again. The KKK opposed President Johnson, so they must be freedom fighters! Common cause with Ho Chi Minh!

You are wrong. Let's go through some choice statements again, from different times:

ok. good job on expanding the scope from a focus on antisemitism. the perfect victim he is not. Israel makes sure to kill or imprison indefinitely all the perfect victims. Sound strategy, apparently.

You do indeed have "penal labour" -- also known as slavery-- camps in the US. Not to the extent of Russia, which is a world leader in that avenue. Of course when they exist in the US you rightfully condemn them; when they exist in Russia, talking about them is a distraction I imagine.

Yeah, it's pretty silly to have strong opinions about other countries doing things that your own country does without effective opposition or a second thought. Especially when your own country influences international norms so strongly. You and I also exist in contexts. And neither of us are Russian so far as I know.

Hmmm, no, its the extreme racism and bigotry. All this waffle doesn't change the fact: you'll condemn a centrist endorsing racists, but will condemn anyone who criticises a leftist endorsing racists.

There are significant qualitative differences between being polite to someone like Salah in his position as a leader of a group resisting colonial oppression and venerating someone like Navalny unprompted as a truth-telling freedom fighter for wanting to become the supreme comprador of Russia. That would be true even if both were complicated figures. But there's nothing good about Navalny and no need for anyone outside of Russia to speak of him ever.

 

[Agema]

I notice you still haven't provided any reason to believe your initial claim. You're wanting to get lost in the weeds over semantics instead of saying what demographic of the far left is antisemitic. Because again, I couldn't find anything.

If you spent less time trying to make straw men, you'd find it a lot easier. If the French hard left wish to knowingly downplay, trivialise, or evade condemnation of antisemitism, then they shouldn't complain when they are accused of antisemitism. It's that simple.

Yes, when people consistently lie like you, it's worth opposing. When those lies are in service to electing Nazis, doubly so.

I can't help but think that one of the best recruiting tools for the Nazis is sanctimonious leftists intolerantly screaming abuse at anyone who disagrees with them.

Look, I'm going to leave you to stew in your squalid frustrations. Self-declared moral superiority is a heady brew, but when combined with intolerant, vindictive condemnation it's just making life unpleasant for others. If you want to behave like a left-wing MTG that's your prerogative, but this conversation is beyond recovery, and I don't see the value in conversing with you ever again. Feel free to have the last word if you wish.

 

[Seanchaidh]

I can't help but think that one of the best recruiting tools for the Nazis is sanctimonious leftists intolerantly screaming abuse at anyone who disagrees with them.

ScREAmIng AbUSe

 

[Silvanus]

lmao. Liberals will believe any horseshit.

Navalny was [...]

Blah, more irrelevant waffle. What you think of his movement doesn't matter. It was full of shitty elements-- and so is Salah's. Salah runs a genocidal, theocratic, far-right gang.

They both run deeply problematic, oft-racist outfits. They both oppose a tyrant. You talk about the racism solely if you happen to like the tyrant in question, and will otherwise ignore and excuse it.

ok. good job on expanding the scope from a focus on antisemitism. the perfect victim he is not. Israel makes sure to kill or imprison indefinitely all the perfect victims. Sound strategy, apparently.

Cool, so we've shifted from "he's fine" to "he's not fine at all but it doesn't matter". That's progress at least-- now of course, Russia slaughters its "perfect victims" as well, but that seemingly wasn't enough to earn your exemption for racism there.

Yeah, it's pretty silly to have strong opinions about other countries doing things that your own country does without effective opposition or a second thought. Especially when your own country influences international norms so strongly. You and I also exist in contexts. And neither of us are Russian so far as I know.

Prime "ideological consistency" here: the same oppressive system can be inexcusable in America but also shouldn't even be criticised in other countries! Very consistent.

There are significant qualitative differences between being polite to someone like Salah in his position as a leader of a group resisting colonial oppression and venerating someone like Navalny unprompted as a truth-telling freedom fighter for wanting to become the supreme comprador of Russia. That would be true even if both were complicated figures. But there's nothing good about Navalny and no need for anyone outside of Russia to speak of him ever.

Your inane exaggerations of one figure and shameless eulogising of another figure continue to make no difference to the core inconsistency.

 

[tstorm823]

The tendency of Macron and other "centrists" to prefer the far right to anyone left of them and to make specious allegations about antisemitism against anyone who thinks Palestinians are worthy of solidarity.

A) Interesting choice of words. Not sympathy or compassion, but solidarity. A sense of united purpose with people who elected Hamas, who laud the death of Jews in their charter, to power. It's very easy to understand those who oppose Israeli military activity in a way that isn't anti-Semitic, but you choose the way that almost certainly is.
B) People liking everyone else more than they like you isn't more important than other topics.

 

[Seanchaidh]

What you think of his movement doesn't matter.

Dodge

 

[crimson5pheonix]

If you spent less time trying to make straw men, you'd find it a lot easier. If the French hard left wish to knowingly downplay, trivialise, or evade condemnation of antisemitism, then they shouldn't complain when they are accused of antisemitism. It's that simple.

I have yet to see it because you've yet to show it. Nor have you shown your original claim that the left in France drew from antisemitic elements. The claim made with no evidence can be dismissed with no evidence.

I can't help but think that one of the best recruiting tools for the Nazis is sanctimonious leftists intolerantly screaming abuse at anyone who disagrees with them.

Look, I'm going to leave you to stew in your squalid frustrations. Self-declared moral superiority is a heady brew, but when combined with intolerant, vindictive condemnation it's just making life unpleasant for others. If you want to behave like a left-wing MTG that's your prerogative, but this conversation is beyond recovery, and I don't see the value in conversing with you ever again. Feel free to have the last word if you wish.

Sure, learn to respond to people's arguments if you want to have any real conversations from now on. Otherwise join Tstorm and Phoenixmgs in semantic wordgames.

 

[Silvanus]

Dodge

Hah, that's rich, considering earlier you refused to acknowledge the racism of Salah and his group on the basis that discussing it was a "distraction"-- but suddenly its not a distraction with Navalny! Now we mustn't discuss anything else!

Nope, you can't just carry on with the gross inconsistency. Either extreme racism is excusable in someone fighting against a tyrant, or its not. Either talking about it is a "distraction" or it's not. You can't pick and choose whether the racism of the opponent matters depending on whether you like the tyrant.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Hah, that's rich, considering earlier you refused to acknowledge the racism of Salah and his group on the basis that discussing it was a "distraction"-- but suddenly its not a distraction with Navalny! Now we mustn't discuss anything else!

You brought up Navalny. You cannot simultaneously claim to be showing my hypocrisy or whatever while then saying it doesn't matter what I think about the people and movements involved. That is incoherent to put it lightly.

 

[Silvanus]

You brought up Navalny. You cannot simultaneously claim to be showing my hypocrisy or whatever while then saying it doesn't matter what I think about the people and movements involved. That is incoherent to put it lightly.

Then you've missed the point entirely, it would seem.

The nature of those people and movements matters a great deal to the question of whether eulogising/ endorsing them is acceptable. Or at least I think it does. But since you have argued insistently that it's an irrelevant "distraction" with regards to Salah (on the basis that he's opposing an oppressive force), you cannot suddenly and conveniently deem it of utmost relevance with regards to others.

If we accept your approach, then it remains irrelevant what you think of Navalny, and your position on the two of them remains inconsistent bunk. If we drop your approach and acknowledge that it's relevant, then that's cool with me, we can also discuss Salah being a blood-libeler racist theocrat.

 

[Seanchaidh]

Or at least I think it does. But since you have argued insistently that it's an irrelevant "distraction" with regards to Salah (on the basis that he's opposing an oppressive force), you cannot suddenly and conveniently deem it of utmost relevance with regards to others.

you're putting words in my mouth, or rather jumbling them up to suit your own whim. anyway, your arguments are bad and you should feel bad.

A) Interesting choice of words. Not sympathy or compassion, but solidarity. A sense of united purpose with people who elected Hamas, who laud the death of Jews in their charter, to power. It's very easy to understand those who oppose Israeli military activity in a way that isn't anti-Semitic, but you choose the way that almost certainly is.

well, sure, if you ignore the mountain of reasons that's bullshit.

 

[Silvanus]

you're putting words in my mouth, or rather jumbling them up to suit your own whim.

Hmm, no, you did in fact call it a "distraction" to criticise the (fucking extreme) racism of someone, despite not applying the same approach to others when convenient.

 

[tstorm823]

well, sure, if you ignore the mountain of reasons that's bullshit.

Too many you can't possibly name one, eh?

 

[Seanchaidh]

Hmm, no, you did in fact call it a "distraction" to criticise the (fucking extreme) racism of someone, despite not applying the same approach to others when convenient.

Are you really this disingenuous? "And on the basis that he's opposing an oppressive force"? There is nowhere any connection between that and the plain fact that your obsession with equating Salah and Navalny is a distraction from Macron's libels against the left in France. Indeed, I didn't even describe Salah's condition as simply 'opposing an oppressive force'; that's your invention that handily oversimplifies and flattens the context so that you can fatuously equate a national liberation movement that has faced ethnic cleansing and periodic mass murder since the inception of israel (including continual violence and harassment by Jewish supremacists at Al-Aqsa Mosque which seems to be especially important to Salah) with some guy who plays around with Western NGO money in Russia. I also didn't say anything about a 'pass' for racism; whereas you've handily downplayed the exterminationist language of Navalny. Salah does have a mitigating factor (it can certainly be argued how much it mitigates: this is a contested philosophical matter) in that he's constantly dealing with living in a Jewish supremacist society that acts in a racist way toward him specifically as well as Palestinians generally. He is certainly on the oppressed rather than the oppressor side of that dynamic. Navalny, on the other hand... was in Russia. Hardly an Islamic supremacist state, that. Salah has reasons to be resentful even if the way that resentment is expressed may be too broadly targeted at least some of the time. Navalny has no such reason to be resentful toward Muslims or some subset of Muslims; for him it is just pure gross unprompted bigotry against a minority group.

I've called your participation in this thread and my engagement with you a distraction, but that's entirely separate from any point about Salah, Navalny, Corbyn, and so forth. You've also as far as I'm aware falsely said I condemned people for lionizing Navalny; as far as I recall I merely made it clear that you and others were lauding a figure who has incited racial hatred in a way that would be very illegal in your own country- not because I think that's something you like, but because Navalny's racism is routinely ignored in Western media and you probably hadn't even heard of it. Russia has better and more popular opposition leaders. But they're not as palatable to Western capital.

Too many you can't possibly name one, eh?

You magically transformed solidarity with Palestinians to solidarity with Hamas.
Your description of Hamas carries so much spin and ignorance of countervailing information that it basically amounts to lies.
(Less importantly because this is a more technical matter and it shouldn't overshadow the more egregious ways in which you attempted to mislead) solidarity and common cause are not necessarily for every goal of those enjoying the solidarity; common cause means uniting to achieve a shared aim not all shared aims: expressions of solidarity are typically limited in their scope implicitly if not explicitly.

Hey, there's three that were exceedingly obvious and each sufficient on their own.

 

[Silvanus]

Snipped

Another wall of waffling text consisting of inane exaggerations for one figure, and shameless eulogising for the other.

No: If you consider someone being an extreme racist to be relevant to whether we should voice support for them in other avenues, then you absolutely cannot whine that it's a "distraction" when it's brought up.

solidarity and common cause are not necessarily for every goal of those enjoying the solidarity; common cause means uniting to achieve a shared aim not all shared aims: expressions of solidarity are typically limited in their scope implicitly if not explicitly.

Cool, now apply this consistently, rather than deploying it when it's helpful and dropping it in a heartbeat when it ain't.

 

[tstorm823]

You magically transformed solidarity with Palestinians to solidarity with Hamas.
Your description of Hamas carries so much spin and ignorance of countervailing information that it basically amounts to lies.
(Less importantly because this is a more technical matter and it shouldn't overshadow the more egregious ways in which you attempted to mislead) solidarity and common cause are not necessarily for every goal of those enjoying the solidarity; common cause means uniting to achieve a shared aim not all shared aims: expressions of solidarity are typically limited in their scope implicitly if not explicitly.

You do feel solidarity with Hamas, and so do protestors that wave the flags of Hamas and Hezbollah.
" The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews. "
You do feel solidarity with them to kill all the Jews in Israel.

 

[Agema]

You do feel solidarity with Hamas, and so do protestors that wave the flags of Hamas and Hezbollah.
" The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews. "
You do feel solidarity with them to kill all the Jews in Israel.

What on earth did the Gharkad tree ever do to get picked on like that?

 

[Seanchaidh]

You do feel solidarity with Hamas, and so do protestors that wave the flags of Hamas and Hezbollah.
" The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews. "
You do feel solidarity with them to kill all the Jews in Israel.

have you recently sustained a head injury?

words

it seems you lack either the capacity or the inclination to do anything other than gesture vaguely and complain when I don't follow your lead on ignoring all relevant context including apparently the entire history of the Zionist occupation of Palestine.