Can the left kick its terrible habit?
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2020/02/04/can-the-left-kick-its-terrible-habit.html
Can the left kick its terrible habit?
Sun, 2020-02-09 17:16
#1
Can the left kick its terrible habit?
Sun, 2020-02-09 17:59
#2
In what universe was Jeremy Corbyn ever "humorless" or "sexist", of all things? And who the hell would Ms. Mallick have preferred as Labour leader to Corbyn? It's not as though there was some ultracharming comic genius waiting to become leader if only Corbyn hadn't stood.
She started out the piece saying the left shouldn't bicker in public and they she goes on a nasty tirade against an OUTGOING Labour leader that is nothing but...bickering in public.
Corbyn made mistakes, but Jesus, it's kicking the guy when he's down to continue to attack him at this stage. The plain fact is, there simply wasn't any good alternative leader available to the party when he stood. Everyone who ran against him-Liz Kendall, Yvette Cooper, Andy Burnham, Owen Smith-was a charmless, spiteful scold, and all of them were committed to keeping the party's policies exactly where they were under Blair-a choice which would also have guaranteed defeat, as the 2010 and 2015 election failures proved-or, in Kendall's case, moving Labour to the RIGHT to Blair-and doing that would have made it pointless to ever even try to elect a Labour government again.
Sun, 2020-02-09 18:03
#3
And she liked Tony Blair.
Sun, 2020-02-09 18:17
#4
And she liked Tony Blair.
Who she includes on the left, a part of the spectrum Blair has always hated...or the "center-left", and even THAT isn't a part of the spectrum where Blair fits.
Mon, 2020-02-10 05:36
#5
She doesn't like non-human animals either. I love my Livia a 100 times more than bourgeois sellouts like her. And she even buys the crap about Corbyn being an antisemite and a sexist. If I call her a self-serving rich bitch, am I being sexist? I hate that kind of person. She was never seriously on any kind of left.
Mon, 2020-02-10 20:15
#6
She doesn't like non-human animals either. I love my Livia a 100 times more than bourgeois sellouts like her. And she even buys the crap about Corbyn being an antisemite and a sexist. If I call her a self-serving rich bitch, am I being sexist? I hate that kind of person. She was never seriously on any kind of left.
You're not being sexist. You're being decent.
Tue, 2020-02-11 11:40
#7
She doesn't like non-human animals either. I love my Livia a 100 times more than bourgeois sellouts like her. And she even buys the crap about Corbyn being an antisemite and a sexist. If I call her a self-serving rich bitch, am I being sexist? I hate that kind of person. She was never seriously on any kind of left.
You're not being sexist. You're being decent.
Well, personally, I think it's better to use non-gender specific epithets. Granted, a lot of the standards, while technically neutral, only really seem to fit for men, eg. I'd find it somewhat jarring to hear a woman called a "jerk" or an "asshole".
I've always thought "twit" was one that worked well for any gender, though that references stupidity more than evil, I'd say.
Tue, 2020-02-11 11:46
#8
Britain had good years (1997-2007) with New Labour led by Prime Minister Tony Blair, who once said in awe about the hard left that it’s as if “they don’t want to win.”
Even if you think there were good things about the UK under Blair, to issue blanket praise of his record without at least mentioning the Iraq War, well...
Tue, 2020-02-11 20:22
#9
Yes, he is a mass murderer. And continued the selloff of council housing, and did sweet fuck all to prevent destruction of the railways and carcentric development. The best thing one could possibly say about that bastard was that he wasn't Thatcher, but then, p.o.s. Boris Johnson isn't precisely Donald Trump or Jair Bolsonaro either. Very low standard.
Tue, 2020-02-11 23:11
#10
Labour never had to totally abandon socialism, totally abolish internal party democracy, and give up on presenting any real alternative to militarism to be able to win in 1997. It would won without Blair's vindictive small-c conservatism. And it was bullshit for Blair to say the left didn't want to win. Of course the left wanted to win. It wants to win now. It's just that the left rejects the "center-left"s smug, dismissive, reactionary notions about what Labour has to do to win. And if the nex Labour governmnent started another war, it would cease to BE a Labour government-Labour values and military intervention cannot co-exist; in this day and age, there can be no such thing as a war that leads to the adoption of Labour values in the country where the war takes place.