the haters on the left up their game

the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party, and thus of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, has had at least one apparently unintended consequence. Not of course the emergence of links to theocratic haters and approving references to the oppression of women and gays in various places - we all knew that parts of the left were happy with that - but personal hate speech directed against those who did and do not support Jeremy Corbyn's leadership. Unfairly, often, because most UK Labour Party members are decent people who are prepared to work with and support a party leader they did not themselves vote for. I know I have heard from many who take that view. I do suspect that the haters may not even be long-standing Labour Party members themselves, but may be "three-pounders" (like me) who signed up just to vote in the leadership. But haters there are. Now we know there is plenty of hate on the left. As there is elsewhere. But it interesting how and where it tends to manifest itself.

Back before the 2008 US Presidential election I supported Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, not that I had a vote or the remotest scintilla of influence in that process. I received a flood of messages, over several weeks, containing fairly extreme hate speech, much of it to the effect that I would like to have sex with Barack Obama but that he wouldn't be interested in me (they didn't put it quite so politely as that) which explained my support for the somewhat older and female Hillary Clinton. It was all entirely personal, and as far as I know it was all from people I did not know personally. Most of it didn't appear in the comments on this blog, because I don't want to include hate speech in my publications if I can help it. It didn't bother me (I have had the great freedom for many years now of not giving a stuff what anyone thinks of me), but I found it interesting that a public, perhaps in US terms not dissimilar from those who chanted "Jez we can!" in the UK more recently, would engage in extreme ad hominem language rather than pointing out why and how their preferred candidate was better than mine. Well, we know what happened in that contest, and though I am still hopeful of Hillary for President, we shall see.

In the Labour Party leadership contest, things were a little quieter. But as election day approached, the volume went up. Shouts of "Tory, Tory, Tory!" at anyone who was not supporting Corbyn and who dared to say so publicly. No one seemed to be saying why Jeremy Corbyn was better than the others. Well, I voted, for Liz Kendall as it happens, and I put Yvette Cooper second. No other votes in the leadership contest. I was quite public about that. Then quite suddenly I found myself attacked. Because of Israel. When I hadn't been mentioning Israel. Now why would anyone feel the need to discuss Israel in the context of the Labour leadership election? Your guess is as good as mine, and I imagine our conclusions would be the same. Unfriended, left, right and centre. Though more friends were also gained by me as a result, if you treat Facebook as an index of friendship (which might be unwise).

So, why, when people discover that I did not support Jeremy Corbyn, do they start attacking about Israel? Even some who (self-declared) didn't vote Corbyn either have been doing this. And some I considered intelligent people are quite capable of calling me a "Zionist bitch" - thanks guys! and one said that the "considered view" (he didn't say by whom) was that the Israel-Palestine situation had not been resolved because of Israel's fault - but did not of course say why. The same person, in rather queeny petulant fashion (entirely in character) said "This is goodbye!" and gave as the reason that he had "dared to criticise Israel". Perhaps unwisely he used an email address that included his workplace letterhead, so that an unwary person might think he was writing on their behalf. Not me, don't worry. I won't grass you up.

On the whole, calling me a "Zionist Tory bitch" and sending me a picture of a gun and saying they know where I live is preferable to the above. Because it's honest.

offensive language and freedom of expression

here we go again. When I posted this last September there was some outrage and hissy-fit throwing, with assorted queeny behavior, but hey, don't mix me up with anyone who cares a jot about that kind of stuff, other than being mildly amused by it from time to time. To save you looking if you are a Guardian reader and thus need protection from ideas, it's the MoToons published by the French satirical weekly  Charlie Hebdo. No embassies were burned down following the toons' publication, and there was no rioting in "the Arab world" as some still quaintly call it, despite predictions from Guardianista types that there would be. I imagine Robert Fisk was in there too, but I can't be bothered to look. I had the temerity to suggest that the Front National leader Marine Le Pen might be correct when she said that freedom of expression was not negotiable. Now, freedom of expression is under attack again, this time from a Twitter mob. Twitter is of course quintessentially about freedom of expression; nevertheless the mob attack came from some people who objected to an essay by Suzanne Moore on the bullying and silencing of women, because of a reference she made to trans people. Read it here. The attack, naturally, was ad hominem and not about the issues at all. Suzanne Moore commented on the attack here (caution: don't read the comments if you have just eaten). Things have now moved on, because Julie Burchill supported Suzanne Moore, and wrote a piece saying so, which has been published in The Observer newspaper. You can read it here. Julie Burchill used quite extreme language, and deliberately used back at them the tactic used by the Twitter attackers, namely to refer to those with a particular identity by collective epithets, i.e. intended to apply to that whole group, which would be perceived as offensive by many. So, there was a collective fit of the vapours by the original perpetrators, and comments on the stupid left (example from Laurie Penny: "Fuck Julie Burchill". Nice. Grown-up, hein?) and now the police have been complained to. What next? Lock a person up for expressing views, or using language, that some people don't like?

Oh.

You know, peeps, if you don't like something you read you could always, er, not read anything by that person any more. You really could.

Oh, and I learned something too. Apparently people like me, identified as female at birth and who remain happy that way, are to be called "cisgender". You know, "cis" like "cistern". We'd better get used to it, hadn't we, girls?

two girls

those two girls

this picture has gone everywhere in the last couple of days, and I think it's great.  I especially love some of the faces in the background.   This happened in France, at a rally against equal marriage, and the two girls, age 17 and 19, happened to be walking by.  I've just seen them interviewed on TV. They did it to make a gesture, they said, because they thought the people at the rally were motivated by hate, and they wanted to do something that was the opposite of hate.  They're not lesbian, not  that that matters here.  They were roundly abused by people attending the rally, they said, and called disgusting, and worse.  I love them.

how very dare they?

hat-tip James Hallwood via Mark Ferguson

the LibDems the nice people's party?  I think not.  A lot of them are racist (not so much so as the Greens, obvs) and the lyrics pictured left are what they think is amusing to sing at their conference.  But why, as Labour List and I both wonder, is Nick Clegg not being asked to distance himself from this vile and hateful doggerel, as Labour were asked to distance themselves from the "Thatcher Death" T-shirts at the TUC?   Anyone got an answer? *sound of tumbleweed*

Erwin James at Greenbelt

Greenbelt is a UK arts festival of long standing, with I understand a broadly Christian focus, and faith as one of its elements.  I have never been to it.  I might go to an arts festival, I might even go to a Christian festival, but it seems to me that any festival which tries to combine the two is unlikely to succeed.  However.  It has been going for 40 years. Someone called Erwin James is going to appear there this year, and I was struck by this piece on Harry's Place, "the murderer at Greenbelt".  Erwin James is the nom de plume of James Monahan, who is indeed a convicted murderer and who is thus given a platform by the Guardian.  I wouldn't know, as I do not read that filth.  But he is.  He has been writing for it since 2000, we are told.  The murders Monahan committed, in the early 1980s, appear to have been of the homophobic persuasion.  So naturally just right for the Guardian.  Their favourite Islamist hate preachers must just love him.

Now if someone has committed a crime and served their time, they should return to society and have the opportunity to make a contribution in whatever way they can, right?  Right.  But the piece raises issues which are kind of interesting.  Monahan appears to have made up some of his history.  He won't be the first or last ex-con to do that.  But there appear to be those, at the Guardian and at Greenbelt, who know this and are conniving at it.  Why?  Monahan appears, from the quotes attributed to him, not only to have no remorse  (I do not think remorse is always compulsory) but not to believe that he has committed a crime at all.  Here we are getting into a whole other scenario.  That of the psychopath.  That of the abuser who genuinely believes the victim wanted the abuse.

Welll, it made me think, anyway.

the capital of Israel?

apparently (I can't bear to look) the Guardian thinks Tel Aviv is the capital of Israel.  The BBC has decided that it will not say what the capital of Israel is.  And there is fury and hatred on various comments pages.  But the facts are these: the State of Israel was created by the UN.  Tel Aviv was the capital of it for approximately the first twelve months of its existence.  Israel then declared Jerusalem to be its capital.  Which it is.  Because every sovereign state has the right to decide what its capital city is.  Whatever anyone else might think about the merits or actions of that state.  It's not even true that all the embassies are in Tel Aviv.  Costa Rica's, for example, is in Jerusalem.  El Salvador's was until quite recently.  It is stated US policy that the US embassy should be in Jerusalem - although State Department officials have done precisely nothing about moving the embassy there.  But hey, haters, let's keep on pretending, hein?

football, high and low

Mario Balotelli and his foster mother

when I was growing up football was for boys and men  However, slightly unusually, my mother, who is coming up to 84, borders on the fanatical in her support of Manchester United, and watches it all on TV.  That team has always left me cold.  My old home team is Luton Town (sad, I know, not fair) and my London team is the great, the magnificent Tottenham Hotspur.  Although I have never lived in north London and have no plans to, and I am not Jewish.  It's still allowed.  I support England.  Of course I do.  And although the anthem played is the wrong one (at the cricket they, correctly, sing "Jerusalem", I am told), I sing it.  I sang it when England played France (we were in an "Irish" pub in Strasbourg, where all the staff are French).  Loudly.  The Marseillaise (written in Strasbourg, who knew?) was sung much more loudly, by many more people.  Word perfect.  And the tune is great.  But French fans do not sing.  Not at the match, and not in the pub, other than the national anthem.  At the match they chant.  But rarely do they sing.  They should learn to do so.

"Italy's pride"

To the real topic of this post - Mario Balotelli.  It is banal to say that a footballer has "caught the imagination of a generation".  I can remember the late George Best, I even met him once (girls, I would soooo have gone there), and he did that.  I have seen quite a bit of Mario (ooh er missus) in recent times, as sig other is a Manchester City supporter.  Mario is eccentric, talented, a bon viveur and a man with a great heart.  Oh, and he can score goals too.  What is not to like?

Hope for the future: in the Italy of today it is a great step forward that the media (think about the ownership of most of it) headline a player of Mario's ethnicity (born in Palermo to Ghanaian immigrant parents) as "Italy's pride".

Fear for the future: as Mario rushes to embrace Silvia Balotelli, the woman who brought him up (top picture), he has already been condemned by far-right groups because he is black.  But now we learn that his foster-mother is Jewish, giving those hate groups another reason to hate Mario.  Mario allegedly told team-mates that the visit they all made to Auschwitz made him think of a box of letters kept by Silvia from her own family's history.  And he sat down on the train tracks there and was quiet for a long while.

We can't have THAT, now, can we, haters?

sunny Jim

my gorge rose this morning when I unwittingly clicked on an article you can read for yourself here.  It is written by a creature called Leo McKinstry, who is from Northern Ireland and who once worked for Harriet Harman, going on to diss her publicly aftewards.  Nice fellow.  Anyway, he says that people who say that Jim Callaghan was the worst prime minister ever (do they say that?) are all wrong, because the late Jim was a decent bloke, who was against "coloured people" immgrating into the UK.  Now, I don't remember him saying that.  If he did, a veil was mercifully drawn over it.  But even in the 1970s such views had begun to be disapproved of by decent folk everywhere.  McKinstry goes on to attack "Blair and Brown" who, he says, forced "the dogma of multiculturalism" down the throats of good British yeomen.  May I point out to the frothing Ulsterman that, if there ever was a "dogma of multiculturalism", it had its heyday in the late 1980s and early 90s in local authorities.  Under a Conservative government. I was a member of one such in Reading.  It very nearly allowed mother-tongue teaching in schools, it did arrange for halal meat to be served in some schools, its premises were used for an anti-Salman Rushdie rally, and one of its parks for a Hizb ut-Tahrir event.  That was multiculturalism, and it created and sustained ghettoes, and supported the isolation and oppression of women, with encouragement from white local politicians, some of whom do so to this day.  The Blair government took very much against such things.  Rightly.  I don't know what the Brown government thought, and I don't much care.  Managed decline not being my favourite scene.

Mr McKinstry, you get paid, presumably, for your hateful and ill-informed spoutings.  I wasn't much of a fan of the late Jim Callaghan, finding him crass and out of touch.  But I wonder what  his family, and those who knew him best, think of him being prayed in aid for the cause of racial hatred.  Pin-up boy for the BNP?  I very much doubt it.