Nov 2019
12:41pm, 26 Nov 2019
6,933 posts
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Too Much Water
Certainly Guido Fawkes can dig out lots of historic social media posts implying those sort of views for lots of potential labour candidates. If I don’t hold racist views personally, but all my friends and associates are racist would you say I wasn’t racist? It’s a grey area at best. A lot of the language used in the discourse has been unhelpful to put it mildly. |
Nov 2019
12:41pm, 26 Nov 2019
33,386 posts
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HappyG(rrr)
Lol at larkim drinking on a Tuesday morning! I never even thought of that association of "Jewish people" and "financiers". I thought that was some kind of 19th century Dickensian hangover? Surely no one thinks like that nowadays? Except racists of course. I assumed larks was using that description to illustrate how abhorrent and ridiculous such an association would be, not his own view obviously. TMW - and HDM enjoyment and cats? Who would have thought?!  G
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Nov 2019
12:46pm, 26 Nov 2019
18,972 posts
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DeeGee
In the interests of balance? jewishnews.timesofisrael.com |
Nov 2019
12:48pm, 26 Nov 2019
9,577 posts
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larkim
ptb, that's just my sense about how many on the left feel. They want to be as vocal and critical and abusive as they can of entrenched groups that they see working to stymie the socialist revolution that they crave. They can use strong language to decry the traditional establishment with impunity - captalist overlords, reactionary forces, fascist elite. The campaigning left loves punchy phrases to collectively group the enemy together. They want to be able to directly criticise what they see as a distinctive grouping - a Jewish capitalist "elite" that is influential in finance, the media, politics etc and which actively uses its power to promote anti-socialist progress. But they haven't found any successful phraseology to use to attack it with that isn't simply tarnished with lazy stereotypes. Perhaps I was a bit strong in the "shylock / fagin" phrasing, but I do sense amongst my left-campaining friends that they feel there is a group there that they struggle to criticise because of fear of anti-semitisim, and some of that mindset are a bit more cavalier about it. I don't agree with them by the way. A sort of article on that sort of thing here labourlist.org |
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Nov 2019
12:50pm, 26 Nov 2019
9,578 posts
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larkim
An article from across the pond along similar lines:- nytimes.com "In recent weeks, one Labour candidate quit after being accused of calling a Jewish colleague “Shylock,” a reference to the moneylender in Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice,” and another left the race after revelations that she compared Israel to “an abused child who grows up to become an abusive adult.” Scholars say certain strains of anticapitalism have historically risked casting Jews as a class of rich conspirators oppressing working people." |
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Nov 2019
12:52pm, 26 Nov 2019
6,934 posts
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Too Much Water
Happy - not cats. See PM
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Nov 2019
12:53pm, 26 Nov 2019
33,387 posts
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HappyG(rrr)
But why would they conflate a religion (or even religion centred community or ethno grouping as you called it) with political or financial policy? It's ridiculous. Criticize the behaviour not the person. And certainly don't arbitrarily lump together whole groups of people. And certainly, certainly don't make that a race, gender or religious group, in this modern world. Here endeth the lesson! It's lazy thinking (though very effective) to create an enemy to coalesce support. And it's very dangerous. G
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Nov 2019
12:56pm, 26 Nov 2019
6,935 posts
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Too Much Water
Thinking back to the Middle East, I believe Islam prohibits money lending / usury so maybe it was a natural area for Jewish people to occupy de facto. Though of course anti-semitism is far older than that. Certainly a lot of criticism aimed at Rothschild banks, Goldman Sachs etc online - I believe these would have Jewish origin judging by the name. |
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Nov 2019
1:02pm, 26 Nov 2019
9,579 posts
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larkim
The history of the Jewish diaspora throughout Europe being constrained into financial roles by the Church and the state is interesting. The Church opposed lending for interest, and the feudal system prevented immigrant populations from becoming land owners. So banking / money changing did become a trade associated with Jewish people living throughout Europe. e.g. see theguardian.com And then (as that article notes), you've got some of the fundamental documents behind socialism, including Marx's writings, singling out Judaism for criticism because of its links to capitalism etc. There is at least a sliver of anti-Semitism baked into the origins of socialism. And the more the party has shifted left the more visible it has become. |
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Nov 2019
1:02pm, 26 Nov 2019
33,390 posts
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HappyG(rrr)
Yes, but Islam is 1400 years old, Christianity 2000 and Judaism older still. Let's not categorise modern social groups by something lost in history. (And that's not directed at you TMW or larkim, but at the political groups who you are describing who take these views). Utterly preposterous. Even *if* there were a continued "tendency" to be in those sorts of business or to have those sorts of policies correlated with a certain ethnicity or religion, you just can *not* use that label. It's unacceptable. |
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