Archive for the ‘Anti-Fascism’ Category
Brexit Party Backers George Galloway and CPGB M-L Unite to Denounce “Hong Kong phooey” of pro-Democracy Protests.
Galloway’s New Best Friend: Ranjeet Brar of the CPGB-ML.
The friendship between George Galloway (once the leader of one of the biggest post-war ‘left’ parties in the UK, Respect) and the micro groupuscule the CPGB (M-L) began when both called for a Vote for the Brexit Party during this year’s European Elections.
CPGB-ML.
When George Galloway declared his intention of voting for the Brexit party in the 23 May European elections, many on the fake left were up in arms, calling him a ‘fascist’ for even considering having anything to do with banker-turned-Brexit-campaigner Nigel Farage.
But as Galloway himself pointed out: “The left-wing predilection to call everyone to the right of you a ‘racist’ or even a ‘fascist’ is not just juvenile, cretinous, but totally counterproductive, driving the [working class] irredeemably beyond your political grasp …
…
The Brexit party’s arrival on the scene in time for this European election has presented workers with an opportunity to express their anger and let the ruling class know that they won’t be content to sit back and watch the Brexit vote be betrayed.
A VOTE FOR THE BREXIT PARTY IS A VOTE FOR BREXIT!
Bonds have since bloomed.
The latest flower is this: China
Hong Kong protests: Ranjeet Brar speaks to George Galloway on RT
‘The history of Hong Kong is one that mirrors the history of British imperialism.’
Comrade Ranjeet Brar (which oddly reminds us of Harpal Brar, his dad? and father of Joti Brar , ‘vice-Chair? see note below *) of the CPGB-ML speaks with George Galloway on his show Sputnik about events unfolding in Hong Kong.
Who are the protestors? What are their demands? What is the role of British and US imperialism and the corporate ‘mainstream’ media? Why have British and US flags been appearing in the hands of demonstrators?
- “Harpal Brar (born 5 October 1939) is an Indian communist politician, writer and businessman, based in Britain. He is the founder and former chairman of the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist–Leninist), a role from which he stood down in 2018. Brar was appointed Eternal Honorary Chairman of the Party in August 2019. “He, along with his daughter Joti Brar, is an active member of the Stalin Society, the website of which contains articles disproving alleged Soviet wrongdoing in the Katyn massacre, the Ukrainian Famine (Holodomor), and the Moscow Trials which they blame on the Nazis, dismiss as propaganda, or describe as fair process, respectively.”
Galloway doesn’t go for half-measures:
“These foreign-funded and guided organisations are carefully stabled Trojan Horses chomping their British and American supplied hay until the time came for them to be told to gallop, and gallop they now are.
This is all Hong Kong phooey! No other country in the world would have shown such forbearance in the face of foreign-sponsored rioting destruction and sabotage of the national economy as China has. If in the days to come China’s patience runs out, it will not be before time so far as the great majority of Chinese citizens, including Hong Kong citizens, are concerned.
China signed up to the one country, two systems in the territory. It did not agree to two countries, two systems. Not one inch of Hong Kong belongs to anyone but China. The days when foreign countries could impose their will on China are long gone.”
Hong Kong phooey! Would you like any hypocrisy with that? RT.
Who is behind the Hong Kong protests?
Comrade Ella Rule features in this Kalima Horra debate, hosted by George Galloway.
Galloway has a pat on the head from the Chinese state:
Here is Galloway’s other stunt:
New Spat Between Admirers and Critics of Mélenchon on Labour List.
Mr Virtual 6,3%.
Yesterday le Monde carried two pages around this article: the fragmented Left Faced with the Challenged of Refoundation.
The principal article talked of the historic defeat of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s ‘lieu de rassemblement’ (rally) la France insoumise (LFI) in this year’s European elections, where they got 6,3% of the vote (down from 19% in the 2017 French Presidential Election). It suggested that the undisputed leader of LFI was now concentrating on winning municipal positions off his rivals, the Communists, PCF, who were down even further at 2,49%. The impression given was that the French left was squabbling over crumbs (the literal meaning of emiettée is ‘in crumbs’).
In interview across the page in the daily of a loyal LFI cadre and MP Alexis Corbière contained only staunch denial of any difficulties – the resignations that followed this collapse, and the accusations of autocratic inner rally running (LFI has no members, only affiliates; it is run as a Party-business) by the Little Caesar in charge. There was a defence of their “populist” strategy of assembling the ‘People’ against the ”Oligarchy’ above the old left right divisions ( Alexis Corbière : « L’alternative, c’est l’oligarchie ou le peuple »).
Le Monde, oddly, was concerned with the French Greens, Europe Écologie, who with Yannick Jadot won 13,48%.
Not a lot in fact but more than anybody else who might be considered on the left, something Jadot is very equivocal about himself – he does not rule our local alliances with right-wing parties. who accept a Green programme.
While all this has been going on, a few days ago Labour List published the following article:
What Corbynism could learn from France’s Mélenchon
Mckevitt seems to base his knowledge of La France insoumise and its Leader largely on Chantal Mouffe’s book For a Left Populism (2018), and reports of his presence at last year’s The World Transformed.
“This dynamic populist demand, articulated by Mélenchon through a desire to completely remake the French state from “the people” up, exhibits itself in Corbynism through the relatively gradual, procedural and legalistic process of reforming reselection processes. Despite the shared values of democratisation and of a mass membership wrenching control from those with entrenched positions (and the strategic concern of Corbynism to transform the Parliamentary Labour Party), the party structure that Corbynism finds itself channelled through is ultimately limiting to the scope of this demand.
Mélenchon’s left-populism also finds itself in fundamental opposition to what he perceives as the global institutions of neoliberal capitalism.
He concluded, noting that even the Sun had spots – Mélenchon’s ‘Patriotism” and backing for “a radically patriotic interpretation of laïcité, ” a term or a politics which is not explained.
Nonetheless, Mélenchon provides a template for us to understand the compatibility of a truly radical, anti-establishment structural analysis with a popular left-wing mass movement.
Today we have this reply: Why Labour should reject the politics of Mélenchon
“Beneath the veneer, Mélenchon is a profoundly divisive figure” writes Antony Tucker, “whose attitude to the press, failure to deal with racism on the left and rejection of internationalism should serve as warning, not an example, to our party.”
Tucker outlines Mélenchon’s indulgence of a “sovereigntist” view of the EU – criticisms of its workings based on the way it has undermined French sovereignty,, and promoted ‘German’ interests. he could have mentioned the LFI leader’s initial welcome for the Brexit vote, which still sticks in the craw – as a popular revolt against the EU ‘oligarchs’.
He continues into the murky depths of the Mélechonist milieu, “Mélenchon spends far too much time pandering to the conspiracy theorist fringe of politics.” It would be truer to say that his association with the Gilets Jaunes has created ambiguities of the “red-brown” kind known in the UK, when some of the protesters (notoriously Fly-Rider) have been active conspiracy mongers. This kind of over-claim obscures the problem of real red-brown cross-overs such as Étienne Chouard.
He treats himself to some moral outrage – again without explaining what the term laicite means or what politics it is based on – at the LFI chief’s “radical, authoritarian laïcité “
Riding the crest of the this manufactured rage he manages something this writer would have thought impossible, soliciting sympathy for Méluche, ” Mélenchon has spread the sort of vicious conspiracy theories that these people feed off of, and frequently denies France’s role in the Holocaust. ” This conspi theory of its own tries to wash away the fact that all French republican politicians deny the responsibility of the French republic for the anti-republican Vichy regime.
Tucker concludes, in apoplexy, that the “nationalist and xenophobic beliefs that drive Mélenchon” are no model for the Labour Party.
Mr 6,3% might have been a better way of putting the would-be left Populist Federator of the People down.
Then there is the total, sordid, collapse of his admired template, the “Bolivarian Revolution” in Venezuela, and left-populism across South America.
A serious beginning of a critique of Mélenchon” and LFI and is available here: The Death of “Left Wing Populism”.
Chris Williamson: Nicaragua, a “Beacon of Hope”.
Chris Williamson in Brighton: Top Supporter (Tony Greenstein) on far-left.
This has now been tweeted.
The case of Chris Williamson is well known.
The man is so far gone that it hard to imagine the suspended from Labour MP taking any notice of reality but here is an article, this year, from Labour Briefing by Mike Phillips, a Spanish speaker who knows Nicaragua,
New human rights report condemns Nicaraguan government
A new report has slammed the Nicaraguan state for abuses carried out in the aftermath of last year’s protests. Crackdown in Nicaragua: Torture, Ill-Treatment, and Prosecutions of Protesters and Opponents, published by the US-based Human Rights Watch and based on work by an independent group of experts, appointed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, says that some of the abuse amounted to torture.
“Many of the people detained during the crackdown on protests were subject to serious abuses that in some cases amounted to torture – including electric shocks, severe beatings, fingernail removal, asphyxiation, and rape,” says the report. “Many injured detainees were reportedly denied medical care in public health institutions and doctors who provided care said they suffered retaliation.”
The prosecution of protestors has also violated the norms of due process, argues the report. “Protestors have been held in incommunicado detention, subjected to closed door trials, and denied the right to confer privately with their defense lawyers.”
The report further accuses the government of targeting journalists and cracking down on independent media outlets. It further cancelled the legal registration of nine civil society organizations. Top officials who bear responsibility for the abuses, far from being held to account, have been promoted by President Ortega.
The full report is available here https://www.hrw.org/report/2019/06/19/crackdown-nicaragua/torture-ill-treatment-and-prosecutions-protesters-and#page
Williamson, a vegan, is no doubt an authority on identity politics.
This is another strand he is following:
His supporters have had another setback with this news today:
Labour suspends Liverpool Momentum co-chair over alleged antisemitism
Jewish Chronicle.
He allegedly shared messages on social media that used antisemitic tropes around philanthropist George Soros
The co-chair of pro-Corbyn campaign group Momentum in Liverpool has been suspended by Labour pending an investigation over allegations of antisemitism.
Chris Cavanagh – who is a close ally of suspended MP Chris Williamson – is accused of sharing messages on social media that contravened party rules including several that used antisemitic tropes around philanthropist George Soros.
The JC can reveal that Mr Cavanagh, a member of West Derby Labour Party, was informed of his suspension from the party earlier this month.
It is unclear whether he has also been suspended from his role as co-chair of Liverpool Momentum.
Last July, Mr Cavanagh had helped organise a Momentum meeting as part of Chris Williamson’s ‘Democracy Roadshow’ in which the Derby North MP – now facing expulsion over his repeated interventions in the party’s antisemitism crisis – attempted to unsettle Labour MPs deemed unloyal to Jeremy Corbyn.
During the meeting at Liverpool’s Quaker Meeting House, which the JC attended, one speaker was loudly applauded after he said: “What could be a greater threat to our democracy than a foreign government who is trying to veto the person we want for Prime Minister?
“Of course, I’m talking about the Israelis with their foot soldiers in Labour – the LFI [Labour Friends of Israel], the JLM [Jewish Labour Movement]. They are trying to take our democracy away from us.”
Socialist Worker says Labour should, “not give into Right” and back Remain in the EU.
Don’t Give Into Right and Oppose Brexit Says SWP.
Sometimes, happy days, not to say, months, you forget that the SWP exists.
But the pro-Brexit far-left is still there.
They show no signs of regretting their furious campaign for the – Hard Right – Brexit.
It’s one of the best kept secrets in politics that the SWP have thriven and recruited in the mass people’s movement to take back control and support Brexit.
As they said, ““The outcome of the referendum represents a revolt by millions of working class people against years of austerity and economic decline”. Socialists and the Leave vote—a (brief) reply to Sean Leahy
They added, ” how can things possibly get worse?”
As Johnson’s plans wreak havoc they say, “Nothing to so with us. We are revolutionary socialists and can’t share the blame for anything.”
Hobson chose for them, and they cannot be blamed for their choice, actions, or vote.
Tory plan for Brexit is a threat to two million EU migrants
Latest Socialist Worker.
Whether you voted for this or not we should all defend migrants’ rights writes Tomáš Tengely-Evans.
Anti-racists—whether they voted Racist Leave or Remain—have to fight to defend and extend freedom of movement.
(Note: some of this may have been slightly rewritten).
The same Socialist Worker has this:
Corbyn’s confusion over the European Union emboldens the right
Labour has been caught in a bind since the EU referendum in 2016. Many working class people—the people it looks to for votes—support leaving the EU.
But a vocal set of right wing Labour MPs want to push the party towards opposing Brexit.
They support the EU because they like its pro-privatisation, pro-austerity rules that look after big business.
They’re increasingly cheer-led by prominent left Labour supporters, and backed by the Labour Party’s membership.
The Labour left now largely sees backing Remain as the only progressive response to the Tories’ racist, right wing version of Brexit.
The SWP offers this advice to Labour,
The anti-austerity, radical-sounding message that worked so well for Labour in 2017 is at risk of being drowned out.
Where demonstrations and action on the streets against the Tories could have dominated, opposition has focused on parliamentary manoeuvres and inter-party wrangling.
This is the right’s terrain—the left is always weaker on it.
The bulk of Corbyn’s speech on Monday—attacking austerity and tax cuts for the rich, promising more for ordinary people—got almost ignored by the press.
The longer Corbyn spends giving into the right over the EU, the more he allows them to set the agenda and sideline left wing politics.
People may have noticed that the article says “The Labour left now largely sees backing Remain as the only progressive response to the Tories’ racist, right wing version of Brexit.”
Some might observe that they are claiming that we are “cheering” on the right.
In the heat of the struggle, in the exuberant mobilisations to “take back control” and back Brexit, the SWP can perhaps be forgiven their annoyance at the pro-remain left.
Nobody could possibly accuse them of stinking opportunism in seizing on this effect of their vote and claiming that they opposed it all along:
The Red-Brown Front – Spiked – Ramps Up Culture of Intolerance Towards Owen Jones.
Spiked, “swift and opportunistic use of the attack to demonise certain sections of the media.”
Spiked is the leading voice of the Red-Brown Front, the arm that helps fight the culture wars for the national populist Brexit Party.
They stand for an identity united around National Sovereignty for the “real” people who back Brexit against the elites.
Spiked aims to create a society, in which risk is taken by science-driven entrepreneurs, every country is fiercely independent, business and culture thrive democratically, and trade is willingly negotiated with free-spirit Donald Trump.
The virtues and the heritage of European civilisation, culture, and the Enlightenment are behind them.
A “war against ‘No Deal Brexit’, ” really just means a war against Brexit”
Spiked battles for the heroic “ordinary people” the “disenfranchised” like Nigel Farage and Anne Widdecombe against “offence culture” and wokeness.
It’s no surprise that to create a segmented society, excluding their opponents, they target “Patsy” Greta Thunberg and Owen Jones, “mouthpiece of middle class moralism”.
Brendan, for it is he, has today chosen Owen for “using” the assault he was a victim of over the weekend.
Not just using, but taking the case of people fired up by bigotry to implicate the bigots in the media.
Who’s really demonising journalists?
There is a grim irony in the response to the assault on Guardian columnist Owen Jones. Which is that this attack on a journalist is being used by woke leftists, including by Mr Jones himself, to attack journalists.
He continues,
the swift and opportunistic use of the attack to demonise certain sections of the media could prove to be the greater threat to press freedom.
Brendan pauses, to sip his own breath,
It goes without saying, I hope, that the attack on Jones was horrible and outrageous. Especially if it is true that he was targeted for his leftish beliefs. That would make it not just a punch-up outside a pub, but also an act of political intolerance. That is out of order in an open, civilised society.
But that makes it all the more depressing that this alleged act of intolerance has been weaponised to a different cause of intolerance – the left’s intolerance towards free-wheeling, rabble-rousing press outlets. Or as Jones referred to them yesterday, when he was outrageously implying that they bear some responsibility for what happened to him, the ‘hate preachers’ of the media.
The man himself sniffs his armpits,
He claims his attackers were far-right activists. And he says such far-right activists have been emboldened by ‘people in the mainstream media who deliberately stoke tensions, who demonise minorities and who demonise the left’.
His target was clearly the tabloid press (NOTE, which O’Neill writes for). He said: ‘We should just be honest about it. We live in a society where on the front pages of newspapers you have things like “enemies of the people”, “traitors”, “saboteurs” – that’s how people are discussed in politics.’
Reaching for his Voltaire and loudly passing wind, O’Neill, bellows,
Prejudice against certain newspapers, and more importantly prejudice against the people who read them, who are presumed to be so fickle, so easily warped by words, that a few spicy headlines can convince them to wallop a Guardian columnist outside a pub.
Lowering to his warmed over theme he continues,
…who is responsible for the attack on Andy Ngo in Portland? The so-called antifa forces who assaulted him, very violently, notably used milkshakes. They were clearly inspired by the middle-class milkshaking phenomenon in the UK and possibly by pro-milkshaking journalists at newspapers like the Guardian, one of whom said milkshaking is a valiant effort to ‘reduce men of pomp to figures of ridicule’. If the Express bears responsibility for right-wing violence, does the Guardian bear responsibility for left-wing violence?
The conclusion,
The problem is a broader culture of intolerance towards different opinions – and that ugly culture comes more from the PC establishment itself than it does from a few saucy front-page headlines.
As in, “The green movement has become hysterical” Spiked 16th of August.
Meanwhile:
After Portland, Trump Bows to Far-Right Demands to Consider ANTIFA “Organisation of Terror”.
Proud Boys Deem Portland A Success Because Trump Sided With Right-Wing Extremists
Huff Post.
“Look at Trump’s Twitter … he’s watching antifa. That’s all we wanted,” boasts former Infowars staffer and protest organizer Joe Biggs
A former Infowars staffer who organized the Proud Boys protest in Portland Saturday deemed the “mission” a success Saturday because President Donald Trump sided with the right-wing extremist group against the anti-fascist “antifa.”
“Go look at President Trump’s Twitter,” Joe Biggs told the Oregonian (see the video above). “He talked about Portland, said he’s watching antifa. That’s all we wanted. We wanted national attention, and we got it. Mission success.”
Biggs said he was pleased with the relatively peaceful day between the Proud Boys — which describes its members as “western chauvinists” — and counter-protesters, who included antifa activists. Portland police reported that at least 13 people were arrested and six were injured.
The Proud Boys who organised the racist march:
The Proud Boys is a far-right neo-fascist[9][10] organization that admits only men as members and promotes political violence.[2][11][12][13] It is based in the United States and has a presence in Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom.[14][15] The group was started in 2016 by Vice Media co-founder and former commentator Gavin McInnes, taking its name from the song “Proud of Your Boy” from the Disney film Aladdin.[16][17] Proud Boys emerged as part of the alt-right, but in early 2017, McInnes began distancing himself from the alt-right, saying the alt-right’s focus is race while his focus is what he defines as “Western values”. This re-branding effort intensified after the Unite the Right Rally.[18][19]
This their presentation:
The Proud Boys are a men’s organization founded in 2016 by Vice Media co-founder Gavin McInnes. McInnes has described the Proud Boys as a pro-Western fraternal organization for men who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world; aka Western Chauvinists.
Proud Boys‘ values center on the following tenets:
Minimal Government
Maximum Freedom
Anti-Political Correctness
Anti-Drug War
Closed Borders
Anti-Racial Guilt
Anti-Racism
Pro-Free Speech (1st Amendment)
Pro-Gun Rights (2nd Amendment)
Glorifying the Entrepreneur
Venerating the Housewife
Reinstating a Spirit of Western Chauvinism
This caught my attention, “the Proud Boys organization was launched in September 2016, on the website of Taki’s Magazine, a far-right publication for which Richard Spencer was executive editor.”
There is a whole chapter on Richard B.Spencer in Key Thinkers of the Radical Right . Behind the New Threat to Liberal Democracy .(Edited by Mark Sedgwick 2019. Oxford.), Richard B. Spencer and the Alt Right by Tamir Bar-On.
The Proud Boys say they are “not alt right”.
But their ideas seem to echo many of alt right Spencer’s themes.
He is absolutely barking,
Leftists (who sometimes understand us better than we understand ourselves) have always sensed this; they know that when we talk about immigration, we’re not really talking about immigration.
For us “immigration” is a proxy for race. In that way, immigration can be good or bad: it can be a conquest (as it seems now) . . . or a European in-gathering, something like White Zionism. It all depends on the immigrants. And we should open our minds to the positive possibilities of mass immigration from the White world.
And when White men talks about “restoring the Constitution”—or, more so, “Taking Our Country Back”— leftists and non-Whites are right to view this as threatening and racialist: it implies a return to origins and that the White man once owned America.
Today, in the public imagination, “ethnic-cleansing” has been associated with civil war and mass murder (understandably so). But this need not be the case. 1919 is a real example of successful ethnic redistribution—done by fiat, we should remember, but done peacefully.
The ideal I advocate is the creation of a White Ethno-State on the North American continent.We must give up the false dreams of equality and democracy—not so that we could “wake up” to reality; reality is boring—but so that we can take up the new dreams of channelling our energies and labor towards the exploration of our universe, towards the fostering of a new people, who are healthier, stronger, more intelligent, more beautiful, more athletic.
And,
Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!”
That’s how Richard B. Spencer saluted more than 200 attendees on Saturday, gathered at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C., for the annual conference of the National Policy Institute, which describes itself as “an independent organization dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of people of European descent in the United States, and around the world.”
Spencer has popularized the term “alt-right” to describe the movement he leads. Spencer has said his dream is “a new society, an ethno-state that would be a gathering point for all Europeans,” and has called for “peaceful ethnic cleansing.”
He thinks the march was “too weak”.
That the US President bows to their pressure is beneath contempt.
Spencer is said to be the person who created the term “alt right”, and is aligned with European Identitarians., although his call for a “white racial empire” is not widely, or publicly, shared on our continent.
Comrade Spencer Sunshine says,
SPENCER SUNSHINE: PROUD BOYS & THE RISE OF FAR RIGHT VIOLENCE
In this segment, I speak with Spencer Sunshine — researcher, journalist, activist, and political consultant regarding Far Right movements. Spencer discusses of the recent controversy surrounding Gavin McInnis, founder of the Proud Boys, and his invitation to speak at the Metropolitan Republican Club in New York City, in which a group of Proud Boys openly attacked protesters after the event. We discuss the lack of police interference in the beatings, and the overall trend in policing and law enforcement’s attitude toward Far Right movements in the US. We also discuss the differences and similarities between what has been defined as the “Alt-Right” and the “Alt-Lite,” and what these two camps of Far Right ideology have accomplished in the past year in the expansion and normalization of Far Right rhetoric and violence. We also discuss other strains of Far Right organization and ideology, including Joey Gibson and Patriot Prayer, as well the Left’s altogether lack of preparedness in addressing the looming threat posed by these groups.
Jacobin’s European Editor Says ‘Haha” When Rival leftist Physically Assaulted.
This is the story that inspired the hilarity.
Oppose violence in the labour movement!
A statement by Mark Osborn about an incident of physical violence at a meeting of Lewisham Momentum (15 August 2019).
A further series of unpleasant attacks on left activists aligned with Workers’ Liberty took place at the Lewisham Momentum meeting held on Wednesday 14 August.
The most serious incident at this Momentum meeting was that Bill Jefferies of Ladywell ward, Lewisham Deptford CLP, physically attacked me. He hit me on the chin and grabbed my throat, in the hall outside the meeting room as the meeting was breaking up. He is 10cm taller and 40 kg heavier than me.
I’m okay, as always. But my chin still hurts and there’s a mark on my neck.
Full statement via above.
Broder (David Broder@broderly @jacobinmag Europe editor) has deleted the tweet but his admirers, watching like ‘awks, noticed it.
Broder’s work for Jacobin on the international left is renowned.
He is a keen supporter of Mr 6,3% (the score of Mélenchon’s rally, La France insoumise, LFI, in this year’s European Elections).
We look forward to Broder’s sympathetic coverage of the revolutionary patriotism behind this latest decision by LFI, their invitation to Thierry Ardisson, a ‘constitutional’ Monarchist, to star at the summer school.
Broder’s generosity does not extend to leftist rivals in Britain.
One questions why Jacobin have such an intemperate enemy of British and Irish pro-European leftists, determined to re-enact the disputes of his youth, as a gatekeeper for their European coverage.
