Braverman: Rise of the Fascists

[reohn2]

Cycle tramp
Spot on?!

[mattheus]

...
The idea that a thread should stop because it is a vehicle to criticise the antics of our current government because a few members are offended, seems contrary not only to free speech but equally to the proper examinations of those would would seek to lead us, no matter what their political colour.

I lost track of this sentence at the 2nd "because".

Sorry!

[reohn2]

I can forgive bad grammar as I'm no master of the english language myself,however petulance is another matter.

[mattheus]

No book burnings, no Krystallnacht, no roaming gangs of brownshirts beating up Jews (of which I am one), no forced state acquisition of businesses on ethnic or religious grounds, no Sunak pronouncing themselves Fuhrer (I guess it would be Lord Protector Here) and unilaterally usurping the monarchy, and so on.

So no, for all the fashionable rhetoric we are not remotely comparable to 1930's Germany and such suggestions are as puerile as they are facile. It's nothing more that petty diatribe at a time when we need a concerted and constructive response - silly name calling and childish similies and the like didn't help us avoid Brexit or yet another Tory Government, and they do zero to help us respond positively to this issue either. If anything, such silly playground behaviour could be argued to actually make these things happen by failing to provide a serious and coherent response to such right leaning proposals.

Well said: there’s an awful lot of pathetic, self important, self indulgent, childish, throwing toys out of the pram, historical illiteracy, from those who believe that we are close to or on a pathway towards a National Socialist state.

It’s also grossly immoral and offensive, as well as racist, to Jewish people who suffered torture, murder, and genocide under the NS regime as it trivialises their suffering.

Perhaps you might reconsider on realising some survivors of the holocaust seem to disagree with you?

"When I hear you using words against refugees like 'swarms' and an 'invasion', I am reminded of the language used to dehumanise and justify the murder of my family and millions of others.

"Why do you find the need to use that kind of language?"

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-64282961

Yes.

(I'm incliend to give more credence to those that actually have experience and/or close links to the Nazi regime. )

[maximus meridius]

It’s also grossly immoral and offensive, as well as racist, to Jewish people who suffered torture, murder, and genocide under the NS regime as it trivialises their suffering.

I was of the understanding that the Jewish community was based on a shared fixed belief system unencumbered by facts* rather than through genetics, a religion rather than race. Please let me know if I've misunderstood the situation.

Yes, you have misunderstood the situation. Very badly.

Let's start with the thing which displays your poor thinking. You refer to "the Jewish community". Why? is being jewish one thing? Do all jews share the same characteristics, behaviour, beliefs? Or is it just that this is a UK website? After all, would it not seem odd to refer to "the Jewish community" if this were an Israeli website. What you have just done is "othered" a set of people, by placing them into the same lazy-thinking pot of "community". And oh looky there, they just happen to be a minority in this country. You have described a set of individual humans as though they all have the same characteristics, easily labelled with the word community. Some people do as you, imagining, I think, that the word "community" is somehow nice and polite. It's not. It's dehumanising and discriminatory, as it casts separate people as though they are "all the same". How about talking about "the African community"? Or maybe "the American community"? Or maybe "the white British community".

I know people who call themselves jews who don't keep the sabbath, don't eat kosher and have married out. I also know jews who do keep the sabbath, sometimes very strictly. You don't even seem to have heard about the very simple notion of the secular jew. But of course one can also convert to Judaism, the religion. Though I only know one woman who has. But these variations are presumably foreign to you, as you think there is such a thing as "the Jewish community".

The Nazi's hatred of the jews was very much based on the idea of "race":

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/ ... azi-racism

That there is a variety of aspects comprising "jewishness" and a sometimes complex intermingling of ethnic, social, historical, familial and religious elements may be difficult to understand, what with your idea of "the Jewish community", but there it is.

Here, learn some things:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews

[pwa]

Well said: there’s an awful lot of pathetic, self important, self indulgent, childish, throwing toys out of the pram, historical illiteracy, from those who believe that we are close to or on a pathway towards a National Socialist state.

It’s also grossly immoral and offensive, as well as racist, to Jewish people who suffered torture, murder, and genocide under the NS regime as it trivialises their suffering.

The thing is, if the Jewish community is one of religion rather than race, then its not racist......

If we are looking back to the Nazis, the real Nazis who chose that as a name, they certainly did regard being Jewish as a racial thing, and they persecuted Jews without regard to whether they practised their traditional religion or not. Nazi propaganda talked about breeding and racial traits, as if something had gone wrong in the evolution process to make Jews degenerate. To us it seems both sickening and mad, but that was how the Nazis saw it. They had similar racist theories about other groups, including Slavs.

Yesterday, by coincidence, I was listening to someone on the radio talking about what being Jewish meant to them. They were not religious, but they chose to stay close to other Jewish people because they felt that they had deep ties beyond religion and genetics.

[cycle tramp]

It’s also grossly immoral and offensive, as well as racist, to Jewish people who suffered torture, murder, and genocide under the NS regime as it trivialises their suffering.

I was of the understanding that the Jewish community was based on a shared fixed belief system unencumbered by facts* rather than through genetics, a religion rather than race. Please let me know if I've misunderstood the situation.

Yes, you have misunderstood the situation. Very badly.

Let's start with the thing which displays your poor thinking. You refer to "the Jewish community". Why? is being jewish one thing? Do all jews share the same characteristics, behaviour, beliefs? Or is it just that this is a UK website? After all, would it not seem odd to refer to "the Jewish community" if this were an Israeli website. What you have just done is "othered" a set of people, by placing them into the same lazy-thinking pot of "community". And oh looky there, they just happen to be a minority in this country. You have described a set of individual humans as though they all have the same characteristics, easily labelled with the word community. Some people do as you, imagining, I think, that the word "community" is somehow nice and polite. It's not. It's dehumanising and discriminatory, as it casts separate people as though they are "all the same".

Thank you for your reply. Especially the links, always appreciated.

In regards to the use of the word 'Jewish Community', a quick Google search reveals that there are 'Jewish Community Centres' around the world, articles written by people's of the Jewish faith who have used the words 'Jewish Community' as well as several other websites which describe themselves as either 'The Jewish Community' or 'for the Jewish community'...
If you are offended by this, I would suggest that you speak with them.

I myself have been part of the 'biker community', part of the 'battle re-enactment community' and part of the 'tattooing community' mellowing to part of the 'permaculture Community' and am currently part of the 'poultry community' as well as being part of the 'cycling community'.
Personally I don't find anything offensive about being considered as one part of a community or not.

I often view communities like Venn diagrams. A circle of like minded people, which if you look carefully enough, belong to a number of diverse and varied other communities. Much like a flower head of a daisy.. one could say almost an infinite amount if differing sized circles which given a wide enough Venn diagram eventually includes everyone..

The geometry of infinite loves and interests, if you will. If you can imagine it in your mind's eye, it's almost celestial. A reminder that we have more in common than we think.

[pwa]

I suppose the danger with using the word "community" like that is that it invites a person to see the people included as having close ties, and behaving as a group, when in fact there will always be some who have little to do with that "comminity" and, in fact, have stronger ties in other directions. But as long as we are thinking people, who don't fall into that trap, no great harm done.

I think there is a fascinating situation with Braverman, with her hubby being Jewish and she being of South Asian heritage, yet she has been accused of being racist. I think she deserves to be accused of some fairly unpleasant things, but I cannot see how she could be racist. She most certainly will not be a pin-up for far-right groups.

[UpWrong]

Some people seem to equate controlling immigration with Racism. I can appreciate the humanity in the global village view but we are organised as nations and this nation has a population control problem which it didn't have in the 1970s.

[Stradageek]

I think there is a fascinating situation with Braverman, with her hubby being Jewish and she being of South Asian heritage, yet she has been accused of being racist. I think she deserves to be accused of some fairly unpleasant things, but I cannot see how she could be racist.

I would have agreed had I not heard the experience of black Africans in Uganda. They were the victims of unbridled racism from the Asian population. When Idi Amin expelled the Uganda Asians, those that came to the UK were astonished to find that they were now the victims of racism. Asian-black racism has a long history.

[Jdsk]

How the next restriction on our freedoms was finagled into law... if it actually was:

"Telling the story of how the “serious disruption” public order statutory instrument was passed":
https://davidallengreen.com/2023/06/tel ... as-passed/

And Liberty's attempt to challenge it:
https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/w ... ty-LBC.pdf

and how to donate:
https://secure.libertyhumanrights.org.u ... 6/donate/1

Jonathan

[pwa]

I think there is a fascinating situation with Braverman, with her hubby being Jewish and she being of South Asian heritage, yet she has been accused of being racist. I think she deserves to be accused of some fairly unpleasant things, but I cannot see how she could be racist.

I would have agreed had I not heard the experience of black Africans in Uganda. They were the victims of unbridled racism from the Asian population. When Idi Amin expelled the Uganda Asians, those that came to the UK were astonished to find that they were now the victims of racism. Asian-black racism has a long history.

Yes, I know that South Asians can be racist, just like the rest of us can. But she is married to a Jewish man and has served in Governments with ministers from various ethnic backgrounds, including Kwarteng, so the idea that either she or her fellow ministers are overtly racist is not without complications. I suspect most of us, perhaps even all of us, have a smidge of racism we have to deal with, but hers must be a fairly sophisticated and complex variety for her to keep the company she does. Either that, or she just isn't really very racist at all. It is just possible that she has a virtue.

[Stevek76]

I'm not seeing much evidence she's personally racist.

But she is willing to stoke and dog whistle to racists for party and personal gain which in my view is far far worse.

[mattheus]

I'm not seeing much evidence she's personally racist.

But she is willing to stoke and dog whistle to racists for party and personal gain which in my view is far far worse.

Indeed. People like that are the scariest (as well as despicable).

[Jdsk]

Yes, I found that a useful source. And:

Joseph Rowntree Foundation: "The Government must not disenfranchise low-income voters at the polls":
https://www.jrf.org.uk/blog/government- ... ters-polls

Local Government Information Unit: "Voter ID and the question of trust":
https://lgiu.org/blog-article/voter-id- ... -of-trust/

On background there's:

House of Commons Library: "Voter ID: Securing the ballot or suppressing the vote?":
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/vo ... -the-vote/

Fundraising to challenge voter suppression:
https://actions.goodlawproject.org/vote ... dium=email

Please consider donating.

First analysis of what happened, from Democracy Volunteers:

"FINAL REPORT – English Local Elections 2023":
https://democracyvolunteers.org/final-r ... ions-2023/

NB this is unofficial. But the official observations will be crippled by the use of checkers outside the station whose findings and actions won't be included in them.

Electoral Commission: "Voter ID at the May 2023 local elections in England: interim analysis":
https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/ ... m-analysis

Jonathan