Splitting hairs really. He could have picked a different 'show trial' if he'd actually wanted to distance himself from being seen as a terrorist sympathiser.
Denster wrote:Splitting hairs really. He could have picked a different 'show trial' if he'd actually wanted to distance himself from being seen as a terrorist sympathiser.
Well he could only really do that if he believed any of the other trials that were going on were “show trials”. If he felt that IRA suspects were subject to miscarriages of justice (and let’s not forget that they were!) then it makes sense to protest a “show trial”. It kind of loses the impact if you protest at a shoplifting trial that you believe to be a fair trial.
I don’t doubt that Corbyn is/was a soft as gooseberry fool lefty liberal that tied himself up in knots over his support for Irish unity which clashed with his pacifism. But I see absolutely nothing to suggest he was in favour of the violent IRA terror campaign.
Denster wrote:Splitting hairs really. He could have picked a different 'show trial' if he'd actually wanted to distance himself from being seen as a terrorist sympathiser.
Well he could only really do that if he believed any of the other trials that were going on were “show trials”. If he felt that IRA suspects were subject to miscarriages of justice (and let’s not forget that they were!) then it makes sense to protest a “show trial”. It kind of loses the impact if you protest at a shoplifting trial that you believe to be a fair trial.
I don’t doubt that Corbyn is/was a soft as gooseberry fool lefty liberal that tied himself up in knots over his support for Irish unity which clashed with his pacifism. But I see absolutely nothing to suggest he was in favour of the violent IRA terror campaign.
He protested outside the trail of the Brighton Bomber didn't he?
He had no evidence it was a show trial beyond his default position of contrarian to the establishment.
Denster wrote:Splitting hairs really. He could have picked a different 'show trial' if he'd actually wanted to distance himself from being seen as a terrorist sympathiser.
Well he could only really do that if he believed any of the other trials that were going on were “show trials”. If he felt that IRA suspects were subject to miscarriages of justice (and let’s not forget that they were!) then it makes sense to protest a “show trial”. It kind of loses the impact if you protest at a shoplifting trial that you believe to be a fair trial.
I don’t doubt that Corbyn is/was a soft as gooseberry fool lefty liberal that tied himself up in knots over his support for Irish unity which clashed with his pacifism. But I see absolutely nothing to suggest he was in favour of the violent IRA terror campaign.
He protested outside the trail of the Brighton Bomber didn't he?
He had no evidence it was a show trial beyond his default position of contrarian to the establishment.
Where did I say he had evidence it was a show trial or that he didn't have a default position of being a contrarian?
My only point is that saying he gave "direct support to the IRA" or that he was a "terrorist sympathiser" is almost certainly not true. Corbyn is a pacifist, there is nothing to suggest he supports terrorist bombings.
Moggy wrote:Corbyn is a pacifist, there is nothing to suggest he supports terrorist bombings.
I don't even particularly 'support' Corbyn but it's amusing that he's portrayed as both a useless weak pacifist and a bloodthirsty terrorist sympathiser.
Denster wrote:Splitting hairs really. He could have picked a different 'show trial' if he'd actually wanted to distance himself from being seen as a terrorist sympathiser.
Well he could only really do that if he believed any of the other trials that were going on were “show trials”. If he felt that IRA suspects were subject to miscarriages of justice (and let’s not forget that they were!) then it makes sense to protest a “show trial”. It kind of loses the impact if you protest at a shoplifting trial that you believe to be a fair trial.
I don’t doubt that Corbyn is/was a soft as gooseberry fool lefty liberal that tied himself up in knots over his support for Irish unity which clashed with his pacifism. But I see absolutely nothing to suggest he was in favour of the violent IRA terror campaign.
He protested outside the trail of the Brighton Bomber didn't he?
He had no evidence it was a show trial beyond his default position of contrarian to the establishment.
Where did I say he had evidence it was a show trial or that he didn't have a default position of being a contrarian?
My only point is that saying he gave "direct support to the IRA" or that he was a "terrorist sympathiser" is almost certainly not true. Corbyn is a pacifist, there is nothing to suggest he supports terrorist bombings.
I think protesting one their most high profile trials (IIRC by admitted IRA members?) by default/as a matter of principal could be considered "Direct Support"
Moggy wrote:Corbyn is a pacifist, there is nothing to suggest he supports terrorist bombings.
I don't even particularly 'support' Corbyn but it's amusing that he's portrayed as both a useless weak pacifist and a bloodthirsty terrorist sympathiser.
He'd never start a conflict. In a ongoing conflict his default sympathy appears to be either anti-west or anti-establishment depending on it's nature.
Moggy wrote:Corbyn is a pacifist, there is nothing to suggest he supports terrorist bombings.
I don't even particularly 'support' Corbyn but it's amusing that he's portrayed as both a useless weak pacifist and a bloodthirsty terrorist sympathiser.
Exactly. I think he is a twat and he wont be getting my vote, but this idea that he is a card carrying member of the IRA and Hamas while also being somebody that is too weak to ever use the military is crazy.
Denster wrote:Splitting hairs really. He could have picked a different 'show trial' if he'd actually wanted to distance himself from being seen as a terrorist sympathiser.
Well he could only really do that if he believed any of the other trials that were going on were “show trials”. If he felt that IRA suspects were subject to miscarriages of justice (and let’s not forget that they were!) then it makes sense to protest a “show trial”. It kind of loses the impact if you protest at a shoplifting trial that you believe to be a fair trial.
I don’t doubt that Corbyn is/was a soft as gooseberry fool lefty liberal that tied himself up in knots over his support for Irish unity which clashed with his pacifism. But I see absolutely nothing to suggest he was in favour of the violent IRA terror campaign.
He protested outside the trail of the Brighton Bomber didn't he?
He had no evidence it was a show trial beyond his default position of contrarian to the establishment.
Where did I say he had evidence it was a show trial or that he didn't have a default position of being a contrarian?
My only point is that saying he gave "direct support to the IRA" or that he was a "terrorist sympathiser" is almost certainly not true. Corbyn is a pacifist, there is nothing to suggest he supports terrorist bombings.
I think protesting one their most high profile trials (IIRC by admitted IRA members?) by default/as a matter of principal could be considered "Direct Support"
Or at least "sympathetic"...
Do you believe that Jeremy Corbyn was a supporter of the IRA terrorism campaign?
Denster wrote:Splitting hairs really. He could have picked a different 'show trial' if he'd actually wanted to distance himself from being seen as a terrorist sympathiser.
Well he could only really do that if he believed any of the other trials that were going on were “show trials”. If he felt that IRA suspects were subject to miscarriages of justice (and let’s not forget that they were!) then it makes sense to protest a “show trial”. It kind of loses the impact if you protest at a shoplifting trial that you believe to be a fair trial.
I don’t doubt that Corbyn is/was a soft as gooseberry fool lefty liberal that tied himself up in knots over his support for Irish unity which clashed with his pacifism. But I see absolutely nothing to suggest he was in favour of the violent IRA terror campaign.
He protested outside the trail of the Brighton Bomber didn't he?
He had no evidence it was a show trial beyond his default position of contrarian to the establishment.
Where did I say he had evidence it was a show trial or that he didn't have a default position of being a contrarian?
My only point is that saying he gave "direct support to the IRA" or that he was a "terrorist sympathiser" is almost certainly not true. Corbyn is a pacifist, there is nothing to suggest he supports terrorist bombings.
I think protesting one their most high profile trials (IIRC by admitted IRA members?) by default/as a matter of principal could be considered "Direct Support"
Or at least "sympathetic"...
Do you believe that Jeremy Corbyn was a supporter of the IRA terrorism campaign?
Do I think Corbyn built a bomb etc? Of course not. But then you've now re-framed the argument to "IRA terrorism campaign" rather than supporting the IRA which was the original comment wasn't it a few pages ago (thread is fast moving at the time and they're were several different discussions - so I might have got that wrong)
I believe he was sympathetic to it. Certainly more sympathetic than he felt towards to say, the Tory victims.
Your right. It's crazy to construe protesting their trial as a point of principal anything close to supportive.
Let's flip it. Do you think Magee looked out the window at court (in theory, not like he'd be looking out a window) and all the protesters and thought "Shame there's no one supporting me"?
The problem is - Corbyn undoubtedly (IMO) supported the IRA, but condemned their methods.
That's what he's struggling to hide now - if it actually admitted it he wouldn't keep trying muddy obfuscation that the papers can seize on. Man of principals my arse.
She is so patronising and she's got this smug look of contempt. I don't even think she believes what she's saying. She looks like she knows she talking crap and know that she's been caught out but it doesn't really matter as their is nothing anyone can do about it.
My local Labour candidate is in a wheelchair and we got a load of pamphlets through the door with her picture on it and the hashtag "Stand up for Labour"
Instead of talking about Corbyn in black and white terms of whether he supported the IRA (and other groups) or not have you ever considered that his stance might have actually been more grey and complex than what the mainstream are making it out to be? Is it not possible that he acted the way he did during those years, not because he supported the IRA, but because understanding them as human beings was the only real way to actually achieve peace? If you start labeling people in groups like the IRA simply as terrorists then peace becomes an impossible goal, you will forever be stuck fighting them because to throw out an old line the government will never "negotiate with terrorists." The terms terrorist and terrorism don't need to be mutual. The IRA were a militant group that used acts of terror to disrupt the directly opposing side until they got (or at least had a compromise on) the one thing they clearly wanted. ISIS are terrorists who use acts of terror to disrupt the entire Western world in order to create a long term instability that will push Western countries further and further to the right until they begin destroying themselves from the inside socially, politically and economically (Brexit, Trump). The IRA could (and were) talked down from the conflict; ISIS can not be rid of in such ways.
I'm too young to truly know the full extent of the IRA's acts or the troubles but Corbyn strikes me as the kind of person who is so opposed to violence and any kind of injustice that he will condemn it on both sides. People call him a terrorist sympathiser for saying things that people will interpret as a support of the opposition even though the UK itself has often done its own deal of wrongs. In the case of modern terrorism the west isn't a good guy in this conflict, Al Qaeda, ISIS, the destabilization of the middle east; are you seriously going to tell me that the west are the the only victims in all of this? What these terrorist groups do is horrible but our governments can't just be acting like they hold no level of accountability for this when they were warned by experts (such as Noam Chomsky) and even people in their own party (Corbyn when he voted against invading Iraq) of the consequences our countries actions would have in the long term. I might be coming off a bit strongly here considering what happened in Manchester on Monday but people are using the events in Manchester as a stick to further beat Corbyn with. People are looking at his neutral stance as siding with the enemy, much like how central politics is now being re-branded as left wing politics in the eyes of public opinion.
Thinking about it I'm reminded of the Futurama episode with the neutral people planet. Zapp Brannigan doesn't trust the neutral planet and believes they are plotting against him and are therefore his enemies because they are not siding with him. This is hilariously similar to the "with us or against us" mentality that we see everyday. It's likely that Corbyn didn't support the IRA's bombings and violence, if he did his character would cease making sense. However, condemning violence while understanding and emphasizing with the fact that the IRA considered their cause to be just? I don't see what is so wrong with that. But because people are brought up on the morals of good vs evil, us vs them, black and white people like Corbyn are being demonized for what, to me anyway, is a condemnation of all violence and a desire to end the notion that we need to get even with those who have done wrong onto us. I'm not saying we can just let things slide but the UK has both socially and politically certainly become more radicalised in how it handles the Eastern world and that just allows these problems to be further fueled.
I'm not saying Corbyn can do no wrong, his attitudes over such things probably left him on the wrong side of the victims of violent acts on more than one occasion. People will look at his stances on such things and call them inconsistent because he doesn't give undying support the "correct" side. If anything I'd argue that is one of the more consistent things about Corbyn. I'd take a guess that he views the bombing of middle eastern countries and the terrorist attacks that we suffer from as being tied to one another, he'd be correct but he has to choose his words carefully because holding the west accountable for the troubles we face is something of a taboo to most and would be an act of political suicide. That's what this whole terrorist sympathiser thing comes down to. Shame really.
