Election reaction
May. 6th, 2005 08:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livI woke up this morning to news of the Labour victory. Well, to be honest, I knew when I went to sleep last night that Labour were going to win, and really, I was pretty certain when I voted at 9 o'clock yesterday morning that Labour were going to win. And it's not exactly like I'd be dancing in the streets if the shambolic, unelectable band of racist scum calling themselves the Conservative party had defied all expectations by winning this election.
But what really socked me when I was woken by the radio this morning was hearing that George Galloway has taken Oona King's seat. Most politicians are lying, toadying, power-hungry demagogues; it's depressing, but that's human nature. However, Oona King is, I believe, a genuinely good person, and George Galloway is, frankly, actively evil. King is quite a bit to the left of Blair, so if the consituency wanted a socialist, why not a sane, dedicated, principled socialist rather than a nutter?
I'm just hoping that the people who voted for him were unaware of his violently antisemitic views. It's not something he emphasized in his campaign, unlike in the 70s when he was elected in Dundee on an overtly antisemitic platform, and very nearly drove the century-old Jewish community out of Dundee altogether, as well as inciting violence and nastiness which continues to this day. Perhaps people voted for him as a protest against the Blair government and the Iraq war. I can sympathize to a point. But, you know, people, he was thrown out of the Labour party for what amounted to treason. Not treason against the Labour party, actual treason against this country where he is now an MP again. Ugh.
All I can say is, at this moment I'm extremely glad that I have skills and qualifications which should make it easy for me to live anywhere in the world. And if![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rysmiel wants to hold forth about why democracy is a poor method of government, or indeed why Montreal is a wonderful place, at this particular moment I'm likely to be more than usually susceptible to such arguments.
Today is the 12th day, making one week and five days of the Omer.
But what really socked me when I was woken by the radio this morning was hearing that George Galloway has taken Oona King's seat. Most politicians are lying, toadying, power-hungry demagogues; it's depressing, but that's human nature. However, Oona King is, I believe, a genuinely good person, and George Galloway is, frankly, actively evil. King is quite a bit to the left of Blair, so if the consituency wanted a socialist, why not a sane, dedicated, principled socialist rather than a nutter?
I'm just hoping that the people who voted for him were unaware of his violently antisemitic views. It's not something he emphasized in his campaign, unlike in the 70s when he was elected in Dundee on an overtly antisemitic platform, and very nearly drove the century-old Jewish community out of Dundee altogether, as well as inciting violence and nastiness which continues to this day. Perhaps people voted for him as a protest against the Blair government and the Iraq war. I can sympathize to a point. But, you know, people, he was thrown out of the Labour party for what amounted to treason. Not treason against the Labour party, actual treason against this country where he is now an MP again. Ugh.
All I can say is, at this moment I'm extremely glad that I have skills and qualifications which should make it easy for me to live anywhere in the world. And if
rysmiel wants to hold forth about why democracy is a poor method of government, or indeed why Montreal is a wonderful place, at this particular moment I'm likely to be more than usually susceptible to such arguments. Today is the 12th day, making one week and five days of the Omer.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-31 11:23 pm (UTC)If Galloway really did specifically campaign to close down a Synagogue, then that would clearly betoken anti-Semitism - a specific hostility towards Jews/Judaism. If the second is true, it certainly suggests crass insensitivity, and possibly a dose of municipal corruption (this is Dundee after all), but not necessarily anti-Semitism. Dundee has generally been pretty cavalier about knocking down stuff, which is why there aren't many really old buildings in Dundee.
You also say in relation to this that the campaign was very acrimonious and that it involved derogatory remarks about "Jews in general and members of the community". Now I can very easily believe that Galloway would conduct such an argument in a highly acrimonious manner and be derogatory about anyone opposing him, Jew or not. But do you have information that Galloway himself made derogatory remarks about Jews in general? Again, what is your source, and is there any independent way of confirming this?
I am not looking for legal proof here, and I trust your reliability as a witness completely. But I do want to know more about your sources of information, and how confident you are of the specifics that would demonstrate Galloway as anti-Semitic. Also, I am sure that a number of my friends in Bristol Respect would be concerned to know this, and I would like something more solid than "someone I know said that someone they know said".
Sorry to put you on the spot, but as I say I've not been able to find anything on the internet, so you're my only source for this!