Interesting.... debate between David Frum and Galloway...

[Undesired Walrus]

In the top left box..

http://search.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?tab=av&q=david+frum&scope=all&uri=/

David Frum is presumably someone who's views do not echo mine, but this was an entertaining debate, as I am not a fan of the Galloway machine. Frum seems calm and persuasive, a worry if we only have the former to combat him.

Anyway, enough with the threads for a while.. apologies.

 

[Kiosk]

Frum didn't strike me as all that calm or persuasive, to be honest. His smug snipes at Galloway didn't do him any favours. There are plenty of ways to attack that blowhard without resorting to snide hints about allegations which have largely been discredited, and which are in any case irrelevant to the discussion.

Galloway is usually wheeled in for these things, because he's "good TV", i.e. he growls and barks and says "outrageous" things. Sure, that's great for the moronic contact sport that is modern current affairs programming, but it says an awful lot about the rightward drift of the mainstream parties in Britain that no one else on the Left has enough of a media presence to be invited onto shows like Newsnight. It says an awful lot about Galloway's own lust for glory that he's happy to keep showing up and making neocons look good.

Just as he pushed his way to the front of the anti-war movement, he's set himself up as figurehead of the Left - when in fact, outside his own merry band, he doesn't have much credibility on the Left at all. The former didn't matter so much, as most people in Britain opposed the Iraq War so there was little danger of being tagged "one of those Galloway nutters" if you did too. The latter, on the other hand, is a very bad thing for those of us who are a.) Leftists and b.) sane. The old Labour Party was perhaps too broad a church, trying to accommodate people who really belonged with the Liberals or far-left groups like the SWP, and usually failing, but at least it provided a platform for the mainstream Left: anyone whose views fall between those of Margaret Thatcher and those of Tony Cliff. Without that, we're more or less stranded, utterly without representation.

It's not just that Galloway's a buffoon, it's that he only ever seems to talk about the Middle East and Islam - the subjects on which he is weakest, where his views are at their most extreme and least nuanced. The real shame, though, is not that he's the only guy who ever shows up on TV with any kind of dissenting view, but that there are so few other politicians who could take his place even if they were asked.

 

[Lucky]

I was struck by how deeply unimpressive they both were - lying, sneering scumbag vs lying, uncouth toe-rag. I fail to see how anyone could have anything less than outright contempt for the pair of them.

Frum had no arguments at all – defend US Middle East policy, what?!

Galloway had arguments, but was only interested in promoting his usual Jew-bashing line ... crazed neocons on the payroll of the Zionist lobby ... (Oops! I mean exposing Israel's agenda, don't I?)

I don't care who the Right choose as their representatives, but I agree with Kiosk that it's a sorry state of affairs when GG springs to mind (for most people, I guess) as the radical Left voice in British politics.

The most interesting topic was the NIE Iran report, and what lies behind it. The affair has demonstrated, even to the most fanatical adherent of either side (you might have thought), that there is no US capitalist consensus/force/conspiracy/crusade, supported by selfless, invincible intelligence agents. As always, intelligence reports that find their way into the headlines signify a propaganda coup by one self-serving political faction against another - a move in the game.

Of course, this point was glossed over by both of them, as it doesn't suit either of their world views.

(btw – good to see a couple of posters here interested and informed about British left-wing politics.)

 

[E.J.Armstrong]

I was struck by how deeply unimpressive they both were - lying, sneering scumbag vs lying, uncouth toe-rag. I fail to see how anyone could have anything less than outright contempt for the pair of them.

Frum had no arguments at all – defend US Middle East policy, what?!

Galloway had arguments, but was only interested in promoting his usual Jew-bashing line ... crazed neocons on the payroll of the Zionist lobby ... (Oops! I mean exposing Israel's agenda, don't I?)

I don't care who the Right choose as their representatives, but I agree with Kiosk that it's a sorry state of affairs when GG springs to mind (for most people, I guess) as the radical Left voice in British politics.

The most interesting topic was the NIE Iran report, and what lies behind it. The affair has demonstrated, even to the most fanatical adherent of either side (you might have thought), that there is no US capitalist consensus/force/conspiracy/crusade, supported by selfless, invincible intelligence agents. As always, intelligence reports that find their way into the headlines signify a propaganda coup by one self-serving political faction against another - a move in the game.

Of course, this point was glossed over by both of them, as it doesn't suit either of their world views.

(btw – good to see a couple of posters here interested and informed about British left-wing politics.)

While I agree that both contestants are deeply unappealing it seems that anyone who criticise Israel's policy on just about anything have to be labelled Jew Bashers. You might just as easily claim that those who criticise any of Ireland's polices are Catholic bashers.

Isn't it time to grow up a bit?

 

[Kiosk]

It's a fine line, though. As a staunch critic of Israeli policy who also has some Jewish family, I tend to be quite sensitive to where a pro-Palestinian-rights position begins to spill into anti-semitism. I don't think Galloway's crossed that line, but he has sometimes come uncomfortably close - and if someone's position on Israel is so lacking in nuance that they offer even tacit support to Hamas or Hizbollah, I start to get jumpy.

For me, the key to understanding the whole situation is accepting that since the Balfour declaration was first mooted, everyone involved has behaved atrociously. The West, the Israelis, the Arabs - no one is innocent here. The whole story of the state of Israel, from the circumstances which led to its creation, right up to the present mess, is pretty unedifying in many, many ways. Despite the fact that my own views fall quite heavily to one side, I tend to view out-and-out apologists for either side with similar contempt.