Moderated Views on George Galloway.

I find that when he is correct he is spot on about the matter, but when he gets things wrong he gets them very, very wrong. If he could have toned himself down he could have been a very good politician, peace campaigner, but his manner would often backfire.
 
You think he didn't support the Soviet Union?

He says his political position is no different now than it was then; that while there are so many politicians marching across the ideological spectrum without explanation, he has stayed put. What is that position? "I am on the anti-imperialist left." The Stalinist left? "I wouldn't define it that way because of the pejoratives loaded around it; that would be making a rod for your own back. If you are asking did I support the Soviet Union, yes I did. Yes, I did support the Soviet Union, and I think the disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life. If
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Link.
 
Can you not follow the trend about claims in the media against Galloway that this entire thread has borne out to it's logical conclusion? :D

Or will I have to link (again) to him addressing these false claims you keep repeating?

Everything is portrayed as so Machiavellian, black and white. Good or terrorist. Respectable or evil.

Corrigan your avatar makes your stance even more funny, I can imagine mark going on a rant about him to Jeremy! His opinions are a lot more complicated than your selective quote.
 
Virus said:
"I did support the Soviet Union, and I think the disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life."

- George Bum-face Galloway.
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I have no doubt you're right, but do you have a source?
 
Croydon Bob said:
The people posting that they hate Galloway, etc, are no different to birthers and the other loonies who hate Obama because he's a Commie Muslim Kenyan. Never mind actual facts, Fox News made up some lies about him and that is good enough for them.

Galloway has said and done lots of things that I don't agree with, but he's not as bad as Blair for sucking up to nasty foreigners. He didn't sell anyone weapons, or invade on flimsy pretexts.
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Rubbish. I am from the same town as him and have watched his nonsense for many years. He is a disgrace to his country.

He is a two faced liar and a bully. He is a flip flopper on pretty much everything. Pretty much a total scumbag. To try and paint people who hate him as birthers is pathetic.
 
Virus said:
It's from a fawning Guardian interview.

Supporting the Soviet Union is no better than supporting the NSDAP.
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Thanks for the link. The Soviet Union was a deplorable regime, and I welcomed its dissolution. But in its last decades at least it was nothing like as bad as Nazi Germany. It proved to be repressive, economically and technically incompetent, and incapable of reform, however, and Galloway's support for it is both absurd and discreditable.

His standpoint seems to be based on the idea that the world is a better place when it is not dominated by a single political entity. That may well be true in principle, but if one of several powerful polities is of an unacceptable character, then it is entirely unreasonable to support it merely to sustain plurality.

The Guardian is capable, by the way, of publishing articles critical of Galloway. Here is a case in point. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/nov/22/labour-police-leaflet-racists-claim The exploitation of sectarian religious particularism to obtain votes in areas with large Muslim populations is my current major political objection to Gorgeous George. I would be interested to hear from his long-suffering supporters on this point.
 
Galloway's political success has got me thinking...

If a loudmouth like that can achieve financial and political success by supporting scum like Iraq's Ba'ath family business and the Soviet Union, then the game is truly wide open. Loosey goosie indeed.

Let me in the game, boys. All I need is a seat, a buck, and a truck.
 
Toontown said:
Galloway's political success has got me thinking...

If a loudmouth like that can achieve financial and political success by supporting scum like Iraq's Ba'ath family business and the Soviet Union, then the game is truly wide open. Loosey goosie indeed.

Let me in the game, boys. All I need is a seat, a buck, and a truck.
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I've highlighted a problem for your argument, you'd need to show that is the reason he has been as "successful" as he is. Personally I don't doubt that it's helped but my opinion is that he has had his success by playing the maverick, for being for the "little people". In other words like many a politician his success can be explained by him always playing the populist card with no regard to consistency, ethics, morals, shame or anything else that makes most of us incapable of behaving the way he does.
 
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Darat said:
I've highlighted a problem for your argument, you'd need to show that is the reason he has been as "successful" as he is. Personally I don't doubt that it's helped but my opinion is that he has had his success by playing the maverick, for being for the "little people". In other words like many a politician his success can be explained by him always playing the populist card with no regard to consistency, ethics, morals, shame or anything else that makes most of us incapable of behaving the way he does.
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Of course. Passing himself off as a maverick working-class hero of the "little people" was crucial to Galloway's 10-step program:

1. Establish "maverick" image
2. Suck up to the "little people"
3. Get elected to some arguably credible political position
4. Suck up to Saddam
5. Profit
6. Temporarily lose credibility
7. Suck up to the "little people" again
8. Get elected again
9. Bemoan the passing of the Soviet Union
10. Profit
 
He is also good at finding ethnically diverse areas and becoming their MP because he gets the support of left wingers and ethnic minorities. Glasgow Kelvin is one of the few ethnically diverse places in Scotland where there is a large ethnic population.
 
Zeuzzz said:
He does not support violence. Is your issue that he understands peoples right to defend their sovereignty if their country is invaded and they do not like the occupiers?

There's a titanic difference between people who feel their existence and culture is under threat defending themselves and on the other hand advocating full out needless violence.
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He's a self publicizing egotist who'll back any third world despot willing to fork out a few dollars an put him up in a nice hotel, he could care less about the people of the Arab world, or the poor unfortunates who put him back in parliament. He is one of the worst examples of a self serving politician you are going to find at Westminster and that's quite an achievement in itself given he has some pretty stiff competition.
 
Craig B said:
Not quite sure I follow that.
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well he's already on fire, so setting fire to the person next to him then extinguishing him would fill Galloway with a false sense of glee that he too may be put out.But when you refused, the added sadness would intensify the pain.

It was just meant to be mean yet silly.....
 
Nessie said:
He is also good at finding ethnically diverse areas and becoming their MP because he gets the support of left wingers and ethnic minorities. Glasgow Kelvin is one of the few ethnically diverse places in Scotland where there is a large ethnic population.
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And then gets run out of town five years later after his constituents understand that he uses their votes to further his profile.
 
Undesired Walrus said:
And then gets run out of town five years later after his constituents understand that he uses their votes to further his profile.
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Well, he certainly doesn't seem to use them as an opportunity to participate in the business of Parliament, as this from his wiki bio shows:
Following the 2005 election, his participation rate remained low, and at the end of the year he had participated in only 15% of Divisions in the House of Commons since the general election, placing him 634th of 645 MPs. Of the eleven MPs below him in the rankings, one was the then Prime Minister Tony Blair, five were Sinn Féin members who have an abstentionist policy toward taking their seats, three were the speaker and deputy speakers and therefore ineligible to vote, and two had died since the election. Galloway claims a record of unusual activity at a "grass roots" level. His own estimate is that he made 1,100 public speeches between September 2001 and May 2005.
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If his vocation is to be a speaker at public meetings, why does he trouble to seek election to the House of Commons?
 
Undesired Walrus said:
And then gets run out of town five years later after his constituents understand that he uses their votes to further his profile.
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As does any politician. It's part of their job to stay popular with the people by expanding their public profile and retaining their seat.
 
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