- Re: Corbyn’s “left” pretensions - this is just a nasty character assassination. Archived Message
Posted by John Monro
on November 21, 2019, 6:58 pm, in reply to "Corbyn’s “left” pretensions exposed in UK general election debate"
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This is grossly unfair to Corbyn. - with friends like this who needs enemies. He is not a dictator, but a leader of a fractured party, fractured on Brexit and on policy matters - it's his MPs that are the cowards. He only has so much room to move. He has just introduced the most radical set of policies since the 1930s and 40s He has dramatically shifted the Labour party leftward, almost single-handedly. He desperately wants to heal a fractured nation and as such, he can appear indecisive and sitting on the fence. But in regard to Brexit, sitting on the fence is a perfectly rational place to be. Brexit, the EU, was never a simplistic binary issue, and it still isn't. Being puzzled is a sign of thinking and the implies the retention of critical flexibility; certainly and thoughtlessness are intellectual Siamese twins. The problem is that Corbyn is so bad at defending himself. What you are seeing in his supposed "failure" in this debate is a man who works best in the crowd, at rallies and with ordinary people and communities. He is not a good debater and never has been. He has a retiring persona, and he's not good at argument and dissent - his pacifist persona and his egalitarian principles are his greatest assets when dealing with affairs of state, but his greatest liabilities in the war zone of politics. There is too a level of genuine naivety in the man that likes to think the best of people, including his opponents, and he hasn't actually realised how reptilian and nasty his opponents are. (sorry for the slur on reptiles) which makes him psychologically ill prepared to counter them. I despair of the despising in this forum of this honest, decent, hard working, moral man, who's the only chance of the UK pulling back from the brink of becoming a corporatist economy and a subordinate of America Inc - ever more alarmingly veering to fascism in the deepest recesses of its political body. If the Tories get back in, your country is probably doomed to become ever more right wing. The media will support him, the BBC will be even more biased and he left wing might well atrophy under the constant stress of apparent failure. The inevitable result of all this will society's pressure cooker blowing its top and violence and mayhem in the streets - leading where? Who knows, but not somewhere nice, that's for sure. |