@bobfrombrockley's Threads
A few thoughts on Turkey's assault on Syrian Kurdistan:
1/ First the obvious but essential points: that the unjustified invasion is developing into a terrible humanitarian disaster, that it should stop immediately, and that Trump should never have green-lighted it.
1/ First the obvious but essential points: that the unjustified invasion is developing into a terrible humanitarian disaster, that it should stop immediately, and that Trump should never have green-lighted it.
2/ The Turkish justification of a place for Syrian refugees to "return" is obscene: only a tiny number came from the areas they are invading so this is no kind of "return" but displacing them yet again in order to demographically restructure Kurdistan.
3/ The invasion needs to be seen in the context of Turkey's internal politics. ErdoÄźan's gov, previously relatively hospitable to refugees, is pivoting to appease
a mood mounting anti-Syrian xenophobia that has electorally benefited opposition parties.
a mood mounting anti-Syrian xenophobia that has electorally benefited opposition parties.
“Free Tommy” and the mainstream media’s inability to report anti-fascism, a thread: 
1/ Last year I wrote this about the Guardian’s poor report of anti-fascist mobilisation against a Free Tommy march. The Guardian ignored the women-led mobilisation which stopped the fash, and used pictures and quotes from SWP front organisations instead.
brockley.blogspot.com/2018/10/london…
brockley.blogspot.com/2018/10/london…
2/ Yesterday’s Observer article by @damiengayle and @matthabusby was poor too. Pics & tweets from SWP fronts. Implication that @Feminist_AntiF’s “The enemy does not arrive by boat” was a Stand Up To Racism (SWP) banner. SUTR given sole credit for organising.
NEW POST: The RCP’s long march from anti-imperialist outsiders to the gates of Downing Street brockley.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-rc…
A few more that I didn’t go into detail about in my RCP/Spiked blogspot:
First, I hadn’t noticed until @cockneycampaign pointed out that Chloe Westley, Johnson’s controversial* head of social media, has appeared at Spiked events, including a Spiked panel at the Battle of Ideas, which is basically their main showcase. (Munira Mirza spoke there too.)
1/x I’m sick of the likes of Kerry Anne Mendoza lecturing us about antisemitism and being taken as some kind of authority. This ignorant and offensive thread has nearly 1000 retweets...
2/x By framing this as “centrists” vs “the left”, not about racism, Mendoza erases the voices of those most enraged by antisemitism: Jews, whether centrists, leftists, or neither.
And she homogenises “the left”: I’m firmly on the far left, but DON’T say “fuck off” when confronted with examples of antisemitism
A short thread about Nigel Farage’s new Brexit Party candidates from Spiked (Claire Fox & Alka Cuthbert - also active in the Full Brexit pressure group), their Northern Ireland backstory, and the crapness of our media:
1/ A while back I looked at Sunday Times allegations about Jeremy Corbyn’s IRA links brockley.blogspot.com/2018/09/jeremy… with a follow up about the Warrington bombings and the general climate on the left at the time brockley.blogspot.com/2018/09/three-…
2/ I noted that most of the left were broadly pro-Republican in the 1980s, for good reasons, but that the Warrington bombings & similar atrocities turned the tide. Even the most hardcore pro-IRA groups supported the peace process.
NEW POST: Why horseshoe theory is nonsense brockley.blogspot.com/2019/03/why-ho…
This post cites @transform6789 @nberlat @Pabloite @DavidVickrey1 @areidross @Three_Way_Fight @cberlet
cc @FFRAFAction @therubykid @slackbastard
cc @FFRAFAction @therubykid @slackbastard
I’m going to tweet out the main points of my new blogpost as a thread, as that’s what people do these days.
1. Horseshoe theory is not a theory. It explains nothing.
brockley.blogspot.com/2019/03/why-ho…
1. Horseshoe theory is not a theory. It explains nothing.
brockley.blogspot.com/2019/03/why-ho…
It's that time of the year when I make a thread of my top tweets from the last year. So, here we go, my 2018:
JANUARY:
My first thread of the year was this one on the dreadful situation in North West Syria.
My first thread of the year was this one on the dreadful situation in North West Syria.
FEBRUARY:
My Feb top tweet was also Syria related, responding to a call to save Afrin from Turkey. With Turkey poised to roll on Manbij as US abandons the Kurds, we're seeing similar calls now, from folks who condemned interventions to save other Syrians
My Feb top tweet was also Syria related, responding to a call to save Afrin from Turkey. With Turkey poised to roll on Manbij as US abandons the Kurds, we're seeing similar calls now, from folks who condemned interventions to save other Syrians
I see JVL deleted this appalling tweet, although no retraction or apology.
As someone who has been physically injured by BNP members and detained by cops for being in the streets opposing the far right, this tweet is both wrong deeply offensive. A thread.
Leaving aside the insensitivity of using a Jewish tragedy as an opportunity to troll mainstream Jews, I want to look at the claim it is #JC4PM supporters who stand up to the far right....
This @commune_mag long read on three months hanging out with the alt-right in NYC is brilliant. Read it all yourself, but my take-homes follow this tweet.
🏴The walls between the Trump movement, the alt-right & actual fascism are paper thin.
🏴”Left-wing” themes (anti-war politics, the evil of banks) are gateways to the far right scene too. (When Trump pivoted to attacking Assad in April was a devastating moment for these guys.)
🏴”Left-wing” themes (anti-war politics, the evil of banks) are gateways to the far right scene too. (When Trump pivoted to attacking Assad in April was a devastating moment for these guys.)
🏴”Economic concerns” are not negligible in explaining the appeal of the far right, but cultural ones are more important; active alt-right/fascists are typically white collar.
🏴Fragile masculinity is as central to current forms of far right mobilisation as race thinking.
🏴Fragile masculinity is as central to current forms of far right mobilisation as race thinking.
The fake news published by alt-left websites like The Canary *matters*.
Canary republished Max Blumenthal’s smear of journalist/anthropologist Carl David Goette-Luciak from conspiracy site MintPress last week, and this week Goette-Luciak was arrested by the Nicaraguan state.
Canary republished Max Blumenthal’s smear of journalist/anthropologist Carl David Goette-Luciak from conspiracy site MintPress last week, and this week Goette-Luciak was arrested by the Nicaraguan state.
Update: The Canary has doubled down, says it was "irresponsible" of The Guardian to source news from someone who might say something critical of an authoritarian state - better, presumably, to only publish news would-be dictators will like...
Some context for the above:
[thread] I'm a big fan of nationalised utilities, universal childcare, green jobs,worker share ownership & other policies unveiled at #Lab18
...but the whole thing has left a sour taste in my mouth. Here are some of the reasons why:
1/ The determination of part of the leadership to push Brexit, which will be disastrous for working class people:
Couple of tweets re the Putin/Erdogan “demilitarisation” deal on #Idlib:
1. The Syrian regime army is depleted to the point of collapse. Without Russia/Hezbollah support they couldn’t advance against Turkish-backed and properly armed rebels thedailybeast.com/assads-final-o…
2. A lot of hyperbole around about Idlib being controlled by al-Qaeda. This BBC explainer is quite good on the balance of forces there: bbc.co.uk/news/world-454… But need to add that Turkey & HTS are not friends - Turkey wants this deal for leverage against HTS, who it can’t contol
@Back2Bataan @DerbyChrisW Fair point, but based on a false premise. Let’s think it through – apologies if this takes a few tweets.
1/ Millions of us opposed the Iraq War, for a variety of reasons, while supporting Vanessa Beeley is a pretty fringe cause in the UK, confined mainly to the far right...
1/ Millions of us opposed the Iraq War, for a variety of reasons, while supporting Vanessa Beeley is a pretty fringe cause in the UK, confined mainly to the far right...
@Back2Bataan @DerbyChrisW 2/ Most of us opposed the Iraq war for good reasons: saw it as a war for oil, or opposed wars in general, or had an anti-interventionist default. Others opposed it coz they saw Saddam as objectively the good guy, out of admiration for his brand of authoritarian nationalism...
@Back2Bataan @DerbyChrisW ...Griffin was one of the latter, a pro-Baathist, and anyone on the left who shared that position should be suspect.
3/ Why does Griffin support Beeley? Because she shares many of his basic assumptions:
3/ Why does Griffin support Beeley? Because she shares many of his basic assumptions:
@DerbyChrisW short thread on VB and her antisemitic connections:
A short thread in which I read Robert Fisk's latest appalling Syria report so you don't have to independent.co.uk/voices/white-h…
1/ Fisk has been saying the Syrian war is in its end stage for 5 years now. Now he's amped up the rhetoric, while pretending to be smarter...
2/ A bit sickening how Fisk rhapsodises about his friend the "poet" Brigadier General Suheil al-Hassan, without mentioning the fact that he’s a vicious war criminal international-review.org/tiger-forces-p…
This is a thread on the Labour candidate selection for the upcoming #LewishamEast by-election (written by an embarrassingly inactive Lewisham Deptford party member)
Before getting to the candidates, a huge thank you to @Heidi_LDN for her years of excellent service to our community, as a Deptford councillor, Lewisham MP, battler to save Lewisham Hospital from Tory cuts, and Shadow Cabinet member.
So far, I believe five local candidates have put themselves forward for #LewishamEast Here they are, in alphabetical order:
Robert Fisk's crimes against truth: three detailed case studies by @im_PULSE pulsemedia.org/2016/12/03/rob…
An evergreen blogpost by veteran Middle East reporter @Brian_Whit on Robert Fisk's comedy of errors, including some hilarious Arabic mistranslations al-bab.com/blog/2013/10/r…
Here's a good list of other articles exposing times when Robert Fisk was economical with the truth:
Really fucked up situation in NW Syria right now, which I'm trying to get my head around. The following is how I understand it - let me know if you think I've got it wrong:
1.a ISIS has played a really smart series of moves in Idlib/Hama. First, in the Autumn, they did a deal with Russia/regime to transfer fighters from Deir Ezzor into Idlib, where they quietly switched to counter-insurgency mode...
1b. The Syrian government & its Russian media allies promoted a false "ISIS defeated in Syria" narrative, while 1000 ISIS fighters regrouped in Idlib/Hama...
There is a growing mainstream narrative that the war in Syria is coming to an end, and that an Assad victory, if not perfect, is a welcome relief after war. Next few links show why this isn't true:
1/ The horrific regime siege of East Ghouta continues, as described in this harrowing piece by Osama Nassar in @aljumhuriya_eng: aljumhuriya.net/en/content/sie…
2/ Assad's army is on its last legs, but is maintained zombie-like by Iranian transfusions - US plausibly estimates 80% of Assad's force is Iran-sourced thenational.ae/world/mena/us-… by @Joyce_Karam
... One response seems to be "Labour's worse" or "Farage would be at home in Corbyn's party". Why that's stupid in tweets to follow...
UKIP has a long history with antisemitism. In European Parliament, they sit with the far right. @Jennifrazer 2014: timesofisrael.com/how-to-silence…
