George Galloway on Nicky Campbell’s Show: Everything Ken Livingstone Said Was True

I’ve put up several pieces this week from YouTube of George Galloway speaking. As I’ve said, I’m not a fan, but I do believe that he is right about many of the issues he discusses. And he’s absolutely right about the Iraq War. This is a clip of him talking to Nicky Campbell on the Radio about Ken Livingstone, Naz Shah and the anti-Semitism allegations.

In answer to Campbell’s question, Galloway explains the difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. Anti-Semitism, as he explains, is something of a misnomer, as the Palestinians are also Semites. It is hatred of the Jews as Jews. He points out that it has a long history, going back to the Middle Ages, and has resulted in pogroms, persecution and the Holocaust, which he declares to be the most terrible crime against humanity. Anti-Zionism is simply opposition to the state of Israel.

He answers a question from a Jewish caller from Liverpool, who states that as a Zionist, he has no problem criticising Israel for its crimes, but wonders why Galloway doesn’t criticise the Palestinians, such as Hamas, for the terrorism they commit. Galloway states that he is not just opposed to the state of Israel, but also to all the artificial countries created exactly 100 years ago in the Middle East by the Picot-Sykes agreement. He also makes the point that no system has a right to exist. Communism did not have a right to exist. To oppose Communism did not mean that you hated Russians. Rather, the anti-Communists stated that they wanted to liberate Russians.

He states that everything Ken Livingstone said about the Nazis and the Zionists was correct. There was an agreement between Hitler and the Zionist leaders to have Jews shipped to the emerging state of Israel. This was the Haavara agreement. This was because both the Zionists and Nazis believed that Jews were not Europeans: German Jews were not Germans, French Jews not French, and so on. It was ridiculous that Ken Livingstone should have been suspended for speaking the truth.

When asked about Naz Shah and her comments, he says that it was foolish, but it was a stupid, teenage joke she posted on Facebook months before she became an MP. On the other hand, the 800,000 people ‘displaced’ she mentioned, did not only occur on Facebook. They were real people, forced out of their homes.

Campbell asks about Ken Livingstone’s apparent obsession with the Second World War, the Jews, the Nazis and the Holocaust. Galloway states that he’s also been accused of anti-Semitism, and suspended from the Labour party, although that was under a different leader. He says Livingstone’s older than him, and he would not have mentioned the Nazis. But it’s because the Second World War and its legacy was a larger issue to people of Livingstone’s generation than his.

Galloway here is right, though I don’t think he convincingly answered the Liverpudlian caller’s question about his refusal to condemn Palestinian terrorism. As for Livingstone’s apparent obsession with the Nazis, I think this is part of the background of veteran Socialist of a certain age. Red Ken was head of the GLC in the 1980s, when racism was just becoming a real issue and many of the accepted attitudes towards race were being challenged. It was also a period when the National Front was active and very much carrying out attacks on non-Whites, Jews and Leftists. It was also a period dominated by the Second World War. Many of the films in the ’70s were war films, there were a number of comics and comic strips set in the Second World War, such as Battle, ‘Hellmann of Hammerforce’ in Action, Warlord and so on. It was also in the ’80s that the groundbreaking documentary, The World at War, was broadcast. For the anti-racist Left, the threat of Fascism was very real, and the Holocaust was the most horrific case of genocide, a terrible example of the horrific carnage racism can lead to.

Vox Political: Judge Dredd Takes on Benefit Sanctions

Earlier today I posted a piece about reports by ITV and the Belfast Telegraph that 2000 AD were planning to pit Mega City One’s toughest lawman against Nigel Farage in the satirical guise of the politician ‘Bilious Barrage’. Assuming that wasn’t an April Fool’s joke, this looks like a good one to look forward to.

A few days ago, Mike posted this piece Art imitates life: Coalition ‘welf’ policies get comic-book treatment, about a Judge Dredd story in which the good Judge meets a disabled man, who has been refused food rations because the authorities have decided that after waiting six hours in a queue, he is well enough to work. After complaining about his treatment, the man is further wrongly accused of malingering by an insurance salesman he had turned down. Mike’s article begins

Sometimes, when you’re a blogger, an article comes along when you think you’re doing something else – for example, catching up on a little light reading.

Yes, even hard-nosed political bloggers like This Writer have to kick back and have a little ‘me’ time now and then – in this case, with the Judge Dredd Megazine, issue 356, dated February 17, 2015.

In the lead story ‘The Cop’, we see title character Judge Dredd’s domain – the Mega City One of a future North America – struggling to cope with the effects of a disaster. Already you can see parallels with the Great Recession of 2007 onwards.

Citizens are encouraged to help clear damage from buildings, making them usable again, in return for food rations. No effort – no food. This is actually described in the story as a ‘Work Programme’!

Then the story focuses in on “those adults who are unable to work”; one such person is thrust out of the line of workers by a classic bully-type character. Ordered to explain what’s going on, the character – clearly in bad shape, his body withered and weak – states that he has a condition in which half his body doesn’t function properly. He explains that he reported for ‘disability testing’ (a Work Capability Assessment).

“I waited six hours an’ then they told me to come down here!” the pitiful creature, named Carmody, explains. “Said if I could wait that long, it meant it couldn’t be that bad–”

Mike goes on to consider the parallels thrown up by the strip with IDS’ chequebook euthanasia, and the way the Neoliberals have stirred up hatred and a mob mentality against anyone they dub a ‘scrounger’. And Mike’s got the stats to show how often that term’s been used. He also notes that, like the insurance salesman, the Tories have also tried to introduce private health insurance.

He concludes by saying

The script for this mini-classic is by Al Ewing. It seems clear that, like another comic scriptwriter called Al – Alan Moore – he knows the score.

It’s one of the great things about the comics counter-culture. It isn’t monitored and censored anything like as heavily as mass cultures like TV.

So comics get to say what people really think.

That’s been true of British comics since the mid-70s, when Pat Mills, John Wagner and their fellow reprobates revived a medium that had become rather stale. They introduced characters and settings drawn from contemporary youth culture. This was extremely controversial. Action, which featured strips based on or strongly influenced by Jaws, Rollerball,Dirty Harry, and contemporary War films, caused a national scandal and was banned because of its violent content. It was succeeded by the thrill-powered 2000 AD, where the violence was made acceptable by being on the side of law and order. The strips were permeated by a strong, satirical edge, in which politicians, industrialists, TV personalities and pop stars were parodied and lampooned. Those who got the treatment included Maggie Thatcher, who turned up in Robo-Hunter as Iron Aggie, John Selwyn Gummer, David Bellamy – who was eaten by an escaped tyrannosaur – and Tony Blair. The Judge Dredd strip also featured a crooked businessman called Remington Ratner, whose surname is the same as a certain jeweller, who managed to bankrupt his business by making a stupid joke at a trade conference. And New Kids on the Block were clearly the inspiration for Mega-City One’s popsters, New Juves on the Block. At its height in the 1980s, 2000 AD was one of the most powerful forces shaping contemporary youth culture.

And its still making very sharp, satirical points. The ABC Warriors strip has run several stories in which its heroes, a group of former robot soldiers bringing justice and law to a violent and chaotic Mars, tell each other stories about their adventures during the Volgan Wars. This was a war between the West, led by America, and Russia, now the Volgan Republic. The War has been sold to its citizens as a defence of democracy against an aggressive dictatorship. The reality is that the West wishes to get its hands on the Volgan’s oil supplies. It’s very clear that Script Robot Mills is making a point about the lies by our governments in the invasion of Iraq.

All I can say is that it’s a pity we can’t get the good judge to round up Cameron, Clegg and co and put them in an iso-cube for a while.

The article can be read at http://voxpoliticalonline.com/2015/03/28/art-imitates-life-coalition-welf-policies-get-comic-book-treatment/