The Bernie of Britain- Jeremy Corbyn- wins UK Labour Leadership

[nationalize the fed]

Saturday Sep 12 2015 11:30am BST 6:30am EST -
Breaking: Jeremy Corbyn has won the leadership race - Guardian sources

Rolling coverage of the Labour special conference where the results of the leadership election and the deputy leadership election are announced, with reaction and analysis

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2015/sep/12/labour-announces-leadership-election-result-with-corbyn-tipped-to-win-politics-live



Jeremy Corbyn: how the rebel became the front-runner

Who is Jeremy Corbyn?

As a self-described democratic socialist, Corbyn has advocated the renationalisation of public utilities and railways, re-opening coal mines, combating corporate tax evasion and avoidance as an alternative to austerity, abolishing university tuition fees and restoring student grants, a unilateral policy of nuclear disarmament and cancellation of the Trident nuclear weapons programme, quantitative easing to fund infrastructure and renewable energy projects, and reversing cuts to the public sector and welfare made since 2010 by the government of David Cameron...

Views on Ukraine, Russia, and NATO

Corbyn has stated that NATO is to blame for the crisis in Ukraine and described Russia's actions as "not unprovoked". He has said it "probably was" a mistake to allow former Warsaw Pact countries to join NATO: "Nato expansion and Russian expansion – one leads to the other, and one reflects the other."...snip

Bank of England policy

Corbyn proposes to have the Bank of England create money to invest in housing and public transport, described by Corbyn as "people's quantitative easing". This would aim to turn the UK into a high-skill, high-tech economy and to build more council houses in order to lower long-term housing benefit costs. To achieve this, the Bank would purchase bonds for a state-owned "National Investment Bank"...snip
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Corbyn

https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics

Trivia: Corbyn replaces Ed Milliband, who lost despite hiring David Axelrod for $500,000 worth of "help".

[newfie11]

1. Sounds like The type of person the world needs

I hope more show up in politics worldwide.

[peacebird]

2. Me too. We've had enuf neolibs, bushes & blairs....

[tecelote]

4. +1

[sibelian]

7. It's a bit of a shock, actually.

He's won hands down across all voting sections and has just delivered a proper barn-storming speech.

This was with four potential candidates in the running and his closest competitor was almost 40% behind him! It's really freaky!

He's obliterated them.

People are obviously getting a bit fed up with the same old story...

[T_i_B]

8. If you look at his 3 opponents

then it becomes clear why Corbyn did so well. Jeremy Corbyn has clear faults, but he makes clear positive arguments out of principle.

Compare that to Andy Burnham, who made his name in office as an ultra-Blairite, but has since shown himself to be quite the flip-flopper. Yvette Cooper has to be the drearyest, blandest, most uninspiring politican ever, and Liz Kendall ran the most negative right wing platform possible. None of these people showed themselves to be at all appealling to those of us outside the Westminster bubble.

The divide between the Parliamentary Labour Party and the world outside of Westminster has never been greater and it's become a serious cause of Labour's decline.

[dsc]

3. On foreign policy he is no Bernie

and to the extent Bernie has a chance of winning the primary thank God for that. His views on both Russia and the middle east are just plain wrong. Russia under Putin is a threat to its neighbors (it has already invaded three) and without NATO protection the Baltic states would have been taken over by now.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. I don't think the Wikipedia article on him is neutral, about what he's said on Ukraine

It's got lots of criticism of him, but what he actually said boils down to one link to his Morning Star article, and his comments to the Guardian. The form is put as 'Corbyn has stated that NATO is to blame for the crisis in Ukraine and described Russia's actions as "not unprovoked"', but here's the article, and it doesn't say "NATO is to blame" (and remember this was April 2014, before the fighting in the south-east, though after the Russian annexation of Crimea):

On Ukraine, I would not condone Russian behaviour or expansion. But it is not unprovoked, and the right of people to seek a federal structure or independence should not be denied.
...
We have allowed Nato to act outside its own area since the Afghan war started. The Lisbon Treaty binds the EU and Nato together in a mutual alliance of interference and domination reaching ever eastwards.

The long-term effect of the behaviour of US Secretary of State John Kerry, backed by the EU and the British government, is to divide the world. An ever-growing and more confident Russia-China bloc will increasingly rival Nato and the EU, meaning a new cold war beckons.

Would it not be better if when the four powers sit down together they looked at agreeing on a neutral, nuclear-free Ukraine, the possibility of de-escalating the crisis and cut out the hypocrisy of feigned moral outrage from a country that has invaded many others, has military bases scattered worldwide and whose arms industry has made billions from the death and destruction of so much life in Afghanistan and Iraq.

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-972b-Nato-belligerence-endangers-us-all#.VfQKHxFVikp

What he said in August 2015 was:

Corbyn has been accused of failing to see the threat posed by the aggression of Russian president Vladimir Putin, but he makes clear that he is highly critical of him. “I am not an admirer or supporter of Putin’s foreign policy, or of Russian or anybody’s else’s expansion. But there has got to be some serious discussions about de-escalating the military crisis in central Europe. Nato expansion and Russian expansion – one leads to the other, and one reflects the other.

Corbyn makes clear that it would be wrong to allow Ukraine, as a divided country, to join Nato. “To recruit into membership a divided country means you either accept the division or you intend to do something about it. That is dangerous.”

Corbyn even suggests it was wrong to allow countries such as Poland, as a former member of the Warsaw Pact in the Soviet orbit, to join Nato. Asked whether it was a mistake to admit former Warsaw Pact countries, he says: “I think it probably was, actually. We should have gone down the road Ukraine went down in 1990, which was an informal agreement with Russia that Ukraine would be a non-nuclear state (and) would be non-aligned in its foreign policy. The interesting thing is why Russia didn’t turn all that into a treaty, why they just accepted it as an informal agreement with Nato, the EU and the US.”

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/07/jeremy-corbyn-interview-we-are-not-doing-celebrity-personality-or-abusive-politics

I think "NATO is to blame for the crisis in Ukraine" is a very inaccurate characterisation of that.

[Demeter]

9. Ever get out of the MSM?

You really ought to.

[zeemike]

13. Now that is the truth.

And it is noticeable when people start repeating almost verbatim what the MSM is saying.
Their job is to manufacture conventional wisdom.

[dsc]

18. Yeah I read alot of LGBT media

and they tell me all I need to know about the tin horn dictator that Putin is.

[sibelian]

5. Blimey!

I'm... surprised...

[Demeter]

10. Congratulations, Mr. Corbyn

When are the next Parliamentary elections? Looks like 2020, unless there's a crisis and Parliament is dissolved early...they just had one in May. Guess it went over like the lead balloon.

[T_i_B]

11. Labour did very badly in May

They got annihilated in Scotland, and lost ground to the Tories in England. Basically, they continued to lose votes to everyone other than the Lib Dems

[oberliner]

12. Not even remotely similar to Bernie

What a ridiculous and ignorant comparison.

[sibelian]

14. Probably somewhat to the left of Mr Sanders, I imagine.

?

[Spider Jerusalem]

15. Quite similar apart from being more of a genuine socialist and not being pro-Israel (n/t)

[oberliner]

16. Sanders doesn't compare the US military to ISIS

Among other things.

[Spider Jerusalem]

17. What he said:

Yes they (ISIS) are brutal, yes some of what they have done is quite appaling. Likewise, what the Americans did in Fallujah and other places is appalling

And you know what? He's right:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/toxic-legacy-of-us-assault-on-fallujah-worse-than-hiroshima-2034065.html

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/dec/22/fallujah-us-marine-iraq

[dsc]

19. what has ISIS done that isn't brutal

I would love to hear. Is it their throwing gay people off buildings, their beheading of hostages, their looting of antiquities. Really what is the non brutal, humanitarian stuff that ISIS has been doing, I would love to hear chapter and verse.

[Spider Jerusalem]

20. Didn't say they have been

just saying the US (and for that matter the UK, can't forget that Blair went happily along*) is responsible for quite a lot of evil in that part of the world, as well; I don't think that's something that anyone who's looking at things objectively can deny.

*Corbyn has also said he'd consider trying Blair for war crimes, for what that's worth.

[Nye Bevan]

21. Does the UK Prime Minister get to decide who gets prosecuted for war crimes?

I guess the UK does not have quite the same separation of powers that we do.

[Spider Jerusalem]

23. Nope, but if the ongoing inquiry finds violations of international law...

it'd be referred to the Crown Prosecution Service (or, more likely, the ICC) under a Corbyn government rather than swept under the rug.

[dsc]

25. actually that is what the word some means

it implies that there were non brutal actions, so again I ask what were they? Those are the words you are saying are right.

[Spider Jerusalem]

26. Why the fuck are you asking me to answer? I didn't say it, Jeremy Corbyn said it.

You can take it up with him if you want it explicated. (He's probably a bit busy, though.)

[dsc]

27. you wrote and he is right

that usually means you agree with the person whose words you are bringing to us.

[Spider Jerusalem]

28. I agree with him about the US being responsible for doing evil things in Iraq, yes.

Reading comprehension is a good thing.

[dsc]

29. I read your post perfectly

Here is what you quoted.

Yes they (ISIS) are brutal, yes some of what they have done is quite appaling. Likewise, what the Americans did in Fallujah and other places is appalling

and here is what you said about what you quoted

And you know what? He's right:

Now you show me where, and I copied the entirety of your post except the link, you state in any way, shape or form that your agreement with what he said was limited to the role America played in the Middle East or anywhere else.

[Spider Jerusalem]

30. Context is important

I take it you DIDN'T read the links I appended to that comment. They should make my meaning perfectly clear.

[muriel_volestrangler]

37. If you're going to nitpick about the precise meaning of 'some'

then the members of ISIS go to sleep at night, and they shit. Those are 'non brutal actions'.

When you say someone is 'brutal', and that some of what they have done is quite appalling, it does not mean acceptance or approval of any of their actions or policies.

[dsc]

38. I am sure the woman who wind up forced to sleep with them

don't find it brutal at all.

[muriel_volestrangler]

39. Wow, what a crappy failure to argue on your part

It's as if you don't even understand what a strawman is. You tried to nitpick about the use of the word 'some', and now you're trying to argue as if the rape was mentioned as a 'not appalling' act.

The sad thing is that you're doing this to denigrate the leader of the British Labour party, on a site for supporters of the allied US Democratic party. It's rare to see someone here strain to attack people on the left as much as you are.

[dsc]

40. If he had used most or alot or nearly all

that would have been fine, but he used some. Some implies someone did 100 things and maybe 30 were appalling. That isn't even close to ISIS.

[muriel_volestrangler]

41. Now you are inventing meanings for the word 'some'

which means it's pointless talking to you.

[dsc]

43. really

If a teacher tell you your kid is missing some homework assignments what percent comes to mind? Is it anywhere near 100 percent? Is it over half? I frankly doubt it. I would be willing to bet that if you polled a random sample of a thousand the majority of people would pick a percentage that is under 50. Yes 30 is a bit precise for some as would any other specific percentage, but my point that some means well less than half for most people stands.

[muriel_volestrangler]

36. Very few people were, in June 2014, talking about ISIS doing the things like

throwing gay people off buildings, beheading hostages, and looting antiquities. That's when the quote is from - see http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027163984#post3

[Nye Bevan]

22. "Some of what they have done is quite appalling".

That's like "Some of what Adolf Hitler did was simply horrible".

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

24. If I were a Brit I'd vote for him.

[MohRokTah]

31. If this guy represents Labor, I would go for the Tories. eom

[T_i_B]

32. Who would you have preferred?

A) Andy Burnham
B) Yvette Cooper
C) Liz Kendall

[sibelian]

35. Ah yes, fracking, austerity, refugee refusal...

Are you sure you're on the right website?

[LeftishBrit]

42. Then I hope you don't have a vote in the UK

Not giving your preference to Corbyn; preferring another candidate - fair enough. Voting third party? - in our system, fine: there are the LibDems; the Greens; the new National Health Alliance; in parts of the country, Plaid Cymru or the SNP.

But the Tories? The party that is threatening the public services? That is removing workers' and poor people's rights, and trampling on people who are poor, sick, disabled, old, young, or otherwise unable to compete in the 'jungle'? Thatcher and Reagan reincarnated?

I hated Blair, but would never have voted for a Tory against him (I did at times vote for both LibDems and Greens). After experiencing Thatcher's long reign - one just doesn't!

[azmom]

33. Power to the people.

Woohoo! Great news.

[Matariki]

34. Jeremy Corbyn for Prime Minister

Democratic Socialists - medicine (and dare I say revenge) for the Reagan / Thatcher years.

[malaise]

44. It's a great victory

for not only England but the planet. Time for socialists everywhere to wake up