Comment on I won't accept exclusion within Green Party, says Polanski after criticism of Zionism motion
geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 8 hours agoOn the contrary, this motion is extremely useful for Palestinians because it describes the root cause of their problems.
Furthermore, I’m not sure how many Zionists you think there are in the Green Party, but it’s not that much. Most of the issues you see here are from Labour screaming anti-Semitism.
Let me ask you this, do you actually disagree with the motion or do you think it’s just bad for optics?
danielquinn@lemmy.ca 7 hours ago
Of course I agree with the motion. I’m a thinking person with a reasonable understanding of the history of the region. I’m assuming you are too, but I hate to break it to you, you aren’t most people.
Most people don’t understand that Zionism ≠ Judaism and this motion will absolutely not help in their education. It will alienate them, and the media will have more ammo to paint us with the “extreme crazies” brush. Worse still, people within the party who have joined, perhaps even as their first foray into politics are going to feel alienated. The party will appear to have been co-opted by a bunch of masturbatory academics, bent on spending time and resources defining a word that has no effect other than to piss people off an alienate them. Indeed that’s all the party’s been talking about over the last few days: the fact that this motion is meaningless. So what have we accomplished exactly?
This is a classic case of the Left’s favourite pastime: purity tests and virtue signalling. Now everyone who pushed for this meaningless exercise can pat themselves on the back for being enlightened and they can look down on everyone who opposed it, abstained, or dared to clarify its meaning as Polanski has done here. Then, when the taste of that passes, they can get back to sabotaging any real work (which requires cooperation, something these people cannot understand) by choosing a new group of people to alienate.
Next up: the meat-eaters. It’s bad for the animals and the environment. Fuck those guys. Let’s pass a motion declaring meat-eating evil. Actually, that’s not good enough. Roll the pansy-assed vegetarians in there because they lack the conviction of proper vegans.
This is what this sort of politics breeds, and it doesn’t stop until you have a party of just 8 people who think they’re better than everyone else while giving the other 7 the side-eye.
Politics is about community and working with others — others who may not agree with you on everything, who may not have made the same journey you have (yet?) to come to the same conclusions, but you have enough in common to pull together to get things done. These people have done the opposite. They’ve driven a wedge into the party for zero benefit, to (as you say) “filter out” people they don’t like. Palestinians won’t benefit from a bunch of Britons defining a word. They would have benefitted from the blockage of arms sales to Israel, but they’ve set back any progress we could have possibly had on that now.
It’s just so dumb, and selfish, and navel-gazing. And the reaction here to Polanski, rejecting him if he should dare do anything other than to embrace this idiot motion… it’s just so counterproductive.
geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 7 hours ago
So what you’re saying is that this doesn’t affect you and your treats, so therefore you don’t care and nobody should care about it either.
The comparison between this and calling the consumption of meat evil is quite a massive leap.
You’ve seen what happened to Corbyn. If the Greens don’t cleanse themselves from Zionists that would await them if they ever got to power. So this is a great and very important motion.
danielquinn@lemmy.ca 6 hours ago
It’s controversial by definition. It’s sewing controversy. In the party, in the media, and in the broader public. To pretend otherwise is to live in a world without facts.
And I don’t know what you’re on about regarding my “treats”. You and I share the same goal: liberation of the Palestinian people, but while you’re content to derail any progress we might have made on that front in an effort to “cleanse” the party, I’d rather we find a way to do something for them. Nice use of the word “cleanse” there, very inclusive. I’m sure the people who still associate Zionism with Judaism and fear another Holocaust would absolutely love to be part of a party with people using that sort of language.
This isn’t a conversation that’s going to be productive (much like every other conversation around this over the next 6-12 months) so I’m tapping out. You should come back to this in a year though and ask yourself just what this stunt has wrought and how we might have better served Palestine with that time if only we hadn’t been obsessed with tightening the noose of virtue around each other.
geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 6 hours ago
The “controversy” being a few extremely koud racist Zionists in the party which want to hijack the party for their own agenda.
Exactly the people you need to filter out before your party grows or they will become a cancer like they did for Labour.
Like I said, everyone here agrees with the notion, but they’re just somehow afraid that it’s controversial and the only reason you believe it’s controversial is because everyone keeps telling you so.