Here is an op-ed piece from a pro-Tory/Conservative reporter, Peter Oborne from the London Daily Telegraph, and David Hearst, a Middle East correspondent who wrote for various newspapers in the US, Great Britain, and elsewhere. The two writers analyze and admit something they would not otherwise like to admit, about how corporate media manufactures narratives. The op-ed is about how Jeremy Corbyn, a genuinely nice, intelligent, caring person, who favored policies well within the range of mid-20th Century economic policy positions that created the British "general welfare" state, and whose mother had fought on behalf of British Jews against Nazis inside Britain,* was turned into some sort of Stalin-esque monster and an anti-Semite. Here is their interview with Corbyn, which itself is worth reading as it helps readers see how astute, deeply knowledgeable, and empathetic Corbyn actually is on a host of political, historical, and literary issues, especially including Brexit and the European Union, and the discussion of anti-Semitism. Corbyn truly understands the pros and cons regarding the European Union, which is also what Yanis Varoufakis has long understood, and this interview Varoufakis did a few years ago with Corbyn shows Corbyn's perhaps-too-subtle view, though it has been consistently and resolutely held.
The op-ed from Oborne and Hearst is another part of what we had learned, in April of this year, how the Labour Party's own internal investigation revealed various Blairite leaders in the Labour Party were hoping the party's fortunes would fail in order that Corbyn could be replaced, and how it was those Blairites who, ironically, were in charge of "investigating" anti-Semitic statements from members and local political officials. See this article in Jacboin about the report, and this article from Jonathan Cook at the same online magazine as the initial article cited in this post.
What I saw, in real time, and repeat now, is how British corporate-dominated media, and most shockingly, the BBC, were willing to overlook Tory anti-Semitism, and work, hand in hand (whether there were meetings is not the point, as I seriously do not think any were had nor were any meetings necessary) to destroy Corbyn, and, each time, when Corbyn tried to be conciliatory, it only made him look weak at a time British regular folks were looking for resoluteness. See my initial take the morning after the election, and this take from the brilliant David Graeber in the New York Review of Books a few weeks later. I had updated my "initial take" post showing how polling data proved fairly well what I had thought about the lack of resoluteness, and the media attacks on Corbyn as both monstrous and dithering worked to undermine Labour, and how, in an ironic twist of fate, most of the Labour seats lost were of Blairites--including one particularly odious (and sadly Jewish) anti-Corbyn MP, Ruth Smeeth.**
The anti-Semite charge against Corbyn was always, to me, as a person of Jewish religious heritage, most astonishing and most defamatory. I went through each of the allegations against Corbyn, and found the same consistency that he followed during the Northern Ireland wars in the 1970s through 1990s. He was accused then of being pro-Irish Republican Army, but those who rip into Corbyn seem to want to ignore how even then Tory Prime Minister Cameron acknowledged the truth behind the 1972 "Bloody Sunday" massacre, which had been Corbyn's position nearly all along.
What I have learned, since the time of the British elections last December, is Corbyn lost older voters who remembered the unfair attacks on Corbyn for his "support" for the IRA, when, of course, it was not support in any nefarious sense, but one of common decency, and genuinely seeking peace. That the organized Jewish community, led by an anti-female and homophobic, and anti-pluralistic, Chief Rabbi, who wrongly attacked Corbyn personally for being anti-Semitic,*** were hysterical in their attacks on Corbyn and Labour, was an icing on the cake of overall media dishonesty.
Had Bernie Sanders won the Democratic Party's nomination, I can't help but think corporate media, and their allies in the corporate wing of the Democratic Party, would have gone out of its way to undermine Bernie's candidacy, the way the British media and Blairites did with Corbyn. These people would rather lose to fascistic elements in the opposing conservative parties than win with anyone who would challenge the societal inequities to which they sometimes give lip service of wanting to change. It is why I am continuing to think about #DemExit after November, notwithstanding my support for most Democrats up and down the ticket--while still refusing to endorse Biden at this point, notwithstanding his now having enough delegates for a first round victory. Anyone who thinks the corporate elite oriented Democrats, or their handmaidens in corporate media, really want "unity" in any honest way need merely return to 1972, when the corporate powers already in the Democratic Party, and the reactionary union leader, George Meany, deserted and sabotaged another decent, kind, and intelligent candidate, George McGovern. It is bad enough for progressives to have to fight media powers, who continue to overly influence too many Democratic Party voters. However, it is not possible to successfully fight that media, when those in the same party have their knives out and attack anyone and anything resembling progressive policies, which would get to the heart of our society's inequities. At least with a new political party, which has no corporate power within it, one may convince its growing rolls of voters to not trust broadcast corporate media narratives and presentations.
As an aside, I should add I found this paragraph in the Oborne/Hearst article amusingly telling, as it shows, once again, how fascism will ape socialist policies from time to time, as part of its relentless sowing of division and hate against those on the "outside" or oppressed in a given society:
By another irony, once he had won the election, Johnson adopted a number of Corbyn’s policies which he had previously denounced as unworkable.
Since becoming prime minister, Johnson has abandoned planned cuts in corporation tax, announced plans to nationalise Northern Rail and announced £100bn funding for infrastructure projects.
Mussolini supposedly (not really) made the "trains run on time" and started mass work projects, as did Hitler. This is how fascists roll, and it is Trump's last card to play as this election heads into the final two seasons. Watch for this, as Trump and the Republicans becoming increasingly scared enough of the Rust Belt and other places where Trump won in 2016 decide they may not vote for him again.
* And if you think it was because his mother was some fellow traveler Commie only following Moscow-directed orders in the 1930s, see this article in Ha'aretz, which contains, sadly, a fairly long drive-by against Corbyn, which explains how the fight on Cable Street was one where not only individual Jews, but neighbors and decent people were willing to do what most political groups and parties, including the Communist Party, refused to do. Corbyn's mother was active on behalf of the Spanish Republic in the mid to late 1930s, which put her in the firm left political category. Her decision, then, meant she was willing to stand up and not follow political party when it went against her comscience.
** Wikileaks had previously disclosed confidential government documents showing Smeeth to have been a pro-US government person who, in American Red Scare parlance, would have qualified her as an "agent." The phrase "strictly protect" in parentheses next to her name in the Wikileaks exposed government cable means she is someone the government believes to be a person who provides "confidential" information. See this article in Wired. And see this backgrounder on her from a decidedly harsh and polemical source, WikiSpooks. One should read the links, as opposed to the opinions and conclusions, and see how applying the style of arguments Ms. Smeeth, her establishment husband Michael, and others made against Corbyn, when applied to her, fit her more snugly. No, I don't believe Smeeth a "spy" for US governmental interests, but that did not stop her from playing her role in the attacks on Corbyn.
*** Here is a deep dive run down of many of the attacks on Corbyn and anti-Semitism. For me, when I looked at most of the allegations against Corbyn, I found them mostly a confusion between anti-Israeli government behaviors and anti-Semitism. And to attack Corbyn for maintaining lines of communication with Arab groups which mouth anti-Semitism within their anti-Zionism, and not rip into how "mainstream" politicians hang with the Waahabist Saudis, which are virulently anti-Semitic, though not much in the anti-Israel camp, at least officially, is the worst form of hypocrisy.
** Wikileaks had previously disclosed confidential government documents showing Smeeth to have been a pro-US government person who, in American Red Scare parlance, would have qualified her as an "agent." The phrase "strictly protect" in parentheses next to her name in the Wikileaks exposed government cable means she is someone the government believes to be a person who provides "confidential" information. See this article in Wired. And see this backgrounder on her from a decidedly harsh and polemical source, WikiSpooks. One should read the links, as opposed to the opinions and conclusions, and see how applying the style of arguments Ms. Smeeth, her establishment husband Michael, and others made against Corbyn, when applied to her, fit her more snugly. No, I don't believe Smeeth a "spy" for US governmental interests, but that did not stop her from playing her role in the attacks on Corbyn.
*** Here is a deep dive run down of many of the attacks on Corbyn and anti-Semitism. For me, when I looked at most of the allegations against Corbyn, I found them mostly a confusion between anti-Israeli government behaviors and anti-Semitism. And to attack Corbyn for maintaining lines of communication with Arab groups which mouth anti-Semitism within their anti-Zionism, and not rip into how "mainstream" politicians hang with the Waahabist Saudis, which are virulently anti-Semitic, though not much in the anti-Israel camp, at least officially, is the worst form of hypocrisy.
