Palestine Action

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jon1959

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...se-powers-gaza

'We have laws to deal with crimes linked to protest. What this is really about is a government complicit in the Gaza atrocities seeking to silence dissent.' (Juliet Stevenson)

---

That's a very powerful piece I reckon, made all the more so by what she says in the closing paragraphs.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JamesWales

Surely you recognize a group that pushes for damage of state military and consistently does so is at least an issue, and not some grand conspiracy?

What if some far right group caused £30m of damage to the coastguard and proposed to continue to do it because of their enabling role in the boat crossings? Would that just be vandalism?

This has nothing to do with post WW2 and even less to do with Thatcher

---

The problem is that the state military is playing a role in harbouring and sheltering a rogue state committing ethnic cleansing, and may have been on the way to assist Israel in a full-out, completely unsubstantiated and unjustified war against Iran. And yet Palestine Action took an action that ultimately harmed nobody, let alone seriously. It was restrained, and yet this is the disproportionate reaction from the government.

And yes, it does have a lot to do with post WW2 and Thatcher. From the mid-late forties to the seventies, a lot of initiatives were introduced that ushered in an age of economic prosperity and well-being for the citizenry, a lot of which began getting revoked under Thatcher and the neoliberal leaders that followed her. The result is an asset-stripping from the citizenry, and we're now being told there's a possibility we could be involved in fighting on the behalf of a nation conducting a genocide. You can't just give something to the citizenry, and then take it away without expecting them to be furious, and it has disaster written all over it. The corruption in the British and American governments is at a level not seen since the Gilded Age, and this moral crisis and demand we must respect the nation conducting a genocide is the cherry on top the shit sundae. By all standards something restrained from Palestine Action has resulted in them being declared terrorists on the same level as Al-Qaeda and ISIS, which is beyond ridiculous.

People are furious, and this lack of engagement in critiquing Israel's actions in strong enough terms could be absolutely devastating, both morally and structurally.