Harry's Place

Yes, anybody who does/says something stupid as a student should be forbidden from working in politics. They shall be hounded and their names broadcast on the web for all too witness their shame.

This is verging on online McCarthyism.

fair enough – getting drunk and swimming naked in a fountain maybe shouldn’t haunt you forever (depending how bad you look naked). But your political views – whether they are developed as a student or later on – are your political views. Students are not children. they should be held responsible for their actions. if he has changed – well, lets see him sing Hatikva.

Yes, yes but look at that last picture. What a hideous little shit.

Zionism is a religion though, so it’s not actually racist.

I always view with suspicion people who trumpet their membership of the Friends of Israel. Fairweather is often a useful prefix for these sorts. Once they’ve decided that one constituency is no longer worth sucking up to, they just latch on to another.

This MP seems to be cast of a very tawdry cloth, so one shouldn’t be surprised at anything he does.

With the way he looks it seems to me he’d have a hard time intimidating a puppy.

Is firing an imaginary assault rifle the new air guitar?

I think Joe Brown regularly appears on Seymour’s Place. What is going on?

It seems very unlikely that a Vice Chair of LFI would employ someone of these views knowingly. Any suggestion to the contrary is foolish.

Clearly, people like Joseph Brown should not be in the Labour Party.

“…and a huge smug smile on his face, searching for approval from the group).”

What a cringeworthy, vile, two-faced, desperate-to-be-liked idiot.

Just a quick note to say that Barry Gardiner is not currently a Vice Chair of LFI – see http://www.lfi.org.uk/who_we_are

So, who’s gonna ring ‘em up?

email mail@lfi.org.uk

“This is verging on online McCarthyism.”

Bollocks.

If you are 20 plus years old and you gladly wear a t-shirt stating that Israel is an Apartheid State then you are:

a) a deluded, smug and dishonest c**k and

b) open to such photos of yourself being seen in future.

Oh, and I see that he was ‘anti racism officer’ at the LSE. Good grief who would be a jewish student nowadays.

mattG

With friends like these……

So, this young man has failed the HP vet… and people are going to lose sleep over *that*?

“This is verging on online McCarthyism”

No. If you’re old enough to have the vote, you’re old enough to take responsibility for your political opinions.

Hmmm, another one for my rogue’s gallery.

“Yes, anybody who does/says something stupid as a student should be forbidden from working in politics.”

And to think that Israeli men of his same age have the responsibility of leading a platoon in street-combat. I wonder if they could just dismiss anything bad they might do by claiming that they are of student-age.

A difference between the UK and Israel: 18 year old Israelis are grown ups. Just a thought.

I’m torn: is this comments box a HUAC hearing or a show-trial? It makes all the difference.

“A difference between the UK and Israel: 18 year old Israelis are grown ups. Just a thought.”

LOL. Mamash.

anybody who does/says something stupid as a student: Yes but this was not 20 years ago, this was in March this year. (the link to the student newspaper doesn’t work, either in Tory Bear or here.)

No. If you’re old enough to have the vote, you’re old enough to take responsibility for your political opinions.

yes. but should youthful political follies tar you for life? being in slightly dodgy groups is practically a right of passage for politically motivated students.

This post stinks of “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the (insert anti-Israel group here)”.

Labour Friends of Israel? Is that like BNP friends of Africa?

George Galloway and Ken Livingstone were both once members of Labour, right?

“yes. but should youthful political follies tar you for life? ”

Who is even arguing that?

Did we travel to the future and nobody noticed it?

LoL Fabian

Yes, from my experience British academia, employers and society in general are not too forgiving of the ‘youthful exhuberence’ of Israeli youth.

In fact just having Israeli in your passport is enough to have you blacklisted.

MattG

“yes. but should youthful political follies tar you for life? ”

No.

But nor should they be ‘ringfenced’ for the rest of your life either.

When William Hague was Tory leader the Beeb showed his rather odd appearance as a right-wing teenager at a Tory conference continuously.

I really don’t think you actually belive in the position you are taking.

Its fair enough if you don’t like this blog. And this is a comments thread. But you need to make you arguments have some degree of merit; rather than just make smug, simplistic comments that don’t bare scrutiny.

mattG

‘is this comments box a HUAC hearing or a show-trial?’

Clearly the author of this statement is a McCarthyite himself/herself, insofar as this implies that there was a difference between the two.

Who put extra vim in Tory Bear’s oats this morning? Not only outing Judeophobes but also serving papers on toe-rag McBride.

Amie, The Beaver is offline just now, but Google Cache has it.

Seems like some of the brain dead anti-imperialism of idiocy types who fawn over R. Seymour’s pearls enough to have their comments published on his crypt of a blog are visiting HP to spew.

They seem very much at peace with the Soviet style of moderation (i.e. insult my argument and you’ll never publish a comment here again) Seymour operates on his blog, but hurry over to HP to vomit out their content and context free strawman charges alleging HUAC and Mc Carthyite machinations, all because one of their brain-dead fellow travelers is evidently entirely unsuitable for a position in the office of an MP who is, or was until recently, a vice-chair of Labour Friends of Israel.

When it comes to the anti-imperialism of idiocy, these types rarely seem able to disappoint one’s already low expectations of their mental acuity. Anyways, what are they doing posting comments at HP, haven’t they already been instructed to occupy every spare moment purchasing bulk copies of Seymour’s magnum opus and hawking them on street corners? How will Israel and the US be destroyed if Seymour’s books remain stocked on Amazon.com warehouse shelves?

Another, as others have said, Brown is past the age of majority and taking the opportunity to express opinions on major political concerns, all the while claiming authority from his positions as Anti-Racist Officer or employee of an MP.

If his views on Israel, from less than six months ago, have been accurately portrayed, I find them distasteful. He has placed himself in the public view, and it is definitely different from my sitting next to someone, in an unrelated office, who holds similar views. Why does this have to be explained every time?

There’s also the matter of my personal jealousy at a graduate immediately swanning into a researcher’s job.

Anybody else reminded of this by that first picture? I’m pretty sure it’s just a phase he’s going through.

There’s also the matter of my personal jealousy at a graduate immediately swanning into a researcher’s job.
legitimate motivation to snark, imho

look, the kid is just that a kid, and he’s now being subject to a hatchet job here and elsewhere. Rather than kindly educating him as to the error of his ways you have made accusations that he is an ‘extremist’ that will appear when anyone googles his name.

I find it distasteful and reminiscent of witch hunts.

Oh and Lbnaz have you any proof that I am a fellow traveller of Seymour? Or is this just pathetic ad hom?

legitimate motivation to snark, imho

Yes, I admit it.

look, the kid is just that a kid, and he’s now being subject to a hatchet job here and elsewhere.

He’s in his early 20s! When my grandfather was that age, he was living in a shack in Central Province, Kenya miles from the nearest Mzungis and doing something to help others! Others’ grandfathers, at that age, were dead in a ditch in Normandy!

This is not like the time that leery Alex Hilton seized upon something Nadine Dorries’ daughter had said, or Edmund Standing ran a post about a 15 year old girl just wanting to behave like a 15 year old girl. Assuming this is the same individual – whom I have not laid into as much as others – he wishes to present himself as a politically right-on, socially-aware influence-weilder. Well, BOHITCA, responsibility also accompanies influence.

I for one think the Klan should have a role in the NAACP.

look, the kid is just that a kid

Old enough to have got a degree, old enough to have a position of considerable responsibility both at LSESU and at with a member of parliament.

As has been said about young Israelis, he’s also old enough to be in the army, responsible for the lives of others. He’s also old enough to be an extremist mole.

Rather than kindly educating him as to the error of his ways you have made accusations that he is an ‘extremist’ that will appear when anyone googles his name.

Well, it would be nice to see whether he has seen the error of his ways, but the accusations of being an extremist seem to hold water to me. As for the embarrassment he may feel about what happens when people who google his name, it happens everyday to people who leave stupid things on Facebook or make brainless comments on union activists’ lists which then they go viral. And if you don’t want the hardships that go with public life, don’t go into politics.

‘Rather than kindly educating him as to the error of his ways you have made accusations that he is an ‘extremist’ that will appear when anyone googles his name’.

Fuck him. He deserves what he gets.

I don’t say things like that ‘cos I can trust Sackcloth to.

Clean hands.

he looks like a ponce

This is verging on online McCarthyism.

You mean they’ll be proved right eventually? Jolly good.

This is verging on online McCarthyism.

Liberty, if it means anything, is the right to witch-hunt, vilify, slander, attack, bully, gossip about anyone on the Left and to claim yourself as being: ‘THE ONLY ACTUAL LEFT’. EVERYONE ELSE IS A RED-FASCIST!1! *pant* *wheeze* ISRAELISRAELISRAELUNIONJACKUNIONJACK
OURBOYSOURBOYSOURBOYSWARISPEACE
WARISPEACEWARISPEACEISRAELISRAELISRAEL!

Speaking truth unto power, if it means anything at all, is the right to prance about pretending to be radical and then squeal to mummy when power speaks back.

There is a reason FC don’t post under his real name. And I know it.

There is a reason FC doesn’t post under his real name. And I know it.

If Septh Brown is anything like the students I meet, he’ll soon be persuading Labour Friends of Israel that THEY are the extremists, not him.

However, it’s a bit f*****g rich ToryBear gettin his Righteous on about anti-semitism whilst his banner has a picture of Boris ‘I See No Extremists’ Johnson on it. His idol has no problem palling around on premises well known for hosting the darker, rather nastier version of ‘Seph’ , after all…

Anyone who employs this non-trustworthy, snake-in-the-grass after all this will need their head examined. What a vile person he is, look at that last picture again.

‘Speaking truth unto power, if it means anything at all, is the right to prance about pretending to be radical and then squeal to mummy when power speaks back’.

If I can change the word ‘power’ to the phrase ‘knowledge, context, historical understanding, intellectual balance, and common sense’.

Thank you.

Incidentally, this comes courtesy of Normblog. Some sanity within the ANC about Israel-Palestine, at last:

http://www.forward.com/articles/113274/

‘When it came to policy, in his speech, Zuma pointedly rejected any hint of support for dismantling Israel or staking out a militant stance against it.

Instead, he reconfirmed his government’s commitment to Washington’s goal of a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

“We support the position of the United Nations and the Middle East Quartet that the only viable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one that ends the occupation that began in 1967,” Zuma told the Jewish gathering. “It is a solution which fulfills the aspirations of both parties for independent homelands through two states for two peoples — Israel and an independent, adjoining and viable state of Palestine living side by side in peace and security.

“We will continue to offer whatever assistance we can towards the resolution of this matter, including sharing our experience in ending apartheid through negotiation,” said Zuma. “In this respect, we would like to work together with the South African Jewish community.”’

Now who could possibly argue with that?

PassingThru.
I know this guy – I was at Uni with him – he is very extreme and this is not a passing fad.
He know exactly what he is doing. He is a manipulative, extreme and a anti-semite.

Of course you can, Sackcloth.

Renee, what did he study?

Alec, I don’t dispute you point, but what kind of person would argue against the position Zuma (and indeed you and I) argue?

He studied international relations.
And his extreme actions were a few months ago. This is not a drunken incident in freshers week were a student ran around campus naked, its a systematic repetitive abuse of power where he has intimidated and marginalised students with his racist anti-semitic behaviour. He should be held responsible for his actions and Gardiner should fire him.

Coming back into this late, but Sackcloth I was referring to your previous comment directed at me.

Renee, could you now apply your powers of foresight to the lottery?

FC and all the others playing the McCarthyism card, I agree with Renee. This isn’t something where he abandoned this type of things years ago and its now being dredged up. The pictures are from January, and its nine months later (unless I have the timeline wrong). Its one thing to handwave youthful idiocy in politics when you have built a solid track record of reasonable behavior. Its quite another thing when you jump immediately from prancing about like a member of Black September and go directly to a (perhaps nominal, but still) important title with an elected member of parliament. I think it was probably well within bounds when (I believe) Neil Hamilton’s openly quasi-fascist student politic antics were exposed and mocked years later. If he had gone directly from jumping around in jackboots to a position of some facial authority with a tory back-bencher the MP in question would be crucified and forced to sack him in the internet era, and rightly so. Same applies here. A free society does not convey job security in all politically sensitive positions you may want to hold after acting an idiot, it just guarantees you won’t be shot, jailed and/or denied politically irrelevant employment afterwards due to your idiocy.