Of course, we all know George Galloway is a bit of a wanker. But anyone who angers frothing right-wing maniacs so much that they write this kind of hilarious drivel must be more of a force for good than for evil.
Mr Galloway, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability. Mr Poosh, I salute your absolute fucking insanity.
Not quite sure what was so insane about that, other than hyphenating "political-agenda". I mean, nothing in there’s actually incorrect, although the media bias is debatable, and, by the standards of the Web, it hardly registers on the rantometer.
Galloway’s a Stalinist cunt, incidentally.
Naturally, I hold no brief for Nick Griffin. But anyone who pisses of the bruschetta-guzzling, self-righteous, Hampstead-liberal, Guardian-reading PC twats — let’s face it — must be doing *something* right. Hats off to Nick!
Now, I want to emphasise that I in no way approve of the aspirations of Osama bin Laden, nor of the means by which he tries to realise them, which are a bit dodgy, to say the least. But hey — when you see how much he enrages Dubya and the whole mass of overweight fundamentalist bigots that makes up the population of the USA — well, all I’m saying is, it’s pretty hard not to chuckle, and kind of imagine yourself giving the guy a big high-five.
Oh, and anyone who disagrees with me is a total fucking mentalist cock.
The Osama example is unfair: murder is going too far as a means of pissing people off, whereas Galloway has merely met some dodgy people and (allegedly, at worst) acquired cash from some of them. In other words, I’m willing to support someone who’s a cock but who annoys people who’re also cocks, but not someone who’s evil and who annoys people who’re cocks.
Can’t quite work out whether Griffin counts as evil on that spectrum: he’s not himself a murderer or a violent criminal, although many of the people in his party are. The fact that he explicity wants to impose an apartheid state and kick out the blacks (as here) does, at the very least, make him several times worse than Galloway.
And anyone who disagrees with me is a horse-molester and should be sandpapered to death.
I don’t know about this john b. Galloway inspirs a similar level of loathing in me, and I flatter myself that I am not an insance frothing right wing maniac. I’m don’t think it reflects terribly well on you – as Jimmy Doyle points out – that you think the fact the right hate him counts in his favour. The man is morally repugnant (it’s the quislings comment that really presses my buttons)
The Osama example isn’t really unfair. At least Osama has the moral seriousness to do some killing himself. Galloway is on record that the collapse of the USSR was the worst event in his lifetime, so he clearly had no problem at all with millions of people being killed for a political ideal and, indeed, wanted the system that was killing them to continue. Hence, Stalinist cunt. I would have said exactly the same thing back when I was a Socialist, by the way.
Griffin at least aims to represents his constituents (those of his constituents who are bastards, that is). Galloway, like most Glasgow Labour pols, treats constituents as inconvenient rungs on a ladder to international politics.
Like all right-thinking people, I consider Genghis Khan to be, frankly, a bit of a knob. And yet, when you’re confronted with the self-righteousness and general bourgeois complacency of those ‘peacable agrarian’ types on the steppe, and their constant whining about "Genghis wiped out this village" and "Genghis torched that settlement"…don’t you fell a sneaking regard for the old warlord? Aren’t you tempted to think, "Well, if someone’s going to be raped and pillaged, I can’t imagine a more deserving victim than Mr Pompous-Husbandman"? If you’re not, you’re a better man than I.
Obviously, no-one with any sense wholeheartedly approves of Satan. And yet…
I don’t want to defend John’s pro(ish)-Galloway stance, but I do think that "At least Osama has the moral seriousness to do some killing himself." is a rather bizarre thing to say.
Galloway has never even tried to kill anyone, Osama has killed lots. Even if the only reason that GG hasn’t is that he’s a coward and a hypocrite, in any sensible moral system it’s actions which count, rather than desires or principles. Being a pathetic bigot is better than being a mass-murderer. Hitler was pretty "morally serious" after all, I just don’t hold that in his favour. Anyhow Osama certainly inspires far more loathing in me than GG for this reason alone.
Also I reckon that many politicians of all hues treat "constituents as inconvenient rungs on a ladder to international politics", and that goes far more for the main parties than for either RESPECT or the BNP.
Having said which (even if he is a Stalinist cunt) merely as a left-wing opponent of Blair, GG’s overall influence as an MP will *probably* be more positive than negative. If RESPECT was to form a government it would be a different story of course, but I doubt he’ll have the power to do anything really mad, but he might help stop Blair doing mad things. I wouldn’t have voted for him though.
Incidentally I wholeheartedly approve of Satan. He’s never done me, or indeed anyone else, any harm. Moreover as far as "pissing off all the right people" goes, no-one does it better.
Galloway is on record that the collapse of the USSR was the worst event in his lifetime, so he clearly had no problem at all with millions of people…
Well, so does the current leader of Russian: BBC link on Putin. Not that this makes it right, but it does put it in context.
John: you threatened a while ago to write a perl script or something that would auto-generate comments (or maybe I’m confusing this with Jimmy’s idea of humour. So, is this the real Jimmy-Doyle writing, or some evil-genius computer program of John’s creation?
You know, no-one in their right mind could actually approve of John’s evil-genius comment-generating computer programme. But when I see how much it irritates other commenters on the thread, I don’t mind telling you that it puts a surreptitious smile on my face, evil genius or not. Talk about pissing off all the right people!
Now I have to go for a lie down.
Tell the truth, Jimmy; do you smile a lot?
> Not that this makes it right, but it does put it in context.
Certainly does. "The morals of Putin, with none of the restraint that comes with responsibility" doesn’t sound too bad a summing-up.
Larry,
Half-truths are much worse than lies. When a killer does the killing themself, we know them for what they are. Osama’s honesty allows people to know what they are supporting or opposing.
> Hitler was pretty "morally serious" after all, I just don’t hold that in his favour.
Hitler said what he was going to do and then he did it. Would you rather have had a man who committed genocide sneakily, thus making himself more difficult to oppose? Compare the Nazis to the Sudanese Government, for instance: the "Oh, no, we don’t approve of what those terrible and definitely non-government-affiliated militias are doing" bullshit has done a very neat job of preventing international action, and will probably continue to do so until it’s far too late. Give me an honest Nazi any day: not only do you know where he stands, but you know where you stand. What bastards like the Sudanese and Galloway do is make it very easy for people to tell themselves they’re doing the right thing when they turn a blind eye to evil.
However, I do see your point: when I first heard that argument, I thought it was incomprehensible pseudo-clever bollocks.
S2, in descending order of badness we have: in first place, a man who commits mass-murder sneakily (e.g a Sudanese government official); in second place, a man who commits mass-murder openly and honestly (e.g a Nazi or Bin Laden); and in third place, miles behind the two front runners, a man who doesn’t commit mass-murder at all (e.g Galloway).
S2, Why can’t you see the funny side? I was trying to point out that GG’s views are roughly like those of the current "president" of Russian: not exactly comparable to Osama, Hitler, Ghengis Khan, Pol Pot etc. etc. but rather, as John I think was trying to point out, someone to laugh at. The correct response when faced with Galloway is to laugh, not to get worked up into some sort of moral panic.
(tangentially, I’d be surprised if a serious admirer of GG were to use the phrase "I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability" about him, for fairly obvious reasons…)
Er, Matt, when I see Galloway, I do laugh. What makes you think you might know otherwise? The man’s preposterous, and very entertainingly less intelligent than he thinks he is.
I’ve just re-read your comment S2. Were you joking or do you actually think George Galloway is morally worse than Osama Bin Laden? For that’s the only interpretatino of your comment starting "Half-truths are much worse than lies".
S2, re: Matthew’s comment: I don’t laugh at Osama! Hence I’m a bit confused; you do seem to be equating Osama and GG…
Matt,
I laugh at Galloway because he’s very funny, as well as being an utter bastard. Osama has no gift for comedy that I’ve yet noticed — though I did laugh at his pathetic climb-down last year.
Matthew,
If you think that’s the only possible interpretation of that comment, you are a fool.
It’s the interpretation others appear to have got from it, so there must be a lot of fools out there. Larry said he thought Galloway was not as bad as Osama because he didn’t kill people, you replied with the piece I quoted.
I never understand why this sort of argument happens on the Web. All the comments are up there, still readable, and yet we still end up having to repeat ourselves. Weird.
Matthew, Larry said that "At least Osama has the moral seriousness to do some killing himself" was a bizarre thing to say. I explained the thinking behind it. I was also responding to John’s claim that the worst Galloway’s done is to meet some dodgy people. At no point have I said that Galloway is as bad as or worse than Osama. That would be stupid. I did say that it’s not unfair to compare the two, since both of them wholeheartedly approve of killing, if necessary, millions of people to achieve political goals, and I stand by that. Note that it is possible to compare them without claiming that they’re identical.
I agree it’s weird, which is why I guess you must wish your comment starting "Larry, half-truths" would magically delete itself.
S2, I may as well keep chipping away. When you said "At least Osama has the moral seriousness to do some killing himself." you were defending the Galloway/Osama analogy. When you explained the thinking behind it you said very early on:
When a killer does the killing themself, we know them for what they are.
You seem to be implying that Galloway is a killer (if one doesn’t do the killing himself). He isn’t, whatever other sort of cunt he may be. If you’re not implying that, then I don’t see the relevence, and if you are then you’re wrong.
You later talked about bastards like the Sudanese and Galloway, which again seems to imply that Galloway is (or at least is as bad as) some form of mass-murderer, otherwise I don’t understand what you could mean.
The discussion about honest-to-goodness murderers versus secretive sneaky murderers is all very interesting, but since Galloway isn’t either I fail to see the relevence.
Possibly he’s so secretive a murderer that not even he knows about it, like Mickey Rourke in Angel Heart.
I find it hilarious to find you drivelling that you find my drivel hilarious.
But many thanks for your accurate depiction of me and my absolute fucking insanity. I’d keep it in check but it gives me inner strength to fight crime.
Like Batman.
De rien.
Matthew,
Don’t see why I should want what I write deleted because of your inabaility to follow it.
Larry,
As far as I’m aware, members of the Sudanese Government don’t go out and kill people, therefore aren’t killers. However, they do semi-secretly approve of certain bands of homicidal maniacs while claiming that they don’t approve of them at all and are in fact trying to stop them, which is much the same as what Galloway does. They have more influence, so are, in practical terms, worse, obviously — and I never said otherwise.
> You later talked about bastards like the Sudanese and Galloway, which again seems to imply that Galloway is (or at least is as bad as) some form of mass-murderer, otherwise I don’t understand what you could mean.
Here we go again: for some bizarre reason, I am required to quote myself, even though the text’s already up there. What I said was:
> What bastards like the Sudanese and Galloway do is make it very easy for people to tell themselves they’re doing the right thing when they turn a blind eye to evil.
You say that that seems to imply that Galloway is some form of mass-murderer. In what way, precisely? The sentence doesn’t mention murder or killing; I think it’s pretty clearly about giving people excuses for inaction, which both the Sudanese Government and George Galloway do do. You could argue that I should have written "Sudanese Government" instead of just "Sudanese", but I’d already established who I was talking about in a previous sentence, so the context was clear. As Matthew keeps gleefully (for some reason) pointing out, the whole comment started with mention of lies and half-truths. Last I checked, lying wasn’t the same as killing, despite Matthew’s bizarre insistence that I do think something like that. And why on Earth don’t you understand what I could mean, when I wrote it out? What is up with you people? Do you just pick out sentence fragments at random and try to deduce meaning from them, instead of reading the whole text? I don’t get it.
I’ll just recap the conversation, since everyone’s having so much difficulty following it.
John said that it was unfair to compare Galloway to Osama, because Osama kills people. I replied that it’s fair to compare them, because they both support the killing of innocent people, and also pointed out that Osama does some of the killing himself, making him a more honest man. At no point did I say that that makes him less bad than Galloway. Larry asked me what I meant by "moral seriousness" and I replied with my thoughts on half-truths (which, incidentally, are so non-controversial that they’re the basis of an old proverb). Larry is now complaining that that explanation wasn’t relevant to the original thread. If that’s such a huge problem for you, Larry, you shouldn’t have asked me for it.
Am I the only person here who’s not allowed to go off on tangents, by the way, even if I’m asked tangential questions? Because, if I start pointing it out every time anyone makes a comment that isn’t strictly relevant to the blog, it could get really boring around here.
On pure evil basis, Galloway has not directly killed anyone or ordered anyone to be put to death as far as I know. It seems unfair to compare Osama to Galloway flat out because clearly Osama is on a different level. But if you go down that road, Stalin was more evil than Hitler; but Galloway hasn’t killed anyone. The problem with the "Galloway to Osama" thing and who is more honest is this: Osama has shown his true colours (through action as you would demand), Galloway does not have any possible opportunity to show his real colours, given his position.
The question becomes perhaps: "what is Galloway capable of" – he doesn’t have a problem with people dying for the "greater commie good" and it seems that he has a messed up way of looking at the world. If he was to hold any real power the chances are he would do a lot of bad, bad things in my opinion but we will never know.
I think you can compare the two in terms of mindset. Both believe in the same absurdities and spout them constantly. Both are fanatics and fantasists. What makes them different is agenda and how far they would go to impose their beliefs on others. Osama does what he does for religion and Allah, Galloway does what he does (in my opinion) for power, influence and his ego.
You might know what Nick Griffin’s views are in whole, but do you really know what Galloway’s are? I hold Galloway as the greater evil of the two as you could probably guess.
Thanks for that clarification, and it was necessary, because in the post under discussion the only conclusion everyone drew was that you were replying to Larry’s point about Osama being worse than Galloway by saying that he wasn’t, because he was more honest.
"I think you can compare the two in terms of mindset. Both believe in the same absurdities and spout them constantly."
It is funny isn’t it? You claim to know the mind of Galloway (and Osama). Fine. But is it not terribly inconsistent to claim, in the space of one paragraph, that they both believe in the same things but that they don’t believe in the same things: "Osama does what he does for religion and Allah, Galloway does what he does (in my opinion) for power, influence and his ego."
Now, I know that people are capable of believing in many different things. And that they can share some beliefs but not others. But you were not talking about specific beliefs. You were talking about ‘mindset’, and you asserted that Osama and Galloway share a mindset.
You imply that Galloway is capable of mass murder. You write "he doesn’t have a problem with people dying for the "greater commie good"". Did you support the war in Iraq? If you did, then you either find yourself able to support the idea of people dying for a ‘greater good’, or you are an idiot who has not realised what war involves.
There’s a bit of a difference between killing people during a short-term war while trying to minimise civilian casualties and starving your own subjects to death for decades in an attempt to prove a failed economic theory.
S2, here is my point. I disagree with you central tenet:
John said that it was unfair to compare Galloway to Osama, because Osama kills people. I replied that it’s fair to compare them, because they both support the killing of innocent people
There is a world of difference between supporting the killing of innocent people in principle and actually being responsible (whether directly or by turning a blind eye) for innocent people’s deaths. The difference is the body count. It’s the difference between life and death for the innocent people in question. Osama is directly responsible for many deaths. The Sudanese government are indirectly responsible for many deaths, by turning a blind eye to them. Galloway is responsible for precisely no deaths, however much of a cunt he may be.
Now let’s return to the context of the original analogy (which seems very long ago now). It was about John approving of Galloway because he got on the nerves of all the right mentalist cocks (or something). Jimmy Doyle likened this to approving of Osama for similar reasons, and you said that this example was "not really unfair".
And you were wrong. But rather than defending your position, you immediately shot off at a tangent, and then came over all "What is up with you people?" when the rest of us made the (obviously idiotic) assumption that what you were saying might have some relevence to your original contention.
So to recap, the comparison between supporting Galloway, and supporting a mass-murderer, or someone complicit in mass-muder, is *obviously* unfair. It’s the difference between supporting the killing of innocent people, and not doing so. I’d consider that rather important.
S2, Galloway has not starved anyone to death. The war has killed innocent people, and that it is short-term is still to be seen.
Galloway laments the fall of the Soviet Union. Andrew Roberts et al. lament the fall of the British Empire. The imposition of the British Imperial system of economics resulted in famines that killed millions. As the British Empire no longer exists, it is a failed economic/political system. Given this much more reasonable analogy, are you willing to support the contention that Andrew Roberts is comparable in any sensible way to Osama bin Laden?
Larry,
On what planet does "compare" mean "assert is exactly identical"?
Andrew,
No-one goes to war wanting it to last forever. The Communist Utopia, on the other hand, was intended to be permanent. Compared to forever, this war will be short-term.
I’ve never heard of Andrew Roberts, so won’t comment on his beliefs, whatever they may be. However, the British Empire had both good points and bad points: it caused famines in some places, it ended slavery worldwide, it killed lots of people, it saved lots of lives, it wiped out piracy, it brutally suppressed entirely reasonable rebellions, it brutally suppressed rebellions led by homicidal maniacs, etc. It’s a mixed bag. Soviet Communism had no good side that I’m aware of. Unless you count eye surgery and gymnastics.
Also, the British Empire caused famines at a time when economics was poorly understood everywhere and famines were caused all over the place due to incompetence by lots of different governments. The Soviets caused famines at a time when the methods whereby they could feed everyone were well known and easily available.
Not a huge fan of the British Empire myself, before people start accusing me of defending it absolutely on all counts. I’m just saying that, in a comparison between it and the USSR, or between it and Al Qaeda, it’s miles ahead. Which is hardly a very high standard.
S2, I wasn’t objecting to the fairness of the comparison that they weren’t exactly identical, I was objecting on the grounds that there is a world of difference between them. Since you repeatedly refuse to tackle this point, I’ll assume that you concede it. So yes, by your definition comparing supporting Galloway to supporting Osama is a fair comparison. As is comparing supporting Hitler to voting Labour. Or comparing eating breakfast to believing in Santa Claus.
I still don’t see your problem, Larry. Both men wholeheartedly approve of imposing political ideologies by killing people en masse. I don’t think it’s stark staring insane to mention that that is a bad character trait that both men have in common, and I don’t think that doing so is the same as calling Galloway a murderer or as saying that Galloway is just as bad as or worse than Osama.
> As is comparing supporting Hitler to voting Labour. Or comparing eating breakfast to believing in Santa Claus.
Er, yes. You can compare those cases, and find virtually no similarities. Or you can compare the beliefs of Osama and Galloway and find more similarities. Hey, now I’m comparing comparisons. Deep.
> you repeatedly refuse to tackle this point
Oh, now you’re just being silly.
My problem is that you claim that comparing someone who, here and now, supports George Galloway to someone who, here and now, supports Osama is a fair comparison.
Notice that we’re not talking (or at least we weren’t originally) about comparing the characters of the two men, we’re comparing the relative morality of politically supporting each of them.
And that comparison (in effect comparing people who voted RESPECT to Al Qaeda sympathisers) is not fair. It’s not even close to being fair. To support Osama is to support the mass-murder of innocent people. To support Galloway (here and now) is to do no such thing, however much of a cunt he may be.
> you claim that comparing someone who, here and now, supports George Galloway to someone who, here and now, supports Osama is a fair comparison.
No I don’t.
> Notice that we’re not talking (or at least we weren’t originally) about comparing the characters of the two men
I think it’s pretty obvious that that is what I was talking about.
> we’re comparing the relative morality of politically supporting each of them.
I think the comparison Jimmy Doyle (who is not me) made concerned the morality of admiring anyone who pisses off people one dislikes. That’s not really the same as politically supporting someone. I don’t think so, anyway. But that really is very small-scale quibbling.
A general rule that is worth bearing in mind, Larry: I say what I mean. If you’re reading between my lines, chances are you’re reading something that isn’t there.
Well if you think the motivation for the support [John’s word] in question is highly relevant then fair enough.
So I rephrase:
My problem is that you claim that comparing someone who, here and now, supports George Galloway (on the grounds that it pisses off all the right people) to someone who, here and now, supports Osama (for similar reasons) is a fair comparison.
Thank you for pointing out that you and Jimmy Doyle are different people. This is not a matter which had escaped my notice. Nor does it change the fact that after John had shot JD’s comparison down, you resurrected it claiming that it "isn’t really unfair". And you were wrong.
I can’t believe I’m still having this argument.
Larry, you read it differently to how I did, and you read a lot into my words that wasn’t there. I was talking about comparing Galloway to Bin Laden, which I think was a reasonable follow-on from what had already been said, since Jimmy had drawn a parallel between Osama and Galloway and John had then compared Osama to Galloway. You’re concentrating on a different aspect of what Jimmy said. I must have missed the public service announcement telling us that that was the only part of his writing anyone was allowed to discuss.
That being said, just so you know what my opinion actually is, here’s the difference between Galloway’s supporters and Osama’s supporters: since Osama is honest, his supporters want what he wants; that’s why they support him. Since Galloway is disingenuous and deceitful, most of his supporters don’t want everything he wants. For instance, I doubt that most of his supporters think that the Velvet Revolution was a bad thing, but I doubt that they realise his opinions on the matter. Similarly, I reckon a lot of Galloway’s supporters believe the bullshit about how he was praising the Iraqi people, not Saddam. People who mistakenly support totalitarian bastards are not as bad as people who knowingly and deliberately support totalitarian bastards. This is extremely obvious, which is why I would never argue otherwise. The difference it makes to real-world outcomes is that, the more power Galloway accrues, the more ability he has to actually enact his policies, the more support he’ll lose and therefore the less power he’ll have. The same is not true of Osama.
I can’t believe I’m still having this argument.
It takes two to tango, S2. You kept replying to me, so I just kept replying back to you.
Well fair enough, I guess. You didn’t mean that the comparison was "fair" as a means of discrediting John’s support for George Galloway on the grounds that is pisses off all the right mentalist cocks, or indeed that it had any relevance whatsoever to that discussion.You meant that it was "fair" in that GG and OBL are both evil bastards. Ok.
Obviously, there are no public service announcements, and you can discuss what you want. Still, until you wrote the words really isn’t unfair, the principle of supporting people because they piss other people off was the only substantive thing being discussed in this thread, and the GG/OBL comparison formed part of that discussion. Of course you’re at liberty to go off at any tangents you wish, but you might at least say that’s what you’re doing. Otherwise you shouldn’t be surprised if people assume that your words are intended to be relevant to the main topic under discussion (or at least under discussion by everyone except you), and attempt to interpret them in that light. This wastes everyone’s time, and seems to cause you even more frustration that it causes everyone else (What is up with you people? Do you just pick out sentence fragments at random… I don’t get it…. On what planet… I’ll just recap the conversation, since everyone’s having so much difficulty following it…. for some bizarre reason, I am required to quote myself…. If you think that’s the only possible interpretation of that comment, you are a fool…. now you’re just being silly… I can’t believe I’m still having this argument, etc. etc. etc.). So you should probably consider doing so out of consideration for your own well-being, as much as anything else.
My well-being? I’m fine, thanks.
Your all a bunch of Drunken Irish Scum an I hope Muslims take over your church
Troll, you rape pencil cases and I hope Scientologists infiltrate your favorite television shows.