Comments supporting former Labour leader – and mocking new regime – already removed
It seems the Labour right’s attacks on the fundraiser started by a Jeremy Corbyn supporter to cover any legal expenses the former Labour leader might incur are not limited to bleating about how the money should be given to foodbanks.
Those attacks were curiously absent when former Home Secretary David Blunkett was reported to be raising £250,000 to try to bring down Corbyn – and the plight of the poor didn’t seem an issue when Tony Blair was raising a million pounds to fight the unions:
Nor indeed were there howls of outrage about the huge amounts of money donated by his supporters to Keir Starmer’s leadership campaign:
But when the funds are intended to defend a maligned former Labour leader – and an entire movement – just bleating dishonestly about foodbanks and smearing everyone involved is apparently not enough, because Labour right-wingers are trying to pressure or even force GoFundMe to remove the page and return its funds to the more than 16,000 people who have happily donated to it, according to people close to the campaign.
In time-honoured fashion, the left has responded to the ‘Bitterites’ faux-outrage with biting humour and renewed determination:
So of course the petty and small-minded attacks won’t stop those whose morale has been lifted by an opportunity to stand up for something, of course – and the fund has this evening passed £300,000, just a few days after it was set up.
But the left must make its voice heard to ensure that the right’s attempts to bully a fundraising platform into surrender fail as badly as their self-reflection and humility.
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The right wingers seem to be upset that so many people like JC. £300k for his legal defence really must annoy the clampits. Keep giving folks and make them all the more angry. Left wingers getting organised to start the fightback is what’s really sticking in their craws.
Who ARE the “Labour Right” who are unhappy ? Not a single name is adduced.
Mary Francis (SB, above) retweeted Jackie Walker who in turn linked to a piece by Electronic Intifada:
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-lobby-sees-black-lives-matter-major-strategic-threat?fbclid=IwAR3lxaF2VBPlB2Pr2Eul0hin7bUatpv59wlo2g9dq2CFmdbeoejzCQqI6d0
I found the first comment on the article incisive, perceptive and well worth the read.
Frank Dallas replied on Mon, 06/08/2020 – 20:28
Thoroughly Orwellian. Through the ages people have twisted language to conceal motivation, but the Zionist example is egregious: ADL, CST, JLM, AIPAC fine sounding titles they have. The anti-racist protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder are a real problem for Israel. US racism underpins the Israeli State. The US has been racist for a very long time. Jefferson was racist. Theodore Roosevelt said the extermination of the American Indians was “as ultimately beneficial as it was inevitable.” These are the twin pillars of the morally bankrupt version of progress which the US is built on: the “superior” races, classes and individuals must drive aside and hold down the “inferior”. The usefulness of this to Israel needs no comment. Racism is at the heart of the colonialism which created the modern economy and society. It is deemed inevitable. The lower races had to go down in the face of progress and therefore their inevitable subjugation was beneficial, because how can progress be anything but positive? In fact, “progress” has been a disaster for most of the world’s people. It was a choice: to brutalise and dispossess those who were technologically less advanced and therefore lacked the weaponry to defend themselves. There was no reason change and improvement couldn’t have been carried out in peaceable collaboration, except one: the purpose of “progress” was the enrichment of the colonisers. This is the nasty truth which has to be sanitised. When the black people of the US demand equality, the world founded on colonial racism quakes. And that means Israel stares the end of its colonial regime in the face. Palestine is not occupied but colonised. The old, perverse view of progress is unravelling. Humanity is demanding to march forward arm in arm. The promise of the Enlightenment is coming to pass: universal equal rights. No wonder they dissemble and adopt Big Brother’s techniques.
Scum is as Scum does – and sometimes they are even mistaken for Tories.
But these Scum are worse than any class enemy, for they are Labour Scum pretending to be fighting FOR (not against) the working class.
OUR People just don’t behave like that and socialist-hating centrists like them shouldn’t be in our party.
Quite right. For far too long the world has associated cut glass accents, private education etc. with civilised thinking and behaviour. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are selfish and greedy beyond measure. They get well paid but they cheat their claims for more and more. They are fifth columnists and their water carriers from the working class are even viler. For heaven’s sake cut the umbelical cord. Stop giving them your money. ☮️ X.
Why do I donate? Because both my parents were born into poverty without an NHS, education, council housing, a living wage, childcare etc. There were 12 of them living in a 3 bed house. My mum was in a mill at 14 and my dad in the railway at 13. I do not live their life. I see it through stories we shared. That is because by the time they reached 25yrs old Labour transformed this country through social justice and investment. Corbyn wanted to offer those young people born into poverty today and those with no opportunity to have a better life a new platform of social democracy. He was willing to stand in front of wealth and make it contribute to a better society. So they set out to destroy him with lies and false testimony. They thought it would frighten us, remove our voice. But it did not, it has not and it will never happen. Because Corbyn is our soul.
igi moon
I understand this is a different world and I blame myself as a parent and grandad for not teaching my own the facts of life
I understand we just want them to have better than us and not to have to struggle
But after GE 2019 I have to accept I have failed miserably, it’s time to rub their faces in ii, make them wake up and let them struggle as hard as we did
It’s no consolation that for too many who voted for cheap and nasty Tory party their ancestors must be spinning in their graves
Time to get our hands dirty, young and old
I’ve just donated and received a confirmation. I’m afraid I’d like to say I’m surprised that pressure is being put on the fundraising site by individuals whose sole aim is to crush Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters, but I can’t. So often there’s been incidences like this where untold pressure has been placed on a person/s to abandon alternative ideas or support for a cause the establishment (let’s face it that’s where a lot of the bullying comes from) don’t like. Sadly I was only thinking about the possibility of it happening here. If they succeed the culprits are bound to brag about it so we’ll know who’s actually behind this despicable behaviour
Over 300k raised, with an average donation of just over £18, jc has the support of the many not the few
It’s only part of the fight back
Recruit and vote in upcoming elections at every level
But it shows how much fun we can have rubbing their faces in their own faeces
Who is going to stand up and declare “I’m Spartacus’
I think it should be Maximus Peake who should go back to the Independent and put them straight with the help of JVL and then at the end declare war on red Tories, make it clear they will never be trusted again and we want them out of the party, headline should be ‘Blair First’
What kind of ‘pressure’ can be exerted on a crowdfunding website, particularly by a party in opposition? What legislation supports the enforced refund of donations?
All I can think of is that the default addition of a ‘tip’ to donations might possibly be made illegal, forcing the site to ask for tips to fund it instead of automatically adding them to donations.
The number of donors who can’t work out how to, or can’t be bothered to remove the automatic ‘tip’ must be considerable, so making tipping an active choice instead of a passive one would clearly cost GoFundMe much of their profit/admin cost donations.
I haven’t worked out what percentage the tip amounts to, averaged out over the various donation amounts, but if it averages 10% GFM has made up to £30k in ‘tips’ in three days.
I’d estimate making tips voluntary instead of ‘added to the bill’ might cost GFM more than half that sum.
Well assuming it’s the £1.00 default amount for each donor/donation, then that would now amount to around £17,000, less those that chose not to add anything to their donation for gofundme. And we have no idea what percentage that amounts to….. it could be 10%, or thereabouts, or it could be nearer 50%.
GoFundMe’s response to me on the reason for refunds (in another thread) – apart from explaining that the card holder’s name has to match the donor’s published name – was interesting because it showed Pacific Daylight Time.
Going to be difficult for Labour or the Tories to bully a US outfit into removing the fundraiser page so fuck you, Starmer and fuck you, Johnson.