advertisement


David Amess MP stabbed in Leigh-On-Sea

As a socialist, I doubt that I would have found much common ground with David, but that aside, his murder was a heinous act & I can't get it out of my mind. The perpetrators of these acts can only be described as wicked and misguided.

That’s about where I am. I’m appalled by his voting record (removing rights from LGBT folk, denying women's choice, penalising the disabled for having living space, voting against climate science etc), but I’m horrified and upset by his death and fear it is yet another step down a very dark ladder. It is clear many liked and respected him as a person from all sides of the HoC and in his local community and this is a very dark time for UK politics. I’m appalled and horrified by his senseless death, but I’m also not going to sanctify someone who’s views I have spent a whole lifetime opposing. I have nothing but contempt for the radicalised Islamist mindset that appears to have taken his life. Again, RIP. No one deserves this shit.
 
If it turns out to be radicalised Islam then Amess’s politics are irrelevant to his senseless and untimely death, he was just an easy target for an attention-seeking brainwashed religious nutter. No different to the random kids murdered at the Manchester Arena Ariana Grande gig etc. As such it is very different to Jo Cox’s murder which was at the hands of a far-right white nationalist who fundamentally opposed her liberal tolerance. That was unquestionably a political killing.

Jo Cox's killer had a history of mental health issues, was a loner and clearly had personality problems that prevented him forming relationships with people. Such people seem to be particularly vulnerable to propaganda that channels their anger and discontent towards violence.
 
Jo Cox's killer had a history of mental health issues, was a loner and clearly had personality problems that prevented him forming relationships with people. Such people seem to be particularly vulnerable to propaganda that channels their anger and discontent towards violence.

One can say the same about anyone who adopts any extremist ideology, be that religious or political. Yet the far-right and violent nut-job extremes of religion are alive and well right across the world. The death threats folk like Dianne Abbot, Dawn Butler etc receive daily speaks volumes, yet we have recently legitimised the fascist Britain First organisation that radicalised Jo Cox’s murderer with political party status despite its track record of racist hate and the criminal background of its organisers. It should be a proscribed terrorist entity IMHO, along with the EDL and others.
 
Its the old story of the democratic regime allowing the existence of political groups that if they came to power would not allow the democrats to exist.
 
That’s about where I am. I’m appalled by his voting record (removing rights from LBGT folk, denying women's choice, penalising the disabled for having living space, voting against climate science etc), but I’m horrified and upset by his death and fear it is yet another step down a very dark ladder. It is clear many liked and respected him as a person from all sides of the HoC and in his local community and this is a very dark time for UK politics. I’m appalled and horrified by his senseless death, but I’m also not going to sanctify someone who’s views I have spent a whole lifetime opposing. I have nothing but contempt for the radicalised Islamist mindset that appears to have taken his life. Again, RIP. No one deserves this shit.

"Democracy dies in darkness"
 
And yet the community comments about what he did as an MP would support the 'nice bloke' moniker.

Well yes..I can't disagree with that. But I'm intrigued, because his voting record gives the impression of someone who cared more for defenceless animals than for defenceless humans.
 
I agree. Just as the Norwegian who killed 77 young people was drunk with fascist ideology, and the recent Dane who killed 5 Norwegians with a bow and arrows was a convert to Islam, if this guy turns out to have murdered for reasons linked to radical Islam, then it is also the fault of radical Islam.
What you call "Radical Islam" has nothing to do with Islam or Saudi Arabia.
Dangerous nutters pull the strings of very vulnerable people to do these acts, also including the suicide bombers in Afghanistan the last few weeks.
They have a lot in common with the EDL types.
The mentally vulnerable in the UK have been cast adrift by NHS hospital closures and lack of support in the community. They are easy to manipulate tools.
 
Sounds like an enormously irresponsible tweet and I doubt there is any evidence for it. Statistically, I'm sure the most likely explanation is a random attack by someone with mental health issues.

Awful news, regardless, and another dark day for democracy in the UK.

RIP Mr Amess

It is always someone with a mental health issue.....:(
 
What you call "Radical Islam" has nothing to do with Islam or Saudi Arabia.
Dangerous nutters pull the strings of very vulnerable people to do these acts, also including the suicide bombers in Afghanistan the last few weeks.
They have a lot in common with the EDL types.
The mentally vulnerable in the UK have been cast adrift by NHS hospital closures and lack of support in the community. They are easy to manipulate tools.

I know there are billions of very peaceful, decent, kind, generous Islamics all over the world. But surely it is a bit more complicated than how you describe it. The Bataclan terrorists killed 130 people with a highly organised, carefully prepared, commando-style operation. And they had some passive/active support in various Islamic communities. They were not poor, weak-minded wretches manipulated by an evil puppet-master. The same with the Twin Towers attacks. And while Saudi Arabia is a "western" ally and trading partner, it also appears that certain elements in Saudi Arabia support some elements of radical Islam.
Since you yourself are Islamic (if I'm not mistaken) I'm sure you know much more than I do about the many nuances, ideologies and groups involved. I'm still trying to understand who is blowing up whom in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover. I admit to knowing very little about Shiites and Sunnis, IS and Al Quaeda, and all the other names one hears. But I do know that for the past 30 years the fear of attack has not been from radical Buddhists, Methodists, Druids or Catholics, but from groups who declare they operate in the name of Islam.
This means that the vulnerable, demented poor wretch you describe can imagine he is "making history" by murdering someone in the name of Islam. I know nothing of the man who killed David Amess, just a general reflection.
 
^ perhaps what David is trying to say is that they bear the same relationship to Islam as the terrorists Haganah (led by Ukraine born Eshkol Israel's 3rd Prime Minister), Likud (led by Belarus born Begin Israel's 6th PM) or Stern Gang (led by Polish born Shamir 7th PM) do to Judaism.
 
The mentally vulnerable in the UK have been cast adrift by NHS hospital closures and lack of support in the community. They are easy to manipulate tools.

I liked your post because of the final section. Many aspects of the fractures within UK society are the result of Tory ideology which manifests itself in cuts to funding ‘society’ in the broadest sense. This has been going on since 1979 and we are now all paying the price.

I spent the first twenty years of my life in Southend and it was a relatively peaceful place as long as you avoided the Golden Mile at weekends. I still visit from time to time and each recession leaves it more hollowed out than before. It’s really not a great place anymore and this is not just nostalgia blurring my judgement, my friends and family who live there would agree.
 
I liked your post because of the final section. Many aspects of the fractures within UK society are the result of Tory ideology which manifests itself in cuts to funding ‘society’ in the broadest sense. This has been going on since 1979 and we are now all paying the price.

I spent the first twenty years of my life in Southend and it was a relatively peaceful place as long as you avoided the Golden Mile at weekends. I still visit from time to time and each recession leaves it more hollowed out than before. It’s really not a great place anymore and this is not just nostalgia blurring my judgement, my friends and family who live there would agree.

As a regular visitor of Southend and similar towns on the coasts of Essex, Kent and Sussex you are spot on and it's not unique to Southend.

On the wider mental health issue, the rush to close institutions and residential care was sold as totally well intended and I'm sure to some extent it was. The cost savings and property development 'opportunities' merely being a happy additional outcome. "Care In The Community" rolled off the tongue nicely and who could disagree that the track record of institutional care was something to be ashamed of?

However, full risk analysis and support of people with significant issues is expensive and difficult outside of their previous care and seldom happens to anyone's satisfaction. Nobody wants to see unnecessarily incarceration, but the decisions have consequences and sadly many people are a danger to themselves and others. The degree of supervision was never adequate and is even worse now after years of austerity. There is also the possibility that we lose sight that the benefit of doubt about a person's mental stability should go to the population's right to be protected from avoidable risk.
 
A truly terrible crime! RIP David Amess, and condolences to your family and friends.

Also RIP to those who lost their lives due to the policies you supported, and condolences to their families and friends.
 
On the wider mental health issue, the rush to close institutions and residential care was sold as totally well intended and I'm sure to some extent it was. The cost savings and property development 'opportunities' merely being a happy additional outcome. "Care In The Community" rolled off the tongue nicely and who could disagree that the track record of institutional care was something to be ashamed of?

I worked in a large old-school locked mental hospital back in 1981-83 and we could clearly see the direction of travel even then. To my mind this structural change in mental healthcare was the root cause of the sickening homelessness epidemic that blights our towns and cities to this day. I remain horrified as someone who once worked with such people that we pretty much treat them as a form of street refuse today. Inhumanity has been normalised. Back in my day anyone found mentally disoriented and freezing in a shop doorway would be brought in by the police and usually placed on an assessment order (Section 25) which would at the least give them a safety net of basic hygiene, a warm bed and good food along with any medication and care needed. I find where we are now incomprehensible.
 
^ perhaps what David is trying to say is that they bear the same relationship to Islam as the terrorists Haganah (led by Ukraine born Eshkol Israel's 3rd Prime Minister), Likud (led by Belarus born Begin Israel's 6th PM) or Stern Gang (led by Polish born Shamir 7th PM) do to Judaism.

Yes, but with the basic difference that the Irgun and Stern Gangs were in no way religious. They were nationalsitic in ideology, with the idea that their nation's future, rather than God, was on their side. And they were both quickly and ruthlessly neutralised by mainstream (also secular) Jewish nationalism when they became an obstacle and an embarassment to the construction of a respectable democracy.
 
By the way, the Hagannah was not a terrorist organisation, but a military organisation that grew out of Jewish-Palestinian collaboration with the British during WW2 and was subsequently the basis of the Israeli army. The two terrorist groups were the Irgun and the Stern Gang, in neither of which did Levi Eshkol operate. It is true that Shamir was in one or the other, I forget which.
 
Yes, but with the basic difference that the Irgun and Stern Gangs were in no way religious. They were nationalsitic in ideology, with the idea that their nation's future, rather than God, was on their side. And they were both quickly and ruthlessly neutralised by mainstream (also secular) Jewish nationalism when they became an obstacle and an embarassment to the construction of a respectable democracy.

They were not neutralised: with blood on their hands they became the 3,6 & 7th Prime Ministers of Israel. Terrorism was no longer required by then as they had won; except to murder the 5th Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, because he was trying to make a just peace.
Yes Begin was leader of terrorist group Irgun.
Anyway his motivation should come out in the trial.
 


advertisement


Back
Top