Ken Livingstone : Bigot ?

limerickman said:

See Red Ken is in the news for telling a Daily Mail journalist (there's a contradiction) that he was like a concentration camp guard.

Is Ken a bigot for saying this ?

There's only any fuss being made about it at all, IMO, because the journalist turned out to be Jewish. Livingstone compared the journalist to a concentration camp guard because he felt the journalist was using the "just doing my job" excuse to justify working for a paper that Ken sees as supporting fascism, so although it's not exactly an elegant way of expressing himself, he did have a specific analogy in mind, i.e. it wasn't just a random slur.

The idea that it's "racist" is stupid. Livingstone wasn't saying one race is fundamentally better than another; he wasn't discriminating; he wasn't advocating unequal rights based on race; he wasn't inciting racial hatred. He was just being verbally pugnacious. At most he owes the journalist in question an apology for being unnecessarily unpleasant, but a journalist ought to shrug that kind of thing off without a second thought. This business that he should apologise to all Jews or to the nation is ludicrous.

It reminds me of a thing that happened when I was at school. Two kids were arguing (we were all maybe 12 years old) and one called the other a "piece of s**t". This was meant as a general insult, but the other kid, being Indian, lost no time in playing the race card (poo is brown, Indians are (in general) brown too...geddit?). Exactly the same with the Howard/Letwin/pigs thing - people being offended just because they can.

limerickman said:

See Red Ken is in the news for telling a Daily Mail journalist (there's a contradiction) that he was like a concentration camp guard.

Is Ken a bigot for saying this ?

more political correctness gone [censored] over [censored].

concentration camp guards were pretty nasty people if my memory serves me..

Got agree with both of you.
It's PC gone mad - if you ask me.

It seems the Daily Mail and KL have a history and when badgered by a DM reporter, KL told him where to go.

here's a report of what happened :

Ken Livingstone made his comments to Oliver Finegold when the reporter questioned him at a party to celebrate Chris Smith "coming out" as the first openly gay MP 20 years ago. This is a transcript of their conversation:

Oliver Finegold: Mr Livingstone, Evening Standard. How did tonight go?

Livingstone: How awful for you. Have you thought of having treatment?

Finegold: How did tonight go?

Livingstone: Have you thought of having treatment?

Finegold: Was it a good party? What does it mean for you?

Livingstone: What did you do before? Were you a German war criminal?

Finegold: No, I'm Jewish, I wasn't a German war criminal and I'm actually quite offended by that. So, how did tonight go?

Livingstone: Ah right, well you might be [Jewish], but actually you are just like a concentration camp guard, you are just doing it because you are paid to, aren't you?

Finegold: Great, I have you on record for that. So, how was tonight?

Livingstone: It's nothing to do you with you because your paper is a load of scumbags and reactionary bigots.

Finegold: I'm a journalist and I'm doing my job. I'm only asking for a comment.

Livingstone: Well, work for a paper that doesn't have a record of supporting facism

mjw_byrne said:

There's only any fuss being made about it at all, IMO, because the journalist turned out to be Jewish. Livingstone compared the journalist to a concentration camp guard because he felt the journalist was using the "just doing my job" excuse to justify working for a paper that Ken sees as supporting fascism, so although it's not exactly an elegant way of expressing himself, he did have a specific analogy in mind, i.e. it wasn't just a random slur.

The idea that it's "racist" is stupid. Livingstone wasn't saying one race is fundamentally better than another; he wasn't discriminating; he wasn't advocating unequal rights based on race; he wasn't inciting racial hatred. He was just being verbally pugnacious. At most he owes the journalist in question an apology for being unnecessarily unpleasant, but a journalist ought to shrug that kind of thing off without a second thought. This business that he should apologise to all Jews or to the nation is ludicrous.

It reminds me of a thing that happened when I was at school. Two kids were arguing (we were all maybe 12 years old) and one called the other a "piece of s**t". This was meant as a general insult, but the other kid, being Indian, lost no time in playing the race card (poo is brown, Indians are (in general) brown too...geddit?). Exactly the same with the Howard/Letwin/pigs thing - people being offended just because they can.

I agree entirely. Although Ken is the Mayor of London (not to be confused with the Mayor of the City of London) he was for years and years the Labour Member of Parliament for Brent, which is about as multicultural as you can get, including plenty of jews. The person who hated Ken with a vehemence like no other was Margaret Thatcher. Ken is Mr London to all people of any party, his heart and soul in in the place. Finegold and his Daily Mail have tagged this an anti-semitic slur with no good reason. He is not a bigot, and never has been. To me all these recent anti-semitic claims have all been aimed at Tony Blairs labour party. So this is how Jews fight an election, quite illuminating.

FredC said:

I agree entirely. Although Ken is the Mayor of London (not to be confused with the Mayor of the City of London) he was for years and years the Labour Member of Parliament for Brent, which is about as multicultural as you can get, including plenty of jews. The person who hated Ken with a vehemence like no other was Margaret Thatcher. Ken is Mr London to all people of any party, his heart and soul in in the place. Finegold and his Daily Mail have tagged this an anti-semitic slur with no good reason. He is not a bigot, and never has been. To me all these recent anti-semitic claims have all been aimed at Tony Blairs labour party. So this is how Jews fight an election, quite illuminating.

Richard Desmond - the jewish pornographer owns Associated Newspaper/Daily Mail/Sunday Express.
(see below).

http://www.ajr.org.uk/pastjournal08.htm

This has a lot to do with the personality of its new proprietor, Richard Desmond, who apparently amassed his considerable fortune as a ‘[censored] merchant’. Since Desmond also happens to be a Jew – the second co-religionist to dabble in media tycoonery since the late unlamented Robert Maxwell – he raises well-founded concerns.

Count me amongst the number of people who can't stand the man. I thought it was terrific how Melanie Philips slammered him in an article recently and he promptly wrote to the Mail and back-tracked.
I loved the blunder about the The Ancient Olympic Games being a model of multiculturalism, as he put it. In reality the Olympics were only open to Greeks and quite exclusive.

FredC said:

I agree entirely. Although Ken is the Mayor of London (not to be confused with the Mayor of the City of London) he was for years and years the Labour Member of Parliament for Brent, which is about as multicultural as you can get, including plenty of jews. The person who hated Ken with a vehemence like no other was Margaret Thatcher. Ken is Mr London to all people of any party, his heart and soul in in the place. Finegold and his Daily Mail have tagged this an anti-semitic slur with no good reason. He is not a bigot, and never has been. To me all these recent anti-semitic claims have all been aimed at Tony Blairs labour party. So this is how Jews fight an election, quite illuminating.

To quote Melanie on Ken Livingstone, she writes: :p

"For who should also have come out in staunch support of Ken but [B]David Duke, the American white supremacist, former Ku Klux Klansman[/B That is why the SOAS students have made a hero out of a man who knowingly compared a Jew to a concentration camp guard and then refused to apologise and vilified Israel instead -- a man who is now a pin-up for American racists, a mascot for Duke's agenda to liberate the world from 'the perversion, the hypocrisy, the evil' of the Jews. It's Ken's new constituency."

She then goes on to suggest Livingstone (in his role as a KKK role-model) should be kicked out of office 🙂

Here is another good point made by a Jewish journalist with regard to Livingstone and it's certainly food for thought:

"What is clear, however, is that if Israeli police or military had killed a Brazilian national mistaken for a homicide bomber that Ken Livingstone would be the first to condemn Israel. After all, it was only this week that Livingstone declared that Israel had “done horrendous things which border on crimes against humanity in a way they have indiscriminately slaughtered men, women and children the West Bank and Gaza for decades.” It appears now that the shoe is on the other foot. What was that about not judging someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes. Ken Livingstone may have taken the first step on that journey."

limerickman said:

See Red Ken is in the news for telling a Daily Mail journalist (there's a contradiction) that he was like a concentration camp guard.

Is Ken a bigot for saying this ?

I don't think that is an insult at all. I worked one summer at a camp for kids with ADD and the guards there were some of the nicest people.