George Galloway
“”The man's search for a tyrannical fatherland never ends! The Soviet Union's let him down! Albania's gone! The Red Army is out of Afghanistan and Czechoslovakia. The hunt persists!
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| —Christopher Hitchens |
| A guide to |
| God Save the Queen? |
George "Twat, Seriously, He's Just an Utter, Utter Twat" Galloway is a vulgar demagogue and a British Member of Parliament from the left-wing Respect Party. Previously he represented the Labour Party as an MP for Glasgow.
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[edit] Political career
George Galloway has been politically active since the 1980s, and was first elected as a Labour MP in 1987. He has had a stormy relationship with the establishment, often voting against the party's policies and whips' instructions. In 2003, he was expelled from the Labour Party for his outspoken criticism of Tony Blair's leadership and especially his opposition to the Iraq War, including an incitement for British troops to disobey orders. He would later obliquely call for Blair's assassination.
“”"Would the assassination of, say, Tony Blair by a suicide bomber, if there were no other casualties, be justified as revenge for the war on Iraq?"
The Respect MP replies: "Yes it would be morally justified. I am not calling for it, but if it happened it would be of a wholly different moral order to the events of 7/7. "It would be entirely logical and explicable, and morally equivalent to ordering the deaths of thousands of innocent people in Iraq as Blair did." |
Galloway was re-elected to Parliament in 2005, standing for Respect. In 2006, he appeared in the reality TV show Celebrity Big Brother, where he pretended to be a cat at one point. In 2007, he was briefly suspended from the House of Commons for criticisms of the House and a Select Committee which had investigated his financial activities after The Telegraph alleged that he had received kickbacks from Iraqi sources under a UN aid programme (allegations which were found libelous after legal action by Galloway).
In March 2012 Galloway won a by-election in Bradford West, taking a seat from Labour's Imran Hussain with a 10,140 majority.[1] This election was fought partly with a bizarre campaign stressing that Galloway doesn't drink... vine, making him a better Muslim than Hussain;[2] and a speech in which Galloway implied that people who voted for his rival would be punished on Judgment Day.[3] As writer Nick Cohen pointed out, not even Rick Santorum went quite that far.[4]
[edit] Support for repressive regimes
Galloway is a supporter of Hezbollah.[5]
He has also defended the government of Iran, arguing that the country does not execute people for homosexuality and that the boyfriend of Mehdi Kazemi, a gay Iranian asylum seeker, was instead executed for "committing sex crimes against young men." Galloway's argument was condemned by gay activist Peter Tatchell, who said that Galloway had provided no evidence for his claim and was merely purveying Iranian propaganda.[6]
Galloway describes Syria as "the last castle of Arab dignity"[7] and believes that Bashar al-Assad will be victorious in the current conflict.[8]
Galloway will support any regime, no matter how vile, to pander to his constituents. To wit: While the conflict in Darfur was still going on, he made excuses for Bashir's regime, claiming that the charges of genocide were actually part of an American conspiracy to stop Sudan from trading with China.[9] To the surprise of absolutely nobody, he has also said that the whole affair in Darfur is really Israel's fault.[10]
While Galloway usually relies on weasel words to defend dictators in Muslim countries, he makes no effort at all to hide his admiration of Fidel Castro. He has barked "viva Fidel!" during televised interviews.[11]
Galloway has been accused of supporting Saddam Hussein[12] and allegedly profited from Iraqi oil dealings,[13][14] while decrying the US for doing the same. As such he opposed the Iraq War partly because he saw Iraq as a latter-day Soviet Union, claiming that the day the Soviet Union fell was "the worst day of his life." Galloway fell out with Christopher Hitchens because of this, having previously described Hitchens as "that great man of letters" and "the world's greatest polemicist." He went on to say that Hitchens was "the first ever metamorphosis from a butterfly back into a slug",[15] though he did not elaborate on when in natural history he had observed a slug transform into a butterfly as it tends to be caterpillars that do that. Galloway also described Hitchens as "a drink-sodden, ex-Trotskyist popinjay," prompting Hitchens to respond "Are you saying I can't hold my drink?"[16]
[edit] Views on rape
Galloway has a history of making embarrassing statements, but he reached truly self-destructive levels in August 2012 when he weighed in on the accusations that Julian Assange is guilty of rape. Galloway said that "I think that Julian Assange's personal sexual behaviour is sordid, disgusting, and I condemn it" but also argued that Assange's alleged action - having sex with a sleeping woman after previously having consensual sex with her - did not constitute rape.[17] Galloway was widely criticised for this statement: Salma Yaqoob, then leader of Respect, left the party[18] while the National Union of Students banned Galloway as a "rape denier."[19]
Despite condemning Assange's behaviour, Galloway later held him up - alongside the anti-Semite Gilad Atzmon - as "two of the world's greatest."[20]
[edit] Interesting quotes
“”I was re-elected despite all the efforts made by the British government, the Zionist movement and the newspapers and news media which are controlled by Zionism.
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| —George Galloway, MP. You'll be reassured to learn that he isn't an anti-Semite.[21] |
“”South Korea exists because America invaded Korea, killed millions of people, divided the country and continues to garrison South Korea with military bases, nuclear weapons, and chemical and biological weapons.
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| —George Galloway, MP, wishing that Korean people could be abused as one nation.[22] |
“”There have been achievements in North Korea... They do have a cohesive, pristine actually, innocent culture. A culture that has not been penetrated by globalization and by Western mores and is very interesting to see.
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| —George Galloway, MP, praising North Korean cultural purity. |
“”Two of your beautiful daughters are in the hands of foreigners — Jerusalem and Baghdad. The foreigners are doing to your daughters as they will. The daughters are crying for help, and the Arab world is silent. Some of them are collaborating with the rape of these two beautiful Arab daughters…
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| —George Galloway, MP, attempting to rile up the mob with rape metaphors.[23] |
[edit] Things that make George happy
- Alex Jones,[24] demonstrating that the extreme left and the foaming right are often the same fucking thing.
- Gilad Atzmon[25]
- Mahmoud Ahmadinejad[26]
- Suicide bombing[27]
- Bashar al-Assad[28]
- Pervez Musharraf, until late 2001[29]
- Saddam Hussein, from 1991 onward[30]
- The Taliban[31]
- The Soviet Union[32]
- Vladimir Putin[33]
- Islam
- North Korea
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/mar/30/george-galloway-bradford-west-byelection
- ↑ http://hurryupharry.org/2012/03/30/the-return-of-galloway-the-return-of-sectarian-britain/
- ↑ http://youtu.be/Zqo0S2DsAB8?t=8m47s
- ↑ http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/01/nick-cohen-george-galloway-livingstone?CMP=twt_gu
- ↑ http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=9334
- ↑ http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/mar/26/gallowaysiranianpropaganda
- ↑ http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/haaretz-exclusive-organizer-of-gaza-flotilla-sought-assistance-from-assad-s-office-1.411556
- ↑ http://sana.sy/eng/22/2012/10/30/449875.htm
- ↑ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMtJQvq762w
- ↑ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdocmonnovk
- ↑ http://www.atthegrapevine.com/politics/galloways-search-fatherland
- ↑ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4016803.stm
- ↑ http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/george-galloway-the-political-rebel-with-a-cause-7604006.html
- ↑ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4556113.stm
- ↑ http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/sep/15/media.usa
- ↑ George Galloway Is Gruesome, Not Gorgeous, by Christopher Hitchens
- ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-19323783
- ↑ http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2012/sep/22/salma-yaqoob-respect-george-galloway
- ↑ http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/09/27/george-galloway-banned-by-nus-rape-denier_n_1918468.html?utm_hp_ref=uk&just_reloaded=1
- ↑ https://twitter.com/georgegalloway/status/318448279027322880
- ↑ http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/22/the-embarrassment-that-is-george-galloway.html
- ↑ http://citizensane.wordpress.com/2013/04/10/more-unutterable-nonsense-from-george-galloway/
- ↑ http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2005/09/george_galloway_is_gruesome_not_gorgeous.html
- ↑ https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCsQtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DHspmQPSa9uk&ei=uLv_UumGC8TY0QGXm4DQCg&usg=AFQjCNFoKx-wbGlTHw3FkfUJfLPgBuvFMg&bvm=bv.61535280,d.dmQ
- ↑ https://twitter.com/georgegalloway/status/318448279027322880
- ↑ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul7FbMBp7dc
- ↑ http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/comment/articles/2012-04/04/george-galloway-piers-morgan-interview
- ↑ http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2011/03/13/george-galloway-and-sausage-muncher
- ↑ http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2011/03/13/george-galloway-and-sausage-muncher
- ↑ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIy_GmvUElE
- ↑ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWyVDMm8w3Y
- ↑ http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/sep/16/iraq.interviews
- ↑ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Xk86i6q_WU