Alex Callinicos/SWP vs Laurie Penny/New Statesman Facebook handbags

[Bakunin]

What do you mean, "uh oh"? It'll be the subby's fault!

As I recently pointed out on the comments section.

 

[rosecore]

What clunky prose. Who subbed this? For such a long piece, it could have done with some refining since it did not actually add anything new to the debate. Penny could have offered something different, maybe even a feminist critique, or something that felt like her opinion. Not simply reporting on what's already happened.

Her political legacy lives on and it's that legacy that is really being debated in the escalating frenzy around who gets control of the funeral narrative.

commentators on the left and right were so quick to publish pieces variously condemning, praising or condemning the praise of Thatcher's legacy

All of the responses were planned, as were the responses to those responses.

It's a folk memory thing, a tribal thing, passed down from parents to children in places where jobs in mines and steelworks and factories used to be passed down instead.

You will understand a lot more about Britain when you understand that across the country, perfectly normal families - families

 

[treelover]

I also see a load of fucking journalists in the way.

better they are there than not?

 

[cesare]

better they are there than not?

What are they adding in these days of mobile phone cameras and social networks?

 

[TruXta]

What are they adding in these days of mobile phone cameras and social networks?

Analysis, leadership, public resistance, comfort?

 

[Idris2002]

What clunky prose. Who subbed this? For such a long piece, it could have done with some refining since it did not actually add anything new to the debate. Penny could have offered something different, maybe even a feminist critique, or something that felt like her opinion. Not simply reporting on what's already happened.

Re: the "tribal politics" thing. "Tribal" is used here to portray those under examination as in some way primitive, backward, less evolved, less intelligent and essentially irrational

 

[cesare]

Analysis, leadership, public resistance, comfort?

I don't look to journalists for leadership. As for the rest, well the overall coverage of Thatcher's funeral says it all, really.

 

[TruXta]

I don't look to journalists for leadership. As for the rest, well the overall coverage of Thatcher's funeral says it all, really.

No one gets my jokes.

 

[8ball]

Re: the "tribal politics" thing. "Tribal" is used here to portray those under examination as in some way primitive, backward, less evolved, less intelligent and essentially irrational

But only for on one side of the equation.

 

[Idris2002]

But only for on one side of the equation.

Indeed. Penny is indeed more evolved than the rest of us - note her advanced psi powers, and her prehensile tail.

 

[cesare]

No one gets my jokes.

Sorry As you might have noticed, editor thinks I'm humourless because I didn't get his 70s style "joke" so it seems I'm suffering from a loss of SOH day.

 

[TruXta]

Sorry As you might have noticed, editor thinks I'm humourless because I didn't get his 70s style "joke" so it seems I'm suffering from a loss of SOH day.

It's not you, it's me. #narcissist

 

[cesare]

It's not you, it's me. #narcissist

Cos no-one gets your jokes

 

[frogwoman]

Re: the "tribal politics" thing. "Tribal" is used here to portray those under examination as in some way primitive, backward, less evolved, less intelligent and essentially irrational

little bit racism.

 

[lauriepenny]

You lot are hilarious. Really. The number of hours you've wasted ranting, hyperventilating and making up rubbish about me and stalking my friends is no doubt an enormous loss to the British left.

 

[Idris2002]

You lot are hilarious. Really. The number of hours you've wasted ranting, hyperventilating and making up rubbish about me and stalking my friends is no doubt an enormous loss to the British left.

What's your response to my point about your misuse of the concept of "tribal"?

 

[cesare]

You lot are hilarious. Really. The number of hours you've wasted ranting, hyperventilating and making up rubbish about me and stalking my friends is no doubt an enormous loss to the British left.

So it's ok for you to observe and write about people, but not us, eh?

 

[lauriepenny]

I'm particularly impressed that you've managed to do it all one-handed, too. Hate-wanking won't damage your eyesight, only your perspective.

 

[Idris2002]

I'm particularly impressed that you've managed to do it all one-handed, too. Hate-wanking won't damage your eyesight, only your perspective.

Can you try again? That doesn't really answer my question.

 

[JimW]

... ranting, hyperventilating and making up rubbish ...

I considered using the quote function and entirely re-writing the content in a tribute to your style, but instead I'll just note you're not exactly a complete stranger to those activities yourself, are you?

 

[Libertad]

You lot are hilarious. Really. The number of hours you've wasted ranting, hyperventilating and making up rubbish about me and stalking my friends is no doubt an enormous loss to the British left.

You're quite the expert at making things up though aren't you?

 

[cesare]

I'm particularly impressed that you've managed to do it all one-handed, too. Hate-wanking won't damage your eyesight, only your perspective.

The voice of experience?

 

[chilango]

I'm particularly impressed that you've managed to do it all one-handed, too. Hate-wanking won't damage your eyesight, only your perspective.

What on earth is "hate-wanking"?

 

[Bakunin]

You lot are hilarious. Really. The number of hours you've wasted ranting, hyperventilating and making up rubbish about me and stalking my friends is no doubt an enormous loss to the British left.

Oh, has Your Majesty deigned to acknowledge that not everybody worships you again?

What's brought this on?

 

[Idris2002]

What on earth is "hate-wanking"?

Well, you see chilango, when two internet users hate each other very much. . .

 

[rekil]

You lot are hilarious. Really. The number of hours you've wasted ranting, hyperventilating and making up rubbish about me and stalking my friends is no doubt an enormous loss to the British left.

Journalism is a little bit stalkery. Welcome back! Reminder that this is what this thread's about.

a))how you really cannot find a better example of the use of cultural capital based on privilege to extend and transmit that privilege into the future

b) how certain people attempt to recuperate social movements for their own careerists ends (some journos) and how other groups of people help/make this happen (editors, media bosses) and

c) how politics is reduced in this game to just another fashion, this years fad. In short how the media and the culture they create and reflect works

d) personal annoyance at the sort of barely disguised pushy middle class self-obsession that we've all seen in our social or work lives being (self) promoted as the voice of a generation (without even going into the infantile divisions this sort of crap assumes).

 

[Idris2002]

Can you try again? That doesn't really answer my question.

Yet answer came there none.

 

[rekil]

This thread is a theatre seat conversation - which includes weird hecklers. Consider your work our performance, and our criticism valid despite hecklers. Try.

Also a reminder that you appear to have drawn inspiration from this very thread. You're welcome.

"To be a columnist today is no longer to stand on a stage alone, reciting marvellous soliloquies while a paying audience waits to applaud. Apart from anything else, few publications can now afford to fork out the kinds of salaries that make principled writers lose perspective. Being a columnist today is more like being a street performer – collecting coins in a battered suitcase, telling stories about a better world and understanding that the audience might change the story."

 

[Lo Siento.]

I'm particularly impressed that you've managed to do it all one-handed, too. Hate-wanking won't damage your eyesight, only your perspective.

You keep telling yourself that's what it's all about, and that after a whole century of careerists making a living off "oppression tourism", YOU are the exception.

 

[tenniselbow]

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