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

[Prince Rhyus]

http://www.facebook.com/alex.callinicos#!/alex.callinicos/posts/179654665387130

Comments on a post-Xmas lunch postcard please.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Can't even view it without being signed into facebook. The comment is therefore "load of wank".

 

[LiamO]

Can'tread it but if Alex @that is not my role in the Party' Callinicos is on one side, I am probably on the other

 

[ViolentPanda]

Can'tread it but if Alex @that is not my role in the Party' Callinicos is on one side, I am probably on the other

I thought his name was Alex "I'm of good working-class stock, honest!" Callinicos. Did he change it recently?

 

[gawkrodger]

she said the only thing left after a nuclear holocaust would be cockroaches and SWP paper sellers

Callinicos/other SWPies then had a bit of a strop and was slightly selective with his recollection of recent history.


So no big change there than!

 

[ViolentPanda]

she said the only thing left after a nuclear holocaust would be cockroaches and SWP paper sellers

Callinicos/other SWPies then had a bit of a strop and was slightly selective with his recollection of recent history.


So no big change there than!

Let's face it. we'd be surprised if he wasn't "slightly selective". It's his "unique selling point".

 

[DotCommunist]

he agreed to give us two copies to burn if, and only if, we could sing the first two verses of the Internationale. So we did!

 

[ymu]

she said the only thing left after a nuclear holocaust would be cockroaches and SWP paper sellers

Callinicos/other SWPies then had a bit of a strop and was slightly selective with his recollection of recent history.


So no big change there than!

Ah, starting to make sense. Perhaps we can cobble together a halfway decent OP, seeing as the thread starter couldn't be arsed.

This is the Laurie Penny article: Out with the old politics. Here's the bit Callinicos probably didn't like very much:

The unions have begun to realise what the Labour party is still too arrogant to consider – that the nature of the fight against bigotry and greed has evolved beyond the traditional hierarchies of the left.

It is highly significant that one of the first things this hydra-headed youth movement set out to achieve was the decapitation of its own official leadership. When Aaron Porter of the National Union of Students was seen to be "dithering" over whether or not to support the protests, there were immediate calls for his resignation – and in subsequent weeks the NUS has proved itself worse than irrelevant as an organising force for demonstrations.

Of course, the old left is not about to disappear completely. It is highly likely that even after a nuclear attack, the only remaining life-forms will be cockroaches and sour-faced vendors of the Socialist Worker. Stunningly, the paper is still being peddled at every demonstration to young cyber-activists for whom the very concept of a newspaper is almost as outdated as the notion of ideological unity as a basis for action.

For these young protesters, the strategic factionalism of the old left is irrelevant.

 

[imposs1904]

The unions have begun to realise what the Labour party is still too arrogant to consider – that the nature of the fight against bigotry and greed has evolved beyond the traditional hierarchies of the left.

It is highly significant that one of the first things this hydra-headed youth movement set out to achieve was the decapitation of its own official leadership. When Aaron Porter of the National Union of Students was seen to be "dithering" over whether or not to support the protests, there were immediate calls for his resignation – and in subsequent weeks the NUS has proved itself worse than irrelevant as an organising force for demonstrations.

Of course, the old left is not about to disappear completely. It is highly likely that even after a nuclear attack, the only remaining life-forms will be cockroaches and sour-faced vendors of the Socialist Worker. Stunningly, the paper is still being peddled at every demonstration to young cyber-activists for whom the very concept of a newspaper is almost as outdated as the notion of ideological unity as a basis for action.

For these young protesters, the strategic factionalism of the old left is irrelevant.

Kind of funny that the link leads you to a pic of a sour faced Laurie vending herself as the voice of youth.

 

[ymu]

Please don't quote her words as if they are mine.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Those kids don't like the old style of sour-faced vendors! They like the new style, as indicated by the Guardian and the New Statesman!

 

[ymu]

 

[imposs1904]

Please don't quote her words as if they are mine.

Apologies. My cut and paste wasn't up to scratch.

 

[ymu]

Apologies. My cut and paste wasn't up to scratch.

No problem. It's a vbulletin annoyance.

If you select the text and hit the speech bubble icon, it will put them in a quote inside the quote.

 

[Captain Hurrah]

he agreed to give us two copies to burn if, and only if, we could sing the first two verses of the Internationale. So we did!

Sounds like one of the crap made-up stories she relates on her blog.

 

[butchersapron]

Busy year for Laurie 'what, you can get the Internet on a phone?' Penny - from working unpaid as a labour party intern, to pimping David Lammy as the voice of the modern radical, then onto Clegg, now herself and her pluralist journo mates, from getting caught out making stuff about her past and having to publicly apologise in the Guardian to making stuff up in the above article. Fascinating too see the amount of privately educated (and healthed in Penny's case) oxbridge graduates fighting each other for the media's official sanctioned voice of youth - very good move career wise. Even Toynbee and Lawson are embarrassing themselves by trying to muscle their way in. Happy Christmas Laurie.

 

[Sgt Howie]

Didn't she work for the Morning Star as well? What a convoluted political background for one so young.

 

[butchersapron]

Lots of desperate editors jumping on her and people like her.

 

[killer b]

Her writing is shocking. She's like a posh lefty glenda slagg.

 

[Lo Siento.]

surprisingly with Callinicos on this one. I dig at a left group in a national newspaper, total waste of time, when there are better targets for anyone well-meaning with a platform. Sick of hearing the old we're crap because the swaps ruin everything shit, and sick of each new wave of protest being claimed as the solution to everything.

 

[Prince Rhyus]

I prefer Mark Thomas's take:

Mark: "I'll join the SWP if you give me a gun"
SWPer: "Sorry, we don't have one of them, bbut you can have a paper instead!"

 

[imposs1904]

I prefer Mark Thomas's take:

Mark: "I'll join the SWP if you give me a gun"
SWPer: "Sorry, we don't have one of them, bbut you can have a paper instead!"

Wasn't Mark Thomas in Socialist Action at one point or was that just a scurrilous rumour?

Does SA issue rifles or handguns?

 

[_pH_]

getting caught out making stuff about her past and having to publicly apologise in the Guardian to making stuff up in the above article

what did she make up? was it the 'I was a burlesque dancer before it was popular and it was empowering but now it's popular it's just an excuse for blokes to have a wank. yeah and I liked that cool band before anyone else knew about them'?

'An erection is not ironic'. Fucking hell. Can't stand her or her stupid hitler hairdo.

 

[Captain Hurrah]

She's even lived in poverty, apparently.

"We were living like a scene from Withnail & I, except there was no space to move," she said. "It was very miserable. People get very depressed – that level of poverty has a bad effect on your mental health, it makes people feel that nothing will ever get better. I know that is the situation for a lot of people, but for young graduates, middle-class people, it is a real shock. It is not sufficiently recognised at all – how poor the rates are in the benefit system."

Makes me fucking sick.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Busy year for Laurie 'what, you can get the Internet on a phone?' Penny - from working unpaid as a labour party intern, to pimping David Lammy as the voice of the modern radical, then onto Clegg, now herself and her pluralist journo mates, from getting caught out making stuff about her past and having to publicly apologise in the Guardian to making stuff up in the above article. Fascinating too see the amount of privately educated (and healthed in Penny's case) oxbridge graduates fighting each other for the media's official sanctioned voice of youth - very good move career wise. Even Toynbee and Lawson are embarrassing themselves by trying to muscle their way in. Happy Christmas Laurie.

What did she make up about her past?

 

[_pH_]

She's even lived in poverty, apparently.



Makes me fucking sick.

Fucking hell that's nauseating.

 

[Prince Rhyus]

Wasn't Mark Thomas in Socialist Action at one point or was that just a scurrilous rumour?

Does SA issue rifles or handguns?

What's Socialist Action? ( Or rather, who are?)

 

[imposs1904]

What's Socialist Action? ( Or rather, who are?)

One of the groups that came out of the old International Marxist Group. Best known these days because a few of them were advisors to Livingstone when he was Mayor.

 

[SaskiaJayne]

She's even lived in poverty, apparently.



Makes me fucking sick.

I have no idea what this thread is about but what is wrong with the article in your link?

 

[butchersapron]

What did she make up about her past?

As mentioned above, she embellished a tale of her 'burlesque' experience, was caught out by other members of the troupe and the article was seriously (and embarrassingly/damaging to credibility IMO) amended a month later and was still being edited a full 5 months later.

Just noticed that now Labour, then Lammy and then Clegg have all fallen by the wayside it's now counter-fire and their extensive media contacts book that's the future - book with Clare Solomon and Tariq frigging ali (another lib-dem believer) on the way. Lot of people getting a bit fed up of her self-appointed role as voice of 'the youth'...