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

[butchersapron]

Fascist now. Is the opposition.

 

[weepiper]

Owen Jones has been asking people to tweet their 'lefty ancestors' today and retweeting things like 'my great-granny chained herself to the railings as a suffragette' and 'my great grandad was a conscientious objector in WW1' etc. This is Laurie Penny's response

https://twitter.com/PennyRed/status/229923967266349056

 

[butchersapron]

Good lord.

 

[weepiper]

But I can't jooiiin iiinnnnn! You're all oppressing me with your pride in your family!

 

[imposs1904]

Owen Jones has been asking people to tweet their 'lefty ancestors' today and retweeting things like 'my great-granny chained herself to the railings as a suffragette' and 'my great grandad was a conscientious objector in WW1' etc. This is Laurie Penny's response

https://twitter.com/PennyRed/status/229923967266349056

Billy Bragg's po faced response.

 

[butchersapron]

But I can't jooiiin iiinnnnn! You're all oppressing me with your pride in your family!

Now she's saying this sort of things marginalises queers. Yes, having people in your family who lived before you (a prerequisite for most sort of human life) is an act of oppression.

 

[butchersapron]

Billy Bragg's po faced response.

Its more about knowing your history than bloodlines

The anti-icke.

 

[DotCommunist]

bragg lol 'left wing ancesrty! so wet and warm and wild and free, your alienation does not apply to me'

 

[Bakunin]

Now she's saying this sort of things marginalises queers. Yes, having people in your family who lived before you (a prerequisite for most sort of human life) is an act of oppression.

 

[krink]

this thread has intrigued me enough to set up a twitter account, who else apart from @pennyred should I follow (I think that's the correct term)?

 

[DaveCinzano]

bragg lol 'left wing ancesrty! so wet and warm and wild and free, your alienation does not apply to me'

Dry chuckle

 

[rekil]

Owen Jones has been asking people to tweet their 'lefty ancestors' today and retweeting things like 'my great-granny chained herself to the railings as a suffragette' and 'my great grandad was a conscientious objector in WW1' etc. This is Laurie Penny's response

https://twitter.com/PennyRed/status/229923967266349056

What a brat. Just shows why she's so bad at whatever it is she thinks she's trying to do though, she's not interested in people, not interested in listening.

I think Proletarian Democracy might come up with a few lefty ancestors later.

 

[JimW]

I can empathise with LP here - I feel left out of her world of going to the right school and university and getting a free-leg up into the magic circle of paid "opinion-formers" as a result. Very much the same thing.

 

[Captain Hurrah]

Penny and Big Conk. lol.

 

[The39thStep]

creative freedom

 

[The39thStep]

What a brat. Just shows why she's so bad at whatever it is she thinks she's trying to do though, she's not interested in people, not interested in listening.

I think Proletarian Democracy might come up with a few lefty ancestors later.

My grandfather had six pence on the horse that won the Derby when that suffragette took out the Kings horse

 

[rekil]

I can empathise with LP here - I feel left out of her world of going to the right school and university and getting a free-leg up into the magic circle of paid "opinion-formers" as a result. Very much the same thing.

Can I put this on the PD twitter machine please?

 

[JimW]

Can I put this on the PD twitter machine please?

Of course!

 

[love detective]

jesus fuck

but what about those with no #leftyancestors? Where are we in this story?

 

[revol68]

jesus fuck

what a fucking idiot.

everything is a competition for her, the smartest girl from a very smart school.

Not everyone has their life saved by Ryan Gosling, where are we in that story?

 

[Captain Hurrah]

don't have any #leftyancestors that I know about, but trying to change the world anyway, because someday I want to be one.

 

[Captain Hurrah]

fucking lol.

 

[revol68]

I think I might have went from hating her to feeling slight pangs of pity, it must be tough to be that desperate for validation.

 

[JimW]

Not everyone has their life saved by Ryan Gosling, where are we in that story?

 

[DaveCinzano]

Perhaps we need to initiate a Blue Peter-style appeal, whereby people can donate bits of their superior leftwing ancestry to Pale Pink Penny?

 

[JHE]

I think Penny sees the lefty ancestors thing as people boasting about their families.

I'm not aware of having any left-wing ancestors either (but then I have never developed an interest in genealogy).

A few snippets of Esquivo family history:

In 1956, my habitually drunken father, who was not left-wing, but was a Liberal, was (rightly) extremely outspoken against the folly and arrogance of the invasion of Suez.

In 1926, my great-uncle, my father's uncle on his mum's side, was one of those clerks-turned-scabs who drove buses in London during the general strike.

In the First World War, my maternal grandfather, who was Maltese and, like many of his compatriots, trilingual, worked for the British Army, as a civilian interpreter between his employers and the Italians. He had an extremely low opinion of the Italian skills of the British army officer who assessed his (my grandfather's) command of Italian at interview.

 

[Bakunin]

I think I might have went from hating her to feeling slight pangs of pity, it must be tough to be that desperate for validation.

That desperation might be the root of her perpetually insatiable ambition, perhaps.

 

[DotCommunist]

I think Penny sees the lefty ancestors thing as people boasting about their families.

I'm not aware of having any left-wing ancestors either (but then I have never developed an interest in genealogy).

A few snippets of Esquivo family history:

In 1956, my habitually drunken father, who was not left-wing, but was a Liberal, was (rightly) extremely outspoken against the folly and arrogance of the invasion of Suez.

In 1926, my great-uncle, my father's uncle on his mum's side, was one of those clerks-turned-scabs who drove buses in London during the general strike.

In the First World War, my maternal grandfather, who was Maltese and, like many of his compatriots, trilingual, worked for the British Army, as a civilian interpreter between his employers and the Italians. He had an extremely low opinion of the Italian skills of the British army officer who assessed his (my grandfather's) command of Italian at interview.

my old man was in the british army doing that staring match in pre unif berlin- imagine my pride! I think it was his steely glare that caused the berlin wall to crumble.

 

[_angel_]

Oh dear I have a distant great great great uncle (??) who was liberal lord mayor of leeds butchers will hunt me down and kill me now!
We're the poor relations tho.

 

[DotCommunist]

oh fuck and in living memory my uncle stood as tory councilor take heart penny