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

[Lo Siento.]

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.

What is it the wishy-washy radical liberals are always saying? "check your privilege"

 

[rekil]

I like the way that in the middle of this laughable shallow error she throws in the fact about working class londoners taking the undergound (with help from the left) as if it's something she always knew, part of her history, rather than just having read it in Angus Calder's book.

She has said that her favourite writer is Pratchett and claims that she's re-reading The Dispossessed atm. I'd bet that she hasn't read Calder's book, but I bet the Lez has, and it was just something that he might have told her while deep in his cups.

 

[butchersapron]

Fantasy - that fits. Remember her list if must read anti-capitalist books, sure she's never read a damn one of them.

 

[love detective]

what were they?

 

[butchersapron]

A reading list for radical thinkers. Even the title of the piece make me cringe. Each blurb gives away that she's not read even this collection of mostly middlebrow stuff.

 

[butchersapron]

This is hilarious, didn't notice it first time round - she calls Proudhon's What is Property a 'punchy little tract' - it's 300-400+ pages long (depending on the edition). She must think the extract that contains the bit What is property. Property is theft is the book entire.

 

[butchersapron]

Oh man, this rubbish (my bold):

The Wretched of the Earth, by Frantz Fanon - A powerful explanation of the nature of violent uprising and the psychology of oppression. Almost every page contains quotes that one wants on a poster.

On the same page as she bigs up the society of the spectacle. Amazing.

(And i have to again point out the Das Capital/Mein Struggle bit in the intro)

 

[articul8]

(And i have to again point out theDas Capital/Mein Struggle bit in the intro)

 

[Bakunin]

This is hilarious, didn't notice it first time round - she calls Proudhon's What is Property a 'punchy little tract' - it's 300-400+ pages long (depending on the edition). She must think the extract that contains the bit What is property. Property is theft is the book entire.

That and the author of said 'punchy little tract' has such a tedious, turgid, downright dull writing style that he almost manages to make Alex Callinicos seem like Tom Clancy by comparison.

 

[butchersapron]

Das Kapital
Mein Kampf (full title is miles better).

Not Das Capital
Mein Struggle.

Come on.

(although Das Kapital Mein Kampf does give a good idea for a film)

 

[butchersapron]

That and the author of said 'punchy little tract' has such a tedious, turgid, downright dull writing style that he almost manages to make Alex Callinicos seem like Tom Clancy by comparison.

I think Callinicos is a pretty clear writer myself. It tends to be what he says that is the problem.

 

[Bakunin]

I think Callinicos is a pretty clear writer myself. It tends to be what he says that is the problem.

It's a question of taste, granted, but I found trying to get through 'The Revolutionary Ideas Of Karl Marx' an experience where I could almost feel my will to live ebbing away, one page at a time.

 

[belboid]

It's a question of taste, granted, but I found trying to get through 'The Revolutionary Ideas Of Karl Marx' an experience where I could almost feel my will to live ebbing away, one page at a time.

it's astoundingly straighforward and easy to read, very clear description of marx's economics. You might disagree with it, but it's clear and straightforward

 

[Bakunin]

it's astoundingly straighforward and easy to read, very clear description of marx's economics. You might disagree with it, but it's clear and straightforward

Different tastes make for different opinions, I suppose. One thing we can all agree on is that 'Mein Kampf' is, without a doubt, one of the most appallingly written screeds ever to darken the literary world.

 

[butchersapron]

it's astoundingly straighforward and easy to read, very clear description of marx's economics. You might disagree with it, but it's clear and straightforward

**Wanker alert** A few years back i was reading a Critical Companion to Contemporary Marxism - chapter after chapter of jargon filled rubbish, then i saw Callinicos approach with his chapter on Bhaskar - Ice cold in Alex scenario. I'll always thank him for that.

 

[barney_pig]

my granddads fought fascism

 

[revol68]

My ancestors on my da's side were fucked out of scotland for resistance to the nascent commodity form (sheep stealing).

 

[butchersapron]

stealing - wonderful how language/history evolves.

 

[revol68]

I was waiting for that, and it didn't take very long at all.

 

[butchersapron]

I was waiting for that, and it didn't take very long at all.

Sorry, quiet afternoon here.

 

[revol68]

No need for apologies, I for one am proud of my sexual pioneering ancestors! I only hope those whose ancestors were still stuck in the rut of anthrocentric sexual relations don't feel left out.

 

[Voley]

You can rustle sheep, can't you? I always thought that sounded a bit euphemistic.

 

[Riklet]

might as well steal up a nice sandwich for myself n sit back to a good bit of oh my & laurie.

 

[eoin_k]

No need for apologies, I for one am proud of my sexual pioneering ancestors! I only hope those whose ancestors were still stuck in the rut of anthrocentric sexual relations don't feel left out.

Are you trying to tell us that you are the product of a coupling that transcended the species barrier?

 

[love detective]

it all happened in a beautiful pea green boat

 

[Bakunin]

it all happened in a beautiful pea green boat

Seadogging?

 

[revol68]

it all happened in a beautiful pea green boat

I see what you did there...

 

[Idris2002]

My ancestors on my da's side were fucked out of scotland for resistance to the nascent commodity form (sheep stealing).

I, on the other hand, have petit bourgeois statism in the blood - my Derry great-grandfather was a customs officer (he got posted to Liverpool later on, the poor bugger).

As for Das Kapital Mein Kampf, I assume this would be directed by Fassbinder or (seeing as he's dead) Verhoeven?

 

[rekil]

I knew my greatgrandad was a blacksmith, my mam told me about how she'd hang about at the forge and he'd let her do the bellows thing and that, but I checked the 1911 census and he's down as a farmer as well. So he had a hammer in one hand and a sickle (or possibly a potato) in the other. That's a little bit communism.

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

This is so communisn't I've got tears of sick in my eyes.

 

[DotCommunist]

is there any knowledge viz a viz Lez's left wing forbears? perhaps one of the people that spawned him used to grow radishes rather than eat them.