What's right with it?
Alex Callinicos/SWP vs Laurie Penny/New Statesman Facebook handbags
- Thread starter Prince Rhyus
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What's right with it?
Lo Siento.
Second As Farce
i presume they mean the complaints about her temporary poverty. Or indeed the constant reference to how hard unemployed young graduates have it.
On the other hand, considering the audience, it's a good way of making the point that unemployment benefit is (a) very little money and (b) claimed by people just like them.
What article was that then? the one I was thinking of only came out a few weeks back.
This one: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/13/burlesque-sex-empowerment-misogyny
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
SaskiaJayne
Rural Guerrilla
Its just an article about trying to live on JSA. I'm asking you, whats wrong with it?
I don't need to be told how hard it is for privileged, privately educated middle class graduates. That she can only make reference to Withnail and I (ffs) says it all. Dilettantish rubbish. Where were her parents? Was it character building? Mind you, she hasn't done too badly after all. I smell bullshit.
nightbreed
Im Bored
"When the Unite leader, Len McLuskey, wrote in these pages this week encouraging union members to lend their support to the "magnificent student movement", he hit precisely the right note – one that respects the energy of these new networks of resistance without seeking to hijack it."
Good point Laurie. Will the left note this or even care?
Good point Laurie. Will the left note this or even care?
SaskiaJayne
Rural Guerrilla
Oh ok, I'm just looking at it as any newspaper article. Its normal enough for well paid journos to write about the plight of the poverty stricken.
audiotech
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Laurie Penny wrote an article in the Guardian, and contained within was this passage.
"Sour-faced Socialist Worker Vendors AKA Revolutionary Smiles" facebook group in response.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sour-...A-Revolutionary-Smiles/175541789144500?v=wall
"Sour-faced Socialist Worker Vendors AKA Revolutionary Smiles" facebook group in response.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sour-...A-Revolutionary-Smiles/175541789144500?v=wall
Kid_Eternity
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Yeah she got some flack on twitter for that last part the last couple days, she denies it.
audiotech
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butchersapron, if you can stand this, have a listen to Rees towards the end of this this video. The gall of this man is unfuckingbelievable.
Prince Rhyus
Spokesman of King Antonio
A few thoughts:
On "middle class living on £50p/w" issue, I think talking about the experience was fine, but the way it came out was all wrong. I think if it was put forward along the lines of "Most middle class people have no idea of what it's like to try and struggle on £50 a week and are thus living in a bubble/completely insulated from the struggles that large numbers of people on such incomes have" would have been a better way to put it rather than "
For me the killer quotation was
...which made it come across as a "we should be forcing the political classes to do a damn sight more to help those in that situation" rather than "poor us!" message.
In terms of being "self-appointed" - something thrown at Clare Solomon and Laurie Penny, I have a couple of observations to make:
- There will be some (not necessarily many) who will instinctively look towards someone in an elected student post for some sort of direction on what to do next. Because the corporate media gave a lot of airtime to both Clare and Aaron Porter regarding the student protests, and because the statements from the former caught the mood better than those from the latter, the corporate media have helped create the view that Clare is one of the student leaders. Being part of the "Counterfire" outfit has also meant that Rees and German have milked it for all its worth (metaphorically).
- While organisations such as the Coalition of Resistance, the TUC, the NUS etc will have some influence on the days that given national protests are due to take place on, their ability to influence what happens once people arrive for said demonstrations may well diminish as people go off to do their own thing - whether it was the "cat and mouse" stuff a few weeks ago to Aaron Porter taking a kicking from the corporate media regarding Millbank - i.e. being accused of not being in control of that original demo. Police said at the demos that followed that the "organisers" did not stick to the agreed route, it wasn't so much the organisers not sticking to it, rather it was the demonstrators not wanting to stick to what the organisers may have negotiated with the authorities. Personally I found the UKuncut "crowdsourcing" exercises to be the most enlightening online development I've experienced in recent times.
- Regarding Rees and Counterfire/Swappyness, one of the things that I love about Twitter is that by it's very nature it prevents "established" figures on the far left from boring people to death with post-markskyite-trotskyismist ramblings. The Counterfire/SWP split (which Solomon blogged at http://solomonsmindfield.blogspot.com/2010/02/why-we-are-resigning-from-swp-open.html ) may have also unintentionally reduced the likelihood of SWP attempts to take over "the movement".
- Regarding Penny, my take is that she's primarily a blogger, writer and tweeter - and that if people didn't like what she was saying, they'd stop following her. Part of me would like to give her the benefit of the doubt of learning her trade/making mistakes. At least the untruths she wrote were printed in a newspaper - because when it comes to printing untruths our press has got form! I think it also goes to show that people are much more hot on these things and are able to respond to them instantly and publicly - which gives things much more publicity than in the "errors and corrections" column.
On "middle class living on £50p/w" issue, I think talking about the experience was fine, but the way it came out was all wrong. I think if it was put forward along the lines of "Most middle class people have no idea of what it's like to try and struggle on £50 a week and are thus living in a bubble/completely insulated from the struggles that large numbers of people on such incomes have" would have been a better way to put it rather than "
For me the killer quotation was
...which made it come across as a "we should be forcing the political classes to do a damn sight more to help those in that situation" rather than "poor us!" message.
In terms of being "self-appointed" - something thrown at Clare Solomon and Laurie Penny, I have a couple of observations to make:
- There will be some (not necessarily many) who will instinctively look towards someone in an elected student post for some sort of direction on what to do next. Because the corporate media gave a lot of airtime to both Clare and Aaron Porter regarding the student protests, and because the statements from the former caught the mood better than those from the latter, the corporate media have helped create the view that Clare is one of the student leaders. Being part of the "Counterfire" outfit has also meant that Rees and German have milked it for all its worth (metaphorically).
- While organisations such as the Coalition of Resistance, the TUC, the NUS etc will have some influence on the days that given national protests are due to take place on, their ability to influence what happens once people arrive for said demonstrations may well diminish as people go off to do their own thing - whether it was the "cat and mouse" stuff a few weeks ago to Aaron Porter taking a kicking from the corporate media regarding Millbank - i.e. being accused of not being in control of that original demo. Police said at the demos that followed that the "organisers" did not stick to the agreed route, it wasn't so much the organisers not sticking to it, rather it was the demonstrators not wanting to stick to what the organisers may have negotiated with the authorities. Personally I found the UKuncut "crowdsourcing" exercises to be the most enlightening online development I've experienced in recent times.
- Regarding Rees and Counterfire/Swappyness, one of the things that I love about Twitter is that by it's very nature it prevents "established" figures on the far left from boring people to death with post-markskyite-trotskyismist ramblings. The Counterfire/SWP split (which Solomon blogged at http://solomonsmindfield.blogspot.com/2010/02/why-we-are-resigning-from-swp-open.html ) may have also unintentionally reduced the likelihood of SWP attempts to take over "the movement".
- Regarding Penny, my take is that she's primarily a blogger, writer and tweeter - and that if people didn't like what she was saying, they'd stop following her. Part of me would like to give her the benefit of the doubt of learning her trade/making mistakes. At least the untruths she wrote were printed in a newspaper - because when it comes to printing untruths our press has got form! I think it also goes to show that people are much more hot on these things and are able to respond to them instantly and publicly - which gives things much more publicity than in the "errors and corrections" column.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
My point about self-appointed was in reference to LP alone.
This doesn't really say very much though - Jeffrey Archer's work is liked - so what? (And please, let's not reduce important issues of representation , recuperatrion, careerists central roles etc to 'following'). Jeffrey Archer has also made stuff up in print. And he was was also caught out. I can't see what sort of defence of her activity you've mounted there beyond saying she does it.
This doesn't really say very much though - Jeffrey Archer's work is liked - so what? (And please, let's not reduce important issues of representation , recuperatrion, careerists central roles etc to 'following'). Jeffrey Archer has also made stuff up in print. And he was was also caught out. I can't see what sort of defence of her activity you've mounted there beyond saying she does it.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
The sound quality is so bad i can barely make out what he's saying - could make out that what he thinks is needed is 'ruthless humility'
Also, please please check out the ginger kid at 29.45 with his plan for revolution - it's genius absurd. Oddly enough, the local SWP organiser here thinks in the same way, expect he thinks the general strike will come through the TUC.
audiotech
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The sound quality is so bad i can barely make out what he's saying - could make out that what he thinks is needed is 'ruthless humility'
Also, please please check out the ginger kid at 29.45 with his plan for revolution - it's genius absurd. Oddly enough, the local SWP organiser here thinks in the same way, expect he thinks the general strike will come through the TUC.
'Ruthless humility' is right.
You've misheard the "ginger kid" butchers and btw he doesn't appear a "ginger" to me. Anyway, mentioning hair colour is not relevant here.
He's not calling for a general strike, he's criticising some of the left who are getting history wrong. He does say there is the possibilty now for a radical movement of students and workers. On this he's right.butchersapron
Bring back hanging
I didn't mishear - he said this is how a general strike happens. 1) students occupy universities. 2) workers go the factories and are radicalised by the students 3) they go back and occupy factories 4) general strike happens. It's historically wrong, ridiculously formal and based on a mad reading of the production and transmission of 'consciousness'.
audiotech
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No 2 you've written "factories" when I think you you meant to write 'universities and colleges'?
Anyway, this I picked up from his contribution. Couldn't hear the first bit, however he continues:
Goes on a bit more about others getting it wrong and we are the ones who know what needs doing blah, blah, blah - recruitment speech.
You're right, he's arguing primarily that workers be taken to the student movement, become radicalised and then a general strike.
There's nothing wrong in the first bit. Important that unity be built between students and workers. Inviting workers to colleges and universities is nothing new, but and I agree with you here too, he then proceeds in a mechanical, formalistic way.
Maybe if you elaborate what happened in France in '68 to make some comparison?
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
im no fan of the swp. but taking swipes at easy targets to further a journalistic career is fucking repellent tbh. no doubt many of the sort of guardian readers who these articles are aimed at will be looking at them and laughing and being like "ho ho, spot on, i used to be all young and idealistic like that once before i "grew up" etc."
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Oh god, no.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
audiotech
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Right choice.
audiotech
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They don't wear "Hang Mandela" t-shirts these days and they don't appear that confident, which is good. Let's keep it that way.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
repeat of the highly improbable impromptu signing of the internationale claim.
Random
Ethnic nalgocrat
Jesus christ, I was giving her the benefit of the doubt, or at least failing to want to take sides, until I read this ludicrous, revoltingly made-up paragraph.
Yet another 'libertarian' privilaged journo who thinks it's their right to write up the world so that it suits them and supports them. Eventually she'll probably write an autobiography describing her early career as a 'gleeful hoax' in the style of DBC Pierre ort something.
Yet another 'libertarian' privilaged journo who thinks it's their right to write up the world so that it suits them and supports them. Eventually she'll probably write an autobiography describing her early career as a 'gleeful hoax' in the style of DBC Pierre ort something.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
I will never hold hands with book burners :X
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