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

[Captain Hurrah]

Even lustie wouldn't take trolling as far as publishing a column in the New Statesman, surely?

He has some standards, after all!

He litters my Facebook with other people's aphorisms!

 

[nino_savatte]

Rad dude:

A reading list for radical thinkers

She calls The Society of the Spectacle " The situationist bible" - you've either not read it or not understood it Penny.

(I won;t comment on Das Capital/Mein Struggle)

She said whaaaaaaaaat? My what a colossal fucking ignoramus she is.

 

[nino_savatte]

Where is she from? She sounds sort of Midlands-ish, possibly Leamington Spa.

 

[Oscar_Lomax]

Sunny Hundal is worse that L Penny. yes, he is *that* shit.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

That's one hell of a first post.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Welcome aboard Mr Lomax! I trust you have some mighty fine commodities for us?

 

[emma goldman]

more funny laurie penny lefty in-fighting here

 

[articul8]

he does sound like a cunt to be fair

 

[emma goldman]

he does sound like a cunt to be fair

i agree

 

[Oscar_Lomax]

i posted some shit here but it didn'y get beyong some fuckking cunt 'moderation' cunT. whatever that means

 

[butchersapron]

Give it a fucking rest you pretend weirdo eh.

 

[Oscar_Lomax]

i pretend you are

fuck off tosspot

 

[editor]

i pretend you are

fuck off tosspot

It's been great having you, but you've simply got to go. Bye.

 

[dynamicbaddog]

Indeed, apparently to research her newly published pamphlet on Zero books, Meat Market: Female Flesh Under Capitalism. I’m only a third of the way through but am having trouble keeping my breakfast down with such gems like: “The ooze and tickle of real-time sex, which can neither be controlled nor mass-produced and sold back to us, threatens both capital and censorship.” And “The eroto-capitalist horror of human flesh, and of female flesh in particular, is a pathology that can and must be resisted”

I’m probably going to review it, which is unfortunate because right now I think it’s possibly the worst, most nauseating book I have ever read on this subject. The confused dilettantish use of post-modern theory to paraphrase her own twaddle mixed with a style that apes the worst excesses of continental philosopher’s prose combines to make it almost unreadable. I think her researcher’s last gig was writing for Brass Eye given some of this nonsense.

ha ha , that sounds horrendous, good luck trying to review it.
According to her twitter feed she's churning them out, 2 more books on the way
The other day I was talking to the person who invited her to that SHAFTA party. On the night she was introduced to loads of people but was very selective about whom she choose to write about. I doubt she'll be invited back next year

 

[butchersapron]

Rather fickle aint she? From supporting the lib-dems to joining labour to now claiming "I am no Labour supporter, btw."

 

[MellySingsDoom]

Rather fickle aint she? From supporting the lib-dems to joining labour to now claiming "I am no Labour supporter, btw."

Ha ha ha - priceless. What's the Penny one going to be talking about at the Marxism 2011 hoedown? "Mainstream Party touting for fun and profit"?

 

[frogwoman]

what is it with the labour party and attracting members who dont support it?

 

[frogwoman]

every careerist fucker seems to join the labour party just so that they cna slag it off.

 

[killer b]

she didn't just support labour - she was a parliamentary researcher - whatever that is - for them.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

she didn't just support labour - she was a parliamentary researcher - whatever that is - for them.

She did, she wrote about it on LibCon iirc.

 

[bolshiebhoy]

every careerist fucker seems to join the labour party just so that they cna slag it off.

Not fair. I never attack my new party, it'd be too easy and miss the point about the Labour Party

 

[frogwoman]

i didn't mean you. you're not a careerist fucker. i was referring to people who join the labour "just so they can destroy it" etc

 

[bolshiebhoy]

Fair enough, I was being flippant. Actually here in the west country we don't get too many entryist careerists. Just rightwing careerists.

 

[dynamicbaddog]

Tho it's true she written nonsense in the past, she does have moments when she's bang on the money, this recently article about mental health and work for example
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/laurie-penny/2011/04/long-mental-work-british-links

We are told that no matter how low the pay or long the hours, drudgery will deliver happiness. The dogma driving the current wave of welfare reforms is that out-of-work benefits must be withdrawn on a grand scale, even in a time of mass unemployment - not to cut costs but because work makes people so very happy.

Unemployment can damage well-being but poor mental health has been shown to be just as likely a consequence of what a recent study called "jobs with poor psychosocial attributes". This is academic code for insecure work in awful conditions: corporate serfdom in offices, call centres and canteens.



After I read that I almost forgave her for being so rude about Angel Long at the SHAFTAS

 

[kavenism]

The more I re-read Meat Market the more I think she needs to address her own mental health as a first priority.

 

[Balbi]

She's hit and miss, more miss than hit though, but do we need to use the tired old 'she must have mental problems' attack?

That Liz Jones though

 

[sihhi]

The first reviews are out.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...under-capitalism-by-laurie-penny-2273989.html

This interview makes me feel sorry for her

"From time to time, I still miss my eating disorder," says Penny. "I miss the sense of control that comes when avoiding food is your highest ambition."

Although this confusion between anorexia and the hunger strike tactic is wrong.
The hunger strike when part of a wider social movement does not hurt others around you. If that movement's not there - then that's different.

http://globalcomment.com/2011/feminism-socialism-and-the-meat-market-an-interview-with-laurie-penny/

L.P: It’s a way of evading patriarchal surveillance. It’s also a form of violent submission! Doing exactly what you’re told to an extent that it hurts you and others around you. It is self-harm, but it is also a lethal form of passive aggression. Always has been, since the first documented cases in the 1500s. We hunger strike because we haven’t the energy or the ideological framework to offer any other form of resistance, but a hunger strike is also aggressive, we must never forget that. It’s peaceful, passive aggression. a way of saying to one’s captors: look what you made me do. A way of expressing the inhumanity of the way we are obliged to live, as women, as workers and as consumers.

 

[ymu]

I've been on hunger-strike. It was pure publicity stunt.

 

[sihhi]

I've been on hunger-strike. It was pure publicity stunt.

What happened? What was it for?

 

[kavenism]

Oddly enough I think she may have something with the whole hunger strike thing, at least in her case. It interests me that she claims she became anorexic just as her parent were splitting up. Not wishing to labour the point but if I were her analyst I'd start there rather than her claims about the "Female flesh hating patriarchal eroto-capitalist hell spiral" and all the rest of it. I've started this review but to be honest it's hard to know which targets to focus on. I'm digging for the politics but I think I'm gonna need to call in the Time Team crew to assist.