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

[tufty79]

She didn't answer the question about whether or not she had consent from the disabled letter-writer either.

she said they'd asked her to publish their letter/info about them/her response (didn't specify which)

and @delroy booth, fuck knows why i got answered

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

No time for your playschool comments - we're dealing with slanderous comments against 'so called leftists' made by a pseudo-radical journalist and blogger.

uhhh, my playschool comments, as opposed to yours and others, like telling other posters to 'f-off

the person feels that they're responding to various slander against them, so it's all hardly surprising. i was waiting for this to happen

 

[Delroy Booth]

Imagine living in a world where someone who gave the leader of the EDL a platform accuses a member of the most successfull anti-fascist organisation in Post-war britain of being a racist.

Just imagine that.

 

[equationgirl]

Fuck you and your misogyny!

I am a feminist misogynist

 

[SpineyNorman]

Thing is, people I work with politically, people from my university - fuck, my black ex-partner and two of the four mixed race kids I helped her bring up (that's my little bit identity politics for you) are on twitter and see stuff on my feed.

It's a fucking disgrace and she really ought to retract that comment.

And of course this is another way in which she can use her privilege isn't it? She gets to say that and I have no recourse to come back whatsoever - I don't have a Guardian column or anything in which I can refute these claims, I'm sure if Laura was slandered in such a way she'd be able to call in the lawyers and I can't.

Check your privilege @lauriepenny

 

[bluestreak]

oh christ, quoting some new nutcase to tar us all, throwing accusations of racism around at the IWCA and its supporters.... fucking hellfire this is embarrassing to watch.

 

[love detective]

i also want to know how it's possible to crouch over a plate whilst eating from it

 

[SpineyNorman]

uhhh, my playschool comments, as opposed to yours and others, like telling other posters to 'f-off

the person feels that they're responding to various slander against them, so it's all hardly surprising. i was waiting for this to happen

Yes - clearly our criticisms of Laura and her calling me and LD racists are precisely the same.

Fuck off you vacuous twat.

 

[weepiper]

i also want to know how it's possible to crouch over a plate whilst eating from it

Someone needs to disasterpaint this

 

[Delroy Booth]

It's not just calling Love Detective and SpineyNorman racists though, is it? It's calling anyone who objects to state-led multiculturalism a racist, which includes like practically every militant anti-fascist I know.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Yeah but we've been named Spiney Norman is a nickname pretty much everyone I know calls me by and she's just told 13,000 people Spiney Norman is a racist. I don't mind admitting I'm fucking livid.

 

[Ronnie Rubashov]

Fuck all this racist misogyny banter.
I've just been told I'm an irrelevance...by a public school Oxbridge graduate
Who'll never be an irrelevance by dint of her money, background and all round nexus of privilege.
I have no platform...no connections...no fuckin money
And I'm a borderline gutter-dwelling jakey
How fuckin dare she..
Talk about 'old privilege systems'...pissing over the veranda etc
And she writes like a female Tom Wolfe...showy purple self-indulgent bollocks.
Fuck you Marie Antoinette

 

[Delroy Booth]

Yeah but we've been named Spiney Norman is a nickname pretty much everyone I know calls me by and she's just told 13,000 people Spiney Norman is a racist. I don't mind admitting I'm fucking livid.

I sincerely regret ever having stuck up for her in any way shape or form, on this thread and elsewhere. I'm disgusted by her.

And Spiney, an injury to one is an injury to all, you're absolutely right to be livid. She's used her priviliged platform, itself a product of her class and wealthy background, to call you a racist, knowing full well you're not wealthy or powerful or renowned enough to be able to defend yourself against the allegation. It's malicious bullying of the worst kind.

like I say, no platform to Laurie Penny from this day on.

 

[Mr.Bishie]

lol @ Ms Red

 

[JimW]

I hold that it is bad as far as we are concerned if a person, a political party, an army or a school is not attacked by the enemy, for in that case it would definitely mean that we have sunk to the level of the enemy. It is good if we are attacked by the enemy, since it proves that we have drawn a clear line of demarcation between the enemy and ourselves. It is still better if the enemy attacks us wildly and paints us as utterly black and without a single virtue; it demonstrates that we have not only drawn a clear line of demarcation between the enemy and ourselves but achieved a great deal in our work.

Take comfort in the wise words of the Chairman, Spiney.

 

[Bakunin]

From my limited knowledge of the Samaritans I'd say they don't proof read or edit copy for the likes of Laurie Penny.

I should imagine that few people are prepared to do so, given her little habit of blaming sub-editors every time she's caught out on something.

 

[ViolentPanda]

i also want to know how it's possible to crouch over a plate whilst eating from it

Rectal dentition?

 

[SpineyNorman]

I hold that it is bad as far as we are concerned if a person, a political party, an army or a school is not attacked by the enemy, for in that case it would definitely mean that we have sunk to the level of the enemy. It is good if we are attacked by the enemy, since it proves that we have drawn a clear line of demarcation between the enemy and ourselves. It is still better if the enemy attacks us wildly and paints us as utterly black and without a single virtue; it demonstrates that we have not only drawn a clear line of demarcation between the enemy and ourselves but achieved a great deal in our work.

Take comfort in the wise words of the Chairman, Spiney.

He's a fucking racist too

 

[frogwoman]

is this for real? i've got my differences with the iwca, but i'll take them over laurie penny and the twittertariat any day of the week ! Jesus.

people like laurie are the reason why the left is coming to be seen as an utter irrelevance.

 

[ViolentPanda]

It's not just calling Love Detective and SpineyNorman racists though, is it? It's calling anyone who objects to state-led multiculturalism a racist, which includes like practically every militant anti-fascist I know.

Perhaps she doesn't (and I'm not being sarky for once) know any better? Someone in their mid-20s is pretty much only going to have been exposed to the state version of multiculturalism, and likely won't have experienced what went before. They may have read about what us dinosaurs experienced, but that's not the same as living it, just as most of the people falling in behind this identity politics revival won't have experienced the absolute mess it made of working class politics last time it reared its' unlovely head.

 

[Bakunin]

Some critical engagement would be nice.

Asking a bit much, isn't it, given the standard set so far.

 

[SpineyNorman]

I'm SP not IWCA so you're a racist too by association frogwoman

 

[frogwoman]

I'm SP not IWCA so you're a racist too by association frogwoman

yeah i know.

we are all racists

from the river to the sea, racists will be free etc

 

[ViolentPanda]

Fuck all this racist misogyny banter.
I've just been told I'm an irrelevance...by a public school Oxbridge graduate
Who'll never be an irrelevance by dint of her money, background and all round nexus of privilege.
I have no platform...no connections...no fuckin money
And I'm a borderline gutter-dwelling jakey
How fuckin dare she..
Talk about 'old privilege systems'...pissing over the veranda etc
And she writes like a female Tom Wolfe...showy purple self-indulgent bollocks.
Fuck you Marie Antoinette

It's not even purple prose. Purple could be forgiven. It's reductive, shallow non-reflexive (by Christ it's non-reflexive!) pap occasionally enlivened by a glimmer of insight. It's readable, but it's hardly informative. It's "journalism as diary-writing".

 

[rekil]

Spiney and LD probably have swastikas shaved into their pubes like that porno woman. Stay classy so-called left.

 

[Delroy Booth]

Perhaps she doesn't (and I'm not being sarky for once) know any better? Someone in their mid-20s is pretty much only going to have been exposed to the state version of multiculturalism, and likely won't have experienced what went before. They may have read about what us dinosaurs experienced, but that's not the same as living it, just as most of the people falling in behind this identity politics revival won't have experienced the absolute mess it made of working class politics last time it reared its' unlovely head.

That's makes perfect sense ViolentPanda until you realise she's older than me....

is this for real? i've got my differences with the iwca, but i'll take them over laurie penny and the twittertariat any day of the week ! Jesus.

I remember when I first started out in left-wing politics, when I was like 16 or so, and I was coming into contact with the various groups that were around, and although I was interested in Marx and other class-based stuff I also had this nagging feeling a sense that what they were telling me was inadaquet in a very fundamental way. I couldn't express it, I didn't know enough at the time to put my finger on exactly what it was, but

my influences were really limited too. My parents were old Bennite Labour party people, Arguments for Democracy is probably the first political book I ever read, and my dad got me "Stupid White Men" by Michael Moore when I was towards the end of high school which I'm ashamed to say is what got me interested in left-wing books. I bought a Noam Chomsky book, Understanding Power, shortly after, and that was a lot better.

In retrospect, how strange it is that a young English boy had to get into left-wign politics by Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky? Is that the extent to which the British left-wing tradition has been eroded? That my first influences were American imports, that my political culture was a product of American cultural imperialism?

Anyway, it wasn't until I started reading the IWCA website that I really felt that someone was addressing issues that I was coming up against in my every day life, with my mates, in terms that didn't frighten me away coz I hadn't been to university. And I've been critical of them plenty of times since, fucking hell some of the things Joe Reilly says on here occasionally deserve a bit of sincere criticism, but despite that the fact remains I owe a huge amount of my understanding of the world to them. They have done more to further my knowledge of the world than any fucking priviliged Laurie Penny Oxbrdige wanker has, infact it was these people who really put me off the most, I always used to think that "the left" wasn't something for me, it was for them.

/rant over

 

[Ronnie Rubashov]

oh christ, quoting some new nutcase to tar us all, throwing accusations of racism around at the IWCA and its supporters.... fucking hellfire this is embarrassing to watch.

And fuck you too matey...'some new nutcase' indeed...care to quote something to back that up...or did you simply make an online diagnosis, Herr Doktor?

And bear in mind the inherent elitism in failing to correctly identify: irony; mythological, local, cultural or subjective truths; oblique allusions; non-traditional literary devices; or humour. Take the piss, and you're basically bolstering existing power asymmetries. Go for it, you tyrannical muppet.

 

[JimW]

They have done more to further my knowledge of the world than any fucking priviliged Laurie Penny Oxbrdige wanker has...

Yeah, but have they ever been kettled in Knightsbridge with a diverse juggling troupe, eh eh?

 

[rekil]

oh christ, quoting some new nutcase to tar us all, throwing accusations of racism around at the IWCA and its supporters.... fucking hellfire this is embarrassing to watch.

I don't think he's a nutcase at all. It's just fabulous trolling by Laurie.

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

Yes - clearly our criticisms of Laura and her calling me and LD racists are precisely the same.

Fuck off you vacuous twat.

So it's twitter that does it then. Yikes.