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

[cesare]

That was the ellie mae wasn't it?

Aaronovitch, apparently

 

[butchersapron]

God, he was lucky then. Loathsome revisionist slug who i imagine makes a lot of noise when eating. (DA not lusty)

 

[co-op]

I reckon Ellie Mae is leagues above Laurie Penny in practically every aspect.

Not saying she's above criticism, but compared to Laurie?

There, i said it, now fucking ban me or call me something nasty. I don't give a fuck.

Yep I was just going to post something similar. UKUncut have done some brilliant stuff I think and helped put the whole "tax debate" in a different place (ie it's about tax dodging now, not all about how "we" should be demanding to pay less). I don't know anything about Ellie Mae O'Hagen except that she's been quite heavily involved in that.

Also, she's written some cringey shit but she's young and all - but she just doesn't radiate me-me-me in the way that LP does. I've been shocked by the revelations in this thread - and how someone so nakedly self-obsessed and stupid and obviously a liar has been speed-promoted to the inner-circle of mainstream left-wing journalism. Her tantrummy reaction to questions on this thread is all of a piece with that.

It's all learning though - I went and got a copy of the New Statesman as a result of reading this thread - fuck me they have loads of glossy adverts for private fucking schools in there.

 

[SpineyNorman]

I haven't read them, might have a look if you put them up, but I believe said member from Leeds has now been expelled, and he may not be the only one.

Someone whose name begins with P? There's also someone from Cambridge who's been put on the 'national membership' and banned from attending branch meetings becuase they didn't like the way they voted in a Unite ballot (some kind of unite election anyway).

And the reply from the CC is an absolute disgrace, I'm quite angry about it - much as I dislike the organization I know some really good people in the SWP and the contempt they're all being shown by the CC is well out of order.

I'm at my mum's with a slow dial up connection so the pdfs will have to wait till I get home this afternoon.

But here's a couple of choice excerpts from the CC's reply:

And centralism, far from being the opposite of democracy, is the necessary outcome of any democratic decision if it is to be meaningful. The prevailing feature of democracy under capitalism is the separation of debate and voting from any mechanism to make the decisions agreed by the majority binding. So we can vote in a general election but we have next to no control over those we elect or the decisions they take. This is reinforced by the way we participate in bourgeois democracy as atomised individuals without the collective capacity to enforce majority decisions as binding. This structure is reproduced inside the Labour Party, for example, where the decisions of the conference of
not binding on the parliamentary Labour Party, which is constituted as an independent body.

A revolutionary party needs a much tighter link between words and deeds than that which exists in the structures of bourgeois democracy. Without centralised decision making the accountability to agreed decisions of both the leadership and membership is weakened.

I sort of agree with this - that leaders should be accountable to the membership and bound by the membership's collective decisions. But they're using this to justify the opposite - the membership being bound by the leadership's decisions.

And the existence of a leadership is a necessity. Uneveness in terms of experience, confidence and clarity of ideas exists not just inside the working class as a whole, but also within the revolutionary party. The more roots the party has inside the working class, the more it is able to intervene in the class struggle, the greater this uneveness will be.

So the membership is really fucking thick, with no 'clarity of ideas'. But the working class itself is even thicker, and their thickness is contageous - the more embedded we are in workplaces and w/c communities the more their thickness rubs off on us.

Fucking hell, I can see why people hate trots if this is the way the SWP deal with the issue of 'consciousness' (for full disclosure I'm far from convinced by the orthodox trot line on this).

They're basically saying that the only time you can have democracy is when you're an isolated sect with no roots in the working class and nothing is going on - so the more important the work gets the less democracy is possible or desirable.

 

[frogwoman]

the biggest lol was "i work for a living"

since when did she do any proper work? i'd love to be paid for writing complete bollocks on twitter.

 

[butchersapron]

Yep I was just going to post something similar. UKUncut have done some brilliant stuff I think and helped put the whole "tax debate" in a different place (ie it's about tax dodging now, not all about how "we" should be demanding to pay less). I don't know anything about Ellie Mae O'Hagen except that she's been quite heavily involved in that.

Also, she's written some cringey shit but she's young and all - but she just doesn't radiate me-me-me in the way that LP does. I've been shocked by the revelations in this thread - and how someone so nakedly self-obsessed and stupid and obviously a liar has been speed-promoted to the inner-circle of mainstream left-wing journalism. Her tantrummy reaction to questions on this thread is all of a piece with that.

It's all learning though - I went and got a copy of the New Statesman as a result of reading this thread - fuck me they have loads of glossy adverts for private fucking schools in there.

I think all that is very fair. I would say that there is a link between the ellie maes and penny though (beyond the desperate naked networking) as post-penny daft editors now are looking to find people like her. And, when the hammers falls (and it will fall) its going to be bad on the lot of them.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

God, he was lucky then. Loathsome revisionist slug who i imagine makes a lot of noise when eating. (DA not lusty)

He was a member of the New Communist Party (I think, maybe it was the CPB-ML...) until Blair got in and one day after the election he joined the Labour Party and becamse a cheer leader for full on Blairism, a weird over night switch.

 

[Balbi]

Cracking tune that.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Having just read it, it seems to say a) substitutionism is bad and b) we need some proper substitutionism not this shit substitutionism we have at the minute.

Wasn't meaning so much the tactical stuff as the stuff she says about the way the CC operate, membership, etc.

 

[where to]

the biggest lol was "i work for a living".

What exactly was she trying to say there, (or accidentally said)?

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Yep I was just going to post something similar. UKUncut have done some brilliant stuff I think and helped put the whole "tax debate" in a different place (ie it's about tax dodging now, not all about how "we" should be demanding to pay less). I don't know anything about Ellie Mae O'Hagen except that she's been quite heavily involved in that.
.

I agree with your assessment of Ellie Mae to some extent - she is at least genuinely working class as well.

However she has not been "heavily" involved with UK Uncut, any more than hundreds of other activists around the country, nor was she a leader in Occupy - but she has very carefully presented herself as such and projected herself in the media as a spokesperson on their behalf.

 

[Delroy Booth]

Wasn't Ellie Mae involved in Climate Camp?

And apparently she designed the leaflets and propaganda that I've given entrusted to hand out for this Unite Community Union stuff I'm trying to get involved in atm. It's of a very good standard, especially if you're used to to selling The Socialist in windswept desolate high-streets in provincial northern towns, and has gone down well with the general public on the whole. Take the piss if you must, but that's one thing she's contributed that's actually made a tiny little bit of difference in the political work I try to do, one more thing than Laurie Penny's ever contributed.

Of course I don't know if it was her, could've been some underling in Unite who did all the graft, I don't know, but still I don't just want to move on from Laurie Penny to some other relatively high-profile female left activist like we're a plague of locusts.

Then again she did write that really bad piece in the Guardian about the police criminalising dissent, that was a bit penny-esque.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

And apparently she designed the leaflets and propaganda that I've given entrusted to hand out for this Unite Community Union stuff I'm trying to get involved in atm. .

It is very good but it definately wasn't her.

 

[butchersapron]

Has there been any sightings of the Hari recently?

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Wasn't Ellie Mae involved in Climate Camp?

so was I for a bit, so were quite a few people - what does it mean?

 

[Delroy Booth]

so was I for a bit, so were quite a few people - what does it mean?

Someone I know described her as "being on the careerist wing of Climate Camp" that's all thought it was a funny description

 

[love detective]

Someone ought to ask her if Kenan Malik is a racist too. I would but I've been blocked.

IWCA ‏@IndependentWCA
@PennyRed @spineynorman78 If this article(http://tinyurl.com/ya3hlvd) is racist then so must this one(http://tinyurl.com/a49ex3) by @kenanmalik,agree?

Kenan Malik ‏@kenanmalik
@brianwhelanhack Yes, it is easier denounce something as 'racist' or 'sexist' than engage with the issues.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Someone I know described her as "being on the careerist wing of Climate Camp" that's all thought it was a funny description

That probably means as much as anything the people that argued for a coherent approach then

 

[Steel Icarus]

Has there been any sightings of the Hari recently?

Taking time out from Twitter to write his book, apparently. Apart from a couple of posts about the Connecticut shooting, nothing lately.

 

[butchersapron]

so was I for a bit, so were quite a few people - what does it mean?

You were heading up the Tranquility team if i remember right:

The Tranquillity team are available 24 hours per day to support the camp in challenging oppression, resolving conflict, and keeping to collective decisions. We can arrange access to conflict mediation, and offer a fair and accountable process for dealing with concerns about behaviour. You are very welcome to contact us with any concerns, questions or feedback.

You can contact us at tranquillity et fucing cetera.

At the camp, at the Tranquillity tent, around the site (identified by green sashes), or via your neighbourhood Tranquillity reps.

 

[frogwoman]

Taking time out from twitter

Jesus

 

[Delroy Booth]

That probably means as much as anything the people that argued for a coherent approach then

Yeah that's pretty much what I thought, you mean the "not crazy wing of Climate Camp" in other words

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

You were heading up the Tranquility team if i remember right:

fuck off you cunt

 

[love detective]

you drippy little posh fucks

 

[butchersapron]

fuck off you cunt

No now, let's resolve this via midnight mediation.

 

[cesare]

Then again she did write that really bad piece in the Guardian about the police criminalising dissent, that was a bit penny-esque.

That was the handwringing piece I was referring to.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

I think you will find I did defend the trauma team or whatever they were called and I stand by that

 

[cesare]

fuck off you cunt

 

[Steel Icarus]

She can't be criticised, either, for some people. Two people have justified her calling LD "racist" now despite having no idea why. "Is he above criticism?" said one. There WASN'T any criticism; that's the whole fucking point.

 

[BigTom]

I'd trust Ellie on an action, as an activist I think she is very good even though I don't agree with her politics or the conclusions it sometimes draws her to. There's obviously issues and a debate to be had about the kind of activism she takes part in but what she does she does well and honestly.
As a case in point, Ellie got arrested at fortnum and mason, Laurie left early and Sunny Hundal tweeted about it, probably blogged it too (tbf I actually have no idea but I'd put a strong bet on him not being there). I don't remember Ellie using that arrest to further her career, I'm sure she must have written about the arrest or trials at some point but she never tried to make it about her and as a fellow arrestee who put time and effort into the defence campaign I never felt she tried to hijack, co-opt or use the arrest/trial to talk about herself or further her career.