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

[weepiper]

I think it's supposed to look like the old fashioned circus posters.

Well it doesn't. It looks like the sort of thing I tell my 9 year old off for writing her homework in. Obv I am a total fascist though.

 

[frogwoman]

Well it doesn't. It looks like the sort of thing I tell my 9 year old off for writing her homework in. Obv I am a total fascist though.

that's worse than the holocaust weeps

 

[cesare]

I've got déjà vu now. I'm sure I remember this conversation

 

[weepiper]

I've got déjà vu now. I'm sure I remember this conversation

maybe I said it before

 

[cesare]

maybe I said it before

Not just you! All the comments about her drawing style I think I said it looked a bit like Ronald Searle's and then Idris (I think) said no, someone else. I just can't remember which thread.

 

[SpineyNorman]

I'm still fucking fuming about what Laura did yesterday by the way. Partly it's because I can think of few worse things to be called than a racist and to be tarred with that brush in front of such a big audience is pretty fucking irritating. But I think it's also the hypocrisy of it all - she's always on about privilege, but then she uses her own obvious and massive privilege to slander me and LD, and by association the IWCA and I guess anyone on the left who dislikes identity politics, then remove any possible opportunity for a right of reply.

It's pretty fucking low and I think it says a huge amount about her - she doesn't have a problem with power - she just has a problem with people other than her and those who think like her exercising it. Fucking Fabian scum.

Anyway, as anyone who knows me in real life would agree, I'm usually a very laid back, mild mannered person who doesn't take life too seriously. But when I feel like it, if I'm pushed too far, I can be a right spiteful, vindictive, grudge bearing bastard when I want to be. Maybe that means I'm multi-human or whatever it was that daft pseud twatted at @lauriepenny - if so the human I am right now is of the vicious, grudge bearing wee bastard persuasion. So I would appreciate any suggestions for revenge.

Obviously they'd have to be non-misogynistic, non-violent etc - because even if I didn't adhere to those principles I'd be loath to allow her any excuse to cry foul play.

 

[ViolentPanda]

This stuff just reminds me why I had to get away from these sorts of privilege/identity politic spaces (even as someone who saw/still sees some value in it) - every discussion just got closed down with this sort of 'racist/sexist/homophobic' accusation without barely analysing anything.

And class/capital based stuff was nearly always pushed into the background.

It's so much easier, especially if you're a member of the bourgeoisie whose aim is to surf to power/influence on the back of the class you so desperately want to ride in the vanguard of. Analysing issues of class means having to admit the above not only to yourself, but to your fellow-travellers too.

 

[Firky]

Not just you! All the comments about her drawing style I think I said it looked a bit like Ronald Searle's and then Idris (I think) said no, someone else. I just can't remember which thread.

Searle is very generous of you!

 

[ViolentPanda]

A mate of mine was involved with that. He's currently holed up somewhere in Norfolk writing a book on Genoa. Been nearly ten years in the making, I hope it's gonna be worth reading!

Time flows differently in Norfolk.

 

[sihhi]

If we think it's bad in this country, the future is in America. This is an article on the US New Inquiry magazine, which Laurie Penny has written for on several occasions.

http://www.rhizzone.net/article/2012/09/29/fuck-new-inquiry-and-other-tales/

I don't agree with its conclusions necessarily and it is quite pretentious and is a hard read, but it is interesting.

On Sunday 16th September, Doug Henwood posted this on his facebook page: A “very young anarchist pseudo-celebrity” was charging a speaking fee of $5,000 - not including travel and expenses. He then revealed their identity - Malcolm Harris, 23 year-old senior editor of The New Inquiry... But what if this is a symptom of something bigger and more problematic, both at the journal Harris and Rosenfelt run, and within the left itself?

I recommend reading it if you have the time, following the links

This is a sample of a reading event of theirs (note the Mao in the :

New York Times article here gives a sense of what these radical evenings are like:

The highlight of each salon is a group reading in which each person selects a three-minute reading on the predetermined topic. “We’re reading about ‘failed revolutions’ tonight,” Ms. Rosenfelt reminded the crowd. She started with a passage from “To the Finland Station,” “in which Edmund Wilson couches the inevitable failure of Marxism in Edmund Wilson’s idea of the national and ethnic identity of Marx.” The room exploded in vaudeville-style hoots. Continuing around the circle, Ms. Fitzgerald, the would-be magazine writer, read from “The Cantos,” by Ezra Pound. Mr. Osterweil, the frustrated novelist, read from Guy Debord’s “Society of the Spectacle.” Tim Barker, a junior at Columbia, awkwardly admitted that he, too, had chosen a reading from Debord. (What are the odds?)

It goes on:

Their upbringings tell the story: they are raised in environments riddled with venality and the ethic of accumulation, and they were inculcated with very high expectations for their own lives and careers. No wonder they’re monetising the undying crap out of their disaffection! It’s how they were raised! They were bred to make money and claw their way up poles greasier than any of us could imagine! And none of this is hidden! I just looked up these people on Facebook! No, the real problem lies in the acquiescence of the rest of the left when confronted with this, and the relative ease that these people can ride off the real work of others. People who are involved in making actual contributions to radical movements will, for some reason, jump at the chance to have their material appear in TNI or n+1 or whatever, and as such lend them a measure of legitimacy. Never mind that the actual political positions that the editorial staffs of these publications hold are usually vapid or incoherent or both - when they are able to hold events that attract figures with a little more gravity (like Doug Henwood or David Graeber), they become embedded in the production of the discourse that shapes where the left is going. The importance of these publications distorts priorities and promotes elitism.

 

[frogwoman]

god this just sounds like a vision of hell, somebody make it stop

 

[Belushi]

Its screaming out for an intervention

 

[frogwoman]

I dont want to live any more

 

[SpineyNorman]

If you want a picture of the future imagine @lauriepenny lecturing you on privilege - forever.

 

[sihhi]

god this just sounds like a vision of hell, somebody make it stop

Have you read the links FW, these events are advertised as examinations of 'Failed revolutions', it's not just book club in Manhattan.

 

[barney_pig]

wrong. i and five others were removed from the member list of one medium sized branch in one year.

When I went out I was out straight away, being blanked by old 'friends' within weeks, and never had a ib or anything else again.
It may have been my ranting resignation letter. Or perhaps my 'forthright' demand for my money back from the Bookmarks club.

 

[Ronnie Rubashov]

The picture's shite, but the idea's got mileage. I could do with an intern sketching my life. Be a lot of soulless eyes staring into the abyss and stuff...and me desperately trying to be optimistic when the phone rings, and empty cans and 3 litre plastic bottles.
But, when all's said and done, that's an 'identity'...and affirming identity is art's new moral purpose. And I would make sure they always drew where I'd put down my keys.
Might even be an idea to get a poet to tag along too...they could kinda obliquely reference where I'd been the night before in a note on the fridge.
Sorted...I love the new gonzo tourism.

 

[DotCommunist]

I'm confused.

Perhaps the artist behind it, Molly Crabbapple, will help explain things:

"It's unconventional for an artist to go see history in person. It's photographers and journalists who venture into the world. A few brilliant illustrators like Susie Cagle and Joe Sacco have begun to blur the lines, but mostly artists stay politely in their studios. With Discordia, I wanted to help prove that, in a world where a thousand iPhone photos mark each time a cop smashes a protester's skull, illustration still has something to say. The media is battling it out over the limits of objective journalism. But visual art has no pretence of objectivity. It's a definitely subjective and joyous interpretation. Ralph Steadman's spattered Kentucky Derby captured the whisky gentry more accurately than any photo. Art draws the truth from the twitpics."

I knew I recognised the style, only its not so brutal and weird as steadman. Theres a different softer take to the lines

ahem

 

[sihhi]

The ginger guy in the centre is the 22/3-year-old charging $5,000 exclusive of travel, food and expenses to give a talk about Occupy and anti-capitalism.

 

[frogwoman]

make it stop

 

[Firky]

Anyone here actually recognise him, a lot of people on here with a lot of years of knowledge?

 

[framed]

 

[SpineyNorman]

The picture's shite, but the idea's got mileage. I could do with an intern sketching my life. Be a lot of soulless eyes staring into the abyss and stuff...and me desperately trying to be optimistic when the phone rings, and empty cans and 3 litre plastic bottles.
But, when all's said and done, that's an 'identity'...and affirming identity is art's new moral purpose. And I would make sure they always drew where I'd put down my keys.
Might even be an idea to get a poet to tag along too...they could kinda obliquely reference where I'd been the night before in a note on the fridge.
Sorted...I love the new gonzo tourism.

Christ, your initials aren't NB are they? You remind me of someone I know very, very well. In fact the resemblance is uncanny.

 

[ViolentPanda]

One thing that is intriguing is how leftie journalists always big up other leftie journalists as being the *best thing*. Here is Sunny Hundal pointing out America Matt Taibi in the Rolling Stone is superior to any activist or academic on the left in this country in analysis of capitalism:


Alex ‏@Potentia_Space
@sunny_hundal I think an understanding of how capitalism works is essential for the development of a strategy to combat austerity

Sunny Hundal‏@sunny_hundal​

@Potentia_Space Matt Taibi / Rolling Stone for eg does a much better job than any radical academic or activist on left in the UK.

Wouldn't do for Hundal to admit that someone in the UK that he doesn't know (or more likely has fucked the Lib-Dem cunt off with a boot up his arse) has a clue, so referencing some journo who writes "popular economics" for a rock mag probably appeals to him as a decent face-saver.
As far as I'm aware, some activists etc have given Hundal a fairly wide berth due to his L-D apologism, and his sometimes childish (it seems to be a common disease with these entitled "activist journos") reaction to anything approaching criticism of his work. In his imagination he's a latter-day Fisk or Pilger. In reality he's not even a Nigel fucking Dempster.

 

[discokermit]

When I went out I was out straight away, being blanked by old 'friends' within weeks, and never had a ib or anything else again.
It may have been my ranting resignation letter. Or perhaps my 'forthright' demand for my money back from the Bookmarks club.

looking back, ranting in a public meeting, tearing my party card up, then storming out, may not have done my case any good.

 

[Ronnie Rubashov]

Christ, your initials aren't NB are they? You remind me of someone I know very, very well. In fact the resemblance is uncanny.

Nope...sorry?

 

[Blagsta]

The ginger guy in the centre is the 22/3-year-old charging $5,000 exclusive of travel, food and expenses to give a talk about Occupy and anti-capitalism.

What a cunt.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I think Sunny does have some kind of America problem - that US people are *smarter* - hence him rating Matt Taibi above all British left intellectuals David Harvey, Ben Fine, Hillel Ticktin, David Yaaffe etc etc.

Plus there's the whole cachet of name-dropping someone that some people might not be aware of - sort of a grow-up(ish) version of the late teenager mocking someone's musical taste by saying "you like them? I liked them before they sold out! Nowadays I prefer *Sonic Death Monkey!".

*Sorry for the film reference.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Nope...sorry?

Fair anough, it's just your turn of phrase and love of cheap cider (assuming that's what the plastic bottles contained) rang a bell.

It's more compliment than insult by the way, the bloke I'm thinking of is my older brother and although he does my head in at times I love the daft old fart.

 

[Firky]

Everyone loves cheap cider