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

[Balbi]

Love those rugs though

 

[Nylock]

For her to bother to turn up at all was something. It wasn't going to work very well, obviously, as there were some really hard questions.

It also wasn't going to work very well due to her arrival on this thread via a cartoon that portrayed "her" getting the shit kicked out of her so, tbf, she was primed to see us all as a bunch of hateful misogynist shitheads from the outset. This doesn't mean that i condone her behaviour on arrival here but i reckon it goes some way towards explaining her interactions with people in this thread since she registered. Especially the selective quoting and so forth.

 

[Balbi]

Doubt anyone will even try and be interested when the combined lighthouse/foghorn of the new radical left has decreed it to be racist. Nobody likes racists.

 

[Captain Hurrah]

All that literary party stuff is hideous.

 

[love detective]

Why though? While I can understand you being pissed off about being called a racist, is it worth all the effort when the only people who will ever hear of Laura and her ilk, let alone take them seriously, are surely those who would have no interest in your kind of politics anyway?

why do anything in life LLETSA?

Her antics yesterday has given some an energy and spur to 'do' something about her type in a more constructive way, it's either channel that energy into a more structural critique of the type of people that the system produces, or use it in a more bitter and negative way by just sniping at her as an individual on message boards like this (or even more derivative and pointless to snipe at the people at who snipe at her on messages boards like this, i mean you never seem to tire of telling us about how you're not bothered by her or any of this, why do you bother?)

 

[frogwoman]

why do anything in life LLETSA?

Her antics yesterday has given some an energy and spur to 'do' something about her type in a more constructive way, it's either channel that energy into a more structural critique of the type of people that the system produces, or use it in a more bitter and negative way by just sniping at her as an individual on message boards like this (or even more derivative and pointless to snipe at the people at who snipe at her on messages boards like this, i mean you never seem to tire of telling us about how you're not bothered by her or any of this, why do you bother?)

I think you should go for it, i know weve had our differences in the past but seeing two people i respect smeared by a well known journalist is a position of power (and then being told you are privileged) is beyond disgusting tbh

let me know if there's anything i can do to help out

 

[rekil]

Damn, I live in Brooklyn

Now that's internationalism!

 

[Steel Icarus]

Damn, I live in Brooklyn . . . I have a beard . . . I wear t shirts with ironic statements . . . and I'm strawberry blonde. Why don't I know these people?

All you need to do is to find a British Voice of a Generation anarchist-multi-human-scribe, be "of color" and do a little dance to inspire them.

 

[Orang Utan]

OK, look away now, the last one here with Malcolm in red shirt:

)

Stay away from rugs, kids

 

[spawnofsatan]

Stay away from rugs, kids

Its an Incredible string band gig isn't it?

 

[Idris2002]

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.

No, I meant that Searle's style was closer to that of Norn Iron cartoonist Rowel Friers - whose work is curiously rare on the web.

 

[cesare]

No, I meant that Searle's style was closer to that of Norn Iron cartoonist Rowel Friers - whose work is curiously rare on the web.

Sorry, I'd forgotten exactly what you said But at least that confirms that the conversation *did* take place ... Somewhere.

 

[not-bono-ever]

OK, look away now, the last one here with Malcolm in red shirt:

smug iphone using hand wringing needy bleaty liberal scum.This lot will be first against the wall.

 

[SpineyNorman]

I've also got a huge capacity to hold and act on a rational justified grudge. For some reason though her racist accusations is not the main thing spurring me to do something, the main reason is just her in general,not her specific attacks on me, but who she is, what she does and how she does it, and what that means about the capacity and eagerness of the wider left in general to tolerate time and time again developments that are poisonous and corrosive to it

As someone famous once said the weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism of the weapon, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses. Amongst all the dross, this thread is packed full of incisive, pertinent, prescient, revealing and honest criticisms of Laurie Penny that is currently not being used in a productive way, the problem is that most of it is dwarved and hidden both by the dross but also just by the nature of how discussion threads are, which means only the small amount of people who have participated in it is aware of all the gems of solid criticism within it, there's no way in it's current state is it possible of 'gripping the masses' (lol)

So I think a useful (productive? satisfying?) response would be to put together some kind of 'dossier' that extracts and distils all the good stuff from this thread and present it in a structured logical way that can be circulated widely as an honest comprehensive and emotion free account of who she is, what she does and how she does it, leaving no room for the type of get out and avoidance tactics that she employs when asked to respond to the criticisms of this thread itself. We moaned at her for not responding to the substantive points on this thread, but i'd struggle to find the substantive points in around 8,000 posts if I was coming to it cold. More importantly, so would any bystander who holds an open mind on it.

I shouldn't even be thinking about doing anything like this, but it does feel at the moment that it would be a worthwhile thing to do, you up for it?

Great post - we should definitely do this. I'd have been all in favour of going to meetings she's speaking at and throwing lumps of shit at her but that seems like a more productive response!

 

[killer b]

fwiw, from my understanding of twitter, she didn't call you a racist to all her followers: when you @ someone on twitter, the only people who can see it are those who are following both participants, or those who are directly viewing your twitter page - so the actual number of people who potentially saw the libel will be much lower than all her followers. (not defending her btw, but for the sake of accuracy)

 

[weepiper]

fwiw, from my understanding of twitter, she didn't call you a racist to all her followers: when you @ someone on twitter, the only people who can see it are those who are following both participants, or those who are directly viewing your twitter page - so the actual number of people who potentially saw the libel will be much lower than all her followers. (not defending her btw, but for the sake of accuracy)

That's true but in the ensuing shit-storm lots of other people with lots of followers weighed in (Owen Jones and Billy Bragg for example) meaning anyone who follows both them and Laurie Penny (which will be a lot of people) will have seen their conversations on their feed and could easily have gone to have a look.

 

[cesare]

So what exactly did she say? In the potentially defamatory context, I mean.

 

[weepiper]

So what exactly did she say? In the potentially defamatory context, I mean.

@LoveDetective1 @spineynorman78 oh. Oh, I see. You're racist. That makes this so much easier *blocks*

@brianwhelanhack@lovedetective1@spineynorman78 ok, to clarify: I think the article is racist, and so is using it as a basis for argument.

 

[cesare]

Have the IWCA taken advice on this? Especially as she published it (via Brian Whelan) to a national, iirc.

 

[Jon-of-arc]

Why are people who have contributed throughout the thread being told to get off it once LP arrived? That's a fine political reaction to bullshit, but it basically didn't exist (beyond a few isolated examples) until LP arrived and a few posters decided that they should have freedom of the thread because no-one else was capable of challenging LP.

It's almost as if a certain person is so completely lacking in self awareness that he is happy to accuse LP of attempting to speak on behalf of an entire group of people with no mandate to do so, whilst doing exactly that himself. It's almost as if he woke up one day and decided that because he knows a lot that he has a right to be an unchallenged arsehole to pretty much anyone he feels like, and that on the same morning a few sycophants decided they were happy to indulge him in this belief.

The most upsetting thing is that in the main, they were really really shit at it as well.

(delroy blakes efforts were pretty good, mind...)

Anyway, why do people care so much about Laurie Penny? "It's not about Laura, it's about journalism!" - Bollocks.

 

[killer b]

It's almost as if a certain person

why are you and SLK being so coy? if you think butchers has something to answer for, call him on it.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

[quote="Jon-of-arc, post: 11805367 Anyway, why do people care so much about Laurie Penny? "It's not about Laura, it's about journalism!" - Bollocks.[/quote]

Have you ever felt that you're not quite getting it...that somewhere you're missing the point...a nagging awareness that you're just off the pace?

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[ska invita]

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.

""No wonder they’re monetising the undying crap out of their disaffection! "" good quote.

There was an interesting class analysis bit done on Occupy Wall Street that adds up with all this http://www.theblaze.com/stories/jon...egation-class-warfare-in-the-occupy-movement/
...had these upstarts holding "horizontal meetings" in private away from the riffraff in the lobby of a bank of all places

 

[butchersapron]

why are you and SLK being so coy? if you think butchers has something to answer for, call him on it.

How can they misread telling dwyer to get off the thread so badly

(hint here jon: i was mocking his own comedic use of just that approach)

 

[cesare]

(delroy blakes efforts were pretty good, mind...)

.

Delroy Booth and Roj Blake

 

[Jon-of-arc]

Have you ever felt that you're not quite getting it...that somewhere you're missing the point...a nagging awareness that you're just off the pace?

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

Sure, but not here.

 

[Jon-of-arc]

How can they misread telling dwyer to get off the thread so badly

(hint here jon: i was mocking his own comedic use of just that approach)

And Firky? And 8den? And me a few weeks back one multiple occassions?

 

[rekil]

And Firky? And 8den? And me a few weeks back one multiple occassions?

That was me that had a go at 8den and I am a bit sorry about it as it led to another pointless derail.

 

[TruXta]

What was that about infighting on the left?

 

[butchersapron]

And Firky? And 8den? And me a few weeks back one multiple occassions?

Astonishing now that people have become so soppy that someone pointing out the consequences of their actions were actually achieving the opposite of their intended aim and pissing all over other peoples substantive contributions results in such outrage. Or that telling another poster that that their bringing in years old beef to a thread that has nothing to do with it (and i note no outrage at 8den simply making stuff up goes by without any comment or condemnation from you) is a bit shit is somehow verboten. It's almost as if i'm interested in the thread and how and where its going - a bit like you jon eh?