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

[love detective]

@PennyRed: Internet, please direct me to something rage-inducing and politically urgent enough to fill the squishy, lovesick place in my heart. Ta.

@cesareurban: @PennyRed This should do it: http://thuraltmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/slandered-by-middle-class-pc-left.html?m=1

lol - politically urgent, just when she was about to have a spot of radical downtime

 

[Firky]

@PennyRed: Internet, please direct me to something rage-inducing and politically urgent enough to fill the squishy, lovesick place in my heart. Ta.

@cesareurban: @PennyRed This should do it: http://thuraltmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/slandered-by-middle-class-pc-left.html?m=1

Back of the net

 

[Blagsta]

Laurie Penny ‏@PennyRed
@cesareurban yeah, I'm curious that my response to that post hasn't been published yet

 

[Nylock]

@PennyRed: Internet, please direct me to something rage-inducing and politically urgent enough to fill the squishy, lovesick place in my heart. Ta.

@cesareurban: @PennyRed This should do it: http://thuraltmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/slandered-by-middle-class-pc-left.html?m=1

Brace yourself for the inevitable block cesare...

 

[cesare]

Brace yourself for the inevitable block cesare...

Oh aye

 

[Treacle Toes]

Back of the net

You were retweeted as well. That's how I saw it.

 

[Buckaroo]

Draw me like one of your French, girls.

Just think this picture should be seen again.

 

[Nylock]

Just think this picture should be seen again.

looks like someone's spiked her shisha pipe with opium. Smoking a spliff spiked with the stuff had the same effect on my face as well

 

[DotCommunist]

I expect she pisses and shits like anyone else, firky

Five hours, (and who can do it less in?)
By haughty Celia spent in dressing;
The goddess from her chamber issues,
Arrayed in lace, brocades and tissues.
Strephon, who found the room was void,
And Betty otherwise employed,
Stole in, and took a strict survey,
Of all the litter as it lay;
Whereof, to make the matter clear,
And inventory follows here.
And first a dirty smock appeared,
Beneath the armpits well besmeared.
Strephon, the rogue, displayed it wide,
And turned it round on every side.
On such a point few words are best,
And Strephon bids us guess the rest,
But swears how damnably the men lie,
In calling Celia sweet and cleanly.
Now listen while he next produces
The various combs for various uses,
Filled up with dirt so closely fixt,
No brush could force a way betwixt.
A paste of composition rare,
Sweat, dandruff, powder, lead and hair;
A forehead cloth with oil upon’t
To smooth the wrinkles on her front;
Here alum flower to stop the steams,
Exhaled from sour unsavory streams,
There night-gloves made of Tripsy’s hide,
Bequeathed by Tripsy when she died,
With puppy water, beauty’s help
Distilled from Tripsy’s darling whelp;
Here gallypots and vials placed,
Some filled with washes, some with paste,
Some with pomatum, paints and slops,
And ointments good for scabby chops.
Hard by a filthy basin stands,
Fouled with the scouring of her hands;
The basin takes whatever comes
The scrapings of her teeth and gums,
A nasty compound of all hues,
For here she spits, and here she spews.
But oh! it turned poor Strephon’s bowels,
When he beheld and smelled the towels,
Begummed, bemattered, and beslimed
With dirt, and sweat, and earwax grimed.
No object Strephon’s eye escapes,
Here petticoats in frowzy heaps;
Nor be the handkerchiefs forgot
All varnished o’er with snuff and snot.
The stockings why should I expose,
Stained with the marks of stinking toes;
Or greasy coifs and pinners reeking,
Which Celia slept at least a week in?
A pair of tweezers next he found
To pluck her brows in arches round,
Or hairs that sink the forehead low,
Or on her chin like bristles grow.
The virtues we must not let pass,
Of Celia’s magnifying glass.
When frightened Strephon cast his eye on’t
It showed visage of a giant.
A glass that can to sight disclose,
The smallest worm in Celia’s nose,
And faithfully direct her nail
To squeeze it out from head to tail;
For catch it nicely by the head,
It must come out alive or dead.
Why Strephon will you tell the rest?
And must you needs describe the chest?
That careless wench! no creature warn her
To move it out from yonder corner;
But leave it standing full in sight
For you to exercise your spite.
In vain the workman showed his wit
With rings and hinges counterfeit
To make it seem in this disguise
A cabinet to vulgar eyes;
For Strephon ventured to look in,
Resolved to go through thick and thin;
He lifts the lid, there needs no more,
He smelled it all the time before.
As from within Pandora’s box,
When Epimetheus op’d the locks,
A sudden universal crew
Of human evils upwards flew;
He still was comforted to find
That Hope at last remained behind;
So Strephon lifting up the lid,
To view what in the chest was hid.
The vapors flew from out the vent,
But Strephon cautious never meant
The bottom of the pan to grope,
And foul his hands in search of Hope.
O never may such vile machine
Be once in Celia’s chamber seen!
O may she better learn to keep
Those “secrets of the hoary deep!”
As mutton cutlets, prime of meat,
Which though with art you salt and beat
As laws of cookery require,
And toast them at the clearest fire;
If from adown the hopeful chops
The fat upon a cinder drops,
To stinking smoke it turns the flame
Pois’ning the flesh from whence it came,
And up exhales a greasy stench,
For which you curse the careless wench;
So things, which must not be expressed,
When plumped into the reeking chest,
Send up an excremental smell
To taint the parts from whence they fell.
The petticoats and gown perfume,
Which waft a stink round every room.
Thus finishing his grand survey,
Disgusted Strephon stole away
Repeating in his amorous fits,
Oh! Celia, Celia, Celia shits!
But Vengeance, goddess never sleeping
Soon punished Strephon for his peeping;
His foul imagination links
Each Dame he sees with all her stinks:
And, if unsavory odors fly,
Conceives a lady standing by:
All women his description fits,
And both ideas jump like wits:
But vicious fancy coupled fast,
And still appearing in contrast.
I pity wretched Strephon blind
To all the charms of female kind;
Should I the queen of love refuse,
Because she rose from stinking ooze?
To him that looks behind the scene,
Satira’s but some pocky queen.
When Celia in her glory shows,
If Strephon would but stop his nose
(Who now so impiously blasphemes
Her ointments, daubs, and paints and creams,
Her washes, slops, and every clout,
With which he makes so foul a rout)
He soon would learn to think like me,
And bless his ravished sight to see
Such order from confusion sprung,
Such gaudy tulips raised from dung.

 

[Firky]

You were retweeted as well. That's how I saw it.

By who? I am useless with twitter.

 

[DotCommunist]

swift was a bit weird wasn't he

 

[Treacle Toes]

By who? I am useless with twitter.

'Housing solidarity' IIRC

 

[DotCommunist]

not a chance, she's totally out her depth and has been exposed as a liar and a fraud in terms of the discussion, she doesn't want any more light shone on this whole thing. her strategy now is to pretend none of this ever happened and for it to be drowned out/disappeared through getting back to banal ephemeral twitter activity

I think you may be right here, but there is every chance her innate arrogance will demand an answer- not a direct one mark ye. A piece about 'those people' that does not reference anyone directly. We'll see.

 

[Firky]

'Housing solidarity' IIRC

Ta!

I need to set up the list thing, my feed is so full of new messages (refused to call them tweets) that it's hard to know wtf is going on.

 

[Treacle Toes]

Ta!

I need to set up the list thing, my feed is so full of new messages (refused to call them tweets) that it's hard to know wtf is going on.

Click on 'connect' and you will see who has retweeted, followed and favorited you.

 

[Steel Icarus]

The #NRA issue has underlined, for me and for many others, the enormity of the gulf between left and right in the USA.

 

[Balbi]

There's certainly a gulf between left and right, but it's in reference to space in between ears.

 

[cesare]

I've been given permission from this Liverpool based blogger to post a link to this article: http://propertyistheft.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/the-argument-against-multiculturalism/

 

[Buckaroo]

Five hours, (and who can do it less in?)
By haughty Celia spent in dressing;
The goddess from her chamber issues,
Arrayed in lace, brocades and tissues.
Strephon, who found the room was void,
And Betty otherwise employed,
Stole in, and took a strict survey,
Of all the litter as it lay;
Whereof, to make the matter clear,
And inventory follows here.
And first a dirty smock appeared,
Beneath the armpits well besmeared.
Strephon, the rogue, displayed it wide,
And turned it round on every side.
On such a point few words are best,
And Strephon bids us guess the rest,
But swears how damnably the men lie,
In calling Celia sweet and cleanly.
Now listen while he next produces
The various combs for various uses,
Filled up with dirt so closely fixt,
No brush could force a way betwixt.
A paste of composition rare,
Sweat, dandruff, powder, lead and hair;
A forehead cloth with oil upon’t
To smooth the wrinkles on her front;
Here alum flower to stop the steams,
Exhaled from sour unsavory streams,
There night-gloves made of Tripsy’s hide,
Bequeathed by Tripsy when she died,
With puppy water, beauty’s help
Distilled from Tripsy’s darling whelp;
Here gallypots and vials placed,
Some filled with washes, some with paste,
Some with pomatum, paints and slops,
And ointments good for scabby chops.
Hard by a filthy basin stands,
Fouled with the scouring of her hands;
The basin takes whatever comes
The scrapings of her teeth and gums,
A nasty compound of all hues,
For here she spits, and here she spews.
But oh! it turned poor Strephon’s bowels,
When he beheld and smelled the towels,
Begummed, bemattered, and beslimed
With dirt, and sweat, and earwax grimed.
No object Strephon’s eye escapes,
Here petticoats in frowzy heaps;
Nor be the handkerchiefs forgot
All varnished o’er with snuff and snot.
The stockings why should I expose,
Stained with the marks of stinking toes;
Or greasy coifs and pinners reeking,
Which Celia slept at least a week in?
A pair of tweezers next he found
To pluck her brows in arches round,
Or hairs that sink the forehead low,
Or on her chin like bristles grow.
The virtues we must not let pass,
Of Celia’s magnifying glass.
When frightened Strephon cast his eye on’t
It showed visage of a giant.
A glass that can to sight disclose,
The smallest worm in Celia’s nose,
And faithfully direct her nail
To squeeze it out from head to tail;
For catch it nicely by the head,
It must come out alive or dead.
Why Strephon will you tell the rest?
And must you needs describe the chest?
That careless wench! no creature warn her
To move it out from yonder corner;
But leave it standing full in sight
For you to exercise your spite.
In vain the workman showed his wit
With rings and hinges counterfeit
To make it seem in this disguise
A cabinet to vulgar eyes;
For Strephon ventured to look in,
Resolved to go through thick and thin;
He lifts the lid, there needs no more,
He smelled it all the time before.
As from within Pandora’s box,
When Epimetheus op’d the locks,
A sudden universal crew
Of human evils upwards flew;
He still was comforted to find
That Hope at last remained behind;
So Strephon lifting up the lid,
To view what in the chest was hid.
The vapors flew from out the vent,
But Strephon cautious never meant
The bottom of the pan to grope,
And foul his hands in search of Hope.
O never may such vile machine
Be once in Celia’s chamber seen!
O may she better learn to keep
Those “secrets of the hoary deep!”
As mutton cutlets, prime of meat,
Which though with art you salt and beat
As laws of cookery require,
And toast them at the clearest fire;
If from adown the hopeful chops
The fat upon a cinder drops,
To stinking smoke it turns the flame
Pois’ning the flesh from whence it came,
And up exhales a greasy stench,
For which you curse the careless wench;
So things, which must not be expressed,
When plumped into the reeking chest,
Send up an excremental smell
To taint the parts from whence they fell.
The petticoats and gown perfume,
Which waft a stink round every room.
Thus finishing his grand survey,
Disgusted Strephon stole away
Repeating in his amorous fits,
Oh! Celia, Celia, Celia shits!
But Vengeance, goddess never sleeping
Soon punished Strephon for his peeping;
His foul imagination links
Each Dame he sees with all her stinks:
And, if unsavory odors fly,
Conceives a lady standing by:
All women his description fits,
And both ideas jump like wits:
But vicious fancy coupled fast,
And still appearing in contrast.
I pity wretched Strephon blind
To all the charms of female kind;
Should I the queen of love refuse,
Because she rose from stinking ooze?
To him that looks behind the scene,
Satira’s but some pocky queen.
When Celia in her glory shows,
If Strephon would but stop his nose
(Who now so impiously blasphemes
Her ointments, daubs, and paints and creams,
Her washes, slops, and every clout,
With which he makes so foul a rout)
He soon would learn to think like me,
And bless his ravished sight to see
Such order from confusion sprung,
Such gaudy tulips raised from dung.

Nobody is calling her a prostitute but that's beautiful. It's Jonathon Swift (I googled it)

By haughty Celia spent in dressing;
The goddess from her chamber issues...

For which you curse the careless wench;
So things, which must not be expressed,
When plumped into the reeking chest,
Send up an excremental smell

That careless wench! no creature warn her
To move it out from yonder corner;
But leave it standing full in sight

'Such order from confusion sprung, Such gaudy tulips raised from dung'

 

[Firky]

I've been given permission from this Liverpool based blogger to post a link to this article: http://propertyistheft.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/the-argument-against-multiculturalism/

That's a good article.q

 

[cesare]

That's a good article.q

Yep, and I think it does a lot to explain why people still have a resistance to/or jump to the wrong conclusion when they see anti-multiculturalism views expressed.

 

[butchersapron]

That piece is entirely focused on culture, no class or material basis, nothing about the political motivation of what he calls normative mc. It treats the latter as an extension of an academic discourse rather than a political project underpinned by material demands and motivations. Idealism in short, with the response being another better idealism.

 

[cesare]

That piece is entirely focused on culture, no class or material basis, nothing about the political motivation of what he calls normative mc. It treats the latter as an extension of an academic discourse rather than a political project underpinned by material demands and motivations. Idealism in short, with the response being another better idealism.

Maybe he's addressing the specific issue, and has written further on the other matters you mention?

 

[rekil]

In my defence I retweeted Michael Moore ironically, honest - racist is bad enough but I'm buggered if I'm having people think I'm a Michael Moore fan!

It was more about the absurd idea that a "twitter feed full of hate" would include Michael Moore.

 

[cesare]

Look I wasn't offering up that blog piece as some kind of "this is how we should all be anti-multicultarilists" with every nuance built in. He's someone else on twitter that was annoyed by Penny's "racist" comment and had linked to something he'd written in the past that (I thought) was helpful in addressing her reactionary "racist" comment in the context of advocating that anti-multiculturalism isn't necessarily RACIST and why not.

 

[love detective]

I think you may be right here, but there is every chance her innate arrogance will demand an answer- not a direct one mark ye. A piece about 'those people' that does not reference anyone directly. We'll see.

a depoliticised internet trolls piece perhaps, where all political content is emptied out of our criticisms, or conflated with political/misogynist attacks on her from the right

 

[Ronnie Rubashov]

Look I wasn't offering up that blog piece as some kind of "this is how we should all be anti-multicultarilists" with every nuance built in. He's someone else on twitter that was annoyed by Penny's "racist" comment and had linked to something he'd written in the past that (I thought) was helpful in addressing her reactionary "racist" comment in the context of advocating that anti-multiculturalism isn't necessarily RACIST and why not.

Dunno about this. I agree...but it's the phrase 'isn't necessarily racist'...which implies in most cases it is. it's even a bit apologetic. I've no doubt that all racists are anti-multiculturalist. How could they fail to be?

Consider: all humans are mammals. It by no means infers all mammals are human; nor any suggestion that a majority of mammals are human...or even that a mammal selected at random has anything but a tiny probability of being human.

Now I'm happy to assent to the claim that all racists are anti-multiculturalist, but again, all the above conditions apply. There is no need to qualify "I'm against multiculturalism" with a statement that I'm not racist. The reason people feel obliged to do so is the absurd and unwarranted belief among the liberal middle classes that they're the only enlightened and basically decent human beings within society...and to be considered a decent person, you need to believe what they do...and they believe that if you're not a full-on cultural relativist, you're basically an unthinking troglodyte. However, there's no logical or empirical basis to this belief and a shit load of evidence to suggest multiculturalism is a busted flush.

There's absolutely no need to keep adding a rider to "I'm against multiculturalism" and all the unfounded assumptions and dogma belong to those who think there is. It's up to them to make their case...and they can't. That's why they resort to slurs and innuendo then fuck off quick and give rational debate the body swerve.

 

[butchersapron]

Look I wasn't offering up that blog piece as some kind of "this is how we should all be anti-multicultarilists" with every nuance built in. He's someone else on twitter that was annoyed by Penny's "racist" comment and had linked to something he'd written in the past that (I thought) was helpful in addressing her reactionary "racist" comment in the context of advocating that anti-multiculturalism isn't necessarily RACIST and why not.

No worries, and we could throw a whole series of non-scary people who have argued along similar lines at her: Amartya Sen, Paul Gilroy etc - that said, this would surely be pandering to her smear and the way in which it was made (and the function it performs) by arguing look here some other respectable people who you may even pretend to have read say it's ok (and as a bonus one is black and one asian). So i'll not be bothering to help her later bluffing on the issue

 

[cesare]

Dunno about this. I agree...but it's the phrase 'isn't necessarily racist'...which implies in most cases it is. it's even a bit apologetic. I've no doubt that all racists are anti-multiculturalist. How could they fail to be

"Isn't necessarily" is down to me, not down to what he said. Yes, it probably was a bit apologist tbf. To be clearer and less nicey nicey apologist I'm not saying that anti-multicultarilism implies that in most cases it's racist. And I don't agree with your implication that it is. That's your implication not mine, so fuck off.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

LP's responded in the comments:
http://thuraltmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/slandered-by-middle-class-pc-left.html?m=1