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

[Red Cat]

check the poker faces all round

I used to think that poker faced meant that someone had a sharp and pointy face and never smiled. I thought this until I was about 38.

 

[sihhi]

this caitlin moran clusterfuck sounds like it could be a fun read, but it's very difficult to follow twitter sensations after the fact. anyone do me a short precis?

OK well here goes.

Helen Lewis posts this defence of Caitlin Moran putting foot in mouth on several occasions. It's filled with the typical sensationalism that Helen Lewis provides

It manages to big up 2 second generation immigrant journalists, that she bravely commissioned. Rebecca Omonira-Oyekanmi, the Hackney journalist who explained 'Before the riots in August, I was oblivious to any serious tensions between East London’s wildly differing communities' and Bim Adewunmi. It almost paints herself as someone battling for a working-class perspective within feminism.

Exhibit D. She “literally couldn’t give a shit about racism”.
I have to address this one, because it’s provoked some actual, proper debates that were worth having, about popular feminism’s dominance by white middle-class women. (There are two here, by Bim Adewunmi and Rebecca Omonira-Oyekanmi, both writers I respect and have commissioned on the NS site.)

So amidst these foibles the one Helen Lewis concentrates most upon is the charge of racial small-mindedness, for Caitlin Moran failing to take a screenwriter to task for her failure to include any black characters in a show set in heavily black Brooklyn.

Helen Lewis using "Let’s hurry this along, because this is making me lose the will to live" to examine the other non-black racism charges (can't think of a better phrase) is pretty much a loaded water balloon waiting to be pricked by someone. It's almost as if it's crafted by Helen Lewis to do so.

(Note that no criticisms about Caitlin Moran's classist assumptions, straw mans or how facile Caitlin Moran's 'how it's OK to have a cleaner' spiel are even addressed.)

Anyway once released onto twitter it makes people annoyed, at which point Helen Lewis says she would like to see more non-heterosexual people as journalists.

Martha Robinson PhD neuroscientist at UCL's centre mocks Helen Lewis, at which point Owen Jones jumps into attack "elitist puritanical ultras" meaning Martha.

Owen Jones continues in this general vein, Martha Robinson calls his behaviour oppressive
which leads to his assertion that "self-righteous self-appointed, ultra-pure elitists" - could mean anyone really swp, the separatist 'queer' squatting scene, iww, most of u75 p&p, radical feminists - must be opposed.

He accuses a critic of his, as displaying Stalinist behaviour for stating
"@OwenJones84 @Kosmogrrrl @helenlewis I don't think you're 'impure'. I think you're fundamentally wrong. And contribute to oppression."

Someone else points out that Owen Jones' criticisms don't actually make much sense.

It meanders nowhere for a while, with our Delroy doing his best.

Interestingly, the existing-media-power-structure-appointed 'left' journalists half begin to close ranks around Helen Lewis, with the annoying CUS-educated (exclusive private school in Dublin) writer Graham Linehan doing it in soft focus:

This brings out the (sensational) line from Laurie Penny "I spend a lot of time justifying to self and others why I'm allowed to write at all. Maybe unhelpful" (Is it the writing or the editorship?)

Dorian Lynskey (also from a family of private school students, but at least tackled it once) then chips in to tell Laurie Penny, if the writing is honest (to whom? for what?), it's all OK.

In conclusion, let us all consider Owen Jones's final word on it all: "[Calling someone Stalinist] was a response to being accused of contributing to oppression. I said it was Third Period"

 

[killer b]

thanks for that.

 

[equationgirl]

Surely by saying she's allowed to write it just continues the elitism of journalism of this sort? Who's saying she isn't allowed to write? Why does she think she's not allowed?

Is it another attempt to project unity with the working class?

 

[love detective]

i still don't have a clue what happened

seems weird though that owen jones and company are moaning about self appointed, self righteous elitists undermining progressive politics and speaking on behalf of others without their consent, isn't that what they do?

 

[DaveCinzano]

To be honest this is all hurting my head. I'm having trouble figuring out which side to root for.

 

[Delroy Booth]

To be honest this is all hurting my head. I'm having trouble figuring out which side to root for.

I think that's what's called a win-win, at least if you're mainly interested in it as entertainment.

 

[love detective]

surely to be entertained you at least need to have a scooby what's actually going on

all that stuff just seemed like white noise

 

[Balbi]

I think that's what's called a win-win, at least if you're mainly interested in it as entertainment.

Wasp lands on a nettle. Somethings going to get stung, but you don't give a fuck who.

The delicious blinkeredness of Jones, Lewis et all complaining of a self appointed elite undermining collective action sates my absurdist hunger.

No, sorry, he refers to it as "the struggle". To remain on the bestseller list

 

[Red Cat]

I take it people aren't fans of Chavs then?

What's wrong with it? Apart from him being middle class.

 

[SpineyNorman]

To be honest this is all hurting my head. I'm having trouble figuring out which side to root for.

Mutual destruction seems to preferred outcome - not sure if that means rooting for both sides or neither though

 

[Balbi]

I take it people aren't fans of Chavs then?

What's wrong with it? Apart from him being middle class.

I liked it. Bought a copy for my dad for christmas.

He's on the twat tweet train though. And this clouds centred on the NS.

 

[love detective]

I take it people aren't fans of Chavs then?

What's wrong with it? Apart from him being middle class.

a few threads about it/him here and here and here

 

[Ronnie Rubashov]

Mutual destruction seems to preferred outcome - not sure if that means rooting for both sides or neither though

I read it...don't think I cared enough to work out what was going on..but it seemed dramatic. Maybe this is the start of the schism that will destroy the whole...er...'revolution'. Which faction will the proletariat support do you think?

 

[Balbi]

Well, H Lewis just informed her followers that Dr Brooke Magnanti (belle de jour) can fuck right off.



There's an awful lot of infighting up on that pedestal.

 

[Delroy Booth]

Both sides of the argument bring out the worst in each other. There's much better grounds to criticise these people, as the gatekeepers of acceptable left discourse in this country, than interminably calling on privilige to do it. But then it's incredible how these journos instinctively circle the wagons once under the slightest bit of criticism. The way these people have reacted is hysterical, I mean Owen Jones talking about self-appointed elites and so on is a laughable notion when you consider he's one the most high profile left journalist/commentators there is (But the Stalinist jibe was great, that's Owen's inner trot momentarily escaping.)

 

[DaveCinzano]

Now Mediocre Dave is getting stuck in. World turned upside down.

 

[Mr.Bishie]

When do we take up arms?

 

[Balbi]

Armchairs, this is a popcorn event.

There'll certainly be curt dismissals and blankings at the next party Harry Cole hosts no doubt.

 

[DaveCinzano]

When do we take up arms?

Typical pro-able bodied cant

 

[Balbi]

This all stems from Helen Lewis riding her tumblr into the middle of a highly charged argument and then not conveying her own argument very well and spending the rest of the day circling the wagons and hollering because people involved in the argument unpicked what she'd said.

 

[Delroy Booth]

I take it people aren't fans of Chavs then?

What's wrong with it? Apart from him being middle class.

I enjoyed Chavs, although it's very nostalgic and Labourist, and I think he deserves credit for its success. I think his articles are generally pretty good.

It's been said on here before but even Laurie Penny writes things that are good and insightful every now and then. It's not about just slating everything they ever write or tweet for the sake of it.

 

[The39thStep]

So these people aren't so much "anarchists" as they are "social democrats who like calling themselves something edgy".

What a bunch of entitled cunts!

Sums up 95% of the anarchist scene , well done

 

[The39thStep]

I wondered what Batitusta was doing after he retired form football

 

[Red Cat]

a few threads about it/him here and here and here

Thanks.

 

[SpineyNorman]

I read it...don't think I cared enough to work out what was going on..but it seemed dramatic. Maybe this is the start of the schism that will destroy the whole...er...'revolution'. Which faction will the proletariat support do you think?

Whichever one is most racist and misogynistic probably - way too much unexamined white male privilege among the proles IMO.

 

[rosecore]

I was very annoyed at certain 'lefties' like James Ball and Jonathan Haynes of the Guardian implying we were 'too stupid' to get Moran's offensive satire. The constant back-slapping, inside jokes, blind defence of each other is really embarrassing (Linehan, Jones, Penny, Lewis, Ball, etc) whenever they get criticised. Hilarious to watch their castles wash away over such points.

 

[equationgirl]

I was very annoyed at certain 'lefties' like James Ball and Jonathan Haynes of the Guardian implying we were 'too stupid' to get Moran's offensive satire. The constant back-slapping, inside jokes, blind defence of each other is really embarrassing (Linehan, Jones, Penny, Lewis, Ball, etc) whenever they get criticised. Hilarious to watch their castles wash away over such points.

It's just an upper-class version of urban really, the only difference being we don't get £40k contracts to write about ridiculous subjects or tweet incessantly from positions of zero knowledge.

 

[free spirit]

It's just an upper-class version of urban really, the only difference being we don't get £40k contracts to write about ridiculous subjects or tweet incessantly from positions of zero knowledge.

do we not?

I'd been assuming my cheques were just getting lost in the post.

 

[exiledinwales]

Jesus these twatters are totally deluded. That line about third period Stalinism was jokes. What a bunch of fucking morons.