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

[discokermit]

Why have you posted a picture of Rees in a thread about Callinicos and Penny?

to remind people who the real enemy is?

 

[killer b]

most of the trot books had gone today, but i took a punt on a few of what was left:

callinicos - southern africa after zimbabwe
tony cliff - the crisis, social contract or socialism
two volumes of a biography of trotsky by tony cliff
ian h. birchall - workers against the monolith, the communist parties since 1943
martin walker - the national front

all of them seem to be of an age...

 

[articul8]

Don't you get them for free?

I get some (not all, not by any stretch) new ones for free but not random old stuff. eg I'm just re-reading the Bornstein/Richardson 2 vol history of Trotskyism in Britain.

Still a sucker for the charity shop bookshelves

 

[belboid]

tony cliff - the crisis, social contract or socialism

ian h. birchall - workers against the monolith, the communist parties since 1943

those two are well worth a read, of their time but interesting commentaries

 

[Fozzie Bear]

martin walker - the national front

that one is quite good, and by a Guardian journo rather than a trot if I remember rightly.

 

[butchersapron]

He's quite the bigshot in international stuff now.

 

[imposs1904]

Marxism Festival 2011 Dublin Nov 18th to 20th. Laurie was due to flog her buke at this but it appears she's in the america. Why would they invite a Lib Dem to this sort of do? Tickets are 30 quid.

She's in New York on the 23rd, plugging her new book at Bluestockings bookstore on the Lower East Side.

 

[Orang Utan]

why are people so obsessed with her? her heart's in the right place, surely?
seems to be a veneer of reverse snobbery/misogyny running through parts of this thread.

 

[butchersapron]

I hate woman and posh people.

Is that why you think people have criticised her?

 

[Orang Utan]

not everyone, but there seems to be an element of it in some posts.

 

[butchersapron]

Which ones?

 

[Orang Utan]

Was more thinking along the lines of punching her face in

What, some minor journalist who's little more than a schoolgirl? Get a grip.

there's two for a start, but a couple of more serious posts made me think, 'so what? why criticise her for that?' gimme a minute.

 

[Orang Utan]

This bit is brilliant.
""We were living like a scene from Withnail & I, except there was no space to move," she said. "It was very miserable. People get very depressed – that level of poverty has a bad effect on your mental health, it makes people feel that nothing will ever get better. I know that is the situation for a lot of people, but for young graduates, middle-class people, it is a real shock. It is not sufficiently recognised at all – how poor the rates are in the benefit system."

here, i don't see why people are so incredulous at this. she's middle class. poverty was a novelty to her. so what?

 

[butchersapron]

there's two for a start, but a couple of more serious posts made me think, 'so what? why criticise her for that?' gimme a minute.

First one polemically expressing extreme dislike not based on her gender
Second one on her social impact.

 

[butchersapron]

here, i don't see why people are so incredulous at this. she's middle class. poverty was a novelty to her. so what?

Now you've moved to something else and reveal that you're reading the thread backwards into the bargain.That generally works really well on the internet doesn't it? That really lends itslef to informed debate.

 

[Orang Utan]

First one polemically expressing extreme dislike not based on her gender
Second one on her social impact.

i read differently

 

[butchersapron]

i read differently

You certainly do. Excavate the hidden meanings for us OU.

 

[Orang Utan]

as i said a whiff of irrational hatred behind those posts IMO

 

[Random]

as i said a whiff of irrational hatred behind those posts IMO

Behind a post by LLETSA telling someone to calm down?

 

[butchersapron]

What do you mean by "a veneer of reverse snobbery"? I see her being criticised as an example of how class privilege works. Is that " reverse snobbery"?

 

[Orang Utan]

see post 1003

 

[butchersapron]

as i said a whiff of irrational hatred behind those posts IMO

You said a bit more than that OU. They were used as examples of reverse snobbery and misogyny.You've now got the responsibility to back them claims up.

 

[butchersapron]

see post 1003

I have - it explains nothing. I ask again, is pointing out how privilege works "reverse snobbery"?

 

[Orang Utan]

forget about it, can't be arsed. was just expressing a suspicion of that clubbishness that's typical amongst many political types. it smells of prejudice to me.
i see a young writer whose heart is in the right place getting a kicking for the odd bit of naivety and gaucheness. i think she deserves a break. her and owen jones seem to be the only leftwing commentators the mainstream press want to speak to at the mo, so i think a bit of solidarity wouldn't go amiss.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

I have - it explains nothing. I ask again, is pointing out how privilege works "reverse snobbery"?

Learn to read differently.

 

[discokermit]

reverse snobbery

no such thing. unless you call disliking someone for being privileged at your expense 'reverse snobbery'.

 

[butchersapron]

forget about it, can't be arsed. was just expressing a suspicion of that clubbishness that's typical amongst many political types. it smells of prejudice to me.
i see a young writer whose heart is in the right place getting a kicking for the odd bit of naivety and gaucheness. i think she deserves a break. her and owen jones seem to be the only leftwing commentators the mainstream press want to speak to at the mo, so i think a bit of solidarity wouldn't go amiss.

Then you, OU you lazy lazy cunt have not read the thread,don't know what people are talking about and the many irrelevant crimes is guilty of but though you'd get on your white steed anyway. You didn't express a suspicion did you? You did a bit more than that.You identified two posts as misogynistic as examples of the tone of the thread - now you 'can't be arsed'. Poor show.

 

[butchersapron]

I'm well interested in this "reverse snobbery" - what is it?

 

[Orang Utan]

i don't have the stones for sophisticated political debate and i am a lazy sod. i admit it.

 

[Random]

here, i don't see why people are so incredulous at this. she's middle class. poverty was a novelty to her. so what?

Middle class people from sheltered lives get broadsheet columns to reveal that they're sheltered, in order to be read by people from similarly comfortable backgrounds. Hardly surprising, but still shit; still a sign that this paper is all about middle class titillation. And this from the supposedly leftie Guardian and supposedly leftie Penny Red. If the alternative radical journalists are so proud of being sheltered and out of touch, what does that say about media radicalism in the UK today, and its chances of being at all in touch with the needs of those really suffering from the current government's policies?