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

[ViolentPanda]

I believe that many in the Occupy movement underestimated that it might be hi-jacked by people that use the V mask as a mask for carrying out sexual assault, anti-semitism, conspiracy theory and various other cuntish aspects under cover.

I'm not convinced that it was under-estimation. I lean more toward the view that they simply didn't think through the ramifications of what they were doing. No strategy, no tactics except "be here", and all the shouts out to people who could actually organise seemed to come after the occupations were established. Even the Swappies aren't that soapy, Utopian or dim.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Is there a difference between a "safe space" and a group having a safer spaces policy? .

Yes.

 

[ViolentPanda]

if there is a "safe space" for whatever it is then surely that does not address why the rest of it is unsafe.

Which is why, with regard to Occupy! specifically, I've lamented the lack of strategy or tactics on the part of the originators of the Occupy! protests. It's great to dream the dream, but you have to make sure that protesters are secure, just like you have to make sure there are adequate personal hygeine facilities if you're going to be there more than a night.
As a general question, i.e. "why is there a general need for safe spaces?", there are more than enough factors (sexism, genderism, racism, classism etc etc etc) to choose from as culprits that feed such a need. That being so, it's irksome when someone declares a safe space is necessary not because they're threatened or have been threatened, but in order to score brownie points with some clique or other.

 

[tufty79]

link?

this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Together_(2000_film)
(edit: probably barking up the wrong tree)

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Together_(2000_film)

it's not a documentary.

Brilliant film though.

 

[Firky]

I am wondering if it was Freetown in Denmark now but that doesn't feel right

There was a lot of big blonde men

 

[ViolentPanda]

I do not think that the response to sexual harassment and a culture of its acceptability among certain parts of the left and the occupy movement should be a call for "safe spaces" where people will not be sexually harassed. as you have to ask for it rather than it being a given. nobody should be sexually harassed and calling for a safe space within a space that should fuckin be safe anyway is pointless and actively harmful. get my point?

Quite.
I'd go a bit further and say it behooves the community where such harrassment takes place to "police" it, up to and including deterring the harrasser physically as a last resort.

 

[cesare]

I'm not convinced that it was under-estimation. I lean more toward the view that they simply didn't think through the ramifications of what they were doing. No strategy, no tactics except "be here", and all the shouts out to people who could actually organise seemed to come after the occupations were established. Even the Swappies aren't that soapy, Utopian or dim.

Well yeah. They aren't even clear about what they *do* want so fuck knows why we should assume that they were clear about what they didn't. That's not to say there isn't any value in undirected "let's fuck shit up" but once the novelty value's over people will just ignore it, move them on,be nice to them, sweep them under the carpet, etc unless they get their act together.

 

[ViolentPanda]

the answer to sexual assault, anti-semitism, racism, misogyny and the like should not be "let's create a space where none of this happens". Fuck's sake.

Of course it shouldn't! In a perfect world it wouldn't be. Even in our imperfect world, such stuff can be (mostly) excluded through planning and through setting out participation guidelines, without the need for a "declaration of right-on-ness" being made. Safety should be built into what we do, not just be an afterthought after the event.
The other thing is that we need to acknowledge that objectively nowhere is ever fully safe, and that there'll always be a bigot or pervert around who tries to bend the situation to their advantage. We need to make sure that "safe space" doesn't facilitate their actions.

 

[SpineyNorman]

When I was a kid my dad used to make a fucking bang on hotpot with neck of lamb. I'm drooling just thinking about it. It was that cheap that the butcher used to sometimes give him it free with his bacon and sausages. Thanks to Jamie fucking Oliver every middle class tosser in the world's buying it now and the price has gone through the roof. So it's gone from being a really cheap dish to a luxury one, he hardly ever makes it any more.

Hotpot/neck of lamb update: apparently it's virtually impossible to get neck of lamb now. The posers don't like the bone (best bit IMO - we used to pick the meat off them then suck the marrow out of the middle - yum!) so they fillet it now, only way to get it on the bone is to order it from a butcher or a farmers market or something like that. Apparently oxtail is going the same way. As my dad put it, 'that fucking Jamie Oliver - every time he cooks something on the telly the price doubles.'

Hotpot was a cheap convenience food when my dad was a kid and it was a fairly cheap dish when I was a kid too. So now I'm wondering if in 30 years or so there'll be a public schoolboy with a mockney accent cooking fish fingers and chips on the telly, blindly followed by middle class posers with the associated rise in price putting iceland beyond the pocket of the common man.

 

[Buckaroo]

Of course it shouldn't! In a perfect world it wouldn't be. Even in our imperfect world, such stuff can be (mostly) excluded through planning and through setting out participation guidelines, without the need for a "declaration of right-on-ness" being made. Safety should be built into what we do, not just be an afterthought after the event.
The other thing is that we need to acknowledge that objectively nowhere is ever fully safe, and that there'll always be a bigot or pervert around who tries to bend the situation to their advantage. We need to make sure that "safe space" doesn't facilitate their actions.

What do we do about the bigots and the perverts even when we take action to secure 'safe space'?

 

[ViolentPanda]

What do we do about the bigots and the perverts even when we take action to secure 'safe space'?

As I said in post #11341, if they start their shit then we "police" them, up to and including physical deterrence or removal. I know that will probably come across as oppressive to some of the more Utopian anti-caps etc, but it's one of the reasons even the Trots etc steward their marches and meetings - it prevents the bigots and perverts from getting a footing.

 

[BigTom]

Yes.

So could somehwere with a safer spaces policy could have a "safe space" where umm, what? the safer spaces policy is actually enforced? that doesn't make any sense.. Does a "safe space" refer to a place where only women (or presumably lgbt/immigrants/trans/whatever) are allowed?

 

[Buckaroo]

As I said in post #11341, if they start their shit then we "police" them, up to and including physical deterrence or removal. I know that will probably come across as oppressive to some of the more Utopian anti-caps etc, but it's one of the reasons even the Trots etc steward their marches and meetings - it prevents the bigots and perverts from getting a footing.

With you all the way. More than that, whenever 'human nature' gets thrown into the mix, the raised conscioussness, awareness, empathy which gets patronised as 'political correctness' becomes the group think of 'You're out of order'. At the same time though what structures do we have to deal with serious crimes and allegations of serious crimes.

 

[Brixton Hatter]

Waitrose is practically a workers coop though

Waitrose are fucking cunts. I used to work for them age 16-18. All the 'workers co-op' stuff is a bag o'shite. Workers were called 'partners' cos they got a supposed share of the profits at the end of the year. But if you were a part-time worker (e.g. Saturdays only, or part time, or whatever) you didn't get anything. There was "performance related pay" which meant if you sucked up to the manager or flirted with him, you got a pay rise from £2.20 per hour to £2.80 per hour (wow!) whereas those of us who stuck up for ourselves got a pay rise from £2.20 per hour to £2.22 per hour. CUNTS.
Workers' co-op MY FUCKING ARSE. Fuck Waitrose.

 

[equationgirl]

While I can see the request/demand for safe physical spaces as being a natural concomitant to wanting a psychologically-safe zone, it doesn't seem to occur to many of those demanding them that in some of the locales they demand them, the environment rather than privilege makes them difficult or impossible.
I was horrified when I first heard about the prevalence of attempted sexual assault and harrassment at Occupy! London and its' New York sibling, but I was also horrified that nothing had been planned, and that some sort of Utopian "it'll be alright on the night" schtick had been in play. In that sort of situation "safe spaces" are emotionally and physically necessary.
That said, there's also a facet of the demand that is political and can be (either deliberately or unintentionally) exclusionary - "there must be a safe space for ***add your identity group here***" - and is aimed at securing advantage/privilege in the name of addressing the same.

There was the horrendous case of the woman who was assaulted here in Glasgow at the Occupy event. Similar story.

I found the thread - she was six months pregnant at the time:
http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/woman-raped-at-occupy-glasgow.283207/

 

[Brixton Hatter]

Oh and this thread and everyone here is not attacking you [@lauriepenny] personally but what you represent, I still don't think you have got that.

Amen.

But I think it's clear we've got LP's number now. We've done it to death. We should keep an eye on her, but isn't it time we started examining the likes of Sunny Hundal etc a bit more as well?

This is going to turn into another Four Yorkshiremen sketch.

FOUR Yorkshiremen? When I were a lad we only had two Yorkshireman and really it was only 1.5 cos one of them only had half a leg and had to sleep outside in the coal scuttle so my little sis could go to Brighton College

 

[olenyok]

Is it bollocks - you sound like one of Laurie's mates.

I'm not interested in her bedroom and I don't consider it a particularly fruitful line of discussion. This is taken by you to be some kind of sophisticated means of shutting down debate? Fuck off

To use your capital analogy looking at the bedroom is like focusing on bankers' cocaine habits instead of the ways in which they facilitate capital accumulation.

Your post wasn't taken by me to be some sophisticated means of shutting down debate. Her last intervention was though, and that's what I thought it was clear I was referring to - eg by calling it a replay of the previous attempts. I apologise, I should have made it clearer by chopping off "This is" and replacing it with "Her post is", which I thought of doing but was too lazy to.

There's overlap between banker's cocaine habits and their money habits physiologically, and psychologically as ways of making an unpredictable world seem controllable. Like with LP's bedroom/"hovel" being presented as some kind of poverty, capital accumulation is being furthered in an apparently personal domain. It's allowing them to stay awake and emotionally numb enough to fuck people over isn't it ? If bankers get hassled more over their money hunger as a medical issue by doctors it might be quite helpful - a back door through the defences.

 

[smokedout]

Is it more important that somebody is helped to overcome their fear and lead a normal life where they aren't shitting themselves all the time over things like balloons, cats, becoming contaminated, locking/unlocking doors or everyone hating them or should illnesses that impede social and emotional life be indulged over things like balloons and things like that?

Up until recently I'd only ever seen trigger warnings used on pages which were specifically for abuse survivors because for people with ptsd it can triggers flashbacks etc. I dont see any need for them outside of that kind of semi-therapeutic environment tbh

 

[smokedout]

So could somehwere with a safer spaces policy could have a "safe space" where umm, what? the safer spaces policy is actually enforced? that doesn't make any sense.. Does a "safe space" refer to a place where only women (or presumably lgbt/immigrants/trans/whatever) are allowed?

up north when I was growing up lots of pubs still had tap rooms, which were considered men only and a lounge - swearing and that kind of thing was banned in the lounge which would have a carpet and stuff, and usually not allow work clothes - perhaps a safe space is something like that

 

[equationgirl]

Y<snip> If bankers get hassled more over their money hunger as a medical issue by doctors it might be quite helpful - a back door through the defences.

One, that makes no sense whatsoever and two, it's never going to happen because a lot of doctors are well-off and are more likely to feel sympathy with the bankers than the left wingers.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Up until recently I'd only ever seen trigger warnings used on pages which were specifically for abuse survivors because for people with ptsd it can triggers flashbacks etc. I dont see any need for them outside of that kind of semi-therapeutic environment tbh

They are all over the place - I come across "trigger warnings" just reading random blogs about comics all the time. I also agree with all the above that they're not needed in most cases and are often exceptionally patronising.

 

[8115]

WTF is a trigger warning, another manarchist phrase I have mixxed?

I appreciate the moment has kind of passed.

But basically (as I understand it) a human response to an unpleasant mental image is mild panic, continuing up to severe panic and distress in some situations (so, for instance, someone who had been mugged might find it very difficult to walk near the place where they were mugged without severe distress etc etc).

Someone would use a trigger warning if they wanted to share something (a picture, a part of their own experience that was graphic or whatever) but appreciated that it might cause a large amount of distress to someone sensitive to (or even not sensitive to) this type of image or description.

I don't think it *can* be casually used really, because why would you post graphic material carelessly, iyswim.

 

[olenyok]

One, that makes no sense whatsoever and two, it's never going to happen because a lot of doctors are well-off and are more likely to feel sympathy with the bankers than the left wingers.

Medical opinion which would underpin doctors actually hassling their poor, afflicted banker-patients about it within doctor patient relationships is already developing though.
The premise seems simple, I don't understand why you say it makes no sense whatsoever.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...rrupt-scientists-claim-addictive-cocaine.html

I agree about the likely class sympathies of doctors, but they wouldn't need to feel sympathy for left wingers, just a little bit perhaps for their money-power junkie banker patients.

 

[equationgirl]

Medical opinion which would underpin doctors actually hassling their poor, afflicted banker-patients about it within doctor patient relationships is already developing though.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...rrupt-scientists-claim-addictive-cocaine.html

I agree about the likely class sympathies of doctors, but they wouldn't need to feel sympathy for left wingers, just a little bit perhaps for their money-power junkie banker patients.

That article proves nothing of the sort. Dr Ian Robertson is an academic doctor (PhD) not a medical doctor.

 

[love detective]

Someone would use a trigger warning if they wanted to share something (a picture, a part of their own experience that was graphic or whatever) but appreciated that it might cause a large amount of distress to someone sensitive to (or even not sensitive to) this type of image or description.

I don't think it *can* be casually used really, because why would you post graphic material carelessly, iyswim.

Spoiler

 

[Red Cat]

doctors actually hassling their poor, afflicted banker-patients about it within doctor patient relationships

Doctors hassling

About it? About what?

 

[olenyok]

That article proves nothing of the sort. Dr Ian Robertson is an academic doctor (PhD) not a medical doctor.

What is the "of the sort" which you think I'm trying to prove? I'm countering your (so far unsupported) assertion that money-power as an object of addiction "makes no sense whatsoever". I'm not trying to prove there's any kind of medical consensus already operative. I could replace "Medical opinion" with "academic opinion" in my post and it would communicate what I was trying to just as well.

Why did you say that "If bankers get hassled more over their money hunger as a medical issue by doctors it might be quite helpful - a back door through the defences" makes no sense whatsoever ? It seems straightforward premise.

 

[equationgirl]

What is the "of the sort" which you think I'm trying to prove? I'm countering your (so far unsupported) assertion that money-power as an object of addiction "makes no sense whatsoever". I'm not trying to prove there's any kind of medical consensus already operative. I could replace "Medical opinion" with "academic opinion" in my post and it would communicate what I was trying to just as well.

Why did you say that "If bankers get hassled more over their money hunger as a medical issue by doctors it might be quite helpful - a back door through the defences" makes no sense whatsoever ? It seems straightforward premise.

If you didn't mean 'medical opinion' why did you say it?

I said it makes no sense because your premise does not make any sense. Doctors are not there to 'hassle' patients about anything, medical or otherwise, and unless the 'money hunger' was causing medical problems a GP would be unlikely to see them in the first place. And as for a back door through defences - whose/what defences?

 

[Red Cat]

I think s/he means defences like a fortress, like a Big Greedy Bank Fortress, rather than Freudian ones, but it took a while to work that out.