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

[DaveCinzano]

Caitlin Moran ‏@caitlinmoran
When someone who's generally for the good uses one word you disagree with & you destroy them,you terrify the next generation of commentators

I like the sound of that.

Quake in thy designer boots, o flukeworms in the intestines of the class!

 

[sihhi]

I like the sound of that.

Quake in thy designer boots, o flukeworms in the intestines of the class!

Julie Burchill is in on it now: "Transexual mob telling Suzanne Moore how to write makes me think of the Black & White Minstrels telling Usain Bolt how to run"

 

[DotCommunist]

transexual mob

for fucks sake

 

[Fozzie Bear]

I like the sound of that.

Quake in thy designer boots, o flukeworms in the intestines of the class!

Wrong kind of terror.

Has LP said anything about the Suzanne Moore debacle?

I think Moore is alright (as journos go) because she used to play her children Test Dept records to help them get to sleep and once left a nice comment on my blog when I took the piss out of her for standing as a candidate in the local elections.

Plus she used to post good Youtube links on twitter when she was pissed.

 

[BigTom]

So can anyone fill me in on the Suzanne Moore thing? I saw the article posted above with a comment about brazilian transsexuals, from what I gather some people pulled her up on her language and then she went on a proper transphobic rant (something about lopping dicks off?) which culminated in her writing an article defending her transphobic remarks because we should all be focusing on fighting the cuts.
Is this vaguely right?

 

[SpineyNorman]

Julie Burchill is in on it now: "Transexual mob telling Suzanne Moore how to write makes me think of the Black & White Minstrels telling Usain Bolt how to run"

That does sound well dodgy to be honest - dunno if it's intended but the minstrels comparison suggests she thinks they're putting on a performance, pretending to be something they're not, like the minstrels did - I don't know who she is so it might just be a bad choice of words rather than intentional nastiness. And that's without even getting into the term 'transexual mob'.

 

[rosecore]

Owen Jones ‏@OwenJones84
@das__ich @donne_mark @casi_insurgente @Jewvenile1312 @dead_cells Hello hierarchy of oppression! Shh silly women, trans people get worse!

 

[BigTom]

transexual mob

for fucks sake

better than a trainsexual mob which is how I read it first Not sure what a trainsexual is - someone who is turned on by trains, but do they want to fuck trains or fuck whilst in trains? A trainsexual mob would presumably be intent on an orgy which could be a bit annoying or rather fantastic depending on your mood (and whether they are trying to fuck the train or each other, and whether you're allowed to join in or not), whilst you are coming (lol) home from work on the 18:18 from Euston.

 

[SpineyNorman]

So can anyone fill me in on the Suzanne Moore thing? I saw the article posted above with a comment about brazilian transsexuals, from what I gather some people pulled her up on her language and then she went on a proper transphobic rant (something about lopping dicks off?) which culminated in her writing an article defending her transphobic remarks because we should all be focusing on fighting the cuts.
Is this vaguely right?

Yeah, think so - and I didn't know about this context when I read the later article, which I thought was pretty good (and it is tbh, just a shame it she'd already spoilt it by being a dick).

Again I feel like it should be pointed out that privilege theory is just a pseud's way of saying don't be a dick, and is sometimes used to mask things, making out the person who's being a dick is in fact the victim of the person they're being a dick to. Or something.

 

[BigTom]

That does sound well dodgy to be honest - dunno if it's intended but the minstrels comparison suggests she thinks they're putting on a performance, pretending to be something they're not, like the minstrels did - I don't know who she is so it might just be a bad choice of words rather than intentional nastiness. And that's without even getting into the term 'transexual mob'.

I read it as saying that those who are criticising aren't trans, and even if they were they wouldn't know what they are talking about.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Not sure what a trainsexual is - someone who is turned on by trains, but do they want to fuck trains or fuck whilst in trains? A trainsexual mob would presumably be intent on an orgy which could be a bit annoying or rather fantastic depending on your mood (and whether they are trying to fuck the train or each other, and whether you're allowed to join in or not), whilst you are coming (lol) home from work on the 18:18 from Euston.

There's got to be a boxcar willy joke in there somewhere but I can't for the life of me work out what it is.

 

[BigTom]

There's got to be a boxcar willy joke in there somewhere but I can't for the life of me work out what it is.

 

[sihhi]

That does sound well dodgy to be honest - dunno if it's intended but the minstrels comparison suggests she thinks they're putting on a performance, pretending to be something they're not, like the minstrels did - I don't know who she is so it might just be a bad choice of words rather than intentional nastiness. And that's without even getting into the term 'transexual mob'.

The whole thing is dodgy from both sides. What exactly are the real aims on both sides.
It looks a lot like established commentariat (led by Caitlin Moran, backed up Nick Cohen, Owen Jones) vs younger student wishing-to-be-commentariat (Zoe Stavri and the 'transexuals are just the same as women, must be allowed in all women-only spaces' blogger types)
The one non-sport non-music trend on twitter is Suzanne Moore leaving Twitter.

United Kingdom Trends · Change
#Mention25CutePeopleOnTwitter
Suzanne Moore
#RylanHQ
Nuri Sahin
#FollowFriday
Dortmund
#nowplaying
#ThingsIGetAlot
Les Mis
Sounds

Fuck Twitter.

 

[sihhi]

Wrong kind of terror.

Has LP said anything about the Suzanne Moore debacle?

I think Moore is alright (as journos go) because she used to play her children Test Dept records to help them get to sleep and once left a nice comment on my blog when I took the piss out of her for standing as a candidate in the local elections.

Plus she used to post good Youtube links on twitter when she was pissed.

It was a general election and someone described her tongue-in-cheek as 'everything wrong with north Hackney today'

 

[Fozzie Bear]

It was a general election and someone described her tongue-in-cheek as 'everything wrong with north Hackney today'

So it was: http://www.uncarved.org/blog/2010/04/election-selection/

I think Moore correctly identified that there was a lot of resentment against Hackney Concil in general and Diane Abbott specifically. She did a fair bit of door knocking and listening too.

She got 258 votes, to Diane Abbott's 25,0000.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Wrong kind of terror.

I smell trainsphobia

 

[sihhi]

So it was: http://www.uncarved.org/blog/2010/04/election-selection/

I think Moore correctly identified that there was a lot of resentment against Hackney Concil in general and Diane Abbott specifically. She did a fair bit of door knocking and listening too.

She got 258 votes, to Diane Abbott's 25,0000.

This was her response

SUZANNE MOORE says:
April 30, 2010 at 11:35 pm
"All fair points….but where did you get that pic? Never seen it before! (No columnist would be an MP for money so the ward councillor jibe doesnt make sense. Local base does) Suzanne x"

In fact several columnists and journalists have become MPs over the years in the modern era.

 

[DotCommunist]

Check your lazy privilege.

who died and made you Stephanie

 

[smokedout]

I read it as saying that those who are criticising aren't trans, and even if they were they wouldn't know what they are talking about.

no birchill's position is that trans-women are self-mutilated men and that trans men are self hating women

 

[Frances Lengel]

no birchill's position is that trans-women are self-mutilated men and that trans men are self hating women

Yeah, I seem to remember her employing the phrase "black and white minstrels" in pretty much the context you've described when she had a column in the guardian.

 

[rosecore]

The shitstorm continues:

Owen Jones ‏@OwenJones84
@krasejc Pro tip: I've never claimed to be the "spokesman" of anyone, but yes I'm vile liberal counter-revolutionary scum and THE REAL ENEMY

Owen Jones ‏@OwenJones84
@AbiWilks @krasejc I'm sorry, but there are people here who relish exposing anyone on the left with a mainstream platform

Owen Jones ‏@OwenJones84
@krasejc @AbiWilks Because the real enemy is the near enemy! Ask any Communist in 1932 Berlin

 

[sihhi]

The shitstorm continues:

with added bluster why the reference to the KPD all the time?

Owen Jones ‏@OwenJones84
@krasejc The irony is there is literally no-one as macho and implicitly riddled with male chauvinism on Twitter as some of the ultra-lefts

@krasejc Pro tip: I've never claimed to be the "spokesman" of anyone, but yes I'm vile liberal counter-revolutionary scum and THE REAL ENEMY

@Anarchatoons @JonnieMarbLes Haha I just realised you were a parody! IT'S LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO TELL!

@Anarchatoons Seriously. It's got the point where it literally is impossible to tell.

 

[Balbi]

Bindel's referred to it as both a mob and cabal in correspondance. The idiot.

 

[love detective]

Penny's latest piece on the SWP debacle gets off to a cracking start

The Socialist Workers' Party, for those who aren't familiar with it already, is a political organisation of several thousand members which has been a prominent force on the British left for more than 30 years. They are at the forefront of the fight against street fascism in Britain

They are not a fringe group: they matter.

and she couldn't resist shoehorning in this thinly disguised retort to her recent run in with us here - nice one penny, capitalising on a rape case as a way to massage your own fragile ego about you being pulled up as an utter fraud

That unwillingness to analyse our own behaviour can quickly become dogma. The image is one of petty, nitpicking women attempting to derail the good work of decent men on the left by insisting in their whiny little women's way that progressive spaces should also be spaces where we don't expect to get raped and assaulted and slut-shamed and victimised for speaking out, and the emotions are rage and resentment: why should our pure and perfect struggle for class war, for transparency, for freedom from censorship be polluted by - it's pronounced with a curl of the upper lip over the teeth, as if the very word is distasteful - 'identity politics'? Why should we be held more accountable than common-or-garden bigots? Why should we be held to higher standards?

and a massive strawman to end with

Equality isn't an optional add-on, a side-issue to be dealt with after the revolution's over. There can be no true democracy, no worthwhile class struggle, without women's rights. The sooner the left accepts that and starts working the enormous stick of priggishness and prejudice out of its collective backside, the sooner we can get on with the job at hand.

 

[Fedayn]

Penny's latest piece on the SWP debacle gets off to a cracking start

So it starts terribly and gets worse?

 

[Ronnie Rubashov]

Yeah this is all very amusing...but hardly surprising. It's identity politics in a nutshell. There is no coherence. It has no self-consistent logic. Unless you consider an ineluctable impulse to rip itself apart to be logical. It has to happen...every time.

Why the fuck can't they see this?

In political discourse, a sight of identity, privilege, intersectionality...take your pick...takes the place of Checkov's gun. Once it's seen, it has to be fired...the novelty being that it's aimed squarely at its own temple.

 

[Athos]

Penny's latest piece on the SWP debacle gets off to a cracking start

and she couldn't resist shoehorning in this thinly disguised retort to her recent run in with us here

Just when I think there's nothing she could say that would surprise me! I'm beginning to think she's a spoof, and we've all been trolled.

 

[love detective]

So it starts terribly and gets worse?

afraid it does, have went back and edited my original post as I read through it!

 

[Firky]

Am getting off twitter. Does my head in.

 

[Athos]

It's a great way to divert anything into an identity/privilege discussion.

I mean, the biggest boost it got was the debate over Lena Dunham's Girls and its lack of non-white characters. That's been rumbling on for 8 months or so, with the ire directed at Dunham, not examining why you don't get a lot of non-white writers/directors getting shows on television.

The Hulk puts it quite nicely...



http://badassdigest.com/2012/04/18/film-crit-hulk-smash-hulk-vs.-the-girls-criticism/

Now that's a stand up and knock it down one - television as a whole's got a problem with representation.

But it's the ability to be able to take an element of discussion, one not vital to the main point, and use intersectionality as a tool to widen the debate until it loses all structure and integrity. The question's a hard one for writers and artists to address without seeming exclusive. "Why doesn't your work include x group, of which you are not a member and exert privilege over" - "Because it doesn't, and addressing that group wasn't my point" - Well, your point is invalid unless you can include x group" - "Well go fuck yourself then".

Which goes back to Suzanne Moore's New Statesman article, which is not about wanting the body of a Brazilian transsexual - but is about feminism providing a platform for solidarity against the cuts. But the way the discussion got diverted into two words - that's a bit worrying.

What could have been bloggers, writers, journalists discussing how to better work together against a very real threat to society, is instead a discussion about privilege, identity and intention. About people inside and outside of the commentariat discussing what was meant by certain words, used in a certain context. How some people are no longer credible.

And the thing that poses the threat rumbles on, unabated.

Intersectionality is one hell of a weapon if you want to shut down, divert, dilute and de-orientate debate, discussion and action.

Like crossing the Atlantic to attend a meeting at which some of the left's leading thinkers set out their ideas, only to refuse to engage with them, on the basis that the ideas were expounded by old, white men.

Or coming to a political discussion board and rather than addressing the serious political points made therein, focusing on the gender of the posters.