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

[phildwyer]

Why not?

Because it makes you look a bit twee and affected, perhaps?

The truth is that if you'd started hitching to Cairo at the beginning of this thread, you'd practically be there by now. But you'd rather just sit here spewing garbage and spouting nonsense, posting meaningless images, heaping and piling up your trash until it engulfs any hint of a point you might once have been trying to make.

That is why Laurie Penny has made you look so silly and pathetic here. She must certainly be laughing now...

 

[emanymton]

I'm sure it's entirely coincidental that all the big stories are happening in hip tourist destinations. What on earth would a left wing journalist find to write about in somewher like, say, Wigan?

Fucking scab town!!

 

[Delroy Booth]

Don't think I've ever seen her write anything about anywhere North of Watford in the UK to be honest. If she has it's hidden well.

Plenty to write about in Glasgow or Lanark or Coulport or Macclesfield or Preston or....

Yeah but you don't get legions of twitter followers saying this:

Karrie Kehoe @KarrieKehoe

@PennyRed You have the most amazing life! You were in my home city this weekend and next stop Batley! Have a great time! #Jealous

 

[Orang Utan]

 

[Delroy Booth]

Fucking scab town!!

Which is where the pie-eaters thing comes from.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pie-eater

1. pie-eater
Person from Wigan.

Nothing to do with the large number of pies eaten in Wigan but to do with a miner's strike in the 1920's when all the pits in WIgan and Leigh went on strike. The Wiganers went back and broke the strike, the "Leythers" continued to strike and got better pay and conditions. Therefore the Wiganer's had to "eat humble pie"... so it's a term of abuse from Leythers to Wiganers. The hostility between the two towns stretches back hundreds of years to the civil war when Wigan was Royalists and Leigh were Parliamentarian and continues to this day.
"The 'pie-eaters' aren't as good a Super League these days"

"This will be the 'pie-eaters' last year in the Premiership"

They do eat quite a lot of pies in Wigan though I can assure you. I remember Saints rugby fans singing:

"Central Park is falling down, falling down, central park is falling own, my fair lady.
Build it up with pie and peas, pie and peas, pie and peas, build it up with pie and peas, my fair lady"

 

[emanymton]

Which is where the pie-eaters thing comes from.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pie-eater



They do eat quite a lot of pies in Wigan though I can assure you.

I really want to know if being called pie eaters led to them eating more pies? Some useless academic somewhere should do a study.

 

[Firky]

I have never been to Wigan but my mental picture of it is that it is shit.

 

[8115]

Home of Northern Soul.

 

[Delroy Booth]

I have never been to Wigan but my mental picture of it is that it is shit.

Whenever I think of Wigan Pier I think of this, not Orwell:

,

And then the sensation of being rushing on MDMA and being too pissed to walk at the same time comes flooding back to me, which is quite nauseating.

 

[Firky]

Well I never, I had you down as some straight laced stude, Del.

That is proper charver music btw! It has a donk and everything (and is f'ing awful).

 

[Delroy Booth]

I am these these days but back then I was feral. I drink a lot of tea and smoke a pipe these days to be more of a Bennite, y'know like that bloke from the International Bolshevik Tendency shaves a bald-patch into his head and grew a goatee so he looks more like Lenin.

And I sincerely loved all that shitty Wigan Pier and Scouse house and niche and all that stuff when I was like 16. That and Slipknot. out of the two I'm way more embarassed about liking Slipknot.

 

[Firky]

Not sure if you have gone up or down in my opinion all of a sudden

 

[Idris2002]

Why the Badger?

We don't need no stinkin' badgers.

 

[butchersapron]

Lord Monbiot checks his priv (or doesn't).

(less priv more predge)

 

[phildwyer]

Lord Monbiot checks his priv (or doesn't).

(less priv more predge)

A silly article. Seems only just to have noticed British class system. Then blames it for belligerence of British state, failing to notice that such belligerence has often been shared by states without such a class system, eg Soviet Union.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

http://www.tatler.com/the-tatler-list/p/laurie-penny

 

[ViolentPanda]

Just get yourself down the docks.

Ha'penny a go, or do you reckon firky could get a penny a go?

 

[butchersapron]

she was all over the Occupy movement

Yeah.

 

[cesare]

http://www.tatler.com/the-tatler-list/p/laurie-penny

Linking to that raises her profile every time someone clicks on it

 

[butchersapron]

So what though - it's out of our hands now. We can't have a thread about this idiots without linking to their sickening idiocies.

 

[ViolentPanda]

On a 200 quid flight to Cairo, does that include a handjob off an assassin's girlfriend?

Surely phil has surpassed that one by now, and has been fellated in Business Class by a female ninja who's narked at her botfriend and willing to take phil's rancid member in her mouth to get back at the boyfriend (who is obviously a plumber for MOSSAD)?

 

[butchersapron]

#3 Well done laurie.

The Conservative MP for Richmond Park has it all. Brains, beauty, convictions and mega-bucks, although he's prone to being a tad argumentative. There is little not to like.

 

[cesare]

So what though - it's out of our hands now. We can't have a thread about this idiots without linking to their sickening idiocies.

That's not one of her idiocies though, it's the Tatler fame listing

 

[ViolentPanda]

Yes, because that's a sensible thing to do dwyer Do fuck off.

Now now! Personally, I find the idea of dwyer hitch-hiking from Barry Island to Cairo very appealing. Think of all the potential there is for him to be horribly molested by lonely truckers or local farmers!

 

[butchersapron]

That's not one of her idiocies though, it's the Tatler fame listing

if the argument is that clicking on links about her reproduces her (which it does) then we are fucked. Anyway, let's get her #1 to show what she really is and what she really represents.

 

[ViolentPanda]

She'd probably turn around and say it isn't her whim to go to NYC, Cairo or Dublin (where she is now), and I am sure this sort of lifestyle is tiring and not as glamorous as it sounds but it is still a luxury. A luxury that most people will never experience. All she essentially does is go to a trendy city, send a few tweets and write a shit article when she gets back. That's it! She actually gets paid for that and if anyone dare pulls her up on it she says you're attacking women's right to birth control and are a sexist pig or a troll.

Of course it isn't limited to Laura Penny, there's that massive Cambridge prick Patrick Kingsley too. He's one of the worst journalists I have read and he swans about defecating all over the place in the name of the Guardian.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varsity_(Cambridge)



Coincidental that he now works for the Guardian, eh?

Proper lefties, not 'fake lefties'. What she really meant is people who've had an elite education.

I so want to snare Mr. Kingsley and take a set of shears to that fucking mop on his head!

 

[cesare]

if the argument is that clicking on links about her reproduces her (which it does) then we are fucked. Anyway, let's get her #1 to show what she really is and what she really represents.

I'll get RSI

 

[smokedout]

http://www.newstatesman.com/laurie-penny/2013/01/take-back-net-its-time-end-culture-online-misogyny

thing is, and I don't mean this as some poor men thing, everyone who publishes online gets abuse, threats of violence etc regardless of gender - that doesn't mean the misogyny doesn't exist, but that it isn't the driver for a lot of nasty stuff online

whats actually taking place is the way real people speak is being replicated on the internet, and the way real people speak in pubs, in their front rooms etc reflects the misogyny in society.

that is the debate, whether its okay for people to speak online in the way they might in private, especially as on places like twitter the target of their abuse (or criticism, bad jokes etc) may happen to read it

I just don't understand what standing up to this misogyny online looks like, and whether it should specifically be attacked as something novel and outside of everyday sexism

and there has to be an acceptance that men get a different flavour of unpleasant shit, that some of the abuse comes from other women, and without some form of new laws it cant really be prevented.

and also tbh granted in my lived experience as a man, i couldnt give a fuck about wankers that threaten me or slag me off on the internet

 

[smokedout]

and I can't help coming back to the idea of tap rooms in pubs, which werent necessarily men only, but where swearing, coarse/sexual language was permitted that would get you thrown out of the lounge bar, which was a space for the ladies who werent expected to have to listen to such rough talk

and never thought that was particularly progressive myself

 

[Delroy Booth]

and also tbh granted in my lived experience as a man, i couldnt give a fuck about wankers that threaten me or slag me off on the internet

Maybe so, but still no-one should have to put up with the level graphic sexual violence that Laurie Penny has directed at her. I'd feel the same way about anyone. And just coz it's something you feel capable of being shrugging off doesn't necessarily mean everyone else can do the same, or that's it's tolerable. I say that as someone Laurie no doubt puts in the same category as the creeps on Don't Start Me Off.

but yeah your other points are spot on. There's misogyny on the internet and twitter is because there's misogyny in society, you might prevent people from expressing it online by using draconian legislation or campaigns or whatever but surely the goal would be to challenge sexist sentiment in the first instance, rather than preventing it from being expressed publicly? Political correctness hasn't stopped racism, has it?

I have a suspicion that a lot of people who are shocked by the levels of violent misogyny on twitter/internet must come from quite sheltered backgrounds, because as vile as it is I've heard worse in my everyday life. That's not to try and belittle it, that's just a fact of life. Violent racist and sexist imagery, often as "banter" but a lot of truth is said in jest, was something that was a routine part of my life and totally normalised amongst my peers growing up. I'm sure there's others here who can say the same. It's exactly the same with people who get outraged at the EDL tweeting racism, as if they're not out in public doing the same thing every day! The difference is certain people are never going to encounter that sort of stuff in their lives, until they get onto twitter and suddenly finding themselves sharing a social media platform with people who do talk and act like that. That's not aimed at Penny per se, that's a general observation.

Ultimately good luck to the campaign, even if it is something being doing primarily to promote one individual's career, because there might be a lot of people who aren't self-serving careerists who can take it and make some good come from it. Of course it won't be them that get the credit, but still.