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

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Spanky Longhorn said:
I know but - there is also a need to bring the potentialities of poverty home to the people who don't realise how close they are to it - and there's a lot of people out there who think they're alright but in reality are only a couple of paychecks or a relationship break up away from this
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Abso-fucking-lutely! It's the volume of ignorance that depresses me, not least because some of it is willful - people not wanting to see what's in front of their noses - when acknowledgement of the sheer precarity of social life for many of us might be one of the best weapons against the ongoing worsening of that precarity. Okay, so the media and the pols (and those they work for) are culpable, but so are "we" too, if we glibly accept the promise of jam tomorrow as a worthwhile substitute for shit today.
 
ViolentPanda said:
In my own experience, "real" poverty isn't just about having no dosh, it's about having little or no prospect of bettering your situation in the short to medium term, however bright you are, and however hard you try; it's about not having a system of contacts/"friendship network" that can ease your situation; it's about being forced to look into the abyss, and hopefully about gobbing in the eye of whatever looks back at you from the abyss. It's about "getting by" because you have to "get by".
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that's fair enough, but it doesn't really tally with him being on tour with the National Theatre and running a theatre company at the time
 
"Alex gave up a legal career in 2007 in order to act full-time. His roles include Solness in Ibsen's Master Builder and Malvolio in Twelfth Night. He recently did a rehearsed reading of The Serpent's Wedding, as The Serpent, for Mukul Ahmed at the Southwark Playhouse.Sturdy Beggars is the brain-child of Alex and V Lewis and they ran the company as joint artistic directors until 2008. For Sturdy Beggars he has been The King in Princess Ivona by Gombrowicz at the Workhouse Theatre, the title character in Shakespeare's Othello at the Pacific Playhouse and most recently Mimis in The Overnight Visitor by Loula Anagnostaki. He has played Hercules in his first feature film due for release this year and can be currently seen in The Wolfman for Universal. Alex made his directing debut for Sturdy Beggars in 2008 with David Mamet's Boston Marriage and teaches at The Poor School. He made his National Theatre debut in 2009 as Riaz in Hanif Kureishi's The Black Album which then went on National tour."

this is living like common people?
 
With the exception of going on tour in 2009 that's all before the period that he said he was homeless though. He isn't pretending to have grown up poor or anything, the article basically is all about how easy it is to fall on hard times even when you think you're ok so I don't get why everyone is so 'aha! But look at this!' tbh.
 
killer b said:
do you know any actors smokedout? it's totally possible to have an impressive looking CV while living a life of hand to mouth poverty. most actors i've ever known have been utterly skint most of the time, especially when they mainly work in theatre.
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I think that was Nice One's Withnail and I reference earlier.

Also isn't actor / writer / life style coach / artist / web consulant - really a way of saying, "if I wasn't middle class and well networked I'd be on the dole" ? I know that is a massive generalisation but whilst these people may not be especially well off they're never going to face the same kind of poverty as you or anyone else on this thread.
 
killer b said:
do you know any actors smokedout? it's totally possible to have an impressive looking CV while living a life of hand to mouth poverty. most actors i've ever known have been utterly skint most of the time, especially when they mainly work in theatre.
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after leaving his legal career he went to the poor school (fees nearly £8k a year, no student loans/grants available) and then went on to found a theatre company

i'm not denying his experiences, but this is not an experience of poverty but of someone quite well off roughing it for a bit whilst they pursued an ambition
 
weepiper said:
With the exception of going on tour in 2009 that's all before the period that he said he was homeless though. He isn't pretending to have grown up poor or anything, the article basically is all about how easy it is to fall on hard times even when you think you're ok so I don't get why everyone is so 'aha! But look at this!' tbh.
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i think its a fair enough piece, except that he is claiming to have lived in the other country that is poverty, when in fact he has only had a very slight taste of it and knew it wouldnt last forever
 
It also goes further than that too, middle class people are more likely to have assets, such as a mice car, a house, cupboards and a freezer full of food that can last six weeks. Have suitable clothes, live in a 'nice' area with decent schools - which in turns helps their employability. If you're on the dole and live on a known estate or part of town you are less likely to find work, have a wardrobe full of work clothes and christ forbid you have an accent of some kind.

Being skint and middle class is a damn site easier than being skint and workign class.
 
You have a point, smokedout. He acknowledges half of it with:

I was homeless from 3 January 2009 to 27 April 2010. Through a combination of circumstances – a landlord not returning a deposit, a spell of illness, a bad break-up, a change of job – I ended up destitute. I couldn’t claim benefits, as I was working. I was turned down for help with housing as I lacked a “sufficient local connection”. I slept in a smelly sleeping bag in a rat-infested cupboard of the office in which I worked.

I had always espoused socialist sensibilities. I had always been sympathetic to those less fortunate than me. But the basic economic concept of Scarcity was academic construct rather than unforgiving reality. The fact is that I had never truly understood poverty until that January day. I thought it was having little in the fridge or raiding the jar for coppers at the end of the month or not being able to afford basic things for your home. Then I experienced having no fridge, no jar, no home, nothing.
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But that is only part of it. I heard someone explain it once as the difference between being poor and being broke. Broke is a temporary state of affairs; you have the social capital and skills to expect better some time in the future. Poor is being stuck with no prospect of things ever getting better.
 
firky said:
It also goes further than that too, middle class people are more likely to have assets, such as a mice car, a house, cupboards and a freezer full of food that can last six weeks. Have suitable clothes, live in a 'nice' area with decent schools - which in turns helps their employability. If you're on the dole and live on a known estate or part of town you are less likely to find work, have a wardrobe full of work clothes and christ forbid you have an accent of some kind.

Being skint and middle class is a damn site easier than being skint and workign class.
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This is all true. I have the dubious pleasure of being skint and working class and now living in a fairly posh middle class area (by accident - friend of a friend of a friend had a flat to let just at the time I had to move into Edinburgh, I've been on Housing Benefit in and out of work since I moved in nearly 4 years ago). That's not much fun either but at least my kids get to go to a 'nice' school. It makes the yawning gap between our and their friends' families' lifestyles really obvious though. I had a look at the Child Poverty maps that have been doing the rounds... my council ward is 5% living in poverty. I don't know if it's better than living in an area where everyone's in the same boat as you. I spend a lot of my time walking around resenting the other people that live here. When the private schools let out especially.
 
firky said:
It also goes further than that too, middle class people are more likely to have assets, such as a mice car, a house, cupboards and a freezer full of food that can last six weeks. Have suitable clothes, live in a 'nice' area with decent schools - which in turns helps their employability. If you're on the dole and live on a known estate or part of town you are less likely to find work, have a wardrobe full of work clothes and christ forbid you have an accent of some kind.

Being skint and middle class is a damn site easier than being skint and workign class.
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as you will know, its social/cultural capital..
 
weepiper said:
With the exception of going on tour in 2009 that's all before the period that he said he was homeless though. He isn't pretending to have grown up poor or anything, the article basically is all about how easy it is to fall on hard times even when you think you're ok so I don't get why everyone is so 'aha! But look at this!' tbh.
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no the national theatre tour (and a long stint in london) was from july 2009 to nov 2009. He was one of the lead actors. Also during the time he was homeless he put on three plays with his own theatre company, acted in two other plays and acted in two feature films.

Fair play to him. He's gave up a successful career in law to do what he loves.
 
sihhi said:
Why, Laurie Penny, why? Why are you matey with this brand of stale vermin? :(

https://twitter.com/DanHannanMEP/status/309711815246483456

Daniel Hannan ‏@DanHannanMEP
I don't know about you, @PennyRed, but I find Starbucks tea surprisingly - even annoyingly - good.

Laurie Penny ‏@PennyRed
@DanHannanMEP not IMO! It's too often made from stale bags and thrice-boiled water. Ok if you ask for two bags.

:(
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shes mates with that cunt wtf ??? I actually thought for a brief period from her posts on here (the fact that she registered on here etc) that she did have some integrity, even tho it was very little
 
Nice one said:
no the national theatre tour (and a long stint in london) was from july 2009 to nov 2009. He was one of the lead actors. Also during the time he was homeless he put on three plays with his own theatre company, acted in two other plays and acted in two feature films.

Fair play to him. He's gave up a successful career in law to do what he loves.
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This is like Owen Jones all over again :( is it too much to ask that there might be a lefty journo I don't have to despise? It's all rather depressing. He seems like a decent sort most of the time though, he's certainly got a lot more humility and time for people at the sharp end than Laurie Penny does.
 
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