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

[Firky]

The quote (or rather the made up quote):

"Now that Thatcher's dead, we thought we'd start reversing her policies one by one - so we're starting with free milk handouts," said Sky, a student giving out quarter-pints of semi-skimmed from a shopping bag, who must have been born after Thatcher gained her "Milk Snatcher" moniker. "It's my parents' grudge, really," Sky admitted. "But looking at the world we're living in now, I understand that a lot of it evolved from her policies."

Screen shot for archives:

 

[TruXta]

Utterly unsurprising if true I guess, but still depressing.

 

[DotCommunist]

They had come to Brixton from Durham and Belfast and every wasted inner-city and former industrial town where today's young adults grew up being told that, whatever else they were doing, they would bloody well have a shindig when Maggie died

urgh

 

[J Ed]

The quote (or rather the made up quote):

"Now that Thatcher's dead, we thought we'd start reversing her policies one by one - so we're starting with free milk handouts," said Sky, a student giving out quarter-pints of semi-skimmed from a shopping bag, who must have been born after Thatcher gained her "Milk Snatcher" moniker. "It's my parents' grudge, really," Sky admitted. "But looking at the world we're living in now, I understand that a lot of it evolved from her policies."

Screen shot for archives:

Making up quotes to smear people for having the temerity to oppose Thatcher. Disgusting.

 

[TruXta]

What's worse about that piece is that LP is implying she's older than this Sky and can see through her and delegitimize her - "must have been born after Thatcher [...]"...

 

[cesare]

How many young people flew in from Durham and Belfast for this impromptu street party then?

 

[J Ed]

What's worse about that piece is that LP is implying she's older than this Sky and can see through her and delegitimize her - "must have been born after Thatcher [...]"...

The fact that she's parroting right-wing memes shows exactly the kind of people she spends her time with.

 

[Dillinger4]

For the bourgeoisie and the petit bourgeoisie life is a party. Every weekend they have one. The proletariat doesn’t have parties. Only rhythmic funerals. That is going to change. The exploited will have a grand party. Memory and guillotines. Sensing it, acting it certain nights, inventing edges and humid corners, is like caressing the acidic eyes of the new spirit.

 

[TruXta]

How many young people flew in from Durham and Belfast for this impromptu street party then?

I'm guessing 0 - nil - zero.

 

[Firky]

How many young people flew in from Durham and Belfast for this impromptu street party then?

Well to fly from Durham you'd have to take the train to Newcastle then the metro to the airport. Which would take about two hours. In that time you could just get a train to London and be there within two and a half hours.

 

[Nice one]

pic of young lad giving out free milk at brixton thatcher party. Yer man skyler?

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/making-friends-at-thatchers-hate-wake

 

[DotCommunist]

How many young people flew in from Durham and Belfast for this impromptu street party then?

If I wrote it they had come


do me a favour

 

[Dillinger4]

he is wearing five visible layers of clothing

 

[cesare]

Well to fly from Durham you'd have to take the train to Newcastle then the metro to the airport. Which would take about two hours. In that time you could just get a train to London and be there within two and a half hours.

Logistically and financially I suspect that it's a tissue of fakery (her claim)

 

[Idris2002]

For the bourgeoisie and the petit bourgeoisie life is a party. Every weekend they have one. The proletariat doesn’t have parties. Only rhythmic funerals. That is going to change. The exploited will have a grand party. Memory and guillotines. Sensing it, acting it certain nights, inventing edges and humid corners, is like caressing the acidic eyes of the new spirit.

Not knocking this comment, just asking, like - was it translated from the French?

 

[8ball]

he is wearing five visible layers of clothing

Useful if you want to lose the fuzz several times.

 

[tenniselbow]

.

 

[Dillinger4]

Not knocking this comment, just asking, like - was it translated from the French?

Not sure if from the French, but it is from the Infrarealist Manifesto here

 

[Dillinger4]

Think it is from the Spanish actually

 

[Firky]

Logistically and financially I suspect that it's a tissue of fakery.

It's a pain in the arse, you wouldn't do it. You'd just get the train from Durham down to Kings X but even then it would cost a small fortune to buy a ticket on the day and given that it was cold, wet and horrible...

 

[butchersapron]

What's worse about that piece is that LP is implying she's older than this Sky and can see through her and delegitimize her - "must have been born after Thatcher [...]"...

It goes a bit deeper than that i think, what this article demonstrates in the split in her thinking between the mass of people (the class if you like) as victims, as people who simply have things imposed on them, as objects rather than as subjects - as a collectivity incapable of acting for itself apart from in warped and perverted forms of reaction, a mass of misery, and on the other the glamorous leading activists and journalists and artists and beautiful people who are the real subject of history, the people who do have the power to change society, the leaders. The implied vanguardism is here is pretty naked.

I suspect that i would see something very different in this picture than her:

I see a community that has recognised shared interests and recognised attacks on those interests and where they come from, i see collective activity spreading across all manner of cultural or local divisions. I see a way out in that. Penny (and others who have taken the same tack over the last week), i suspect would see only this, only victims:

It's becoming a colder, meaner, harder place. Margaret Thatcher was wrong: there is such a thing as society, and it's bloody annoyed, bitter and desperate and dancing on the grave of a broken old tyrant because there's nothing else to dance about.

 

[cesare]

I also see a load of fucking journalists in the way.

 

[DotCommunist]

terribly arch that article. So very 'observer' and psuedo perspective having.

Full of faux tiredness and detachment. It conspires with itself to be anodyne ffs.

and so very careful as well. If ever there was a chance for the self proclaimed voice of left youth to say something bitey it was now. Lost, like words in the statesman. 'Its to bad she won't write. But who does?'

etc etc

 

[J Ed]

It goes a bit deeper than that i think, what this article demonstrates in the split in her thinking between the mass of people (the class if you like) as victims, as people who simply have things imposed on them, as objects rather than as subjects - as a collectivity incapable of acting for itself apart from in warped and perverted forms of reaction, a mass of misery, and on the other the glamorous leading activists and journalists and artists and beautiful people who are the real subject of history, the people who do have the power to change society, the leaders. The implied vanguardism is here is pretty naked.

Exactly, this is also the sort of mentality that allows her to make up quotes with a clean conscience.

 

[ViolentPanda]

For the record what ymu did was not just make an argument but also try and slur me personally as a misogynist. That's the level she is operating at.

It's truly terrible to slur you as a misogynist.

Especially given that you're an equal-opportunity slimeball.

 

[Bakunin]

Exactly, this is also the sort of mentality that allows her to make up quotes with a clean conscience.

With a clean conscience and permanently incompetent sub-editor who, despite their many and repeated blunders, never seems to be fired.

 

[ViolentPanda]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGH

You can go after Thatcher with the vengance of a furious titan if you want, it's fucking commentary journalism - it'd be nice to see someone break from the anodyne shit. Don't even bother to style yourself after a Thompson, and stop fucking quoting your mate Warren Ellis, because you're just not that good at it. Your anger is manufactured, your language declawed, you're a neuteured acceptable rebel and you're not going to be able to escape that now.

But you could have snapped Thatcher's myth, hacked the legs off Cameron and Osborne, smack Miliband with them and trample on Clegg on the way out if you so chose to. And done it with the evidence, the numbers, the facts - given 4000 words of furious proof.

But you didn't. You just c&p'd every other fucking article going about it and spun it to show you'd been down on street level.

Right wing journalism doesn't get me this annoyed, because it's fucking good at what it does. Missed opporfuckingtunities. And if anyone says, well you do better, I intend to have a good bloody go.

Expose the truth, and she'd do herself out of what is, despite her protestations to the contrary, a very comfortable living, so her anodyne-but-laced-with-an-occasional-home-truth formula will be what she sticks to, right up until she's offered a safe seat by Labour.

 

[ViolentPanda]

what they've increased the broadband connection speed?

Nope. Amphetamine sulphate in the tea.

 

[ViolentPanda]

From the comments.

Uh oh. If legit.

What do you mean, "uh oh"? It'll be the subby's fault!

 

[TruXta]

It goes a bit deeper than that i think, what this article demonstrates in the split in her thinking between the mass of people (the class if you like) as victims, as people who simply have things imposed on them, as objects rather than as subjects - as a collectivity incapable of acting for itself apart from in warped and perverted forms of reaction, a mass of misery, and on the other the glamorous leading activists and journalists and artists and beautiful people who are the real subject of history, the people who do have the power to change society, the leaders. The implied vanguardism is here is pretty naked.

I suspect that i would see something very different in this picture than her:

I see a community that has recognised shared interests and recognised attacks on those interests and where they come from, i see collective activity spreading across all manner of cultural or local divisions. I see a way out in that. Penny (and others who have taken the same tack over the last week), i suspect would see only this, only victims:

I dunno if I see a way out - I'm a pessimist - but other than that: spot on.