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

[butchersapron]

You've been dying to use that one haven't you?

 

[barney_pig]

We could have a go at some kind of U75 project where we build a spacecraft ourselves - people always have scrap lying around and they always say the Apollo missions got to the moon on a computer with about 8k of memory. Someone must have a Spectrum in the garage still. We can have a whip-round for petrol or liquid oxygen or whatever fuel you need too. I reckon we could at least get you out of orbit and then you could take it from there - see what happens.

The American/ soviet space race was a byproduct of the Cold War nuclear competition. Proletarian Democracy(star fraction) has been utilising the expertise of our atomic development teams in constructing a viable orbital vehicle (definitely NOT a ICBM!!). If the interstellar communist combabes won't come to us then we have to go to them.

 

[JimW]

The American/ soviet space race was a byproduct of the Cold War nuclear competition. Proletarian Democracy(star fraction) has been utilising the expertise of our atomic development teams in constructing a viable orbital vehicle (definitely NOT a ICBM!!). If the interstellar communist combabes won't come to us then we have to go to them.

A sort of "to me, to you" expedition, as it were?
anyhow, finally a use for Kickstarter, funding Laurie's trips to another planet instead of just this different world she lives in to the rest of us.

 

[Steel Icarus]

And here we have the problem: Re: that piece on intersectionality someone else pleads with Laurie:

"Laurie where are you with this? a lengthy piece from you on intersectionality might help address the injustices at play..."

so a privileged journo can write a piece about a piece written by a privileged journo. In house, in house...

 

[Delroy Booth]

it's nasty stuff this. Laurie's right in the middle of it saying nowt.

 

[butchersapron]

And here we have the problem: Re: that piece on intersectionality someone else pleads with Laurie:

"Laurie where are you with this? a lengthy piece from you on intersectionality might help address the injustices at play..."

so a privileged journo can write a piece about a piece written by a privileged journo. In house, in house...

 

[weepiper]

A lengthy piece on intersectionality from Laurie Penny or any of the rest of them has never helped address any of the injustices at play. And never will.

 

[barney_pig]

A sort of "to me, to you" expedition, as it were?
anyhow, finally a use for Kickstarter, funding Laurie's trips to another planet instead of just this different world she lives in to the rest of us.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/miniongames/the-manhattan-project-board-game?ref=search
Covert pd funddrive

 

[Steel Icarus]

A lengthy piece on intersectionality from Laurie Penny or any of the rest of them has never helped address any of the injustices at play. And never will.

Oh, they don't mean the injustices meted out to the poor & working class. Just the one where someone's been forced off twitter because of something someone said about them on twitter.

 

[frogwoman]

forced off twitter ffs

I'm still waiting for that exclusive in the new statesman about butchers and articul8's latest spat

 

[frogwoman]

international news: spymaster speaks candidly about his views on casually red's views on the malvina's

this is the type of level these people are at

 

[J Ed]

Oh, they don't mean the injustices meted out to the poor & working class. Just the one where someone's been forced off twitter because of something someone said about them on twitter.

A spectre is haunting Islington...

 

[frogwoman]

""he's just an auto-labourist prick" says butchers, staring pointedly into his tea. "He didn't have a leg to stand on the latest Ed Miliband thread." Is this what the left has come to, I ask, as a man on the corner hands out quarter pints of milk"

 

[frogwoman]

followed by a full-page article an in depth analysis "Tories who have defriended me on facebook and stopped replying to my texts"

 

[J Ed]

Next week: a completely true anecdote about a Serbian investment banker who wears Hoxha t-shirts that asked me to buy shares in his startup!

 

[DotCommunist]

I was thinking about applying for that

 

[Casually Red]

most of the time i think Stalin was a prick, but then i read about these wankers and i start wondering were there these types back in the day..and maybe thats what sent him over the edge . Because all i can think about at the minute are gulags

 

[sihhi]

• 'Privilege' is a hyper-personalised anti-chauvinism. Its internet manifestation appears to rest on twitter arguments based around minor indiscretions just two words in the case of Suzanne Moore - 'Brazilian transexual' used in a positive fashion meaning thin and conventional beautiful (unhelpful but not requiring blanket twitter death wishes - not saying because I want to protect SM's feelings but to build a wider anti-chauvinist mindset - no one wins).

• 'Intersectionality' is not a useful import from USA. It means either nuanced or considerate - but it is blown up and used 'your socialism/feminism is not intersectional' precisely to alienate the non-university educated, people could just as well say 'your socialism/feminism needs to consider ... ' .

• 'of colour' is another import. My in-law family doesn't see why it should it be applied when a shorter single word already exists. As for other non-white associates I have, I don't even want to ask them whether it should be applied to them - one question was enough. There is a sense I get that newer nonwhite immigrants have not been asked whether they wish to be considered 'people of colour' or 'women of colour'. And where does it leave the Irish travellers, Turks or Iranians who are white? Not 'of colour' certainly, but then what?

• One Point: How often do we hear demands for anti-racism to be intersectional? That class should play some stronger or - in my opinion - the main role in the creation and organisation of anti-racist or anti-xenophobic alliances. That cross-class bodies like Unite Against Fascism or Stop the EDL/SDL or - create opportunities for backlash as much as they 'stop fascism'. That articles like the one Laurie Penny wrote for VICE while interviewing the EDL leader can do nothing but provide a free slap-up meal for that leader and his chums, and confirm pre-existing backlash sentiment against the 'detached, multicultural' London liberal media.

• Also: How often is even the intersectional 'race conscious' socialism/feminism actually based around structural targets? The whole case seems to revolve around whether or not Mary Beard, BBC presenter and Oxford don, did or did not say something racist. But that's hardly a meaningful central line of attack, Mary Beard as an Oxford don perpetuates a backwards approach to capitalist classics education (also highly elitist, so inevitably against immigrants because of reality under which they arrive to this country). So her worldview will be fixed on doing well for Britain - it's a structural thing not a personal foible.

• There is no structural attack on capitalist universities that reproduce chauvinism and national borders. To do so would have to involve setting aside questions of privilege (who is more privileged? foreign students - foreign government scolarships + super-higher fees or British students - high fees?). There's an ingrown debate about whether or not X did or did not check their privilege in responding to a false accusation of overt racism.

• It's slowly coming down to: Hunt instances of 'colour-blind racism' (ie white people failing to mention nonwhite people) in public utterance, overcoming actual, structural racism-in-the-instructions-and-the-reality in the immigration service and benefits system and army can continue.

• The idea of a progressive stack - as at Occupy Wall Street - where visibly Asian and black people - are given first chance to speak and extra turns by a person chairing a meeting could be dangerous. Not because 'OMG what about the reverse racism!' - it won't solve anything like racism and it's a gimmick.

• But because of the complications it presents to 'poorer' 'union-density-weaker' parts of the 'native' white working class. The image can easily be turned into immediately 'Oh, charming they'd rather give the microphone to middle-class Asian people than those like me who are actually suffering'. It actively invites the playing of oppression olympics - whilst asserting throughout that such an outcome is impossible. And when oppression olympics is played it becomes 'intersectionality/ checking your privilege, you're doing it wrong'

• After contact with teachers and managers parts of the white working class feel like they are another race (just like other working class people) - but with the progressive stack to those people it can seem one set the foreign parts being listened to first - exacerbating backlash sentiments 'people who have not been here long are given lots of council housing points because they produce large families, white families who have worked 20 years but with only 1 child don't get any - the foreigner comes first in this land, now' [I will chase down a quote by Don McCullin where he says being fully working-class with no redeeming features of middle-class input is like being another race]

NB: Here is a progressive stack in operation:



Any thoughts on the exchange in the video from Richmond Virginia?

 

[J Ed]

Any thoughts on the exchange in the video from Richmond Virginia?

Looks like a bunch of white people trying to show off to each other how not racist they are and who is the most not racist. Really awkward to watch, sort of like Peep Show. Also not unlike student politics here...

 

[butchersapron]

Any thoughts on the exchange in the video from Richmond Virginia?

Will reply on the excellent longer points tmw - where would Fred Hampton get bumped up to by the self-appointed organisers list?

 

[butchersapron]

Looks like a bunch of white people trying to show off to each other how not racist they are and who is the most not racist. Really awkward to watch, sort of like Peep Show. Also not unlike student politics here...

It's hideous, it makes my skin crawl.

At least some of this filth had he guts to attack OTC stuff in the 70s.

 

[butchersapron]

I was going to bed but that shit has got me riled. The weathermen all professors - this is your victory Ayers and Dohrn, to reduce all opposition to this individualised shit and to make sure it's passes your composition tests. You smiling fucking cunts. Guess whose left inside? Guess what their class privilege got them?

 

[sihhi]

Looks like a bunch of white people trying to show off to each other how not racist they are and who is the most not racist. Really awkward to watch, sort of like Peep Show. Also not unlike student politics here...

Here is the foundation for this kind of thing as explained by Allison "I am good at giving a damn" Burtch:

Occupy Wall Street’s General Assembly operates under a revolutionary “progressive stack.” A normal “stack” means those who wish to speak get in line. A progressive stack encourages women and traditionally marginalized groups speak before men, especially white men. This is something that has been in place since the beginning, it is necessary, and it is important.

“Step up, step back” was a common phrase of the first week, encouraging white men to acknowledge the privilege they have lived in their entire lives and to step back from continually speaking. This progressive stack has been inspiring and mind-boggling in its effectiveness.

This join-authored by Emily Welty, Matthew Bolton, and Nick Zukowski 'Occupy Wall Street as a Palimpsest: Overview of a Dynamic Movement'

In the course of meetings, Occupy often employs a technique called "progressive stack." This is a way of creating a list of speakers that gives preference to people who have been historically marginalized. Progressive stack allows the voices of women, people of color, disabled people, and other groups to be highlighted and to ensure their narrative is written into the OWS palimpsest. Part of the progressive stack is the idea of "step up, step back," which encourages the participation of historically marginalized people (including women, people of color, LGBTQ individuals, disabled individuals, very old or very young people).

In addition to white males receiving one go to speak while others (not sure if white women count )
get multiple goes, a further innovation apparently was the whole assembly repeating what people are saying for the purposes of audibility, but doing so extra loudly for nonwhite speakers.

 

[Nice one]

But that's where the similarity ends. Enjoying privilege while pretending to be oppressed by those who haven't had the life chances she's had is pretty much all there is to consumer radicals like LP and co.

There was a lot more to Strummer and The Clash than that. And JS had humility, he didn't always just want to talk about himself. They can't help the background they come from - it's what they do with it that matters. It's a bit of a bizarre comparison if you ask me.

well strummer certainly went out of his way to hide his middle class background. For a reason.

 

[Lo Siento.]

fucking hell, that video is grim.

 

[J Ed]

The responses in the comments here are (mostly) pretty healthy

 

[butchersapron]

well strummer certainly went out of his way to hide his middle class background. For a reason.

Fill us in then jacko. What was that reason?

 

[The39thStep]

Marvellous that peoples ides are defined not by what they might think but what their body tells us.

 

[Nice one]

Fill us in then jacko. What was that reason?

fuck knows mate. History is littered with posh lads pretending to be working class.

 

[phildwyer]

History is littered with posh lads pretending to be working class.

Far more the other way round tbf.