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

[muscovyduck]

Oh she has been travelling again....

Yeah and I was waiting for the conversation to move on to mention it but what do we think of Molly Crabapple visiting that Cooper Union thing?

 

[muscovyduck]

I feel for her.. I would so tweet with a battery about to die.. it's essential...

Been there, done that

 

[sihhi]

Agree with you again frogwoman - there's zero evidence of any exaggeration here.
The distortion and invented quotes all happened relatively early on in the career and are featured in the first book Penny Red Notes from the New Age of Dissent.
Whether it was people noticing it in general (this thread a small subset of it), or women who were placed as the distorted quotees ? speaking up about it, or the dismissal of Johann Hari was the tipping point no one can say.
There's zero reason to expect any distortion or exaggeration particularly about a topic like this.
(I also think it's wrong to suggest that those who might have had doubts about LP's representation of her emails (in the context of how LP represented Dave Thurrock etc) are similar to rightists (Playboy or Paglia) who suggest that scepticism about rape claims is positive/sensible).

A last effort to persuade people of the veracity of the claims (apart from there being no evidence just speculation of their being distorted/exaggerated):

1 If you look through formsprings you do get 'anonymouses' giving women often women teenagers threats and the like (maybe using someone else's log-in from school computers).

2 If you are a journalist with your email address printed once a week in a national paper (no matter how low the circulation or how marginal it may appear) you will get feedback on it. An associate went to an AWL talk (yeah I know) about the Iraq war with Nick Cohen and Martin Thomas. In it, Cohen read out some of many emails with exactly how people wanted to kill him, how God would punish him in hell etc., how he was helping Israel because he was Jewish - basically racialised abuse.

3 If you look through say this thread Greek Extremists Attack Each Other Literally (Warning ugly sexist and racist comments) on Guido Fawkes - you also see that prominent lefty-taunting is a sport among the Libertarian Right (not forgetting that this swamp is where the particular breed of MRA grows).

Put all this together and the abusive emails square with reality - ie 'my female friend AB runs a blog as a woman about cuts, doesn't get much abuse ergo am sceptical' doesn't cut it.

 

[toggle]

Ah yes, the unilad example. I cannot even begin to describe how horrified I was with that.

i've described it a lot. one of those bastards is at my uni.

where some fucking prick told me in class that feminism wasn't needed anymore.

i thought my reaction was relatively restrained considering. i didn't shout or bite him. i just told him he was talking bollocks, not to use anecdata and go read a bit more before commenting.

 

[ymu]

I don't agree that "the only advice women need to hear about rape is: get evidence". If I had only one piece of advice for women on rape it would be: get even.

That would be my approach to getting evidence, but not all women have my pain threshold. Evidence is often the only way to get even, unless you want all the men you know white-knighting all over the shop. (That would be a no, from me.)

This woman is my hero.

CSI fan spat on rapist's car seat and pulled out her own hair to make sure he was caught

 

[smokedout]

C I've never realised emails could be traced in any way. I now intend on researching this.

online email providers like yahoo, gmail etc will hand over ip details to police which identifies the computer you are using (or usually using) and your internet provider company who will provide a name and address, they can do this pretty routinely (i cant remember the exact procedure) and will if they are investigating a crime. facebook, twitter, google and all the rest will hand over details as well. abusive/sexually offensive emails are pretty much covered the same way as abusive phone calls in law. like a lot of things on the net abuse on social media etc, or things written about people rather than sent to them could be a bit legally messy because the laws werent really written to accommodate the reality of the net and theres a lot of stuff being tested in courts now - it is quite an important deal id say worth discussion outside of this thread, about what is acceptable/unacceptable abuse, private/public space etc

people can be anonymous, but youd need at least a reasonable level of technical knowledge (thats beyond me) in using proxies etc, or you can use cybercafs and online emails, but they do have cameras and witnesses and stuff, i doubt the old bill would go that far to investigate a malicious email, but they have in terrorism cases etc

 

[cesare]

That would be my approach to getting evidence, but not all women have my pain threshold. Evidence is often the only way to get even, unless you want all the men you know white-knighting all over the shop. (That would be a no, from me.)

This woman is my hero.

CSI fan spat on rapist's car seat and pulled out her own hair to make sure he was caught

My version of getting even doesn't rely on the criminal justice system

 

[ymu]

Come on now. That first bit was you having a problem with the semantics of a sentence. 'If' in this instance did not imply disbelief. It wasn't said that it's always definitely traceable. It was actual advice. Advice that will be found useful by a large majority of people. I've never realised emails could be traced in any way. I now intend on researching this.

The police cannot be trusted. Maybe you're lucky to have had a decent experience, but I've reported sexual assault to the police, I gave them the signature and postcode of the man, tons of other information and it definitely wasn't worth it. The evidence did jack shit. Going to the police just prolonged the experience.

Seriously, I understand how personal any general discussion on sexual assault is for women but misrepresenting arguments posts like that isn't the right thing to do.



A week is more manageable for women than forever. Therefore the campaign would be more likely to succeed. It's not a minor tweak.
As I implied above: If get evidence is your only advice then it's you who's naive.

I'll accept that I am in mightily pissed off mood and end my part in this bunfight but ...

I see absolutely no reason to make it a one week campaign. It should be the norm. If it was the norm then assault would not be the norm.

Given that most men who do commit a serious sexual assault do so only once in their lives, and only 1-2% commit many at all, I think almost all of them would be intelligent enough to keep their hands and pricks to themselves for a week or two, whilst switching to the delightful sort of verbal abuse which I find so much easier to handle.

I'd rather they stuck close enough to get a knee in the groin and I don't think we should give them prior warning of a temporary state of affairs where we will actually report them, but then stop if they promise to be nice.

I think the report and prosecute all assaults thing has to happen, but I also think it is important to ask the men in our lives to be a little sensitive to the fact that we are at significant danger from a substantial minority of men and they have a responsibility not to make that worse by accidentally giving the impression to some of these fucked up (and usually very immature, often teenage) men that it is socially acceptable to bait women, and to try to avoid caling them liars when the subject is whether or not they are experiencing excessively violent misogynistic attention of any kind at all.

 

[ymu]

My version of getting even doesn't rely on the criminal justice system

Prison is far worse than any beating and I ain't going down for life for the sake of some worthless piece of scum.

He'd get as good a kicking as I could safely administer, but I want that fucker on the nonce-wing and am quite happy to ensure I gather enough scars to make sure of it.

It won't stop until the risk of prison is a serious one. Like seatbelts in the '70s and drink-driving in the '80s. It has not yet dawned on the criminal justice system that there is a law that they can enforce.

 

[toggle]

online email providers like yahoo, gmail etc will hand over ip details to police which identifies the computer you are using (or usually using) and your internet provider company who will provide a name and address, they can do this pretty routinely (i cant remember the exact procedure) and will if they are investigating a crime. facebook, twitter, google and all the rest will hand over details as well. abusive/sexually offensive emails are pretty much covered the same way as abusive phone calls in law. like a lot of things on the net abuse on social media etc, or things written about people rather than sent to them could be a bit legally messy because the laws werent really written to accommodate the reality of the net and theres a lot of stuff being tested in courts now - it is quite an important deal id say worth discussion outside of this thread, about what is acceptable/unacceptable abuse, private/public space etc

people can be anonymous, but youd need at least a reasonable level of technical knowledge (thats beyond me) in using proxies etc, or you can use cybercafs and online emails, but they do have cameras and witnesses and stuff, i doubt the old bill would go that far to investigate a malicious email, but they have in terrorism cases etc

there are enough reports of them pulling stunts like this on actual rapes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14844985

 

[cesare]

Prison is far worse than any beating and I ain't going down for life for the sake of some worthless piece of scum.

He'd get as good a kicking as I could safely administer, but I want that fucker on the nonce-wing and am quite happy to ensure I gather enough scars to make sure of it.

What on earth makes you assume I meant a beating?

 

[classicdish]

people can be anonymous, but youd need at least a reasonable level of technical knowledge (thats beyond me) in using proxies etc

This Wired article says you could just use Tor and hushmail: http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2013/04/how-to/how-to-create-anonymous-email-accounts

 

[smokedout]

This Wired article says you could just use Tor and hushmail: http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2013/04/how-to/how-to-create-anonymous-email-accounts

thats a reasonable level of technical knowledge thats beyond me and fuck knows ive tried to do all that online security stuff

 

[barney_pig]

True, and sadly us unskilled get looked down on by the skilled, as if we're outside of the working class. Seen it happen.

Lots of this is the knowledge of just ow precarious the privileges of he skilled worker are, remove the skilled workers conditions and they are likely to be in a worse position than their unskilled colleagues.
People are more interested, and impressed by,my Time as a train driver on my C V than they are by the history BA or the MA that I gained after redundancy. However, none of my driving skills are transferable or translate into new job offers.

 

[love detective]

Put all this together and the abusive emails square with reality

who has claimed that she is lying about getting abusive emails (or abuse through any other medium)?

 

[smokedout]

just as an aside, do people believe laurie gets 3 or 4 emails a week from young women who want to be bloggers/social activists asking her advice, which is what she says first, because I dont, Id be surprised if she gets that a month

 

[love detective]

i don't find that as difficult to believe as the claim that she gets abusive messages at the level of people wanting to rape/cunt kick/garrot/bury her every single day

she has a legion of young followers (in the wider non-twitter sense) who rightly or wrongly see her as some kind of role model and you just need to look at the replies to any of her tweets to see the level of fawning from both young and old, male and female. So wouldn't be surprised if a load of people are getting in touch with her or maintain regular communication with her in relation to things like that

 

[ymu]

I don't see why either one of them needs to be difficult to believe nor why someone who is not in a position to know thinks it is unlikely.

If this small group on Facebook attracted that amount of abuse and real life physical threat, exactly how unlikely do you think it is that she gets enough abuse along those lines for her claims to be a fair representation?

A number of women who blog and people who follow a lot of women bloggers who write about 'red mist' issues have told you what their experience is and that it accords with Penny's claims.

Why are you repeating this shit yet again? Is it to be deliberately offensive or are you genuinely this unaware?

 

[cesare]

just as an aside, do people believe laurie gets 3 or 4 emails a week from young women who want to be bloggers/social activists asking her advice, which is what she says first, because I dont, Id be surprised if she gets that a month

I'm quite cautious about her claims because I've seen evidence that she is prone to exaggeration, misrepresentation and lying (cf her treatment of Spiney, ld and Joe). However (as sihhi has shown) she is working (a) the middleclass network, and (b) the social media network, for all she's worth and she gets national media coverage. Even if she's exaggerating, it's something of a self fulfilling prophecy because the claims in themselves form part of the encouragement. So I don't find it hard to accept that there's a strong possibility that she is, and even if she's not it won't be long before she is.

 

[cesare]

i don't find that as difficult to believe as the claim that she gets abusive messages at the level of people wanting to rape/cunt kick/garrot/bury her every single day

she has a legion of young followers (in the wider non-twitter sense) who rightly or wrongly see her as some kind of role model and you just need to look at the replies to any of her tweets to see the level of fawning from both young and old, male and female. So wouldn't be surprised if a load of people are getting in touch with her or maintain regular communication with her in relation to things like that

I agree with what you said in your 2nd para

 

[smokedout]

even so i dont find it plausible, although if it includes people she's in regular contact with its a bit different, but the impression given is that these are separate unsolicited emails

thats a fuck of a lot, just on one very specific subject for someone who in the general scheme of things is pretty obscure, i might buy that cheryl cole or wayne rooney gets that number of emails asking for advice every week, but not laurie penny

 

[ymu]

What on earth makes you assume I meant a beating?

I meant a beating. I have no idea what you mean because you haven't said. I have a poor imagination I suppose.

 

[love detective]

A number of women who blog and people who follow a lot of women bloggers who write about 'red mist' issues have told you what their experience is and that it accords with Penny's claims.

Sorry but I must have missed the bits where you/they told me that they too get abusive messages at the level of people wanting to rape/cunt kick/garrot/bury them every single day. Because for their experiences to 'accord with Penny's claims' that would have to be the case

For example when it was put to you here I noticed you were unable to respond to it. Although given that you seem to have a remarkable and consistent ability to fail to either read or comprehend what i've written in my posts in relation to this i'm not surprised. I'm not sure whose points you have been engaging with in your replies to me, but they certainly haven't been the ones i've made in the posts that you have 'nominally' replied to

 

[cesare]

even so i dont find it plausible, although if it includes people she's in regular contact with its a bit different, but the impression given is that these are separate unsolicited emails

thats a fuck of a lot, just on one very specific subject for someone who in the general scheme of things is pretty obscure, i might buy that cheryl cole or wayne rooney gets that number of emails asking for advice every week, but not laurie penny

Even if you're right - what difference does it make?

 

[smokedout]

and why would people ask her advice on being a blogger or social activist, given that she's neither - shes a journalist for an obscure left wing mag with a blog she's very rarely updated since around 2009

 

[love detective]

it shows how well she does at presenting the illusion that she is the things she says/thinks she is

 

[smokedout]

Even if you're right - what difference does it make?

none, in the general scheme of things except that she lied about it

 

[cesare]

and why would people ask her advice on being a blogger or social activist, given that she's neither - shes a journalist for an obscure left wing mag with a blog she's very rarely updated since around 2009

Are you leading up to "so therefore we should all ignore her cos she's not worth paying attention to"?

 

[ymu]

even so i dont find it plausible, although if it includes people she's in regular contact with its a bit different, but the impression given is that these are separate unsolicited emails

thats a fuck of a lot, just on one very specific subject for someone who in the general scheme of things is pretty obscure, i might buy that cheryl cole or wayne rooney gets that number of emails asking for advice every week, but not laurie penny

I don't think it is. Who are her target audience? Politicised young 'uns, often at university, who will look to the loudest young progressive voices available. She and Jones are it.

The school kids ruled in 2003, when it came to short-notice, determined, angry protest and those amazing kids are now some pretty decent protesters. My avatar is a tribute to them, amongst other things.

There are a lot of them and they have not all yet had enough time, learning and life experience to see what they are being sold.

She writes so much ridiculous stuff, why pick and pick at something that just isn't very important. The fact that she needs to say it is important. Her insecurity shines through. Everyone's does sometime. You can use that to jab harder at the personal or you can focus on what she disseminates and reproduces.

There is so much important content on this thread. It is cheapened by this small-minded hatefulness and some very revealing attitudes.

 

[ymu]

Sorry but I must have missed the bits where you/they told me that they too get abusive messages at the level of people wanting to rape/cunt kick/garrot/bury them every single day. Because for their experiences to 'accord with Penny's claims' that would have to be the case

For example when it was put to you here I noticed you were unable to respond to it. Although given that you seem to have a remarkable and consistent ability to fail to either read or comprehend what i've written in my posts in relation to this i'm not surprised. I'm not sure whose points you have been engaging with in your replies to me, but they certainly haven't been the ones i've made in the posts that you have 'nominally' replied to

Are you saying they are also national newspaper columnists?

I have had phone calls making those threats. Mostly from American accents, thank fuck. Several a day for a week or two, occasionals for months after. One PC killed stone dead, one university network downed for three days by spam porn.

And that was for being in the paper for a week or two.

You might want to stop defending your position and start wondering whether it is at all defensible.