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

[DotCommunist]

Take dotty. PD on the trail of tourist-activists, cultural imperialist pigdogs.

I'd like to see golgotha. Well, the bus station they built on it.

 

[andysays]

Anyone?

Anyone, even them.

There is, however, a difference between fantasising and becoming overcome with spontaneous and uncontrollable violent anger if actually coming face-to-face with those two, and obviously the court of revolutionary justice (urban division) will take that into consideration

 

[chilango]

...but to return to Froggie's point. We are privileged if we can make choices like this. It's similar to the idea of fucking off abroad to live/work. I think it requires at least social capital even if you do it when you're broke.

 

[DotCommunist]

...but to return to Froggie's point. We are privileged if we can make choices like this. It's similar to the idea of fucking off abroad to live/work. I think it requires at least social capital even if you do it when you're broke.

not always though. Plenty of w/c lads and ladies have gone and winged it living abroad. Perhaps not so many as do it from the more monied end of the middle classes but a few. Met a couple of geordies my own age before who had lived in and out of europe for years, scraping by.

 

[ViolentPanda]

We're not allowed to draw conclusions about people's habits from their appearance - didn't you get the memo?

I'm drawing no conclusion. I know he's a chronic masturbator. One of his friends told me "Malcolm is a massive wanker".

 

[ViolentPanda]

I'm glad it's not just me.

I cannot help but read him in the voice of Rick Mayall these days.

I've always read George Monbiot in Rik the Peoples' Poet's voice.

 

[andysays]

I'm drawing no conclusion. I know he's a chronic masturbator. One of his friends told me "Malcolm is a massive wanker".

That's OK then (but make sure you tell us next time you have inside information)

 

[rekil]

Fucking brilliant band. Almost got to put them on in Bristol.

Niall McGuirk brought them over to dubbelin and they played two shows in a weekend, both of which I failed to attend for whatever rubbish reasons, but I had a stab at assuaging the missed-gig-guilt'n'guttedness by picking up a decent quality bootleg from the man on O'Connell Bridge shortly afterwards.

 

[ymu]

...but to return to Froggie's point. We are privileged if we can make choices like this. It's similar to the idea of fucking off abroad to live/work. I think it requires at least social capital even if you do it when you're broke.

Yes. Everyone with the time to do the fieldwork needs at least three people backing them: to take care of stuff at home, fund them, and handle legal, medical and media if shit happens. The more social and financial capital people have the more of that can take care of itself or be handled at short notice. Others need more support or have more responsibilities to deal with or are better suited to different roles.

I was giving a talk about ISM just after Rachel Corrie was killed and the phone call came in about Tom Hurndall. We went back to the talk with someone delegated to keep us updated and someone asked what they could do as a middle-aged mum with no holiday time. I said there was no video camera in Gaza when Rachel was killed and that meant less chance of justice. People need equipment. By the end of the meeting there were cheques for over a grand ear-marked for a video camera and media-ready laptop for Gaza, Delivered the following week by an ISMer who we handed it over to and helped her set it up to pass muster going over the border.

There's a Palestinian-owned club in King's Cross that will host benefit gigs and anyone can piggy-back off an ISM-London fund-raiser if they are willing to commit, do training etc. People who are flush people who are unemployed.

I was arrested with an unemployed (Jewish, Hebrew-speaking) software engineer from California, a bin-man from Japan, Danish guy just out of national service, young gay Icelandic lad, two American journos doing a Laurie, Aussie PR guy for Nablus Uni who was trying to get back to his home in Nablus and hitched a ride in with us, Jordanian journo from the Jordanian government press agency (international incident: check) who we met in the camp.

The media office were laughing their tits off when we relayed all that. Blatant media tartery across three continents? Check.

I was worried that the anarchists would despise me for having a brand new rucksack. I ended up walking over a mountain with someone who had a suitcase on wheels packed full of books, amongst many others in our raggedy bunch. Anarchists and liberals get on because they're there to do a job and politics is for down-time, not decision-making. Palestinian-led troops and that discipline is kept. Some people self-fund, some people fund-raise, some people cross-subsidise if they can cover things like hostel or food without needing to worry.

How it should be. Gets shit done.

 

[frogwoman]

ymu, if i'm being a bit cold with you it's because i'm both at work, and also because i'm still a bit annoyed about what you said to me last night and comments about shouty toddlers etc in response to what i said about seeing/experiencing racism, it seemed to me you were just dismissing what i was saying on that thread and telling me i shouldn't complain about it. it's easy for you to say that somebody else should just ignore it and not be 'distracted" by it, and imagine that it won't have an effect on what they do or don't decide to be involved in.

it's easy for somebody with a secure job who's able to get time off work to do this stuff, or who has saved enough not to be able to work. i have to work, i have no choice. i'm also in the position where this would cause the mother of all arguments in my family and i'm not really in a strong enough place to handle that.

 

[frogwoman]

oh make no mistake i'm still thinking about going abroad eventually, but will need a secure job, secure accommodation, etc.

 

[chilango]

it's easy for somebody with a secure job who's able to get time off work to do this stuff, or who has saved enough not to be able to work. i have to work, i have no choice. i'm also in the position where this would cause the mother of all arguments in my family and i'm not really in a strong enough place to handle that.

To be honest I think it's often the opposite. You can't (and won't) do stuff like this if you have a secure job. You can only really do it when you don't have a job. IME anyway. The more security I've had in my life the less risks I've taken.

...but you're right on the rest.

 

[DotCommunist]

having a solid trade or saleable skill can make it more viable though. Oh of course there is migrant labour work, often seasonal but a trade or a tefl etc is going to make comfortable living abroad easier

 

[frogwoman]

To be honest I think it's often the opposite. You can't (and won't) do stuff like this if you have a secure job. You can only really do it when you don't have a job. IME anyway. The more security I've had in my life the less risks I've taken.

...but you're right on the rest.

I meant having a secure job in the country of your destination, not a few months unpaid as an activist

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

To be honest I think it's often the opposite. You can't (and won't) do stuff like this if you have a secure job. You can only really do it when you don't have a job. IME anyway. The more security I've had in my life the less risks I've taken.

...but you're right on the rest.

Basically everyone's situation is different and we should be careful before we make sweeping recommendations or judgements.

 

[ymu]

ymu, if i'm being a bit cold with you it's because i'm both at work, and also because i'm still a bit annoyed about what you said to me last night and comments about shouty toddlers etc in response to what i said about seeing/experiencing racism, it seemed to me you were just dismissing what i was saying on that thread and telling me i shouldn't complain about it. it's easy for you to say that somebody else should just ignore it and not be 'distracted" by it, and imagine that it won't have an effect on what they do or don't decide to be involved in.

it's easy for somebody with a secure job who's able to get time off work to do this stuff, or who has saved enough not to be able to work. i have to work, i have no choice. i'm also in the position where this would cause the mother of all arguments in my family and i'm not really in a strong enough place to handle that.

I have never called you a shouty toddler. I will not take responsibility for people taking contextual observations the wrong way. If you think it is likely that I would lump you in with the likes of ... well, thanks.

I objected to you suggesting I might be overtired at 1am, for reasons I expanded on.

I was angry. You're angry. It's allowed. If you hold grudges, give me fair warning. I don't. I need to look up the rules of that game.

 

[frogwoman]

it's got nothing to do with holding grudges, i just want you to think about what you're saying. and you didn't expand on the reasons really, you told me to fuck off last night, i didn't remark on it because i assumed you were pissed or something.

http://www.urban75.net/forums/threa...-boycott-litigation-fails-in-uk.308154/page-4

do you really not understand how this series of posts comes across? we all need to check our privilege at times (lol) and you're not an exception, and neither am i. especially since you've been attacking people on the boards, sometimes rightly, for not doing exactly the same thing

 

[ymu]

You start a post with "It's not a fucking excuse..." and I start my reply with "Where have I said it is a fucking excuse?"

It's on that thread. I am responding to what you say. I'm not going to shut up about what is going on in Palestine just because some racists and some numpties and some racist numpties piggy-back a cause. Democratic centralism causes the abuse of power. Palestinians under occupation suffer it.

Priorities. Nuance. I think what I have said is clear. If you think I am insulting you, you are free to read it that way. There is no point going in circles making the same points.

If you think I'm insensitive, fine. If you choose to be insensitive in return and then react sensitively to the response, well I have to deal with the first bit. The rest is your stuff, not mine.

 

[frogwoman]

ffs.

you actually can't see what is wrong with what you said.

 

[phildwyer]

Caught here acting as propagandist and anti-imperialist cheerleader for Julian Assange in only slightly more coherent fashion than Glenn fucking Greenwald.

That's an absolutely brilliant article, thanks for forwarding it.

I hadn't previously been aware of the anti-Castro connection. Milne's work is always excellent:

''And given the context, it's also hardly surprising that sceptics have raised the links with US-funded anti-Cuban opposition groups of one of those making the accusations – or that campaigners such as the London-based Women Against Rape have expressed scepticism at the "unusual zeal" with which rape allegations were pursued against Assange in a country where rape convictions have fallen. The danger, of course, is that the murk around this case plays into a misogynist culture in which rape victims aren't believed.''

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/21/why-us-is-out-to-get-assange

 

[phildwyer]

...but ymu is also right. It can, and has been done. I know. I went out to Sudan (it was originally going to be Gaza but that fell through) with a hundred quid in my pocket, a hundred quid in the bank at home. I quit my job, left my house, and had nothing in place for my return. Nothing. But then I also had no idea how long I was gonna be there.

I lived in Amsterdam for six months without a penny to my name when I was 18 years old. Also travelled from there to Berlin and spent a few weeks there for no money whatsoever. It would be harder these days, what with hitching being difficult and squatting being abolished, but still by no means impossible.

 

[phildwyer]

...but to return to Froggie's point. We are privileged if we can make choices like this. It's similar to the idea of fucking off abroad to live/work. I think it requires at least social capital even if you do it when you're broke.

Bollocks. All it requires is a bit of initiative, and that is not the prerogative of any social class.

 

[phildwyer]

The John Gray credibility problem.

What's this?

 

[love detective]

the very British idea that people can, in the end, only speak for and from the class into which they were born is something I encounter all the time, and makes me fearful for the future both of intelligent debate and socialist struggle in this country.

There it is then. Intelligent debate and socialist struggle are only possible if people like Penny step in and speak on behalf of a working class who on their own are not even capable of intelligent debate let alone socialist struggle

Meaningful action, for revolutionaries, is whatever increases the confidence the autonomy, the initiative, the participation, the solidarity, the equalitarian tendencies and the self-activity of the masses and whatever assists in their demystification. Sterile and harmful action is whatever reinforces the passivity of the masses, their apathy, their cynicism, their differentiation through hierarchy, their alienation, their reliance on others to do things for them and the degree to which they can therefore be manipulated by others - even by those allegedly acting on their behalf.

 

[cesare]

There it is then. Intelligent debate and socialist struggle are only possible if people like Penny step in and speak on behalf of a working class who on their own are not even capable of intelligent debate let alone socialist struggle

Meaningful action, for revolutionaries, is whatever increases the confidence the autonomy, the initiative, the participation, the solidarity, the equalitarian tendencies and the self-activity of the masses and whatever assists in their demystification. Sterile and harmful action is whatever reinforces the passivity of the masses, their apathy, their cynicism, their differentiation through hierarchy, their alienation, their reliance on others to do things for them and the degree to which they can therefore be manipulated by others - even by those allegedly acting on their behalf.

She's a middle class, privileged, "educated", patronising bitch that doesn't have the self awareness to realise that she's a fucking laughing stock

 

[BigTom]

There it is then. Intelligent debate and socialist struggle are only possible if people like Penny step in and speak on behalf of a working class who on their own are not even capable of intelligent debate let alone socialist struggle

Meaningful action, for revolutionaries, is whatever increases the confidence the autonomy, the initiative, the participation, the solidarity, the equalitarian tendencies and the self-activity of the masses and whatever assists in their demystification. Sterile and harmful action is whatever reinforces the passivity of the masses, their apathy, their cynicism, their differentiation through hierarchy, their alienation, their reliance on others to do things for them and the degree to which they can therefore be manipulated by others - even by those allegedly acting on their behalf.

Hmmm, I thought part of the premise of intersectionality, privilege checking and so on is that you cannot speak outside of your identity. In this world class is regarded the same as any other identity so how come a man can't talk outside of their gender identity or a white person outside of their racial identity but a middle class/upper class person can talk outside of their class identity?
Does she not realise the contradiction she's placing herself in within her own theories?

 

[agricola]

Hmmm, I thought part of the premise of intersectionality, privilege checking and so on is that you cannot speak outside of your identity. In this world class is regarded the same as any other identity so how come a man can't talk outside of their gender identity or a white person outside of their racial identity but a middle class/upper class person can talk outside of their class identity?
Does she not realise the contradiction she's placing herself in within her own theories?

She is a revolutionary though.

 

[chilango]

Bollocks. All it requires is a bit of initiative, and that is not the prerogative of any social class.

No.

I didn't say it was the prerogative of any social class, but that the sort of trips being discussed here require a certain amount of social capital to a) plan b) execute and c) support you when it all goes wrong.

 

[toggle]

Hmmm, I thought part of the premise of intersectionality, privilege checking and so on is that you cannot speak outside of your identity. In this world class is regarded the same as any other identity so how come a man can't talk outside of their gender identity or a white person outside of their racial identity but a middle class/upper class person can talk outside of their class identity?
Does she not realise the contradiction she's placing herself in within her own theories?

i'ts not a contradiction if you don't recognize class issues

 

[Firky]

She's a middle class, privileged, "educated", patronising bitch that doesn't have the self awareness to realise that she's a fucking laughing stock

I've never heard or seen you call someone a bitch before. A seminal moment.

See what you do to people, Laurie?