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

[seventh bullet]

Nobody has had the guts to apologise for that or for the rape apologism and stalkery behavior on this thread that, in my opinion, negates any valid criticism you might have to offer me.

Too easy.

And by the way, have you had the guts to openly apologise for smearing people as racists on here?

 

[tufty79]

Well, I accept your apology- although none of that was your fault, Tufty.

thank you. that's very kind of you.

I have tried

everyone loves a tryer

I just don't understand

clearly not.

I'm finding your behavior deeply triggering.

snap. and not just today.

I hope you don't do this to anyone else.

fuck right off.

and have a look at the dictionary definition of 'empathy'. it works both ways.

actually - sorry, internets. i'll leave this thread for a bit and let lauriepenny exercise her right to reply without me jumping in and getting cross.
today's fortune cracker joke?
what do you call two opposing rape survivors arguing on the internet?

a fucking disaster.



i'll prbably 'see' you next time we both write for one in four magazine, innit?

 

[lauriepenny]

I'm getting nowhere with this. You're probably decent people individually, but together you behave like a pack of playground bullies, and your lack of empathy is shocking. I've tried in good faith to engage; you'd be hard-pressed to find another columnist who would- and I regret ever doing so.

 

[DaveCinzano]

you'd be hard-pressed to find another columnist who would

.

 

[Maurice Picarda]

It's been ugly for a long time.

There's quite a lot of ugly shit on this site. It's not just a feature of this site, though. It's a more general thing about the internet and about the way people like to slag off other people, including celebrities. (LP in her own little way is a celebrity and, like many celebrities, doesn't really deserve her celebrity.)

Absolutely. Penny doesn't deserve to be blamed for, as far as I can see, pretty much everything, either.

There's a problem with the board having a rule against call-out threads and personal attacks, but having indexed, googlable, threads insulting actual people who then sign up and get treated with contempt. It doesn't work well.

 

[emanymton]

See, this is what happens when I try to engage here- I can expect everything I say to be misconstrued and interpreted in the worst possible light. I only came on to set some facts straight and tell you how triggering it is to be told I've lied about my mental health history. Nobody has had the guts to apologise for that or for the rape apologism and stalkery behavior on this thread that, in my opinion, negates any valid criticism you might have to offer me.

Forgive me, I thought a request that I be treated with a bit of human understanding might be met with something other than insults. Clearly I was wrong.

The mental health stuff was possibly a bit OTT, as you said a problem with the Internet is that people can forget that everyone one involved is a person. There is an apparent contradiction in what you wrote and it becomes like an intellectual puzzle to be solved. I had no part in the discussion by the way.

But please stop saying that people on hear accused you of lying about your rape, or please point out where they have done so. Maybe one or two idiots did but the majority option was that not only were you telling the truth but that your writing on the subject was your best.

I fell rather crass saying anything considering the ongoing discussion but it is a bit rich for you to accuse others of rape apologism when you seem to be believe that it is possible for an acceptable form of rape porn to be made. This was the point were any remaining creditability you had as a feminist evaporated in my opinion.

 

[YouSir]

I'm getting nowhere with this. You're probably decent people individually, but together you behave like a pack of playground bullies, and your lack of empathy is shocking. I've tried in good faith to engage; you'd be hard-pressed to find another columnist who would- and I regret ever doing so.

Bawwwwwww. Fuck off with your self pity, lack of reflection, lack of even the vaguest attempt to understand and interact beyond being patronising, your random accusations and your massively selective reading. And as you fuck off try to consider that the reaction you get may not be down to everyone else but might, just might, have something to do with what you yourself say and do. Of course going on your contributions so far that level of self-awareness is a few miles beyond what you're prepared to do. Easier by far to paint us all as evil bullying scum (without backing up any of those accusations).

 

[andysays]

Tufty, I have tried to engage with kindness and solidarity and you've responded with hate. I just don't understand how you can have so little empthy. I'm finding your behavior deeply triggering. I hope you don't do this to anyone else.

Sigh... OK, one more response and then I'm walking away.

It's not all about you, Laurie. This is not one of your privilege-created "safe spaces", this is a reflection of the real world that tufty79 and the rest of us live in every day, the one that we can't escape by jetting off to exciting cities on expenses.

You're not the only one who finds references to real life issues "deeply triggering", but most of us don't have any other option than to deal with our own issues and try to help our friends through theirs.

If you can't cut it in the the real world, maybe you should consider a change of "career" to, I don't know, writing empowering fantasy fiction for young women who fit your exclusive smartest kid from a smart school niche. The rest of us will just have to do without your pearls of wisdom

 

[TruXta]

Well, you're doing a really good impression of one.

I was in the crowd at the death party in Brixton. I saw you smoking a fag. That is all. You're honestly not of great interest to me, if I may be so blunt. I'm sure the feeling is mutual.

 

[seventh bullet]

you'd be hard-pressed to find another columnist who would

!

Another fucking planet.

 

[DotCommunist]

I'm getting nowhere with this. You're probably decent people individually, but together you behave like a pack of playground bullies, and your lack of empathy is shocking. I've tried in good faith to engage; you'd be hard-pressed to find another columnist who would- and I regret ever doing so.

just read that back to yourself and think about it

 

[DotCommunist]

A columnist, no less. Gracing us.

 

[Firky]

!

Another fucking planet.

She works for a living for us: not for herself.

 

[tufty79]

reflective outcome of my contributions to this thread (for now):
i bought a proper, old-fashioned typewriter yesterday.
i'm going to, in future, type my responses to LP on it. it doesn't contain a ribbon, and i don't have any a4 paper, so my furyrants won't ever be seen by anyone else, and LP won't be triggered by my hating. it's that, or chop my fucking fingers off.

 

[andysays]

A columnist, no less. Gracing us.

Maybe she sees herself as a fifth columnist, working to subvert the establishment from the inside

(sorry lauriepenny, didn't mean to blow your cover)

 

[Das Uberdog]

tbh i do think that what valid criticisms of LP there are to be made have broadly been made (esp. around the student protest era) and most of what's left on this thread is just a form of broadly unhelpful catharsis. LP has an irritating journo style - as do most mainstream journos. she's supposedly of the left yet locked into a middle-class circuit of activists all obsessed with trendy intersectional politics, nothing to do with class politics, and in that she represents the degeneration of most of the organised left... Ok. point made. yet despite this i can't help but be tugged by some of LP's appeals for the bile to stop. she's been disproportionately targetted as the face of what is in fact a very broad and generalised evil and this thread has gone on now for what... 2 and a half years?

at least more recently she's moved into more overtly middle-class intersectional territory with her writings (and in that her stuff is not by a long shot the worst material emerging from that circle) away from the confused Morning Star position she once inhabited (which truly was offensive).

i think we can probably move on and let it go now.

 

[DotCommunist]

good thing a fair chunk of this thread has nothing to do with her and has meandered into all sorts of territory then

 

[rekil]

There has been no rape apologism on this thread. None. Let's get that straight shall we?

lauriepenny did an interview with notoriously sexist and rightwing springer group paper Die Welt last year. The springer group has a long history of hostility to the German left and they still don't accept adverts for Die Linke, KPD, DKP etc, an important issue with the election approaching. They have attacked friends of mine directly. Does Laurie know or care about any of this? No, having these cunts help to build her personal brand is "exciting". #solidarity how are ya.

Eta: Oh has she fucked off already? Well I was going to post that anyway. I didn't expect a driveby.

 

[DotCommunist]

What would really make my day is if stalincos himself also turned up to lay down the law. But that isn't his role in the internet

 

[Delroy Booth]

I'm getting nowhere with this. You're probably decent people individually, but together you behave like a pack of playground bullies, and your lack of empathy is shocking. I've tried in good faith to engage; you'd be hard-pressed to find another columnist who would- and I regret ever doing so.

You never "engaged" with those 3 questions I asked you months ago. You don't engage at all with this forum other than to collectively slander us all as racists, rape apologists, violent misogynists etc. We're decent people individually but you're not treating us like decent individuals, you're dealing with the place as a collective which in it's entirity engages in racism, rape apologism and a whole number of other unsubstantiated, behaviours. That's the only level you've ever tried to engage us on, slander and derision. "I work for a living" remember that?

If there's people on here who've been able to get away with rape apologism or racism then name their names and let's get it dealt with. I accept it's a bit of stalkery thread, it does turn you personally into a figurehead for much broader problems in the media, but it's not a place where racism or sexual assault can be apologised for. If anyone's guilty of that and managed to get away with it please point it out to us so it can be stopped.

I would've liked to ask you about your public rush to defend Niall Ferguson after he got exposed as a homophobe. That's solidarity right there - he'll be able to take your apology and use it as his Get Out of Jail Free card the next time he drops his guard and blurts out something homophobic. There's loads of things I'd like to discuss. I don't care about your treatment as a teenager but I would haved like to see your opinions on this:

I think the interesting bit is how when a journalist so frequently self-references, or uses an anecdote or experience in a rhetorical way when writing articles, there comes with it an occupational hazard of saying things about yourself that in retrospect look pretty contradictory, such as the above two quotes sihhi. It's bound to happen if you try place yourself into every story you ever write. It also gets even trickier if someone wants to be able to change in and out of various guises to suit whichever audience they're talking to, because that'll mean details about yourself being slightly different for each audience. It's definitely not something that just Laurie Penny does either a lot of this goes on the comment pages of all the newspapers, I bet you could find these sorts of inconsistencies in loads of journo's if you look hard enough.

because that goes way beyond you personally. Any journalist over a long period of time who writes a lot of things will eventually leave a trail of contradictory statements behind them, which taken out of context can create this effect, but you're particularly bad for this, you go from "I'm an Anarchist" one minute to "vote Lib Dem" and "David Lammy is awesome" the next. I can understand how that might happen during a long 40 year career, how someone grows and changes, but you've only been around a few years, you're not much older than me. I think inconsistencies like that are part of the reason a lot of people view you as an insincere careerist hack.

Buy why bother? I didn't get a reply then, and I don't expect one now.

 

[emanymton]

Eta: Oh has she fucked off already? Well I was going to post that anyway. I didn't expect a driveby.

Oddly enough she seemed to vanish when people started to ask her to point out where on this thread anyone said she lied about being raped.

I feel rather sick making a political point out of it, but that was exactly what she was trying to do.

 

[tufty79]

sorry for stealing your thunder, delroy. obviously only rapedgirls deserve responses. which, tbh, i find pretty disgusting.
(and i apologise that i'm not typing this on teh typewriter of invisible posts. i really *am* going to get off the internet before i do any more damage)

 

[YouSir]

Laurie Penny ‏@PennyRed

14m​

Why do I read the comments? Why do I ever, ever read the comments? Or the hatemail or the attack threads? *goes into hiding*

 

[cesare]

She has no interest in a considered response, Delroy. It's just more of the same - unsubstantiated smear and scarper.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

I'm getting nowhere with this. You're probably decent people individually, but together you behave like a pack of playground bullies, and your lack of empathy is shocking. I've tried in good faith to engage; you'd be hard-pressed to find another columnist who would- and I regret ever doing so.

You are getting somewhere with this; it's just not the place you hoped.

If you are up for some genuine reflection, ask yourself why aren't you getting where you want to go; is it perhaps because the place you apparently want to be (one where your talent, your conviction and impact are publicly acknowledged and applauded) is not where these boards are headed...it's not what they are for?

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[DotCommunist]

Laurie Penny ‏@PennyRed

14m​

Why do I read the comments? Why do I ever, ever read the comments? Or the hatemail or the attack threads? *goes into hiding*

for fucks sake

 

[Delroy Booth]

Everyone hates the comments. The comments are full of scum, the rabble, the swinish multitude.

Good job that the paid media and their model is dying on it's arse. When I see Laurie Penny or any of the other columnists for the mainstream press I can't help but think of the last Roman soldier doing the final watch on Hadrians wall just before the Romams left. Knowing they would be the last, and that once they go the barbarians will overrun their territory.

Whether or not anything superior replaces it is far from certain. Could be the dark ages, to stretch the metaphor into absurdity, but I think the days of the star columnist, the professional opnion former, is on the wane.

 

[DaveCinzano]

I think the days of the star columnist, the professional opnion former, is on the wane.

Unfortunately, that's the sentiment on which a bunch of self-facilitating media nodes bloggers like LP tiptoed into the op-ed pages in the first place - the same old half-baked filler, just punted out by hipper-seeming younger (privately-educated, non-WC, privileged) mediators with deadlines to meet, brands to build, careers to make, lip service to pay.

 

[DotCommunist]

surely most print and its internets shadow exists to sell advertising space and so long as you have enough circulation or page views to demonstrate to the advertisers it cannot die

 

[SpineyNorman]

Tufty, you asked me for some solidarity, and as a fellow survivor of rape who has been disbelieved and shamed for it- including on this thread

This is a new low for you Laurie, worse than the accusations of racism. It's a complete and utter lie. The only comments on this thread about that piece are ones expressing sympathy and saying what an excellent piece it is.

I didn't think I could be shocked by you any more but I guess I was underestimating (or should that be overestimating?) you.