London Anarchist bookfair 2020

[Mr.Bishie]

Tedious is the word. The trouble is that we don’t all seem to have the same understanding of the realities of the world. That’s a problem which no one has the time or patience to deal with. This has all started again because of Rhydiccal banging on about transphobes and picks, again. Censoring and silencing relates to who is or is not to be allowed at the
Bookfair. There is a fault line on this issue in all sorts of political groups and movements. You don’t have all the answers. You keep seeing the same questions because your answers don’t convince an awful lot of people. I’ll keep shtum if everyone else does.

So you’d welcome transphobes, homophobes, racists & fascists to the book fair then? Stop blaming this utter wank on one poster on this thread.

 

[LDC]

Helen saying the trans rights movement is funded by George Soros.

Can you show me where she's said that?

 

[Rob Ray]

I linked to it five posts ago. Anyone else want to ask the same bloody question without checking the thread? Please get it out of the way now.

Edit: Actually looking at it you were active on this particular thread back in August when it was first posted.

 

[LDC]

I linked to it five posts ago. Anyone else want to ask the same bloody question without checking the thread? Please get it out of the way now.

Edit: Actually looking at it you were active on this particular thread back in August when it was first posted.

Yeah, and I missed or maybe forgot it in the mess this all is. Seen it now. Happy?

 

[Rob Ray]

Sorry, see above about the tediousness of all this for why I'm a little tetchy.

 

[kenny g]

Do we think Helen Steel maybe subject to prolonged microdosing? Those posts are fucking mad.

 

[LDC]

Sorry, see above about the tediousness of all this for why I'm a little tetchy.

Yup. I'm out of the whole thing (bookfair/scene/anarchists generally) to be honest, only partly this issue, but it comes on the back of a fuck tonne of shit behaviour, pathetic and pointless activity, a lack of seriousness, world shaking levels of flakiness, and more back-stabbing and juvenile attitudes than a playground of toddlers. Fuck it all. We need anarchism without any (most) of the anarchists.

 

[Rob Ray]

Not far off feeling that way myself sometimes tbh, but I try to remember there's plenty of anarchist types who just get on with things as best they can and do a damn good job of it, away from all the internet shouting.

 

[LDC]

Not far off feeling that way myself sometimes tbh, but I try to remember there's plenty of anarchist types who just get on with things as best they can and do a damn good job of it, away from all the internet shouting.

Yeah totally. I'm not even on any SM (U75 apart), think how I'd be if I immersed myself in that fucking mess though.

 

[kenny g]

I do suspect that some of the trans agenda has been fed by the security service as a divide and rule. After all they are stonewalls top employer. However, I am sure some of the push back has also been fed by the same forces. We are being played like fools...

 

[kenny g]

We need to design whole new platforms and ways of doing things.

 

[Wilf]

Wow are we really rezzin this dead thread?

Helen Steel is a transphobe who even ignoring the situation which occoured at the 2017 Bookfair has a repeatedly shared transphobic, bigoted content on her twitter account and other places. this includes a thread on our twitter where she not only posted transphobic content but encouraged a vast array of deeply abusive and overtly hostile tweets from her followers of the "trans women are rapists and perverts // men who chopped their cock off" variety. Regardless of your personal position re; Anarchist events having "rules", any sane person can see why bigots are not welcome at spaces that are about organising against bigots. This includes otherwise sound activists who have done lots to fight big corps and work for womens rights.

This goes for all the pricks who are currently so invested in advocating the idea that providing medical support for trans people is a eugenics campaign against the gay community.

Bigots have no place in the Anarchist scene and are not welcome at events that we organise.

Aside from that, I'm not being baited again, you do you U75 x

What do the Quakers and Catholic Workerd have to do with that?
If you are concerned that we are not allowed organisations whose faith is part of their politics then I'd ask Jewdas who have a stall.
Far as I'm aware the Quakers would be more than welcome to attend and I have no idea who the Catholic Workers but unless they are some Stalinist front I'm sure they are welcome too.

Any actual questions about the Bookfair and I'll get back to you.

I despair of this whole issue, even to the point where I have just about no position on it (having swayed around between bits of what both sides have argued in the past). One of those awful issues where there are genuine, real people with a lot invested in both/all camps, but others who seem to naturally reach for the worst bits of identity politics - and little chance of drawing the good out from the bad. Only thing I can say is there's a desperate need for people to be less categoric, a real need to get back to principles of class struggle, solidarity and the structural. Fuck knows how and as someone who is neither trans nor female I'm not directly invested in it. But fucking hell, anybody who thinks we need a movement, something that actually functions, something that looks outwards, has the right to despair about it.

 

[Red Sky]

I linked to it five posts ago. Anyone else want to ask the same bloody question without checking the thread? Please get it out of the way now.

Edit: Actually looking at it you were active on this particular thread back in August when it was first posted.

Does Soros fund trans advocacy?

 

[Rob Ray]

Tbh name me a trans-specific lobby group that he could even fund. Outside of Stonewall (which isn't trans-specific) and maybe Mermaids (which famously got its funding via the Lottery in the face of a nasty smear campaign led by Graham "it's like the Nazis" Linehan and the Times newspaper) there's really not anything much I can think of. Professional trans advocacy is less industry, more fallacy.

Ultimately a better question is the one underneath - is trans advocacy a well-funded conspiracy to silence and damage the rights of women? No. Clearly not. In fact all the money and media power is quite obviously on the other side of the debate. And yet it's common enough currency to assume this in Steel's circles that not only did she fail to shut down one of the most famous modern anti-Semitic tropes in the world, she went for a "well not just him" reply when asked about it.

 

[Red Sky]

Tbh name me a trans-specific lobby group that he could even fund. Outside of Stonewall (which isn't trans-specific) and maybe Mermaids (which famously got its funding via the Lottery in the face of a nasty smear campaign led by Graham "it's like the Nazis" Linehan and the Times newspaper) there's really not anything much I can think of. Professional trans advocacy is less industry, more fallacy.

Ultimately a better question is the one underneath - is trans advocacy a well-funded conspiracy to silence and damage the rights of women? No. Clearly not. In fact all the money and media power is quite obviously on the other side of the debate. And yet it's common enough currency to assume this in Steel's circles that she not only didn't fail to shut down one of the most famous modern anti-Semitic tropes in the world, she went for a "well not just him" reply when asked about it.

There's a fair bit here...

LGBTQI

The Open Society Foundations seek to combat discrimination by empowering lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex communities to promote and defend their human rights.

www.opensocietyfoundations.org

 

[The39thStep]

Is this book fair happening or what?

 

[ska invita]

yes
october

 

[Rob Ray]

There's a fair bit here...

That's the advocacy page for the Open Society Foundation, which yes indeed features pro-trans rights articles, but is not evidence that George Soros is engaged in a conspiracy of "very rich male backers funding the rapid spread of this ideology".

The page you're looking for is this open list of funding grants which, listing trans-specific advocacy, has an enormous three fellowships, one internship and 12 grants, mostly aimed at alleviating horrendously dangerous situations in Africa and Latin America, with a couple in the US and one in Europe, based in Budapest. The number of UK advocacy groups to have received money is ... zero.

Having checked I was actually mildly surprised tbh, I thought the institution might have tossed a bit of money Mermaid's way at some point. But no, it is actually a full-on unevidenced conspiracy theory that a Jewish billionaire is the true power behind trans rights activism.

 

[Red Sky]

That's the advocacy page for the Open Society Foundation, which yes indeed features pro-trans rights articles, but is not evidence that George Soros is engaged in a conspiracy of "very rich male backers funding the rapid spread of this ideology".

The page you're looking for is this open list of funding grants which, listing trans-specific advocacy, has an enormous three fellowships, one internship and 12 grants, mostly aimed at alleviating horrendously dangerous situations in Africa and Latin America, with a couple in the US and one in Europe, based in Budapest. The number of UK advocacy groups to have received money is ... zero.

Having checked I was actually mildly surprised tbh, I thought the institution might have tossed a bit of money Mermaid's way at some point. But no, it is actually a full-on unevidenced conspiracy theory that a Jewish billionaire is the true power behind trans rights activism.

Not sure that it's anti Semitic to say that George Soros is doing stuff that he's actually doing .

 

[Rob Ray]

I just showed he isn't "doing stuff" though (and even so, I should point out that he most likely sees very few of those grants through personally in any case - he has a board for that sort of thing). The anti-Semitic bit is the specific naming of Soros, once again, as a prominent liberal Jew / shady backroom money man manipulating society, as you know.

 

[Red Sky]

I just showed he isn't "doing stuff" though (and even so, I should point out that he most likely sees very few of those grants through personally in any case - he has a board for that sort of thing). The anti-Semitic bit is the specific naming of Soros, once again, as a prominent liberal Jew / shady backroom money man manipulating society, as you know.

He is a money man trying to manipulate society. He's pretty open about it. Mentioning him or the fact he has an agenda isn't anti Semitic and shouldn't be particularly controversial.

 

[Rob Ray]

And yet.

 

[Red Sky]

And yet.

Do you really need me to point out the logical fallacy there?

 

[Rob Ray]

I'm going to be charitable and assume you're not getting what I'm actually saying. Soros was namechecked as being the money man in a conspiracy. No-one else specific, just the Jew "and others". I've now shown, using the website you provided, that this suggestion was unevidenced. So to summarise: A really famous rich liberal Jew was named, without evidence, as the man funding a conspiracy to undermine society.

Hence the picture. Orban used precisely the same insinuation, against the same man, highlighting Soros specifically as the evil individual Jew conspiring to ruin Hungary. Is this clear?

 

[Red Sky]

I'm going to be charitable and assume you're not getting what I'm actually saying. Soros was namechecked as being the money man in a conspiracy. No-one else specific, just the Jew "and others". I've now shown, using the website you provided, that this suggestion was unevidenced. So to summarise: A really famous rich liberal Jew was named, without evidence, as the man funding a conspiracy to undermine society.

Hence the picture. Orban used precisely the same insinuation, against the same man, highlighting Soros specifically as the evil individual Jew conspiring to ruin Hungary. Is this clear?

So because anti semitic fascists and Helen Steel both have bones to pick with George Soros then HS must be an anti semite? Is that your position?

Go back and re read your Exhibit A. There's no mention of a "conspiracy to undermine society" or "shady back room dealings". Those are your words not hers.

 

[Rob Ray]

I'm saying that she's gotten so far onto the trans hate train that her mates spouting anti-semitic tropes no longer phases her and rather than challenge them she goes with "not just Soros". I was pretty clear throughout this thread I thought:

Helen saying the trans rights movement is funded by George Soros isn't just not having the same understanding of the world, it's fitting the world around a viewpoint that trans people are the enemy.

Ultimately a better question is the one underneath - is trans advocacy a well-funded conspiracy to silence and damage the rights of women? No. Clearly not. In fact all the money and media power is quite obviously on the other side of the debate. And yet it's common enough currency to assume this in Steel's circles that not only did she fail to shut down one of the most famous modern anti-Semitic tropes in the world, she went for a "well not just him" reply when asked about it.

Tbh though, if you're so entirely unwilling to accept that Helen's gone beyond "reasonable questions" that you're twisting around trying to make out that unevidenced blaming of George Soros for the world's ills isn't dodgy we've really not got much left to talk about. On which note I'm off to bed.

 

[Athos]

I'm saying that she's gotten so far onto the trans hate train that her mates spouting anti-semitic tropes no longer phases her and rather than challenge them she goes with "not just Soros". I was pretty clear throughout this thread I thought:





Tbh though, if you're so entirely unwilling to accept that Helen's gone beyond "reasonable questions" that you're twisting around trying to make out that unevidenced blaming of George Soros for the world's ills isn't dodgy we've really not got much left to talk about. On which note I'm off to bed.

Do you have a link to the whole twitter thread, so we can see what she was replying to, please? It's hard to understand what she meant without any context. On the face of it, she could be stating a simple truth thay Soros and other wealthy men donate to trans causes, but, equally, she could be using his name as an antisemitic cypher to further a conspiracy theory. Though I've always had time for her, I wouldn't defend her in the latter circumstances.

 

[Pickman's model]

I do suspect that some of the trans agenda has been fed by the security service as a divide and rule. After all they are stonewalls top employer. However, I am sure some of the push back has also been fed by the same forces. We are being played like fools...

it's the most successful thing the conservative party have ever done to divide people on the left.

 

[chilango]

They've sure hit on winning formula...Remain cs Leave, Trans Vs RadFem etc. What's next in store for us?

 

[Red Sky]

I'm saying that she's gotten so far onto the trans hate train that her mates spouting anti-semitic tropes no longer phases her and rather than challenge them she goes with "not just Soros". I was pretty clear throughout this thread I thought:





Tbh though, if you're so entirely unwilling to accept that Helen's gone beyond "reasonable questions" that you're twisting around trying to make out that unevidenced blaming of George Soros for the world's ills isn't dodgy we've really not got much left to talk about. On which note I'm off to bed.

It's not "unevidenced" is it? Soros stages interventions, quite openly, to push society towards what he sees as progressive and liberal values. Conspiraloons might posit that he's the only actor, and generally those on the right do,( because the other billionaire consensus manufacturers tend to reinforce their prejudices) but there's no evidence that HS thinks this.