I’ve never read Spiked or know much about them so can’t really disagree. Although I thought they were more contrarian, and didn’t they used to be on the left or did I imagine that?
London Anarchist Bookfair 2022
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I’ve never read Spiked or know much about them so can’t really disagree. Although I thought they were more contrarian, and didn’t they used to be on the left or did I imagine that?
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
Big thread here: RCP/Spiked/IoI
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
Regardless of Lisa, I think 'keep well away from spiked and gb news' is a good rule of thumb (though I accept making single appearances as 'the opposition' is something there are differing views on). I mean, regardless of the politics of appearing on those outlets, just imagine the weirdos and shitbags you'd have to deal with?
Heh. I asked about Spiked in one of my first posts on U75. I used to quite like the contrarianism when reading at work back then.
They're linked to the Living Marxism lot. Strange fish.
Athos
Well-Known Member
In what respect?
Rob Ray
Weight is meaningless
She goes after a similar line to one of Spiked's favoured attacks in which the modern left is defined as essentially a dilettante bourgeois phenomenon, while playing a useful role for the outlet (itself full of bourgeois ex-lefties) as an up to date "in the thick of it working class voice telling it how it is, which happens to also be how we see it.".
Athos
Well-Known Member
Agreement on that point - something with which many anarchists would agree insofar as it applies to much of what's call the left in the UK today - seems pretty small beer; it's a stretch to cite it as aligned agendas. Even more so as a reason to deny her a stall. I suspect it's not the real reason.
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Jeff Robinson
Marxist-Lentilist: Jackboots and Jackfruit
AFed Twitter account is pretty strange, it's more like a personal account than one run on behalf of an organisation (or 'collective').
Unless I’m mistaken she’s written three articles for Spiked spanning 16 months. That’s hardly a column as suggested above.
Rob Ray
Weight is meaningless
You may agree with her (I think it's a needlessly reductive attitude to a much more complex problem that we allow to be freely weaponised by the right at our peril), but Spiked using her as left cover for its anti-left agenda is still an alignment.
Athos
Well-Known Member
I don't necessarily agree with her position. But nor do I agree the idea that being tactically naive in allowing herself to be used that way (if that is what's happened) amounts to an alignment of agendas. Surely that'd turn on intention? But, anyway, I remain sceptical that it's the real reason she was denied a stall.
Yep exemplified here: The Great Welfare Myth: The chattering classes are peddling a poisonous myth - that the poor cannot survive without the soul- deadening embrace of welfarism
Brendan O'Neill, claiming to be a leading left wing thinker, arguing that only middle class liberals cared about benefit cuts, and the real working class wanted their money to be cut. They are fucking poison.
Athos
Well-Known Member
In support of the idea that she should be denied a stall because she recently wrote for Spiked, you're citing an article written a decade ago, in a different publication, by someone else?
Dystopiary
putting up a hook to hang my hopes upon
Had a nosey, the beef seems to have ended on ok terms, as of Tuesday.
In support of the idea that she should be denied a stall because she recently wrote for Spiked, you're citing an article written a decade ago, in a different publication, by someone else?
He was the editor of Spiked until Sep 2021.
Athos
Well-Known Member
Yeah, and he's a prick. But nobody is defending him or Spiked. The point* is whether or not her using them to get her points across amounts to her sharing and furthering their agenda. (Or so the organisers of the bookfair would have us believe; I'm sceptical that that's really why she's banned from having a stall.)
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JimW
支那暗杀团
Of course you end up as left cover if you appear on their shitty portal.
You're quite likely right it's not the real reason but then a stall for one book seems a bit odd anyway, I'd have said no for that reason since it seems it will be available from more general booksellers there anyway.
Athos
Well-Known Member
On balance it probably is a shit tactic; in her shoes I'd be asking what they're getting from keep having me back. The point is more that most anarchist traditions wouldn't 'no platform' those who are broadly ideologically aligned over a disagreement about tactics. But, I think we both suspect that that isn't really what's going on here. (And I don't disagree that there may well be other legitimate grounds on which she could've been denied.)
Stalls for badges and posters and other merch seem odd also but that’s part of the book fair.
Plus there’s a precedent; Beating the Fascists had a book fair stall when that came out.
Actually, they may have been disinclined under the new regime.
Actually, they may have been disinclined under the new regime.
Athos
Well-Known Member
And maybe posters here should be upfront about it if they're part of/affiliated with/linked to the collective.
Fozzie Bear
Well-Known Member
Lol. Maybe not.
Fozzie Bear
Well-Known Member
They’re organising a book event, not an attack on a Tory Party conference.
TopCat
Putin fanboy
In stead of wink wink I hear this was probably the reason.
Fozzie Bear
Well-Known Member
So is your position is that anyone who is involved in any revolutionary group or organisation, except for all out insurrectionary stuff, should declare their affiliations in full on a public forum?
Or is it just specifically the Anarchist Bookfair in London people who must out themselves here, as they have annoyed you?
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
must say that's rather a disappointment, i had that down as one of my bookfair beef pool fights
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