RD2003
Got a really fucking shitty attitude
Possibly some don't want a witch-hunter, doing the work of the Labour and non-labour right, as their candidate.
Mad Paul Mason
- Thread starter Proper Tidy
- Start date
Possibly some don't want a witch-hunter, doing the work of the Labour and non-labour right, as their candidate.
steveseagull
Well-Known Member
It is also possible that the Jewish Labour Movement have had him spiked as they were busy calling him an antisemite last week
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
Can almost see the tears in his eyes as he tapped this missive out on his thinkpad:
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
PTK
Paul Kegan
AI? Artificial Insemination? You think that Paul Mason might advocate the unionization of Artificial Inseminators? What a good idea. The Wankers United Will Never Be Defeated.
steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
Even allowing fo the dodginess of the Gray Zone, there is a Part 2 today and on face value very damning for mad Paul.
thegrayzone.com
Leaked emails expose Paul Mason’s collusion with senior British intelligence agent - The Grayzone
In leaked emails, celebrity journalist Paul Mason plots extensively with Andy Pryce of the UK Foreign Office Counter Disinformation and Media Development unit. Pryce's Counter Disinformation unit has been cloaked behind a veil of near-total secrecy since its inception. Mason and Pryce sketched a...
thegrayzone.com
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
Jesus, there is a near bottomless pit of stuff in there to discuss. Its actually quite frightening that some posters on here not only defended him but applauded his proposals for 'due diligence.'Even allowing fo the dodginess of the Gray Zone, there is a Part 2 today and on face value very damning for mad Paul.
Leaked emails expose Paul Mason’s collusion with senior British intelligence agent - The Grayzone
In leaked emails, celebrity journalist Paul Mason plots extensively with Andy Pryce of the UK Foreign Office Counter Disinformation and Media Development unit. Pryce's Counter Disinformation unit has been cloaked behind a veil of near-total secrecy since its inception. Mason and Pryce sketched a...
steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
Yep. Certainly puts his ludicrous turn-on-a-sixpence shapeshift from radical Corbynite firebrand to happy-clapping centrist & realist into perspective.
Do you view him collaborating with the British state as better or worse than groups and individuals on the left collaborating with the Chinese or Russian state? If you have a problem with him collaborating with the British government, then do you also have a problem with people on the left collaborating with the Chinese and Russian state? And what should be done about it?
I want to add some context to explain where I am coming from here.
www.rfa.org
Chinese Communist Party intelligence networks within the UK have been repeatedly harassing ethnic Chinese within the UK and nothing is really done about it. For example, Communist Party thugs (and make no mistake, these networks overlap very heavily with triads and Chinese gangsters within the UK) violently assaulted Hong Kong protesters in Chinatown last November, and in WeChat groups have been trying to track down addresses of HK democracy activists.
The situation within universities is even worse, with overseas Chinese students under supervision from spies who are there as "postgraduate students" and other voluntary informers. This can lead to retaliation against their families back in China if they step out of line while in the UK.
The astroturfed "No Cold War" demo in Chinatown in which the counter-demonstration was violently attacked also had the likes of Fiona Edwards of STWC present and she was working with the organisers.
I think it is quite likely that she is a bit dense and has no understanding of how the United Front Work Department functions within overseas Chinese communities. But nevertheless, I have no problem with Mason informing on Chinese spy networks, whose presence in this country is a source of unease and I consider to be a threat to my family.
Calls grow for probe into Beijing's influence after London Chinatown attacks
Screenshots suggest organizers could be planning more violence against Hong Kong protesters in the UK.
Chinese Communist Party intelligence networks within the UK have been repeatedly harassing ethnic Chinese within the UK and nothing is really done about it. For example, Communist Party thugs (and make no mistake, these networks overlap very heavily with triads and Chinese gangsters within the UK) violently assaulted Hong Kong protesters in Chinatown last November, and in WeChat groups have been trying to track down addresses of HK democracy activists.
The situation within universities is even worse, with overseas Chinese students under supervision from spies who are there as "postgraduate students" and other voluntary informers. This can lead to retaliation against their families back in China if they step out of line while in the UK.
The astroturfed "No Cold War" demo in Chinatown in which the counter-demonstration was violently attacked also had the likes of Fiona Edwards of STWC present and she was working with the organisers.
I think it is quite likely that she is a bit dense and has no understanding of how the United Front Work Department functions within overseas Chinese communities. But nevertheless, I have no problem with Mason informing on Chinese spy networks, whose presence in this country is a source of unease and I consider to be a threat to my family.
YouSir
Retired from Urban
If nothing else he's a lot more ridiculous than whatever imaginary left wing groups are collaborating with China and Russia. He's a joke, saved from being something more dangerous by his delusional incompetence. Even proper spooks must think he's completely daft.
YouSir
Retired from Urban
I want to add some context to explain where I am coming from here.
Calls grow for probe into Beijing's influence after London Chinatown attacks
Screenshots suggest organizers could be planning more violence against Hong Kong protesters in the UK.
Chinese Communist Party intelligence networks within the UK have been repeatedly harassing ethnic Chinese within the UK and nothing is really done about it. For example, Communist Party thugs (and make no mistake, these networks overlap very heavily with triads and Chinese gangsters within the UK) violently assaulted Hong Kong protesters in Chinatown last November, and in WeChat groups have been trying to track down addresses of HK democracy activists.
The situation within universities is even worse, with overseas Chinese students under supervision from spies who are there as "postgraduate students" and other voluntary informers. This can lead to retaliation against their families back in China if they step out of line while in the UK.
The astroturfed "No Cold War" demo in Chinatown in which the counter-demonstration was violently attacked also had the likes of Fiona Edwards of STWC present and she was working with the organisers.
I think it is quite likely that she is a bit dense and has no understanding of how the United Front Work Department functions within overseas Chinese communities. But nevertheless, I have no problem with Mason informing on Chinese spy networks, whose presence in this country is a source of unease and I consider to be a threat to my family.
Closest that useless prick would get to reporting on Chinese spy networks is screaming 'Stalinist' at the staff of the local takeaway.
I obviously can't speak for The39thStep, but surely they're both shit?
I'm a bit surprised you're even asking the question tbh.
Fozzie Bear
Well-Known Member
This really depends on the nature of the "collaboration with [x] state".
At one of the scale, various members of the UK left will have worked with organs of the British state on, for example, the route of a march. No doubt there are direct action anarchist types who would criticise that as a tactic, but it's hardly a hanging issue.
At the other end of the scale you have the Workers Revolutionary Party taking payments from Libya and Iraq:
Revolution betrayed - the Workers Revolutionary Party and Iraq
Two articles from Solidarity on corruption in the Workers Revolutionary Party and its links with Saddam Hussein and other Middle Eastern governments.
And "approving the execution in March 1979 of more than twenty opponents of the Baath regime in Iraq; one of the victims, Talib Suwailh, had only five months earlier brought 'fraternal greetings' to a conference of the WRP's front organisation the All Trades Union Alliance." 57th Variety Act - Robin Blick
What Mason is doing would appear to be somewhere in between these two extremes. If anything it is more like George Orwell grassing people as subversives to the British state: Orwell's list
My personal view is that he looks like an idiot and is attempting to do things way outside of his competence. Individuals or small groups on the left who collaborate with intelligence services (of any state) are going to be hugely outgunned and there will only be one winner.
I obviously can't speak for The39thStep, but surely they're both shit?
I ask the question because I was previously defending Mason by saying he may have meant that campaigning groups should have their own due diligence systems to avoid collaboration with such groups, and saying that he may be wrong about some things but at least he is acknowledging it is a problem.
I grant he may be wrong, but I don't see any suggestions about how to tackle the problem being made. It feels like the implicit solution is "ignore it and pretend it doesn't happen and it will go away." However, this same attitude doesn't seem to apply to Paul Mason collaborating with the British state. Should a left wing group work with Paul Mason when he is doing this? If the answer is no, then it should also be no for groups that collaborate with Russian or Chinese intelligence.
I know plenty of people posting here are consistent in this, but I don't think everyone is.
Here is an example of why I get quite agitated about it:
Laguna Woods church shooting suspect sent diary to newspaper before attack
David Chou has been charged with fatally shooting one person and injuring five others at a Taiwanese church in Laguna Woods
www.independent.co.uk
OK, this shooting was an individual act, but it wasn't random either, no more than Anders Breivik shooting in Norway was random. The guy was a member of a Chinese nationalist pro-unification group linked to United Front Work Department, and the sort of rhetoric that goes on in those WeChat groups would make 4Chan blush. They tend to unambiguously justify violence, so acts such as these are a kind of product of that aggressively nationalistic echo chamber that has been constructed in recent years.
So seeing groups on the left willingly work with these kinds of groups rubs me up the wrong way. I know it is largely ignorance and naivety in most cases (however it is definitely self interest in some cases) but I'd feel a little less defensive of Paul Mason if people weren't also outright dismissing some of his claims which are actually true. John Ross of Socialist Action and Vijay Prishad of Qiao Collective, a member of the Progressive International, are literally and publicly employees of the Chinese government for instance, and Fiona Ross of STWC was working with that "No Cold War" group which set thugs on HK protesters in London and was gathering intelligence on HK activists living in the UK.
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LDC
On est tous des pangolins
Even allowing fo the dodginess of the Gray Zone, there is a Part 2 today and on face value very damning for mad Paul.
Leaked emails expose Paul Mason’s collusion with senior British intelligence agent - The Grayzone
In leaked emails, celebrity journalist Paul Mason plots extensively with Andy Pryce of the UK Foreign Office Counter Disinformation and Media Development unit. Pryce's Counter Disinformation unit has been cloaked behind a veil of near-total secrecy since its inception. Mason and Pryce sketched a...
I don't think that The Gray Zone is in any way a reliable source of info though, is there anything on this from people that don't have shit politics and aren't completely unhinged?
Don't get me wrong, I think Mason also seems a bit weird and I have said as much for ages, but looking at that website for info is like looking at RT for reliable stuff on Ukraine.
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steveseagull
Well-Known Member
Afternoon Paul!
steveseagull
Well-Known Member
As I said, seems like a complete no-brainer that you wouldn't work with either.
(Why would you work with people you couldn't trust?)
steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
This really depends on the nature of the "collaboration with [x] state".
At one of the scale, various members of the UK left will have worked with organs of the British state on, for example, the route of a march. No doubt there are direct action anarchist types who would criticise that as a tactic, but it's hardly a hanging issue.
At the other end of the scale you have the Workers Revolutionary Party taking payments from Libya and Iraq:
Revolution betrayed - the Workers Revolutionary Party and Iraq
Two articles from Solidarity on corruption in the Workers Revolutionary Party and its links with Saddam Hussein and other Middle Eastern governments.libcom.org
And "approving the execution in March 1979 of more than twenty opponents of the Baath regime in Iraq; one of the victims, Talib Suwailh, had only five months earlier brought 'fraternal greetings' to a conference of the WRP's front organisation the All Trades Union Alliance." 57th Variety Act - Robin Blick
What Mason is doing would appear to be somewhere in between these two extremes. If anything it is more like George Orwell grassing people as subversives to the British state: Orwell's list
My personal view is that he looks like an idiot and is attempting to do things way outside of his competence. Individuals or small groups on the left who collaborate with intelligence services (of any state) are going to be hugely outgunned and there will only be one winner.
Good post, but I'm not sure if those two examples are on a continuum of extremes. More like a continuum of "collaboration with foreign states" and "collaboration with domestic states."
The WRP being directly involved in approving executions in Iraq and taking money from Libya is more analogous to what the groups Mason is informing on are doing, especially regarding Roy Singham's generous funding of misinformation campaigns to deny the Uyghur genocide and business interests tied to China.
At the other side on the continuum, the Orwell list is quite similar to what Mason is allegedly doing, however the context is different - neither China nor Russia are really relevant to the labour movement like the Soviet Union was for instance. Putin's Russia seems to try and co-opt the far right more than the far left for instance.
Yeah it seems that way to me to, but a lot of people I have respect for don't agree. E.g. I am disappointed in Yanis Varafoukis and the Progressive International allowing Qiao Collective to be members.As I said, seems like a complete no-brainer that you wouldn't work with either.
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
If I was him I wouldn't engage with the Gray Zone either tbh, nothing good would come of it. But it's not just the emails anyway, they draw loads of stuff from them that they present as facts, all of which I'd be highly skeptical of.
Anyway tbh I don't really see what the massive deal is, he's not an anarchist, none of this is counter to his politics, the Gray Zone are only getting involved as they're some of the fuckers he's targeting - rightly so imo, even if I wouldn't do what he's doing. Same with the bleating about 'targeting academics' in that article, it's the pro-Assad chemical weapon denier conspiracy ones he's getting at. Good.
steveseagull
Well-Known Member
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
Well you might, but he might not, and understandably so given the history and politics of The Gray Zone. I wouldn't bother engaging with plenty like them if they started making accusations against me either. Anyway, why are they so 'incriminating' for him? He's open about what he's doing and none of it is counter to his politics.
Fozzie Bear
Well-Known Member
Fair enough. I'm sure there are examples of people collaborating with the British state and their proxy Loyalist death squads in Northern Ireland that would be almost equivalent to the WRP stuff.
As to your wider point about groups denying genocide, I can see that it might be tempting for people on the left to collaborate with intelligence services to fuck those guys up. I'd still argue that was wrong though and that exposing them in the press would probably be a better, although still compromised, way of going about it.
Yeah I agree - I was only defending Mason's point because it wasn't clear what he meant by "state guidance". Groups on the left being more pro-active in keeping an eye on this kind of thing would definitely be a good thing, and the article he wrote was vague enough that it could have meant that.
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