Mad Paul Mason

[HoratioCuthbert]

Liked this post only because Matt Wrack and the FBU are sound as fuck
(he linked, irrelevantly to this thread )

Major implications for many public sector workers from the above, but that'll have to be another thread ....

He sounds amazing, those were the words of a legend.

 

[Steel Icarus]

Career lefties? Perhaps we need a working definition of what this insult actually means?

I imagine, even before reading your answer that some of them exist within my community too/are neighbours and then I also wonder who here lives anywhere where there isn't someone who could be described as that by someone?

Can't move here in Northeast Lincs without running into a New Statesman columnist, controversial Twitter Maoist or revolutionary blogger

 

[NoXion]

Paul Mason is a liberal internationalist whose "criticism" of capitalism so far that I can tell is that it doesn't take globalization far enough. I understand that he's tweeted in support of NATO more than once, FFS.

There you go, a criticism that isn't based on choice of waterproof gear.

 

[8ball]

I mean, on a serious note, imagine standing on a picket line when the comrade stood besides you has to go home because they're soaked through after their Trespass waterproof jacket starts to leak through its untaped seams?

Or, you're running from the cops during a demo when a member of your affinity group stops because they're getting too sweaty in their "breathable" Trespass waterproof after making the assumption that TresTex must be more or less the same as GoreTex, right?

Or, you're hunkered down observing a target when the cell member on your right's teeth start chattering because the cheap synthetic insulation in his Trespass "puffer" just isn't keeping him warm. The cell member to your left moves to warm him but the rustle of the stiff face fabric on his Trespass jacket, unlike the softer Pertex Stretch on your Rab, gives away your location to security. That's 15 years in Belmarsh right there.

Am I right?

Oh dear, chilango

I think you know in your heart of hearts that you need to forgive them their Trespasses

 

[Steel Icarus]

Oh dear, chilango

I think you know in your heart of hearts that you need to forgive them their Trespasses

Lovely stuff

 

[steveo87]

Oh dear, chilango

I think you know in your heart of hearts that you need to forgive them their Trespasses

Post of the day.

 

[rekil]

Bastani has aye? Bloody hell.

Yes, boosting members of Beeley's headbanger circle for some time now. He claimed Craig Murray was "the only person who conducted anything resembling investigative journalism around the Skripal story". All that education. For this.

Spoiler

 

[Limerick Red]

In 2015 he penned a pathetic Morning Star eulogy to Alexei Mozgovoi who was described by seventh bullet on here as The latter bit refers to the French and Brazilian fascist members of his unit that were examined in the Ukraine thread here. Novara are just Labour Party courtiers giddy with proximity to power, hence their Williamson fluffing until it was way too late. Bastani is the worst of them however as he has entered the orbit of Beeley's loonosphere.

Support for Mozgovoi and the Ghost Battalion is / was fairly unanimous across the entire old / official communist movement. There were monthly convoys organised from Italy. Lots of solidarity events in Spain, France, Germany. This isn't an unprecedented position, so while the ins and outs of the situation in Donesk etc are well debated on here, the position is in common with plenty of communists!

 

[rekil]

.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Jones and Sarkar no platformed Eddie Dempsey and labelled him a ‘borderline racist’ (whatever that means?) because some comments he made swam against the liberal tide. Is Mason in that camp of cunts?

Eddie Dempsey has now responded to Owen Jones.

I’ve got my differences politically with him it’s fair to say. But there are some critically important points made by him, a working class trade union steward and militant anti fascist, in response to the abysmal attacks on him by Jones and Novara.

His analysis of the crisis of working class representation, his anti fascist work counterposed with middle class left anti fascism is particularly revealing.

He is also right to say:

“For all this is worth, I think we need to think about what solidarity means in this context. It seems that for a section of unaccountable public figures ‘solidarity’ is a tool of public coercion where everyone is pressed to condemn the new daily heretics. In the real world, solidarity is a weapon that binds workers together, who often have extreme differences of opinion, as workers in our own interests. For many, solidarity is not the ability to be one of the “good people” lining up against anyone that those with a huge internet following gets to say is the “bad people” — it is the guarantor of your children’s school uniform and the monthly rent”.

We also note he warned Owen Jones about the risk of far right attack and offered to sort stewarding support for Jones on demos. In return Jones has been slagging him off for pointing out some entirely obvious points about Jones and his ilk:

A reply to Owen Jones — Keep it comradely.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Eddie Dempsey has now responded to Owen Jones.

I’ve got my differences politically with him it’s fair to say. But there is critically important writing by a working class trade union steward in response to the abysmal attacks on him by Jones and Novara.

His analysis of the crisis of working class representation, his anti fascist work counterposed with middle class left anti fascism is particularly revealing.

We also note he warned Owen Jones about the risk of far right attack and offered to sort stewarding support for Jones on demos. In return Jones has been slagging him off for pointing out some entirely obvious points about Jones and his ilk:

A reply to Owen Jones — Keep it comradely.

Cheers for sharing. Like I said earlier, I doubt I agree in full with Dempsey’s politics but it’s difficult to disagree with any of the points he raises in this article.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Cheers for sharing. Like I said earlier, I doubt I agree in full with Dempsey’s politics but it’s difficult to disagree with any of the points he raises in this article.

Yup. I have serious problems with some of his ideas and politics. But his characterisation of Jones and the bubble is spot on.

 

[butchersapron]

Eddie Dempsey has now responded to Owen Jones.

I’ve got my differences politically with him it’s fair to say. But there is critically important writing by a working class trade union steward in response to the abysmal attacks on him by Jones and Novara.

His analysis of the crisis of working class representation, his anti fascist work counterposed with middle class left anti fascism is particularly revealing.

He is also right to say:

“For all this is worth, I think we need to think about what solidarity means in this context. It seems that for a section of unaccountable public figures ‘solidarity’ is a tool of public coercion where everyone is pressed to condemn the new daily heretics. In the real world, solidarity is a weapon that binds workers together, who often have extreme differences of opinion, as workers in our own interests. For many, solidarity is not the ability to be one of the “good people” lining up against anyone that those with a huge internet following gets to say is the “bad people” — it is the guarantor of your children’s school uniform and the monthly rent”.

We also note he warned Owen Jones about the risk of far right attack and offered to sort stewarding support for Jones on demos. In return Jones has been slagging him off for pointing out some entirely obvious points about Jones and his ilk:

A reply to Owen Jones — Keep it comradely.

Dempsey and stewarding. Name me better duo. Oh yeah, him and fasci

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Dempsey and stewarding. Name me better duo. Oh yeah, him and fasci

I knew someone would bring up his ‘other’ stewarding ‘work’. Like I say I don’t agree with him politically and I’m not here to defend his Stalinism.

 

[The39thStep]

Eddie Dempsey has now responded to Owen Jones.

I’ve got my differences politically with him it’s fair to say. But there is critically important writing by a working class trade union steward in response to the abysmal attacks on him by Jones and Novara.

His analysis of the crisis of working class representation, his anti fascist work counterposed with middle class left anti fascism is particularly revealing.

He is also right to say:

“For all this is worth, I think we need to think about what solidarity means in this context. It seems that for a section of unaccountable public figures ‘solidarity’ is a tool of public coercion where everyone is pressed to condemn the new daily heretics. In the real world, solidarity is a weapon that binds workers together, who often have extreme differences of opinion, as workers in our own interests. For many, solidarity is not the ability to be one of the “good people” lining up against anyone that those with a huge internet following gets to say is the “bad people” — it is the guarantor of your children’s school uniform and the monthly rent”.

We also note he warned Owen Jones about the risk of far right attack and offered to sort stewarding support for Jones on demos. In return Jones has been slagging him off for pointing out some entirely obvious points about Jones and his ilk:

A reply to Owen Jones — Keep it comradely.

It’s a decent reply . When it comes down to it my view is who would you want on a picket line or at work Dempsey or Owen? I didn’t agree with a lot of Scargills wider politics but like Dempsey he delivers when it comes to the crunch about standing up for the W/ class .

 

[Magnus McGinty]

I knew someone would bring up his ‘other’ stewarding ‘work’. Like I say I don’t agree with him politically and I’m not here to defend his Stalinism.

Those wanting to damage him would probably do better concentrating on that critique (like butchers) than this pretence that he’s somehow far right which is laughable.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

As let’s be clear he’s not being attacked for Stalinism. Those politics are fine for Jones. He’s being attacked because he supports Leave, who Jones etc want shut up, and because he’s pointed out some home truths about the middle class left and how they drive the working class away from our politics.

 

[butchersapron]

He's scum. Being working class in itself is just identity politics. Scum.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

It’s a decent reply . When it comes down to it my view is who would you want on a picket line or at work Dempsey or Owen? I didn’t agree with a lot of Scargills wider politics but like Dempsey he delivers when it comes to the crunch about standing up for the W/ class .

There was a photo of ED fanboying Scargill at the TUC last week. It’s a real pity the way Stalinism has led him into some really shit positions.

 

[The39thStep]

He's scum. Being working class in itself is just identity politics. Scum.

Normally I agree with you but you’ll have to take me through how you come to that view

 

[The39thStep]

There was a photo of ED fanboying Scargill at the TUC last week. It’s a real pity the way Stalinism has led him into some really shit positions.

Prob is the lack of an independent w/class perspective means that some good militants buy the whole RMT /Stalinist legacy . Decades ago the steward I most learnt off and admired was a CP member , he was horrified and hurt when I joined the SWP.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Prob is the lack of an independent w/class perspective means that some good militants buy the whole RMT /Stalinist legacy . Decades ago the steward I most learnt off and admired was a CP member , he was horrified and hurt when I joined the SWP.

That would certainly have been the case years ago, militants in the TU’s were absorbed into the CP due to proximity. But now?

And I agree with your broader point. Some CP stewards were first class in respect of industrial and representational work.

 

[chilango]

He's scum. Being working class in itself is just identity politics. Scum.

There is an awful lot of reaction that is focussed on the projection of cultural signifiers of working-class identity and not on the social relations that produced them.

This does lead down the idpol dead-end.

 

[RD2003]

Prob is the lack of an independent w/class perspective means that some good militants buy the whole RMT /Stalinist legacy . Decades ago the steward I most learnt off and admired was a CP member

And I agree with your broader point. Some CP stewards were first class in respect of industrial and representational work.

I used to be a bit perturbed and frustrated by the pragmatism and sometimes cynicism of the typical CP shop steward, of which my granddad on my mother's side was for decades one. It was something they had in common, along with much else, with the Labour right. As I got older, though, I came to understand, and to some extent admire it. I feel it arose from being working class themselves, with the understanding of life it entailed, as opposed to the idealised notion of the class common to the excitable far left-which could, perhaps inevitably, shade in to a different kind of cynicism, bordering on contempt.

The working class will always let you down, except when it doesn't.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

I used to be a bit perturbed and frustrated by the pragmatism and sometimes cynicism of the typical CP shop steward, of which my granddad on my mother's side was for decades one. It was something they had in common, along with much else, with the Labour right. As I got older, though, I came to understand, and to some extent admire it. I feel it arose from being working class themselves, with the understanding of life it entailed, as opposed to the idealised notion of the class common the excitable far left-which could, perhaps inevitably, shade in to a different kind of cynicism, bordering on contempt.

In my experience - as a young T&G Steward - the CP old timers were, on the left, the best educated, the most strategic and the ones grounded in industrial savvy. The few Trotskyist's and Labour Left's were normally abstract and not of much/any use in concrete industrial situations.

For Stewards who never, to use a phrase I despise, 'go beyond trade union consciousness' there was no choice as to who would hold sway and who was best placed to engage management and right wing full time officers.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Mason promoting Lewis and Starmer AGAIN, and further emboldening the Blairites attempt to push Labour over the remain cliff next week. Mason’s political analysis was often shaky but came from a good place but this is straight out cheerleading of the Labour right:

 

[Riklet]

I am conflicted. He wrote some cracking books and did some very good reporting. I would like to think he is a well-meaning comrade who has lost his way a bit, not just a member of the media elite comentariat. When he came to Seville I messaged him as was living there - but he had already found some really amazing social projects, squats and places to go... he does his research. Was impressed by his economics reporting back in the day, defo.

I dispair online sometimes with his more wild recent conclusions and his apparent political ferver burn-out thing and maybe he is indeed going through a hard time. Calling him mad or speculating about additions etc is definitely a bit distateful IMO. I do think it's important people can be critical and honest though, given how much importance and traction his views are given. Some of his stuff needs challenging - especially when it claims to be in the name of progressive politics but doesn't seem based in anything very much.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

The latest ‘think’ from a ‘public intellectual’.

I went over to the protest in Birmingham today which was vibrant and colourful.

Is the need for a new economy and just transition built around high pay green jobs critically important both for post industrial communities and the planet? Yes.

Is it helpful to freeze the processes at work in time and declare marches ‘the first day of the 21st century’ meaningful in any sense? No

 

[treelover]

I can't stand his Assadism, but he(Ed) really does care about basic issues, I would like to see him on QT. He seems to have a fair bit of genuine working class leftist support on hos twitter page.

maybe he needs his own thread.

 

[treelover]

The latest ‘think’ from a ‘public intellectual’.

I went over to the protest in Birmingham today which was vibrant and colourful.

Is the need for a new economy and just transition built around high pay green jobs critically important both for post industrial communities and the planet? Yes.

Is it helpful to freeze the processes at work in time and declare marches ‘the first day of the 21st century’ meaningful in any sense? No

AS we wait for another disabled and sick person to cut their throat due to having no money whatsover, more like the 19th C.