"we'll change the things that need changing and that's all we'll change": the paSUKification of post-brexit politics 2021

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FEwOYwgXEAIpQ_J?format=jpg&name=medium

so fucking grim

The angels are winning - I understand a last minute argument resulted in dropping the word 'eternal' before work!

anyway yes, incurious and annoyingly tone deaf are precisely why i'm not a GB stan -- and in retrospect me calling this "interesting" rather than "surprising" probably made me sound a bit incurious and distanced myself BUT i still think it is surprising (if true) (and whether or not it begs only a despairing interpretation), simply bcz i just don't know the last time the UK was considered some kind of a hub of useful vanguard thought? i mean since 1848 or whenever

fwiw I struggle to think of any names on the continent that have the kind of reach the UK left has - part of which is simply the UK benefiting from American linguistic imperialism, of course. Telling that xyzz's point of comparison is Jacobin and not writers/thinkers from countries with more robust leftist cultures than the anglosphere.

on a more trivial note Portuguese left twitter 100% taking its cues from US dirtbag left/UK shitposters in style, even though in substance they are far to the left of them

Good.

cultural imperialism not really good I think, but whaddyagonnado

the style-as-content is a material and a materialist consequence of the technology, is how i break it down to an extent, i have a proof for this but these margins are too small to contain it

For my part, of course I can only follow people who write in English unless translated. Do note I said some of the writers are affiliated to Jacobin, some aren't.

I think the UK 'left' has benefitted from Corbyn's leadership and the prospect that he could've been PM as he got closer to the top than Sanders did. It would make sense for others outside of the UK to latch onto that.

xp

Late last night I had a scan of this piece which looked at the old UK left media ecosystem.

50 years ago this autumn, a socialist weekly newspaper called '7 Days' appeared on British newsstands. It lasted less than a year – but its brief revolutionary spark still holds lessons for the Left today. https://t.co/McVBNX3nbe

— Tribune (@tribunemagazine) November 21, 2021

For my part, of course I can only follow people who write in English unless translated.

Sure. I wasn't trying to gotcha you, I was pointing out that most non-anglos also only speak English besides their native languages, and so writers in English are at an obvious advantage in having an impact outside their countries. The fact that very few leftist European thinkers get translated or get translations that manage to penetrate outside academia is a problem.

So Blakeley is basically right, but this is down to the structures in place as much as it is down to Corbyn (whose shot at govt was inspiring, yes - important to note that even tho most of Europe is to the left of the UK the govts still end up as uninspired melt with minority left coalitions).

7 Days was a very interesting project!! it's in the ambit of the underground press tho of course more self-consciously political. and like the rest of the underground press it haemorrhaged money and when editor alex cockburn closed it down and moved to the states he was basically fleeing colossal debts lol

(maybe the tribune piece says all this i will never click the link)

(i researched it for dawn-of-UK-rockwrite purposes but decided the work required didn;t justify the likely output in my book = one sentence at most lot) (sometimes i am not so disciplined! also someone recently told me they had an attic full of 7 dayses but i totally can't rememeber who it was so grrrr there) (also one day i will completely my large adult essay perry anderson! rock hack! but that day will nto be this year i fear… )

Starmer on Boris Johnson saying ‘fuck business': "I can promise you that the only 'F words' I'll be using are ‘foreign investment’, 'fair trade', 'fiscal policy', and 'fiduciary duty'"

— Jon Stone (@joncstone) November 22, 2021

a lot of debate going on in the QTs as to which comedy character this is most reminiscent of (Alan Partridge? Mark from Peep Show?), but I'd like to put a word in for Mark McKinney as Darryl on Kids In The Hall

Incredible.

Principal Skinner also making a strong showing

It immediately called to mind the abortive Marge Simpson musical number that began "morals and ethics and carnal forbearance" before she accidentally bulldozed the burlesque house

Definitely Mark from Peep Show.

Let's talk about the real C-bomb. Common sense.

okay genuine lols

The head of the CBI will today launch a damning critique of free-market capitalism, claiming it has left swathes of the country in decline.

Director-general Tony Danker will tell the Confederation of British Industry conference that successive governments have let ‘old industries die’ since the 1980s, with the communities facing ‘benign neglect’ ever since.

‘We’ve had five decades where the free market has palpably failed,’
‘There is a debate on the Right of politics over industrial strategies and whether they should exist.

'That should not be a debate. This is a critique of Thatcherism, though not a traditional one, and also of New Labour.

even the head of the CBI sounds like he wouldn't be impressed with that show of craven kowtowing to big business by Starmer. I can't even laugh at him anymore ... at least not until he's dead.

Now they tell us.

i saw starmer holding forth at the cbi on a mute tv today and thought to myself he probably sounded like a fraud even to them. little did i think he would be comprehensively outflanked… to the left

hearing serious reportage on the bbc about the JK Rowling "doxxing" by trans activists. Lol be fucking serious lads, a 6 year old with a smartphone could find the wikipedia entry for the castle she lives in.

Hogwarts?

nothing that grand, just a grade b listed mansion in a 5 hectare estate

it would take the Guess The City crew about 0.60 seconds to identity it as her home from a photo image.

i know you have terrible experiences with digital harassment, but that woman, as usual, is using her white women tears for sympathy. i'm surprised to see the words "this is a disgrace to all of us" pic.twitter.com/H8gi0prYu2

— roslyn talusan (@roslyntalusan) November 23, 2021

yeah thing is this is getting reported everywhere w/o any reference to her address being a matter of public record so all yer regular citizen will hear is "JK Rowling got doxxed"

which is why contrapoints was right - it should never have been done in the first place, both because of the optics and because it's a bad precedent, but also because harassing people in their own homes is kinda not a good thing to do in any case, even if they are a horrible whinging billionaire terf and all-round villain and arguable ruiner of children's culture

her video on rowling is ofc canonical on the matter

yeah I agree, harassing bigoted billionaire arseholes in their mansions is mostly a waste of time that you should be spending on working out the security vulnerable spots and which part of the building is the most flammable.

Nope, that's entirely wrong - framing ppl standing outside a gate as "harassing people in their own home" is buying into the same falsehoods that suggest she was doxxed. That is trivialising what actual doxxing is.

xpost

Otm Daniel.

lol calz

I'm going to doxx the Queen because that makes as much sense as calling this a doxxing

yeah it isn't the same ofc and this isn't doxxing but it'll always be spun as those horrid aggro transes by a media itching for lgbt suppression, there are many smarter plays

Can you just cut to the chase and stop handwringing over the need to always take the fash spin on anything into account?

are we calling contrapoints fash now

Like…. If this didn’t happen, they’d make something up. It happens all the fucking time.

are we calling contrapoints fash now

(no I know, the media are the fash ones...but they also inform the hordes, idk)

yeah but

yeah but

yeah but

this really boils down to whether picketing jk rowling's house is a good idea, and what there is to gain from it

her weak point is surely her cultural output, which is extremely open to attack

burn down harry potter imo

yes it would be a better use of their time and platforms to blog about how harry potter is bad

A peaceful protest near a prominent terf’s mansion will be called aggression by transphobes yes, BLM protesters will get called thugs by racists too

currently self-debating the optics of a literal mass pyre of childhood harry potters. otoh, powerful. otoh, a bit nazi lol

xxp Tell me you have never seen a picket without telling me you have never seen a picket.

this really boils down to whether picketing jk rowling's house is a good idea, and what there is to gain from it

It really doesn't. I don't think that picketing her castle is a particularly good idea, but in terms of tactical smarts it certainly outranks "trying not to do anything that can me misconstrued and spun as bad by the media", which is a surefire recipe for total inaction. Also from what I've heard this was like three people, you can neither control the actions of every rando nor should you waste time dissecting them.

What it boils down to much more is the larger issue of a person with huge media power putting out a false narrative and the media, as well as usually sound ppl like Natalie, just scarfing that up without a minimum of critical thinking.

Also, if fear of angering normies is your strategy, might I suggest trying to focus on the widely beloved children's lit that is the only reason anyone cares about this woman in the first place being bad, actually is, erhm, a bit of a miscalculation on your part?

People are out there being smeared as paedophiles for the crime of being trans and having the BBC platform a rapist as a voice of reason. I think a little perspective wouldn’t go amiss here.

strongly believe there would be a broad and receptive audience to 'actually harry potter is kind of shit and teaches bad lessons' myself. every enid blyton falls eventually

obviously the media is full of bigoted scumbags and bad-faith tactics, but the question is how to combat this - how to get even and not just mad

n.b. richmal crompton shall NEVER FALL

Can you just drop the just asking questions on behalf of normies posture, it’s beyond done. Like this is what people hide behind all the time and it’s tedious and disingenuous af, “I don’t personally think this but the man in the street…” Like, most cis women don’t agree with JKR on her stance, but we’re not hearing that side at all. So why focus on people who already don’t have a fucking voice in the media to start with.