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

its also a truly bizarre understanding of the materialist tradition of marxist etc thought to be like 'well, we're doing really well in the ideas game..."

like: "she doesn't really understand how precarious some people's lives are and the way in which it shapes their outlook on politics. And how a broken washing machine or a conked out fridge probably isn't the start of an existential crisis to her."

back in spring she was doing this awful "if your mam was a cleaner and yer da shovelled shite it has no bearing on yr class status - you plebs don't understand class theory from a Marxist perspective and I'm here to put you straight, ya" and I don't think she lacks the intelligence/self-awareness to know how it sounded coming from someone as posh as her, so it was just str8 fucking trolling clickbait bullshit on a level par with Spiked!

There are some good reporters on the labour strikes front in the states that I follow (some Jacobin affiliated, others not) and they'll do ideas at times but because they are reporting from the front lines I think it really grounds them in the way that I almost never see it from the Novara/podcast lot. One struggle at a time.

Saying that you are winning the ideas battle when the Tories are making moves to crush protest and dissent is a delusion the Corbyn-affiliated crowd really get into.

Yeah this is v otm as most of the very prominent ones are doing at best Westminster stuff, not often particularly interested in more prosaic stuff of people's lives outside of 'theoretical' framings of such

James butler is another one that really grinds my gears in this way

Real Rachel maddow stuff

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

nor am i especially expecting blakeley and dr bastano to make good use of this situation lol, if good use can even be made of it -- tho i did grin briefly at the locked-account twitter that responded "send paul mason in a sealed train to norway"

"send paul mason in a sealed train to norway"

lol that's a good one!

lol mark i dont think anyone was suspecting you of being a blakely dupe

I'd never assume the worst about anything that da sinker posts because he's always very thoughtful and good - apart from when he chats shit about mozart and mahler in a manner that displeases me!

they suck!

tbh i have to go find what i actually said abt them now

you were probably quoting GG on mozart and then summarily dismissed mahler as bad once in yr own voice, but I'm not really that bothered - honest!

schoenberg, mozart piano concerto no.24

^^^

this is good shit, mark!

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/JWgAAOSwcj1aOklo/s-l1600.jpg

this I mean, completely on topic of course - sorry I'm pished and have a broken tooth

im sorry to hear abt yr tooth! i had to check to see if robert craft was still alive but no, he died in 2015 aged 92

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?