Bloggox shite with something important thrown in
by hakmao, 28 August 2008
This is a guest post by SP
At one time Harry’s Place was somewhere I regularly went. I often commented there and occasionally guest posted. I have no personal gripe with its founders but it has changed politically to a point where it now infrequently attracts my interest. Neither am I partisan in the dispute between it and this site (I have however had sight of private e-mail traffic involving some of HP’s nouveau posters which is in stark contrast to the ‘raffish, witty and debonaire’ swagger they carefully try to cultivate).
Consequently I ‘get’ the tone behind yesterday’s post here regarding the HP shutdown. This lead a former Drink Soaked Trot (http://sedgemore.com/2008/08/hooray-the-saucy-comrades-return/) to dishonestly and ignorantly conflate this with a piece by Lenny at Stalin’s Tombola (http://leninology.blogspot.com/2008/08/not-free-speech-martyrs.html). Whilst superficially there is some congruence, a (currently too time consuming) thorough fisk would demonstrate that this is really not the case (no need to say that Len’s take on the David Hirsh quote is entirely flawed).
It is possible to paint the issue in any number of ways including the ridiculous hyperbole of this piece of self justification (http://www.hurryupharry.org/2008/08/27/a-line-must-be-drawn/). You could agree with Lenny, for instance, that it involves a Union busting, right-wing blog getting some timely comeuppance. This is less attractive when you realise that the union in question is somewhat blasé about breaching progressive anti-discrimination legislation and one which refuses to address allegations of institutional antisemitism, raised by Jewish activists. Ultimately campaigning against the latter is likely to get my vote ahead of vagaries regarding ‘breach of confidentiality’ on the ‘activists list’ and the union rule book.
You could argue that this is simply the conduct of the pro and anti boycott campaigns by other means. It certainly looks like a bar brawl breaking out onto the street. Most striking is that the original suggestion to utilise reactionary defamation law, against HP, should come from shrill opponents of the ‘legal threat’ posed by an application of progressive anti-discrimination legislation to the proposed boycott.
It can certainly be seen in the context of the application of reactionary slander and libel laws, and how they are used to intimidate political opponents. This is of course something HP is no stranger to. It should be taken as read that these laws are the plaything of the wealthy and powerful — though you may be surprised who said — ‘and [I] also think there is a place for laws on slander and libel. It is often the only recourse that people on the left have to the right wing press…’ in a comment at Shiraz Sauce recently. They are not commonly used as the above commenter asserts. A call for their urgent repeal should be equally uncontroversial, not least to stop the type of knee-jerk reaction from an ISP we have recently witnessed (their replacement — libel laws — is a subject for another day).
This event can be considered as primarily involving any or all of the above, and more besides. This is not however, an issue of ‘freedom of speech’. Even the most vindictive HP opponent would stop short, one would think, of calling for the site to be banned. Nobody has, to my knowledge, done so. As we can now see this was a day or so long hiatus which, one could reasonably surmise, will go no further. Should litigation follow HP they have, in my lay opinion, a simple defence.
The best, and most temperate response is here. The underlying and ongoing issue is that of institutional antisemitism on the left, which Jewish activists, especially in the UCU, have suffered, and continue to oppose, with comparative silence from anyone else.
Thursday 28 August 2008 at 22:04
NB: anything racist, red-baiting, idiotic, untruthful, crying, off-topic or displaying bourgeois moralism is liable to be excised. Just saying like.
Thursday 28 August 2008 at 23:30
Excellent post all round (he said, wondering to himself whether people will now think he’s just playing his cards safely close to his chest, given Hak’s admonition, and then decides, ah hell, I’ll post what I was going to post anyway, which was just a mere “Excellent post all round,” no matter what anyone thinks, because it is, after all, an excellent post, all round).
Friday 29 August 2008 at 0:33
Sort of following this whole escapade, and yet not at the same time. This is a subtle piece - which is another way of saying I don’t really understand it. Perhaps it’s just because I’m a bit spaced out but it seemed to me that the collapse of civilisation that was the disappearance of HP turned out to be a light and rather momentary affair? Or did I miss something? Wasn’t there - went to the toilet, David Miliband was back. We’ve all survived the experience, I think. On reflection some people could be doing with keeping some outrage in store for when something really bad happens. Just saying like.
I found this defence of Dilich from Cian in lenin’s comments very funny:
That unsophisticated? Fuck me…
Friday 29 August 2008 at 0:39
Canny post that doesn’t attack loony backstabbing Sedgemore enough (who was the only contributor to this weblodge ever not approached or invited to contribute here by the way — he begged me for inclusion — at first I ignored him because of his suspect pretend anarchist tendencies but gave in after the third email from him - i have learned my lesson on that score) or HP Sauce tossers for being cunts and that and politically retarded and reactionary filth. Soft on philistinism soft on the causes of philistinism. Needs more vitriol in other words.
Friday 29 August 2008 at 0:42
I don’t know if it counts as bourgeois moralism but I think that this gets to the nub of it:
The underlying and ongoing issue is that of institutional antisemitism on the left, which Jewish activists, especially in the UCU, have suffered, and continue to oppose, with comparative silence from anyone else.
Of course the UCU is my union and my local officers are decent people who work hard on behalf of the members and who are doing the best job they can at a difficult time. They have no truck with this bollocks. This is why I will not resign.
What the SWP clique (UCU Left) are doing is letting them down. It is a microcosm of the problem. The basic hard work of protecting union members, putting forward egalitarian political policies and working out left alternatives are being undermined by self-indulgent, and oh so self-righteous wankers, who identify themselves with the left but have no gut sympathies other than a sense of their own importance.
With UCU you have the sense of the shallowness of much of academic life and you have to wonder at the abilities of those that cannot identify antisemitism as racism and at the moral cowardice of the leadership.
I pitch between despair at two right-wing leftisms, seeing each as the main problem at different times. Third Way bollocks that accepts Thatcherism as immutable is mirrored by hard left bollocks that blames imperialism (aka Zionism, well really Jews) for everything.
Rebuilding the left means exploring the spaces in between and deploring both these shoddy positions, rooted as they are in the security of middle class privilege and a sneaking admiration for the powerful.
(And this is an excellent, thoughtful post. When will SP cease to be a guest and be one of us?)
Friday 29 August 2008 at 0:42
So right about any of this shite not being about ‘freedom of speech’ like.
Fuck that bollox.
Friday 29 August 2008 at 0:45
[inane - put in the dustbin of history]
Friday 29 August 2008 at 0:49
Never said you were suspect.
And stop derailing the thread with inane comments, otherwise you will be deleted.
And that.
(fuck it — couldn’t resist — deleted for being silly and that)
Friday 29 August 2008 at 11:46
‘You have to wonder at the abilities of those that cannot identify antisemitism as racism.’ Does antisemitism need to be shown to be racism (it isn’t quite the same, but never mind) before people can see what’s wrong with it? Academics, even. They can’t have studied much history. Another point: HP are not so much making a freedom of speech issue of it, but mostly protesting, if a bit melodramatically, about unfair UK libel laws.
Friday 29 August 2008 at 13:01
HP are not so much making a freedom of speech issue of it
They have mentioned censorship. I’m a strong proponent of freedom of speech so I do get fed up when people call fallout from disputes between individuals “censorship”.
unfair UK libel laws
These need reform, as do the internet laws and policies that interact with them.
Which leads me to ask who made the comment that SP quotes?
Friday 29 August 2008 at 13:53
Have a ponder for a while and I’ll divulge later
Friday 29 August 2008 at 14:07
“…who made the comment that SP quotes?”
JohnG (Gameboy) at Swampy Shiraz Sauce
http://shirazsocialist.wordpress.com/2008/08/17/scumpure-and-simple/#comment-18490
Friday 29 August 2008 at 15:47
whatsforsupper said:
“HP are not so much making a freedom of speech issue of it, but mostly protesting, if a bit melodramatically, about unfair UK libel laws.”
This is a straight up lie. It’s also (the non-free-speech issue shit) what was taken up as ‘the cause’ by most (if not all) of the fucking cretin Sauce supporting dipshits and evil dopey shitheads with a blog out there. They sound just like those bloggertarian filth who claim we are living under the Nazi jackboot cos you have to have a telly license. The fuckers should be selling pencils from a cup on the street and keep off the bastard interwebsnet.
Saturday 30 August 2008 at 0:11
[No, no, no. Not a way to comment here. You need to do it properly and not leave shit as a deposit — do it properly and it may stay in place — try it — you may be surprised]
Saturday 30 August 2008 at 2:46
Dirigible — you are usually a font of knowledge and make ever so relevant contributions in whatever forum you deem to post in (and humorously so). So why the fucking hell do you continue to post in the comments at that pit of shit blog known as Sauce Cunts?
I am — as I say — just fucking asking like.