Harry's Place

Silly cow – then again I’m from the upper middles classes so what do I know?

What a buffoon.

I was like that once. She’ll grow out of it. Most people do. It’s only a handful of idiots like Tariq Ali and John Pilger who carry on seeing the world through the wrong end of the telescope.

but since when did Socialism mean the rest of us had to be rearranged to suit the whims of a self-obsessed privately-educated, Oxbridge-cocooned twenty-three year old?

You kind of missed the irony in her profile didn’t you.

Perhaps she should do a guest post for HP given her sentiments below:

“Flatly denouncing someone’s religion is unacceptable, especially when used as an excuse to, say, commit atrocities abroad. But questioning how that religion is used – indeed, questioning how all major world religions are used – as a destructive tool in the hands of oppressive personalities and regimes is vital to liberalism, to feminism, and to humanism.”

http://tinyurl.com/yjbmvvp

She could start off with another of her bon mots:

“Right chaps, my attack-womb is primed and ready for launch.”

What does this mean, exactly?

Oh, and presumably she should have turned down her place at Oxford in order to meet your definition as a real authentic lefty.

Gtm – you can be from any class and be good or bad. Well-heeled uppers have more time and opportunity ro develop their goodness, but they can derail badly like the woman upstrairs.

Marcus you didn’t (sufficuently) make the point that she obviously hasn’t read HP, otherwise she might have noticed that many commenters keep insisting that moderate Muslims are not polirical enough. With some this is an exaggerated idée fixe..

Sunday is usually a day of rest for HP. It gives one time to collect one’s thoughts.

Can anyone tell me what “hat-tip” means

Why should you bother with the opinions of a muddlheaded nobody?

She lives with toast-eating pagans in a little house somewhere in London, smoking and drinking and plotting to subtly re-arrange the world to suit her ideals.

That goes in to my Words of Wankiness file, along with Mary Beard being described as “wickedly subversive”, Mel Scarey Spice saying, “I’m a northern nutter” and Carla Bruni, “I’m a cat, a tamer of men, an Italian.”

In a decade or two she will look at that sentence and cringe. If she doesn’t, she should be taken into care.

MPACUK and other anti-Islamophobic sites have a better track record of keeping their own house in order

Penny, as a regular at MPAC UK I feel I can state in all candour that your point is so wrong I now realise which side you support.

MPAC UK is a cesspit of rabid antisemitism disguised by the word “Zionist”. But, now the tide has turned. WIth an open comments policy the hoodies at MPAC UK are taking a debate battering.

Birtwhistle – I too have a womb and its never attacked anyone. I have no idea what she means, although I will hazard a guess that it is a subversion of the idea of wombs as safe nurturing places or something. Who knows.

Well, “polyrical” might be better than ‘political.’

This comment on that idiots log is a classic :

“About time some one did a proper critique and showed Harry’s place for what they are, witch finders and inquisitors that slander and vilify progressive figures both in the anti racist movement and any Muslim that has the audacity to object to either British or indeed Israeli state foreign policies.”

Where do people get this stuff from ? Though it could well be that’s some goon from the SWP or Respect just doing propaganda.

Also did you see her hilarious bit about Sunny ?

“A still, small voice of reason in the virtual mud-slinging match of the past decade has been Sunny Hundal*”

Come on you cannot be serious…..

Morgoth – where are you ?

She might have a column in the Morning Star but since when did Socialism mean the rest of us had to be rearranged to suit the whims of a self-obsessed privately-educated, Oxbridge-cocooned twenty-three year old?

Since when? Gee. When was socialism anything besides the buring desire to rearrange the lives of others?

The most significant thing about the Samosa site and Ms Penny’s attack on HP is surely this:

The Samosa has received sponsorship of £15K from the Equalities and Human Rights Commission to support new writing and new voices in journalism.

One point I’d say she does have is her focus on bullying on HP. Under the banner of free speech, HP is happy to have and sometimes encourage a degree of entirely personality-based vilification and abuse of individuals on the basis of their opinions (as opposed to any political actions) which has nothing to do with politics with either a small or a large p.

There’s no problem in my view with ridiculing and satirising of political positions, including inconsistencies and shifts therein. But it does seem to me that HP is complacent about personalised bullying on the basis of assertions about opponents’ insanity, encouraging others to bully, advocate violence towards and/or ostracise opponents on account of that or of opposition to a declared favourite or personal arbitrary preference of one collective member or another.

The paradigm case in my experience was DavidT’s “Defend Peter Tatchell” which set the tone with the opening phrase: “Lunatics and fanatics are attempting to smear Peter Tatchell….

I found myself amongst the targets of the disgusting personal vilification I’ve referred to here, including such gems as:

As for your accusers, as David T so eloquently put it: fuck them!

Peter if you want those libelous fools given a good slap just ask.

People like Judy are just ignorant and bitter.

ooft! you took a beating there judy! never mind. go and lick your wounds and you can come back talking shite the next time.

Judy is as mad as a hatter. It is best to ignore her.
(that from Brett, a member of the HP collective)

Screaming Judy’s smart-alec confusion about Muslims and Islamic fundamentalists is enough to disqualify her from serious consideration.

There once was a blogging chalaria
well-known for her bouts of hysteria
whether kosher or traif
no one was safe
from the kadoches of her verbal maleria
(another contribution from HP collective member Brett)

I think it would be amusing if Peter decided to suspend his usual policy of not taking those slandering him to court and *just this once* sued Judy. Go on Peter, they might even remove her PC to help pay her costs and save us from more of this shit.
Not much point though, her specialist would turn up in court and simply point out she obviously hadn’t taken her medication for 24 hours.

A long time on the potty and no poo poo little girl, try harder, there’s a good girl!

you’re making a vile accusation against someone based on statements that only a hyperventilating hypersensitive could consider anti-semitic. For someone who writes like an attack dog, you sure can’t take it.
A third point: It’s clear that Tatchell is well-respected for his honesty, integrity and anti-racism. By claiming the opposite, stooping to calling acts (like manhandling Mugabe) most would applaud him for, you simply sound like a vindictive little bitch who didn’t get her way and can’t stand being wrong even once. Quite pathetic really.

What fly’s bitten Judy?
Her yells mean nothing.

What Judy really needs is a nice Richard.

Allowing stuff like this to appear on HP –whoever it’s directed at–puts HP in the same sewer as CommentisFree–just with different targets.

You can tell she went to Oxford by her intellectual and incisive opening point:

Today’s monotheistic patriarchal desert religions were not designed with the Internet in mind.

No shit Sherlock, lay some more wisdom on us man.

Judy,

and…?

Judy is right though. Basically its just another case of “how dare those lower-class oiks talk to me in a manner which makes me feel uncomfortable” isn’t it?

@Felix – a hat tip is an acknowledgement to another blogger/internet source. It invokes the idea of tipping the hat as a gesture of respect. It’s a funny expression as it harks back to a very old fashioned habit and I wonder whether it has any connection at all with the ‘http’ prefix to urls.

Glad to see (on another thread) that you are a Firbank fan by the way!

Back on topic – I thought the toast and pagans and reinventing the world stuff was just arch, self deprecating and a bit ironic. But possibly, reading other pronouncements by her, not self deprecating and ironic enough …

Feminism and socialism on the American prairie.

The Commanche Indian in his village is the idlest, laziest being in existence, a sluggard and a glutton. His sole and only pursuits are war and hunting. His wife, besides attending to the domestic duties of the tent, plants his corn and reaps it, cultivates his tobacco, tans his buffalo hides – in fine, performs without the remotest aid from him, every particle and kind of labor, which, among civilized beings, devolves upon the husband. So now, while the women toiled and strained and lifted, the men moped stupidly around, smoking their pipes, or lolled upon the ground.

To Penny and her ilk Muslims and Islamists are synonymous, and a principled attack on the ideas of the latter can be seen through the fog of ignorance as a vicious baiting of the former.

the phrase ‘mehdi hasan exposed’ springs to mind here.

this riposte is pissweak, an example of the kind of character assassination she was complaining about.

bravo – you’ve done her work for her.

Is anybody else old enough to remember the beer advert where a tutor is trying to teach a female toff to say “The wa’er in Gibral’ar don’ taste like wha’ i’ ough’er” ?

Judy. Grow a spine and get a grip.

Sorry – does that also count as “disgusting” bullying just because you say it is?

Yeah bit too much ad hom for my taste. Got to wonder though, why revolutionaries are so keen on smoking. Don’t they want to be around long enough to see utopia?

I read her article. While I’m not in agreement with it, I can’t get all worked up about it either. But really, can’t you do better than sneering at her class, education and place of birth? I can’t wait for an update where someone gets to hear her accent and we have a new round of sneering about that.

I’d like to apply for a £15k grant to rewrite her psuedo-intellectual crap into something that people can understand. Its typical “look how literate I am you scum.”

She using $2 words in a 1 cent article.

I pretty much agree with Mr Danger. Any criticism of this blogger should be on the basis of her comments/opinions – not her educational background or perceived social class.

I also agree with Judy that the comments she quotes are pretty disgusting.

Basically its just another case of “how dare those lower-class oiks talk to me in a manner which makes me feel uncomfortable” isn’t it?

No. I’ve read a fair amount of Laurie’s musings elsewhere and there is none of that kind of attude in any of it. If people want to disagree with the point she’s making then fine but sneering at her because of her background is pretty poor stuff.

Judy, you’re so nice to everyone else, I can’t believe other HP commenters aren’t nice to you. I just don’t understand.

Judy feel the love. As the famous Yorkshire psychiatrist would say, “Pull yersel together you wet blanket”

Come on Andrew this person is making ludicrous smears about HP. You comment here and are normally fair minded, you must agree her comments are absurd and deserve strong censure :

“Harry’s Place has pursued what has been seen as a ‘witch-hunt’ against any Muslim or Muslim-ally who does not fit the site editors’ strict definitions of ‘moderation’; to whit, near non-involvement in politics.”

Utter bilge, what about The Spitton eg, HP is very supportive of that.

can you give another example except for the spitoon?

Three things.

(1) The Samosa is a awful site, with a crappy name, full of apologia for far-right politics in the guise of religious identity politicians.

(2) Harry’s Place is a very important blog, with some excellent writers.

(3) However, Harry’s Place, sometimes your comments thread pollutes you and your reputation.

I say that as a friend of HP, please take it in that spirit.

frog – what is this – “what did the Romans do for you” ?

Come on, have a heart, I don’t approve of classism, even if she
does, and she is, after all, a very very very young person. She
may be one of these you see at the top:

http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/main/Home

If not, what her writings have in common with that picture, is
that at first you think it’s a piss-take, a pastiche, and then
you realize that in fact it is all done quite seriously, without a hint of irony!
Haven’t we all been fervent young radicals at some time? I did
mine in the sixties when it was fashionable.
Her writings do merit some attention. If you yourself want to do a pastiche of an ultra-left rant – they are prime examples of the genre.

Marcus

This stance used to be pretty non-controversial on the left.

Really or is that a myth?

(3) However, Harry’s Place, sometimes your comments thread pollutes you and your reputation.

Mea culpa.

By the way folks, this website has received £15,000 in government funding.

The Samosa has received sponsorship of £15K from the Equalities and Human Rights Commission to support new writing and new voices in journalism.

http://thesamosa.co.uk/index.php/about.html

Fifteen grand of taxpayers money to write exculpation of Islamic extremists in the name of human rights and ‘equality’, and to attack those who scrutinisetheological extremism and sectarianism, all in the name of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission.

Harry’s Place folk – your taxes have gone into subsidising this attack on you.

It really is a pathetic site.

frog – what is this – “what did the Romans do for you” ?

nope, but please answer the question. If HP Sauce is so committed to outreach to Muslim groups, you should be able to name more than one such group.

the point of Laurie Penny’s article is – HP Sauce engages in smears and witch-hunts of anyone who dares dissent from its idea of what constitues ‘civilised debate’.

So it responds by… smearing her, launching ad hominem personal attacks, and patronising her.

as I’ve said, the response has done her work for her.

the author of this piece does not understand irony or self-deprecation (the analysis of her bio is unintentionally hilarious), uses the juvenile tactic of saying that because someone went to oxford their views are uncpnnected with the real world (that clearly doesn’t apply to Oxford-and-public-school educated people who have the HP Sauce seal of approval), and then manages to berate the piece’s author for her age. as i said, bravo.

person who complains of HP Sauce’s demonstrable tendency to sling mud…. gets mud slung at her.

great work.

Oh, I think some people have missed the point. I personally don’t care what people’s class or educational background is – some of my most entertaining and valued colleagues are posh, expensively-educated southern jessies, and what with being a lawyer myself I’m hardly in a position to throw class-based mud around myself.

What I do find worthy of comment is the sense of entitlement that certain members of the English upper social strata exhibit. Penny, for example, clearly understands little beyond her own rather limited background but her ignorance doesn’t stop her from pontificating at length as if hers are the most important thoughts in the world. I suppose if I were being charitable I’d call it chutzpah, but since she chose to fall back on lazy cliches and lies when discussing Harry’s Place I’m less inclined to give her he benefit of the doubt and more inclined to put the metaphorical boot in.

Have a read through her collected works on her blog and depending on your cultural background you’ll either not have a clue what I’m on about, or her assumed superiority will catch you in the back of your throat like mustard gas.

Having said all of that that I think Penny is way better writer than the vast majority of her contemporaries and when she has a bit more to write about and ‘gets over herself’ she’ll actually be a pleasure to read.

If people want to disagree with the point she’s making then fine but sneering at her because of her background is pretty poor stuff.

Oh fuck right off. This nonsense was posted in my thread yesterday without any reference to what I have personally argued about religion or Islam. I will criticise this spoilt little girl in any way I want.

spoilt little girl

oh dear, it just gets better.

Like good anti-racists we don’t care what colour these people are either. This stance used to be pretty non-controversial on the left.

what about a commitment to the opposition of, i dunno, sexism? and ageism?

if you’re so committed, as a site, to not being interested in the colour of people’s skin, or their gender, then i wonder how it is you manage to attract so many sexists such as the above to voice their approval in the comments.

Spoilt little girl seems to me to be a simple description which does exactly what it says on the tin. Interesting that people seem to be using Political Correctness to defend class interests.

Basically this female version of Tim nice but Dim has attached herself to a popular blog in order to raise her own profile.

Couldn’t she have asked daddy to buy her a Newspaper to edit?

“the point of Laurie Penny’s article is – HP Sauce engages in smears and witch-hunts of anyone who dares dissent from its idea of what constitues ‘civilised debate’.”

Err no its not, its specifically saying HP “witch hunts” all Muslims who are at all political which is a smear of almost actionable proportions. Even the one counter example of the Spitoon is enough to blow that cr*p out of the window.

This is why, no matter how much various sub-groups get on my tits, I’ll always have time for the freaks: the short, the young, the sick, the disabled and disenfranchised, the queers, the sexual deviants, swingers, fetish nutcases and drugged-up hedonists; for the goths and hippies and the geeks; for the Socialists, the Communists, the bickering Far Left beaurocrats [?], for the poor, and for women, especially those who’ve caught a glimpse of the nightmare of capitalist gender fascism in which we’re living.

In short, she is an utterly ordinary, very silly, preening, posturing, vain, pretend revolutionary.

This Penny is also an absolute out and out racist. Like a spoilt little girl she denies agency to muslims by constructing them as a monolithic bloc according to her own definition of how they are allowed to behave. Therefore to criticise an individual is to her to criticise all muslims (they all look the same to her)

Most of us who have argued against the rabid muslim baiters who sometimes appear in the threads here will recognise that this is exactly how they also categorise people.

(nobody from that community could ever possibly d

frog – a very quick search here on HP also finds articles by Anya Hart Dyke from the Quilliam Foundation and Shiraz Maher.

The fact is more and more Muslims are coming out and opposing Islamism and the cynical communalist politics of the likes of Respect, see the recent counter demos against the Choudhary lot (oh and guess what HP supported them as well).

But I expect you’re not as stupid as you appear, know all this and are just trolling.

God knows HP has its faults, but Islamophobia isn’t one of them.

The alternative – that Islamism isn’t to be criticised and social reactionaries are to be respected as the voice of ‘their’ community – doesn’t bear thinking about.

Oh, I think some people have missed the point. I personally don’t care what people’s class or educational background is

Funny how it comes up so often then. You didn’t even make it past the first sentence without resorting to it.

Same with Graham – what are the odds that for any post with over 200 comments, if you scroll to the bottom you will find Graham sneering at someone for being the wrong class? Check his last thread to find out.

Same with Graham – what are the odds that for any post with over 200 comments, if you scroll to the bottom you will find Graham sneering at someone for being the wrong class?

I’d be less disposed to sneer not at someone’s class but rather at the idiots that turned up in vast numbers to defend this rather stupid spoilt little girl when they realised how ridiculous her article was (and that she was going to get slaughtered) if I hadn’t seen Sy being called council house scum all the way down a recent thread without a single voice raised to suggest that his background should not be brought into it.

Hypocrite.

I feel sorry for her. She has no defences, no survival skills, nor any real moral framework that that would allow her to negotiate the world in an autonomous and secure way. She’s stuck in adolescence, is very weak and vulnerable, and is clearly unaware of the extent to which she is prey to islamists. She’ll eventually lose herself in all the muddled, leftist claptrap and will succumb to them, becoming another Yvonne Ridley.

Consider me to be currently sneering at you in a Johnny Rotten style Mesq.

I’ve never detected a hint of a sneer from Graham, despite my obvious vulgarity.

Now how did my comment appear before his? Witchcraft!

I don’t think Anya Hart Dyke is a muslim.

Where can I get the forms to apply to be a Commanche?

And can I get a £15k grant??

In 30 years time she will be Harriet Harman.

The posts are shrinking. Is HP turning into Twitter?

Ah, the Euston Manifesto. Gathering dust somewhere. I am waiting for new Decent organisations to be launched to replace HRW, Amnesty, the UN etc., ones that will never be critical of Israel – that will not do, you know.

Now how did my comment appear before his? Witchcraft!

I just assumed you upper-class British twits learn some internet tricks at your fancy universities that they don’t teach us in our one-room schoolhouses in West Texas.

Damned colonials – I’ll have Penny Laurie horsewhip you.

Graham – In Texas they pay good money for that.

In Texas they pay good money for that.

http://www.texas-bullwhip.com/

Comanche usually has one c.

Sorry brain malfunction – Comanche usually has one m!

Commanches are notoriously poor spellers.

But good with horses, it should be pointed out.

I find Laurie Penny’s blogging efforts very irritating and her comments about HP were mostly ridiculous.

However, do you not think you’ve maybe somewhat justified her ‘HP=bullies’ argument by criticising her so personally?

Oh, and Billy’s summary is perfect:

(1) The Samosa is a awful site, with a crappy name, full of apologia for far-right politics in the guise of religious identity politicians.

(3) However, Harry’s Place, sometimes your comments thread pollutes you and your reputation.

But good with horses, it should be pointed out.

Absolutely. Before some maniac introduced them to horseflesh, they were an obscure little tribe camping out in northern Wyoming. Placed aboard horses, they terrorized half a continent.

Having said all of that that I think Penny is way better writer than the vast majority of her contemporaries and when she has a bit more to write about and ‘gets over herself’ she’ll actually be a pleasure to read.

She writes about her vagina a bit too much.

“[H]ome counties raised and not long out of university” and “limited life experience” are possibly the least accurate things you could say about her, if you’d bothered to research her let alone if you’d ever met her.

However, do you not think you’ve maybe somewhat justified her ‘HP=bullies’ argument by criticising her so personally?

Only if what she actually meant was “how dare those lower-class oiks talk to me in a manner which makes me feel uncomfortable”

However, Harry’s Place, sometimes your comments thread pollutes you and your reputation.

reputation for what?! Its so dispiriting to realise that HP is a radical as it gets on the “liberal” side of the spectrum.

On the one hand there are so many UK blogs and “newspapers” that mindlessly regurgitate the reactionary thinking behind the existing political discourse … where for example it so acceptable to equate Zionism with racism that terms like ZioNazi are no longer taboo.

And facing this torrent of fascist discourse and reactionary thinking is what? The oh so so polite posters at Harry’s Place.

Jacko & Billy are wrong. the best think about HP are the commentors to the posts.

“[H]ome counties raised and not long out of university” and “limited life experience” are possibly the least accurate things you could say about her, if you’d bothered to research her let alone if you’d ever met her.

Yeah, you are giving yourself a bit of hostage to fortune by assuming things about someone’s privileged background, and they then turn up and give you their bio of being taken into care, working their way through uni etc. Take the piss out of her writing by all means, but I don’t see how her background is relevant.

Being left for the morning at Harrod’s nursery does not constitute being taken into care though unfortunately.

However, do you not think you’ve maybe somewhat justified her ‘HP=bullies’ argument by criticising her so personally?

You don’t really know what the term ‘bullies’ means, do you?
This silly, spoiled, ignorant prat posted an attack on HP which is rooted quite firmly in her silliness, spoiledness and ignorance. All that happened is that people are(a) responding with appropriate derision, (b) telling her where she is being silly, spoiled and ignorant (and racist).

Isn’t the real problem here that on most blogs (and indeed in most
wealthy parts of British society) you can nowadays hide away from reality and not hear anything that you find unpleasant. This leads to the sense of entitlement that your own views (however stupid) should not be challenged (or worse) laughed at. That nobody has ever been able to fool themselves that they can do that here is one of HP’s greatest strengths. The last thing we need is to become bland and blinkered by those who want the comments boxes to resemble a dinner party in Clapham.

this is hilarious! left in harrod’s my arse. or is that just where graham goes looking for children? but i suppose that would be cruel ad hominem.

I have blundered into the wrong “Harry’s Place” evidently …

The one I usually trawl is full of comments which pick (nit pick even) over the posts from the perspective of Al Murray’s Pub Landlord or Harry Enfield’s saloon bar ranter (No! David T.! It’s not good enough to gather the so-called facts! And if I see him hanging around Trafalgar Square with his saucy pals, I will say ‘Oi! David T.! Come here and get a slapping!’) – except not in a good way, obviously.

Judy was roughly done to and I am distinctly uninterested myself in views which resort to expletives on whatever side of an argument these appear. But others replied civilly to her, as I did myself. If you deference I would look elsewhere.

Anyone who thinks Harry’s Place is one sided must be thinking of those frequent posts from apologists for the far right who are, remarkably allowed to post here. So much for liberality!

Isabel, the last person who accused Graham of being a nonce was Lee John Barnes, Legal Director of the BNP….

this is hilarious! left in harrod’s my arse. or is that just where graham goes looking for children?

Ah Lee John barnes of the BNP is back.

this is hilarious! left in harrod’s my arse. or is that just where graham goes looking for children?

I see that Lee John Barnes is here again.

I agree that some of the comments on Judy are over the top, but at times she is pretty provocative.

I realised as soon as I started reading HP that I had to be prepared for some rough beerhall treament -
Judy, if a fragile flower, one of God’s lonely creatures, like me, can take insults and boots up the arse, you should be better equiped as you are quite a toughy yourself. Let your classy gentile side come out to answer specific points and walk over the louts with some spiky high-heeled shoes.

Mind you. I can become like a fish wife myself (Excue p. incorrectness), but I’m trying to control it. I’m middle class, but trying vainly to be a bit upper. I insist on serving tea properly with all the appurtenances as a protest against barabarism.

Though I like a bit of rough trade on HP (Yes and no Joke).

I read a thesis according to which, while Cockney kids were backward at school, if they were tested within their own context and language, they were smarter than the up-ti-dos.

I had an ex-working class boyfriend who went to Oxford and acquired the standard middle class accent, but he was in quite a conflict with himself hating and loving his new middle class and the working class background by turns. It was interesting that when we met working people (let’s say uneducated people), waiters, they always turned to me to speak and shied from his fraternising attempts. I never concescend and am simply myself. I say I like ballet and Bach, and if they ask me questions I give explanations. I have absloutely never felt superior, for the simple reason that I am not.

But to get back to Judy, you do seem to be a bit sniffy to me, as I have given lengthy replies to questions you asked me, and once complimented you on a good comment you had made, and there was no reaction. I think you dismissed me as unworthy hoi-pe-loi.

This is HP style and you either accept it or desist. You may well not come back to read my mail as you have probably had your say and are turning to voilet-green pastures, which, alas! no longer exist.

He.

All this reminds me that whilst gracing the HP comments boxes with my usual polite demeanour I have been called a paedophile (several times) a nazi and a zionist (often on the same thread) a muslim lover and muslim hater (ditto) council house scum and a middle-class traitor. Someone without any musical taste (I think by Wardy – and that one stung I can tell you.) A tory, a liberal, a socialist. A thicko, an intellectual, a faux intellectual, a member of the illuminati, a tobacconists lobbyist and someone with totalitarian urges against car drivers.

Am I bovvered? Doubtful (apart from the music one.) Its all just words. Get over it. Get a life.

Graham- You’re also paranoid, narcissistic and suffering from an identity crisis. Are you sure you’re not Jewish?

I hope you realise that several anti-zionist websites are waiting with baited breath for an answer to that one nodrog. I have never been easily fitted into the simplistic narrative of HP as a Jewish website.

I get angry, too, when I make the mistake of reading my words twisted by idiots online, my feminism rubbished, my ideals mocked. I get angry when I hear, time and time again as my profile as a feminist writer grows, that I’m a prude, a frigid bitch, that I hate sex, that I believe in a sterile female supremacist state, that my sisters and I believe all heterosexual sex is rape. I get angry when I am lied about. No other kind of political writer gets their very selfhood, the deepest most intimate parts of themselves, trampled in the most malicious of ways by total strangers – only the few bloggers, journalists and authors who are brave enough to tackle feminist issues in the public sphere.

I get angry when I’m told that I am not allowed to take offence when women are objectified and served up as pieces of meat by the media, when I’m called a prude for hating the prevalence of lap-dancing clubs and wanting those clubs to be properly designated and licensed, when I’m called a crazy, bitter bitch for hating the fact that I can’t leave my fucking house or even open a goddamn webpage without seeing pictures of unreal female bodies served up as the ultimate ideal that I should aspire to, when I hate being told to buy more things so that I can look perpetually young, odourless, hairless, shaved, de-sexed and dehumanised. I get angry when I’m ridiculed for wanting to own my sexuality, and wanting others to be allowed to own theirs.

Would you, please, just shut the fuck up? This is the exact same drivel I was introduced to at my university in 1985. Talk about frozen in amber, for chrissakes.

Isn’t that flaming skull Laurie uses something from Nazi militaria (maybe ask Marc Garlasco)?

Hang on though I may have spoken prematurly about Ms Penny. Her article “Harry Potter and the fascist ubermensch” is a masterpeice:

Just as integral to the world that Rowling has constructed is its complete lack of sexuality except for in the context of sterilised, heteronormative dating/marriage rituals. Rowling’s controversial declaration of Albus Dumbledore’s homosexuality, admitted only after her far right audiences had a chance to buy and read her final book, does not redeem the Potter universe. Clearly, this author is either uncomfortable with dealing with relationships that do not end in marriage, or intends the sole queer exemplar in the text to be a former fascist sympathiser whose youthful indiscretions result in lifelong celibate penance.

Anyone who still starts a sentence “It is a truth universally acknowledged” should be made to forfeit their £15k grant for “new writing” and if they happen to have a 2:1 in English from Oxford, should be made to pay an additional penalty on top.

Graham, that “Clearly,” that starts the third sentence is a masterpiece on its own, especially as the sentence goes on to offer two alternative interpretations.

amie – absolutely. It’s the laziest journalese.

“Oh fuck right off. This nonsense was posted in my thread yesterday without any reference to what I have personally argued about religion or Islam. I will criticise this spoilt little girl in any way I want.”

So says Mr Snide remarks extraordinaire, who do you think you are kidding Mr Leftie “mature student, I grew up in brixton, bring class into it every opportunity I get” Graham.

You are one of the worse offenders of class insinuation, you act like Edmond(sic) Blackadder whenever anyone says anything against your “class”.

You don’t fool me smartarse.

As for this “Penny Laurie” dolt, the left have always had these wooly brained ultimate guilt merchants and the left have always pretended to be their comrades, she will end up as an upper class version of Graham, trust me, either that or an MP.

Marcus, Graham et al are being rather more restrained and fair-minded than I would be inclined to be. I cannot agree with the soberly-argued comments of Andrew Adams, good chap as he sometimes can be.

No doubt we all have mannerisms and written tics that irritate others. But she drives me absolutely to distraction. Not simply because she has emotional diaorrhea, spunking irrational, hysterical anger over the page as she does in her “heartfelt” cries for the dispossessed, but because she damages the left – she is representative of everything that normal people who get up and do a day’s work and want to be respectable and contribute and get on hate about the left.

I am from an upper middle class background myself and I see her presumed superiority like a sledgehammer coming out of the page. What those from the backgrounds she has the temerity to think that she speaks for actually would think of her I dread to think. I also find the suggestion that she is somehow hard-put upon or dispossessed profoundly angering. She is a spoilt, posturing brat, playing at radicalism. She badly, desperately wants to be part of some proletarian underclass because it would give political balast to her incoherent hysterical angry rantings. It would also be oh so terribly glamourous (though she would deny this, of course).

Her problem is that being middle class is too boring for her. She can’t cope with not being outside the mainstream. This is cultural lifestyle politics at its worst.

Let those of us on the left who are actually interested in supporting a progresssive government get on with the job of defending public services and supporting surestart and the minimum wage. Let spoilt, posturing brats like her fuck off even further into the far left fringes of social and political irrelevancy.

Her writing makes my blood absolutely boil. It is the most self-indulgent self-defeating tosh I have ever read. If you wanted to promote respect for alternative lifestyles and left wing politics is this travesty how you would do it? No it certainly is not. Maybe one day she will be a serious writer on the left. For now, though, she’s too busy getting self-indulgent kicks, adolescently trying to shock what she thinks is mainstream opinion and emotionally joyriding on the political vehicle of other people’s misfortune.

Sorry for typos etc – I’m on a tiny machine with mini screen and keyboard.

Graham, that “Clearly,” that starts the third sentence is a masterpiece on its own, especially as the sentence goes on to offer two alternative interpretations.

To be honest I often do that myself.

Sorry for typos etc – I’m on a tiny machine with mini screen and keyboard.

Ah. Typical of the “left aristocracy” to have a new netbook whilst the rest of us slave away on enormous clockwork Amstrads. :-)

Hmm I suppose some of your best friends are Muslim as well. The point Laurie makes very well is both Hplace and MPAC have significant sectarian elements driven by a mutual religous loathing of each other. Now your free to carry on being abusive and demonise Muslims in the same way MPAC do Jews. I’m sure there are some Jews that MPAC like as there are some Muslims that HPlace like. That kind of sums you both up really. A mirror reflection of each others loathing and bigotry.

Surely the most shocking part of what follows after the comma is the split infinitive?
And this woman is an Oxford graduate you say??

Since when are class and educational background irrelevant to commentary or point of view?

They aren’t (speaking as a poor person who went to a ritzy high end school on scholarship) (they were seeking “diversity”) (it is to laugh).

The other factor that’s relevant, of course, is her age.

This, she’ll grow out of:)

“The city is over-run with kids like us, grubbing around in wheelie-bins for the rag-ends of dreams we were sold in school. People are angry. The impossible has happened: free market capitalism has failed us, and real life is no longer the thick slice of fun pie that we were led to expect. Instead of doing anything worthwhile to help, our leaders have just been exposed as liars, fraudsters and charlatans…”

On no, capitalism doesn’t guarantee jobs for graduates. Who knew?

I’m not convinced by this whole small is better approach these days.

Though no doubt Ms Penny would regard this as typical of my misogynistic blokish proto-fascist capitalist thinking… ;) She isn’t writing knowingly or archly, as some have suggested. She’s absolutely sincere in her ultra-left rants. And that’s one of the reasons she’s so irritating.

My folks can keep the damn mini pc thingamy – but they don’t like using it either!

I have a netbook cos they are easy to carry. But I also have big fingers (God knows how many times I have been told there are too many guitarists at a jam night and I look like I’ve got “bass players fingers”) to be honest I think the whole netbook concept is sexist and a terrible capitalist plot aimed at those of us who are piano-challenged.

Hmm I suppose some of your best friends are Muslim as well. What Laurie has done very well and highlight a simple truth. Hplace and MPAC are mirror reflections of each other loathing and hate of different cultures and communities. I’m sure there are some Jews that MPAC like just as there are some Muslims that HPLace like. The ones that agree with them on things I suspect. Truth hurts which is why you lot are shrieking so much abuse which kind of proves laurie point. Liberty to you lot seems to mean the liberty to be abusive bigots. Fair enough but others see you for that as well.

I find this phrase hard to parse:

“…can’t therefore recognise political reaction if it comes with more melanin than she herself inherited, even if it spells out its ultimate aims in the blood of women shopping at market places.”

Well it’s funny that Penny attacks HP as sectarian bullies, but the reason that Judy has a hard time here is that she’s unapologetically Jewish and fairly right wing Zionist.

So sure, any collection of commenters in an unmoderated forum is going to argue fairly viciously at times. But as Judy’s problem demonstrates the actual position of readers is not as sectarian as painted in the article.

And of course, if Penny was honest she would have gaged the position of the writers of the blog not attacked the blog for positions they don’t take, or for those of commenters.

Sufi if you were capable of making an argument you would have already. You’ve had numerous comments in the previous threads and one here…

And you haven’t done more than pretend to gloat.

Moron.

Graham – Clearly you are the kind of writing shyster who, instead of making his arguments clear, thinks announcing that they are clear will hoodwink the reader.

massi – do they argue points of style on MPAC? My favourite memory of them is a wacky headline to the effect “Zionists responsible for deaths by hypothermia”, their reasoning being that Zionist caused Iraq war and the Iraq war used up money that should have been spent on heating, therefore. . . There’s been stupid stuff on HP, but none as stupid as that.

Graham – Clearly you are the kind of writing shyster who, instead of making his arguments clear, thinks announcing that they are clear will hoodwink the reader.

You never noticed this before? :-)

Judy is correct,personal attacks on people diminish those who make them.
Someones background should never be held against them,it’s not my fault I am a working class gob shite or that someone else isn’t.
Take people as you find them

I’m sure … there are some Muslims that HPlace like

HP is not a person, idiot. Different people have different views.

Personally, I don’t “like Muslims” or “dislike Muslims”: I like or dislike individuals.

I certainly dislike those Muslims that happen to be antisemitic inciters to the murder of Jews. Just as I dislike those non-Muslims that happen to be antisemitic inciters to the murder of Jews.

Anyone get the impression Anaximander is trying out a whole host of new screen names?

I certainly dislike those Muslims that happen to be antisemitic inciters to the murder of Jews. Just as I dislike those non-Muslims that happen to be antisemitic inciters to the murder of Jews.

It’s getting so no one can be an antisemitic inciter to the murder of Jews and still be Gordon’s friend. Sheesh!

Nice piece of writing – bang on the money. You accurately pinpoint what it is about LP that never fails to make me see red…

I’m sure there are some Jews that MPAC like just as there are some Muslims that HPLace like. The ones that agree with them on things I suspect.

I might be wrong but I suspect most people in the adult world tend to like those who agree with them more than those who don’t.

Truth hurts which is why you lot are shrieking so much abuse which kind of proves laurie point. Liberty to you lot seems to mean the liberty to be abusive bigots. Fair enough but others see you for that as well.

This is hysterical drivel. The writers of Harry’s Place do not have an ounce of bigotry in them. I have followed their writing for a long time and they are consistent and brave in confronting far-right, communalist, sectarian and theocratic politics and its dissemination in British society, at a time in which this politics has done much to poison our society.

That they do so in the face of absurd, brainless accusations of bigotry by people who stick their head in the sand on these issues is all the more admirable.

Morgoth – where are you ?

Ha. Been out this weekend and I come back and observe a gifthorse from somewhere near the oral region.

Laurie Penny is your typical Guardian-reading brain-addled parasitical fuckwit quite happy to appease mysogynistic and homophobic medieval gobshites just to burnish her credientials with smarmy egotistical cunts like Sunny Hundal.

In short, she’s a traitor to a) her gender and b) the Enlightenment.

Laurie Penny is your typical Guardian-reading brain-addled parasitical fuckwit quite happy to appease mysogynistic and homophobic medieval gobshites just to burnish her credientials with smarmy egotistical cunts like Sunny Hundal.

Thank you for demonstrating why insults and “bullying” are completely necessary.

Fucking hypocrite, feminists for Islamism!

“Laurie Penny is your typical Guardian-reading brain-addled parasitical fuckwit quite happy to appease mysogynistic and homophobic medieval gobshites just to burnish her credientials with smarmy egotistical cunts like Sunny Hundal.”

Stop prevaricating Morgie and say what you mean.

I should have quoted the next line as well, it was wonderful.

Laurie penny is 22.

Before anyone accuses me of ageism they should think for a second that her readership of HP cannot have taken much time out of her short and self promotional recent career.

What exactly can Laurie Penny know of HP or MPACUK from direct, detailed and accumulated experience?

The answer for an aspiring journalist who wants to be taken seriously and make a name for themselves is to do some damn research and find out about the subject you are writing about.

She states that she is a board member for Liberal Conspiracy, so that while this is indeed something she has direct experience of her use of her own brand as a comparator ( unsurprisingly a wholly excellent and vastly superior one) is beneath contempt yet she still lazily writes conventional journalese in the passive voice, seeking to convey some sense that an authoritative inquiry into HP its writers, and its political character demonstrates the factual content of her article.

She could have defeated any ‘ageist’ accusations of being silly, young and ignorant by actually doing research with well marshalled and presented facts, such as a real content analysis of HP vs MPACUK might show; you know in the way that media monitoring departments of Universities do when looking for systematic bias in the media.

They count systematically and compare according to clear criteria. They even have software that enables you to crunch all the words at say HP and look for particular themes and editorial policy.

Of course she does not bother because she does not even understand that musings and opinions based on, precisely no reported data, not a single example of the generalised Muslim witch hunting that she feels quite entitled to, do not amount to any demonstrable objective phenomenon.

She drifts in a world of her own, unquestionably right opinions so buoyed up by her own gaseous output that she , while pretending a rough sectarian equivalence between HP and MPAC she categorically declares HP to be withc hunting of any ‘Muslim’ or ‘Muslim’ ally engaged in politics.

On the other hand MPAC only ‘borders’ on antisemitism.

Her most egregious accusation however is delivered as an ultimate judgement by sleight of hand when she declares;

–’That sites like Harry’s Place and its anti-Zionist equivalents have sprung up, peddling rumour, slander and intolerance on both sides of the debate,’—

Ah yes Penny spat it out at last took you a bit of a self congratulatory tour via Sunny Hundal and yourself to get there but now we know what you think you young stupid ‘reductionist’

Sufi your grammar is execrable. It’s no good coming on here and trying to be clever and smarmy when your writing skills are so bad. People can’t be arsed to decipher your illiterate ramblings – this is the internet, not a remedial class.

“Our critic describes herself as a socialist, feminist, deviant, reprobate, queer, journalist, aspiring author, freelance copywriter and sometime blogger.”

In other words, she flogs fashionable trend there is, and thinks she’s a heroine for doing it. Snooze.

And does she even know what “socialism” (never mind “Socialism”) means? When Yasmin Alibhai-Brown said “spare me the tears over the white working class,” that was sign of how far the left in Britain has drifted from its roots.

Oops, I meant “every fashionable trend.”

” this is the internet, not a remedial class.”

Superb!

In other words, she flogs fashionable every trend there is, and thinks she’s a heroine for doing it.

In other words, she’s ambitious. How embarassingly bourgeois.

Maybe that site she posted on is more blog than journal. They certainly seem to have low standards in this case.

And just as she seemed to have written that article without bothering to read HP or, say, anything on the Euston manifesto, I feel perfectly comfortable is saying that The Samosa is not a real journal without bothering to read more than one article.

Lol I noticed this “Thanks Josh, our fault not Laurie’s – the article was amended in editing. Have fixed it now. – admin”

How can the writer knowing nothing of what she is writing about and making false claims be the site administrator’s fault? They sure are indulgent.

How can the writer knowing nothing of what she is writing about and making false claims be the site administrator’s fault?

Well it is if, as they claimed, the offending remark was a result of their sub-editing and was not included in the original piece. Having read the EM I agree it is unfair to refer to it as “explicitly pro-war”, when it is in fact only implicitly pro-war.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown

That’s a quid in the swear box, please.

So this is what happened then:

– Someone wrote an article saying Harry’s Place was full of bullies.

– Harry’s Place writes an article full of abuse directed at writer, then opens up comments for the notoriously right-wing rabble here to lay in as well (which to most people would be called bullying).

– Harry’s Place does exactly what everyone expected it to do.

How many people who comment here would describe themselves as left-wing? And how many left-wing sites regard Harry’s Place as left-wing? And the fact that any other comment which references this comment will say, “HP doesn’t care what left-wing sites say cos the left are all fascists bastards” just proves the point.

When she says

It is a truth universally acknowledged by anyone who has spent time moderating blog comments that as well as being a brilliant place to share ideas and force the pace of social change, the blogosphere has a tendency to lure idiots, bigots and bullies from their hiding places.

Is she talking about herself?

Hmmm, so this is what happened:

– Someone posts a blog entry saying Harry’s Place like to bully.

– Harry’s Place but up a blog entry attacking the author personally and then opens it up to the comments knowing full well that the right-wingers who comment at this site (ie almost everyone) will have a go at said author, in a way that would only be described as bullying.

So, she’s right then.

- Harry’s Place but up a blog entry attacking the author personally and then opens it up to the comments knowing full well that the right-wingers who comment at this site (ie almost everyone) will have a go at said author, in a way that would only be described as bullying.

I can bully from 5,000 miles. Damn straight.

Lol, we may be bullies but we’re not right-wing.

Everyone on the internet is a bit rough. Get used to it.

I was going to tell you to peddle your “all bullies are right wing” bullshit over at drink-soaked trots for war. Will is nothing if not a bully.. But his blog is gone.

Totally and utterly shallow, holding people to some ethical or intellectual standards is not a job for the timid or the polite. Overly polite criticism is boring and useless.

Hmmm, so this is what happened:-

Someone puts up a wanky post about a couple of blogs and a manifesto that she evidently hasn’t read.

Somone on one of the blogs she’s abused puts up a post saying, What a wanker, putting up a wanky post.

Almost everyone on the thread to that post says, What a wanker, and what a wanky post! What a super wanker, full of wankiness.

Someone turns up and says, stop bullying her, you wankers.

Another normal day in the blogosphere.

Harry’s Place but up a blog entry attacking the author personally and then opens it up to the comments knowing full well that the right-wingers who comment at this site (ie almost everyone) will have a go at said author, in a way that would only be described as bullying.

I see this a little differently. A rather stupid conservative type person wanted to write a post attacking Harry’s Place but she didn’t get her facts right and the commenters ripped her a new arsehole. But all’s well that ends well as it will all be great preparation for when she finally enters the real world.

I am a zionist, but not a right-wing zionist. I don’t have voting rights in Israel, having spent just six months there when I was 18, but if I had, I would have spent some years voting Labour and then switched to Kadima. Having said that, I have Israeli friends, and read of others on Israeli blogs, former Meretz as well as Labour voters, who still define themselves as left wing but now say they voted last time or would vote next time for Likud and even Yisrael Beitenu.

But then “right wing” yet another left-wing blanket term of abuse for anyone whose position is not as left or even as predictable and frozen as your own.

But then “right wing” yet another left-wing blanket term of abuse

Er….????

Judy, I meant your policies re-the Palestinians are right wing.

Hear, hear, Metta! Excellent deconstruction. Her mock gavity would be hilarious if not so objectionable in someone so young.

Anyway, the blogosphere is not a great way of “forcing the pace of social change”. That is quite the wankiest pile of wank I’ve seen written in months.

She is privileged to have the time and resources to write that kind of shit – a lot of other people her age have to do real work.

I am ashamed that she is a member of the same political party as me. I mean, I know it’s tough times and all, but Labour is really scraping the barrel letting fuckwits like her in.

Judy, I meant your policies re-the Palestinians are right wing.

???? Really? Where’s your evidence for that? I didn’t even know I had policies of my own vis a vis “the Palestinians” (and I wonder which Palestinians, but that’s by the by).

I don’t know why people are complaining that this Penny has been “bullied”. I have just been over to her blog and she says quite clearly:

Bullying of any kind will not be tolerated on this blog, although feel free to insult me personally as much as you like.

So there you have it from the horse’s mouth. You can insult her as much as you like. There surely can’t be any difference between being insulted on your own site or someone else’s can there? I also came across a delightful picture of her on a site called “twitpic” for which I can only admire her honesty.

Anyway, the blogosphere is not a great way of “forcing the pace of social change”. That is quite the wankiest pile of wank I’ve seen written in months.

Yeah, I don’t know what I’d do to force the pace of social change, but I wouldn’t start by blogging. Blogging is a good place to blow off steam. It’s not a good place to generate steam that drives the engine of social change.

Anyway, the blogosphere is not a great way of “forcing the pace of social change”. That is quite the wankiest pile of wank I’ve seen written in months.

It is if you are a toast-eating pagan who has suffered at the hands of capitalism so much that the evil bastards make you take 30 minute trips to Waitrose to buy organic bread (thus limiting the time you can spend agitating amongst the factory workers.)

Ben.

How is a member of the Labour party allowed to write in the Morning Star? I thought Labour was historically resistant to affiliating in any way with the British Communist Party?

Harry’s Place writes an article full of abuse directed at writer, then opens up comments for the notoriously right-wing rabble here

To the likes of you, anyone who disagrees with you is ‘right-wing’. You are using the term – which clearly you don’t have the brains to understand – as puerile abuse.
Pathetic.

It’s the desire to ’subtly’ re-arrange the world that annoys me. I reckon that’s where class and education come in.

Anyway, she’s just a baby. Lots of young people with political opinions (or prejudices) are growing up in public on the net via their self-important blogs. It’s kinder to turn away.

Graham – the party clearly doesn’t have the hardline approach it had to this sort of thing in the 80s, I guess. More’s the pity.

But it also serves to highlight the incoherence of her political views. One moment she’s pronouncing on the respective virtues of Harriet Harman and Alan Johnson, the next she’s talkin about how immoral capitalism is and that revolutionary feminism is the only answer for the seried ranks of anguished youths. She simply doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Her ideology is incoherent and frankly secondary to the ability to posture with radical panache.

Not content with hosting frothing wingnuts, however, Harry’s Place has pursued what has been seen as a ‘witch-hunt’ against any Muslim or Muslim-ally who does not fit the site editors’ strict definitions of ‘moderation’; to whit, near non-involvement in politics.

I don’t get it. Penny writes something like this – a criticism of the editorial line rather than the comments at HP – which charges us (me!) with anti-Muslim bigotry, but we are expected to tip-toe through the tulips?

“Ah, she may have accused you of racism, but be sure not to bully her, now.”

Oh yes. It’s one thing calling someone a bigot/racist, but quite another to suggest someone has had a prvivileged upbringing and enjoys limited life experience. Talk about a disproportionate response.

On the Judy thing, and however right she might be about some things, she never fails to give me the impression that she’s talking at/down to you. She is extremely bright and well-read and is a redoubtable adversary in debate (if you can be arsed), but I find her unnecessarily confrontational, lacking in self-awareness and possessed of an insufferable certitude. Bewilderingly, there is a surfeit of people on this and other blogs prepared to give a pass to certain commenters if their sneers, scoffs and insults are delivered in polysyllables. I don’t see why that should be.

If Samuel Johnson had had broadband and posted his thoughts about Scotland and Scotchmen (sic) online, are we saying it would have been wrong for Shuggy or Marcus to tell him to “fuck off”?

BTW, I’ve no doubt Judy is a fine person in ‘real-life’. I’m nicer than I seem, too.

I’m an even bigger shit in real life.

but I find her unnecessarily confrontational, lacking in self-awareness and possessed of an insufferable certitude.

I thought that was you (or possibly even me). Perhaps because I have spent so much time amongst the teaching profession I recognise Judy’s style and (although I don’t often agree with her) don’t find it anywhere near as big a problem as some seem to.

I’m an even bigger shit in real life.

I thought this was real life.

Perhaps because I have spent so much time amongst the teaching profession…

…you have a certain empathy with those who lecture? :-)

There are far worse than Judy. My point was really that just because someone regularly eschews the opportunity to hurl expletives and trade in overtly abusive language, it doesn’t mean they’re not being rude and obnoxious.

I’m an even bigger shit in real life.

Everything’s bigger in Texas.

Apropos nothing, I saw the new Christmas Carol adaptation today with the kids . Asolutely fucking marvellous it was. And that’s a direct quote from my youngest.

Jim Carey’s Scrooge is Oscar material. As good as Alastair Sim

I’ve noticed that Penny hasn’t seen fit to respond to criticism here or on Samosa… I suggest that it took her all of an hour to fake up an “article” it was never of the slightest import to her and she’s already forgotten that she wrote it.

I notice that among the groups this girl has time for (she is younger than my daughter so I will call her a girl if I want to) she doesn’t include middle-aged, married overweight housewives with better and more extensive educations than hers.

I think I will put the boot in as well.

I thought this was Harry’s Place not Peyton Place.

“I’ve noticed that Penny hasn’t seen fit to respond to criticism here or on Samosa”

Of course not, she is a socialist, well until she grows up she is.

The Left don’t like to hear anything other than the party line, that is simply the way it is.

Our critic describes herself as a socialist, feminist, deviant, reprobate, queer, journalist, aspiring author, freelance copywriter and sometime blogger. Well, good for her, but she might as well have added ‘logically-challenged’ and ‘hopelessly muddled’ to her impressive list of self-descriptions.

Pretentious twit seems to cover it all.

As others have pointed out, I think it is pretty obvious that her self description is tongue-in-cheek and indicates some level of ironic self-awareness. Of course that doesn’t mean that what she writes is correct. sensible, logical, whatever. But missing it does make Marcus look a bit humourless.

How many people who comment here would describe themselves as left-wing? And how many left-wing sites regard Harry’s Place as left-wing? And the fact that any other comment which references this comment will say, “HP doesn’t care what left-wing sites say cos the left are all fascists bastards” just proves the point.

The point, is that, as in the 30s, the Far Left & the
Far Right are interchangeable.

HP is a site for humanists & anti fascists.
Religious folk can feel at home here, but theocrats
may find their attempts to stifle free speech & put the
clock back hundreds of years unappreciated

The imagined virtues of the 20th century Left
resulted in hundreds of millions of deaths & ruined
lives.
As a token of evil, the National Socialist, Hitler, is
appropriate, but Pol Pot & Stalin were worse.

The Left have Cuba & North Korea as examples of
their expertise in the modern world.
They support any terrorist group as long as it
anti Western.
Meanwhile, serfs in China, and the repressed masses
in most muslim lands can only dream of our freedoms.

I think it is pretty obvious that her self description is tongue-in-cheek and indicates some level of ironic self-awareness

Highly unlikely. She comes across as totally lacking in irony or self-awareness.

Oh, you guys! 160 comments for lil’ol’ me? I’ve not been so super-thrilled since daddy bought me my third pony :D

Being attacked because of my age, sex, class and background is something that I’m used to, especially when people can’t find enough points in my actual writing to disagree with. It may come as a shock, but I’m aware that I write from a position of extreme privilege, despite having lived a lot more in my 23 years than some of you give me credit for. I’m afraid that pointing that out isn’t going to shock me, or anyone who knows me, very terribly. I’m quite open, on my blog and elsewhere, about the fact that (despite being a woman, and disabled) I’m hugely lucky to have had the education and life chances I’ve been blessed with. I know I’m still very young and have lots to learn, but I see it as my duty to use those chances to contribute to a debate about meaningful social issues, and not just run off and make lots of money in PR or investment banking. If that doesn’t satisfy and you still think I’m a horrendous drooling little cow, you might want to follow suit and take a good hard look at yourselves and your own privilege.

I’d like to point out that I offered HP the chance to contribute to my article and put their point of view across – and they turned it down. It seems a bit disingenuous to refuse an opportunity to contribute to the debate and then write a whole piece lambasting the article you refused to be included in. Do the site editors have any response to that…?

Ooh also, Graham and others, I’d like to make it clear that I am really NOT, and never have been:

1.A member of the Labour Party, or

2.A supporter of unthinking Islamism (I know fascism when I see it, and count Nick Cohen’s ‘What’s Left’ among the most wise and important political books of the decade). I live in Bethnal Green and Bow, and I shan’t be voting for Galloway because he’s a fascist sympathiser. Clear?

I apologise for not responding to these comments sooner. I’m struggling to pay the rent at the moment (a side-effect of having graduated in the teeth of a recession) and was working all weekend, so I only saw this post this morning!

I live in Bethnal Green and Bow, and I shan’t be voting for Galloway because he’s a fascist sympathiser. Clear?

And cos he’s standing in Poplar ;)

Anyway, well done for turning up, and don’t take any notice of Gordon Bennet. He’s a persistently pompous fool just marking time before his next ban.

Wow, you’re all such losers just assuming things about her like that. You’re kind of proving her point that you’re all a load of bullying, petty wankers.

On twitter:

World O’ Irony: @pennyred accuses HP of bullying witch-huntery; HP responds with a bullying witch-hunt: http://bit.ly/4ygyGy

“Spoilt little girl seems to me to be a simple description which does exactly what it says on the tin. Interesting that people seem to be using Political Correctness to defend class interests.”

What a load of rubbish. Firstly, Laurie is hardly well off.

Secondly, whether or not she is is of total irrelevance to the value of the points she makes and is a transparent attempt to conduct this conversation on an ad hominem basis, i.e. avoid the real issues.

Thirdly, bullying comments based on age and class should have no place in this movement. If an MPAC article called her a silly little girl, you lot would be up in arms.

Fourth, the left will fail overall as soon as it endorses arbitrary identity discrimination against its own, and as long as it continues to disrespect participants in debate by focussing on their person rather than their arguments in themselves.

Graham and Marcus, in a multitude of senses, you are the disease you seek to cure.

Secondly, whether or not she is is of total irrelevance to the value of the points she makes and is a transparent attempt to conduct this conversation on an ad hominem basis, i.e. avoid the real issues.

It can be irrelvant or it might not be, but regardelss, I’m curious how you think I should feel about an implicit (some might say epxlicit) accusation of racism/anti-Muslim bigotry against me given I help (occasionally) to author this blog? “Poor little rich girl” may or may not be apposite in Laurie Penny’s case, but I should say she’s getting off rather lightly if that’s the worst of it.

Kudos, however, to Laurie for showing up here. As to her question about the invitation to contribute to her article, I don’t know anything about such an invitation, but that’s not to deny it was ever extended. However, a failure to take up said invitation does not then clear the way for Laurie to write unmitigated tosh nor preclude us from responding to the same. That isn’t how it works.

World of Irony,

You are, of course, correct. The only course of action for a decent fellow to follow having been accused of racism/bigotry is to take it on the chin and not let his dander up.

I bet if you ask Laurie privately, she’d prefer our forthright defence rather than the patronisation you seek on her behalf.

And as previously advised, you really need to look up “bullying”. And “witch-hunt”.

I’ve not been so super-thrilled since daddy bought me my third pony :D

And this was quite funny.

Some more reaction :

http://bleedingheartshow.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/so-this-is-how-grown-ups-argue/

Not such a bad piece actually.

Alternatively from Hundal :

http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/6558

Total garbage as usual and as we’ve seen before even his own crowd are getting fed up with his stupid ways. Lets hope the more sensible people continue the exodus as per The Spittoon.

If you go to the former reading room of the British Library now the centre piece of the British Museum roofed over former courtyard.

There in an exhibit around the circular walls of the former sanctum sanctorum of the British Empire’s dedication to freedom of expression you can read a Who’s Who of former members.

One is Charles Dickens who managed to get a readers pass BEFORE taking up the job of a young journalist as Parliamentary Reporter.

What a charmingly obsolete idea;that a ‘journalist’, particularly one who writes upon matters political, should feel the necessity to study the subject matter widely, before daring to consider the critical task of accurately reporting, let alone commenting upon a fact and detail rich, context critical, area.

Thanks Brownie :)

For what it’s worth, I didn’t set out to accuse you guys (explicitly or implicitly) of anti-Muslim bigotry. I think a lot of the comments come close, but none of the articles I’ve read has been racist – most have a sound and admirable anti-theocratic basis, but lose a lot of authority through unnecessary bitching, bullying and reductivist language. What the article was attempting to criticise was the way this issue has turned into slanging match online, preventing constructive debate on either side. The ‘opposition’ is as guilty of this as anyone at HP is. I think that between HP and the MPACUK, there are a lot of very intelligent people with very fixed ideas behaving like utter children, and, as I said in the article, that’s partly in the nature of the internet.

(BTW, I am in Poplar – I forgot the name of my borough!)

Being attacked because of my age, sex, class and background is something that I’m used to, especially when people can’t find enough points in my actual writing to disagree with.

Got you both ways this time then didn’t we :-)

Secondly, whether or not she is is of total irrelevance to the value of the points she makes and is a transparent attempt to conduct this conversation on an ad hominem basis, i.e. avoid the real issues.

Thirdly, bullying comments based on age and class should have no place in this movement.

What movement? I’d rather be part of a bowel movement than share anything with the likes of you.

the real issue to me is (as pointed out above) that someone posted this stinking heap of cow manure on my thread yesterday without as much as taking into account what I had said about Islamism and islam in the past.

Graham and Marcus, in a multitude of senses, you are the disease you seek to cure.

No. We are the vaccine and you are a particularly annoying STD which has disguised itself as a different ailment entirely.

Now when you turn up and express shock and all your wally-vill middle-class “niceities” that someone on these threads is being called “council house scum” I might be willing to listen to you – until then fuck off and eat your tofu burger because as far as I’m concerned you are toast.

And I have never said anything about pickled politics – but given Sunny’s transparent attempts to drag this blog to his own safe little middle-class right by ruling offside any discourses which are not genteel enough for the poor little dear I think I may well have something to say before long!

Oh that bleeding heart thing is a classic:

the argument Marcus makes here is often used by people who’ve gotten too old to remember how seethingly furious they were when someone directed it at them.

Bloody ageism! But really, the same could be said of someone telling a toddler that they can’t have another biscuit!

And Tom Miller. If I looked like a young Tory (circa 1982) I would be desperately trying to make the same arguments that you are.

It’s the desire to ’subtly’ re-arrange the world that annoys me. I reckon that’s where class and education come in.

Anyway, she’s just a baby. Lots of young people with political opinions (or prejudices) are growing up in public on the net via their self-important blogs. It’s kinder to turn away.

—-

That luxury ended in the Mid 20th Century….with the Baby Boomer New Left.

Laurie,

Well thanks for the clarification that HP authors are not engaged in Muslim baiting, but here’s the problem:

The ‘opposition’ is as guilty of this as anyone at HP is. I think that between HP and the MPACUK

So long as you maintain this false comparison – as if HP and MPACUK were two sides of the same coin – we’re likely to feel there is an implied suggestion of bigotry on our part because the MPACUK are most assuredly bigots.

Now, this might be more of the “childish”, “reductivist language” you condemn above, or it might just be true.

Alternatively from Hundal:

The usual load of comic piffle.

I have since discovered that the Grand Panjandrum can’t stand being laughed at. My Morgoth Number is now 1.

Brownie,

From trawling through both sites, I found slightly (slightly) more concessions to non-bigotry amongst MPACUK commentators than on this site. But to clarify, could you be more specific about where you think MPACUK displays evidence ‘bigotry’ and HP does not?

FWIW, I am half Jewish and have a lot of family in Israel…so whilst I’ve got no time for Zionists, I react rather poorly to MPACUK’s attitude to Israel, as you can probably understand.

From trawling through both sites, I found slightly (slightly) more concessions to non-bigotry amongst MPACUK commentators than on this site.

How far did you “trawl”? Whilst you were still at school thread after thread here was full of people arguing against bigotry (I post the one below not only as an example but because it was one of the few times that I personally did not argue against Old Peculier.)

Honestly, All power to you Laurie for writing about what you want in the way you want – but when you start spreading untruths about people it is adult to expect them to answer (and when you are proven wrong it is also adult to apologise and move on.
http://www.hurryupharry.org/2005/10/13/dutch-burkha-ban/#comments

Guys, I’ve made a full response to this post at my blog, here: http://bit.ly/16bZAr

@Laurie – thanks for your comments – and for remaining good humoured! I still feel you *did* imply that the actual bloggers on HP were bigoted – but if you asked HP to comment on your piece before publishing it I can understand you were a bit miffed by the eventual response you got. (I’ve emailed HP a few times – only idle suggestions for things I’d like to see articles about – but never got a reply yet.)

Don’t be so modest, Graham, give Ms Penny the benefit of your robust defence of your feisty burka clad pupils, to further disabuse her of her lazy categorising.

HP commenters. Are you bigotted? From experience I’d say around 85% of you are not in any way, shape or form. But it is you who are being attacked as a big monolithic bloc – so let’s here what you have to say.

Tch Amie. I have not had a burkha-clad pupil these last three years.

You are taking me back to the days when I was young and naive and full of the joys of spring!

Laurie, as one of the Harry’s Place authors, I find lots to disagree with you on, but (unlike some on “the Left”) I don’t think you’re a million miles apart from us politically. I hope you’ll also post your thoughts on threads here that aren’t about you. I don’t understand, though, why you have anything to do with the quasi-Stalinists at The Morning Star.

I wonder if we might ask laurie who exactly at HP that she offered the article too?

Oh I am on that thread with OP by the way – just a long way down (must have got up late that day.)

HP undoubtedly attracts far too many bigots in its comments boxes – some who hit and run, some who’ve been around for years. Not sure what can be done about that without a registration policy, although over the years they’ve been fed a steady diet of anti-Guardian, anti-Trot, anti-BBC, anti-Islamist polemic, so it’s no surprise they feel comfortable. Few more attacks on the right (not just the BNP, or even Thatcher ;)) wouldn’t go amiss.

(btw, before Graham or Brownie respond, I appreciate not all of you think or post the same, but it does seem the most viscerally left of HP’s authors are the ones who post least. Gene excepted).

The reason we post least has probably been that we have (well until recently in my case) jobs.

Hey, someone has to pay the taxes that fund the grants to promising new writers!

(I…count Nick Cohen’s ‘What’s Left’ among the most wise and important political books of the decade

Good grief Laurie, and to think I defended you earlier on!

Aah Graham, Wo Zind die Burkas vom vergangenen Jahr?

As it might have been put in the appropriately titled
Ballade des dames du temps jadis*

(Do you think this instagoogle erudition might merit me a grant?)

*Ballad of the Ladies of Times Past

Gene, no ‘quasi’ about it.

A fair few people on here with some previous support for Stalinism and its murderous proceeds, mind…

“Do you think this instagoogle erudition might merit me a grant?”

I’ll tell you in a minute when I have finished with babelfish.

don’t bother with babelfish, just type snows of yesteryear into wikipedia

Ubi sunt eh?

And translated by Christina Rossetti? Why is she suddenly so popular again? – MacPherson was quoting her at me yesterday.

Oh I have seen it all now. Douglas Clark (the Pickled Politics attack dog who sometimes slimes over here just to insult and misinterpret everyone) is on Laurie’s blog complaining about bullying on HP!

I have not had as big a laugh since that beach ball appeared on the pitch and scored a goal at liverpool!

Fair play to Laurie Penny for turning up and arguing her corner. And top marks for her comments on ‘What’s Left?’ (”wise”) and Galloway (”fascist”).

Such fine judgement so young!

The only thing preventing a great big group hug and triples all round is the original lie about Harry’s Place included in her Samosa article, which is what really riled me (and lots of others). Too lazy.

I’ll repeat myself again in case it isn’t clear to people yet. Harry’s Place is not against Muslims engaging in politics, but it is very much against theocrats and their apologists. There is a huge and to a lot of people with long-term experience of anti-fascist work -very obvious -difference.

Anyway, everyone’s a winner. Laurie gets a higher profile by attacking us and we all get to relive our days in the Student Union.

Unashamed Racist! Corpulant Fascist! Bourgeois lackey! etc etc

Anyone who wishes to see the extent of Laurie Penny’s willingness to debate honestly should take a look at the thread below her post here.

Or rather, here.

OH MY GOD. (Sorry, Morgoth.) Another “half-Jew.” It doesn’t work that way, dearie. You either are, or you aren’t. If you have to proclaim that you are “half” then you aren’t at all in any practical sense. Go peddle that garbage on the sorts of sites which insist that the Protocols are really, really, really true. (And if you are “Jewish” due to a technicality, I still don’t give a fuck.)

You have no time for Zionists? Just what do you think “Zionists” are? Zionism is the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, period. If you have no time for Zionists then you are aligning yourself with the worst of humanity, and even as young as you are you know that, even if you don’t want to admit it.

Zionists are people who believe that Jewish people should be allowed to live anywhere in the world they like, and if they like to live in the original Jewish homeland, they have the right to do so. Zionists are people who believe that Jews the same human rights as the rest of humanity, and who believe that Jews should be able to govern themselves in their own land.

If you don’t have time for that, then you do belong on the racist, fascist and bigoted sites you apparently frequent.

And the difference between those sites and Harry’s Place is that bigots get their heads handed to them here, while bigotry, anti-Semitism, genocidal fantasies, world domination plots, racism, and misogyny are those sites’ raisons d’etres.

Perhaps you are too worldly-wise to notice.

Yeah, she’s shown herself to be a real class act tonight. Falsely accusing me of using sexist language and then pulling the plug on the thread when she’s shown to be lying. Except, she doesn’t pull the plug entirely, allowing her lapdogs to defend the indefensible on her behalf whilst I appear to be ‘banned’.

Still, wouldn’t want to be seen to “bully” her.

It’s interesting: some people were attacked for invoking her age, lack of life experience, the fact she’s (relatively) fresh out of Oxford, etc.., yet I wonder how true those accusations of “bullying” would have rung had she been a forty-something, blunt-speaking bloke from Yorkshire?

It seems her defenders were, at every turn, demanding we patronise her silly…her personal circumstnaces were off-limits so far as attack was concerned, but subliminally invoked at the drop of a hat in her defence.

Still, she called me “darling”. Swoon!!!!!!!!!!

Oh well looks like a silly little girl demanded the right not to be called a silly little girl, stamped her feet a bit and ended up looking more like a silly little girl than ever.

oh ja(c)k(o) and graham, i don’t really care if anyone else calls the charmer a paedophile on a regular basis, my point was that such ad hominem attack he indulges in towards laurie would no doubt induce male hysteria when aimed at him.

which it did. congratulations. (especially on graham’s first comment, which was clearly so good he had to post it twice).

So you don’t care if anyone else gets ad hominems thrown at them except your friend Laurie.

Thats settled then.

And you have far more in common with Lee John barnes than just stealing his insults don’t you scumbag?

quite seriously graham, have you got some kind of frontal lobe lesion? if not, please stop proving my point for me so repeatedly – it’s getting most tedious.