Harry's Place

The pink media studies girl is hot, though.

It would be interesting to see if the ranks of the crude Left is really shrinking or not. Anybody have any stats on party memberships or turnouts at demonstrations?

Is that a Starbucks latte being held, second from right???!!! She’s taking her life in her hands.

Your post at least attempts Private Eye satire, change from HP’s generally proclamatory style. However, those chaps understand that satire is best delivered with a lighter touch and less bile.

Non satirical comment. Fuck off Benji.

“Whatever the reason we should enjoy such glimpses of this fascinating and ancient tribe whenever they are presented to us. After all, they may not be with us for much longer”

You can’t keep a good virus down. The new strain, Homo Progressimus Liberalis, started in America and has found hosts in Brussels, Strasbourg and the Guardian.

Metta banned along with many others who had something constructive to offer yet the slimeball Benji is allowed to slither back here. Shame on you mods.

is that article at the top meant to be funny?

“Metta banned…”

What! Why?

That’s a pathetic looking bunch! They look like Godless vicars having a coffee morning.

Meta was banned because he continued an argument with Mark Hare after being told not to. I personally think he was incensed because Hoare had revealed Metta’s real name online.

Really enjoyed Benjamin’s post. He’s slowly getting back to top form again.

Metta got banned? Excellent!

Benji is way better (his posts are shorter at least)

Metta is our best contributor, much better than the actual owners of the blog.

If he’s really banned then the lot of you can fuck off and I’ll find some other blog to read.

Also, don’t you think you’ve been playing the right wing anti-socialist card too much with the “mankind’s biggest mistake post” then this one.

Stay tuned for the “Nazis are really leftists” post.

once common on Britain’s High Streets:

Erm….yeah… Right.

In someone’s deluded fantasy.

Common on the “high streets” of the London Borough of Camden (well, outside Tottenham Court Road tube, outside the University of London Union every once in a while, and in scummy drug-ridden hell-hole secondary shopping parades of Kentish Town, and also their no less vile equivalents in Brighton), perhaps.

But in general? Naaaaah I don’t think so.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think either Metta or Benji should have been banned: the latter, while often being tedious and self-absorbed, can also be the voice of moderation, decency and reason that is sometimes (well, often) lacking round here; while Metta may have been rude to Marko, his comments are always a pleasure to read, well-informed and erudite.

There are many far more obnoxious comments (and, sometimes, posts) that get through unscathed and even uncriticised than even the worse that either of those two has even offered.

“You’re offended, so fucking what” strikes me as generally the best response to the professionally indignant (not that I am even intending to imply that Marko is in that category, should it appear that way to anyone)

Does Marcus really think that “The Internationale” is the property of Trotskyists?

It was written in 1871, by Eugene Pottier, immediately after the Paris Commune had been drowned in blood.

But judging by the increasingly strident right wing tone in the Harry’s Place comments boxes, I suppose many of the inhabitants of this blog would have cheered on the Versailles government as it butchered the Communards.

I went along to Marxism this year – as I do quite often – and have done for many years. It is clear to me that the SWP is much smaller now than say 20 years ago. I also had the distinct impression that this years event was even smaller.

There was a time when you could not walk anywhere near the University of London Union building during Marxism without having numerous members of the great unwashed SWP and/or their student wing SWSS try and flog you their filthy rag. I walked past on Saturday afternoon which should be prime time for that sort of thing and did not see a single paper seller or stand. I had to walk around past SOAS to spot my first one. And even in the stands near the Institute of Eduction, where all the 57 varieties of Trots historically turn up to sell their own rags, there was much less going on. I did find it amusing that someone had set up a stand trying to free a convicted large scale drug dealer!

They do not make Trots like they used to,but they still smell just as badly.

what were the attendance figures? A friend of mine (hostile to the SWP) attended and said there were about 4000 people there – hardly telephone booth numbers

I’m with Paul Fauvet. Can’t stand Trots, or Stalinists, or other far-left gimps, but the Internationale is a good song that doesn’t need to be surrendered to them.

I saw a SWP stand outside ULU last week. It did not look particular busy.

Common on the “high streets” of the London Borough of Camden (well, outside Tottenham Court Road tube, outside the University of London Union every once in a while, and in scummy drug-ridden hell-hole secondary shopping parades of Kentish Town, and also their no less vile equivalents in Brighton), perhaps.

Common all over London and the Northern towns once upon a time. I rather miss being able to insult and intimidate a couple of swuppies every Saturday morning as I strolled like Baudelaire down Deptford High Street to the junk market.

A couple of secondhand books and making icepick gestures at a Social studies teacher and your day was off to a very satisfying start.

May I add my dismay about metta’s banning. There have been far uglier disruptive clashes with the participants ignoring requests to take the quarrel offline. (and that includes mysel)f-

If this was a case of, well we have to make an example of someone,
a)this is not a classroom and b) this was the worst example as this site is the poorer for the absence of metta’s (usually) thoughtful contributions from someone with rich life experience. He is like all of us here, a flawed and volatile human being, and I have borne the brunt of one of his onslaughts, but also, subsequently, had the benefit of infinitely sensitive encouragement and support from him.

Sorry to disrupt this thread, but as is evident from other comments which keep popping up in other threads and here, this is an issue which is seething to be properly vented.

Do we need flawed, valuable contributors, with life experience who may be brawlers at times, or bland, polite academic discourse? NOt that academia is so polite, given Alain de Botton’s outburst this week.

Graham, you perfumed, bourgeois, ponse.

All I am saying is that back in the 70s/80s/90s in places like Barking, Dagenham, anywhere in the non-hotbed of leftism that is the LB of Havering, or even East Ham, Ilford, Gants Hill, Barkingside, and so on…not the slightest hint of them was evident. (Even in Dagenham the LPYS – “Labour Party Young Socialists” was about as left as it got)

At then slightly later university (OK, St Andrews, where’d we all be first up against the wall come the revolution comrade) I met precisely one person who had ever been a swuppie. A postgraduate who;d been to a high-ranking public school. Once a year two desperate types would descend (in all senses of that verb) from Dundee to attempt to flog copies of the “Worker’s Hammer” to an entirely uninterested populace.

And anyway, London is not England (as London often forgets). Which is many ways London’s glory. But it is also England’s glory.

Graham, you perfumed, bourgeois, ponse.

Oh what a terrible allegation – just because I have been experimenting with a few old aftershaves that I discovered at the back of the cupboard. I demand that this member of the priestly-caste is banned immediately.

The reason that the SWP et al were not present in the east London areas you mention in the 70s and 80s was because you were far more likely to find the BNP selling papers there, but outisde London you would find Swuppie paper-sellers in many of the old industrial towns of a saturday or sunday morning (you were probably sniffing insence on a Sunday however.) I don’t know about yer posh universities but I did encounter one lonely SWP paper-seller at Goldsmiths in the mid 90s.

hmmm, what party did the working class hero Graham belong to, once again?

I always thought the raised fist and standing whilst singing the Internationale was a bit too much like school assembly, or singing god save the queen. Similar ritual paraphenalia, just different gestures and words

I love the tune and the words of the Internationale, and I often sing it to myself at work. For some reason, it sounds both more authentic and more tragic in Russian–as at the end of the Jancso’s Csillagosok, Katonak when the Hungarian volunteers march down the hill towards the lines of the white army and certain death. Not even dogmatic, vulgar Marxists can ruin it for me.

I was an SWP member for a year when I was about 14 Mr Gray. Thrown from my working-class background into a group of people who spent their time discussing theoretical politics I was simultaneously inspired to better myself educationally-speaking and to a lifetime of taking the piss out of po-faced middle-class twats such as yourself.

Still I give thanks that at least I did not join the SPGB and thus imbibe a desire to grow a white beard and spend the rest of my life engaged in a “which of us looks the most like Karl marx” competition as well!

Could someone fill me in on why Metta was banned? Also, can I appeal to Josh not to go.

Well, the NF used to be big on stickering lamp-posts in Dag, sure. But the CPGB I suppose were not negligible (at least until the mid-80s) too. That and the NF would occasional marching around with union jacks and stuff like that, so as to try and look menacing. Selling newspapers not really their thing though (for obvious reasons).

I kind of think that that stereotypical divide between republican and unionist political prisoners in NI kind of spills over into England too: the “far left” would spent their free time in the library, the “far right” in the gym. Obviously Joe/Joseph Pearce is the exception that proves the rule, or something.

(I’m fairly sure you’d find SWPpers, in large number, at certain colleges in Oxbridge, at least. The joy of St Andrews was the gratuitous medievalism of social life, with latin in abundant use and the commonplace wearing of beautifully bright red and maroon gowns, aided by the fact that the nearest, horrendously 19th century city was, a) not very near and b) unremittingly grim – although others may choose to disagree on the latter point)

I do not know for certain why Metta was banned but he did seem to threaten to sue Marko for libel. Irrespective of who is right on this matter, personally,as I feel the libel laws in this country are disgraceful, that in itself was unacceptable behaviour. I do not think any of us,living in the UK, would like to receive a official defamation case against us. It is incredibly expensive to defend even if you believe that what you have said is fully justified and can show it to be the case.

As far as I am concerned,this blog will be better off if Josh would also leave this blog and take his vulgar language elsewhere.

the “far left” would spent their free time in the library, the “far right” in the gym. Obviously Joe/Joseph Pearce is the exception that proves the rule, or something.

Don’t forget Martin Webster (who never looked like he had exerted himself in his entire existence.) There were some big muscly types in the SWP when (as Gray reminds us) I was a member. Indeed I once remember being amongst them (and Tom Robinson strangely enough) as they chased NFer’s round Ilford. But you could not really imagine the likes of John Rees feeling comfortable around working-class streetfighters for long – so the offence of “squaddism” was invented in order to get rid of the reminder that a) there was actually a working-class and b) some of them made the SWP leadership feel very inadequate indeed.

The pink media studies girl is hot, though. looks like she might be with sociology tutor guy in the cream open neck shirt.
I’ll gladly add my voice to the chorus of disapproval at mettas banning. Guess it must have been something said on one of those ping-pong threads that rumbles on for days after everyone else has lost interest.

“squaddism”. Bloody hell I’ve not heard that word for a long time. Yes, good interpretation of what that meant, that.

(btw I am quite sure I had never “sniffed incense” in any capacity whatsoever until well into the 1990s, when I was in a foolish hippy vegetarian way)

“Could someone fill me in on why Metta was banned?”

Metta was banned because he twice defied my moderator instructions to take the personal squabble between him and MAH off-thread. Posters are welcome to mock my posts and pour scorn on my comments, but I will not tolerate contempt when I’m wearing my moderator’s hat. I – and the other editors on this site – very rarely intervene and comenters have a very wide latitude. But when clear boundries are flagged up, we expect them to be respected.

Metta is banned for a fortnight, but I will consider lifting it earlier if he apologises.

As far as I am concerned,this blog will be better off if Josh would also leave this blog and take his vulgar language elsewhere.

Oh you poor diddums.

Better not read any Chaucer or the Bard either. Might come across a naughty word, eh?

When metta comes back he can explain his comment that the Court of Appeal in the JFS case had the intention of ‘teaching the Jews a lesson’. And he’s a barrister.

Well, that sounds fair enough I guess. I didn’t see the spat in question, but a permanent ban would’ve seemed to me to be out of all proportion, especially as metta is such a constructive commentator generally.

Goodness knows enough of us are capable of going over the top, seeing red, being ill-judgedly offensive (and I certainly include myself in that – except of course that my offensiveness is always well-judged!) and that’s just the way a lot of debate is on the internet. I’m glad Metta will be allowed to return.

P.S. Mikey, you should move to Eire. They’ve just instituted a blasphemy law that will protect your delicate sensibilities.

Paul Fauvet: you suppose wrong

Vaguely on the topic of the post, there seemed to me to generally be similar numbers of AWLers as the SWP at Oxford. That may partly be a function of the fact that Oxford had a particularly high number of AWL members (not that many, of course!) and the fact that they were heavily involved in the Labour Club. I doubt that’s the case these days as I think they finally dumped entryism as a policy didn’t they?

There were three SWP people I can think of individually off the top of my head. One was weird, one was sad (in the traditional sense – quite a nice character actually) and one was mad. None of them were what I would describe as personally unpleasant. But this was before they swung to anti-semitism and conspiracy theory, of course. I believe the fiery mad one, Helen Salmon, is still involved. I actually voted for her in a student election once, to my shame. She never seemed nasty though. I wonder what it is that either turns these people into Grade A reactionaries, or leads them to turn a blind eye to dreadful politics whilst practicing their own fantasy version? They are to be pitied, in many ways.

That’s enough of a rambling extract from my tome, Trots I Have Known (available in all pisspoor unfrequented lefty bookshops now).

At least my 12 copies sold is outpacing Richard Seymour.

I have met more members of the Independent Working Class Association (1, in Harold Hill) than of the AWL!

Life is just too short to hang out with extremist manipulative ahistorical deluded misguided bullies fantasising about bloodshed of others in their desired cause, of whatever stripe.

Also, don’t you think you’ve been playing the right wing anti-socialist card too much with the “mankind’s biggest mistake post” then this one.

Not really. Indeed I suspect some HP posters are experiencing, as they gather the accretions of life, usually around the time, or even a bit before reading glasses are required, that slow realisation that sneaks up on former Lefties. And one day, they look at themselves in the shaving mirror and it dawns on them….’Fuck it, I’m a Tory!’

Don’t worry, it’s entirely normal.

I recall that many years ago there was a group who put stickers up all over South London (I can’t remember if it was “workers power” or “workers action” or another group with a similar name.) All the stickers quite boldly gave an address in Carnac St. West Norwood as the headquarters of the revolution. As I lived fairly near I knocked on the door one day but his mother told me he was out…

Nothing Left,

Have to disagree.

The women with dark hair in the front with her head turned holding a Starbucks coffee cup, now she could be a temptress for me.

The only word you can read in this photo is ‘fascism’ (okay you can just make out ’swp’), and see a lot of hands raised. Surely this is not the impression the SWP wanted to give!

I used have the Internationale as my ringtone.

My nephew somehow deleted it.

Fascist.

Venichka,

Didn’t the AWL used to hold regular meetings at the Bow and Arrow on Straight Road, Harold Hill? Or was it a darts match that used to be regularly held there? One of the two, I am sure.

I think Starbucks Girl is a Mossad agent. Hey, now I REALLY fancy her.

Starbucks coffee girl is the best. (It’s a deeply sad fact that low-level female objectification stills gives me the occasional illicit thrill of breaking free from the cold, joyless speech codes of the Far and Hard left that dominated my experience of student politics in the late nineties and early noughties. In saying that I sound like a Mail-reading anti-”PC Brigade” twat, of course.)

This is probably because the last time I heard or was interested the AWL had 100-150 member in total in the whole country, Ven! Which whilst more than a telephone box certainly wouldn’t fill anything other than a pretty small call centre, would it? I agree with respect to associations, too. Difficult when you are involved in leftish student politics, but easy in the real world. They are all either mad or bad. And a very large number of them are also deeply sad – in the modern sense, quite tragic individuals. I hesitate to describe far left politics in purely psychological rather than political and economic terms, but there really is something about it that attracts damaged people. Not all of them, of course. But an awful lot.

Mikey, I’ve no idea. The pubs of Harold Hill are all rather frightening, even for me. I don’t think I know (knew?) the Bow & Arrow – is that the one that’s now a McDonalds, on the corner of Myrtle Road? (The Alderman has to be the worst, I think)

Although the one person I knew with involvement with the IWCA (not the AWL) was a member of St Dominic’s Church on Straight Road, which is a stone’s throw from that area..so if you meant the IWCA, it might be possible.

Marxism traditionally ends with a rousing rendition of The Internationale, before attendees get in their BMWs or take their seat in the first class carriage of a train and head back to their country estates.

Venichka,

I believe you are correct that it ultimately converted into a McDonald’s. I do not recall the name of the side street on the same side of the Straight Road,but it was quite close to Heaton Avenue on the other side.

The SWP probably used The Plough at Gallows Corner. They most likely lived in Gidea Park and pretended to be from Harold Hill.

Who’s metta? Can Josh ‘Scholar’ leave here and post at Pam Atlas’ Jugs and raise the average IQ of both places. Also, I’d like to see Ben proportionately proportioned which would be a proportionate proportioning not altogether out of all proportion.

I would never have kissed any girls as a teenager were it not for the existence of those from Gidea Park who wished they were from Harold Hill.

To digress somewhat.

Ah, the girls from Frances Bardsley?

Very off topic,I know.

Ah, the girls from Frances Bardsley!

The SWP still sell on Kilburn High Road on a Saturday morning (next to some Afro-Caribbean pro-virginity enterprise and some sort of Islamists for Jesus group).

I still have the Newcastle SWP’s “bookstore” (circa 1992) in my dad’s loft, which I forgot to return when I left.

If it is true that metta threatened libel, at the risk of sounding schoolmistressy, I would be deeply disappointed. We have been through all of that before.

Nevertheless, I think Marko outing his real name is unforgiveable. I do not think any amount of ad hominems means metta has “dropped the shield” and forfeited the right to post under a nickname. There may be pressing reasons for posting in this way, as in my case, there are cogent considerations concerning others who bear the same name.

I gather it wasn’t the main cause, but I would add that to take offence (as someone did on Marko’s behalf) regarding the omission of the honorific Dr. is very precious.
As I said elsewhere, one of my offspring has just been awarded a Cantab PhD with high accolade from the awarders, but if he starts trying to throw his title around anywhere outside the immediate boundaries of his ivory tower, he will find himself rapidly and comprehensively squashed by both his brothers and myself.

It would be great if someone could film the end-of-Marxism bucket-rattling ritual before it dies out altogether. Those poor students turning out their pockets for the workers.

The Internationale is a good song apart from when Billy Bragg rewrote it with the same sentiments as “I’d like to teach the world to sing…”

I used to have a copy of the Militant songbook of which my favourite lyrics (sung to the tune of “Land of Hope and Glory”) to the best of my memory were:

“We want Nationalisation
We want Workers’ Control
We want Union Freedom
And the Tories on the Dole,
Comprehensive Education
And a Fully-Free National Health;
We want Soci-a-lism
And the Redistribution of Wealth!”

It would be great if someone could film the end-of-Marxism bucket-rattling ritual before it dies out altogether. Those poor students turning out their pockets for the workers.

The Internationale is a good song apart from when Billy Bragg rewrote it with the same sentiments as “I’d like to teach the world to sing…”

I used to have a copy of the Militant songbook of which my favourite lyrics (sung to the tune of “Land of Hope and Glory”) to the best of my memory were:

“We want Nationalisation
We want Workers’ Control
We want Union Freedom
And the Tories on the Dole,
Comprehensive Education
And a Fully-Free National Health;
We want Soci-a-lism
And the Redistribution of Wealth!”

May I add my dismay about metta’s banning. There have been far uglier disruptive clashes with the participants ignoring requests to take the quarrel offline. (and that includes mysel)f-

If this was a case of, well we have to make an example of someone,
a)this is not a classroom and b) this was the worst example as this site is the poorer for the absence of metta’s (usually) thoughtful contributions from someone with rich life experience. He is like all of us here, a flawed and volatile human being, and I have borne the brunt of one of his onslaughts, but also, subsequently, had the benefit of infinitely sensitive encouragement and support from him.

Sorry to disrupt this thread, but as is evident from other comments which keep popping up in other threads and here, this is an issue which is seething to be properly vented.

Do we need flawed, valuable contributors, with life experience who may be brawlers at times, or bland, polite academic discourse? NOt that academia is so polite, given Alain de Botton’s outburst this week.

I completely agree with you Amie. Metta’s comments, though sometimes long, were often very interesting and informative and far more entertaining than those of Marko Atilla Hoare, the prig that seems to have gotten him banned.

It’s a case, unfortunately, where the fascist actually won.

A point which bears repeating….

Outing someone’s real name is stupid unless the real name is of someone surprising, if metta turned out to be Paul Daniels or someone like that.

Mike Rosen,

Perhaps you could enlighten us as to the state of the SWP?

Just how much has their membership declined, since the Respect split?

PS: Concerning Metta, kicking a man when he’s down is a poor tactic and does shine a light on your inner ’soul’, which is not a very pleasant sight.

He’s a better man than you, altho like all of us, human, can be prone to anger, which is excusable and shouldn’t receive anything more than a temporary slap on the wrist whilst tempers cool.

PPS: Mike, Metta’s more than a Brief, he’s also a medical specialist and spend years helping real people in real countries far away from the cozy domain of White City. Not that you’d know that, or in fact, even care.

I don’t know how the SWP can have the brass neck to stand there and sing, ‘Away with all your superstitions, let the masses arise, arise’ when they actually encourage Islamic supersitition. Don’t ban Josh, he programmed a really ace game at Disney World, and let Metta back, I know he gets ‘tired and emotional’ at times, but he’s like a favourite old uncle.

They’ve obviously packed the front row with the more normal looking people… Apart from the rather worryingly enthusiastic looking grey haired lady. Further back in the crowd and they look more like the people who used to run the paper stalls iirc.

Anyway caption: Hands up if you’d like to see the genocidal, aparthied, zionist and ILLEGAL state of Israel wiped off the map!

Metta did not exactly threaten to sue and JP is using the situation for his own political ends against Marko (as usual.)

Thing is we now have an even worse situation on here than any “handbags at dawn” spat as we have several people discussing the situation without one protaganist being able to respond – sigh…

Exactly Graham. ( You and I could both have been banned at various times on the same grounds;) As regards the other protagonist, if apologies are on the table, he should also be suspended or given a yellow card until he apologises for the naming.

Virtually everybody who comments here would be banned by somebody else if they thought they could get away with it.

Just to go back to JP once more. As far as I am aware Marko did not ask for anyone to be banned. Brett gave fair warning, indicated the “outside” thread and then sent Metta off the field of play THIS IS HIS RIGHT – especially on a thread about what sort of things should not be allowed on HP (although as Ami says the idea that any of us stop when engaged in a spat is rather hopeful.)

surely, Graham, that’s why power, and in particular moderating power, has to be used with a light touch

Power goes to people’s heads, you only need to scan some anti-imperialist blogs (Lenin’s Tomb, JSF, etc even SU blog) to see comments vanish because they annoyed the admin, or a raft of remarks removed because the poster upset the admins before …

It is far better to allow for good people having a bad hair day, rather than ban them for 2 weeks in a fit of temper. None of us are blameless.

If anyone gets banned for a silly reason and isn’t a fascist, vulgar “anti-imperialist” or similar then I’ll gladly let them do a guest post at my place.

Well, quite. IMHO I do think the whole way that the use of banning and/or deletion of comments has crept up at HP in recent months is a very retrograde step – and in the specific case under question, it’s fairly clear that not only one party was at fault. Maybe time to form a “Mettaculture Liberation Front” (although it’d only split – look, there’s the “Mettaculture Progressive Liberation Front” sitting over there in the corner already)

I’m announcing a third way between the MPLF and MLF – the Mettaculture Independent Liberation Front. In forming the MILF I wish to state that I never left the MLF, you understand. It left me when it betrayed its original noble aims.

The use of such an acronym at least leaves no doubt as to which of the two Bens you are.

Ha ha!

I never realised before today that lefty and schoolboy variants of humour could be so inelegantly mixed.

I’ll get me coat…

It is far better to allow for good people having a bad hair day, rather than ban them for 2 weeks in a fit of temper.

Moderators also have bad days. But I don’t think Brett can be fairly accused of having “a fit of temper” here. As he has said; if a discussion site is to be run well (I’ll add to that a popular discussion site) then it has to have rules. I have spent far too much wasted time in AOL chatrooms where the arrival of a moderator is nearly always seen as an excuse to take the piss not to understand that.

Wherever people talk there are simple personality conflicts (which seems to be the case here.) Have their been more bans on HP in recent months? I doubt it myself.

I am hopeful that Metta may return from Venezuela and do some guest posts but if people are going to always argue with each other on the grounds of personal dislike what can HP’s moderators do?

The following has nothing to do with Metta by the way, but anyone who has attempted fair assessments of the situation in former Yugoslavia has always been subject to persistant trolls who arrive on threads looking for conflict and attempting to get people banned. (I am sure this is the case for other areas of discussion also.) I think Marko was being attacked by one of these trolls at the same time the spat with Metta was renewed (which may have led him to hit out harder than may have been appropriate.) If a moderator arrives in the middle of something like this – and the moderator may not even have had the chance to read the whole thread btw- then what can they do? I’d suggest that on any site guest posters would get a certain amount of protection wouldn’t you say?

fwiw I don’t think Metta should have been banned for more than a day (if at all) but surely HP’s moderators do need the power to be able to ban people who are persistant troublemakers – esp those who arrive on a thread just to renew earlier conflicts?

Amie,

You say:

to take offence (as someone did on Marko’s behalf) regarding the omission of the honorific Dr. is very precious.

As it was me who made the point,I think I ought to retort. It is not usual in this blog to refer to a poster as Mr.or Mrs.or use any title and I think that is correct.. Marko did not sign his post or any of his comments as Dr. Hoare and hence there was no need for mettaculture to use a title for him. Howver,if he was to break standard protocol and use a title, and given that he knows full well that Marko’s title is Dr., I viewed that referring to him as “Mr. Hoare” was done in a deliberate way to add further insult. Hence, I made my comment.

This information does not take away from the fact that I tend to agree with you,the use of the title Dr. is a bit crass unless in a formal setting where it is standard practice.

A propos de ben and Venichka’s exchange above, I always giggle when the Moro Islamic Liberation Front appear, not they’re remotely funny really, but talk about a name for a bunch of Islamists….

Graham,

Field’s right, you might revoke people’s access for a 1 or 2 day period in extreme cases, but for ALL of those concerned, and then remind them to re-read the comments policy, but two weeks is plainly silly.

Still Lincoln and Acton were right about power.

Mikey: It also depends on the social mores. South Africa was very Germanic in that regard, where my husband, an Advocate (barrister) would routinely be referred to as Advokaat M, and me as his wife as Mevrou Advokaat M. Except as it happens, that I was already Advokaat K in my own right.

Anyway, as the gentleman you have been brought up to be, you are sometimes shocked at things, and language, which I might not notice. When I am in full spate at home sometimes, the dog runs out of the room, and I fear you would too!

Field’s right, you might revoke people’s access for a 1 or 2 day period in extreme cases, but for ALL of those concerned.

Mod with the greatest respect you cannot ban someone who has written the post itself.

You’d be a laughing stock.

Call me MA(Hons) MA, or MAMA for short, I suppose.

Although in quite a few Central European countries (depending on the exact level of exactitude) I could get to call myself either

“Mag. Venichka” or “Mag. Mag. Venichka”.

Now I expect to be treated with all due respect!

Graham, once you start down this road, then you have to cool tempers, and the way to do that is implement such a policy across the board, until the posters realize that those attitudes are counter-productive.

Alternatively, you have this absurd situation, where one of the most lucid posters at HP, metta, is banned for 2 weeks, which probably leaves a bit of bad blood all around, silly really.

Remember what Abe said:

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

Well you have to trust HP to put the power in the hands of those able to use it (which is why I have never had any!)

OT, but related and interesting as regards thoase who back in the Thirties fought the Good Fight:

“American, 93, Honored as Spainish War Vet: R.I. man gets Spainish Citizenship decades after volunteering to fight in Sapanish Civil War against Fascism” at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/09/national/main5146669.shtml?tag=cbsnewsSectionContent.1

The girl in the pink shirt… pert breasts, distinctly laconic posture and arm raise. Quite a strange juxtaposition.

Free-eee-eee-eee Met-ta CUL-ture

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCPw7P7rjSI

Can I plead for the Harry’s Place One? He’s a barmy old buzzard sometimes but he does know a lot of stuff and his long contributions are often worth the time they take to read. Can’t he be unbanished and de’exiled? As we speak, he may be seeking asylum at Liberal Conspiracy.

If you do have banning needs, I could offer you a list of more deserving cases.

Mike Rosen,

Perhaps you could enlighten us as to the state of the SWP?

SORRY, I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT’S STATE IS.

Just how much has their membership declined, since the Respect split?

DIDN’T KNOW WHAT ITS MEMBERSHIP WAS BEFORE THE SPLIT. DON’T KNOW IT’S MEMBERSHIP NOW.

PS: Concerning Metta, kicking a man when he’s down is a poor tactic and does shine a light on your inner ’soul’, which is not a very pleasant sight.

MODERNITY, YOU’RE VERY GOOD AT MORALISING FINGER-WAGGING. WHAT MAKES YOU THINK METTA IS ‘DOWN’? AS FOR WHAT YOU FIND PLEASANT OR NOT, ISN’T REALLY OF MUCH INTEREST TO ME. WHY WOULD IT BE? YOUR TRADE HERE IS QUITE OFTEN INSULT OR ARRANGING LEAGUE TABLES BASED ON SPURIOUS IDEAS OF INTELLIGENCE OR WORTH.

He’s a better man than you, altho like all of us, human, can be prone to anger, which is excusable and shouldn’t receive anything more than a temporary slap on the wrist whilst tempers cool.

I DON’T THINK THE STATEMENT I QUOTED WAS STATED IN ANGER. IT CAME AS PART OF A FAIRLY COOL AND CLOSELY ARGUED PASSAGE ABOUT THE COURT OF APPEAL. IT WAS ALSO NONSENSE. AND, AS I SUGGESTED THEN, A POSSIBLE INDICATION OF THE RETURN OF THE REPRESSED. ‘TEACH A LESSON TO THE JEWS’…COMING FROM A SELF-PROCLAIMING PHILOSEMITE??? HMMMM

PPS: Mike, Metta’s more than a Brief, he’s also a medical specialist and spend years helping real people in real countries far away from the cozy domain of White City. Not that you’d know that, or in fact, even care.

YES, I KNOW THAT YOU LIKE TO TOT UP PEOPLE’S QUALIFICATIONS AS EVIDENCE OF THEIR WORTH. THAT’S YOUR PROBLEM, NOT MINE. THAT’S WHY YOU’RE A CYRIL BURT SOUND-ALIKE. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU’RE ON ABOUT WITH ‘WHITE CITY’. I SCARCELY EVER GO THERE. MY GRANDMOTHER LIVED THERE FOR A SHORT WHILE AND I USED TO ENJOY THE ATHLETICS MEETS WHEN THERE WAS A STADIUM. (TIP: SNEERS ALWAYS WORK BETTER WHEN YOUR GET YOUR FACTS RIGHT.) RE: WHAT I KNOW – YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT I KNOW. RE: WHAT I CARE ABOUT – YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT I CARE ABOUT. YOU DON’T NEED TO KNOW WHAT I KNOW OR WHAT I CARE ABOUT OTHER THAN THAT YOU CLEARLY ENJOYED MAKING A STATEMENT ABOUT SUCH THINGS.

MANY APOLS ABOUT THE CAPS. IT JUST SEEMED A CONVENIENT WAY OF ANSWERING THE POINTS IN THE TEXT OF THE POST. I CAN SEE NOW IT LOOKS AS IF I’M SHOUTING. I’M NOT.

David All’s post about an American veteran of the Spanish Civil War reminded me that very recently the same thing happened to an English verteren. (I think he was English, he may have been Scottish). I tried to google the details but I couln’t find them, but it looks like they are wrapping up outstanding business.

Are we not just a tad off topic? What about the socialists?

Mike Rosen,

Sorry, I forget that SWPers and their fellow travellers, like you, need things spelt out several times over. White City – home of the Beeb.

Whilst you were taking it easy, Metta was out in the developing world as a medical specialist, helping real people with real life problems.

Still, I know which of the two of you has had more socially worthwhile and meaningful jobs :)

As I have never been a schoolboy, could someone enlighten me as to the meaning of MILF?

They look ‘hideously white’. Hopefully they’ll meet some darker people on their way to their parents’ homes and get a bit of urban-reality smashed into them.

As modernity has pointed out, it’s not a question of qualifications, it’s a question of real existential with a small e, work, life and death issues, metta’s life and the lives of the people he was working for, in dangerous parts of the world.

And I know you don’t care about punctuation; it’s just that in capitals the misplaced apostrophes look even worse; IT’S STATE, IT’S MEMBERSHIP..

Mod – White City is not the home of the beeb. The beeb’s home is in BH in Portland Place.

You don’t know if I was taking it easy, if I was working my arse off, or when I was doing either.

I’m sure you’re trying to make a valid point about social worth and all that, other than that I have never ever made any claims in that area so if you’re trying to convince me of something, I’d better nip in first and tell you that I didn’t need convincing. Apart from that, your evening blether is going well tonight.

I miss Metta’s contributions too and would be very dissapointed if Josh left us.
Oh -and I can also tell you where all the missing SWPers are.
They’re in the University of Manchester’s SU bar, and annoyingly often out on the adjacent road too, making an awful lot of noise.

It’s even worse than that, amie. In the passage you quoted from, sometimes I got it right, sometimes I got it wrong! Wow! In the meantime, as you’re an expert on what’s ‘wrong’, you can explain to the world why the possessive is indicated with an apostrophe with nouns but not with the pronoun possessives ‘its’ ‘his’ ‘hers’ and ‘theirs’.

could someone enlighten me as to the meaning of MILF?

Certainly not (although I did attempt to warn the people behind the Institute For Learning that this would happen…)

By the way, amie, if you want to get snooty about punctuation on HP, the best place to start is with yourself.

You wrote:

“And I know you don’t care about punctuation; it’s just that in capitals the misplaced apostrophes look even worse; IT’S STATE, IT’S MEMBERSHIP..”

You’ve got three main clauses here which you’ve separated with semi-colons. There doesn’t seem to be any reason for this. Perhaps you meant the second one to be a colon ie anticipating something to follow. However, what followed was a quote, which by your own standards ought therefore to be in quotes. Then you indicated an ellipsis at the end but only put two points. As you know, it should either be one (for a full stop) or three (for an ellipsis). But then, unlike me, you care about this stuff. So perhaps, it’s best to sort your own room out first before complaining about other people’s – especially, if the other person (me) doesn’t much care so long as the meaning is clear. If I or anyone else here cared very much, we would never be able to have a conversation. There are ‘mistakes’ in spelling and punctuation in every thread on blogs for all sorts of reasons, the main one being that we don’t usually proof-read our posts. And this is something you care enough about to comment on?

Mike Rosen,

Your attitude is perplexing, you should know better.

Michael, you come from a political family, you’ve engaged in political discussion for nearly 50 years and yet the arguments that you put forward and your attitude are more akin to those found in smart, quirky adolescents rather than a man of 63 years of age.

You seem to have learnt almost nothing in your life, and in your bitter moments reflect that nasty petty bourgeois bickering attitude which Lenin highlighted in 1920.

Now nearly anyone else who has had your privileged up bringing, opportunities and Oxbridge education would probably try to suppress those darker sides of their character, but not you.

It is not a very edifying sight to see you indulging in these petty disputes, you should know better, or at least have the wit to hold your tongue occasionally.

Years back someone said to me that one defining characteristic of a lot of highly intelligent, pampered individuals was their often pronounce lack of maturity.

At the time not having run across many Doctors of Philosophy, such as yourself Michael, I wasn’t too sure, but subsequently that observation seems about right.

Related to the thread, years back I ran across many SWPers (in fact lots of different Trots, quasi Trots, Stalinists, etc) as you do when engaging in union activity.

Normally these were a cut above the average SWPer, but it’s noticeable how the quality of SWPers has declined over the years from an admittedly low point.

Most of them seem incapable of engaging in a political discussion without:

1) parroting what their political masters say
2) shouting slogans
3) an almost complete absence of logic
4) demonstrating a contempt for evidence
5) showing a complete lack of reason
6) accusing everyone else of being a racist., etc

Thus, it isn’t any surprise that they cannot recruit, maintain or even keep their new recruits.

The debacle of the StWC and the handling of the Respect split shows what a pile of political incompetence they are, even when you judge them by their own low standards.

Mark Steel’s views are rather illuminating http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=1051

Oh gawd, another fingerwagging lecture from someone I’ve never met, who can’t be bothered to reveal his identity either to me or to the world, and yet who thinks he is saying something significant. My contribution to this thread concerned metta who I think made an outrageous accusation re the Court of Appeal and which led me to think of the ‘return of the repressed’. Your reply, mod was first to suggest that this was some kind of sadism on my part and then start up your usual round of sneers and trivia. I’ve replied in kind. If you think there’s something reprehensible about that, then let me suggest you have a go at desisting too. If you can’t take it, don’t dish it.

“I suppose many of the inhabitants of this blog would have cheered on the Versailles government as it butchered the Communards.”

I don’t know about the Versailles government, but it serves the Communards right for butchering ‘You Make Me Feel Mighty Real.’

.
“I don’t know how the SWP can have the brass neck to stand there and sing, ‘Away with all your superstitions, let the masses arise, arise’ when they actually encourage Islamic supersitition.”

.
Well said.
.

“No more deluded by reaction
(except from Gaza and Teheran, John ‘Uncle Tom’ Pilger etc.)

On tyrants only we’ll make war…
(saving those in Beijing, Hanoi, Havana, Managua, Pyongyang etc.)

No saviour from on high delivers
(especially not those who brought you the Left Alternative fiasco from whom we await bracing self-criticism)

No faith have we in prince or peer
(apart from Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Cliff, the glorious decisions of the Central Committee, especially once the democracy commission have guided us away from deviationist hyenas and told us how to think democratically)

So comrades, come rally and (one of the last) fights let us face…

>>>>>>
PS: On Metta’s banning, it’s a real shame because I like both Metta and Marko and think they say more intelligent things with more erudition than most of us. I understand that Marko feels that posters who use pseudonyms have something to hide; that’s his view and I don’t share it. It was wrong to post Metta’s real name and right of Brett to remove it straight away. Given the attitude taken by HP posts to the laws of libel, I am sorry to think that Metta would go ahead and sue. I’m very glad Metta is not permanently banned, but I’d prefer it if he apologized and we could see him back sooner.

Graham is spot on here. Especially about JP.

I don’t know about the Versailles government, but it serves the Communards right for butchering ‘You Make Me Feel Mighty Real.’

Proving what a polymath (of trivia) I am, I’m fairly sure it wasn’t the Communards, but rather Jimmy Somerville solo who did that. (Ah, well, but the only good song they did was the very moving “For A Friend”, in any case.)

And of course you all knew that the “other” Communard, Richard Coles, is now a Church of England vicar, who occasionally pops up on the BBC and in the Graun?

Mike Rosen,

Do you even read what others write, or just sneer from a far?

On these topics, your contributions are by far the most apolitical and content free, I honestly wonder if you have any real interest in politics?

If you do, perhaps you might like to comment on the British Left’s reaction to the SWP call for unity?

I hope that you have had the opportunity to read how other groups have responded to the SWP’s open letter?

By the way, mod, though we’re not allowed to know what your background is even as you slag off mine – ‘privileged’ – I just thought I ought to make clear just how privileged it was. By the time I was two my mother was a primary school teacher and my father was a secondary English teacher in a grammar school. Apart from you, I’ve never met anyone who thought that this was ‘privileged’. However, in one respect, my upbringing was unbelievably privileged: my parents read and talked about books, told stories and disputed everything and anything. They also took my brother and me on long camping holidays and filled the house with all sorts of interesting people. All this was ‘rich’ or ‘enlightening’ or ‘exciting’. As far as I know the word ‘privilege’ when it’s used about people’s background usually refers to some kind of status in society conferred by birth or money or both. My parents had no inherited wealth of any kind and we lived in a rented flat till I was 17 in 1963. I would never dream of complaining about the kind of material standard of my childhood but there was no way it was what people usually understand by ‘privileged’.

I’ve noticed that you go in for quite a lot of ‘hauteur’. You don’t seem to realise that ‘hauteur’ only works when you know who’s doing it. Otherwise it sounds like someone trying to look tall by standing on someone else’s head. But who am I to say? If you like hauteur, you do hauteur. Just please don’t send me emails to my private email address going on and on about your state of mind.

mod, I think you might be having one of those little moments. At 12.30 on this thread, I commented on metta because that was a line of discussion that had emerged. I commented on what I thought was an outrageous comment that metta had made a few days ago – a comment made even more absurd, when he announced that he was a barrister. I also think that it revealed some of his repressed feelings. That was just a hunch on my part.

At 2.39 you responded with your usual string of personal sneers and insults where you accused me of being, in effect, a sadist and then went on with your usual tack of creating mini-league tables of worth or value of the people who post. So metta, in your commentary , was a better man than me…and so on and so on

So, for the record, I didn’t start this line of argument or talk. If you don’t like this line or approach, don’t start it. If you don’t like being replied to in kind, don’t start it. It’s that easy.

If you want to ask questions about the SWP or make comments about the SWP, there really is very little point in asking me or telling me. You know there is somewhere where you could go and ask but clearly you choose not to. Instead, you try to indulge in a bit of mud-wrestling at HP whenever I appear. You also seem to have some urgent need to get something off your chest about the BBC. There are places where you can go to do that too: the BBC website is awash with messageboards and forums. They’re for you to contribute to and talk about ‘cosy’ domains of people working in White City. There’s absolutely no point in telling me about it here, unless of course you’re grandstanding…

well Mike Rosen

I am not sure what academics call it, maybe argument by anecdote but “Apart from you, I’ve never met anyone who thought that this was ‘privileged’. “

There may be an answer to that? possibly people are being polite to you, or it could be that you mix with other privileged types and they don’t notice it, who knows?

Typically, with the nonexistent intellectual subtlety of a SWPer and their mates, you mistake banter and sarcasm for haughtiness.

Quell surprise!

But back to the SWP’s open letter? did you see the reactions?

One other misapprehension swimming around your head: you seem to think that when you flick your fingers and demand replies that I, or anyone else, owes it to you. Why, in heaven’s name, after your usual stream of gratuitous sneers and insults, would I want to enter into some discussion with you about the ‘British Left’? And to assume I’m not interested in politics because I don’t bark when you snap your fingers, is, what I think is called ‘egocentric thought’ iea line of thinking that goes: ‘if a bod ain’t doing it front of me, he aint’ doing it.’

Thank you Mr Rosen for going to such trouble in pointing out my punctuation flaws. A great deal of trouble, 16 lines in fact dedicated to this end. I only have a degree in English from a wretched colonial university, so veru unlike yours.

You have demonstrated to crushing effect that you can do the punctuation, but just don’t choose to: (or is it;?)? a bit like Tracy Emin and Art, and your 16 lines are a magnificent gesture of disdain, a bit like Tracy Emin with that self portrait shovelling money between her splayed thighs.

No, the privileged types I met, say, at university, were quite sure that I was a bit of an oik because my parents taught in state schools and I went to state schools myself.

Meanwhile, in the LOndon suburbs where I was brought up, I hung about with the son of the butcher (employed) at the local Dewhursts, who thought that we were a cut below. I had a friend at school who wasn’t allowed to play with me because I was ‘common’ and/or Jewish. Apart from one or two kids who were in council houses, most of the people in my school were in houses where their parents were owner-occupiers. Some of my friends made comments to me about the fact that we were ‘only’ in a rented flat and had no garden.

Not one of this makes me think I was hard done by. I simply tell you so that you know that in the London suburbs of the 1950s my background was thought of as the opposite of privilege. Of course we were seen by some as being a ‘cut above’ the proles, but not much – especially when the news got out that my father had given up his job at a grammar school to go and teach in a comp. That placed him ‘below’ the teachers who were teaching us.

amie, you’ve had a memory lapse. You told me I was ‘wrong’. Your word, not mine. You pointed out that I didn’t care about punctuation. Not true but you made the point anyway. I’ve noticed that almost anyone or everyone who complains about someone else’s punctuation makes what they would call errors, mistakes or something wrong. What’s more, I’ve noticed that if someone does point this out, the person who made the original accusation (you in this case) complains!

I mean exactly what I said: as long as a passage of writing is clear, I don’t care about punctuation. I would never dream of saying what you said about your writing or anyone else’s. Virtually everything that is written here is quite clear no matter how many so-called errors and mistakes there are. I can honestly say that I have absolutely no ‘disdain’ for people who make these ‘errors’. Why should I? I make them myself. You, however, gave the impression of caring about such things. To which I say: in which case, clear your own writing up and leave the rest of us alone.

Mike Rosen wrote:

“you seem to think that when you flick your fingers and demand replies that I, or anyone else, owes it to you. “

You can either engage in an exchange of views, abuse or what have you, or not, your choice entirely.

However, if you do, you’ll have to think on your feet and without the benefit of a script, so I can understand your reluctance :)

Still the comments by others on the SWP’s open letter are revealing:

AN OPEN LETTER FROM THE SWP – http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=4195 (131 comments)

THE SWP’s OPEN LETTER TO THE LEFT http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=4203
(with some 458 comments)

This was one of the better and more accurate comments:

“69. Dear The Left,

Our last two puppies died for some reason.

Can we have another one? We promise we’ll look after it and feed it and walk it and take care of it and love it for ever and ever and ever and ever and ever!

Awwwwww, pleeeeeeeeeeeease?

Yours,

The SWP

Comment by The SWP — 10 June, 2009 @ 6:19 pm”

Michael,

Ever since I found out to my horror that my nephews and nieces like your children’s books, I have been reluctant to give you a hard time in these threads. I must be going soft.

But I have this problem with the authors of children’s books. I was absolutely distraught when I found out that Roald Dahl was an outspoken anti-Semite, but I still believe that his book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a simply outstanding work.

Do you have any advice?

Mikey, a very interesting matter. We could call it the ‘Wagner question’ or if wanted to avoid being judeocentric, the ‘Thomas Mann question’ ie at what point is the personal life or even the political life of the writer sufficiently repugnant to make one not bother to read their work? Put another way, surely the personal/political outlook of the writer will in some way or another be manifested in the work. In which case, if that personal/political outlook is repugant (to me, the reader) then I won’t or can’t like the work? (I’m just saying these as propositions.)

The problem with such lines of thought is over the matter of what has been called the ‘relative autonomy’ of art. That’s to say what an artist produces isn’t identical with the artist. All artists are in a sense ventriloquists. They borrow and steal voices and outlooks and standpoints. Sometimes this is obvious – as with a playright giving voice to competing ideas some of which the playright can’t possibly agree with. Less obvious is, say a painter, but the more you look at a painting you can see that what’s there might be an experiment or a viewpoint of someone other than the painter.

However, when it comes to your nephews and nieces attitude to me I think you should do all you can to discourage them from reading my books. The ‘relative autonomy’ argument might well have to be dispensed with when it comes to me. I’ve written too often about myself that I am beginning to blur into my own work. I’ve started doing things because a) I’ve already written about them b) I might write about them c) I am in the middle of writing about them. One day, it’s possible I will actually turn into a book. Please tell them this and you may be lucky enough to get them away from the stuff.

(By the way, the reason why even autobiography has ‘relative autonomy’ is because it is ‘textualised’ life. ie writing turns experience into words. Words are never the same as life, so the process of turning life into text (‘textualising’) makes something that is distinct from life. Text has relative autonomy because in the end it belongs to itself and obeys its own rules of behaviour eg grammar, rhyme, chapters and all the rest of the games, conventions and rules of how we put texts together.)

Yes, Roald Dahl wrote many outstanding books because (I think) he was able to translate his experiences as a child into scenarios that capture some deep amibivalences he had about parents.

mod, you now seem to have moved into a candy floss world where you seem to think I might imagine that you care one tiny iota whether the ‘Left’ unites or not. As you are hardly able to string more than a couple of posts together without explaining to all and sundry that the SWP is full of idiots and anyway, it’s not full of anyone because no one is really in the SWP, why would I want to have a conversation with you of all people about any of this? If I did start to discuss such things with you, I would count myself as having some kind of breakdown, and I would give you full sneering rights over my brain for the next 12 months.

Other posters at SU blog seem to know what’s what:

“4. It is a very good letter but the trouble is no-one trusts the SWP any more. Part of the reason we are in this mess is because a promising initiative like the Socialist Alliance was partly sabotaged by the SWP a few years ago. We do have to unite, but can we?

Comment by Stockwell Pete — 10 June, 2009 @ 8:23 am”

http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=4195#comments

“11. It’s striking that the SWP has never apologised or acknowlegded any of its mistakes. They just refer blandly to mistakes that were made without actually ever giving even the vagueist of reasons for them. I think they are fundamentally an insincere party who are exploiting the BNP breakthrough to further their own narrow agenda, which they know they can only achieve by highlighting another party again.

The question is, will anybody buy it again?

Comment by Ed D — 11 June, 2009 @ 9:04 pm”

http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=4203#comments

Michael,

I think I have come up with a solution. When you write your next children’s book,publish it under a pseudonym. Call yourself “Leon Uris” or “Saul Bellow” or some other equally pleasing name. You never can tell, you might find you get an amazing review in the Jewish Chronicle which I assume has a been a long held desire of yours.

Mod, can I commend your skills as a cutter and paster of extraordinary dexterity? I particularly admire your ability to demarcate one para from another with deft use of italics, bold and red type. Your use of the ‘box’ is similarly exquisite. Then again, the way you make your point through simple juxtaposition rather than opinion is quite remarkable. You have real talent.

Since my last two posts disappeared without a trace, I assume I am banned.

Mikey, the Jewish Chronicle persists in giving me whole page interviews, often embellished with praise: three in the last four years. (Perhaps your rage at seeing them there fogged your eyes.) However, the face to face interviews that lead up to these articles have one distinctive feature about them: we talk for about half an hour about my children’s books until the interviewer suddenly and without warning says, ‘And what do you think about Israel?’. So, the one a couple of weeks ago was about the stage production of ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’ – which I had absolutely nothing to do with. So there we were chatting on about bears and hunts and the like when suddenly up it popped: ‘What do you think about Israel?’ I said, well I didn’t think Israel had much to do with ‘Bear Hunt’ so couldn’t we leave that matter out just this once? No, said the JC journo, ‘the readers will want to know.’ Really? I said. I’m pretty sure that any readers who would possibly feel like reading this interview will know very well what I think about Israel. And anyway, me saying it all over again on the pages of the JC is not going to do the show any favours. I agreed to do this interview because I thought it would do a favour to the very nice little theatre company who’ve put on the show. Yes yes yes, says the journo but…what do you think about Israel.

So the interview came out, and it’s about ‘Bear Hunt’ and Israel. It’s the new form of the old joke about the Jewish student who hands in an essay on ‘Elephants’. The French student did ‘Elephants and love’. The English student did ‘Elephants and engineering problems’ and the Jewish student did ‘Elephants and the Jewish Question’. Now it’s ‘Elephants and Israel’.

I just want to know one thing: after reading the interview, do they have bears in Israel?

josh, ask mod. He’s the expert on cutting on pasting.

Mike Rosen,

No need to complement me, I just wanted to remind you of the Socialist Alliance project which was killed off by the SWP’s maneuverings, not that you’d know much about that, but you could ask your mates in the SWP what happened, if they remember :)

What a surprise, you seem to have chosen a font for this web site where zeros look exactly like lower case O so no one can see how I got my comment posted.

Anyway, I would say that mettaculture, rather than being banned could replace any member of HP’s staff and the result would be a significant improvement..

Testing with my regular address again.

…and now the wit, mod. the wit. What a night for you! Yes, you were so right to give yourself the :)

Did another test. Yep, I’m banned.

Michael,

Thank you for letting me know. I have a further solution to your problem with the Jewish Chronicle. When that very important newspaper next asks you your views on Israel,tell them that you think Israel is a wonderful country and that if you have any complaint,it would be that it is difficult to get a decent bowl of matzoball soup on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv. You may be pleasantly surprised as to how many readers there are that will concur with your astute observation and valid criticism.

Does anyone know of any other sites that mettaculture posts on?

Mike Rosen,

Any idea what the SWP was on about concerning mistakes?

They seem to be a bit cagey in admitting their own faults?

Could it be silly errors like not getting Galloway his coffee on time, or something bigger? Something political?

Do you think that the SWP will ever link up with Galloway again?

He’s banned but he’s writing and we’re reading what he’s writing?! What kind of ‘banned’ is that?

Uhm I changed my name to get around the filter. I thought that was clear. Work on your reading comprehension.

I will probably honor the ban after this.

Banning can take many forms, use of a particular name, an IP address or range of IP addresses.

It is pretty ineffective against technical minded people like Josh. Silly really.

Josh, mettaculture has done a post at Barristers.org.com called: Teaching the Jews a Lesson: a Philosemite Speaks.

mod, I can hear that you’re speaking but I can’t hear what you’re saying. I think it might be because the room is full of people laughing at your jokes.

Uhm that was a joke about you being banned. What do I care how you debanned yourself? Work on your joke comprehension.

Mike Rosen,

I hope so, if you have any technical questions on blogs, banning, IP address, filtering, moderating, etc I am sure that Josh or someone else will answer them!

I can’t give you free advice if you don’t make an effort.

hmm Barristers.org.com, Barristers.org and Barristers.com don’t work

Nor does google turn him uh by his handle at any similar place.

Mod,

If Josh has any technical questions on blogs, joking, jokes, jokey website addresses invented for the purposes of satire of barristers who make outrageous accusations whilst boasting about loving Jews, then I’m sure you could answer them.

I can’t give you free advice because I’m privileged and I need to charge for my advice in order to maintain my level of privilege.

Josh,

Mike Rosen was just being petty, and making an unnecessary attack on Metta.

Mike Rosen,

If you read the above, you’ll see that Josh is saying he knows he’s banned, how it works and that he can get around it.

Banning on a blog works if you don’t know how its done.

Whereas Josh is technical and could get around it in a tick, thus it is silly to try to ban him. I hope that clears it up?

It’s awfully rich of Rosen to attack other people for telling Jews what to do.

I’m probably offending Will at Drink Soaked Trots for linking to his site than I’m offending Brett for mocking his undeserved mod authority.

Petty? Petty! A barrister tells us that the Court of Appeal intended to teach the Jews a lesson? Small wonder metta is anonymous. If he published that thought under his own name, he’d probably have the disciplinary bodies on to him. Then he announces that he loves Jews. To my fervid imagination, something is going on here: someone who feels that he has to tell anyone and everyone that he loves Jews, and who usually prides himself on his rational analytic method, suddenly bursts out with a completely irrational ‘impossibilist’ statement? And guess what? It includes the phrase ‘teach the Jews a lesson’ when quite clearly the judgement couldn’t be teaching ‘the Jews’ anything because a good many of ‘the Jews’ like the judgement! Sorry, that all adds up to the ‘return of the repressed’ to me. Small wonder he got abusive somewhere else on this thread. He had to work it all off him somehow.

And you have the quote where I’m telling Jews what to do?

Brett censoring Mettaculture is a bit like Tiny Tim passing judgment on Pavarotti.

“I hope that clears it up?”

Oh whoops. You hadn’t noticed that there isn’t anything you say clears things up. Doh! of course I had figured that josh had found a way round it, othewise how else would he be posting?! I was just having a gentle laugh (kinda along with him) about the idea of writing ‘I am banned’. Do you ever find your passage through life is impeded by your own mind’s unwillingness to do what you ask it to do?

Rosen, my impression of you is that you’re hardly more Jewish than I am, but you’re on this site for being an anti-zionist. … which at it’s base is a way of telling a state that is mostly made of Jews that they, uniquely, lack the hither to universal rights of self determination and self defense. Some of your more naive writing is paranoid and essentialist – not traits I inherently reject except when the conclusions are completely bunk as they are in your case.

And in the final analysis you’re no more Jewish than I am. We both came from Jewish families and neither of us has any real interest in Judaism. The difference between me and you is that I know the limits to my ignorance, while you seem to be happy to project enough crap on Jews to make me wonder where you really disagree with Atzmon.

I would say you do quite a lot of telling Jews what to do.

It was definitely smaller than last year, but there were still at least 1000 at the closing rally, and about 4500 people present on the other conference days.

There were a lot of interesting talks, e.g. on classical music (with a performance of bartok by a famous violist!), marxism and ecology and LBGT activism, but again, as usual, a lot of turgid ones run by the SWP faithful. And anyone who claims it was ‘hideously white’ is talking out of their arse/projecting.

josh, all I asked is for you to give me a quote to justify your statement. You don’t seem to want to go down that route. So instead I get a lecture, along with a bucket of abuse.

You’re good. Very good.

Lordy Mr Rosen do you ever sleep? your post at 2.16 am, long after I had put my own inner wherewolf to bed, and then up and fists already flailing at 10 a.m!

While you’re at it, can we just clear this up: You write: “amie, you’ve had a memory lapse. You told me I was ‘wrong’. Your word, not mine.” (btw not sure if the single quotes and double quotes are correctly arranged here.)

But it isn’t my word; ‘wrong’ never appears in any of my comments. I said the misplaced apostrophe looked “worse” in capitals.
Your word, in fact, not mine: “Wow! In the meantime, as you’re an expert on what’s ‘wrong’…”

You are confused. Lack of sleep, fog of word war.. time to give it a rest, I think.

I justified my statement by a different route than by the tedious one of concretely critiquing your past statements, many of which would require an essay on supreme failure to evince adult abilities to think, to prioritize moral or ethical hierarchies by severity, understand context, and failure to model human thought and society.

amie – how right you are. You didn’t use the word ‘wrong’. My mistake. You used the word ‘misplaced’ which I interpreted (wrongly!) as meaning ‘wrong’. I’m not sure what else ‘misplaced’ means in that context other than ‘wrong’. So let’s argue about ‘misplaced’ instead. Wherever I’ve said ‘wrong’ in my previous post, now use the word ‘misplaced’ and I don’t think it changes my meaning one jot. At the end of the day, it was you getting snotty about my punctuation while you were busy ‘misplacing’ and making what you seem to think are ‘errors’ yourself. Then you got fed up because I had noticed! Repeat, I have absolutely no problems with so-called errors so long as the meaning is clear. It seems to be you with problems with what you call ‘misplacing’.

re sleep. Why assume I sleep when everyone else sleeps? I put one of my children to bed and, is often the case, I fall asleep in a chair for two or three hours. That’s why I’m wide awake in the middle of the night. Just wanted to check with you, that’s Ok with you.

That’s a very long sentence with very long words Josh. Well done.

Free Metta! free the HP one! Ta KP, that’s the single….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pr1qJQpAF_s

Mind you “Marg Bar Seymour bloody Payne!” and double plus Morgy’s suggestion ‘Man Up, Mikey!’

Hmm, you want an answer suited to a children’s book?

How about “Thppppppt!”

Children’s books are about sex, oppression and murder. You seem to have the wrong kind of book in mind.

Michael,

I cannot resist asking. What exactly did you do in your student days against the Vietnam War to get yourself arrested?

Ah. Lots of intelligent people (and the odd stupid one) having one long pointless spat.

Lovely.

Still, we should return to the SWP’s open letter, as there was a very amusing rely in Socialist Worker, from a rather well know person:

“Michael Rosen welcomes the Socialist Workers Party’s (SWP) open letter to the left and discusses how he thinks unity can be achieved.
…
The open letter to the left is a good move. We desperately need to make the things that unite us count more than the things that divide us.

I wouldn’t want to prejudge anything more than that. Let’s leave that to our dreams and hopes. In the meantime, let’s be simple, practical and strong.”

ops, here’s the link, http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=18181

Graham: Mr R rises too easily and at such life sapping length to the bait- a passing tease about his known relaxed attitude to formal grammar is seized upon and a tedious 16 line retort results. A not unfriendly observation at how little sleep he has had gets: “That’s why I’m wide awake in the middle of the night. Just wanted to check with you, that’s Ok with you.”

It is no fun quarrelling with someone who responds in this whiny aggrieved tone. It releases the inner bully in me and the impulse to push his head down the toilet, something that never occurred to me in real life sibling squabbles.

Graham: Mr R rises too easily and at such life sapping length to the bait

Most people do you know….

I think Mike Rosen is suggesting that a federated Unity project led by the SWP and including the SWP’s old foe, George Galloway has a hope in uniting people behind their leadership.

Oh the tragedy of naive opportunism over experience

“Life is just too short to hang out with extremist manipulative ahistorical deluded misguided bullies fantasising about bloodshed of others in their desired cause, of whatever stripe”

If don’t like it, then just don’t go to church anymore.

Mr Rosen, you should have told that journo that your views on Israel were in fact already laid out in your work, “I’m going on a bear hunt”, and that if he/ she read it carefully they would see that the bear represented Israel as the aggressive and overweening regional military power, whereas “I’m” stood for the outraged forces of Judeo-Christian humanism, and the figures of children symbolised the human race at its current very low level of cultural and social attainment.

Dave, I need an agent. UR the 1.

amie, why would my checking if it’s alright with you be a ‘whine’? I had a smile on my face when I wrote that. How’s the ‘misplaced’ apostrophe count going on HP this week?

mikey, I was near a policeman.

I think what is slightly astonishing in the letter to Socialist Worker by Mike Rosen, is the inference that it would be possible to work politically with George Galloway.

One would need the memory of a goldfish and a fairly unprincipled one at that to put aside Galloway’s dodgy conduct, questionable allies and unsavoury activities.

That would assume forgetting about Big Brother, where did the money go?

More recently, forgetting about Galloway’s disgraceful comments on the two young Gays hung to death at the end of a crane, by the Iranian dictatorship.

Or Galloway’s recent defence of the Iranian presidential election.

All of that, not excluding Galloway’s propaganda on behalf of PressTV, a holocaust denial pushing outfit masquerading as a TV channel.

How easy would it be for the SWP and their allies to forget all that?

LOL, I followed my (under my name) link to Drink Soaked Trots for War and it put up the following banner at the top “So you are still reading the racist trash at HP Sauce. What are they on about today? … lets see — the scary muzzies are still under David Ts bed and the evil *trots* are about to take over the country.”

It checked the referrer. If you go there without coming from HP the banner isn’t there.

Dave

Fuck off you ignoramus