[deleted]

Excellent piece, Emma. Well said.

Good piece. Ignore the haters.

So very true and so many on the left need to read this

A very well written blog – and though I’ve never warmed to Hari, the tendancy to overlook or play down bad things done by one’s idols is very unhealthy indeed.

No “hate” here, Observer.

The question is, who forms this “Left”?

buddyhell

lots and lots of people – typically believing in things like redistrobution of wealth, internationalism, solidarity, etc…

Look up any GCSE politics text book for a better basic description of the left.

@4
“So very true and so many on the left need to read this”

Who is this “left”? Furthermore, why do you assume that anyone on this ‘left’ worships DSK or Johann Hari?

“Yet despite this, because of his politics, there was a real charge to trumpet his potential innocence”

Really? I didn’t and consider myself to be on the left. Careful with those broad brush strokes!

@8

I don’t need a lecture on the definition of the left. What I don’t appreciate are broad brush assumptions that are based on fundamental prejudices.

When I saw this article’s headline I thought this article was gonna be about how “the left” “worships” people like Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, etc and how this was “outdated”. Which is a poor argument to say the least, but at least it has some basis in reality. I don’t see how this article has any basis in reality at all.

1) Most people on all sides of the left, anarchists, Trots, left-wing Labour party members, etc etc etc, believed that Johnathan May-Bowles was an absolute idiot whose . A complete and utter moron. The only people who supported his action were the type of people who believe that smashing a window of McDonalds was a revolutionary act, and even then, most of them probably didn’t either.

2) Where on earth are you getting this nonsense about DSK from? Sorry, but I don’t think that most left-wingers view the head of the IMF – an institution that has caused untold damage to millions of people’s lives – as a hero or are “trumpeting his innocence”. I don’t know what you’re talking about here. The people who are defending him are (largely) other members of the political establishment.

3) Re: Assange – I personally do not like or defend this person. You have a point here, but this is the only sensible point in the otherwise diabolical article.

4) I don’t know many people on the radical left who admires Hari and in fact anarchist and communist writers were instrumental in getting his plagiarism exposed. He supported the Iraq war FFS.

Try again.

@11

Well said

[deleted]

buddyhell

if you don’t want educating don’t ask to be educated. If you want to criticise just criticise instead. That is allowed.

As for broad-brushed assumptions – hardly a relevent complaint on a website that is expressly for the purpose of bringing together left-leaning views in all their diversity – with the aim of helping to better the left as a movement.

Pretending such a site is not a place for discussing “the left” is obviously just stupid.

Meanwhile anyone with common sense hardly needs the “when dealing with broad themes one should not extrapolate from that the pretence of a universal rule” disclaimer. Only dummies would think otherwise.

Granted, you might be one such dummy. So fair enough. Maybe the left needs more disclaimers.

Emma,

Congratulations – a very good blog.

Johann Hari a hero of ‘the left’? Liberals perhaps, but certainly not the left.

This week something very frightening happened. My husband was threatened, twice, with hospitalisation by a thug.

Was this on a blog thread or in real life?

Good article, Emma, and points that need to be made. I do think, though, that you’re using the term “left” a bit generally. The far-left have never liked Hari; Assange strikes me as an odd cove and someone I could see falling-in with the anti-government obsessives on the right as well as the left; similarly I can’t imagine many on the socialist left being sympathetic to DSK.

There is, though, something that people tend to forget (or rather ignore) in the name of “political solidarity” and that’s that no one wears the white hat. The left has an awful lot of nasty people in its ranks, just as the right does.

Strange article.
Seems to targetting a diverse group, as silly associating Brevik with the all the groups of the right.
What about phone hacking, do we blame all right wing journalists for that practice.
Emma is looking for excuses to make that route from left to right.
Just go love, most do when they grow up.
It is a sad artice of stupid generalisations picked up by the usual right wing nuts or psuedo lefties (I am a leftie but )
As for Johann Hari, who cares ?
Hari despised Pilger and Castro.
I expect John is delighted at Hari’s misery.

I think also many have defended hari because of the ”’witch hunt”
Many of the right have defended Mel P because of the same reason.

@14

“if you don’t want educating don’t ask to be educated. If you want to criticise just criticise instead. That is allowed”

What on earth are you talking about? This article hasn’t educated me or anyone else for that matter.

“Pretending such a site is not a place for discussing “the left” is obviously just stupid”

In your haste to look like some Internet hard man, you make the classic mistake of presuming what I’m thinking. Bravo.

“Granted, you might be one such dummy. So fair enough. Maybe the left needs more disclaimers”

You’re projecting but you’re also forming judgements that are based on your own narrow understanding of what “left” actually means. Please don’t associate me with your crappy liberalism.

For the record @14, I don’t hero-worship anyone – especially those mentioned. How about you?

Who the f*** by the way hero worships Strauss
Who has defended him from the UK.
Maybe somebody has said he shouild only be judged as a human until AFTER the trial.
I would have thought his case will fall apart because the witness has lied to the prosecuters not due to left wing posters.
As for Assange, it is true what you say but what about the civil servent who gave documents to the telegraph about MP’s expenses. he certainly signed the official secrets act.

@buddyhell

buddyhell:
“The question is, who forms this “Left”?”

Margin4error:
“buddyhell

lots and lots of people – typically believing in things like redistrobution of wealth, internationalism, solidarity, etc…

Look up any GCSE politics text book for a better basic description of the left.”

buddyhell:
“I don’t need a lecture on the definition of the left. What I don’t appreciate are broad brush assumptions that are based on fundamental prejudices.”

Buddygell. You sir, are a cretin.

*buddyhell even

Also to get the thumbs up from Kojak ?
Well done

I do think, though, that you’re using the term “left” a bit generally. The far-left have never liked Hari; Assange strikes me as an odd cove and someone I could see falling-in with the anti-government obsessives on the right as well as the left; similarly I can’t imagine many on the socialist left being sympathetic to DSK.

I think this is a fair criticism. There is a danger with over-generalising. I doubt for e.g. many of the people who supported Jonnie Marbles were that sympathetic towards DSK or Assange to be honest…. or even Johann Hari! These are disparate groups, though I agree that sometimes people end up trying to defend complete idiots. But there are nuanced positions too. I thought JM’s sentence was too long, even if what he did was quite idiotic.

There is, though, something that people tend to forget (or rather ignore) in the name of “political solidarity” and that’s that no one wears the white hat. The left has an awful lot of nasty people in its ranks, just as the right does.
Good point but the UK left is probably a more argumentive organ than any other group of people I know.
The life of Brian “PLP splitters ” was a beautiful and true piece of satire
In fact I would say that the the UK left doesn’t have any any heroes.
Orwell maybe but he has many critics on the left.
The right has many golden cows such as thatcher and Churchill. You critisise them and wait for the Emma’s and kojaks of the world to come after you.

Not sure why any lefty is defending him anyway as May-Bowles isn’t ‘of the left’. He’s a middle-class pretend lefty being rebellious for a year or two. And a rather poor comedian.

I think the principle here is sound and timely. Lionising political figures insetad of admiring their arguments is as intellectually lazy and dangerous as ad hominem attacks on the people you don’t agree with.

Having said that, I share the reservations about whether it’s fair to associate this problem with “the left”. If anything, I wonder whether it’s more an issue for people who fall into the libertarian category, where it’s much easier to place Assange than anywhere on the elft-right spectrum. Perhaps if your core philosophy is resentment at being constrained by society, then extreme versions of that see any criticism of them/their allies as unacceptable oppression? Just a thought.

Not sure why any lefty is defending him anyway as May-Bowles isn’t ‘of the left’. He’s a middle-class pretend lefty being rebellious for a year or two. And a rather poor comedian

A pretty poor one at that but I think it is the length of his sentence that people find a little over the top. Considering crimes that occur and the sentences given.
I don’t think that is a left or right issue.

The point is that there are two, quite seperate Left Traditions & The One Labour is part of – The Statist, Authoritarian & Class-based Left has always been prey to Hero-worship & low level violence.
Look at the Worship of Skinner, Benn the elder, Chavez, Sheridan, Scargill, Crow etc etc.
Thuggishness was the thing that drove me out of Labour, its not going to go away.

The OP becomes much more entertaining if you mentally add the word “decent” in front of the word left.

Lionising political figures insetad of admiring their arguments is as intellectually lazy and dangerous as ad hominem attacks on the people you don’t agree with.
I would say Lionising is more a right wing phenomena
Just attack Thatcher, Churchill, or Reagan and wait for the rain of abuse.
Look at the support of Mel P in many threads.
Jealousy and point scoring amongst themselves is more of a UK leftie trait

“Thuggishness was the thing that drove me out of Labour, its not going to go away.”
I would imagine paying too much tax is the real reason.
I have attended some Labour party meetings for my job and they seemed the most inoffensive bunch of losers I have ever met. They made Alan Carr look like Jason Stathem

This article is predicated on several lies. I am a witness to the incident to which Ms Burnell refers in her first paragraph and I need to inform you all of several important facts which she omits:

1) This did not take place in a ‘public’ forum but on the facebook wall of the fiance of the so-called ‘thug’, a good friend of Jonnie Marbles. Many of us were not involved but saw the full extent of the dialogue.

2) The so-called ‘thug’ had never hit anyone or even threatened to hit anyone until the incident in question. In most people’s minds, a ‘thug’ is someone who commits actual acts of violence, rather than someone who loses their temper once on an internet forum, late at night, when confronted with what could only be described as trolling.

3) Ms Burnell’s husband posted derogatory and abusive personal remarks in the thread, which he subsequently and quickly deleted before taking a screen-shot of the thread. These had nothing to do with Jonnie Marbles but were directed at the fiance of the person on whose wall he was posting. Other people on the thread also expressed support for the sentence Jonnie received, but did so in a sensitive manner and did not manage to provoke any aggression.

4) Jonnie Marbles is not a ‘hero of the left’ but he does have personal friends, who were in a fairly emotional state on the day of his sentencing. For whatever reason, Ms Burnell’s husband chose to celebrate his sentence on the Facebook wall of a personal friend of Jonnie’s.

5) Last year, Ms Burnell’s husband and his cronies hurled a torrent of abuse at the so-called ‘thug’ on another (genuinely public) internet forum, because they disagreed with some views he had calmly expressed. The worst thing he called them, when goaded, was ‘credulous’.

This post is not about heroes, the left, or anything else, but just the continuation of a personal flame war, filled with inaccuracies, exaggerations and omissions. I am a regular reader of Liberal Conspiracy and would expect better.

Dear me Emma
What do you say to anonynony ?

Dominique Strauss-Kahn a hero to the left? The guy was head of the IMF and a big privatiser when he was in government in France.

A refreshing contribution. Thank you. I may not agree with everything you say, but your aspiration for integrity is most welcome.

Good piece, although I suspect a cheeky bit of editorialship in light of the “no true libertarian” debate going on elsewhere on this blog..

I’m just not sure that it’s limited to “the left”, I think all groups no matter political or social will inevitably have certain individuals that they rally round when under fire.
The difference I guess is that the left is more prone to in-fighting and gets very nasty when you don’t agree with X or Y. (I’m saying this because I’ve witnessed it myself, doubtless if I was on the right of the political spectrum I may think differently).

But good article nonetheless, a timely piece indeed.

But good article nonetheless, a timely piece indeed.
Why is it a good article.
1. The actual accusation of assault seems to be untrue.
2. Froggy has analysed her 4 heroes of the left and shown more holes in her argument than an Arsenal back four at a set piece

@41

I’m not going to get dragged into the “he said/she said” debate but the scenario depicted in the OP rings true with myself from personal experience and I daresay a lot of others as well.
And I’ve seen defences of/excuses for all of the people she mentions as “heroes” on this very blog, with the exception of DSK – although I know that in France some of the left are still calling conspiracy.
It’s fine to defend people from a neutral viewpoint but I fear people let their political views cloud their judgement – witness the mass hysteria & semantic disputes that happened when it came out that Assange may be a perpetrator of sexual violence. Some even said the women involved were CIA plants for goodness sake.

So yes, it is a good article. Too often lefties – and I include myself – try to brush this kindof thing under the carpet etc.

This is the most precious piece of rubbish I’ve ever read, and I think that if your husband believes a jail term is an appropriate punishment for a custard pie then he’s a fascist.

This has nothing to do with hero worship, it has to do with the fact that the police and the courts are criminalising protest at an alarming rate.

While I’m sure you find the prospect of protesters facing jail for their actions terribly honourable and romantic, it is absolutely unnecessary and an extremely disturbing development.

I like how some commentators are proving the OP’s point… *rolls eyes*

I’m not going to get dragged into the “he said/she said” debate but the scenario depicted in the OP rings true with myself from personal experience and I daresay a lot of others as well.
How do you Know she is telling te truth. I know if I was threatened I would call the police. Has her husband ?

And I’ve seen defences of/excuses for all of the people she mentions as “heroes” on this very blog, with the exception of DSK – although I know that in France some of the left are still calling conspiracy.
Good, it would be terrible in society that say Hari wasn’t defended. I don’t agree with the defence of Mel P but I was glad to see.

“It’s fine to defend people from a neutral viewpoint but I fear people let their political views cloud their judgement – witness the mass hysteria & semantic disputes that happened when it came out that Assange may be a perpetrator of sexual violence. Some even said the women involved were CIA plants for goodness sake.”

How do you know they were not but that isn’t the point. Democracy is dependent on views and defences been given . Also what right do have to say neutral. ALL people have their political views cloud their judgement, just to accuse one group of that part of human nature is stupid.
” So yes, it is a good article. Too often lefties – and I include myself – try to brush this kindof thing under the carpet etc.”
When do they brush things under the carpet.
By discussing, even defending assange, hari and others your are bringing the debate out into the open.
Read Froggy s comments Dr phil and it shows you that the many of the left have accused these so called heroes of the left. In the case of Hari were part of his downfall.

like how some commentators are proving the OP’s point… *rolls eyes*
This is the real danger, lack of debate.
Proving the point by disagreeing with her?
Surely the whole point of a thread was to open it up to debate not just agreeing with Emma’s view of the world.

[36] I am not friend of Johnny Marbles, in fact until foam-gate I had never even heard of him – even so I feel it is very wrong that we are now jailing those from the creative community who express political dissent in such a harmless way.

After all, the custard pie has a proud tradition, and in this case may be all the more appropriate given that this type of summary justice is the only sort that teflon coated characters like Rupert Murdoch are ever likely to receive?

As a matter of interest would Mr Burnell have championed a custodial sentence if it was a female comedienne – presumably he would advocate a life sentence for dangerous pie merchants like ‘the phantom flan flinger’ – from memory I cannot recall if the phantom tended to hang out with libertarians or commies?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPJ9a3JHfYE

Just to remind ourselves it is Rupert Murdoch who has been linked with years of widespread and high level corruption not an aspiring British comic – Johnny’s theatre should have been rewarded with a booking at the Edinburgh fringe, not a one way ticket to the Julian Assange suite at Wandsworth.

BTW I think the comments @36 are more intriguing than the general sentiments in the OP.

buddyhell

you asked “The question is, who forms this “Left”?”

I answered – and then you went on to complain about stuff, suggesting you didn’t want an answer, but simply wanted to criticise and had done so poorly.

buddyhell

which, as George pointed out – makes you a cretin.

@45

You’re missing the point. People should be allowed to having differences of opinion without threats of violence, or being called a “fascist” as our hyperbolic chum upthread does. I thought Jonathan May-Bowles was a plonker & set back protesting a lot, but I also didn’t think he deserved 6 weeks in the slammer – a community service stint would’ve been much more proportional – but I’m not going to shout down anyone who disagrees. Too often it seems (as with May-Bowles/Assane/Hari) that if you have a difference of opinion you’re somehow undermining the Left Wing Movement As We Know It and not showing valid #solidarity, and so on and so forth. Of course it happens within other groups but this is a left wing blog so the OP is fully within her rights to focus on the left! I don’t care about in-fighting on the right – frankly I wish they would do so more so they’d splinter & be as ineffective as possible – I do care when people I respect usually lose all sense of reason and proportion and shout down or threaten others simply because of a difference of opinion.

@46

“Proving the point by disagreeing with her?”

No, proving the point by calling anyone who agrees with May-Bowles prison sentence a “fascist”. Words are important, political ones especially, and deeming someone a supporter of fascism when unwarrented is plain nasty and libellous.

Not sure why I should have to defend myself (as the victim), but in the interests of putting the record straight, here goes:

anonynony:

1) Indeed. Juliet was a friend of mine on facebook, having recently directly message me to question my previous unfriending of her (see point 5)

2) Assault is defined as “a crime causing a victim to fear violence”. I certainly feared violence. I’m happy to describe anyone guilty of assault as a thug.

3) I do not have the thread to hand, but would be happy to paste its entire contents (up to the point when I unfriended Juliet on the understandable basis that her fiance was threatening to hospitalise me) here, when I get home this evening (I will obscure the names of others). From memory, I posted four comments (with absolutely no knowledge that Juliet or Chris were personal friends of “Jonnie Marbles – not that this would have changed my opinion). The first stated my opinion that six weeks seemed reasonable for pre-meditated assault, disrupting a parliamentary committee hearing – obviously at odds with Juliet’s original post, but intended in the spirit of friendly argument. The second was “oh dear” in response to Chris’s assertion that anyone who’s opinion on the matter was contrary to his own was “a twat” (in terms of abusive and derogatory remarks, “oh dear” seems a fairly mild response to being called a twat). The third was a joke that the whole thread seemed a bit like a parody. Slightly derogatory? Yes. Grounds for threats of violence? Definitely not. My final comment follwed Chris’s promise to show me what a real assault looked like, at which point I remembered my previous encounter with him (see point 5). I think I referred to him as a “9/11 nutter” (again, derogatory, personally abusive – though hardly more than most internet debates – but not really grounds for threats of violence), thanked him for the previous laughs he’d given me, but questioned the wisdom of making such threats on Facebook. After this, he restated the threat in stronger terms which was when I feared for my own safety and took a copy of the thread as evidence. I have no idea what you mean by “quickly deleted”, as I did no such thing (possibly they no longer appear on the thread after I unfriended Juliet?). I had nothing to hide and again, I’m happy to paste the thread in full.

4) Your definition of “celebrate” is rather at odds with the more usually understood meaning. Again, I’d have to check the exact wording, but I think it was along the lines of “six weeks seems reasonable”. My subsequent posts were a reaction Chris’s reaction. And again, why should I have known Juliet was a personal friend of “Jonny Marbles”?

5) It is news to me that I have “cronies”. I suspect by “his cronies” you mean “people who disagreed with Chris and found his arguments utterly laughable”, in which case I suspect I have rather a lot of cronies. Anyway, that thread in full: http://www.notbbc.co.uk/forums/pg=build&f=news&pid=41618&sno=7 A couple of points to note: i) Chris posted as sean_mcreen there. ii) NOTBBC, like a lot of internet forums has a kind of house style which is slightly abrasive. This, in the most part, is meant as fun, although can clearly be unsettling to newcomers. Perhaps I and others there should have been more tolerant and welcoming of Chris and his controversial views, but I think there are a number of reasons he could be assumed to have expected a rough ride there. Firstly, it soon became clear he was a friend of Juliet (a long-time poster) so it seems likely she’d have warned him what it was like there. Secondly, as a holder of his theories about 9/11, it’s almost certain he would have encountered hostility and derision of those views before. Thirdly, when posting in a forum for the first time, it’s common sense to at least read the thread you’re posting in, which would have made it clear that the majority there were (to put it mildly) sceptical of 9/11 conspiracy theories. Regardless, I don’t have time (or frankly inclination) to read that whole thread again now myself, but despite the tone used, my comments there were borne out of incredulity and amusement Chris’s thoughts on 9/11 (and specifically the way he had implied that his socialising with the site owner – lovely chap who attended our wedding, incidentally – leant his comments enhanced credibility) rather than any personal malice. However, I’ll hold my hands up and apologise belatedly if any of my comments there caused genuine offence, as that was absolutely not intended. (I think this is borne out by the fact that Juliet still clearly wanted to be friends with me.) On the other hand, I can state confidently that at no point in that discussion did I threaten Chris with violence. I haven’t posted on NOTBBC for several months now, so any “cronies” there now are not mine.

Does the left have a conciseness problem?

[50] “People should be allowed to having differences of opinion without threats of violence, or being called a “fascist” – I strongly agree about the violence although the nature of any threat (in this case) rather depends on which version of events is actually true (36 vs OP).

On the other hand it is virtually impossible to get past more than three or four threads on LC without somebody or other being accused of being a fascist – on one rather heated thread I was even called “enemy of the people” by one regular LC contributor, blimey, “enemy of the people”.

But as we all know armchair warriors occasionally get carried away during a flame war and I wonder if this what happened, rather than the chilling vignette contained in the first few paragraphs of the OP?

You’re missing the point. People should be allowed to having differences of opinion without threats of violence, or being called a “fascist” as our hyperbolic chum upthread does. I thought Jonathan May-Bowles was a plonker & set back protesting a lot, but I also didn’t think he deserved 6 weeks in the slammer – a community service stint would’ve been much more proportional – but I’m not going to shout down anyone who disagrees.
Who is shouting anyone down ?
If you read @36 it seems Emma and her hubby does her fair share of shouting down.

Too often it seems (as with May-Bowles/Assane/Hari) that if you have a difference of opinion you’re somehow undermining the Left Wing Movement As We Know It and not showing valid #solidarity, and so on and so forth.
That is my point the left has not defended these individuals ad hoc. Some have and that is their right. Would you really like a world where the likes of Hari were not defended. As I have said before read @11

Of course it happens within other groups but this is a left wing blog so the OP is fully within her rights to focus on the left! I don’t care about in-fighting on the right – frankly I wish they would do so more so they’d splinter & be as ineffective as possible – I do care when people I respect usually lose all sense of reason and proportion and shout down or threaten others simply because of a difference of opinion.
Is it really a left of centre site, most of the posters seem to be rightists. As for shouting down, on a site, please. That is a little precious.
Also if you are threatened by anyone go to the police.
Also Dr Phil I agree with you on many of your comments but I have the right to disagree with you on this issue. that is democracy

Nik
Have reported it to the police ?

sorry
Have you reported it to the police ?

@52

2) Assault is defined as “a crime causing a victim to fear violence”. I certainly feared violence. I’m happy to describe anyone guilty of assault as a thug.

Interesting use of the word ‘guilty’ in your comment there Judge Dread.

‘It affects our ability to present ourselves as critical thinkers. Capable of rational judgement. If we lose that we lose our ability to convince people of the worth of our arguments.’

I can see how in the mind of so-called ‘rational’ people, those critical beings who only ever have the soundest of judgement, there is a tendency to prefer the compartimentalising of thought between intellect OR emotion.

I admire Assange, i despise Dominique Strauss-Kahn. I am aware that this could lead to an emotional lack of objectivity in my judgement, and so i am ultra-scrupulous in seeking out as much factual, unbiased evidence before reaching my own conclusions. No matter what anyone says, ultimately the only people who know the truth are the parties involved.

In light of this, i come to a far from one-dimensional view of my ‘hero’, Assange. I personally do not buy into the notion of him as a rapist, yet i accept he behaved like an ungentlemanly dick-head. as for DSK, my emotions are too strongly biased against him to be objective, so i resist the temptation to pass easy judgement. Johnnie Marbles was the light-relief moment and for that alone can be appreciated rather than admired.

I think it should be possible to form sound judgements and use the facility of critical thinking as well as intuition and emotion. I sense in your comments a certain disdain towards the emotional component that lies behind all so-called rational thinking, as if to deny it. Behind all the Machiavellian sophistry in the world, the fact that emotions are the driving force of all judgement and critical thinking, must be recognised

Guttman re comment 20:
Good point – I’m sure you’ll be heartened to hear I concur.

Sunny re comment 27:
If we’re on the subject of over-generalisation, my contribution towards defining who is on the left (+ by the same token, who is on the right):
On the left = People who buy The Guardian and The Independent
On the right = people who buy The Daily Mail, The Express, The Telegraph and The Times.
A far from precise definition, which few will agree with, but that’s fine by me.

In my opinion Johny Marbles deserved to be given a custodial sentence for these reasons:
1. His pie protest was an assault on an old man and just because he was so inept that it didn’t actually hit Murdoch in the face is hardly a defence, no matter what his lawyers might like us to think.
2. He bragged about it in a Guardian article before sentencing.
3. He turned up to court wearing the same scruff checked shirt and casual trousers, thereby implying he wasn’t taking it seriously.
4. His ‘protest’ interrupted and changed the mood of the proceedings, allowing Murdoch off the hook, even giving him the chance to appear dignified.
Well, by now he’s probably grown accustomed to his cell mate’s ‘mutton dagger’ – so the joke is truely on him.

I’m not certain whether his friends would be capable posing a convincing threat (over FaceBook?) if they are anything line him, but it points towards the advantages of posting using a moniker rather than real name.

[60] “His ‘protest’ interrupted and changed the mood of the proceedings, allowing Murdoch off the hook” – I had no idea a bit of foam could produce such devastating consequences.

I’m sure the phantom flan flinger was no respecter of age during the weekly mayhem he caused on tiswas?
As I remember it even oldies simply wiped away the foam before letting of a volley of their own during the phantom’s crazed antics – yet the digger, a man said to have enough power to have political leaders (and half our print media) trembling in their boots was reduced to a jelly by an unanticipated exposure to a marginally higher volume of stuff he uses to shave with every morning ?

BTW – I never let opportunity slip to remind commentators how one of our finest play writes delivered this fine riposte to the digger’s methods.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnVrK38xI-A

Taking the general premise (rather than nitpicking over whether or not certain people are popular among the left) this is a good article, and contains a lot of things that ought to be said more often.

Apparently, there’s a human tendency that means if you rate someone or something as “positive” on one metric – in this case, based on their political views matching yours – you’re likely to adjust your opinion of them upwards on all other factors as well. So if you think someone is a brilliant political figure you’re likely to assume that they also couldn’t be the sort of person who could do bad things. Add to that the instinct to try to protect people on your side, regardless of whether the specific accusations are valid, and you can see where this sort of thing comes from.

None of this is specific to the left, of course; everyone does it.

Taking the general premise (rather than nitpicking over whether or not certain people are popular among the left) this is worst,article,evah. It relies on “Some people on the Left” are saying things in support of the media devils of the moment. Take that away and there’s just the same contentious farrago of nonsense as the personal part of the post; or maybe I’m so unjustified and ancient that when I see “threatened in a public forum” I’m expecting more Julius Caesar than Frankie Howard. But nay,nay and thrice nay, it’s just Something Wrong on The Internet again.

Does the left have a sense of priorities?

As my original (admittedly less than civil) comment was deleted, i’d like to express myself once more in less ribald terms. I was just wondering in what absolutely bizarre alternate world a head of the IMF could be considered a ‘hero of the left’? This is straw man nonsense from beginning to end, of the kind that might be considered too asinine for the comment pages of the Mail or Express.

99% of commentary on the Assange issue has not been based around the idea that someone supposedly ‘left-wing’ (as if there is anything inherently left wing about leaking government secrets) is therefore holy and wholly infallible. The willingness to at least entertain the not entirely implausible scenario of character assassination in the case of someone who has made an enemy of powerful intelligence agencies does not convert an entire, extremely broad church of political thinkers into deranged recidivist lefty-rape enablers.

As for mr marbles, i have not heard a single left comment in his support, most people were annoyed that he had taken the heat off the Lizard of Oz.

I actually find pretend ‘left’-whingers like this strange woman to be by far the greatest threat to the health of our public discourse, way above the loony tory sociopath hobgoblins that haunt every crevice of the politically tinged internet.
Hollow.

…of course we can also add that, the ‘right’ (hate these silly labels, but still) have been firmly in power across most of the world for some time now, (in the majority of places pretty much since the dawn of history, until a little warm gap or two in the not so distant past).

So left wingers tend to inherently run against the interests of the powerful. Therefore when they stick their heads above the parapet and become in any way prominent (and therefore represent any kind of threat) do tend to be the immediate targets of sustained and relentless attack, by all the organs at the disposal of the powerful, whether by media, police, or even army (when things are looking real bad, meaning good for most people). This usually means character assassination at the very least, and occasionally, in the wrong place at the wrong time, death.

This doesn’t tend to be soooo much of a problem for the ‘right’ (unless it’s an internal score-settling issue of course).

to the commenter who said that “people on the left usually buy the guardian and the independent, whereas the people on the right buy the mail, the express and the times” that is a shockingly derivative and simplistic way of looking at things, which made me laugh out loud when I read it. You’re talking about liberals, you’re not talking about the left. First of all, are you aware that the Guaridan supported the liberal democrats during the election, you know, one of the parties that is in the government, carrying out some of the worst cuts in living memory? I seem to remember people on this website supporting the lib-dems as well? Would you say that Mary Dejevsky is left-wing having published articles defending Putin and Rupert Murdoch??

I’m still waiting to hear examples of people on the “left” defending DSK. I’m active in a Trot party and while quite a few people think that Assange is, or may be innocent (I don’t, and I don’t defend him) most people in my party, and most people on the left-wing and anarchist scene, view DSK and his ilk, his actions, and the organisation he has led, with complete, total disgust, revulsion and horror, no matter how “socialist” he may say he is.

In the light of subsequent comments displaying such complete ignorance, saying that left-wing opinions are defined by what newspapers people read, or the like, I’m not surprised that the person who wrote the OP was confused enough about what “the left” think to write this, if the comments on here are anything to go by??

In fact I would say that ALL people in the party I’m in and ALMOST EVERYONE on the left is disgusted by DSK and his behaviour and actions, so I don’t know who these mysterious left-wing DSK lovers are unless someone can point me to a specfic example of it ??

http://flyingrodent.blogspot.com/2011/03/fool-me-twenty-seven-times-shame-on.html#links

To which I can only say Oh, really? Because I recall that, when I believed that invading, bombing or occupying all those countries was basically insane, pundits from right across the political spectrum suddenly told me that THE LEFT had gone insane and should be ashamed of itself. When I believed that, say, attempts to bomb antisemitism and support for terrorism out of Beirut and Gaza were doomed to murderous failure, cries from all corners insisted that the real problem was TWO BLOKES AND A DOG who thought terrorism and racism were just fine.

And so on: control orders, Pakistan, the financial disaster and Libya, to pick a few random issues, and now, the Tories’ cuts. All somehow revealed that some nebulous LEFT that doesn’t appear to possess any political power at all beyond the ability to print articles in low-circulation newspapers was the heart of the problem.

I hate to say it, but it is sort of starting to look like this awful, despicable left is little more than a stick that a bunch of people with a very narrow range of political beliefs beat dissenters with. I throw it out there, for discussion.

Fairly relevant to the discussion at hand I’d have thought.

. In most people’s minds, a ‘thug’ is someone who commits actual acts of violence, rather than someone who loses their temper once on an internet forum, late at night, when confronted with what could only be described as trolling.

If your mate acts like a twat late at night on the internet like some thug – then people are perfectly within their rights to call him a thug.

Rather than whining ‘anonynony’ – tell your mate to stop making threats and acting like that. He should be lucky he was not actually reported to the police.

Johnny Marbles has a friend in Fleet Street;

“Free the Foam Pie One. The man who thrust a plate of foam into Rupert Murdoch’s face, and so added to the sum of human gaiety without harming a soul, should not be in prison.”

That’s from Peter Hitchens in the Mail on Sunday (you never quite know which way he’ll jump!)

Money makes the world go around Hari wrote great articles and of course moved up the ladeer of writers, now the ladder has been removed but the higher up up you go the great the money..

Assange’s again it’s about him getting his site moved up the ladder of the money markets he may well have sold it for millions.

Very little is free these days people do things for money, always have.

As for the left what left, the word left now would mean Edward Heath, even Maggie Thatcher after Blair Brown and Miliband, left means slighly to the right.

I think acting like a twat on the internet is a leeeeeeeeeeeeeedle different to assaulting somebody, tbh, not that Mr Marbles is anything other than an idiot,

If your mate acts like a twat late at night on the internet like some thug – then people are perfectly within their rights to call him a thug.

Sure, but not react in the same way as if he was waving an actual physical fist in your actual physical face.

@ 63 skidmarx

“Taking the general premise (rather than nitpicking over whether or not certain people are popular among the left) this is worst,article,evah. It relies on “Some people on the Left” are saying things in support of the media devils of the moment.”

It certainly doesn’t prove (or even attempt to demonstrate) that this is a problem specific to the left. And it isn’t – this article would be better if left/right politics were left out, or perhaps if it said “this is a problem with human nature in general; here’s how it specifically harms the left”. If it was published on a right-wing blog I’d be arguing that it showed selective blindness of the very kind it seeks to expose.

Nevertheless, it makes good points. We shouldn’t blindly defend our allies, or refuse to admit that they can have flaws. It’s contrary to a sensible discussion.

They’re not allies.