Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: A Taxonomy of Poo

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  • Russell Brown,

    I'd agree with what Paul said, but note that the extreme left already has its own extensive set of poo labels drawn from particular understandings (or misunderstandings) of Marxist theory, as funneled through innumerable parties and organisations over the last century.

    And again, we come back to the stylistic and rhetorical links between the extreme left of yore and the poo-flingers of the 21st Century. They are the embarrassing Marxists of their age.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    I'm sure it's targets will simply dismiss it as yet another example of the hegemony defending itself ...

    Yeah, right -- like they'd use a lesbian commie word like "hegemony".

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • simon g,

    Winnie, the poo label ...

    (sorry)

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1333 posts Report Reply

  • Danielle,

    - oppressor
    - imperialist
    - comprador
    - puppet
    - revisionist
    - capitulationist
    - right deviationist/left deviationist
    - social imperialist/socialist imperialist (applied by China to Soviet Union)
    - black elements
    - rightist/capitalist restorationist (Chinese campaigns 1950s/60s)
    - saboteurs/wreckers (Stalinist era purges)

    Many of these sound better when preceded by 'running dog'.

    Charo World. Cuchi-cuchi!… • Since Nov 2006 • 3828 posts Report Reply

  • Sam F,

    To be honest, I think these comments are his true calling and blogging is for Danyl like an indie band "going commercial". His true fans reject the move.

    So, so true. In Danyl's absence, commenting on TBR.cc is like playing a warmup set for a main act that never arrives.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1611 posts Report Reply

  • Sam F,

    Can I just say I'm quite happy with how we've ended up with such a useful and expressive term as "poo labels".

    I appreciate its evocation of a whole complex of rejection, loathing and fear of contamination - as well as its implication of general barely-concealed monkeyhood in those who fling poo labels around.

    Many of these sound better when preceded by 'running dog'.

    Go read 1950s or 1960s journals and books from socialist nations and you'll be amazed at how many of these labels can be shoehorned into one groaning sentence. And I agree with you that 'running dog' adds a nice tone, but it gets old fast. Trust me on this.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1611 posts Report Reply

  • Sam F,

    Oooo, thanks Lyndon! 'Corporate' is a must-have poo label on the left-wing side of the ledger, although it seems to be a fairly recent usage - I'm probably betraying the age of the materials I studied in leaving that one out.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1611 posts Report Reply

  • KevinHicks,

    That is Stoddard's very tongue in cheek application for sycophant of the year. It should see him move up the pbulic seervice very rapidly. What esle is a VUW pol studies graduate to do? Be objective? Yeah ...

    Auckland • Since Sep 2007 • 67 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    They've now noticed over at SOLO Passion.

    Intriguingly, they're all in fits over the academic language, but seem to find nothing untoward in the crazy-assed stuff Stoddart quotes.

    Oh, and Perigo is evidently in the throes of his latest crypto-Marxist deunciation fit. Currently, it's fellow libertarian Richard Goode, who I presume has been a splittist or a traitor or something. Whatever, priceless.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    That is Stoddard's very tongue in cheek application for sycophant of the year. It should see him move up the pbulic seervice very rapidly. What esle is a VUW pol studies graduate to do? Be objective? Yeah ...

    Cool! It's a test!

    How many poo labels can you count, kids?

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Danyl Mclauchlan,

    Well shucks guys <blushes>. Right now my blogging isn't really angry enough - I'm hoping to come into my own when National swings into power and starts privatising our internal organs.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 927 posts Report Reply

  • noizyboy,

    "child molesters of the mind", "coven of left-wing witches", "man-hating lesbians", "parasitical ignoramuses", "snivelling, whining socialists", "stench", "stooge", "stranglehold", "strident", "turning hospitals into a gulag"

    Surely he just copy'n'pasted a Redbaiter comment from Kiwiblog?

    wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 171 posts Report Reply

  • Lucy Stewart,

    It seems that when you combine the word 'lesbian' with 'socialist', talkback audiences are somehow struck with contradictory impressions of sexual deviance, sexual puritanism and obsessive control over private lives. Or at least, that's what I got from the paper.

    There's also the underlying implication that teh wimmenz are running around doing things without any need for men whatsoever - it's tapping into talkback callers' fear that they're unnecessary and irrelevant. Which, incidentally, is why lesbianism/bisexuality is considered perfectly acceptable by certain areas of society when it is explicitly being displayed for the approval of heterosexual men (two girls are hot, yadda yadda) but becomes frightening and deviant when it isn't. It's all about power and control.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report Reply

  • Angus Robertson,

    Also, your argument only works because you invented something for me to say in the qualifier "when offering criticism of a government".

    I think your work in the 1990s was mostly critical of the National government. Perigo was a libertarian critical of drug, prostitution & (strangely enough) gender-orientation policy of that government. For him to have suggested you might be interested in joining the libenz, you surely would have spent a fair bit of time agreeing in these criticisms of the government. Find it hard to believe you were asked to join after discussing tax rates, privatisation or welfare.

    What are the conservative or right-wing equivalent poo labels that lefties use?

    Ruthanasia

    Auckland • Since May 2007 • 984 posts Report Reply

  • andrew llewellyn,

    Can I just say I'm quite happy with how we've ended up with such a useful and expressive term as "poo labels".

    Winnie, the poo label ...

    (sorry)

    Quite. It all reminded me of poohsticks

    Since Nov 2006 • 2075 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    Surely he just copy'n'pasted a Redbaiter comment from Kiwiblog?

    Now that I read it again, I am minded to make of it a poem.

    **Poo**

    Stench
    Stooge
    Stranglehold
    Strident

    Snivelling, whining socialists

    I have to go off to my debate soon, but readers are invited to spend the rest of the afternoon making poems from the words they find.

    There will be coffee for the best poem.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Idiot Savant,

    the extreme left

    You forgot the qualification "all three of them (and they're having a schism)".

    Which is a roundabout way of saying that you should be comparing apples with apples. What's scary about the Kiwiblog right and associated poo-flingers is just how mainstream (for want of a better word) they've become. Whereas Marxist clades - the only people who use the language you gave as examples - are very much on the fringes of the left's conversations, trapped in their own little bubbles of ideological purity, schism, and denunciation (great example - involving apples, even - here).

    Palmerston North • Since Nov 2006 • 1717 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    For him to have suggested you might be interested in joining the libenz, you surely would have spent a fair bit of time agreeing in these criticisms of the government. Find it hard to believe you were asked to join after discussing tax rates, privatisation or welfare.

    You assume so much! From memory, we discussed education, property rights and gun control.

    I put it to him that if he held property and contract to be sacrosanct, and to be protected from state harm at all costs, he should surely be marching alongside Maori in support of their right to reclaim the private property taken from them by the state. It didn't seem to sink in.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    great example - involving apples, even - here)

    I had to quote it ...

    RAM is a Granny Smith apple -green on the outside, white on the inside. The sad remnants of Socialist Worker are a Braeburn apple - red on the outside, white on the inside. The Workers Party is a tomato - red all the way through, and proud of it. We intend to keep it that way.

    Fabulous.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart,

    The Workers Party is a tomato - red all the way through, and proud of it. We intend to keep it that way.

    Brilliant! They're red, squishy, are actually a fruit, and bring me out in a horrible rash.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • Caleb D'Anvers,

    And again, we come back to the stylistic and rhetorical links between the extreme left of yore and the poo-flingers of the 21st Century. They are the embarrassing Marxists of their age.

    Which makes sense, considering how many prominent local right wingers started out on the furthest fringes of the Left. Deborah Coddington, Peter Verschaffelt, Tim Shadbolt, and Don Brash were all members of various '60s radical movements, weren't they? And of course Perigo himself grew up in a Communist household.

    One might be forgiven for thinking of youthful Marxism as a kind of warning sign of impending trouble.

    London SE16 • Since Mar 2008 • 482 posts Report Reply

  • Idiot Savant,

    Ruthanasia

    Now we're talking. I raise you "Rogernomics" and "Revolution".

    While I am no-doubt going to be suffering from a hefty-wallop of self-blindness (though at least I can acknowledge that), I find it difficult to see the level of sheer pooiness in the left's discourse. And the words the right would probably like to claim are poo-lables ("privatisation", "tax cuts for the rich", "inequality") are both well short of the frothing we see over there, and actual descriptions rather than sheer hyperbolic invective.

    Palmerston North • Since Nov 2006 • 1717 posts Report Reply

  • Sam F,

    Which is a roundabout way of saying that you should be comparing apples with apples. What's scary about the Kiwiblog right and associated poo-flingers is just how mainstream (for want of a better word) they've become. Whereas Marxist clades - the only people who use the language you gave as examples - are very much on the fringes of the left's conversations, trapped in their own little bubbles of ideological purity, schism, and denunciation.

    I'd agree with that. Partly I suppose it's because the Kiwiblog right - or, as I like to call it, the lumpencommentariat - has more or less grown as a response to the realities of the last twenty years, whereas the hardcore Marxist clades have more or less been left behind by political language. Call them oxbow lakes left by a shifting river of public discourse.

    Unfortunately, they're still trying to catch up to modern life, as a casual visit to UnityBlog often confirms. Personally, I have equal distaste for poo labels from both left and right, even if the throwers on the left are fewer,and their poo labels a bit ossified and crumbly.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1611 posts Report Reply

  • Kyle Matthews,

    Quite. It all reminded me of poohsticks

    Love this rather underdone statement on that wikipedia page:

    A member of the team from the Czech Republic which won the team event in 2004 explained the winning technique to Jonathan Hancock in an interview on BBC Radio Oxford: he looked to see which part of the river was fastest, and threw the stick in there.

    All class.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report Reply

  • Kyle Matthews,

    Which makes sense, considering how many prominent local right wingers started out on the furthest fringes of the Left. Deborah Coddington, Peter Verschaffelt, Tim Shadbolt, and Don Brash were all members of various '60s radical movements, weren't they? And of course Perigo himself grew up in a Communist household.

    Wikipedia doesn't say anything about Coddington in the 60s, but she was a teenager then.

    I don't think Don Brash was involved in any 60s radical movement. In the early 60s he was studying at ANU. In the late 60s he was working at the World Bank. His father was a pacifist however, and protested against Waitangi Day.

    Peter I know nothing about. Shadbolt was around various movements, but he wasn't a member of PYM from memory.

    The 'was radical left when they were young and now are hard right' is an often-stated, rarely true thing, particularly in NZ. Donna Awatere is one of the few.

    There's some USA 1960s lefties who ended up working with Reagan, but that relates more to the slightly different nature of 1960s radicalism - lots of them were libertarians, either hard left, or hard right.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report Reply

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