Twitter was David’s public platform and tools for practicing a new language – clear and understandable for everyone, it was a space where he made friends and enemies.

Tweets 7,501 Replies 51,144 Retweets 24,559 Everything 83,204
Thu 6 Aug 2020 11:16

@failedanarchist @SusiePeaceCora I wrote a little essay describing this as a technique fit discrediting dissidents and a veritable lynch mob of liberals descended on me engaged in purely personal attacks. They kept it up for years

Thu 6 Aug 2020 11:14

@failedanarchist @SusiePeaceCora The most extreme example was a guy called Henry Farrell who write a “review” of debt as part of a Crooked Timber forum with obvious errors like saying I never quoted any sources for a passage in fact introduced by a block quote from one of said sources

Thu 6 Aug 2020 11:12

@failedanarchist @SusiePeaceCora I usually block trolls quickly but it always surprises you when you see it coming from someone whose work you otherwise respect

Thu 6 Aug 2020 10:56

@failedanarchist @SusiePeaceCora since I’d assumed that game of bait & denounce was basically something fascists do, it had never occurred to me that a comrade would be intentionally doing it to me. But in fact such practices have been commonplace, especially in the circles he’s now in

Thu 6 Aug 2020 10:54

@failedanarchist @SusiePeaceCora apparently it was bait, because what followed was this weird explosion “what on earth is wrong with you David? You used to write interesting theory but now all you do is scream & yell denouncing anyone who’s in any way critical of you!” Ie, I need to see a shrink…”

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Thu 6 Aug 2020 10:53

@failedanarchist @SusiePeaceCora I observed Doug Henwood do this to me, he kept repeating over & over I’d met with the board of Federal Reserve. I explained each time no I just met some kid who did public education there. The third time I asked “why do you keep repeating this Doug? I’ve corrected you twice.”

Thu 6 Aug 2020 10:51

@failedanarchist @SusiePeaceCora right-wingers do this to their enemies all the time, but I’ve only observed lefties doing it to each other. I..e, intentionally introducing obvious mistakes into a summary of another lefties’ work, so as to draw her out to complain, then all scream she “can’t take criticism”

Thu 6 Aug 2020 10:49

@failedanarchist @SusiePeaceCora maybe it isn’t hatred, but it’s an attempt to personalise politics in the most destructive way possible, especially because if it’s say Jacobin types, there’s always a chorus of supporters who shows up who taunt & mock the victim

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Thu 6 Aug 2020 10:48

@failedanarchist @SusiePeaceCora ie, many on the left have borrowed trolling tactics first developed by the right to use vs lefties, to use vs other lefties: i.e., try to get a rise out of someone by sneaky means then if the target objects to the means, make a big issue of their supposed personality flaws

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Thu 6 Aug 2020 10:45

@failedanarchist @SusiePeaceCora Normally I don’t like using it either. But I’ve noticed so much personal nastiness & rancor in so many ostensibly political attacks & couldn’t see any other appropriate word.

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Thu 6 Aug 2020 10:44

RT @micmac9: Bit late to the party, but this felt like maybe one of the most important books I’ve ever read. Highly recommend and thanks @d…

Thu 6 Aug 2020 09:18

@dwinnera @davidschneider 3000 news stories about Labour antisemitism in one year, zero news stories about Tory AS despite the fact their party leader had written an overtly antisemitic book

Thu 6 Aug 2020 09:17

RT @mood_work: 📝Savez-vous ce qu’est un “bullshit job” ? 📝 Pour David Graeber, cela désigne les emplois n’apportant aucune contribution à…

Thu 6 Aug 2020 09:06

RT @St1bs: @CurtisMorgan_ @mankymam @davidgraeber @Hepworthclare Exactly this. I’m not even on the hard left of the party. I’d have given h…

Thu 6 Aug 2020 08:54

@willhuw @UKLabour you are thinking specifically of Labour politics & what you say is largely true but its irrelevant; my step-son lives in Germany & watches US-based youtube a lot, he’s not talking about party politics anyway

Wed 5 Aug 2020 23:32

@otterjm Fwiw, full-stop came first, and the one I tweeted was actually responding to it.

Wed 5 Aug 2020 21:40

@james_e_baldwin @SusiePeaceCora these are utterly legitimate differences, which can be argued politically. That’s not what they chose to do though. They were just completely personally nasty, & what I got was nothing compared to some others I won’t name

Wed 5 Aug 2020 21:24

@james_e_baldwin @SusiePeaceCora oh they set themselves up as the anti-OWS left so they made me the totemic figure to represent whatever they thought OWS stood for (horizontality, prefiguration, refusal to legitimate the formal political sphere)

Wed 5 Aug 2020 21:22

RT @rattlecans: They’ve turned contact tracing during a deadly pandemic into a fuckin govt-milkin’ #BullshitJob Jist… FUCK SAKE!! https…

Wed 5 Aug 2020 21:20

@wirralphil1 groups & tendencies that are almost uniformly hateful & insulting to myself personally: Jacobin, Libcom, Insurrectionists, Zerzanites, “Anti-imperialists”, anyone who comments on AnarchyNews…

Wed 5 Aug 2020 21:17

@FalanxZ it’s not data. I’m sorry. I have been doing this stuff for decades now. I’ve become an object of a kind of totemic hate-cult by more groups & factions than I can name, & I haven’t got it particularly harshly

Wed 5 Aug 2020 21:15

RT @davidgraeber: @SusiePeaceCora I have so many factions & tendencies that just HATE me, for example. Everyone from tankies to primitivist…

Wed 5 Aug 2020 21:15

@SusiePeaceCora I have so many factions & tendencies that just HATE me, for example. Everyone from tankies to primitivists to the Jacobin crew. But if I were just to say “they aren’t really lefties” for that reason, i’d just be playing the same game

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Wed 5 Aug 2020 21:13

@mankymam @Hepworthclare well maybe they just observe the other side never accepted Corbyn & actively subverted him & won total victory as a result, with Starmer, so that’s just how the game is played now.

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Wed 5 Aug 2020 20:59

@Bipolarita well it’s a nice performative speech act but it doesn’t make it true. The level of hatred I’ve received from fellow lefties over the years is beyond imagination.

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Wed 5 Aug 2020 20:55

@comhbha there’s a big difference between question, debate and argue, and pillory, mock, denounce, and condemn.

Wed 5 Aug 2020 20:53

@PownallHarris sure feels like hate when you’re on the receiving end. Yeah, the Jacobin folks definitely love to hate on me. “Anti-imperialists” who accuse me of being a tool of NATO or worse, yeah, they act as if they hate me … The anarchs-primitivists or insurrectionists on anarchy news…