Billy Bragg getting challenged in the Observer

[GrimbutGerbil]

By a male journalist…

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/apr/28/billy-bragg-interview-progressive-patriot?CMP=twt_a-music_b-gdnmusic

If we're going to disagree with people just so we don't "legitimize" their other views, even if the thing we agree on is true and important, we're basically screwed as a society.

I think a lot of people, and especially ones his age, have invested a lot of their identity in being rebel progressives. They don't actually avoid conservative ideas because they think they're wrong, it's because they would be embarrassed. It's lame.

I also think that this attitude, which is shockingly common among progressives, shows that they are in reality very unsure of their own positions.

The fact is, if I am watching something by some person or group I don't share much political ground with normally, or get to know some of those people, it is possible I will stop and think, maybe these guys are wrong about a lot, but they are not actually acting out of selfish motives, evil. Maybe they aren't entirely motivated by sexism or racism or whatever it is I've told myself before.

They may have reasons beyond that for their views. Maybe I'll wonder what they are, that they have come to such a differernt conclusion than me and look into it.

I think Billy Bragg and his type are totally terrified of people doing that. I have to ask, why? Why don't they have any confidence in their own positions and arguments?

Fantastic article, thanks for posting it.

Bragg is a one man peaking machine. He is not a useful addition to the TRA cause at all.

It reminds me of a TV debate I did back with Red Wedge; on one side of the table was me, Jerry Dammers and Clare Short, and on the other Stewart Copeland, a Tory MP called Greg Knight and Chris Dean from the Redskins. Now, me and Chris had toured during the miners’ strike, but I looked at Chris, and pointed to who he was sitting with, and told him he was on the wrong side of the table. And that’s what I see with Rowling and the others: they are on the wrong side of the table.”

This may be the dumbest thing I have read all week

Then again, it may be this from Owen Jones

THERE’S a good rule in politics which has served me well. Let’s call it the Dora Gaitskell Rule. Dora was the wife of then-Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell. After a fiery speech at a Labour Party conference in 1962 opposing the UK entering the European Economic Community, she turned to him and said: “All the wrong people are cheering.”

As the Scottish Government is enveloped in crisis, that is what is happening here. Those cheering in this case include, variously, Tories, right-wing agitators, Muslim haters, and people obsessed with the existence of trans people. If they’ve got cause to be chirpy, the political situation undoubtedly gets two thumbs down from me.

https://www.thenational.scot/politics/24282585.owen-jones-wrong-people-cheering-snp-crisis/

“The first Rock Against Racism concert [in 1978] was the spark for me,” he says now. “It was all there ready, but I needed to see those 80,000 kids just like me in Victoria Park [in east London]. On that day, my generation found our issue, as the previous generations had with Vietnam and CND. And it was to end discrimination of all kinds. Not just racism, but homophobia – we would be the generation that defeated apartheid and supported Pride.”

Rock Against Racism was great but what does he even mean by "we would be the generation that defeated apartheid".

Apartheid was defeated by the struggles of black people in South Africa, it seems a bit wrong to start claiming credit simply for attending concerts

What a strange litmus test OJ is using there. Presumably ' the wrong people cheering' , if one is a supporter of Gaitskell , would be the left wing of the Labour Party.

This may be the dumbest thing I have read all week

Then again, it may be this from Owen Jones

It's a photo-finish! 😁

Both useful illustrations of guilt by association, tribalism, and dumb-fuckery.

absolutely not. any event in the cunt Olympics is always won by Talcum-you know this, right?

The truly dumb thing about OJ's Dora Gaitskell rule is that is no evidence she applied it. She may have meant that the cheering would make her think again but does not mean she went in for the simplistic OJ nonsense of just doing the opposite because of the cheering and not even listening to the argument

Howvever Billy Bragg's statement was even more stupid as the only thing he says about Chris Dean is that he sat on the wrong side of the table. He does not explain why or what the argument as about just 'gotcha' you are on the wrong side of the table!

Billy Bragg agrees with Theresa May, Maria Millar, Penny Mordaunt, Crispin Blunt...
Does that make Billy Bragg a right-winger, then?

No. Just that all the unrelated weak examples don't add up to an argument for anything.

Even if I take that at face value, that 15,000 is less than one tenth of the crowd-funded (average donation around 25) costs of Maya’s or Allison’s employment tribunals- which are far more important legally.

I'm with you, saw him a couple of years ago and he was sharp and clever on stage and did a fantastic updated version of New England and spoke very well.

I am aligned with his thinking on a fair few issues the big exception being his appalling anti women's rights stance (he might see it as pro-trans 😉)

Does this mean that for everyone else who agrees with me on women's rights as a GC woman, but on nothing else at all (eg, Tory voters) think that my GC comments should be ignored because on other issues I'm sitting at the same table as Bragg (and JKR et al)? Or do we grown-ups understand there is nuance and the enemy of my enemy is not generally my friend by any stretch of the imagination.

I'm disappointed in him. Interesting take on Ash Sakar tho. Isn't he a millionaire by now too?

I read that article. It's an interesting premise and I'll look into the allegations further.

What it isn't, is relevant to this discussion. It's overwhelmingly about abortion and reproductive rights. Trans is mentioned once, in the context of 'trans national'. Single sex provision isn't mentioned at all. Neither is child safeguarding.

Trying to say that women in the UK digging into their own pockets to support Rachel Meade, for example, are in any way connected to the far right on the basis of one piece about related but different issues is naive at best, deliberate and cynical smearing at worst.

What " uncomfortable reality" are you talking about?

It reminds me of a TV debate I did back with Red Wedge; on one side of the table was me, Jerry Dammers and Clare Short, and on the other Stewart Copeland, a Tory MP called Greg Knight and Chris Dean from the Redskins. Now, me and Chris had toured during the miners’ strike, but I looked at Chris, and pointed to who he was sitting with, and told him he was on the wrong side of the table. And that’s what I see with Rowling and the others: they are on the wrong side of the table.”

Sorry to keep banging on about this but who died and made him King Of Who We Can Agree With On One Issue But Not Others?

It is such an idiotic position to take, not least because as pp pointed out he has some extremely RW bedfellows too.

I'm not sure how long you have been posting of the subject of trans ideology/gender identity theory?

But this has been a grassroots movement of women ( and men too). It has not been top down. Just six years ago there was literally " No Debate". That was the slogan that was being pushed by Stonewall and by the Labour Party, amongst others.

There was no discussion in parliament; there were no news articles; there was no critical or reflectve journalism at all. Women were even being banned from this board. What people have been able to achieve through solidarity and supporting one another; raising funds to fight court cases; political activity at local level; letter writing ; complaints; people putting their neck, and their careers, on the line.........is quite amazing.....and gratifying.

If a wide range of people ( including some you don't approve of) are now discussing the issue, or have developed a view on it - that is thanks to the grassroots movement in Britain. That's it. People have responsibility for developing their own critical thinking...it is not the responsibility of what has come to be termed 'the Gender Critical Movement'.

Arguments have validity in and of themselves - regardless of who adopts them.

When you can only think about ideas in tribalistic terms or in terms of being " on the right or wrong side of history/ or a table" then it is suggestive that you are more concerned with conformity to group expectation than anything else.

I mean. This is the same argument I heard from union members when I challenged them on whether counter protesting at a drag queen story hour was really where we should be focusing our energy on. There is power in the unions indeed.

You know what has just struck me about that anecdote? It’s not an anecdote in which Billy Learned Something or Someone Else Made A Good Point or even Billy Was Not Sure About Something And Events Showed He Was Right? It is purely and simply an anecdote in which Billy Said Something Therefore Billy Was Right.

What better illustration could there be of what sort of a man he is? Convinced of his own rightness, uninterested in what anyone else has to say, not requiring any evidence beyond his own assertion. Up himself, in fact.

an anecdote in which Billy Said Something Therefore Billy Was Right.

100%

I suppose it's supposed to be a sort of revelation? In Which Billy Realised Someone Else Was Bad and Bravely Said So.

Dig a bit deeper Billy,we can still see your arse,

Where did the term "gender ideology" come from? It didn't come from either the grassroots or from critical theory did it? It came from the Vatican in the 90s as a catch all to describe feminist, reproductive, and LGBT rights issues.

It's naive to believe there's any grassroots movements today that aren't manipulated, infected or co-opted by bad faith actors. Even something like the anti-ulez movement.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/27/tory-staff-running-network-of-anti-ulez-facebook-groups-riddled-with-racism-and-abuse

Have you read Anti-Gender Politics in the Populist Moment, Agnieszka Graff and Elżbieta Korolczuk?

No, it didn't. People have been coining terms on here and elsewhere for years.
You've clearly not been part of the movement to have such a jaundiced view.
Why are you so keen to try to smear and link what has been a hugely influential movement with " bad faith actors", anyway?

There are "bad faith" actors in all fields. Look at George Galloway. Look at some of the 'loons' who take part in Trans Rights rallies. Look at people like Dawn Butler who thinks think babies are born without a sex; like David Lammy who thinks men can grow a cervix. There are loons such as Billy Bragg, everywhere....Stalin was a bit of a loon.......There are trustees on the boards of Mermaids who were found to be active paedophile sympathisers. There are " loons" in all walks of life.

Hitler was a vegetarian, so is Anne Widdicombe......does that mean that "right thinking" people should abandon the idea of being vegetarian?