Order-order is not, formally, a liberation movement but a congregation of the disillusioned angry, believing, or hoping that it's spleen will anger or shame any or all of those against whom it is vented.
It can be argued, of course, that the provision of an orchestrated cyber speakers' corner in itself neutralises, short-circuits more traditional and arguably, once, more productive political action but since this is now either heavily corralled and managed by the three branches of NewPolitics - even the ancient meek get strong-armed from a Jack Straw Rally - or forbidden by a profusion of anti-democratic, supposedly anti-terror legislative measures it is hard to see where else people can publicly raise their discordant voices if not on the net, in this case at Guido's invitation and on his sufferance; not all are pamphleteers, or would-be essayists and even if they were, a political cabal which would take us on an insane and illegal military adventure and then say Whoops!, we were misled, but never mind, eh? is unlikely to pay too much attention to more conventional critiques.
It is certainly ludicrous to propose that either the broadsheets or the BBC pages are places of free comment; where, then, if not in the bustling, anarchic blogosphere, are people to raise their voices ? One novice order-orderite commented recently that the site was better than pornworld, where he normally spent his spare time; tell me, aesthetes and snobs and nitpickers, what, pray, is wrong with that ? Would not the chairpersons of all the parties love to be able to report such a thing about their own dismal promotional efforts. By engaging, interesting and stimulating those formerly excluded or alienated from politics, order-order does civic society a service. it may nor be in the interests of the current, abysmally inept and corrupt political-media caste but that's tough shit.
Guido is both immodest and imperfect. My own gripe about order-order is the rapidity of Guido's postings; often fast and furious, few are developed over a few days by fairly lengthy comment/discussion; they rise and topple one on another until the whole site resembles a gospel meeting, call-and-responseathon - Peter Hain is a thief - Oh yes he is,( chorus hundreds) Hallelujah, Praise the Lord; Ed Balls is useless - Amen, Lord, So he is. let me just count the ways, Lord and so on and so on. But within all the chaos a shared language forms, a terminology, largely of abuse, and rightly so; contemptuous and irreverent and rightly so. docile no more, a continuum of scepticism. Within the miasma of bile and rage and righteous indignation there are insights to be gleaned, temperatures to be taken, information to be shared and often a clarification of previously abstruse financial matters; the cartoon captioneers can be the sharpest and wittiest. There are some every clever people at order-order, maybe not time-served polemicists but quick and sharp and my complaint about speed of turnover is, actually, irrelevant; rapid-fire is the default setting of the Guido armament; my need for something less belligerent, more languid, is my own problem.
This writer has never been in a tribe of any kind and is not altogether sure what is meant by the term liberationism; he was, however, for many years, a newspaper, political biography and BBC junkie. Having wearied - or sickened - of all that some years ago, he found the Guido site refreshing and stimulating; the MediaMinster news is cut and pasted for him, assembled and cross referenced in all it's glorious, anti-democratic, conspiratorial toxicity. To know that so very many loathe and detest not only these events but their conventional press coverage, too, and to read their discord and frustration and impotence and hatred is a great comfort and an even greater stimulus. Everybody should try it. I love the smell of anarchy in the morning.
As for Guido suing people, well I don't care about that and nor should anyone else. If he sues me, I'll sue him right back again, with my team of emigre Polish lawyers. So there, he has been warned.
Posted by stanislav at February 5, 2008 03:32 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment