What a time to be alive. Also: Owen Jones
Mar. 31st, 2023 08:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smokingbootTwitter of the day has already appeared.
JG:I have woken up to the entire GC community apparently having declared themselves communist and I have no idea what's going on.
What did I miss?
LP: The Communist Party of Great Britain has declared that the Party is GC. The TRAs are desperately trying to prove that Communists are right-wing.
It's all going down here, but possibly the most surreal thing has been watching Owen Jones, Guardian columnist and Leftista Majora with KARL and LEON tattooed across his right and left buttocks, go head to head with his erstwhile loves and suddenly declare that Communists are not very nice. Which is of course something the rest of us missed.
I bumped into Owen Jones a few times on my travels. When friends and I met up in Balans he was often there, a gym goblin who looked about 12, huddled over a table devoid of anything beyond water and a plate of kale. He also ensconsed himself in many protests and I got to see him in action.
Fear of crowds is not a thing for me. While I need lots of time alone, I'm at ease on a mic in front of peeps, which means sometimes I end up on stage at rallies and protests, and get to see speakers close. The three* I remember most clearly were Dominic Grieve, Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Jones. I recall Dominic Grieve, Tory politician and one time Attorney General standing in front of a roaring crowd who would mostly vote for the party opposing his. Now that was courage! He was everything you would expect them to detest, a well bred son of upper class England,utterly privileged, eloquent if a little formal, elegantly suited, and yet, knowing they wouldn't change and he wouldn't change, there was somehow warmth and mutual respect. Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Jones were very different. Comparing the two taught me how to identify idealogue and pedagogue.
Jezzah would move through the crowd with ease, comfortable on a high raised stage though he seemed to prefer a little stepped one or none at all. You'd not be aware of much if any security around him, he spoke as though among a group of close friends which magically included everybody. His was the unstrained confidence of someone who's been doing this very well for decades. His passion created the rhythm of his words, simple ideas easily framed. Of course it was easy to agree with him, no-one argues when a voice cries 'make things fair!' It's the How that starts the trouble.
Owen would try to work the crowd. The higher the stage the better for him. In speaking he would use a rolling rhythm of peaks and troughs and repetitions, if you had to draw it, the result would be a series of small hills. He was clever, much sharper than Corbyn, and he was saying things that the audience vaguely agreed with, maybe kinda sorta. But it was obvious why he's not an MP. He could not make them understand him the way Dominic Grieve would, he could not make them like him the way Corbyn did. His way was slightly studied, even in his attempts at familiarity. I daresay Grieve had learned rhetoric too given his profession,but Grieve did not try to sound like a man of the people, while Owen did. I remember Owen's technique of public speaking, but don't recall a thing he said. Which may explain why he's Twitter entertainment.
* OK, four, but the last doesn't count. I only remember John McDonnell because he was so complimentary to me about my speech :-D
JG:I have woken up to the entire GC community apparently having declared themselves communist and I have no idea what's going on.
What did I miss?
LP: The Communist Party of Great Britain has declared that the Party is GC. The TRAs are desperately trying to prove that Communists are right-wing.
It's all going down here, but possibly the most surreal thing has been watching Owen Jones, Guardian columnist and Leftista Majora with KARL and LEON tattooed across his right and left buttocks, go head to head with his erstwhile loves and suddenly declare that Communists are not very nice. Which is of course something the rest of us missed.
I bumped into Owen Jones a few times on my travels. When friends and I met up in Balans he was often there, a gym goblin who looked about 12, huddled over a table devoid of anything beyond water and a plate of kale. He also ensconsed himself in many protests and I got to see him in action.
Fear of crowds is not a thing for me. While I need lots of time alone, I'm at ease on a mic in front of peeps, which means sometimes I end up on stage at rallies and protests, and get to see speakers close. The three* I remember most clearly were Dominic Grieve, Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Jones. I recall Dominic Grieve, Tory politician and one time Attorney General standing in front of a roaring crowd who would mostly vote for the party opposing his. Now that was courage! He was everything you would expect them to detest, a well bred son of upper class England,utterly privileged, eloquent if a little formal, elegantly suited, and yet, knowing they wouldn't change and he wouldn't change, there was somehow warmth and mutual respect. Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Jones were very different. Comparing the two taught me how to identify idealogue and pedagogue.
Jezzah would move through the crowd with ease, comfortable on a high raised stage though he seemed to prefer a little stepped one or none at all. You'd not be aware of much if any security around him, he spoke as though among a group of close friends which magically included everybody. His was the unstrained confidence of someone who's been doing this very well for decades. His passion created the rhythm of his words, simple ideas easily framed. Of course it was easy to agree with him, no-one argues when a voice cries 'make things fair!' It's the How that starts the trouble.
Owen would try to work the crowd. The higher the stage the better for him. In speaking he would use a rolling rhythm of peaks and troughs and repetitions, if you had to draw it, the result would be a series of small hills. He was clever, much sharper than Corbyn, and he was saying things that the audience vaguely agreed with, maybe kinda sorta. But it was obvious why he's not an MP. He could not make them understand him the way Dominic Grieve would, he could not make them like him the way Corbyn did. His way was slightly studied, even in his attempts at familiarity. I daresay Grieve had learned rhetoric too given his profession,but Grieve did not try to sound like a man of the people, while Owen did. I remember Owen's technique of public speaking, but don't recall a thing he said. Which may explain why he's Twitter entertainment.
* OK, four, but the last doesn't count. I only remember John McDonnell because he was so complimentary to me about my speech :-D
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