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Comment by k1m | Hacker News Reader

I think Graeber's point is that occasionally publishing writers like this gives the Guardian a kind of fake left cred that then makes their attacks on the left (which can be relentless, as in the case of Corbyn) much more powerful.

Below his pinned tweet on the Guardian is this tweet from him, mentioning the writer of the opinion piece you link (Aditya Chakrabortty):

> this is the "cred" they built up by publishing people like me, .@OwenJones84, .@GeorgeMonbiot, .@chakrabortty - all of whom I very much respect. They used us so no one would believe they would simply lie to destroy any chance of a left gov't. But that's exactly what they did. - https://twitter.com/davidgraeber/status/1210323190402162704

I actually respect David Graeber a whole lot more than the others he mentions here because he didn't let his access to the Guardian stop him from calling them out. Going as far as to say he wouldn't write for them again.

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So much this. The anti-Corbyn smearing was practically Soviet in its intensity, and directly contributed to the appalling political situation the UK finds itself in now. You expect it from the right, but when it's also coming from the supposed left - in sync with obvious social media astroturfing - it's impossible not to question what's really going on.

I know a number of people who will never trust the Guardian again. Unfortunately I know more who simply believed the lies.

I'm glad Graeber said all this because he confirmed what a lot of people suspected was the case.

So an especially sad loss, as well.

Corbyn actually got an easy ride in many ways, notably in the 2017 election where he inexplicably was able to stand as effectively the main Remain candidate without challenge, despite his record of Eurosceptism.

All of the accusations of antisemitism were dismissed by his supporters out of hand, but some were legitimate, likely not in any personal antisemitism but in a willingness to turn a blind eye to antisemitism in ideological allies.

David Graeber seems an impressive guy, but that doesn’t mean he’s right in everything.

I just watched a video where Graeber points out that Boris Johnson himself wrote a novel promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, but not a single article was written about Tory anti-Semitism in prominent papers during the height of that controversy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6oOj7BzciA

What's inexplicable about it? They're called the Labour party, not the Remain party.

Corbyn got invited to a Jewdas passover party - it's in literally no dispute that he was against anti-semitism. Labour's systematic problems were under investigation at the time and it was fair of him to not say anything until that investigation completed, however that itself was turned by the press into being viewed as an avoidant strategy, rather than an act of prudence. And as far as anti-semitism goes, the Tories have a much longer and much deeper history of islamaphobia. But at no point did it recieve the same 24/7 press attention, even though many of the incidents were happening concurrently. It was generally only ever mentioned as a sidenote to the Labour anti-semitism scandal. Hell, for a practical sample, just look at this article by the bbc[1], chosen at random (keywords: tory party islamaphobia general election), it is about Tory islamaphobia but the majority of the content present, per paragraph, is devoted to the anti-semitism accusations against Labour.

Even at the end of the year, the Tory party had failed to address it in any meaningful sense[2]

In no way did he get an easy ride. Every single tabloid and media outlet was, on the whole, against him from the start. There was a London School of Economics study a number of years back, showing definively that press coverage of Corbyn was nowhere near balanced[3]. That's not even to take into account that during the election debate, the BBC edited out laughs, by the audience, directed at Johnson's comments[4]. The bbc committed a number of "editorial mistakes" that represented themselves as Tory bias.

[1]: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50561043

[2]: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/islamophobia-conservati...

[3]: https://www.lse.ac.uk/media-and-communications/research/rese...

[4]: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/nov/25/bbc-admits-mis...

While I understand it's much to ask, I can recommend this episode of the Trashfuture podcast that goes into the anti-semitism kerfuffle: https://trashfuturepodcast.podbean.com/e/anger-ramadan-feat-...

or perhaps the article linked from the show notes: https://novaramedia.com/2020/04/14/i-feel-both-furious-and-v...

I'm nowhere near qualified to assess how accurate all of this is, but it all feels eerily similar to how the supposed American left, the Democrats, actively undermined Bernie Sanders in ways that IMO went too far. While I'm sure that's also up for debate, I at least followed the Bernie campaign closely.

>I think Graeber's point is that occasionally publishing writers like this...

> this is the "cred" they built up by publishing people like me, .@OwenJones84, .@GeorgeMonbiot, .@chakrabortty -

I will challenge on the term 'occasional'.

George Monbiot writes a weekly column

Owen Jones writes a regular column

Aditya Chakrabortti writes a regular column and is their senior economics commentator.

This reduces your opening paragraph to, "By regularly publishing left wingers, by employing them on its staff, by publishing left wing material, the Guardian seeks to pass itself off as a left wing paper. " Well...yes.

I should also say that the idea that the Labour anti-semitism scandal was a plot to smear Corbyn, is not universally acknowledged even amongst left wingers.

Perhaps "occasional" wasn't the right choice of word. They have regular columns, yes, but when the Guardian goes into attack mode against the left, these writers either don't appear or are drowned out by others in the paper.

I spent some time helping collect examples of the Guardian's output during its obsession with attacking Jeremy Corbyn. Try to find comparable coverage in support of Corbyn in the Guardian to offset these attack pieces published between 2015 and 2017: https://theguardian.fivefilters.org (note that Owen Jones, far from being a dissenting voice, joined in with the attacks here, later apologising).

David Graeber tweeted a link to this at the time - after all the Guardian's doomsayers were proven wrong. https://twitter.com/davidgraeber/status/874853587880423426

After some time the Guardian intensified its attacks, this time focusing on spurious claims of antisemitism. They refused to run Graeber's piece defending Corbyn. Again, see if you can find comparable coverage defending Corbyn in the Guardian compared to ones trying to tar him with the antisemite brush: https://theguardian.fivefilters.org/antisemitism/

And that's of course not mentioning the study that found the Guardian to be one of the most innacurate in reporting claims of antisemitism (more so than even the Sun and the Daily Mail). That little fact is still the pinned tweet on Graeber's Twitter account, which must really annoy the Guardian when his name's trending on Twitter. https://twitter.com/davidgraeber/status/1210322505229094912

Paul Mason also was busy trying to climb over Corbyn's corpse.

He's another of the Look-We-Publish-Left-Wing-Opinion go-tos for the Guardian centrists.

I see the graph in the pinned tweet, but where is the study it is based on?

I doubt it annoys the Guardian at all. I think they are more than used to this kind of criticism.

Here's the link to the study: https://www.mediareform.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/La...

Criticism they can ignore (as they often do) I'm sure doesn't bother them. But the widespread resentment toward the Guardian does bother them. It was apparent from their writers' responses when #BoycottTheGuardian was trending on Twitter for example, or more recently when they announced big job cuts and their writers pleas for support were mostly met with derision.

I think it is easy to feel things are more widespread than they are when guaged from social media.

Eg.I was very critical of Corbyn's stance on Brexit, and having a few followers I captured the attention of the Corbynite WhatsApp group run by Seamus Milne's team, and was heavily trolled...Rachel Swindon et al... and I block trolls, so fell out of the Corbynite bubble. The result of this is I have not seen widespread outrage against the Guardian at all. Perhaps widespread in revolutionary socialist circles is a more correct assertion.

> I captured the attention of the Corbynite WhatsApp group run by Seamus Milne's team, and was heavily trolled...Rachel Swindon et al...

This is a conspiracy theory with no basis in fact.

Except for the direct quotes from her.

"“I do get advice from them,” she said. “But that’s the end of that.”

She eventually explained that there are several private Twitter DM groups where discussion goes on “all day”, with new pro-Corbyn lines posted alongside anti-Tory memes — which are often taken and repurposed from Facebook groups.

Asked whether Labour officials were in the groups speaking to the pro-Corbyn accounts, she said “Maybe”, smiling."

https://www.buzzfeed.com/markdistefano/heres-the-woman-behin...

It was tangential to my point, but Corbynite trolls were just as nasty and just as organized as the right wingers. Everyone not for Corbyn was neoliberal scum, or a 'yellow Tory'. In the end this only serves to shut down real debate and polarise each bubble.

Your implication was that Seamus Milne, or his team, command a sort of "troll army" through WhatsApp. This is substantially different to disseminating talking points to friendly media faces (which is something all parties do, and is normal in political campaigning).

When you got trolled, it wasn't because of a secret WhatsApp group conspiring against you. It was because you said something that a large number of left wing people disagreed with, and Twitter worked the way it usually works and encouraged an organic pile-on. I can assure you that the UK left-wing network on Twitter has no need to get marching orders from a mythical WhatsApp group. If somebody says something that the left disagrees with, pile-ons will happen naturally.

Ironically, by dismissing people who disagree with you as commanded by Seumas Milne, you are shutting down debate yourself.

Disseminating talking points to friendly faces...

Nice euphemism.

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