Well not content with his inaccurate digs at Henry, Brad DeLong is “having another go at me”:http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/07/chris-bertram-gets-a-wish-granted-and-is-very-unhappy-indeed.html . (It really does seem to be some kind of obsession with him.) He says my post “here”:https://crookedtimber.org/2011/05/22/the-fragmenting-coalition-of-the-left-some-musings/ advocated abandoning social-democracy to

rely instead on a combination of:

populist nationalism[:] culturally conservative, worried by immigration (and willing to indulge popular anxieties), anxious about the effects of markets on working-class community…

and zero-growth greenism.

And that “now”:https://crookedtimber.org/2011/07/19/out-of-the-blue-into-the-black/ I’m horrified by the consequences in the form of Maurice Glasman.

Well, unsurprisingly, *wrong*, though I guess I lack the talent to write so clearly as to avoid misunderstanding from someone as determined to misunderstand me as Brad DeLong is.

First, I didn’t say that the left should abandon social democracy as such, I said that it should break with the “technocratic quasi-neoliberal left as incarnated by the likes of Peter Mandelson.” And …. Brad Delong, I guess.

Second, I didn’t advocate an alliance with culturally conservative populist nationalism, rather I argued that the group of people currently attracted by such politics would “either move towards the eco-left or will drift towards xenophobic right-wing nationalism.” And so I argued – in a post which was trying to start a conversation rather that laying down a line – for trying to build alliances between the eco-left and the traditional working class, between communitarian social-democrats and people with a more environmentally informed politics. DeLong is entitled to think what he likes about that, but he really should stop the infantile caricatures which just get in the way of having a sensible discussion. Pathetic.

The “NYT story”:http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/reddit-co-founder-charged-with-data-theft/?ref=technology is here.

bq. Aaron Swartz, a 24-year-old programmer and online political activist, was indicted Tuesday in Boston on charges that he stole over four million documents from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and JSTOR, an archive of scientific journals and academic papers. (Read the full indictment.) The charges were filed by the United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, Carmen M. Ortiz, and could result in up to 35 years in prison and a $1 million fine. In a press release, Ms. Ortiz’s office said that Mr. Swartz broke into a restricted area of M.I.T. and entered a computer wiring closet. Mr. Swartz apparently then accessed the M.I.T. computer network and stole millions of documents from JSTOR.

The indictment is “here”:http://t.co/Bc9xaRe – a petition supporting Aaron can be found “here”:http://act.demandprogress.org/sign/support_aaron/. I can’t pretend to be at all impartial about the prospect that Aaron could serve serious jail time for this – he is a good friend, as well as an active member of the CT community. It looks as though he has some support from the library community – the petition page has a statement from James Jacobs, the Government Documents Librarian at Stanford University. Furthermore, it claims that the “alleged victim has settled any claims against Aaron, explained they’ve suffered no loss or damage, and asked the government not to prosecute.”

Matthew Yglesias waxes sarcastic about the lack of content of my critique of neo-liberalism, and (on Twitter) ‘underpant gnomes theories of social democracy.’ And in so doing, misses the point quite completely: [click to continue…]

Just when British Labour Ed Miliband leader is on a roll, along comes Maurice Glasman to spoil things. I’ve been willing to give Glasman the benefit of the doubt up to now, despite feeling somewhat uncomfortable at some of the things he’s had to say on immigration. After all, Labour lost the last election and we do need some proper discussions about how to connect with a somewhat alienated working-class base. Glasman, with his talk of community and his Polanyi-inspired scepticism about the capacity of the market to ensure genuine well-being seemed a voice worth hearing. Well the mask hasn’t just slipped, it has fallen off, and I think the “blue Labour” project has come to a halt with his latest pronouncements. Intra-left polemics have been marked by too much moralizing denunciation in the past, at the expense of genuine dialogue and understanding. But there is a time for denunciation, and it is now.

Today’s Daily Express “front page”:http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/259756 (Headline “Britain Must Ban Migrants”):

bq. Lord Glasman, Ed Miliband’s chief policy guru, wants a temporary halt to immigration to ensure British people are first in the queue for jobs. The Labour peer also urged the Government to renegotiate EU rules allowing the free movement of migrant workers in a decisive break with the open door policy of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. “The people who live here are the highest priority. We’ve got to listen and be with them. They’re in the right place – it’s us who are not,” he said.

UPDATE: Sir Andrew Green, who heads-up the rabidly anti-immigration group MigrationWatch, “describes”:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2015979/Freeze-UK-immigration-British-people-says-Ed-Milibands-policy-guru.html Glasman’s latest pronouncements as “over the top. It is simply not practicable”. That’s pretty extraordinary.