Being a socialist, a radical, or an anarchist is not the same as 'bitching loudly on the internet every day'.

any housing association that i've known or had any involvement with has had the intent of ameliorating or off-setting the harmful effects of landlordism. Although limited by resources, there is an idealistic intent (off communality, sharing) distinct from simply rent-seeking. One would hope though this is not always the case, that such projects would have processes for what to do when community breaks down due to conflict or the violation of its terms. You would hope that there would be systems for conciliation where possible and that eviction would be a last resort.

Part of the difficulty is that housing co-operatives are often small scale, with limited resources for handling difficult cases. What can you do with a particularly problematic individual when there are no resources to accommodate them elsewhere? If we were talking about local-government-owned social housing, which similarly seeks to provide housing for people, one would assume increased responsibility and duty-of-care for a problematic tenant. Housing is a right, even for people with addiction issues and mental health problems. Even for racists and homophobes (its worth noting that the list of things that cause individuals to be excluded from communities can include things that say some pretty unsavoury stuff about communities). The more embattled and limited the resources of a community are, the less that can be done to offset expulsion and exclusion.

However, these are all distinct problems from the problems of landlords. If eviction is "not a necessary function of a housing cooperative" can the same be said of landlords? landlordism is the most basic example rentierism, seeking profit not by doing anything or making anything but granting or withholding access to a limited resource: housing. Tenants don't pay money to landlords for something that landlords do for them personally, but because otherwise they would be evicted and, depending on their circumstances, be made homeless.

In the UK landlords are one of the most effective lobby groups; political support by both parties for ongoing evictions throughout covid one of their most recent victories. Frequently you will hear landlords playing up how difficult it is to be a landlord, how it barely makes any money! Often they will claim that since the combined cost of upkeep and mortgage payments is little more than mortgage, they barely break even. These are remarkable claims that completely gloss over the fact that these people are acquiring large assets they can subsequently sell that are simultaneously appreciating in value!

The flat above me is a small, two-bedroom council flat bought through right-to-buy and turned by a landlord (who owns properties all over the borough through private limited companies) into a miserable three bedroom flat with no windows in the shared living spaces which consist of a tiny kitchen and bathroom. Here there is no ideal of community, no social responsibility. There is nothing except the opportunity to pay this man's mortgage so he can acquire more miserable flats to exploit more overworked renters.

great post plax.

Yep. I worked as a mortgage advisor for a while (my number one bullshit job!) and almost without exception, Buy to Let landlords with multiple properties are just greedy middle/'professional' class fucks with plenty of disposable income.

let's not judge Chairman Mao too harshly.

Yeah great post plax. Clearly there are always going to be problems which need to be solved, but the problems associated with everyone being housed are obviously preferable to those associated with homelessness and rampant landlordism. I don’t think expressing that sentiment requires you to have solutions for all those problems.

Good post, plax. A landlord who maintains rent at an affordable level and who doesn't skimp on upkeep is a potentially fine proposition, and these do exist – more so in my neck of the woods than in the UK – but they are so rare as to be irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. It is a form of parasitism more often than not.

Plax has put the problem well. Whatever it takes to 'decouple' property from its owners, call it communism or something else.

Welcome back, xyzzzz

That's alright, thanks

I guess as much as I’d like to see western hegemony smashed and believe that Degrowth policies are the only way to even begin to address climate catastrophe, I’m not quite a full-on Maoist yet. I suppose my dirtiest secret is... I’m technically a landlord. I have an older home w a secondary kitchen. It’s not technically a duplex so the setup is somewhere between housemates and a full-on landlord/ tenant situation.

But if my renters ever decide to rise up and kill me it’ll probably be bc I had it coming

In the UK landlords are one of the most effective lobby groups; political support by both parties

both parties full of fuckin landlords, incidentally, and voting repeatedly against any control on landlords without declaring a hint of a conflict of interest

Bingo.

they finally did manage to get some amendment to the Fit for Human Habitation bill through parliament in 2019. Which is obv completely toothless unless you are wealthy enough to take your landlord to court going by some of the recent everyday horror stories of private tenants I've read.

fuck landlords

combination of dn and post there is p fitting

joined up with dsa finally, going to try helping out with the mutual aid group. going to try and focus on that instead of posting about left-wing politics on the internet which has been such a black hole for me the past year.

honestly, the reason I haven't joined dsa is that it would put me in close proximity with the kinds of people who join dsa (not all of them obviously, but the irony poisoned contingent)

honestly, the reason I haven't joined dsa is that it would put me in close proximity with the kinds of people who join dsa

hahaha i love this

lol see thread title

honestly, the reason I haven't joined dsa is that it would put me in close proximity with the kinds of people who join dsa (not all of them obviously, but the irony poisoned contingent)

― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Wednesday, November 11, 2020 11:01 AM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Also the DSA believes in incrementalism and really exists mostly to sell newspapers (aka Jacobin) from what I can tell. Obviously prefer to have DSA that some centrist scum on city council or higher-up, but jesus, people really love political parties. Boggles my mind.

the number of politics people that just have a hard-on for meetings and committees is pretty depressing tbh

table you know there are lots of anarchists in DSA right

itt: ppl sneer at both being posting online and trying to do some actual good irl

Moaning online is praxis

sorry I'm being unnecessarily bitchy about this because despite DSA's (many) flaws Canada lacks a left org even 1/10 as effective in doing Real Things that actually improve people's lives from time to time and it bugs me to see ppl be dismissive about it

I'm not sneering at anything, I just don't trust and can't be around that kind of person, and they would probably also fucking hate me if not worse. it isn't bragging about anything and I wish it weren't like that

Nah I know I'm just being frivolous also I mean it a little bit, the revolution will not be po-faced

(it would also help if they did anything about the rampant sexual harassment issue)

Moaning online is praxis

I was horrified when a local councillor turned up on my doorstep trying to get me to attend a meeting last year. I only joined the party to support Corbynism. If I want to go into a room full of ppl - I'll go to a frigging pub!

after being subject to a fucking section 47 a couple of years back, they were the last meetings I'm ever to attend and unfortunately I had no choice in the matter.

i'm sure i'll meet annoying people in the mutual aid group but might also deliver some warm clothes or something. also it's like once a month. maybe it will suck as much as this thread? won't know until i try it.

oined up with dsa finally, going to try helping out with the mutual aid group. going to try and focus on that instead of posting about left-wing politics on the internet which has been such a black hole for me the past year.

― Give me a Chad Smith-type feel (map), Wednesday, November 11, 2020 6:48 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I've been learning so much about the framework of mutual aid throughout this time! I've never been inspired to do the reading on anti-capitalist frameworks and my understanding has been superficial, but MA really taps into my lived experience.

I tried to do it where I live, but my block didn't need it (I checked, everyone was already taken care of and our block assoc president was on it), and my local Black-led movement home wasn't putting white ppl into direct service work because it's bad analysis & bad practice (white savior-ism, gentrification, things the Black left movement has already been accused of by centrist Black electeds who resent pressure from the left). Sooo I moved to the country and now I volunteer in a MA network where I don't even live, doing technical and administrative stuff.

I miss being tuned into my community, but I LOVE that the conversations in the MA space are abolitionist, radical, transformative.

Last night I watched a discussion among Dean Spade, Ejeris Dixon, and Mariame Kaba titled "We Keep Ourselves Safe" and took away this point: Mutual Aid work is always both of these things:

1. It meets immediate needs for survival in the community, and
2. It has to be based on a deep strategy to remedy the underlying causes.

Basically, enjoy!!!

I'm contemplating going DSA. They're doing great work in the NYC political sphere, endorsing candidates and putting resources behind them. But New York has the Working Families Party which is kind of a mid-point maybe between D and DSA? I've been registered WFP before, I don't remember why I switched. Probably to vote in a primary at some point.

cool, thanks for the info.

no idea how it's going to look in my area. the most visible slc mutual aid group has been accused of white savior-ism. really i just want a way to connect with people in this kind of framework because i'm very suspicious of traditional charity orgs.

you could stay registered as D and still give money to or work for WFP

i'm sure i'll meet annoying people in the mutual aid group but might also deliver some warm clothes or something. also it's like once a month. maybe it will suck as much as this thread? won't know until i try it.

― Give me a Chad Smith-type feel (map), Friday, November 13, 2020 11:55 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

this isn't about "annoying," it's about not wanting to put myself in proximity to blackpilled irony bros

Blackpilled people don’t join the DSA.

outside of the Blackpill Caucus of course

i'll be sure to report here if i encounter any blackpilled irony bros

this is not my experience

but mocking someone for avoiding, for my own safety, people who are somewhere on the spectrum between contemptful and dangerous is really changing my mind, gotta say

I'm certain there are sexist assholes of all stripes in DSA but I have yet to be convinced they're any more common than in any other political formation (though of course it is more galling/infuriating when it comes from a left org). which is not to say anyone should have to put up with it if they don't want to.

My main issue is that a majority of the DSA people I know are white and have a real fucking hard-on for telling Black people to sit down because it's all about class. Whatever their intentions, that shit is toxic and I want no part of it.

this is a very specific subcategory of asshole (and it isn't about sexism, per se, although if a person's first political principle is contempt and cringe then sexism could follow pretty easily, and I'm not sure what else they'd join except I guess alt-right shit

tbf, maybe I'm reading your posts wrong but your argument is starting to sound quite paranoid

My main issue is that a majority of the DSA people I know are white and have a real fucking hard-on for telling Black people to sit down because it's all about class. Whatever their intentions, that shit is toxic and I want no part of it.

― healthy cocaine off perfect butts (the table is the table), Friday, November 13, 2020 10:51 AM (forty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is a very specific subcategory of asshole (and it isn't about sexism, per se, although if a person's first political principle is contempt and cringe then sexism could follow pretty easily, and I'm not sure what else they'd join except I guess alt-right shit

― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Friday, November 13, 2020 10:53 AM (forty-six minutes ago)

yeah ... the thing with political activism in groups, for me, is that the interpersonal element ends up getting in the way of the activism. I spent decades doing arts organizing and a lot of the same issues come into play, except it's more serious, because it's politics, as opposed to a neighborhood art walk.

This is one of the problems with grassroots organizing that otherwise is something I like. I feel like it's growing pains, in a way, (hopefully) and that these groups will get better in terms of not being radical LARP-ing for white philosophy bros. Though it sounds like some of y'all have had good experiences, so it doesn't sound like something to be dismissed out of hand.

It's been almost 4 years since "The Fire" but I still remember the various attempts at organizing and it was really instructive for me ... mostly on a personal level to figure out what I wanted to get involved in, who I wanted to support. I am drawn to the "people that do things" vs. those that have meetings and talk about it and want the ideal perfect thing that doesn't end up happening. And I don't want to be dismissive of people drawn to the latter type of groups. I realize now that a lot of it is my personality.

i'm sure i'll meet annoying people in the mutual aid group but might also deliver some warm clothes or something. also it's like once a month. maybe it will suck as much as this thread? won't know until i try it.

― Give me a Chad Smith-type feel (map), Friday, November 13, 2020 8:55 AM (three hours ago)

I'm actually kinda curious what leftist mutual aid groups are like in SLC, because (as you know, but not necessarily other ilxors do) there's that aspect kinda built into Mormon culture, like maybe in SLC it will be more chill.