gentrification

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Mon Aug 16 12:24:29 PDT 1999


At 01:25 PM 8/16/99 -0400, Carl wrote:
>> Another thought: talking about "quality of life" may not be all
>> crypto-fascist hogwash (even though some of it undoubtedly is). Many
>> people are really sick and tired of 'crime and grime' in city
>> cores, and
>> they genuinely want to see their quality of life improve.
>
>Sure, but you're not going to get it from the cheap fixes people like
>Giuliani deliver. E.g., from all the publicity that New York City's

No doubt, but most people judge the louse's performance by appearances. I had endless conversations with ordinary people - not particularly conservative but not very analytical about social life either - who gave Giuliani the full credit for relieving the city of its 'crime and grime.' They really hated crime, noise, panhandling, filth etc. and they are now thankful to Giuliani for relieving them of those ills. The bottom line is that I have no arguments that can convince them otherwise.

A larger point is that many on the Left see symbols as more important than reality, and for ideological reasons embrace positions that glamorize poverty and find excuses for its social ills - which pushes it to take abusrd positions (cf. defending the right of the homeless to squat in public parks) that marginalize and alienate the Left from the working class which has to deal with reality on every day basis. In the absence of realistic positions from the Left how to address the root causes of poverty, homelessness, crime and declining quality of life in general - there is little wonder that sweep-under-the-rug 'solutions' proposed by trolls like Giuliani appear to the ordinary people as the only alternative.

wojtek



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list