Alex wrote:
> i'd say the distinction is usually about one or two paychecks
well, yes and no. I was thinking of those (according to a rather silly definition of working class as those) who are in paid work and (from the most distant of perusals) are homeless. there are many who are homeless and in paid work in the US. is that right? in which case, to say there's a distinction is a little strained and itself trapped in the ideology (if we're to use that term in its most insidious sense) that those who work (hard) will be comfortable, housed, etc. (in any case, I think it's neither possible nor politically helpful to define the working class as those who at any given moment are in paid work. the labour market simply does not operate like this.)
David wrote:
>>I'd guess that such ideas are very alienating to people
who have been there, which I take to be part of Wojtek's point. <<
which is not I think at all what Wojtek was saying. his concern was clearly for not alienating those he defines as working class (ie., those who work and pay taxes) in contradistinction to those who are homeless. hence he wrote, "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. .. the Left ... 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".
if Wojtek can find no arguments to convince "ordinary people" (which I take it does not include those who are homeless) of the abysmal nature of giuliani's militarisation of NY, then perhaps he's starting from the wrong idea of who these "ordinary people" he must try not to "alienate" from the left in the first place. I guess the homeless just don't look much like a constituency... just ills to be relieved of.
Michael h quite rightly turned our (my) attention back to the processes and decisions which produce homelessness.
Angela _________