gentrification

rc-am rcollins at netlink.com.au
Fri Aug 20 18:18:47 PDT 1999


Wojtek wrote:


> real working class

and max chimed:


> real proletarian movement

Wojtek and max get to claim empiricism and realism in order to confirm their own positions on the death penalty, urban poverty, and suchlike. but in order for this realism to work, to look like realism, they have to define whole sections of the working class as something else, no longer the _real_ working class, etc.

as Alex wrote:


> But the death penalty also disproportionately affects minorities and
the poor, so i dont see how
> that particular argument holds up.

and, for the tenth time, those who are homeless are part of the working class.

where is it the law of politics that we have to like, agree with or exalt other working class people in order to regard them as our class?

i suspect the shitting on people's doorsteps that Wojtek so objects to is both

1. a basic requirement for some degree of privacy where i also suspect public toilets have been removed (to 'discourage' the homeless as are are park benches removed/redesigned), a pretence that removing amenities solves the problem, but really a plan to enclose the poor in smaller and smaller urban spaces; and

2. perhaps also a version of making a nuisance where no other possible kind of articulation of protest is either possible or envisioned.

Wojtek, instead of resorting to guiliani as a response to shit on your doorstep, why not insist that there are public amenities that can be used by those who are homeless? oh, i forgot, homeless people aren't part of the working class...

Angela _________



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