Hey, Here’s a Way to Fight Gentrification
I don’t know how many of you live in Chicago on the north side, but if you do, there’s a town hall on Thursday at 6:30 at the United Church of Rogers Park.
It’s a town hall about lifting the ban of rent control in Chicago. Rent control makes it so your landlord can only raise your rent a small percentage each year.
Rent control has been banned here since 1997, when it was pushed through by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a right wing realty org. (Identical laws were also passed in several other states.) This means that landlords can raise rents however much they choose. This becomes a gentrification tool; when a development company wants to flip a building, all they have to do is buy it, double the rent, wait for tenants who can’t afford the hike to move out, and then renovate and sell the apartments as “luxury unit” for young white professionals at triple the price.
We need rent control in Illinois to protect against this and allow people to be able to stay in their homes and neighborhoods. During this town hall, people will share their stories, and we need to drown out anyone the real estate lobby brings in.
Rent control is on the ballot in Chicago in several neighborhoods on November 6th. We’re trying to force legislators to act.
I realize this is very niche, but if you can, please come. Here’s a facebook event link.
A lot of people are really scared and angry because of the results of the newest climate change reports — as they should be. But I’m already seeing a lot of posts and news reports like “HERE’S WHAT YOU CAN DO TO FIGHT GLOBAL WARMING” and bizarrely enough, the answers are never like “weed out climate change deniers from your government, impose strict new rules for the corporations that are creating most of the emissions, pour government resources into alternate forms of fuel, etc.” It’s always like “carpool to work!”
Look. Of course you should be working to reduce waste in your own life. But let’s not fucking pretend that consumers are the ones who made this mess. You know what another recent study found? Just 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions. If the rest of us stopped ALL WASTE and fucking ascended to a higher plane of existence that no longer requires consumption of any kind, the world would still be absolutely fucked if those 100 companies keep on as they do.
I hate this personal responsibility model when it comes to conservation. By ignoring the actual source of the problem and focusing on individuals instead, guess who gets targeted? The absolute most vulnerable individuals on the planet. When people advocate personal responsibility, somehow they’re never talking about billionaires and their private jets. They’re creating straw bans that will make life more dangerous for people with disabilities. They’re shaming women for using disposable menstrual products. They’re criticizing the poor and destitute for using “wasteful” products because they’re all they can afford. They’re making vaguely eugenic statements about getting people in “third world countries” to stop ~breeding~ so much. It’s monstrous.
Stop shaming consumers for the sins of corporations and their powerful investors. Stop placing the blame at the feet of the people who already have the hardest time getting through life. Do something, and by “do something” I mean buy a reusable coffee cup on the way to fucking vote. Go to a protest. Call a representative. Demand accountability from the people who got us into this mess.
remember this whenever politicians start advertising themselves as “tough on crime” or start talking about a crime wave all of a sudden.
cvltcryptid
I know I don’t have a ton of followers, but just a reminder that there are currently prisoners striking in America over forced labor in the prison system, which is basically a firm of legal slavery.
You can personally thank Marco Rubio for the laws allowing this; he drafted some of the first private prison legislature in FL which was then used as the base contract for other states with GEO group and CCA. (The two major for profit prison groups. I’m pretty sure one of them got taken out by a lawsuit but I forget which.)
Basically if their quota falls below 90% capacity, they legally sue the state for not providing them with a “product.” Which is, usually, lower income Americans of color.
Also, the Supreme Court decided in Bevins v. Six Unnamed Agents of FBI, that American citizens do NOT have the right to sue private prisons for violations of the 1st amendment.
The country is fucked and it’s the fault of greedy politicians.
Capitalism won’t work because of human nature. Why would you trust humans with a system that rewards their natural greed?
Capitalism sounds like a good idea on paper, but it just doesn’t work in practice.
Oh, so you support capitalism? Why don’t you go move to Thailand and do slave labor for Nestle?
Capitalism is a bad idea, the millions of people killed by capitalism can attest to that.
What’s the most disturbing thing you can say right now?
there are nazis in government and we aren’t out in the streets rioting
just-plain-trash-at-this-point
That’s a little too real. We come to your blog to forget the real world by indulging in weird and whacky comments
um sorry uhhh, wrinkles are just stretch marks for your face
Apparently John McCain’s death is exposing the kind of liberals that this unabashed liberal does not want to be associated with.
Seriously, the man was flawed but you all are being cruel in a manner unbefitting of those who seek to serve the greater good.
lpstckhmcd
ok look dude since tumblr has a lot of really young people on it and you dont say your age im going to give you the benefit of the doubt but john mccain was absolutely an evil person whose death deserves to be mocked. there is nothing heroic about being a war criminal
iowastubborn
I am 32 and I have been watching this political landscape spiral out of control for some time now. So tell me, does Barak Obama deserve to be called a war criminal because of his drone strike policies? Does he get called a bigot because he failed to defend LGBT people until late in his career? Something tells me you won’t be picking up these stances or at the very least treating them with a touch of nuance.
Before you start drawing the line between human beings and monsters make sure your chosen metric isn’t just for your political opponents.
lpstckhmcd
imagine being 32 and being this much of a spineless clown
spicyratatooie
“does Barak Obama deserve to be called a war criminal because of his drone strike policies” yeah
cosmicjourney1995
“does Barack Obama deserve to be called a war criminal because of his drone strike policies”
So I’m working on a video about the labor movement in media, and found an old episode of the A-Team where they full-on organize a union.
At one point they make a gun that shoots cabbages at an evil capitalist.
It is perfect television.
icanfinallybeme
America’s Prisoners Are Striking for Their Lives by Issac Bailey at Splinter
icanfinallybeme
I’d like to give a very big fuck you to anyone who talks badly about janitors, trashmen, maids, house cleaners,ect.
A 64-year-old woman was arrested earlier this week after she reportedly blockaded herself into a 1971 Ford Pinto and prevented Mountain Valley Pipeline construction in West Virginia.
Becky Crabtree, charged with obstruction earlier this week, was later released on her own recognizance, according to a local NBC affiliate.
Crabtree, who is a grandmother and retired schoolteacher, reportedly blockaded herself in the Pinto at the worksite of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which spans approximately 303 miles from northwestern West Virginia to southern Virginia.
“It just hit me,” Crabtree told Vice News on Friday. “I can’t just teach my students about climate change and have them fill out a sentence about fossil fuel energy and its negative impact. I know what the impacts are. I have to live this.”
Crabtree said she’s trying to “slow up the process” for the construction of the pipeline, because “once the pipeline is in the ground, the judge can say, ‘It is too late now.’ Sometimes the courts need time to catch up.”
Crabtree said she had written letters, organized debates, and attended town halls and protests to fight the construction of the pipeline prior to the demonstration.
“I’ve pretty much exhausted all my other options,” Crabtree said. “It wasn’t on bucket list to get arrested, but now can tell my grandkids that your grandmother was arrested trying to save this land.” Crabtree is currently awaiting her sentencing.
According to Vice News, Crabtree is the latest person to join the fight against the pipeline, with protests from local residents and environmental groups igniting across the region.
Once constructed, the pipeline would span more than 1,000 bodies of water and roughly 245 miles of forest, which protesters say could pose a threat to the area’s municipal water supplies and habitat, according to the publication.
Last week, a federal court rescinded permits for the project to cross the Jefferson National Forest, saying that the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management had not properly reviewed the pipeline’s environmental impact, according to The Washington Post.
The construction is scheduled to pass through 3.6 miles of the forest, according to the Post.
The agencies were ordered to reconsider the permits.
Appalachian-style resistance
Source: thehill.com
Alfred Hitchcock was not even in the neighborhood of fucking aroudn.
THAT’S MY FUCKING DUDE RIGHT THERE!
The owners of Britain’s largest socialist bookshop, Bookmarks, have said the store was attacked by far-right protesters wearing masks who wrecked displays and ripped up books and magazines. Staff were closing the shop on Bloomsbury Street in central London on Saturday evening when about a dozen people descended on it.
Some of the attackers carried placards reading “British Bolshevik Cult” and one of those involved wore a Donald Trump mask. A far-right protest against censorship of the conspiracy theory website Infowars took place in central London on Saturday at which protesters were seen with the same placards. Others wore “Make Britain Great Again” caps.
Michael Bradley, from Stand up to Racism, said: “Luckily no one was hurt this time, but this is a sinister development that indicates the growing confidence of the far right who feel they can attack a bookshop in central London in broad daylight.
“Attacking a bookshop also exposes their claims to be defenders of free speech as hollow.”
Claims to be pro free speech, burns books anyway
#5yrsago Dead WalMart reborn as library
A dead WalMart in McAllen, Texas has been remodelled as a library, making it the largest single-floor library in the USA. It’s award-winning design makes excellent use of all that space – two football fields’ worth – and includes an acoustically separated teen space.
“Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That’s the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
hot take: the capitalist cultural construction of “humans are naturally greedy and self-centered” is just an attenuated version of the feudal christian construction of “humans are inherently sinful”; both are designed to make people internalize cultural problems and externalize morality.
holybrat
building off that hot take: western individualism (the American Dream, meritocracy, “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality) is actually a hopelessly sentimental cultural fantasy that stems from this toxic capitalist conceit, and it’s high time we start admitting in our personal lives and in our public policy that humans actually live in dynamic and overlapping webs of inter-dependency
smitethepatriarchy
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