Re: [discuss-dan] Buying versus Rent Strike in Denver

[Stan Wilson <odinswyrd@yahoo.com>]

Hey Y'all, First off, what the hell do rent strikes
have to do with buying property?  For MANY people
buying is not an option, that is why we rent.  Buying
is the option of the the upper classes & yes private
property along w/ the nation state are two of the
biggest calamities to ever befall the planet & all her
residents.  Squatting is an option but in Denver I've
found nobody willing to do all the work to support
squating.  that is because so many "activist" here are
so full full of their typical middle class Amerikan
values that they fear all they have to lose not
realizing that for every risk they take poor people
take a thousand more just by trying to get by.  The
reason for a rent strike in denver is not so housing
is more affotdable for the college degreed spoil off
spring of Amerika's "baby Boomers" but because rents
are TOO high and poor people can't afford to live in
Denver.  Offering up buying to the poor is cruel,
blind & stupid, of course I realize VERY FEW poor
people ever see these arguements but the hypocracy,
and that is what it is, of the discussion is why very
few poor people ever see this list.  Get it together,
if you want creative alternatives stop worrying about
your bullshit bank account, mortage & SUV's and
actually all that radical shit people talk. Stan
--- Allen Butcher <allenbutcher@netzero.net> wrote:
> Bob and Mark and JB
> 
> I have to ask you guys, if as you say, you believe
> that property is theft 
> and you therefore must believe in common ownership
> of property, then why 
> don't you live communally?  (I assume that you don't
> currently.)  I'm 
> hearing you say one thing while you do something
> else.  Can you explain 
> that to me?  Is it that you don't know how to
> construct a communal 
> economy?  Have you never visited or lived in one? 
> Do you have plans to do 
> so?  Or are you happy to say that you belief in
> something while not 
> actually do it?  (Lots of people do that, after
> all.)  I'm not going to 
> call you hypocrites, as I know how hard it is to
> live by one's ideals, and 
> besides that, I'm really in the same boat with you
> right now  :-)  But at 
> least I do know what communal society is and I can
> help you create it if 
> you seriously want to make your lifestyle consistent
> with your 
> beliefs.  And I might even join you.
> 
> My beliefs, I must explain, are a little different. 
> I believe that we can 
> justify some degree of private ownership of
> property.  I believe that 
> people must have a choice, to live in the private
> property system or a 
> common property system.  We can't make people do one
> or the other, we can 
> only seek to build alternatives and let people
> choose.  That is what I 
> refer to when I discuss the idea of the "parallel
> culture."  Some people 
> will want one, some the other, and some will change
> how they live during 
> the course of their lives depending upon their
> changing needs and ideals.
> 
> The question is, how much private versus common
> ownership of property do 
> you want?  And that is really the first question in
> building an alternative 
> culture, or one of the first questions, anyway, and
> it is also a big 
> question in anarchist theory (talking about that
> recently on another list 
> service ....)  I suspect that that question is also
> the big issue that 
> keeps you all  from joining with others to build a
> society respecting 
> common property ownership.  I imagine that you
> haven't put the time into 
> working toward such agreements.  When you are ready,
> let me know, I can 
> help.  Seriously.  I've put together a whole
> presentation on the subject, 
> and I'm planning to bring introductory material to
> next Tuesday's DAN 
> meeting for people to look at.
> 
> Now of course, there is also that age old issue here
> of which 'tis more 
> revolutionary, reforming the existing system or
> building the alternative to 
> it.  Now I've talked about this before on this list
> and I don't want to 
> repeat myself, so I'll just say that I believe that
> we really need to do 
> both, in a way that is mutually supportive. 
> Intentional community provides 
> a base of support for activists to be free to engage
> the status quo, even 
> to the point of support for those doing jail time,
> and provides the working 
> model for the alternative, affirming that TINA is
> wrong ("There Is No 
> Alternative" is false, because we are building a
> model of an alternative.)
> 
> Similarly, the reform effort provides the means to
> relate the model 
> alternative to issues of the failings of the
> dominant culture, and serves 
> to help provide education for the need for change
> toward the ideals and 
> goals which are brought out of idealism and made
> relevant to the real world 
> by their development in intentional community.
> 
> However, Mark wrote as though he felt that reform
> efforts were less 
> important than "more radical ones."  So I have to
> ask, Mark, what are these 
> radical efforts to which you allude?  Perhaps you
> refer to street actions 
> as being radical efforts, and I agree that they are
> more radical than 
> merely talking a good line, but I would argue that
> creating a replicateable 
> model of a society that affirms individual
> responsibility for self, society 
> and nature is just as radical as street actions,
> they are just different 
> means to the same end.
> 
> Now Mark brings up another point, that "... buying
> into private property 
> and capitalism is delusional - and such reformist
> efforts take energy away 
> from more radical ones."  Okay, I have to ask the
> same question, so what is 
> your living situation?  Do you rent? Do you own your
> own home?  Do you live 
> in a community land trust or collective household or
> cohousing community or 
> housing cooperative or communal society?  I presume
> that you either rent or 
> own your home.  So aren't you buying into the
> system?  Aren't you throwing 
> stones while living in glass houses yourselves?  You
> state a challenge to 
> my strategy for change yet you offer no alternative
> strategy.  What is your 
> radical strategy?
> 
> I'm sorry to get into this "more radical than thou"
> argument, but I feel 
> that I've been attacked without being understood, so
> I'll state clearly, I 
> think we need many efforts to confront and address
> the issue of social 
> change, including but not limited to:  reform,
> alternative culture, and 
> protest.  And I've tried to stay active, for over 25
> years now, in all 
> three, currently being active in the Green Party,
> intentional community / 
> cooperatives, and some DAN activities (currently
> with the latter being the 
> least of the three, but that was not always the case
> with me).
> 
> The understanding that I received while living in
> communal society is that 
> building an alternative culture is like pushing the
> dominant culture out of 
> our lives, creating a bubble around ourselves such
> that we can live the 
> alternative inside that bubble ("fish bowl" we
> sometimes call it).  And 
> this is necessary because we do exist in the real
> world, we cannot escape 
> from it.  The best we can do is make a clear and
> strong enough 
> bubble-membrane around our community such that we
> control what real world 
> influences we permit in, rather than have dictated
> to us how we must live, 
> so that we don't have to be beholden to a set of
> values that we 
> reject.  But remember, this bubble still exists in
> the real world and the 
> only way to keep it intact is to carefully manage
> the interface between the 
> community and the outside world.  I could say more
> about that .... but I 
> don't want to get off on that tangent, the important
> point to keep in mind 
> is that such a community makes it possible for us to
> affirm our values and 
> to carry on an ongoing challenge to the dominant
> culture, working together 
> creating and maintaining a community of resistance
> and change that will 
> live beyond our natural individual lives.
> 
> Again, to be clear, it is not necessary that
> everyone do this, just those 
> who really want to.  Don't get me wrong, people
> don't have to live in 
> community to effectively work for change. 
> Intentional community is just 
> one strategy, but one that people who are involved
> in working for change 
> really ought to at least understand, and the
> comments I'm responding to 
> indicate a lack of understanding.
> 
> And we don't have to be rich to do this.  We just
> need to work together 
> effectively, combining and sharing our resources,
> and knowing how to make 
> the best use of what we've got.  A very good model
> is what is said about 
> 
=== message truncated ===


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