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Workable Socialism


Martell Spy

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5 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I had not heard about refusal to accept Jewish Refugees after the end of WWII.  It, sadly, would not surprise me, but, do you have any documentation to will provide support for that assertion.  I’d be curious to look it over.

Thank you.

I think in relation to this thread, many U.S. socialists are anti-Israel. That's a step I just can't take despite the terrible things happening over there. My boss (and hero) is jewish and a holocaust scholar, and she told me once that no matter what happens here (with Trump's anti-semitic followers coming out of the woodwork) that she knows a safe place exists that won't turn Jews away. She said during and after WWII, nations around the world turned them away, and Israel is the one asylum they have. That made me incredibly sad much like the current situation on the border. No matter what some less intelligent posters around here might say, these are terrible things that stretch the limits of my imagination.

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4 hours ago, Lykos said:

@Ser Scot A Ellison

The US Holocaust Memorial Museum has this entry on refugees on its encyclopedia.

 

I’m well aware of Jews who were turned away from a variety of nations during the 30s and 40s prior to the discovery of the Shoah.  What I wasn’t aware of are Jews who after WWII wanted to return to their pre-war homes and were not allowed to return.

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3 hours ago, dornishpen said:

In addition the USHMM link @Lykos provided, here's what [url=https://www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/about/end-of-war-aftermath/liberation.html?WT.mc_id=wiki#narrative_info/]Yad Vashem[/url] has about this and for an overview here's a [url=https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh'erit_ha-Pletah]Wikipedia[/url] page about survivors in DP camps after the war. 

That is horrible.  :(

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2 hours ago, a good and nice guy said:

first thing i’m calling for in the glorious revolution is the utter abolition of landlords. ugh, just an utter dogshit class of people 

Every single one?  Really?  You get around if you’ve met every landlord.

;)

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Just now, larrytheimp said:

They make money off of other people existing.  Why should you get to profit off of someone else needing a house or apartment?  How is this a job?

It isn’t a “job” for most people.  It is a side source of income that is accompanied by quite a few duties to your tenants.  Those duties are part of the reason my wife wanted to sell our old house rather than keep it and rent it out.  

Just because you are a landlord it does not follow that you will automatically treat your tenants like shit.

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21 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

It isn’t a “job” for most people.  It is a side source of income that is accompanied by quite a few duties to your tenants.  Those duties are part of the reason my wife wanted to sell our old house rather than keep it and rent it out.  

Just because you are a landlord it does not follow that you will automatically treat your tenants like shit.

You're trying to make it individual, but it is a systemic problem. In general, renters in the more expensive areas feel like they are being treated like shit. This isn't really based upon personal behavior, like the landlord bullying them or refusing repairs, although I'm sure the latter happens at times. It's based on a larger and larger share of their income being taken for rents. And more and more of the poorest turned out into the streets. 

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4 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

You're trying to make it individual, but it is a systemic problem. In general, renters in the more expensive areas feel like they are being treated like shit. This isn't really based upon personal behavior, like the landlord bullying them or refusing repairs, although I'm sure the latter happens at times. It's based on a larger and larger share of their income being taken for rents. And more and more of the poorest turned out into the streets. 

This is what “A Good and Nice Guy” said:

first thing i’m calling for in the glorious revolution is the utter abolition of landlords. ugh, just an utter dogshit class of people 

Calling every person who is a landlord “dogshit” is pretty personal.

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46 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

It isn’t a “job” for most people.  It is a side source of income that is accompanied by quite a few duties to your tenants.  Those duties are part of the reason my wife wanted to sell our old house rather than keep it and rent it out.  

Just because you are a landlord it does not follow that you will automatically treat your tenants like shit.

No landlord is doing it out of the goodness of their heart - I'm sure on an individual level many of them are fine people.  It's not about "treat[ing] your tenants like shit", it's about the whole practice being exploitive.  It's a way to perpetuate an upper class 

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22 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

No landlord is doing it out of the goodness of their heart - I'm sure on an individual level many of them are fine people.  It's not about "treat[ing] your tenants like shit", it's about the whole practice being exploitive.  It's a way to perpetuate an upper class 

So, all apartment complexes should be State owned facilities?  Each person limited to owning one piece of property, or should we all be renting from the State?

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51 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

So, all apartment complexes should be State owned facilities?  Each person limited to owning one piece of property

I don't see why not. You can't live in two pieces of property at the same time!

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6 minutes ago, felice said:

I don't see why not. You can't live in two pieces of property at the same time!

So the State should own all real estate?  We all pay rent to the State?  If you mean limit everyone to one piece of real property can an adult child, who lives with their parents own real property?

What if someone is given a long term assignment away from their home, how long can they be absent from their residence before that residence escheats to the State?

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2 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

So the State should own all real estate?  We all pay rent to the State?

Why not? We have to pay rent to someone, and a Housing Department is potentially a lot more accountable than private landlords. It would mean either lower taxes, lower rents, or better public services, depending on what the State did with the profits. And the state could automatically waive rent in the even of unemployment, so nobody would ever be at risk of losing their home.

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1 minute ago, felice said:

Why not? We have to pay rent to someone, and a Housing Department is potentially a lot more accountable than private landlords. It would mean either lower taxes, lower rents, or better public services, depending on what the State did with the profits. And the state could automatically waive rent in the even of unemployment, so nobody would ever be at risk of losing their home.

How efficient has the State been, when it has this power, in making sure people have housing?  How drab will State issued housing be?

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I mean, the idea of private owned property of the level it currently is is a pretty recent development, so it's not like this is a particularly crazy idea. Government controls all rent (ideally in a rent to own kind of way), houses are built by the government and sold for the cost of the house or built specifically for the one who will live in them, when selling a house you can only sell for what's owed on the house. Add in some controls to factor the price of the physical property and I think once you filled in the blanks you've got reasonably a good system.

1 minute ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

How efficient has the State been, when it has this power, in making sure people have housing?  How drab will State issued housing be?

Better than literally every other option, and about as drab as houses now are. Actually probably better. I've been in some ugly ass government buildings, but at minimum they're usually clean and pest free. Can't say the same for some of the houses my family have rented.

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10 minutes ago, TrueMetis said:

I mean, the idea of private owned property of the level it currently is is a pretty recent development, so it's not like this is a particularly crazy idea. Government controls all rent (ideally in a rent to own kind of way), houses are built by the government and sold for the cost of the house or built specifically for the one who will live in them, when selling a house you can only sell for what's owed on the house. Add in some controls to factor the price of the physical property and I think once you filled in the blanks you've got reasonably a good system.

Better than literally every other option, and about as drab as houses now are. Actually probably better. I've been in some ugly ass government buildings, but at minimum they're usually clean and pest free. Can't say the same for some of the houses my family have rented.

Yeah, I lived in public housing a couple years as a child. It was not bad at all. Of course I've been in a couple downtown Seattle projects and those were much worse. 

There was required inspections for cleanliness and the like.

The apartment was enormous. It had 2 stories. Something like that bought on the current market would cost like 3 k a month.

The main bad thing was the carpets were removed. There was plain white tiles everywhere. It sucked on cold mornings getting up.

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2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

This is what “A Good and Nice Guy” said:

Calling every person who is a landlord “dogshit” is pretty personal.

that is why said “class of”, no matter how great the landlord is, they are still contributing to the parasitization of (largely) the working class 

13 minutes ago, dornishpen said:

I'm going to guess that no one here has spent much time in the projects and seen what kind of condition they're in or knows anything about how long the waiting lists for subsidized housing is in the US. 

yeah, but a large part of that is the scarcity of public housing in relation to the demand. i mean, there is something like 3 unoccupied homes for every homeless person in the us (on my break, will look up the stat later) which is just extremely gross to me in the wealthiest nation in the history of the world

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1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

So, all apartment complexes should be State owned facilities?  Each person limited to owning one piece of property, or should we all be renting from the State?

No Scot, although maybe eventually.  And I'd prefer to think of it as 'owned by the people'.  It's funny how those who seem to have the most romantic attachment to the whole 'we the people' stuff and are super 'patriotic' scoff at the idea of actually making some kind of productive decision with their fellow citizens.  

There are many other options.  Co-ops where everyone in a building pays into a fund for repair and upkeep of the building, but managed by some kind of housing board.  The idea would be to take the profit out of simply owning something.  There's an entire spectrum here from an independent entity monitoring this or a municipal, state, or federal government agency being involved.  

Nobody's job should be able to be 'investor' where they are simply profiting off the fact that they have so much more than anyone else.  

I work with a lot of landlords and depend on them maintaining their properties for my living.  They are as good or bad as anyone else, that's not the point.  If that's their passion they can be a building super or a property manager.   

Feel free to keep up the fallacy based arguing with stuff like "have you met every landlord lol".  We've had plenty of, to borrow a phrase, dogshit jobs and positions go by the wayside.*

Look, I don't expect you to agree with any of this or think it's legitimate.  But the way housing works is absolutely absurd.  I mean on a survival scale it is absolutely the most essential thing for humans.  There's no reason that it should be the most consuming part of our daily labor.  The fact that most of us have to hand over the bulk of our earnings just to be able to have a roof over our heads is nothing shirt of insane.  

Obviously this all opinion.

 

*Eta: and I'd be happy to see the job/title of 'landlord' join that mass grave.  Ffs the fact that's it's landLORD should give people pause

 

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