Fuck Gentrification - Join the Fuck Parade...Part 3!

[xenon]

Anyway this thread is still a bit bonkers. You can't protest against gentrification, property prices, economic class cleansing. Unless you have a committee. Write a sternly worded letter to the local council or something.

I still think SKC was a daft target. But no point crying over spilt milk. Or overpriced fucking shredded wheat.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

thats called the socratic method. In any case I expect nothing from class war except these sort of things, what else are they supposed to do. The womens division is called 'the womens death brigade' ffs. How is anyone going to take that seriously? Only I think thats the point. Situationism etc?

It's a pretty empty spectacle, though. I don't decry the tactic necessarily, but I question the target. If you're going to don a balaclava and step out into the streets intent on making a statement, should you be daubing slogans on the windows of a silly novelty cafe, or should you be smashing in the windows of Foxtons? Then waiting for them to repair the windows and going and smashing them in again?

 

[Batboy]

I'd put on a falsetto voice and pretend to be boss if you were offering free beer.

God knows I am no anarchist but it aint half hilarious to see you small businesmen and 'friends to the working man' (LOL) get the crit arse backwards

I have always championed the working man and small businesses... Some of you just don't get it or thinks it's possible, the world is not black and white. You and others symbolise this.

My grandmother was a small businesswoman (A shopkeeper) she also worked as a warden in the blitz pulling out the injured and the dead in Londons East End. She never made shit loads of money (As I don't , many people employed earn way more than I do, including Electricians ... take note Citizen 66), so my family never inherited any great fortune and I lived with a mentally ill mother who couldn't work and we had jack shit. I went through hell as a kid , I know what its like to be poor and suffer, many on here moaning don't.

My background has been well listed on these forums, some of you cannot grasp that a person that can climb from abject poverty and an abusive domestic life can make good and still have credibility, this is the politics of envy. I don't buy it, mock and lol all you want.

I have watched with dismay, the economic events of in particular the last 15 years. The housing market out of control, the lack of affordable housing, the lower paid being worse off, the rich getting richer, the ridiculous wars started without any intelligent foresight. I have been wholly opposed to all of this and acknowledge that a massive correction needs to take place.

Jeremy Corbyn is my local MP, I have met the guy on many occasions and he knows my views, he is well known to me, my next door neighbour worked in his office with him when he was in Blackstock road. He is an honest and good man with forthright views. I was hugely pleased that he won the leadership election, I doubt I would agree with all of his views, but there is a huge dose of intelligent socialism needed across the richer nations. I will probably vote for him, which may surprise you. The media are slagging him and it is backfiring on them, they are scared of him, he is no Michael Foot.

The way I see it is that politics are way to polarised and confrontational. From the Eton toffs and political elite to the likes of Class War. We need to work together not have yo-yo views and fuck you cunts on the other side as we have in the past. The world is fucked up still as it always has been, communism and marxism didn't work and Capitalism or whatever you want to call it is overstuffed with greed and clearly out of control.

 

[Batboy]

Anyway this thread is still a bit bonkers. You can't protest against gentrification, property prices, economic class cleansing. Unless you have a committee. Write a sternly worded letter to the local council or something.

I still think SKC was a daft target. But no point crying over spilt milk. Or overpriced fucking shredded wheat.

To be fair a sternly written letter to the council, is going to do fuck all.

 

[Batboy]

To treelover
Agree with you on this. An unregulated housing market has been fuelled by greed on every property owners case and massively helped by allowing the foreign rich to invest and speculate. It is the modern gold rush equivalent of the wild west. The Russian and Chinese billionaires in particular have swamped in to this country and with our own population being encouraged to buy to let we have moved away from tangible business economy to that of a casino economy.... the winning streak will come to a mighty end... it always does.

 

[Batboy]

One blogger, is swearing blind the protesters kicked and hurt a small dog, this is hard to believe, but she claims she saw it, baffled by that sort of behaviour

then again, RTS used to attract some dubious characters.

French Bulldog = Bourgeois , explains why justified target... pitiful/staff cross is working class and credible.

 

[seventh bullet]

Posh, Broke & Bored drips privilege from her supercilious pennings. Ugh.

She's probably spent more on her recent jaunt to Russia than my 7 trips in the last decade combined and she's seen fuck all apart from the inside of luxury hotels and shops.

 

[Batboy]

what is your idea of militant working class fun



Gentrification is when the middle class supplant the localised working class - gentrification starts with the middle classes wanting to buy in. I think that was the point of sihhi's post. For example you could look at how UCL has essentially taken over large swathes of housing, community centres, buildings etc in camden. But you've already 'done' camden haven't you.

The capitalists may be the ultimate benefactors financially but its the middle class who act as its frontline infantry in the war of gentrification. Something to consider.

Gentrification isn't actually new, areas have ebbed and flowed over the hundreds of years. Islington was a prime example of this. The old Georgian and Victorian houses were originally owned by the rich and middle classes, they then left to leave the smog filled cities and the area went downhill and become quite run down. Over the last 30 years it went the other way, there are places all around the UK that have done this.

Leytonstone was originally a posh area that went downwards and has now come upwards.

Gants Hill in the suburbs was an affluent Jewish neighbourhood where I once went to school, is one that in my view has gone downwards. It can go the other way too.


The problem isn't gentrification or whatever you want to call it, it is out of control property prices and the scale of gap between the haves and have nots and the fact that the benefits of regenerating an area very often fail the locals.

 

[Pickman's model]

Gentrification isn't actually new, areas have ebbed and flowed over the hundreds of years. Islington was a prime example of this. The old Georgian and Victorian houses were originally owned by the rich and middle classes, they then left to leave the smog filled cities and the area went downhill and become quite run down. Over the last 30 years it went the other way, there are places all around the UK that have done this.

Leytonstone was originally a posh area that went downwards and has now come upwards.

Gants Hill in the suburbs was an affluent Jewish neighbourhood where I once went to school, is one that in my view has gone downwards. It can go the other way too.


The problem isn't gentrification or whatever you want to call it, it is out of control property prices and the scale of gap between the haves and have nots and the fact that the benefits of regenerating an area very often fail the locals.

gentrificatuon is different frim the natural ebb and flow of areas, and it is disappointing to see this auld canard it's old repeated.

 

[Batboy]

gentrificatuon is different frim the natural ebb and flow of areas, and it is disappointing to see this auld canard it's old repeated.

Disagree with you. The only difference is the pace, everything in life here has got quicker. Regeneration happens quicker, property speculation happens quicker and so is poverty.

 

[Pickman's model]

Disagree with you. The only difference is the pace, everything in life here has got quicker. Regeneration happens quicker, property speculation happens quicker and so is poverty.

no, the difference is not one gentrified area has ever 'declined': so much for your speed bit. the difference is local govdrnmrnt and national government are actively involved: as gentrifiers. the difference is no more accommodation is coming on the market for working class (or, to be fair, many m/c people) while cpuncil estates are knocked down to make way for yuppie flats. the difference is that what you affect to see, and what lovecraft described in 'the street', is not what is happening now.

 

[BigTom]

How would I exist in a society that didn't have trade as its core mechanism? Is this the only model that can work then? How do things develop that don't involve trade?

There's gifting economies, which exists at burning man and in some tribal societies but seems like a hippy dream to me in anything other than a post scarcity society. Open source/freeware fits with this idea.

Not sure if mutual aid counts as trading, I do something for you/give you something without getting anything in return but knowing that you/someone else will give me something further down the line, there's an implicit exchange there still, so still trading I reckon.

Math trades (invented by Americans to swap board games so correctly spelt, to my annoyance) are still definitely trading but allow mass bartering so could work without exchange tokens. What happens is everyone posts up what they have to swap, then go through the list saying I'll so a for b or c or d &e and then a computer works out and optimal trade swap amongst the group. A gives to B who gives to C who gives to A but with dozens/hundreds of people. Doesn't exist outside of boardgamegeek.com yet afaik.

 

[Citizen66]

There's gifting economies, which exists at burning man and in some tribal societies but seems like a hippy dream to me in anything other than a post scarcity society. Open source/freeware fits with this idea.

Not sure if mutual aid counts as trading, I do something for you/give you something without getting anything in return but knowing that you/someone else will give me something further down the line, there's an implicit exchange there still, so still trading I reckon.

Math trades (invented by Americans to swap board games so correctly spelt, to my annoyance) are still definitely trading but allow mass bartering so could work without exchange tokens. What happens is everyone posts up what they have to swap, then go through the list saying I'll so a for b or c or d &e and then a computer works out and optimal trade swap amongst the group. A gives to B who gives to C who gives to A but with dozens/hundreds of people. Doesn't exist outside of boardgamegeek.com yet afaik.

But this still comes from the angle that everyone does things seperately then play swaps. Rather than seeing production as a community effort with the sum total being divvied up.

 

[Dan U]

Regardless of what you think of the protest it was a genius target from a media coverage point of view.

Still in the Guardian today and I saw some tweets linking to a Times article saying protest was headed by middle class professor (they were on about Lisa Mckenzie)

 

[DotCommunist]

It's a pretty empty spectacle, though.

it seems to have generated the desired level of outrage and focused attention though. The estate agents window that was also done is all but forgotten in this rush to condemn the heinous crime of smoking out a cereal cafe

 

[Pickman's model]

it seems to have generated the desired level of outrage and focused attention though. The estate agents window that was also done is all but forgotten in this rush to condemn the heinous crime of smoking out a cereal cafe

yeh and the windows of the cereal cafe not even broken.

 

[cesare]

it seems to have generated the desired level of outrage and focused attention though. The estate agents window that was also done is all but forgotten in this rush to condemn the heinous crime of smoking out a cereal cafe

Lower orders being disrespectful about our property - full seethe ahead.

 

[Belushi]

They're protesting against the Jack the Ripper 'Museum' on Sunday :thumbs :

 

[cesare]

They're protesting against the Jack the Ripper 'Museum' on Sunday :thumbs :

 

[Pickman's model]

Lower orders being disrespectful about our property - full seethe ahead.

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Got to page 9, a fair amount of shit chatted from both sides, IMO.

Of course this cafe is gentrification. The reason it's been targetted instead of some nearby overpriced bar is that it has become symbolic of clichéd hipster wankerism, and lazy, price hiking capitalism. Someone comparing it to the markup in pubs. Not really a useful comparison, IMO. Compare it to the markup in a greasy spoon, if you don't want to be comparing apples with oranges. And then accept that the people who own it are chiseling shysters.

As for the protest itself, it is not right to say that anyone who doesn't agree with the methods class war used here is a liberal. That's such tedious "my politics are more hardline than yours, and thus better" bollocks its unbelievable. As I understand it, there were kids in the cafe, and definitely some pretty innocent adults. I'm willing to bet a fair proportion of the cafes customers are not remotely hipsterish. Normal people, who were pretty fucking terrified at the burning effigies, smokebombs, graffiti and masked men outside. Fucking shitting it, I imagine. How anyone can be remotely pleased about this is beyond me.

Of course the place is a valid target for protest, and I would never say that disorder should be off limits as a tactic to use. But this wasn't one of those times.

Agree with this, basically. As far as I can see all that CW have achieved with this is to make themselves look a bit pathetic and ensure that the next Fuck Parade will be policed to death.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

it seems to have generated the desired level of outrage and focused attention though. The estate agents window that was also done is all but forgotten in this rush to condemn the heinous crime of smoking out a cereal cafe

Perhaps that points to their mistake. I think they have the meanings of this stuff all arse-about-tit, tbh. Even if you think the CKC is in poor taste, ill-conceived, or even a waste of space, it is a small, independent, quirky venture of the very kind that gentrification drives out. Gentrification in the form of massive hikes in rents tends towards the spread of chains and homogenisation.

What's the difference between urban regeneration, something an area like Brick Lane really needed 20-odd years ago, and gentrification? How can you have the former without the latter? Surely the answer has to come down to property prices and domestic and business rents. This attack does nothing to highlight that. CW just appears to be acting like taste police.

 

[rutabowa]

class war are definitely the hipsters of protest.

 

[Pickman's model]

Perhaps that points to their mistake. I think they have the meanings of this stuff all arse-about-tit, tbh. Even if you think the CKC is in poor taste, ill-conceived, or even a waste of space, it is a small, independent, quirky venture of the very kind that gentrification drives out. Gentrification in the form of massive hikes in rents tends towards the spread of chains and homogenisation.

bollocks. it is the sort of small, independent 'quirky' venture of which gentrification is made.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Of course this cafe is gentrification. The reason it's been targetted instead of some nearby overpriced bar is that it has become symbolic of clichéd hipster wankerism, and lazy, price hiking capitalism. Someone comparing it to the markup in pubs. Not really a useful comparison, IMO. Compare it to the markup in a greasy spoon, if you don't want to be comparing apples with oranges. And then accept that the people who own it are chiseling shysters.

I'd want to know a lot more about them before making that kind of judgement. What do they pay their staff, for instance? What role does the rent they pay play in their prices? Is it their fault if they have to pay huge rents? Who should be targetted for that?

I don't even know what 'cliched hipster wankerism' is, tbh, other than 'something I don't like the look of'.

 

[Pickman's model]

I'd want to know a lot more about them before making that kind of judgement.

why not read the thread devoted to their sordid little business?

 

[The Flying Pig]

Anyway this thread is still a bit bonkers. You can't protest against gentrification, property prices, economic class cleansing. Unless you have a committee. Write a sternly worded letter to the local council or something.

I still think SKC was a daft target. But no point crying over spilt milk. Or overpriced fucking shredded wheat.

And as per usual with these sort of actions therein lies the problem. "But no point crying over spilt milk." I for one have heard this quote far too many times by those whose actions have just been too stupid. It is the quote a teenager makes to absolve from any form of responsiblity for their actions.

 

[rutabowa]

I don't even know what 'cliched hipster wankerism' is

It's the guys on the class war thing and the guys in the cafe

 

[rutabowa]

and me, standing on the sidelines taking swipes at all of them.

 

[Pickman's model]

And as per usual with these sort of actions therein lies the problem. "But no point crying over spilt milk." I for one have heard this quote far too many times by those whose actions have just been too stupid. It is the quote a teenager makes to absolve from any form of responsiblity for their actions.

you're not the fullest pint in the pub.

it's a fucking CEREAL CAFE. CEREAL. cereal goes with MILK. do you get it now?