Foreclosures Are Their Palaces
Michael Stoops, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, said about a dozen advocacy groups around the country were actively moving homeless people into vacant homes — some working in secret, others, like Take Back the Land, operating openly. In addition to squatting, some advocacy groups have organized civil disobedience actions in which…
For better or for worse, anarchy means lots and lots of meetings and consensus process. Libertarianism means I get to kill you and steal your stuff as long as I’m discrete about it.
“Anarchy is . . . a fairly demanding and rigorous political philosophy that calls on all of us to take responsibility for governance instead of ceding power to a few.”
I lol’d. Hard.
That sounds like libertarianism, btw.
I’m pretty sure anarchy means I get to kill you and steal your stuff unless you kill me first or we team up to kill someone else. Or possibly we’ll just enslave them, but then you are getting into that whole government thing again…
Really?
Most of the former squats that bought their buildings from the city are still full of anarchists. Anarchy is not actually a synonym for “strung out heroin addicts run amok.” It is a fairly demanding and rigorous political philosophy that calls on all of us to take responsibility for governance instead of ceding power to a few.
I did live in the East Village in the 90s. It was a mess. The cops were pretty fucking out of control. There were junkies everywhere. “Squatters” writ large were not the problem though. The problem was drug gangs and poverty and the fact that after turning its back on the poor for decades the city couldn’t figure out how to reign in the hold that the dealers had on the area. Especially not with the state the local precincts were in.
I really don’t get why the banks should get a bailout but people who burned through their life savings trying to reign in a subprime mortgage are supposed to rot in the streets.
Why should any city allow property to be warehoused?
How does that serve the rest of the city?
“Use it or lose it! If the American tax slave is bailing out the Assheads who made the loans in the first plane then the people should take these properties and live in them, Period!!!”
QOTMFD
***Bid half off peak comps***
I use to dream of being able to afford the Holiday!
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Only kidding. Even I could afford the Holiday back then.
Although I once took somewhere there who ordered Vermouth, and I thought they were going to 86 me.
At the time, Northslope, I thought they were picturesque. Now I’d be annoyed. However, Mona’s was the only bar (aside from Sophie’s and the Holiday) that my 20-year old self could afford. When we were flush we’d go to Joe’s. It was a simple time.
“And 13th street was totally fun.”
I had a friend who lived there who had to run the gauntlet of drug dealers, runners, and junkies every night to get home.
Not my idea of fun. Maybe if you are visiting and want to brag about the tough parts of the city you were in. Not much fun to live there though.
Glad that Queen Omega has access to brownstoner.
Maybe television news will set up cameras outside these squatters’ houses and cover it 24/7. Then Obama would be forced to fly in to remedy the situation, as Bush should have done for Katrina.