THE IWCA Something quite different or just another leftie group?

[The Black Hand]

Oh dear, out come the 'Nazi' taunts, leave it out will you?

for those who aren't aware of what R68 is on about

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Strasser

We agree on something.

Indeed, his posts are just stupid and offensive. He DOES know better too, he must want to be targeted?

 

[treelover]

Durrutti (with a username like that) isn't though...

 

[audiotech]

Durrutti (with a username like that) isn't though...

No, but annoyingly, he does come close at times.

 

[revol68]

Oh dear, out come the 'Nazi' taunts, leave it out will you?

for those who aren't aware of what R68 is on about

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Strasser

note the prefix 'quasi' you daft fuck.

 

[Random]

note the prefix 'quasi' you daft fuck.

you quasi-daft fuck, revol

 

[revol68]

you quasi-daft fuck, revol

here random, what do you make of the IWCA's 'son's and daughter's' housing policy?

 

[durruti02]

Also why do you talk about the working class only in terms of those settled in an area with family ties? is the young single mother moving into a estate less working class? Are immigrants not part of the working class?

eh?? well of course they are w/c .. but we need practical solutions to resist the neo liberal destruction of community ( who see/ saw it as an absolute priority .. take note!) ..


i do however accept many of the negatives you point out .. but believe the positives outweigh them communities will not be able to be inclusive and defend e.g asylum seekers UNTIL they are strong communities ..

[edited out 'entirely' for the negatives]

 

[durruti02]

note the prefix 'quasi' you daft fuck.

strasser was an anti semitic racist nationalist shite .. i am arguing in favour of a radical working class localism .. oh sooo sooo similar ..

 

[newbie]

but we need practical solutions to resist the neo liberal destruction of community ( who see/ saw it as an absolute priority .. take note!) ..


i do however accept entirely the negatives you point out .. but believe the positives outweigh them communities will not be able to be inclusive and defend e.g asylum seekers UNTIL they are strong communities ..

the practical solution is being implemented by housing departments up and down the land, who put points on local ties, just as they put points on a myriad of other, equally or more important, needs ranging through overcrowding or underoccupancy, vulnerability, neighbour disputes or homelessness.

Lambeth allocations pdf. There's plenty of scope to discuss the exact number of points for each need, but to belittle all needs other than 'sons & daughters' localism is simply surface scratching populism.

 

[Joe Reilly]

actually my opposition to sons and daughters is based on the here and now, on the fact that I don't think that locality should trump other more pressing needs in housing. In northern ireland a son's and daughters policy would be the wax stamp on sectarian housing. In the wider UK such a policy would only exasperate the ghettoisation of housing between asian, whites, blacks and future immigrant populations.

So you think the seperating out of working class people, the collapsing of the extended family, the tearing up of social networks, the erosion of any sense of community is somehow automatically progressive. If so it can only be because along with the likes Oxford Trades Council you too believe that deep down the 'working class is twisted and the job of socialists is to untwist them'.

 

[ViolentPanda]

...simply surface scratching populism.

...like most of the other stuff he comes out with, then?

 

[Blagsta]

You know, I can't make up my mind about the IWCA. Sometimes, they appear to be making a lot of sense and other times they seem to be pandering to a short sighted parochialism. Then when I see one of their supporters talking about a degenerative underclass and referring to people as "junkie scum" it makes me wonder exactly what their real agenda is.

 

[LLETSA]

You know, I can't make up my mind about the IWCA. Sometimes, they appear to be making a lot of sense and other times they seem to be pandering to a short sighted parochialism. Then when I see one of their supporters talking about a degenerative underclass and referring to people as "junkie scum" it makes me wonder exactly what their real agenda is.

(((Junkies.)))

 

[Blagsta]

(((Junkies.)))

Do you know anyone with a heroin problem? I work with street homeless heroin and crack users. The majority of them have been brought up in care, many have been on the streets since they were young teenagers, many have been sexually and physically abused by their parents or carers. Some were pimped by their parents when 12 years old. Some injected with heroin when 7 years old. You think these people are scum?

 

[The Black Hand]

So you think the seperating out of working class people, the collapsing of the extended family, the tearing up of social networks, the erosion of any sense of community is somehow automatically progressive. If so it can only be because along with the likes Oxford Trades Council you too believe that deep down the 'working class is twisted and the job of socialists is to untwist them'.

#

Actually I think you are stuck in a defeated past, you want to defend 'idealised working class communities' from a time when they were strong.

Rather, imho, the task is to create new inclusive communities based upon the new social conditions rather than a romantic Coronation Street picture of a glorious and gone (never to return) past.

 

[Blagsta]

Attica says something sensible shocka!

 

[The Black Hand]

Attica says something sensible

I do all the time...

 

[durruti02]

the practical solution is being implemented by housing departments up and down the land, who put points on local ties, just as they put points on a myriad of other, equally or more important, needs ranging through overcrowding or underoccupancy, vulnerability, neighbour disputes or homelessness.

Lambeth allocations pdf. There's plenty of scope to discuss the exact number of points for each need, but to belittle all needs other than 'sons & daughters' localism is simply surface scratching populism.

there was a clear shift under thatcher from local priority to priority for homelessness .. i can not help but think as such a hater of working class communities there was a link

i do not belittle other needs and it is nothing to do with populism ( and god forbid we are 'poplarists' those old strasserite bastards! ) .. in fact it is probably is correct that the needs of a homeless immigrant family are more than that of a 22 women still living with mum and dad ..

BUT i am looking at it as to HOW we move beyond that how we can start to re empower communities .. how we can move toward a situation when we WILL be powerfull enough to genuninely help asylum seekers etc instead of just wringing our hands

the status quo is a downward spirall that only benefits the system

 

[durruti02]

#

Actually I think you are stuck in a defeated past, you want to defend 'idealised working class communities' from a time when they were strong.

Rather, imho, the task is to create new inclusive communities based upon the new social conditions rather than a romantic Coronation Street picture of a glorious and gone (never to return) past.

sorry this is nonsense absolute nonsense .. you claim to know south oxford so where on earth do you come up with this strawman??? ..

they are doing or trying to do as you propose, to 'create new inclusive communities'

 

[durruti02]

actually my opposition to sons and daughters is based on the here and now, on the fact that I don't think that locality should trump other more pressing needs in housing. In northern ireland a son's and daughters policy would be the wax stamp on sectarian housing. In the wider UK such a policy would only exasperate the ghettoisation of housing between asian, whites, blacks and future immigrant populations.

Further more the working class shouldn't fight amongst itself for housing (and certainly shouldn't prioritise 'locality'), if ther eis a shortage of houses then fight for more housing, don't take a running jump into their fucking zero sum politic!

as i said i stand by supportting SnD but accept that some of the problems that can arise. But it is only with strong communities that we can eventually over turn reaction and sectarianism .. we will NEVER do it with weak communities

What i want to ask you is what is the alternative? The process today is a continual breakdown of community. how do you see it being slowed stopped and reversed?

do you recognise how community has been damaged so badly under thatcherism? so what are the processes by which you believe we can rebuild community?

 

[ViolentPanda]

there was a clear shift under thatcher from local priority to priority for homelessness .. i can not help but think as such a hater of working class communities there was a link

There was a "clear shift" for a single devastating reason: RIGHT TO BUY.
Right to buy progressively reduced the available social housing stock at such a rate that even had local authorities been allowed to start new-build to replace the sold stock, they couldn't have kept pace with the loss.
That is why "sons and daughters" was set aside for the more immediately important criterion of homelessness, and the fact that housing associations haven't been able (and weren't allowed to be able) to replace the hole in social housing stock is why "homelessness" is still the best criterion. If the volume of social housing increases significantly, then I'm sure "sons and daughters" will be considered again.

 

[durruti02]

There was a "clear shift" for a single devastating reason: RIGHT TO BUY.
Right to buy progressively reduced the available social housing stock at such a rate that even had local authorities been allowed to start new-build to replace the sold stock, they couldn't have kept pace with the loss.
That is why "sons and daughters" was set aside for the more immediately important criterion of homelessness, and the fact that housing associations haven't been able (and weren't allowed to be able) to replace the hole in social housing stock is why "homelessness" is still the best criterion. If the volume of social housing increases significantly, then I'm sure "sons and daughters" will be considered again.

yes i accept that .. i even think they were in the same housing bill in the early 8ts .. do you think i am wrong to suggest and believe a politically motivated link between the two things?

 

[The Black Hand]

sorry this is nonsense absolute nonsense .. you claim to know south oxford so where on earth do you come up with this strawman??? ..

they are doing or trying to do as you propose, to 'create new inclusive communities'

I was talking about Joe, but if you want to widen it out... Are they doing as I propose, with a sons and daughters policy? This doesn't fit with creating new inclusive communties... AS it goes there could be good community politics but its all done badly on the web, I would rather there were a series of meetings/conferences organised... There is 'some' good in the IWCA, but its in a very embryonic stage, and I really do not like the elitism in the attitudes...

The answer (and yes I do know it), is not recreating past communities, nor inventing totally new ones, it is in taking the best from the past in the remnents of social housing, and blending this with the new social conditions and the people who are here, where real 21st century communities maybe created.

Has anybody seriously thought about the new 50K workers for the 2012 olympics yet? Where are they gonna go? I think they will be set up in camps in Essex or North Kent, and bussed in daily to the building sites. These sites; camps, caravans, or tents, or prefabs (?!) whatever, will be interesting for a number of reasons. The gangmasters will be the camp managers, the shops will be exhorbitant, and the informal trade in drugs and sex maybe significant too...

 

[LLETSA]

Do you know anyone with a heroin problem? I work with street homeless heroin and crack users. The majority of them have been brought up in care, many have been on the streets since they were young teenagers, many have been sexually and physically abused by their parents or carers. Some were pimped by their parents when 12 years old. Some injected with heroin when 7 years old. You think these people are scum?

I never called anybody scum.

But I think you're forgetting to mention the smack and crack-addicted muggers and burglars.

Your job doesn't give you priveliged insight; those who have been on the receiving end of the crime with which junkies feed their habits have just as much of a right to an opinion as you (more of a right actually.) It might be precisely because you work in that field that you idealise the druggie. They're not all misunderstood angels. (The very fact that you mention people injecting seven year-olds with heroin might tell you something.)

 

[Blagsta]

I never called anybody scum.

But I think you're forgetting to mention the smack and crack-addicted muggers and burglars.

Your job doesn't give you priveliged insight; those who have been on the receiving end of the crime with which junkies feed their habits have just as much of a right to an opinion as you (more of a right actually.) It might be precisely because you work in that field that you idealise the druggie. They're not all misunderstood angels. (The very fact that you mention people injecting seven year-olds with heroin might tell you something.)

Idealise the druggy? Oh fuck off. You're making a lot of assumptions (like the one that I've never been on the receiving end of crime). If you don't have anything intelligent to add, then don't bother. You're doing a good job of convincing me of the reactionary and ignorant nature of the IWCA.

 

[Blagsta]

btw, where did I say anything about anyone being "misunderstood angels"? Can you respond to what I write please, not your own imaginings.

 

[newbie]

yes i accept that .. i even think they were in the same housing bill in the early 8ts .. do you think i am wrong to suggest and believe a politically motivated link between the two things?

in a previous life I was involved in the preparation of an earlier Lambeth allocations policy, some while before Thatcher came to power. The mix may have been different, but the components were similar, with points for local ties, points for time on the list, and points for housing need, vulnerability and so on.

btw I'm happy to blame Thatcher for all sorts of things, but crediting her with legislation to give housing rights to homeless people is taking it a bit far. That goes back to 1977 at least.

 

[Blagsta]

HPU's are currently using local links (or rather the lack of them) as a way of gatekeeping access to housing. I'd have though that progressives would be fighting this. I know LCAP are doing some work around this.

 

[nino_savatte]

You know, I can't make up my mind about the IWCA. Sometimes, they appear to be making a lot of sense and other times they seem to be pandering to a short sighted parochialism. Then when I see one of their supporters talking about a degenerative underclass and referring to people as "junkie scum" it makes me wonder exactly what their real agenda is.

I've been saying this for ages; the IWCA don't seem too concerned with anything that doesn't occur within a specific geographical location. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan affect the lives of many w/c people but the IWCA have no position on either war and, it seems, that they would prefer to ignore it altogether. The language that has been used when discussing addicts is similarly short-sighted and, in may respects, not much different to that used by the parties of the right.

 

[LLETSA]

Idealise the druggy? Oh fuck off. You're making a lot of assumptions (like the one that I've never been on the receiving end of crime). If you don't have anything intelligent to add, then don't bother. You're doing a good job of convincing me of the reactionary and ignorant nature of the IWCA.

I never mentioned the IWCA in connection to what I say above. It was a personal opinion.

You're actually the one with nothing intelligent to add. 'I work in the field; I therefore know best' is all it amounted to.

Get a proper job.