Out door trash receptacles as well.
You know how in the south, they closed public pools instead of desegregating because they would rather have no pools than let black people swim?
That impulse didn’t go away. And it wasn’t limited to the south and their hatred of black people.
They got rid of them at the bus stop near me. There used to be an indoor space for people to wait in, but they closed that down. And this is in Alaska. Having to wait a half an hour for the bus to arrive after taken a shower is a shitty way to wake up.
I’m visiting Naples at the moment with my Italian boyfriend, and I remarked to him that Naples has a lot of places that people can just hang out without spending money, something that the UK has lost. Part of this is due to the climate, but also corporatism hasn’t hit Italy as hard as other western countries. It really is a shame.
corporatism hasn’t hit Italy as hard as other western countries
Why did I read this?
I dunno. I didn’t read it. Did you find anything interesting?
I have no idea. I don’t think so.
Well duh. If people start gathering in public and talking to each other with a modicum of comfort, they might get thoughts in their heads
And thoughts lead to actions!
And you know what’s an action? Addressing the wage gap!
We must stop that!
Which is why we need a world where people are constantly being forced to move and never allowed to ever stop moving, for fear that they may some day stop and think.
To add another layer: allowing homelessness is one of the most widespread and visible acts of violence perpetrated by the state, supported by the market, and accepted-- or at least tolerated-- by most of the public. I wonder if institutions don’t address it because scares people into obedience.
Reflect on the focus of violence in stories about slavery. Hypothetically, without violence, slavery is still awful: robbing a human of their autonomy, spending their lives bettering the lot of those in power rather than their own. But we focus on the violence, not only because of the obvious, visible horror, but because you can’t rob someone of their autonomy without violence.
When it comes to homelessness, the violent act is not only inaction: failing to address risks and pitfalls, or add safety nets (focusing on growth, instead), but also what your original post is about: removing public facilities, forcing people to play the line-go-up game in order to have nice things, lest they have a string of bad luck and end up on the street, exposed to the elements.
The state and market didn’t cause the blizzard that may kill unhoused people, but they did nothing to try to get them out of its path. Isn’t that the purpose of these institutions? Yet homelessness is everywhere and it makes being unemployed all the more terrifying-- to be that much closer to the streets. “Better to take what you can get,” participate in an unjust market or it could be you.
That’s why Putin made public gatherings illegal
It’s kind of crazy how swiftly Occupy was wiped off the zeitgeist. A key cultural event of the 2010s gone as if it never happened.
Far more often than not, even bloody revolutions do not achieve their goals, or lead to merely cosmetic and/ or short-lived changes. E.g. Kent Gang Deng investigated 269 major peasant rebellions over 2106 years of Chinese history. Guess how many of these actually rewrote history in any way, shape or form.
Recently, I’ve been reading several interesting pieces on the “Occupy” movement, the related G20 and other protests in the Western world, dating back as far as the 1960s. The bottom line being: asking nicely for some minimum demands that even conservative politicians can get behind, like capping CEOs’ wages, will not get the job done. In fact, some of the powers that be can use it for their internal power struggles and to show it off as a sort of legitimization folklore. “See how democratic we are? We even have protesters in little tents! Don’t worry, they aren’t hurting anyone.”
All hope is not lost, though, if new protest modalities can be found.At this point the only valid forms of protesting are basically doxxing the billionaires and gathering outside their homes. Only problem is you’ll be at the gate of an estate thats empty half the time.
I’m currently on vacation in California at an outdoor mall. I’m squat/sitting on a tiny piece of concrete that’s like 8” off the ground and am so mad that I can relate to this picture. Why the fuck can’t we just have benches!?!
How long did it take for a mall cop to tell you to stand up?
Because poor people might use them, so fuck you pleb.
That would provide homeless people with 1 possible point of comfort, can’t have that.
Is that why we hate Soviet housing so much, because it gave the homeless dignity, shelter and comfort?
Pretty much it, yeah. Capitalism is fundamentally evil and they’ve spent so many decades now projecting all of its flaws on to any society that tries to work to a brighter future.
At this point capitalism is just feudalism with a stock market.
Always has been.
Homeless people are just losers who lost the game of Capitalism, their punishment is just and necessary for them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and start a Fortune 500 company
/sI think that’s what’s so pervasive about capitalism: The superiority it gives people. It has a perpetual struggling class that the comfortable can always point to and say, “At least I’m better than that.”
Well that and a million other reasons.
I thought we hated it because they were all ugly monotonous blocks with often pretty bad apartment layouts, often used to import a bunch of Russian workers to an existing city to slowly replace the local culture. But maybe that’s just me.
That’s not to say I don’t like the idea of everyone having housing, or even the idea of big apartment buildings. Just make them not look like prisons ffs. And put elevators in 5 story and lower buildings too. The soviet 5 story apartment buildings at least in my country never had elevators, so they were like a big F U for disabled people, as you couldn’t even get to the first floor without taking the stairs. Disabled people could only live in the bigger ones.
I thought we hated it because they were all ugly monotonous blocks with often pretty bad apartment layouts, often used to import a bunch of Russian workers to an existing city to slowly replace the local culture. But maybe that’s just me.
Certainly not anywhere else, with replacing local workers and their culture with bland carbon copy lookalikes…
At least it was a effient use of space, building up than sideways.
Well, it’s mall. Its goal is maximizing profits.
I’ve bought a camping stool recently. It folds up and small enough to put in a backpack.
I have twisted discs and find it difficult sometimes to find a seat. Sucks. But man, I can’t recommend camping stools enough! I love this thing.
Brand and model recommendation(s), please
I just saw one in a local’ish shop of mine, for £4. It doesn’t have any branding on it, sorry!
My aunt got me a “Helinox sunset chair” recently and I love it. Pricey, wouldn’t have bought it for myself, but it weighs nothing and it’s comfy.
I’d love a hard case backpack that has a seat and chair legs that can fold down.
Just people living their best radioactive lives and you’re mocking them?
There’s a few zombies in there. It’s like playing wheres waldo
“They Live” by John Carpenter for those thinking this is some AI generated image
Ya, I would love some public restrooms and urinals.
No more public urinals. AFABs might use them, and who wants to look over into the urinal next to them and see a chick in khakis with a she-wee? That’s just weird.
(Giant /s if not obvious).
hehe.
she-wee her-man.
My city removed the basketball hoop and concrete pad that was there for it. Two years later they put in a pickleball court for the old folks. Want to guess why?
Want to guess why?
I am sure we can all guess, but make sure you call the city and kindly ask them to explain it. Then when they give you some bullshit excuse you can politely call them out. No swearing, no anger, and be brief.
Come to Oslo. Public seating everywhere. I really do miss it when I’m traveling to certain other cities, like Rome
Photo not from Oslo:
(I think it’s somewhere in Belarus, probably Minsk)
Those are nice and all but in the city center here we got sun beds, recliners, literal couches
Whoa! Cool. Cool as F. As Finland.
If you’re offering to help get me out of the US and into Norway, I’ll take you up on that!
I’ve had bad feet since teen years, and I’m in my 40s now, which means sitting down once in a while is no longer just a suggestion. One of my big whinges (practicing whinging in case I ever get old) is that there’s just not damn enough public benches. And I live in a city that has public benches and has brought them back. A little bit.
It’s an USA problem. Still sad of course.
It’s as if they don’t want you to be able to get out of your house and socialise except for some paid time at private properties (cafes, restaurants etc). And no this isn’t just a US problem, it’s a Europe problem as well.
Removing public amenities is just the first step. The next step is to erect fencing around public parks and other spots where people like to enjoy themselves. Source: living in Dublin “the city centre is for working and shopping only” Ireland.
Freedom before capitalism happens.
Free dumb after capitalism happens.
Fuckin trashbag the more you read about him.
Motherfucker purposely built the bridges for local streets going over the highways much lower than avg to prevent buses (and thus poorer folks) from being able to get to Jones beach: https://www.nycurbanism.com/blog/2020/7/28/robert-moses-low-parkway-bridges
