Evo Morales was forced out of Bolivia because of a western-backed coup, during which a bunch of white Christian fascists tried to destroy the power of Bolivia’s indigenous movements (a movement Morales was part of.)
Again: people need to stop trashing and/or threatening our state government and also need realize that our state is unique in that we have an extra layer of security based in Philly:
Although the 2008 recession was triggered by the collapse of a speculative housing bubble, the housing market in New York City was back to business in record time. During the 2010s, luxury construction and condo sales soared and rents reached an all-time high. At the same time, predatory equity companies scooped up rent-stabilized buildings and pushed out working-class tenants, sparking a pushback that led to the historic rent law reforms of 2019. Now, as we enter an even more devastating recession prompted by the coronavirus pandemic, the consequences of neighborhood inequality are on stark display.
From 2012 to 2015, at the start of the real estate market’s resurgence, sociologist Max Besbris shadowed real estate agents in New York State. His recent book Upsold: Real Estate Agents, Prices, and Neighborhood Inequality examines the ways agents use identity and emotion to ensure buyers pay top dollar for their homes — and how this accelerates the segregation of New York’s neighborhoods by class and race.
KN: What motivated you to write Upsold?
MB: When I began my research, I was really influenced by two things. One is the consistent finding in sociology and economics that where you live determines a great deal about your life. It affects your health, the quality of your children’s education, your access to consumer and labor markets, your exposure to violence, your family’s wealth, and your overall chances for economic mobility.
The second issue that really shaped my thinking goes back to Engels and The Housing Question. He argued almost 150 years ago that as long as housing was a commodity, society would never be able to adequately provide it for everyone and that the housing market would remain a key site of exploitation.
With these things in mind, I decided to study real estate agents. Real estate agents are central actors in helping people find a place to live. They handle over 90 percent of residential real estate transactions in the United States. So they seemed like the right lens through which to understand residential mobility and neighborhood inequality, as well as the inherent tensions that are present when something so central to living a good life — housing — is commodified.
I had the added benefit of examining real estate agents at a time when housing prices in New York and many other cities across the United States were spiking. I was curious about what role agents played in driving prices back up so quickly after the Great Recession had exposed the housing market as a site of extreme speculation, financialization, and economic exploitation.
KN: Housing plays a big role in shaping people’s identities. How do real estate agents both use homebuyers’ identities to guide their choices and further shape those identities throughout the process of buying a home?
I don’t study genocides war crimes and human rights for fun. I study it bc my people have been at the foot from the very first genocide of the 20th century and previous attempts to exterminate my entire race. The fact that no one is speaking up when another genocide is at the brink of occurring to the ethnic Armenians living in Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) is mind blowing. I have to say I’m not surprised by the lack of effort - Americans, especially, are the most self interested humans I’ve met. This isn’t about narrative, this is about rapid belligerent individualism. We can philosophize all day about it but at the end - people don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves. There is rarely any altruism left in this world. As Monte said, no ones gonna fight for us, we will have to fight on our own to survive. The alternative is not an option.
This blog is mostly so I can vent my feelings and share my interests. Other than that, I am nothing special.
If you don't like Left Wing political thought and philosophy, all things related to horror, the supernatural, the grotesque, guns or the strange, then get the fuck out. I just warned you.
