One of the telltale signs of a House in Multiple Occupation (HMO), or an Airbnb, is multiple doorbells or lockboxes for keys. This house has six key boxes. From that, you can reasonably conclude there are six separate occupants.
These houses are four bedrooms at most, with what should be a living room, dining room, and kitchen. So it is likely the living and dining areas have been converted into extra bedrooms.
If this is an HMO, that means six unrelated people are being crammed into a house built for families. This is not housing; this is profiteering from people’s inability to afford proper living space.
These houses are four bedrooms at most, with what should be a living room, dining room, and kitchen. So it is likely the living and dining areas have been converted into extra bedrooms.
If this is an HMO, that means six unrelated people are being crammed into a house built for families. This is not housing; this is profiteering from people’s inability to afford proper living space.
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Forwarded from Class Consciousness Project
You're not imagining it. Life in Britain is getting worse.
Real wages are still barely above where they were before the 2008 financial crash. That’s over 15 years where workers have effectively stood still while the cost of living is sky rocketing.
Private rents have risen by roughly 30–40% in the last decade. In many areas, a third or more of your wage disappears into housing before you’ve even lived a day of your life.
Energy bills remain far higher than they were just a few years ago, even after the so-called “relief”.
Food prices have surged and credit use is climbing just to bridge the gap. People are using apps like clearpay for a takeaway.
This isn't living, it's surviving. We believe that all our consumer purchases give us freedom, but a choice of ten different types of trainers doesn't revive workers from a day-to-day existence.
Public services show the same pattern. NHS waiting lists in England have been sitting at over 7 million cases. An issue created to push us towards insurance based healthcare.
Councils have lost any power against central government with their only remit is to make cuts, with the deepest cuts hitting working-class areas.
This isn’t an economy being carefully managed for the population, it's finance capital squeezing every bit of profit they can.
This is what capitalism looks like in decay.
Nothing new is being built. What already exists is being sold for parts.
One thing that doesn't change is corporate profits remain strong, wealth concentrates even more at the top, and the same political class becomes more ravenous and war mongering.
Capitalism has always exploited workers. At one time British capitalism could use its exploitation abroad to placate workers at home, workers with a better level of class consciousness.
Now those streams are shrinking, they have to attack workers at home. Workers whose class awareness is nowhere near what it was.
Our only hope is to build that awareness back up. The class struggle needs the masses aligned to remove the ruling class.
- Mao Tse-tung, On Coalition Government.
Real wages are still barely above where they were before the 2008 financial crash. That’s over 15 years where workers have effectively stood still while the cost of living is sky rocketing.
Private rents have risen by roughly 30–40% in the last decade. In many areas, a third or more of your wage disappears into housing before you’ve even lived a day of your life.
Energy bills remain far higher than they were just a few years ago, even after the so-called “relief”.
Food prices have surged and credit use is climbing just to bridge the gap. People are using apps like clearpay for a takeaway.
This isn't living, it's surviving. We believe that all our consumer purchases give us freedom, but a choice of ten different types of trainers doesn't revive workers from a day-to-day existence.
Public services show the same pattern. NHS waiting lists in England have been sitting at over 7 million cases. An issue created to push us towards insurance based healthcare.
Councils have lost any power against central government with their only remit is to make cuts, with the deepest cuts hitting working-class areas.
This isn’t an economy being carefully managed for the population, it's finance capital squeezing every bit of profit they can.
This is what capitalism looks like in decay.
Nothing new is being built. What already exists is being sold for parts.
One thing that doesn't change is corporate profits remain strong, wealth concentrates even more at the top, and the same political class becomes more ravenous and war mongering.
Capitalism has always exploited workers. At one time British capitalism could use its exploitation abroad to placate workers at home, workers with a better level of class consciousness.
Now those streams are shrinking, they have to attack workers at home. Workers whose class awareness is nowhere near what it was.
Our only hope is to build that awareness back up. The class struggle needs the masses aligned to remove the ruling class.
"The people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of world history.”
- Mao Tse-tung, On Coalition Government.
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Forwarded from Class Consciousness Project
From Mao to Madrid: Paul Breitner's Story.
Older football fans may remember the highly decorated footballer Paul Breitner. A brilliant pro that came through at Bayern Munich when Germany was still divided by east and west.
He was a full back that would have fitted into modern game with his style of playing, but he was more than just a left back. He was an outspoken political agitator who read Mao Zedong religiously. He even posed with Mao's Little Red Book. Publicly! At a time where doing so in West Germany was dangerous.
He spoke out against the evils of capitalism, about questioning the state. In a famous quotation he correctly declared footballers as workers who sell their labour like anyone else. In a Cold War climate where anti-communism was a state religion, that was very brave.
They called him 'Der Rote Paul', Red Paul! (like our very own Red Rick). His radicalism was real, not like how modern footballers who use their activism to inflate their position.
The early 1970s in West Germany being a 'red' meant surveillance, bans and hysteria about “extremism”. To openly identify with Maoism while representing the West German national team was a refusal to play the obedient sportsman. West Germany was essentially occupied by US forces at this point. The US where the MacArthur trials were hunting down communists in north America.
Having that socialist background made sure he didn’t separate football from society. He understood that football sits inside capitalism, not outside of it.
What saved him was fan support. He backed it up on the pitch. He scored in the 1974 World Cup final. Won European Cups. Dominated domestically. He wasn’t some fringe rebel shouting from the sidelines. He was directly bang in the center of the machine while criticising it.
That contradiction took shape and formed his future material conditions within the game.
When he moved to Real Madrid CF in 1974, the politics took a back step. They stopped being centre stage. Success in football, especially teams like Real Madrid, brings massive scrutiny. These big teams are footballing institutions that demand discipline. Radical language becomes inconvenient when you are part of a global sports brand.
Did he “sell out”? Maybe, but that feels too simple. Conditions change, family and work. We all have to survive within the boundaries of capitalism and without being a part of an organisation of advanced workers people can become disillusioned.
The revolutionary left in Western Europe was fractured and retreated. The 70s closed in and the post war concessions were starting to be removed. Individual careers don’t float above historical shifts.
What his journey shows is this: even at the very top of elite sport, class consciousness can surface. Even within a billion-pound industry, players are still workers selling labour power. The wage might be substantially higher and the contracts might be gold-plated. The relation to capital remains.
Breitner’s Maoism wasn’t a footnote. It was a reminder that football has never been politically neutral. The game produces rebels as well as celebrities.
The Class Consciousness Project.
Older football fans may remember the highly decorated footballer Paul Breitner. A brilliant pro that came through at Bayern Munich when Germany was still divided by east and west.
He was a full back that would have fitted into modern game with his style of playing, but he was more than just a left back. He was an outspoken political agitator who read Mao Zedong religiously. He even posed with Mao's Little Red Book. Publicly! At a time where doing so in West Germany was dangerous.
He spoke out against the evils of capitalism, about questioning the state. In a famous quotation he correctly declared footballers as workers who sell their labour like anyone else. In a Cold War climate where anti-communism was a state religion, that was very brave.
They called him 'Der Rote Paul', Red Paul! (like our very own Red Rick). His radicalism was real, not like how modern footballers who use their activism to inflate their position.
The early 1970s in West Germany being a 'red' meant surveillance, bans and hysteria about “extremism”. To openly identify with Maoism while representing the West German national team was a refusal to play the obedient sportsman. West Germany was essentially occupied by US forces at this point. The US where the MacArthur trials were hunting down communists in north America.
Having that socialist background made sure he didn’t separate football from society. He understood that football sits inside capitalism, not outside of it.
What saved him was fan support. He backed it up on the pitch. He scored in the 1974 World Cup final. Won European Cups. Dominated domestically. He wasn’t some fringe rebel shouting from the sidelines. He was directly bang in the center of the machine while criticising it.
That contradiction took shape and formed his future material conditions within the game.
When he moved to Real Madrid CF in 1974, the politics took a back step. They stopped being centre stage. Success in football, especially teams like Real Madrid, brings massive scrutiny. These big teams are footballing institutions that demand discipline. Radical language becomes inconvenient when you are part of a global sports brand.
Did he “sell out”? Maybe, but that feels too simple. Conditions change, family and work. We all have to survive within the boundaries of capitalism and without being a part of an organisation of advanced workers people can become disillusioned.
The revolutionary left in Western Europe was fractured and retreated. The 70s closed in and the post war concessions were starting to be removed. Individual careers don’t float above historical shifts.
What his journey shows is this: even at the very top of elite sport, class consciousness can surface. Even within a billion-pound industry, players are still workers selling labour power. The wage might be substantially higher and the contracts might be gold-plated. The relation to capital remains.
Breitner’s Maoism wasn’t a footnote. It was a reminder that football has never been politically neutral. The game produces rebels as well as celebrities.
The Class Consciousness Project.
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Forwarded from Platform News
PlatformNews
All Five International Delegates Released — Press Conference to Be Held Soon - PlatformNews
All five members of the international delegation to Nairobi were released today, May 15, at approximately 8:00 AM. A press conference is expected to be held shortly.
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Forwarded from Marx Engels Lenin Institute
“Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed.”
Lenin - Imperialism, The Highest stage Of Capitalism - Chapter VII, “Imperialism as a Special Stage of Capitalism”
Lenin - Imperialism, The Highest stage Of Capitalism - Chapter VII, “Imperialism as a Special Stage of Capitalism”
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