The The Requisitioning Of Empty Homes It's A Good Idea That Shouldn't Be Dismissed

Jeremy Corbyn has renewed calls for empty homes to be taken over by the Government to house victims of the Grenfell Tower fire.

The Labour leader also criticised the official response to the tragedy, saying people should have been offered immediate accommodation similar to travellers who are offered hotels when their planes are delayed.

He urged the Government to consider requisitioning or using compulsory purchase orders for flats that are deliberately kept vacant, in a process known as land-banking.

Mr Corbyn told ITV's Peston on Sunday: "Occupy it, compulsory purchase it, requisition it - there's a lot of things you can do.

Independent.ie

Now We Build

Corbyn started a race 200 miles behind the Tories and caught up in less than 6 weeks.

He and we have energised and organised a mass movement of people from all ages, backgrounds and beliefs and unified much of what has been a divided country.

Don't let the media that have shown themselves up continue to dismiss and rewrite history, people are now engaged in politics and now the youth in particular are socially awoken, people have realised the last 7 years of cuts and austerity (so called savings) have only gave us mass homelessness, zero hours and fake employment, nurses in need of food banks and food banks in general in the 5th richest country on earth.

We now need to be even more courageous, even more creative and even more connecting with each other, the  solidarity between decent morals and hope of better days, better ways of doing things have been inspiring.

Politics no longer 'boring' and people understand.

Jeremy Corbyn has won this election by a massive landslide because politics is now for the many no longer just the few #JC4PM

By: Mike Whiting

How to be a revolutionary

Worried about the state of the planet and what capitalism is doing to it? Want to do something about it? But what?

- Burn down a bank, maybe?

You could do, but there's a lot of banks, and even if you burned them all, they'd just build them again.

- Kick a copper, perhaps?

Maybe, but they can kick harder than you can, every time.

- Bring down the government?

And get a different government in? Or get martial law?

Start a revolution then?

Now you're talking. But what kind of revolution? That is the question....

Opponents of capitalism are used to having their names dragged through the mud by the state but we don't need to help the bastards do it in practice. Anybody who kicks in the window of a bank or a fast food joint is handing the state a propaganda victory on a plate.

You can't bring down capitalism in the street. At best you can temporarily annoy it. Is that worth getting busted, or busted up, for? Don't kid yourself that mayhem and rioting is a real threat to capitalism. Modern states have massive coercive power, and they can stand a lot more heat than you can deliver, and they can dish out a lot more heat than you can take.

To be dangerous to capitalism,we have to win the war of ideas, in the newspapers, on TV, amongst our friends and co-workers, in our groups, in our own head. And we have to be united about what we want after capitalism, and united about how to get it. Otherwise, the grim truth is that we really won't get past Go.

For a revolution to be any good, you have to be for something, besides being against capitalism. Some people are just against big capitalism (WTO, IMF, World Bank, multinationals, etc) as if somehow 'small' national capitalism is a completely different thing, and perfectly nice. It's not. They're the same. Let's have a definition: capitalism is production for sale on a market with a view to profit.

Instead of that we could have: cooperative production for use and free distribution on the basis of need. This would involve: no markets, no money, no commodities, no private property, no rich class and poor class, no Third World and First World, no profit-led profligacy of any description, no ecological destruction, no famine, and no war.

Think that's unlikely? It isn't. Capitalism has taken us as far as it can go, but there's a lot further we can go without it. It doesn't really matter whether you call it post-capitalism, world socialism, or post-scarcity anarchism, it is feasible and desirable. And given that some scientists are talking about a point of no-return for environmental destruction being reached, the word 'urgent' springs to mind too.

Back On The Streets Of York

Well I haven't been able to write or post a York update for some time now, and that's because so much and I most say regrettably, has befallen me recently. Sadly the camp (a land squat) setup by myself and one other has come to an end, there is no mileage to be made in laying blame with anyone for this but only to say that my compatriot moved off camp after a  short lesion with a young lady who has a very serous drug addiction problem and which then backfired on him. I've been under no illusions about working with and trying to help others out who live on our sheets by encouraging them to do thing's for themselves, but this can be an uphill battle at the best of times.

End Of The Field Of Dreams

So our field of dreams has come to an end, for now that is, and can be reestablished next year all being well.  So I would like to take this opportunity,  and thank all of those who gave or offered us help in the three and a half months we stayed on the camp, a very big thank you to all of you!

Back On The Streets

So for the time being it's back on the streets for me, and for the last two weeks I've been sharing a basement doorway with one other friend, it offer's  or it did offer shelter form the elements and is quite safe which of course, is all important. However, on discovering that this is being used by others in the daytime to take drugs has meant that we have had to abandon this place as well and find an other location, this is only for a short while as we have been offered a garden outhouse for the coming winter for the two of us which comes as a relief having spent most of last winter on the street's,  something that we are both looking forward to, will post more information in the fullness of time.
Drugs Or Addictions Are Not The Problem But Poverty Is
We are one of the richest countries in the world, and there is absolutely no reason why anyone should have to live in poverty, or even to be homeless and have to live on our street's, which is the most extreme form of homelessness. Shelter the national housing campaign says that the average age of death of a homeless person is 47 years old and even lower for homeless women at jut 43 compared to 77 for the population in general, and by all accounts those now hitting the streets are getting younger.

Drug and alcohol abuse are particularly common causes of death amongst the homeless community and accounts for just over a third of all deaths. I can tell you that being homeless is incredibly difficult most of the time both physically and mentally and has a significant impact on peoples health and well being. Ultimately homelessness kills people. Not to put to finer a point on it, the link between durg and alcohol abuse and homelessness have been well established over the years, and drug's and alcohol are known to be both a cause and consequence of homelessness.
Four out of five people start using at least one new drug since becoming homeless.

Over the many years of living and campaigning for the homeless I've learnt not to judge others partially those who are homeless, but instead, to try to love them all and if I can to bring a little love into each homeless persons life.