Alienation, autonomy, and ideology
In recent weeks, Julián Castro argued against Iowa and New Hampshire’s position as the first voting states in the presidential nomination system. Why? He said Iowa doesn’t reflect America’s diversity. By contrast, Elizabeth Warren took a big pass on that question. She said she’s ‘just a player in the game‘.
A couple of questions: Is Castro right? What kind of system might be better?
What’s the Driftless Area? Glad you asked! It’s a part of the country stretching across Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin – the parts around where those four states meet. Decorah’s the area pretty much directly in the middle. My partner and I recently traveled to Decorah, and here are some thoughts on that.
Hi all – I’ve got a couple of upcoming public speaking events on tenants union activism! First, a brief talk with a college class. That’s not a public event, exactly. Second, a brief chat during a breakout session this Saturday at the Quad Cities Socialism Summit, hosted by the Quad Cities DSA. It’s this weekend.
Public speaking isn’t exactly my favorite thing to do, but I’ve gotten comfortable enough with it over the years.
As I’m sure some of you are aware, I’ve written about tenants unions here before. And I’m a board member of the Iowa City Tenants Union. We held our first meeting back in June, and now we’re hard at work on various issues related to security deposit theft, maintenance, discrimination, direct action, utilities justice, and housing policy.
Last spring, the Iowa DSA chapters held an event called the Socialist Feminist Convergence. It was a great event for lots of reasons, but one thing we talked about is the idea of a housing co-op. The idea is simple enough. How do we create more democratic (and more feminist) spaces outside the system of financialization of basic goods and services? A housing co-op is one possibility. (A tenants union is another.)
Housing co-ops are great, and I want to be the sort of person who wants to live in a housing co-op. In Iowa City, we have the River City Housing Collective, which has operated since 1977.
But even though I love the idea of a housing co-op, I don’t want to live in one. Let’s talk about why.
Source: Lorie Shaull (https://www.flickr.com/photos/number7cloud/32568282327)
Julián Castro’s campaign isn’t getting a lot of attention. Admittedly, I’d have probably forgotten about him as well, if not for the fact that I know people caucusing for him in Iowa or thinking about doing so. He’s polling very badly.
But Castro’s worth a look. He seems to be running the leftmost campaign other than Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. And, on closer inspection, I think that assessment holds up well enough. I’ve written a couple of posts on Sanders and one on Warren. Castro merits one, too.
Here’s what’s going on with his campaign, as I see it.
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