getfiscal posted:i think selecting a career based on labour market trends is for normies. no guidance counselor is going to tell young keven to grind up north and then pursue comedy with his whole heart. no one is going to tell young taryn to pack up a borrowed car and blues brothers her way across america to promote communism. no one is going to tell tpaine that being a stay-at-home dad is as patriotic as being a soldier.
Maybe its time for you to get a career as a guidance counselor who dare tell people to do these things
getfiscal posted:if anything lawyering, in my limited knowledge, seems like it tends to rest on tolerating absurdities insofar as they relate to smooth functioning.
it was strange to watch this breach the surface for a moment among Taibbi-type liberals during the mortgage crisis in the United States, not over the squatting issue but over which debt buyers held the titles to properties and which could prove it. like, people were demanding the "rule of law" apply to debt buyers in foreclosure proceedings because they were gobsmacked that someone could cash in debt without meeting the legal requirements to prove ownership. of course if chain of title had been applied with vigor through rulings in lower courts after the collapse, the entire U.S. & world economy would have slid from depressed to destroyed, because if you observe those niceties in the debt market you get crushed by the competition, and after letting them get away with it for years, the courts could either uphold their own decisions or burn the house down. but there's no liberal solution to that so most of the people calling for it just sort of shut up about it.
getfiscal posted:that reminds me of the people who thought you could systematically buy debt off collection auctions/agencies at an extreme discount to save people from collections.
They had to stop because forgiving a debt counted as taxable income or something. They would buy someone out of $20,000 in debt for $400, but the debtor would could be taxed at the full value of the debt. It's still a good deal to pay off debt at your effective tax rate on the dollar, but people who weren't even trying to pay off their medical debts were receiving could receive surprise tax bills.
Their website says they're starting some new "Debt Collective" which intends to organizes debtors as a special interest group. v
v
*I exaggerated, I don't know if this actually has happened to anyone, but it could.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/12/strike-debts-rolling-jubilee-puts-borrowers-at-risk-to-politicize-debt-issue.html
Edited by Soviet_Salami ()
Soviet_Salami posted:getfiscal posted:that reminds me of the people who thought you could systematically buy debt off collection auctions/agencies at an extreme discount to save people from collections.
They had to stop because forgiving a debt counted as taxable income or something. They would buy someone out of $20,000 in debt for $400, but the debtor would be taxed at the full value of the debt. It's still a good deal to pay off debt at your effective tax rate on the dollar, but people who weren't even trying to pay off their medical debts were receiving surprise tax bills.
Their website says they're starting some new "Debt Collective" which intends to organizes debtors as a special interest group. v:hmm:v
lamo that owns so hard
xipe posted:overfire posted:Looks like my gf got a job back in her homeland of glorious Eire and I will be going with her and hopefully getting a job that doesn't crush me. Anyone know anything about the communist party of Ireland? They seem ok and as I will be unemployed for a while my job won't clash with meetings
https://cpimleire.wordpress.comWow i didn't there was a ML CPI.
That's different from the communist party, right?
www.communistpartyofireland.ie
I still know very little about the various parties but am getting a bit of introduction on how they work visa how they relate to the housing struggle
I gathered from your posting of a waterfordwhispers link somewhere else on this forum that you might be Ireland based - if this is the case, have you checked out any CPI meetings before? i emailed them and they were real quick to reply. I hope to check one out if my Dublin job actually materialises. They describe themselves as Marxists, not Marxist-Leninist in one place and info elsewhere seemed to say that the CPI-ML was one and the same as the main CPI? (Same logo at least) but also their web presence is pretty lo-fi so I'm not sure how much reliable info I can get about them from just Internet. I will report my findings in your direction if and when I manage to make them.
The last Irish political party I joined was labour for about a year in 2013 and luckily that was a political awakening RE the farce that is parliamentary democracy and sent me down a road of radicalisation. So, this is a step up from that I hope.
I've been curious about how they work what their viewpoints are myself, I'll go down and ask within the next few days; anything you'd like me to ask them about?
I've a bunch of friends in the workers party, who have good ml anti imperialist opinions anyway.
I've never been part of a political party so as I find things its a steep learning curve
xipe posted:I've been to plenty of their events, the CPI have a great venue in temple bar for books coffee theatre talks film exhibitions etc but not their actual meetings.
I've been curious about how they work what their viewpoints are myself, I'll go down and ask within the next few days; anything you'd like me to ask them about?
I've a bunch of friends in the workers party, who have good ml anti imperialist opinions anyway.
I've never been part of a political party so as I find things its a steep learning curve
oh thanks so much! I'd like a heads up on how many women are active, are there women in leadership roles and do they view the commodification of women's sexuality and reproductive capability as tied to the sex class oppression of women as a whole. - if you feel up to asking that? If you would prefer not to poke that bees nest I understand and can find them out on my own. Either way, I'm long overdue for finding some militant commies in Dublin - it's what I was looking for in labour. Looking for love, in all the wrong places. I actually ended up being a delegate at their fucking centenary conference and being temporarily trapped in a building because of property tax protestors. The one guy I really got on with there was in his 70s and came from a family that were communists in rural Ireland in the 50s - their post used to come already opened and they were openly denounced in church. He told me tales of kicking bailiffs in the chest to prevent evictions and was the one person that went out and talked to the protestors. What was he doing in labour?? I got the distinct impression that the majority of the rank and file members that weren't middle class his-pol students were frustrated communists.
EmanuelaBrolandi posted:thirdplace posted:has less to do with being a Smart Guy than being a Conscientious and Organized and Good-At-Dealing-With-Bureaucracies Guy (or, more realistically, Lady).
But once again, what job are you talking about that isn't like that?
heh i didn't listen to the people who warned me either, said the exact same kinds of things in response, so i don't know why i expected you to listen to me. ganbatte
TG posted:yeah, just another friendly reminder that if you are considering a career in law, dont do it
i had a professor who is marxist, taught labor law and a seminar called class and law. we had a discussion about whether one can be a truly radical/revolutionary lawyer, and the consensus was that no, no you fucking cant
this analogy probably doesn't do anything for non-technical people but the irl practice of law is more and more similar to reading and writing software source code, and in that case the lawyers and police (etc) only execute the code, they aren't involved in its actual engineering. so if you sign up to be a processor of the rules of the state, it seems fairly self-evident that you can't effect any radical change
other analogy: lawyers are just the sparx in qix
p.s. bonus analogy: capitalism is a spiral death trap
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdEOH5O2kCo&t=37s
i had a liberal woman in one of my classes this year who got mad that we were discussing mass direct action by tenants and such because she detailed the resources available for recourse against landlords. like if they refuse to fix your sink then there is a definite legal process to get them to fix your sink. and what i said in response was that you could have a whole building of social housing where each family has a few problems, and the building as a whole has problems, but they have no capacity to actually utilize the legal system in a systematic way. like if the burners on your stove are broken you might not have the real capacity to take it to the city/board if they are slow in responding, but direct action can force dramatic improvements for people if they create better pressures to address problems in the building or whatever (protesting to get mice out of the building etc.). in that case the written law exists to protect tenants but the real law and custom is created through mass action. and very often lawyers can help push that sort of process by either protecting tenants, for example, against retaliation, or just grinding out the cases where there are glaring errors.
getfiscal posted:real law and custom is created through mass action.
i think this is a proper description of reality, but it seems that to be a practicing lawyer you are forced to engage with the law in the terms liberalism defines it as, from inside its own framework, i.e., being an actor fully within the legal system limits you more than being able to criticize it from the outside, though you might think you are effecting change in some way, you are essentially just adding flourishes to the walls of the cage while real change happens in action in society
otoh i don't really know and i still think about doing it sometimes.
getfiscal posted:I had a liberal woman in one of my classes this year who got mad that we were discussing mass direct action by tenants and such because she detailed the resources available for recourse against landlords. like if they refuse to fix your sink then there is a definite legal process to get them to fix your sink. and what i said in response was that you could have a whole building of social housing where each family has a few problems, and the building as a whole has problems, but they have no capacity to actually utilize the legal system in a systematic way. like if the burners on your stove are broken you might not have the real capacity to take it to the city/board if they are slow in responding, but direct action can force dramatic improvements for people if they create better pressures to address problems in the building or whatever (protesting to get mice out of the building etc.). in that case the written law exists to protect tenants but the real law and custom is created through mass action. and very often lawyers can help push that sort of process by either protecting tenants, for example, against retaliation, or just grinding out the cases where there are glaring errors.
I would've stood up and clapped :p
What do you think the overall strategy should be when doing actions like building/community wide mass actions get fiscal?
The housing struggle in my city will do things like community led occupations of housing blocks or homeless hostels (and lots of smaller single dwellings) until demands (such as being adequately rehoused) are met by the city.
I don't get the impression we have a strong guiding strategy for where this will take us tho.
We're putting heavy pressure on our neo liberal local government and building a mass movement but I don't know where that leads... thoughts appreciated!
getfiscal posted:i had a liberal woman in one of my classes this year who got mad that we were discussing mass direct action by tenants and such because she detailed the resources available for recourse against landlords. like if they refuse to fix your sink then there is a definite legal process to get them to fix your sink. and what i said in response was that you could have a whole building of social housing where each family has a few problems, and the building as a whole has problems, but they have no capacity to actually utilize the legal system in a systematic way. like if the burners on your stove are broken you might not have the real capacity to take it to the city/board if they are slow in responding, but direct action can force dramatic improvements for people if they create better pressures to address problems in the building or whatever (protesting to get mice out of the building etc.). in that case the written law exists to protect tenants but the real law and custom is created through mass action. and very often lawyers can help push that sort of process by either protecting tenants, for example, against retaliation, or just grinding out the cases where there are glaring errors.
i've said it before and i'll say it again, the rubber meeting the road is simply resources. legally, those people quite possibly could hire lawyers to allege breaches of the lease or the implied warranty, because liberal lady isn't wrong that a lot of urban landlord/tenant law is actually pretty good. but practically, they a.) can't afford lawyers and b.) more importantly, if they could, a better use of that money would probably just to find a better place to live, or to fix the stove directly. the transaction costs simply outweigh the scope of most working class people's problems. to some degree this is derived from the system's priorities, anglo-style courts were set up to litigate lordly disputes and it's turtles all the way up from there, but to some degree it's inherient to the whole idea of hiring at least one and classically three people to hammer out a solution. i almost hesitate to say this Anatole France shit because it's trite but i really think it really is that simple, and that more abstract considerations about the philosophy of law, while true (it's sometimes more overt than you might guess, like with legal aid lawyers being very directly and vigorously banned from any kind of political advocacy during work hours) are ultimately very secondary to that
Do you think that technology could be used to help classes of people overcome those barriers?
getfiscal posted:well to be a lawyer as a job you do generally have to do that, but yeah that's true for virtually any job. even if you work for an anti-poverty NGO or something you're probably going to be a marketing assistant instead of like building socialism. but to have the training of a lawyer and to orient yourself in such a way that you can contribute to defensive actions within your party or movement would be quite possible, although you wouldn't be able to make a lot of money at it.
Exactly... not sure what it is about lawyers that's making everyone lose their shit but like everyone here has normal jobs that don't change shit so i don't see the difference tbh
thirdplace posted:like with legal aid lawyers being very directly and vigorously banned from any kind of political advocacy during work hours
cool stuff. is there any stipulation about political advocacy immediately outside the legal aid lawyers' building without their consent?
xipe posted:Going back to the software analagy, I've seen plenty of legal startups springing up
Do you think that technology could be used to help classes of people overcome those barriers?
definitely some. when google tears down the paywall for legal research it's going to help highly educated pro se people a lot, plus make it a little easier to be an affordable/free lawyer. it also also has great potential, some of which is already being realized, in family law, where the big issue is often he said/she said and programs that facilitate/record communications are a huge help. text messaging alone helps a ton.
but in, e.g., our tenant landlord example i don't see it helping all that much. the research stuff is in play, but otherwise that case going to be about gathering evidence and defending it from attacks in court and robots aren't going to helpful there any time too soon
plus all those startups are going to follow the money, which means they're going to be facilitating doc review and autogenerating petitions for wage garnishments
in the end you basically feel ground down because you started your job with ideals that can't be realized or if you work for the private sector you are helping the worst vampires and parasites make more and more money, which should bug you if your ideology led you to posting here. the reason i mentioned the radical/revolutionary thing is law is particularly anti-revolutionary, because, as djcat pointed out, your job is basically upholding the very structures of oppression or utilizing them to directly exploit or fuck over powerless people, whereas if youre, like, a librarian or a truck driver or something, you arent revolutionary but youre not necessarily undermining anything, youre just doing something mindless for money that doesnt really further any cause
i guess its probably similar to business, or finance, or any number of terrible fields whose wheels are greased by the blood of humanity, but i think its pretty lazy to be like "well i was born white and well-off so i have to settle for something soulless and terrible, so might as well embrace the worst of it" instead of just sitting down and thinking about it for a while and maybe not embracing the worst aspects of bourgeois culture simply because That's What You Gotta Do
you could also just take our posts as sincere advice from people who did what youre considering doing and think it was a bad decision, but as thirdplace pointed out, nobody ever really listens and the whole durn human comedy perpetuates itself
TG posted:"well i was born white and well-off so i have to settle for something soulless and terrible, so might as well embrace the worst of it" instead of just sitting down and thinking about it for a while and maybe not embracing the worst aspects of bourgeois culture simply because That's What You Gotta Do
You're projecting.
TG posted:all to secure the opportunity to spend 80+ hours a week with those same worst people youve ever met where you make boatloads of money for the worst people on the planet who deign to toss you a relatively tiny slice, unless you want to work for the state or a nonprofit
listen up emanuela, do not become a top corporate lawyer, as we all knew was your intention.