Live data from Hacker News

The death of east London's most radical bookshop

the-londoner.co.uk

171–180 of 191 posts

Re: The death of east London's most radical bookshop

#171
post #76
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last time Labour wasn't like this we had waiting lists to get a telephone!

That telephone monopoly was privatised - and later dragged their heels on rolling out broadband because ISDN was so profitable, causing untold damage to the UK tech economy as the country fell behind on connectivity. It’s a great parable of badly-managed state-run monopoly vs badly-managed privatised monopoly.

Well one of these things happened and the other one was a hypothetical? It seems very wishful thinking to assume it just would've happen if the politics of the 70s had some how limped into the 80s

Re: The death of east London's most radical bookshop

#172
post #144
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that UKIP don't really exist anymore as a major party may I gently contend that it may be slightly more complicated than you imagine

Reform is continuation UKIP its fair enough for someone to confuse the two.

UKIP still exists, I reserve the right to judge someone who wants to comment but someone hasn't noticed this now almost decade old change

Re: The death of east London's most radical bookshop

#173
post #6

Performative radicalism that freaks out wider society instead of slow steady progress has led to the near complete irrelevance of the left in the west, especially the anglosphere. I mean, UK Labor is a centrist pro-capital party now. It's over.

What I wonder is how this didn't also happen to the right.

Didn't it? But then, the pendulum swung. It will continue swinging.

Re: The death of east London's most radical bookshop

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like you are assuming they sold the books to cover their monthly burn. But seems it was kept afloat due to donations more than due to inventory sales

My point was that this was indeed a vanity project by someone with more money than sense. At no point does it seem like they had any business plan or conception of how to make money from actually operating the business. It's just cosplaying.

> vanity project > trust fund baby

It is rather objectionable to label people with your assumptions. Unless you have some inside information you are just making shit up based on your own judgemental bigotry.

People start "hobby" businesses for many reasons, and those reasons are not always status oriented. All too often I've seen idealistic people with the best intentions crash into reality (often financial reality, but often other causes as in the article).

Re: The death of east London's most radical bookshop

#175
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Often, the objectors feel as though it's the responsibility of the other side (usually the leadership) to afford them with some sort of power of their own. reading this story, it sounds like leadership was also just bad. The toilet story is just odd! > Keen to thwart any further opportunistic toilet-users, Scarlett had a new policy. Staff were to personally escort anyone who asked to use the toilet to ensure they d…

I think if you serve dine in food you are legally required to have a customer toilet.

It's a bookshop right? Maybe I missed a detail. Granted, you're right that the situation on the ground has texture that I am not aware about, as a person who did not know about this place existing 36 hours ago.

Re: The death of east London's most radical bookshop

#176
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a set of beliefs tethered to reality probably. Also as a general principle the right/centre don't believe the job of the government is to interfere in every aspect of peoples lives. This at least limits their ability to reproduce the empty gestures and moral lecturing of the left.

[flagged]

tethered to good old human biases though

Re: The death of east London's most radical bookshop

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AOC does not come from a working-class background. Her father was an architect and the family owned a house in Westchester.

But she worked as bartender[1] - which is one of those jobs that teaches you how "Fuck Around, Find Out" works in real life, very quickly. Again, it's not matter of social or economic status, but coming to understand extremely diverse social dynamics outside of the academic field. Both her and the dock workers were pretty effective in their causes because they have experienced first-hand how going for an half-assed o…

Someone who spends most of their career working in bars and restaurants could be called working class. Not someone who does it as a temporary job for a few years after their university degree while waiting to find something better.

Re: The death of east London's most radical bookshop

#179
post #6

Performative radicalism that freaks out wider society instead of slow steady progress has led to the near complete irrelevance of the left in the west, especially the anglosphere. I mean, UK Labor is a centrist pro-capital party now. It's over.

What I wonder is how this didn't also happen to the right.

It did. The War on Terror was so bad for the political actors who took part in it in the US (and by ripple effect in Europe), that they were trounced by Obama, who is still the highest approved US President in the 21st century.

Trump won, partly by saying the War on Terror was a disaster and the Republicans were disasters. He distanced himself from a right wing which had done the same thing, made itself irrelevant to the mainstream with performative patriotism while we actually lost lives and trillions of dollars in a quagmire people didn't want about 1-2 years into it.

Whoever brings the left back will have to distance themselves from the party in a similar way

Re: The death of east London's most radical bookshop

#180
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like a nice way of saying fascist

Calling today’s „far“ right fascists/nazis/etc is just a disgrace to victims of the real thing.

Why do you think so? Would it not be better to recognize fascism/nazism as early as possible? Hitler was in power for several years, doing various increasingly bad stuff, before he started the holocaust.
Post reply on HN