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The death of east London's most radical bookshop

the-londoner.co.uk

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

#181

Post by immibis »

mantas wrote: post #168
immibis wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea what you're talking about. The current "far right" is rounding up the brown people (except the ones they agree with) and sending them to concentration camps. That would have been unthinkable a few decades ago, even on the right. And it's definitely not centrist.

As a european, US migration situation is insane. And it’s hard to cal US „right“ that tolerated such policies promoting illegal migration for decades a „right“ wing. And european mainstream right is no longer right for the last few decades on those topics. Today’s „far“ right sound like what mainstream right would say 10-20-30 years ago depending on exact country.

You are saying that for you, last decade's right is centrist or left. And you are saying that last decade's right would call the current right centrist or left. So what are you?

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

#182

Post by mantas »

immibis wrote: post #180
mantas wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nowadays this label is overused so much that it pretty much lost it's meaning. It's not fascism-nazism to be against mass migration. Nor it's fascism-nazism to not fully support whatever letter comes next to join LGBTQAZ+ or whatever it is now.

Just like it's not communism to advocate for better welfare, labor rights, affordable housing and so on.

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

#183

Post by mantas »

immibis wrote: post #181
mantas wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a european, US migration situation is insane. And it’s hard to cal US „right“ that tolerated such policies promoting illegal migration for decades a „right“ wing. And european mainstream right is no longer right for the last few decades on those topics. Today’s „far“ right sound like what mainstream right would say 10-20-30 years ago depending on exact country.

You are saying that for you, last decade's right is centrist or left. And you are saying that last decade's right would call the current right centrist or left. So what are you?

Good question. My views didn't change. But somehow from voting moderate centre-right or even classical liberal I had to start voting for far-right instead. So... who am I?

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

#184

Post by gdbsjjdn »

robocat wrote: post #174
gdbsjjdn wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

If you have 120k a year to burn on a "hobby business" I think it's pretty safe to say you're in the top 1%. Calling it a "donation" doesn't change that.

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

#185

Post by immibis »

mantas wrote: post #183
immibis wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are saying that for you, last decade's right is centrist or left. And you are saying that last decade's right would call the current right centrist or left. So what are you?

Good question. My views didn't change. But somehow from voting moderate centre-right or even classical liberal I had to start voting for far-right instead. So... who am I?

Your views changed.

You said it yourself - even the right used to tolerate illegal immigration. But you were okay voting the center right at that time. And now you're voting the far right who are putting them in concentration camps. So you're far right, but you didn't used to be.

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

#186

Post by immibis »

mantas wrote: post #182
immibis wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nowadays this label is overused so much that it pretty much lost it's meaning. It's not fascism-nazism to be against mass migration. Nor it's fascism-nazism to not fully support whatever letter comes next to join LGBTQAZ+ or whatever it is now. Just like it's not communism to advocate for better welfare, labor rights, affordable housing and so on.

All of these phrases are euphemisms for what is actually on the table.

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

#187

Post by greenie_beans »

nativeit wrote: post #30
tbrownaw wrote: post #27

> Since opening, the Scarlett Letters hadn’t made a month-by-month profit, but had been kept afloat by savings and a monthly donation of £10,000 from an anonymous “angel investor”. Sounds like it wasn't so much a business as a piece of performance art.

That’s probably true of most book stores at this point.

no. bookstores are low margin endeavor but they still manage to stay in business and have been growing: https://www.uschamber.com/co/good-company/launch-pad/modern-...

will be interesting to see what happens with this trend in the current economy

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

#188

Post by mantas »

immibis wrote: post #185
mantas wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good question. My views didn't change. But somehow from voting moderate centre-right or even classical liberal I had to start voting for far-right instead. So... who am I?

Your views changed. You said it yourself - even the right used to tolerate illegal immigration. But you were okay voting the center right at that time. And now you're voting the far right who are putting them in concentration camps. So you're far right, but you didn't used to be.

My views didn't change. I voted moderate right before it was tolerating migration.

Here „far“ right offer is to deport illegals and curb new migration.

Also, we have detention centers since forever. What do you propose to do with illegal migrants waiting deportations instead? Put them in prisons? That's a wee to harsh, isn't it?

Of course, then people can start talking BS about muh concentration camps with allusions to soviet and nazi camps. But those camps had some specific features that ain't present in detention centers.

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

#189

Post by mantas »

immibis wrote: post #186
mantas wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nowadays this label is overused so much that it pretty much lost it's meaning. It's not fascism-nazism to be against mass migration. Nor it's fascism-nazism to not fully support whatever letter comes next to join LGBTQAZ+ or whatever it is now. Just like it's not communism to advocate for better welfare, labor rights, affordable housing and so on.

All of these phrases are euphemisms for what is actually on the table.

And what is on the table according to you?

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

#190

Post by bombcar »

badpun wrote: post #126
bombcar wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Independent bookstores stay afloat if they own their building, usually. At least the ones I know of that have remained open are in a building owned by the owner (so they don't have to pay rent).

A business that is only reasonably profitable if it doesn't have to pay rent is not really profitable. If the owner owns the building, he might as well rent out the place and get majority of income without doing any work. The bookstore is just a hobby on top of rental income, which he chooses to plow into his own bookstore.

The dirty secret of small businesses is that a vast number of them are not really profitable, because something is not counted on the books - either rent, or labor, or other things.
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