i put “All I Want for Christmas is You” through a MIDI converter, and then back through an mp3 converter

utena2.mid

Masami Okui - Rinbu -Revolution-

It’s a common misconception that The Troubles (the conflict/war in Northern Ireland from the 1960s-1998) was about religious hatred between Catholics and Protestants.

It was actually not about religion. It was about colonialism.

To understand, you need to know a little about Irish history.

Starting from the 1500s, the British began a program of systematic, intense colonisation of Ireland. Native Irish people were driven off their land, which was then settled by British people. The northern part of the island was particularly heavily settled, to the point that about half the population was made up of British settlers.

At the time, the vast majority of British people (and therefore the British settlers) were Protestant, while the vast majority of Irish people were Catholic.

As the centuries passed, the native Irish population and the descendants of the British settlers did not integrate. They lived largely separately.... attending separate schools, living in separate communities... and worshiping separate religions.

Religion became one of a handful of “markers” (along with language, cultural practices, etc) to identify whether someone was a native Irish person, or a descendent of the British settlers.

Laws were established that systematically discriminated against Catholics (who were mostly Irish) in favour of Protestants (who were mostly descendants of British settlers). These were in effect in Northern Ireland until the latter part of the 1900s. They meant that Irish Catholic people were denied equal access to education, housing/land ownership, and political representation. This was known as the Protestant Ascendency.

In the 1960s, a Civil Rights Movement began in Northern Ireland. It was inspired by the African American movement in the US. Irish people marched and held protests for their rights. This Civil Rights Movement came to an end when British soldiers fired live ammunition into a peaceful protest in Derry, an event known as Bloody Sunday.

Following Bloody Sunday, tensions between the two main groups in Northern Ireland (Irish people/“Catholics”, and the descendants of British settlers/“Protestants”) escalated dramatically and the region descended into violence. The Troubles had begun.

Of course, when the British press was reporting on the sudden civil war that had erupted in one of their territories (Northern Ireland) they glossed over the fact that... you know... they caused it, by colonising Ireland, displacing it’s population and then systematically oppressing the Irish for centuries.

Colonial powers don’t really like to acknowledge the effects of their colonialism.

So instead, the British media simplified the situation by calling it a religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants. And other countries, who don’t know any better, caught on and also portrayed it as a conflict between Catholics and Protestants.

I get this a lot, and in the first instance I think it’s often framed in a pretty unrealistic way. I very much doubt everybody would suddenly want to move to a beach town because people put down roots wherever they are and have connections and jobs there.

That said, obviously people will want to move sometimes, just like now - so you’re right to think about how that would work! I can imagine that a local council, or some public body under local democratic control, would have a list online of all the properties that are currently empty. If you're looking to move you can browse the list, pick one you like, and apply! If more than one person applies for the same house then we can have a lottery system (unless it’s got special features that one person needs, like it’s on the ground floor and they can’t do stairs, in which case we can let them take priority there). Once you get the house you can pick up the keys and move in! You would be responsible for maintaining it, so once every so often someone from that local body will come round and say, “Hey, you need to clear the gutters or install some fire doors or whatever.” Once you’re done you give back the keys and move out! The important thing to realise is that whilst not everybody will get their first choice house - that is already true of the current system. No rent, no mortgages. The house is not owned by anybody and so it cannot be sold: homes are no longer the sorts of things that can legally be commodities.

Won’t there be corruption and people moving their friends up the list for the nicer houses? Almost definitely! Again though - real estate corruption already happens under the current system. At least this way nobody dies of homelessness and nobody amasses fortunes on the backs of other people’s misery.

Won’t this mean every estate agent and landlord is out of a job? Yup. But we will also be creating new jobs! Someone will need to administer that list, manage applications, show people round properties, inspect them... Seems like estate agents have a lot of transferrable skills that will be useful! Their new jobs will be much more stable since they won’t be conditional on the fluctuations in the housing market! Let’s make sure they’re unionised with pensions and decent wages while we’re at it!

But people won’t take care of the houses if they don’t own them! It’s hard to think of anything that has more evidence against it than this. Private renters already take care of housing which they don’t own because they live there. My landlord hasn’t set foot in my flat for three years: I do all the cleaning and repairs and I make it a home. The owner does zilch!

But what if someone wants to come into my house and just live there? Same thing that happens now if you rent, you have a right to privacy so you can tell them to leave? I don’t own the flat I currently live in, but I can control who comes in - even the owner is required to give me notice.

But I want to own a house someday so I can sell it and getta tha mon-ey! Tough titties I’m afraid. You don’t get to amass wealth at the expense of other human beings anymore.

I agree that the current housing crisis is a problem, but can’t we just introduce strong pro-tenant regulations? The housing market and the housing crisis are the same thing. That’s the point. Consider that every regulation you introduce will be challenged and eroded by the most rich and powerful people in the world. We have tried for over a century to regulate our way out of the housing crisis and it’s been a miserable, deadly failure. It’s time to cut the Gordian knot and realise that we will not solve the housing crisis until we do to landlords what Thatcher did to the miners: absolutely remove them as a political force.

But who will build new houses if nobody can sell them for a profit? We have a free healthcare system, don’t we? Why not a housing system too? It’s not perfect of course, and it’s vulnerable to privatisation by the backdoor, but if a job needs doing the government can pay people to do it - that is a thing that can happen.

But I already paid half my mortgage! Now you’re telling me my house isn’t an asset anymore? Admittedly, that sucks. But hey, at least you don’t have to pay the other half, and now you live in a society where you will never go homeless!

Won’t wages go down once people no longer have to pay rent or mortgages? Maybe. Sounds like a good reason to join a union and have robust minimum wage laws for everybody! But even if they did - if your living costs have just been reduced by half cause you aren’t paying rent anymore and there’s now zero chance that you will end up on the streets, you could lose some wages and still be fine.

But people won’t go to work if they don’t have to pay rent! Absolutely right. Would you still go to work at your shitty job if you had free housing? Would you maybe go half as much, and spend the other half doing something you actually enjoy? If your boss harasses you or makes your job miserable, aren’t you now in a much better position to say, “Screw your job!” Guaranteeing free housing puts a massive amount of power in the hands of workers and would expose just how coercive capitalism is! Suddenly, if rich people want their floors cleaned or their coffee served - well they’d better pay the person doing that job properly or it won’t get done. All the people who actually keep society running in low-paid shitty jobs are suddenly able to demand the respect they deserve. Every pro-worker party should be demanding free housing: it’s hard to think of a move that would benefit the working class more than taking away the threat of homelessness used to keep them in line.

Won’t banks be in serious trouble if mortgages suddenly aren’t a thing? Probably. Some might go under. They will not get bailouts - if bailouts are required they will go directly to the employees and customers, who, remember, have all just had their living costs massively reduced because they have free housing now. They will not end up on the streets because homelessness won’t exist. 

This is ridiculous! For most of human history housing was not a commodity. There is more empty housing now than homeless people. The fact that people find it difficult to imagine an alternative now is a function of Capitalist Realism, but a lack of imagination on their part isn’t a moral or intellectual failing on mine.

it might take a lot of repetitions - nobody is ever convinced of anything in just one go, but here are some things that you might point out:

- You can inherit your way into being a landlord. There are no necessary qualifications, skills, or training - You can hire someone else (an estate agent) to do all the “work” and still have it be your official job - A landlord’s salary (i.e. the rent) is not determined by their skill, hard work, ingenuity, seniority, or any of the things that are ideally supposed to affect someone’s wages. They just set their salary at the highest level they can get away with. Most can (and do) sit on their asses and wait for house prices to go up so they can give themselves a raise - Landlords are supposed to pay for upkeep and repairs, but tenants could pay for those things (certainly a lot more easily if they didn’t have to pay rent). So even if being a landlord is a job, it’s superfluous.

These things are true because a landlord’s so-called “job” is just owning stuff. Many landlords claim that they worked hard and saved up to own stuff. This does not affect any of the above and is an attempt to centre the argument on the landlord’s feelings, which are irrelevant. It’s also the case that most rental properties are owned by massively rich corporations, so to talk about ‘uwu smol landlords whomsdt just need the went pwease’ is not living in the real world.

I’ve seen people talking about trans landlords, or live-in landlords, or landlords from vulnerable groups, and going easy on them - it’s important to remember that every landlord exploits their tenants, being a landlord is never a real job, and in a just society it would never be permitted. Just because a landlord is from an oppressed group doesn’t mean they can’t be part of the owner class. (Though we should all remember that our criticism of them should centre their membership of that class, which they can leave at any time and become allies, not on their identity, and that we must fight to make sure that nobody is oppressed for who they are.)

This doesn’t affect any of the above.

Every landlord exploits people because the landlord/tenant relationship is inherently exploitative; it is never acceptable; housing is a human right and it will be free for all.