Pathetic really. I honestly do not understand how any "Christian" now matter what their belief is can see fit to dishonor two people committing to each other with dignity and love in this way. The answer is of course they are actually motivated by hate and fear and not actual "faith".

One very, very, very small thing. "Gentrifiers" the same as hate-mongers and predatory loan companies? Most so-called "gentrifiers" are just people looking to find a place to live that fits their budgets and are quite happy to live with any neighbor that is happy to live with them. Gentrification is a problem to managed and compensated against but the idea of neighborhoods becoming more economically and racially diverse rather than less is hardly same thing as hate-mongering.

Hating on "gentrifiers" is sort of like hating on raindrops because you are rightfully concerned about erosion. 1. Its not a terribly effective way of tackling the problem 2. It turns potential allies for real solutions to the big picture (water management) into enemies.

Are two interrelated issues.

One is a local issue, the other national.

On a responsible intellectual level, progressives need to respond on both levels. But progressives, who are WAY too used to being out of power, so we respond intellectually to problems that are, so to speak, out on the street for less comfortable folks.

Personally, I LOVE when progressives get their liberal sensibilities out of academia and the Web and employ them out on the street in real life situations. It's been kind of a lifelong personal project with me. Now, it TOTALLY TOTALLY sucks that the real life situation that prompted this discussion involved such insane fear-mongering hate-mongering assholes as those you encountered Ray, when two people are doing the most noble thing two people can do, pledge love in a world filled with, well, so much fear, hate, and assholes, but I digress...

Gentrification is a moral conundrum, but one in which there has to be a reliable process that allows for its happening AND mitigates its negative effects.

For the old woman living on the street where Gaetano and whatever other lawyers just raised the housing values, gentrification sucks. The locus of sucking is city government. Her property taxes go up, she needs to move from the house she's lived in for decades.

There needs to be an answer to her problem at the city government level, not just for the old woman, but for the school down the street.

This is where it gets complicated. The school down the street, and every other part of city government, needs more money. Rising property values alleviate this problem. Gentrification is good, in this sense.

So the city needs to come up with a property tax cap for the old woman, perhaps setting an age limit AND a maximum rise for her. That's an intellectual response, I know, but tax problems are like that.

The lawyer then needs to be respectful of the neighborhood he's just bought into, and should actively campaign for political candidates who will alleviate poverty on the national level.

Making politics personal will eventually help progressives, I think.

Gotta go teach.

Some men see things as they are and say, “Why”? I dream of things that never were and say, “Why not”?
Robert Kennedy, 1968

Ray asked me to explain what I meant in the other thread, where I said he was trying to gentrify the discourse of the Democratic party, and since the let-us-pass-over-this-in-silence-by-talking-about-it stuff about gentrification is going hot and heavy, it's worth taking a snarky joke and turning it into a better analogy.

The analogy is that the Philadelphia Democratic Party is a neighborhood in Philadelphia. And that the netroots progressives' entry into the party is a lot like the gentrification of that neighborhood.

About forty or so years ago, the neighborhood became integrated, which scared a lot of people into leaving. But a lot of people, brave and ordinary people, stayed and did their best to make it work. Times weren't very good for a while, and the racial politics were especially ugly. But then things started to look better; the kids grew up and instead of leaving, bought houses not far from their parents. There were still plenty of problems, and feuds, but everybody knew everybody, and the neighborhood stuck together.

Then a new group of people, younger, better-educated, mostly a bunch of white guys, starts showing up. At first, they're just happy to be there -- this part of the city is so great! Then they start looking around and wondering why things are the way they are. They don't understand why everybody double parks (ethics violations), or gets mad when you hook up your bike to the streetlight (your disabled neighbor Carol Campbell can't open her door) or why one neighbor keeps a Doberman chained up in his back yard (John Dougherty). Even the kids who grew up in the neighborhood don't dress or act like the other kids. They're so excited about what the neighborhood can be, and occasionally a little ignorant about its history, that they think of all sorts of new things the neighborhood needs, ways the neighborhood could be better, and even which neighbors live in "problem houses."

Meanwhile, the old neighbors, who fought the really bad guys, the drug dealers (crooked bosses) and the developers who wanted to plow through the neighborhood with an expressway and build condos (Republicans), can't understand why these kids are breaking their balls. Sooner or later, the street is going to get permit parking, there's an argument, and some angry words are exchanged. These college kids don't know their asses from a hole in the ground, and it's time somebody said it. Meanwhile, the new neighbors are frustrated, because they know that they can't just continue to do things the old way. They love this neighborhood. They don't want anybody to leave, they just want to change how things are done, make them better, make them more democratic and diverse... Their feelings get hurt, too.

In other words, this politics is just as personal. We shouldn't be surprised when people on either side take it personally.

--Tim (aka Short Schrift)