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Tuesday, February 26, 2019

Another Thing

This is another Rogue Photo imprint product. It is not in the numbered sequence of official "issues" but is rather a side project, using some of the same aesthetic.

It is overtly political. Marked up by one penny, because I like round numbers. You shouldn't buy it, though, because it's a very Bellingham specific political tract. Even here it probably won't be particularly on-point in a year or two. We hope.

Bellingham Zoning Zine

This is a 5" x 8", black and white, economy paper, trade book, the cheapest product blurb sells. I'm not sure the cover will even come out in color.

As usual, the point here is that you can preview it. The book was put together very very fast, it's not supposed to be polished. The pictures were all shot one weekend in Seattle. This is deliberately propagandist. While as far as I know there are no outright untruths in it, certainly there is no nuance. It's intended to be sound-bitey, punchy, and "essentially" truthful, even if a detail here or there is mislaid of misstated.

16 comments:

  1. "very Bellingham specific"

    The same/similar situations (and causes) apply to many other cities across the globe, including here.

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    1. The theme is depressingly universal, yes. The specifics are very Bellingham. I guess one could use it elsewhere to point to the universality, though.

      Delete
  2. I like good old fashioned in-your-face political photography like this. Plus, we are fighting the exact same issues in Duluth, although at nowhere near the scale. The city council just approved a 30 year tiff for a luxury apartment building downtown with zero affordable units. This is a city with lower than average wages, a housing shortage, and existing stock that is falling apart and too expensive for people to fix.

    We have plenty of tents here and there. In Minneapolis, it's more like Seattle: https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/video/3918931-minneapolis-tent-city-a-refuge-for-homeless/

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    1. yup. the situation here has some Bellingham specific features, and the political machinations are different, but the basic structure is the same: the dominant political machine (left or right, it doesn't matter) seeks to deregulate the housing market in order to enable profit seeking by the wealthy.

      East coast, west coast, midwest, all the same shit. Vancouver? Yup. London? Sure thing. Singapore? You guessed it. Etc, etc, etc.

      Anywhere anyone actually wants to live, which at this point seems to rule out only Syria.

      Delete
    2. Betcha city councilors get their big election donations from out-of-town developers, like they do here.

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    3. In Bellingham proper, within city limits, literally the only thing that matters is the Democratic Party's endorsement. So, you need to show that you're a good team player, will follow the party lines and hire the designated "consultants" who will help you win (which is pure graft -- you HAVE the endorsement, you WILL win, they could run a brick and win).

      So the policy all comes out of the party, not the politicians. The funding and leverage on the party operatives is almost completely opaque. But it is literally the only thing that matters.

      Standard neoliberal agenda appears to be in play here.

      Which, beats the crap out of the Republican party line, but it ain't great.

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    4. I'm curious. How long have the Democrats run Seattle?

      Jay

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    5. Bellingnham, not Seattle. I have no idea is Seattle contains any "safe districts' or not. The machinations there are surely different than they are in Bellingham, but the results are obviously much the same.

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  3. We have more or less come to believe that our culture is a support system for commerce, whereas it should be the other way round.

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    1. Robert,

      That is one of the best and most useful little sound-bites I've come across recently. Thanks!

      Mike

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    2. I thought just the same when I moderated that through last night! I am stealing it.

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  4. What usually happens in towns that are dominated by the Democratic Party, like ours is, the party divides into conservative Democrats supported by developers and the chamber of commerce, and the progressive Democrats who are in opposition (and the degree of opposition varies). We have one DSA member on the council, a very effective and popular politician, but no way will he do that much by himself.

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  5. What the hell is so wrong about making money? You want affordable housing? Get up off your ass and start a company that builds affordable housing. Check back to let us know how it is going after you've covered all your costs.

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    1. Well, Gator, as you seem to be suggesting in your remarkably incoherent way, if I started such a company it would not be successful, because the OTHER companies that are building snappy little condos for REITs would put me out of business.

      So what's wrong with making money in a deregulated development environment is that poor people have to sleep outside in tents, because that's the result that particular system produces, in much the same way that fire produces ashes and subzero temperatures produce ice.

      If you don't see that as a problem, well, on the one hand you gotta be you, but on the other hand you are either an imbecile or a sociopath, and either way: fuck you.

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  6. In answer to GatorJoe, there is nothing wrong with making money. But making money is not in itself enough justification for an enterprise. The thing you do to make money has to fit inside a cultural context, it needs to serve society at large. There were plenty of people making a good buck out of the slave trade 150 years ago, but the fact that the slavery industry made a profit was not a good enough reason to allow it to continue.

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