Condo means condo, all right, but before we piranhas get too ravenous,
perhaps we should consider another possibility. The SWP (and similar
outfits) have a well-known tendency to equate “professional revolutionary”
with full-time staff. And there was a substantial number of older cadres who
had worked all or most of their adult lives on party staff, i.e. on
subsistence pay.



As I recall, the SWP, looking ahead to their retirement years, purchased
condomimium apartments that were inhabited by senior staff comrades. In my
days in New York, in the mid-1970s, there were a number of older comrades
living in such condos on the Lower East Side. These were comfortable but not
luxurious apartments in modest high-rise buildings, typical working-class
accommodation in that city. But, as I understood it, they belonged to the
party, de facto, even though the title may have been registered in the names
of individuals.



Given the general tendency for real estate – especially in Manhattan – to
rise steeply in market value, these party-owned condos were pretty sound
investments. Is it not possible that Jack and Mary-Alice’s place was
something similar, and that the proceeds from this $1.8 million sale go to
the party, not to them as individuals?



There are pros and cons to this kind of arrangement, in my view. It does
provide an elementary form of social security to long-time staff, as any
employer in capitalist America should be obliged to do absent an adequate
social-security network including free or very low-cost social housing. On
the other hand, it encouraged the trend toward staff sinecures, limited
rotation of full-time party workers, and fed the tendency to build an
apparatus out of all proportion to party size, existing in relative
self-sufficiency independent of the state of the class struggle or the
conditions of ordinary working people.



BTW, some of those “condo comrades” I referred to were brusquely expelled
from the SWP by Barnes & Co. in the 1980s (e.g. the Lovells, Breitmans,
etc.). I sometimes wonder whether they were allowed to stay in their
long-time homes. Answers, anyone?



And before we go agog over the $1.8 million, bear in mind that in much of
Manhattan anything less than a current market price of one million will be
barely large enough for a single student. Which is another reason not to
build a party apparatus in a place like NYC. I note that Pathfinder ships
from Atlanta now.



Richard



_____

From: swp_usa@yahoogroups.com [mailto:swp_usa@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
Philip Ferguson
Sent: July 25, 2007 2:21 AM
To: swp_usa@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [swp_usa] Jack the Condo Flipper.



Ah, so here we have the condo that they bought with money from the Anchor
Foundation.

When Louis posted the url for those accounts and I mentioned that Jack and
Mary-Alice had paid $800,000 for a condo and spent $800,000 on
refurbishments, several comrades who - frankly - should have known better -
lambasted me and said this "condo" couldn't really be a condo but must be
the new national office or that it was some other expenditure for the
"movement" that they had to disguise.

Well those of us who know that condo means condo have been proven right.

Surprise, surprise!

Phil

________________________________

From: swp_usa@yahoogroups <mailto:swp_usa%40yahoogroups.com> .com
[mailto:swp_usa@yahoogroups <mailto:swp_usa%40yahoogroups.com> .com] On
Behalf Of johnhilsman
Sent: Wednesday, 25 July 2007 6:25 a.m.
To: swp_usa@yahoogroups <mailto:swp_usa%40yahoogroups.com> .com
Subject: [swp_usa] Jack the Condo Flipper.

I really hate to give up my cherished lurker status here, but since
none of you media hounds caught this, here goes. I feel like I'm
throwing raw meat into a tankfull of piranahs. What I'd really like
to know is if they find any seeds and stems between the floorboards.

******************************

Communists Capitalize on Village Sale-Get $1.87 M. for Loft
by Max Abelson

Published: July 10, 2007

Tags: Real Estate
This article was published in the July 15, 2007, edition of The New
York Observer.

If bow-tied, cigar-mouthed Republicans can have nice seven-digit, six-
room co-ops, don't a few old Manhattan communists deserve multi-
million-dollar real estate, too?

A two-bedroom loft at 380 West 12th Street, a 109-year-old building
on a cobblestone block by the Hudson River, was sold by American
socialist leaders Jack Barnes and Mary-Alice Waters. Their buyers,
Sony BMG Music Entertainment vice president Ole Obermann and his
fiancée, Stephanie Jakubiak, paid $1,872,500.

"I don't want to hurt the sellers' feelings at all, but they
definitely had a funky style in terms of how they did the apartment,"
said Mr. Obermann. That means there are sliding stained-glass doors,
plus a wall of bookshelves. (Ms. Waters is the president of
publishing house Pathfinder Press, which publishes Marx and Trotsky,
and Mr. Barnes, too.)

"Personally, our tastes are different and we'll probably do something
different," the buyer said. "It will be open, airy, simple, whereas
when it was done 15 years ago there was a lot of light-colored wood
shelving." He's adding six or so wireless speakers, "a nice music
system."

Edward Ferris of Brown Harris Stevens was the listing broker.

It isn't clear when Mr. Barnes and Ms. Waters bought the place or how
much they paid, but city records date back to 1993, when apartments
were massively cheaper.

Unlike most people in six-room lofts, Mr. Barnes once met with Kim Il-
sung, the late North Korean president. The leader "conversed with the
guests in a cordial and friendly atmosphere and arranged a lunch for
them," a report published by the BBC in 1990 said. "US Socialist
Workers' Party, led by its National Secretary Jack Barnes ... presented
him with a gift."

So what is the couple like? "We only met Mary-Alice, and she was
incredibly friendly, interesting, had a nice warm way about her,
seemed like a very nice woman," Mr. Obermann said. "She mentioned she
really liked to cook, they would have friends over-it's like a social
space."

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