There are parallels today in the United States to the English Enclosure Movement (1500's & 1600's) that made homeless

[artemisia1]

and destitute so many English peasants as public land was consolidated into large sheep pastures run by wealthy landowners:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure

We are seeing the same thing with our own people via firms such as Blackrock. Apartments are being consolidated into ownership by mega holding companies, rents are being raised into the stratosphere, thus pushing many families out of housing while homeless are being vigorously persecuted:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/12/atlanta-park-sweep-world-cup

This consolidation of wealth and land led to centuries of suffering and ghettoes such as Jack the Ripper's haunt: Whitechapel. Public executions skyrocketed as the dispossessed became desperate and sometimes turned to petty crime or highway robbery. This new era of the filthy rich stripping and persecuting the "lower classes" is upon us. Yes, it has always been thus, but now it is entering, or reentering, a new, likely bloody and wicked stage.

Thoughts?

[rampartd]

1. it never stopped

the commoners evicted from their homes ended up in the towns and eventually on ships to america, australia, etc etc etc.

the attraction of new continents was soon overtaken by the same capitalists, who enclosed the eastern colonies and worked them with slaves. then they enclosed the great plains, more people native and commoner, homeless.

it has never stopped and won't. economy of scale. preponderance of force.

and the commoners keep moving. hungry. homeless. underemployed.

[Joinfortmill]

2. We need to vote in HUGE numbers, while we still can.

We need to be in the streets with mass protests every damn day for a month.

We need to have month long nationwide boycotts of huge monopolistic companies like Amazon.

We need to shun the Magas in our lives. Just shun them.

[LymphocyteLover]

3. We can do #1 and #4. I don't see #2 and #3 happening

[Joinfortmill]

4. I hear you, but I still believe we should do it.

Europeans are so much better at these mass protests than we are, and they work.

As for boycotting these mega merchants especially the behemoth, Amazon, it's a dream, I know, but it would be delicious if we could do it, even for a week.

The most important thing is to vote.

[LymphocyteLover]

5. I think the problem is we are too big and diverse to do that... too many problems to protest, we are too spread out

closest we came were the No Kings protests, which were massive

[Joinfortmill]

6. That is true. I'm just becoming more worried by the day.

And the waiting to vote seems endless, so much can happen before then.

[LymphocyteLover]

7. OMG yes. It seems forever until November but it is good time to campaign and do what we can locally

[TommyT139]

8. More than parallels.

Thank you for the powerful insight. As usual, the Supreme Court made things much worse, in Johnson v. Grants Pass, their decision from 2024 permitting (encouraging!) the outlawing of homeless people even when there is nowhere else to go. That was a reversal of some previous laws.

From June 27, 2026 "It’s Been Two Years Since the Supreme Court Made Homelessness a Crime. The Result Speaks for Itself."
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/06/supreme-court-homeless-crime-grants-pass-trump.html Note the connection to the surveillance state and the privatization of prison profits. (Bold/emphasis added. The whole article is worth a read.)

Two years ago this week, in the landmark Johnson v. Grants Pass decision, the Supreme Court gave cities and states the green light to make it a crime to sleep outside, even when there is nowhere else for people to go. ...

The increase in anti-homeless laws and rhetoric is not an accident; it is the result of a well-funded and coordinated campaign orchestrated in part by the Cicero Institute. The Cicero Institute, to put it simply, is the Heritage Foundation of homelessness. They leverage their relative anonymity and billionaire funders to pass cookie-cutter laws in states across the country that make it a crime to be homeless. Most recently, the Cicero Institute supported a Louisiana law that not only makes it a crime to sleep outside, but also paves the way to push homeless people into forced treatment and unpaid labor. Cicero also supports Utah’s plan to create a remote, government-run facility that will hold up to 1,300 people experiencing homelessness. And while these laws hurt us all, they hurt Black, brown, queer, immigrant, Indigenous, and disabled communities first and worst.

The Cicero Institute’s attacks on our unhoused neighbors are not just ideologically driven; there is also a clear profit motive. Recently, we at the National Homelessness Law Center published new research that shows Cicero and their founder—Palantir co-founder and investor Joe Lonsdale—have connections to the private prison industry and financial ties to industries poised to profit from the criminalization of homelessness.

For more about the decision: https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/justices-uphold-laws-targeting-homelessness-with-criminal-penalties/