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newtboy and i were having a discussion about this very subject and we both got hitched up on what can basically be broken down to labels.liberal/conservative republican/democrat.
but those labels are irrelevant to what is playing out in reality.the reality is power vs powerlessness.those in power are creating laws that are making being poor illegal.
there are now 31 cities in america that make "sharing" (thats the terminology being used) food with the poor as being illegal,with punishment of up to a 500$ fine or 2 months in jail.
russell brand criticizes the absurdity of it all.
from alternet:
Russell Brand weighed in on the recent controversy surrounding the arrest of a 90-year-old Fort Lauderdale, Florida man whose only crime was violating a new city ordinance against feeding the homeless.
“He couldn’t look any more like an adorable old man, could he?” Brand began. “And yet he’s being ushered away by the police.”
“These values now aren’t the preserve of extreme activists, loonies in Anonymous masks tipping over police vans — they’re the values of elderly old war veteran men, because the values we’re talking about are just compassion and fairness.”
“There’s a prevailing idea,” he continued, “that there’s something ethically wrong with being poor, and that America’s run according to Christian values. But when people are practicing genuine Christian values, they themselves are directly prosecuted.”
“Clearly,” Brand said, “what Jesus was really into was having guns, and not having abortions, and not being gay. Those are his main priorities. But after he made sure that everyone had a gun, no one had an abortion, and nobody was gay, he had a little think about the poor people and whether they needed anything.”
“Sharing is one of the most important Christian values. Looking after each other is a Christian value.” But, he added, American businessmen use “Christianity and morality of all kind to protect their own corporate interests.”
“We’ve got to have a law,” he said in the voice of an American businessman, “preventing people from sharing food — especially from the hungry, let’s exclude them from the get-go.”
In his own voice, Brand said, “this is a very popular current mentality, and presumably it comes from businesses and corporations in town centers saying, ‘I don’t like these homeless folk outside my store, it’s inconvenient and depressing. Don’t feel sympathy for the vulnerable people, think about local businesses and their needs not to have human litter cluttering up the walkways.’”
“At no point,” he continued, “do people think, ‘We can divert some of this wealth and affluence at the top of the pyramid towards vulnerable people.’”
“They never think, ‘That could be me.’ They just assume, ‘That person is naturally inferior.’”
“And of course,” Brand said, “we all know homelessness can’t be ended,” before pivoting, noting that “homelessness could be ended with the money Americans spend on Christmas decorations.”
“Let’s bear in mind,” he concluded, “that America just had midterm elections where $4 billion was spent on campaigning — which is just telling you that something’s good. But feeding the homeless? That’s illegal.”
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TheFreakWhen I first started volunteering to serve at a homeless shelter, many years ago, I didn't know exactly why I was doing it. Certainly it felt like the "right" thing to do. I was at least confident that I wasn't doing it for personal gain because I didn't wear it on my sleave, didn't brag about it or hang my ego on my personal identity of being a good person. When dissillusionment set in, when I realized just how many of the people I was serving were homeless by choice, I pushed through and carried on...and I still didn't know why. I just trusted that I would get it one day.
Eventually I made a connection to the time I spent living in Sweden. In the town I lived in, every night a group of vagrants assembled in the market square. Every bit as dirty and drunken as the worst homeless person that most people imagine them all to be. Fighting, having sex in the public restroom, vomiting and carrying on loudly all night. But this was socialism, so they went home every night to their government payed for apartments. I realized that no matter what you do, there will always be a segment of society that just doesn't give a Fuck and is happy to take and never give back. We've all known these people. Family members, friends, acquaintances, who use up the good will of everyone they meet until they've got no one left to use and it falls to the larger community to support them. No economy, government or community planning will ever compell them to support themselves. We loathe them and shun them. Politicians with ulterior motives tell us that ALL homeless and disadvantaged ARE them. But it's a lie. There are the mentally and physically ill who have no support structure, who NEED their communities to help them. Most of these people were once functioning members of their communities who no longer have the ability to survive on their own.
And so I came to understand that it's better to feed a hundred leaches to serve a single helpless individual.
Boy was I proud of myself for realizing that.
And then I was layed off and my job shipped to India, followed closely by my wife spending a year in and out of the hospital, with no insurance. A careers worth of hard work, reduced to a data point on a corporate profit sheet. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, when the medical debt comes for me and everything I've built in my life is taken, to become a line in someone else's ledger. Betrayed by the greed in the system. Because I upheld my end of the social contract. I worked hard in school, excelled in my career, had two kids and bought a house in a neighborhood with good schools. But the system is run by the greediest and most power hungry. Politics and business is the domain of the high functioning sociopath. And to a sociopath, you're not a real person like them. You're a data point, a line in the ledger.
Then I came to respect the other segment of the homeless. The ones who rejected the social contract, who don't feel societal pressure to give more than they take. Because they got it right. It's all a lie. You don't earn anything in America. You don't deserve the fruits of your labor. You subsist at the whim of the people with money and power. And when it serves them, you get nothing.
We are all standing in line for food, hoping there's a room for the night.
overdudesays...Amazing words from what I would imagine is an extraordinary human being.
I feel ya, man.
When I first started volunteering to serve at a homeless shelter, many years ago, I didn't know exactly why I was doing it. Certainly it felt like the "right" thing to do. I was at least confident that I wasn't doing it for personal gain because I didn't wear it on my sleave, didn't brag about it or hang my ego on my personal identity of being a good person. When dissillusionment set in, when I realized just how many of the people I was serving were homeless by choice, I pushed through and carried on...and I still didn't know why. I just trusted that I would get it one day.
Eventually I made a connection to the time I spent living in Sweden. In the town I lived in, every night a group of vagrants assembled in the market square. Every bit as dirty and drunken as the worst homeless person that most people imagine them all to be. Fighting, having sex in the public restroom, vomiting and carrying on loudly all night. But this was socialism, so they went home every night to their government payed for apartments. I realized that no matter what you do, there will always be a segment of society that just doesn't give a Fuck and is happy to take and never give back. We've all known these people. Family members, friends, acquaintances, who use up the good will of everyone they meet until they've got no one left to use and it falls to the larger community to support them. No economy, government or community planning will ever compell them to support themselves. We loathe them and shun them. Politicians with ulterior motives tell us that ALL homeless and disadvantaged ARE them. But it's a lie. There are the mentally and physically ill who have no support structure, who NEED their communities to help them. Most of these people were once functioning members of their communities who no longer have the ability to survive on their own.
And so I came to understand that it's better to feed a hundred leaches to serve a single helpless individual.
Boy was I proud of myself for realizing that.
And then I was layed off and my job shipped to India, followed closely by my wife spending a year in and out of the hospital, with no insurance. A careers worth of hard work, reduced to a data point on a corporate profit sheet. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, when the medical debt comes for me and everything I've built in my life is taken, to become a line in someone else's ledger. Betrayed by the greed in the system. Because I upheld my end of the social contract. I worked hard in school, excelled in my career, had two kids and bought a house in a neighborhood with good schools. But the system is run by the greediest and most power hungry. Politics and business is the domain of the high functioning sociopath. And to a sociopath, you're not a real person like them. You're a data point, a line in the ledger.
Then I came to respect the other segment of the homeless. The ones who rejected the social contract, who don't feel societal pressure to give more than they take. Because they got it right. It's all a lie. You don't earn anything in America. You don't deserve the fruits of your labor. You subsist at the whim of the people with money and power. And when it serves them, you get nothing.
We are all standing in line for food, hoping there's a room for the night.
jimnmsFeed a man for free, and he'll be back asking for more. Feed a man a bullet, you won't hear from him again. - 'merica
MordhausPerhaps Brand should work on getting his own country to be more accepting of the homeless first. http://www.examiner.com/article/anti-homeless-spikes-london-s-homeless-now-have-to-deal-with-anti-hobo-spikes
TolwynThe age-old liberal retort. Let's complain about the injustice of something because it doesn't hold up to our "compassionate" and unbelievably myopic ideals.
Look folks... if a law exists that it's breaking, it's breaking the law. If you don't like it; rather, if the majoriy of the folks in the county of the city don't like it, they have the power to change it if they can get off their armchairs long enough to do something about it. The power of the people would initiate making it NOT against the law. So, start THERE. Don't just blindly whine (or whinge, for you in the UK) about it first.
Use the system to change the laws.
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