by Jack Bragen
Some fundamental changes in how we do things in the U.S. are going to be necessary, irrespective of how much the rich people and the militant ultraconservatives might oppose this. The general public must have a reasonable ability to acceptably live, or else the entire fabric of society will disintegrate.The poor people need to have an acceptable means of existing. The disabled and/or unemployable people must not be put to death, no matter how much linguistic or cranial perfume you’d like to add to this atrocity to try and obscure its reality and its heinousness.
When I said people are “being put to death”, this is not imaginary nor is it much of an embellishment. The way society currently deals with unhoused people causes many to die under horrible circumstances.
The recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allows governments to ban sleeping in a public place sets a precedent for our entire government, broadcasting it is OK to do anything you want to an unhoused person, and you can get away with it. And it is a stinking shame that the rest of the U.S. government is embracing this and is following suit with more laws to make homelessness into a crime. This reeks to high heaven.
The current direction of criminalizing homelessness shows that if you don’t have enough money to live on, you will ultimately be incarcerated. Once incarcerated, the way people are treated in jail will destroy people’s souls first, then their bodies.
People must not be eliminated from society and thrown out because someone believes they are unfit, unable to keep up, too poor or too different. Human beings are an abundant, but corporations treat them as expendable.
Additionally, anyone who appears as though they can think for themselves becomes a target and will not be able to keep their job.
Our economy would improve to a more robust one if we give jobs to people who are impoverished rather than jailing them. Some kind of minimal housing can also be created for the new working class that I propose, or automobiles could be modified to allow living in them. If you have a job, but don’t make enough money to rent a unit, then you should be allowed to sleep in your vehicle.
Times are changing, and many people might assert there is less of everything to go around,but I disagree. The excess in how people live disproves the notion that our society can’t afford to give people sufficient room and board, and not punish or dispose of them just because they ended up at the bottom—or just because.
In my proposal, I’m still talking about an unfair situation. But if the architects of society could squeeze in a bit more humaneness, they might discover that people who are believed to be a problem are actually a solution.
Our entire government is moving towards fascism regarding how the unhoused community is being destroyed. This is inexcusable, yet it is being done because politicians believe they can.
This attitude can’t last.
Ultimately, I have faith that justice will prevail, and we can build a more accepting and fair culture, though it would take a long time. I hope we can once again live in a tolerant and prosperous world.
But how many people must die before this happens?
Whether it’s city and county mayors, state governors or any official at all levels or government, they are in on this collective atrocity. I do not need to name names here.
We see some militancy in objecting to another Trump presidency. But for those at the bottom rungs of the economic ladder, there is far too little empathy.
Untreated mental illness is not the cause of most homelessness. The lack of opportunities to earn a living, and the unwillingness to help those who just can’t keep pace, to me, seem like the causes of homelessness— and people’s attitudes toward those who are unable to keep up don’t help .
People’s Park is gone. Ability to sleep somewhere when there is no other place to go is gone. Lives? Also gone, and the victims get blamed. We can’t accept this. Today, they might not come for you, me or most people we know, but eventually they will come.
And they’ll come for more.
Jack Bragen lives in Martinez, California.
