Reply #36: Good for him [View All]

[whatever4]

And shame on them. In England, they USE their subways for shelters for the homeless. Here, we boot them out.

Sick friggin nation we live in. Rather inconvenient persons just crawl off and die. Funny how many folks don't realize they'd be just as inconvenient in his place. Funny how many don't have a concept of public property.

I caught a spot on tv the other day, and I can't honestly remember the channel, but it was basically scenes of public property like parks and libraries and buildings, and for each scene, the caption was...what was it...something like "This is yours". Or no, it I think it was "This belongs to you" It was a great statement, slowly, one picture after another, and the words "This belongs to you". Moving, and in this day and age, it even gave me a little wake up. As far as what I now feel about my nation and my life. What am I entitled to?

At this point, I'm entitled to crawl away and die. No one will even notice until things are well and truly ruined for good. We're conditioning ourselves not to care. To blame the less able. They drain the rest of "us".

Know what's, to me, the most ironic and stupid? Our homeless, they're sorta like our smokers. Smokers have to smoke outside now. We stand there, outside, somewhere in the vicinity of the door, or wherever the designated area is. So, we're the one's outside looking around. Keeping watch. Almost the door guard. Anyone tried to do something, we'd be right there. The smokers. That's us, always standing around, watching. I think we're right handy people to have, I mean, we're right THERE at the door. And don't you think, in a situation, a terrorist situation, we'd be ALL over it? Oh yeah buddy we would, and having worked in federal buildings, don't think it hasn't come to mind a time or two. For non-smokers, I'm here to tell you it's been a topic of conversation. We're RIGHT there, at the door frequently, and any nutcase trying to come in would likely have to go through quite a few of us. And trust me we're up to the fight; we're an ornery sort anyway, us smokers.

Anyway, long-winded rant, I view the homeless in something of the same light, and I think law enforcement should too. Homeless folks...they hang around. That's what they do. You get used to them, you know who they are and where they live...so they aren't exactly strangers.

So when I read about watching them for being spies, I thought hell that's just the opposite of what it should be. These people are on the ground, right there watching, without a lot else to do. And many cops know these folks anyway, it's part of the job, right? So why not depend on them a little, appreciate their eyes, harness their attention. They can be seen as trusted individuals, I mean their lives are an open book, living homeless, and if anyone would notice something odd going on, they would. They're right there on the street, in the alleys, eyes everywhere.

Wouldn't it be better than shoving them aside...for some OTHER group to use...as the admin fears? I swear, they explain to us a danger, and then they go about making it happen. Like terrorism and the Iraq war. Made it happen. Shove aside the homeless and then target them as terrorists...because they're uniformly malcontents, because they've been shoved aside. Self-fulfilling prophesy.