Reply #70: Meh-this homelessness stuff - is all about choices really [View All]

[varelse]

As a nation, that is...

We choose to permit our politicians to borrow money from future generations to fund illegal, imperialistic wars that make a handful of the haves into "have-mores" - and make many thousands destitute, or dead.

We choose to believe in the "welfare queen" mythology, no matter how many times it is debunked, yet somehow the irony of corporate welfare on a massive scale, completely escapes our belief system and our sight.

We choose to see homelessness and poverty as being the result of the mistakes, lack of education, bad judgement, addiction, and lack of moral character of poor people, rather than seeing the roots of poverty buried and growing fat and strong in the enormous, ever-growing gap between the rich and, well, the rest of us. The inequity is built in to the "free" market economy now virtually a religion among conservatives and an untouchable icon even among erstwhile liberals and progressives, but we choose not to see its role in creating and perpetuating endless unnecessary suffering.

We choose to see poverty and homelessness as "somebody elses' problem" which for most of us, it frankly is... until it's ours. Many Americans are only a few paychecks or one major illness away from poverty - but looking over the edge of that abyss is so terrifying that most refuse to even take a glance in the general direction.

By choosing not to see the truth, by choosing to look away, by choosing to perpetuate the policies and the public opinions that keep millions of our own mired in poverty, we are all in some way responsible for homelessness.

Perhaps it is time to review these choices and discard them in favor of better ones not clouded by fear and based on a foundation of easily exposed lies repeated about our poor. If as a nation, we can manage this, we can finally put homelessness and poverty permanently in the realm of history.