of markets and Death (addressed to the employed and housed, particularly)

The reason we don't help the homeless is we were taught to fear them as being mentally ill or alcoholic. It has been found that most people don't help because the mythology that there is something wrong with someone who is homeless is too strong. I'm not even saying mental illness or alcoholism are indications of inferiority either. Both are diseases, not moral failings and just because someone is mentally ill doesn't mean they are going to do something destructive and alcoholism isn't about evil; it is about a biological addiction.

Back to my point. The interesting thing that I've found is that the homeless people I used to speak to in my old community were more often than not Vietnam Vets. We are so quick to send people to war, which is outside the range of normal human experience, but we do nothing to deal with the trauma suffered by those pushed into dealing with that which is beyond our comprehension. The truth is that trauma and war should be discussed. We don't because we want to protect our psyches from the reality of our own mortality. The homeless to evince our own mortality. This is why there is no compassion. It makes us uncomfortable because it lays bare what could be our fate. Our tools, our homes can be taken away. We cling to what we have, claim it evinces our superiority or intelligence, when we fear at our core, but never admit, that it is just by chance we have what we have. The early settlers of the US were Calvinists. This means they believed that material wealth in this life was a sign of God's approval. I read this in a sociology text. Calvinism was passed down. This is why someone will snicker at some bum freezing to death rather than assist him. I think the core reason we don't give, is that no matter how much we have, there is still part of us that is insecure that we will lose it.

I learned a different ethic from my circle of friends. This was, by giving you show that there is enough to go around. Someday when you need help, your generosity will be returned. Someone pointed out to me, that many successful people are coincidentally generous. This goes against the current of everything we are taught.

It reminds me of the Tao, "Value things and you will teach people to steal." How much grief do we spend worrying about being stolen from or taken advantage of? I really hope that we find the courage to let go of our Calvinist protestant ethic burned into us time we were born and acculturated through the schools and live in a better way. If you are paranoid that someone is going to rob you, how can you actually look and see how they are feeling?

I am so glad that I'm old enough to have lived in a different subculture on the tailwinds of the eighties. The only advantage of being of the GenX era. Now, the culture is greed is more justified than it ever was on the basis that it fuels our society which needs consumption to thrive. What a load of crap!

The message a homeless vet has to tell is always one how expendable human life is in our society, the reality of our own mortality, and the human potential for cruelty and absurdity.

I'm am not a yellow ribbon magnet owner either. This isn't real support of the troops. This is using the disenfranchised veteran as a political weapon. The message the ribbon says is, "Don't be an evil hippie and criticize the war and undermine those who fight it (and above all, those who ordered the war and stand to gain the most from it!"

The truth is the war itself is the problem. Dumping praise upon soldiers when we don't even understand what they are doing and neither do the soldiers is bullshit anyway. The soldier will be forgotten anyway. Today, they say "support our war heroes," then the next when the soldiers come home and describe the crazy crap they were ordered to do, we will try to or be encouraged to forget about them, the same way the Vietnam Vets were forgotten. The truth is that the Hawk machine, back during the gulf war, created the yellow ribbon insanity in an effort to scapegoat the hippies who expressed anger at the Vietnam Veterans returning home for the conditions the Vietnam Veterans were subject to. No spitting hippie was ever responsible for the abject conditions of these veterans. Veterans historically, always have been used and screwed over. The people who fight wars have historically have been the poor. The veterans of WWI had to camp out at the Capitol of the US to get the veterans benefits they needed.

The truth is putting a yellow magnet on your car is of no consequence. How many of those dorks in SUV's are going to listen to stories of someone seeing their best friend decapitated? Those creeps will shy away and go back to the WalMart they came from. Also, PTSD, which mimics mental illness in some distant respects, is another important reason Vets are disrespected- and the irony is that the only cure is getting together and discussing and grieving the trauma in front of those who won't judge and can listen. In fact, peer to peer discussion of trauma as a means of healing was discovered through the Vietnam Veterans who got together and spoke. This helped other trauma survivors discover a way to heal their own plight as well.

The core idea that I'm trying to express is that we all share mortality, vulnerability to the elements and that we became a social species and successful because we used to work together to overcome these things. We didn't worship the Market God, and make sacrifices of our friends to appease this god. We just cared. I praise the primitivists and others who recognize that there is another way. Dislodging the brainwashing of this culture, even internally is so crucial. Pity that we are going to be surrounded by people who are going to learn that they were used and being lied to the hard way- no one faces this kind of truth without experiencing pain and grief.

I find that the things we value the most, success, money, competition, are intrinsically empty. This is why the rich flaunt what they have, and don't give. In each rich person I've known there is an emptiness and a need to justify what they have. Some alleviate for finding a charity case to give it to, as if to atone. When I think of the wealth I've had in my life, it has always been in the form of friends and the knowledge they shared which helped me survive.

"Looking at the prices of rent, the fact of people asking for background checks, credit ratings, and the huge surplus of empty buildings, lots, and then the number of people living under bridges I am filled with disbelief, with anger, with sadness."


I knoe EXACTLY how you feel on this! Let me just say that it's not just with housing, but with(actually, MORE-SO) with trying to abtain employment. I've been out of work since June this year. I havn't yet been able to find work because employers are goddamned stingy, shifty, & down-right dis-honest about whether they even NEED workers or had positions open! Go on CraigsList right now, look up the job section. ALL of those ads all want the same thing: MUST HAVE CAR, NO FELONIES/MISDEMEANORS.

Now i can perfectly appreciate employers not wanting to hire some scetchy criminal who's going to rob 'em blind. But i've been either been denied work or lost jobs several times in the past 3 fucking years b/c employers decided in wasn't "bondable" due to a 13 yr old peny-anny, non-violent, non-drug/theft, non-person to person "felony" i recieved after being entrapped by police waay the fuck back in Columbus,GA!
Most employers seem to be far more concerned about your background than your skills & compatancy. When you spend monthes looking for work, attending interview after interview, it can be a real trial having to explain the same bull-shit misdemeanor conviction over & over again. This situation is made all the worst when BULLSHIT BACKGROUND/CREDIT-CHECK such as INFOMART & SENTRYLINK so grossly fuck up the information they report on you! Between these two companies, i've recieved atleast three incorrect reports (that i know of) in the past three years & i know it's contributed to my having such a hard time finding work.
Empolyers have the nerve to place ads on CraigsList & elsewhere insisting that they need people ASAP, but you won't get any further than a 5 minute interview until that report comes back in some weeks later. And once an employer sees that report & sees something they don't like, THAT'S IT FOR YOU! Even if the report is fucked up b/c they didn't even get your name right, they don't want to fucking hear it!
Employers are too fucking cheap to just hire 3 or 4 people full time, they're rather bring on a load of TEMPORARY workers instead. This is usually done under the false pretense that what's being offered is a "temp.-to-hire" position. But 7-8 monthes later you're still there, still a temp. Then all of a sudden, there's no more work & you're let go without somuch as a days' fucking notice!
You go through THAT bullshit acouple of times & one day you find yourself applying for a job you maybe OVER-qualified for, if anything. But THEY won't hire you b/c you don't have a 'stable work history"
WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!?!

Oregon's unemployment doesn't at all have to be as high as it is. As the author of this article mentioned that buildings sit empty while people sleep on the street, so to are there PLENTY OF JOBS OUT THERE... but there's a vast pool of idled workers out there who aren't criminals, aren't junkies, aren't theives, & are perfectly capible if not over-qualified to work! But what's keeping soo many abled-bodied people from the jobs i KNOW are out there? Stengy, shadey employers who get all pissy over an 11 yr old pissant misdemeanor!