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Is Anyone at Home?
by David Glenn Cox
It is kind of strange living here in this undisclosed location and in many ways it reminds me of my childhood home in the south suburbs of Chicago. It is reminiscent but still different and unique; my thirty five years of living in the South have trained my eyes not to accept dark green or dark gray painted houses. These are the periphery issues as my mind wanders because while I live in a home now I still feel homeless. It is a home but it is not my home and I’ve begun to question whether I will ever feel at home ever again.
These things, these events leave scars and marks that Tide won’t wash off. Like a death or a divorce, you carry them with you internally from then on. With upwards of ten million home foreclosures and maybe as many evictions it means that nearly of a third of our population has been displaced and scarred. A huge army of men, women and children whose lives have been disrupted and destabilized, who fear answering the telephone or the arrival of a stranger’s car. The mail makes them queasy and the end of the month makes them nervous and jumpy.
A population in hiding, a population wounded. A Kindergarten class in California which lost so many children that the school district investigated their loss, only to discover empty boarded up homes. More of an education for a six year old than a public school building can hold. A recent study discovered that many high school age children now question the wisdom of going on to college. They feel themselves squeezed out and priced out of the market. Even with financial aid, what are the careers of the future?
Soldier? Policeman or TSA Gestapo airport greeter? Why go in debt to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars, only to be the best educated employee at the dollar store? These children of trauma no longer have any illusions of an American dream. They’ve witnessed the carnage of being forced from a home or seeing the family car towed away by the repo man. The have become the war child who has witnessed the blitz first hand and have limited expectations for the future. They write for their teachers “What I want to be if I grow up.”
This place where I am is so strange and alien to me, it’s… nice. It’s too nice, the people are too nice and too white and too comfortable. I’m glad for them that they can sing a happy tune in sun filled streets but at the same time I feel almost pity for them. They live in unreality not so much denial as much as a bubble. They have money but almost no soul; they live a life of quiet comfort. Many live as if they have never been kicked and vote Republican because of it. Yet even here I’ve seen the sheriff’s messages tacked to their doors and the mortgage company stickers stuck on their windows.
In Atlanta, I was living in a single room of a dirty garage; I washed in a bucket and washed my clothes in the same bucket. Here, in this undisclosed location I sleep in a bed each night and wash in a shower each day. In Atlanta, I awoke to the sound of Dumpster trucks and my neighbors were asphalt. In this place I wake up to birds singing each morning, it is a place where kids ride their bicycles and grown ups walk their dogs. It is all so idyllic that sometimes it upsets me because despite all the pretty surroundings I am still homeless.
By the official Government statistics over thirteen million Americans are unemployed. Eight million more work part time jobs for economic reasons, meaning that they can’t find full time jobs. No one knows how many of that eight million are working more than one of those low paying, no benefits, part time jobs. They live on the cusp of the American life filling in a chuck hole and waiting nervously for whatever comes next. How many are homeless? Your government doesn’t track such statistics. How many children are homeless? Ditto, but it is estimated that one million school children are homeless on any given night in America. It begs the question, who is lost here, them or us?
I myself, however, am in another class which the government officially labels as discouraged worker. It is however a cloak which does not fit me for I am not discouraged so much as ejected. You look for work like looking for rainbows or unicorns and when you see something that appears real you immediately become suspicious because it is probably not real. After tornados ripped through Alabama, I went to the Montgomery Advertiser web site to check on the damage. I had once lived in Montgomery and like most of the young people there our chief aim in life was in getting out of Montgomery.
But Montgomery is a more real version of America than where I am now. We knew the schools sucked, we knew that the horizons were limited and we knew that the only possible salvation was in getting out of there. There was a story of a violent crime on the front page of the Montgomery newspaper, a robbery at knife point, and most of the comments on the story referenced those too lazy to get a job. You don’t have to stay around Montgomery long before you’ll hear that refrain; all social problems are directed at someone else’s laziness. So I checked the want ads just to see why these criminals were too lazy to just to go out and get a job. The want ads in this county of 223,000 souls listed just two jobs for 86,000 households. One job was working for a food service company at the prison and the other was selling cell phones at the mall.
All things being equal, it means that statistically the odds of landing a job were one in 111,000. Yet all things are not equal, the prison is outside of town and requires a dependable car and the mall job requires decent clothes. Montgomery’s long and checkered past still haunts. The first Capital of the Confederacy, it has battled for and against segregation, but we always thought that one day America would drag Alabama in to the twentieth, now twenty-first century. But alas, it seems that the opposite is true. Montgomery has dragged America back into the past; where even here in this white collar enclave they vote as blue collar Alabamians. Don’t need no public schools soaking up my tax money! Don’t need no union boss trying to run my life.
I write about the experiences of homelessness as one man but I know well that we are many. That this story is not just about me but about millions, we are one together. I do not feel at home and you probably don’t feel at home wherever you are traveling either. I have completed a book about my experience of being homeless and the response by the publishing industry has been, “Why would you write about that?”
Why not write about celebrities or true crime dramas where someone cuts somebody’s head off? Just another symptom of our sick society, a society that idolizes a woman wearing meat and excoriates those without any to eat. One agent suggested that I rewrite the book as narrative nonfiction. “You don’t understand,” I explained, “these stories are snapshots taken in real time. To rewrite them would be ghosting their images.”
My friend who has taken me in said the other day, “You and your sailboats.” You see, that is my dream and my fantasy–to live on a sailboat, a home that I can take with me. A home where I can move when it suits me. A shell, a cocoon, and all of it fantasy. Yet when you think about it, it is a noble fantasy and a good address, for when you have nothing, fantasy is a nice place. No one can harm me there nor take anything from me and when I close my eyes to sleep I’m free to sail anywhere in the world where I might wish to go. If you like you can come with me.
47 Comments
So beautifully and eloquently expressed, Dave.
Rec’d!
“So I checked the want ads just to see why these criminals were too lazy to just to go out and get a job. The want ads in this county of 223,000 souls listed just two jobs for 86,000 households. One job was working for a food service company at the prison and the other was selling cell phones at the mall.”
The links below show that there are more then 2 job listings in Montgomery, Alabama.
http://jobsearch.monster.com/browse/alabama+montgomery_12
http://www.alabamasuperads.com/jobs_Classifieds.aspx
http://montgomeryjobs.jobamatic.com/a/jbb/find-jobs
“This place where I am is so strange and alien to me, it’s… nice. It’s too nice, the people are too nice and too white and too comfortable.”
‘Too white’? What exactly is ‘too white’? Is that like moving to a ‘too black’ neighborhood?
“In Atlanta, I was living in a single room of a dirty garage; I washed in a bucket and washed my clothes in the same bucket. Here, in this undisclosed location I sleep in a bed each night and wash in a shower each day. In Atlanta, I awoke to the sound of Dumpster trucks and my neighbors were asphalt. In this place I wake up to birds singing each morning, it is a place where kids ride their bicycles and grown ups walk their dogs. It is all so idyllic that sometimes it upsets me because despite all the pretty surroundings I am still homeless.”
The key here is that you were ‘in’ something. I have been homeless. I mean really homeless not sleeping in a garage. Hell sleeping in something would have been worlds above where I was sleeping, where the real homeless sleep outdoors under the sky.
Your trying to hard to make yourself look like a helpless victim of Capitalism. But you lack any real dire straights situation. One could say your down on your luck, or be offended that your trying to paint a dishonest picture.
What your doing here is using words to mislead your readers, in the same way as those photos of ‘tent cities’ were misleading (the photos spread around the internet were actually tents at a rock festival). Your not the first person to live in someone elses house, and you wont be the last. Your not so dire situation would not magically disappear if Capitalism was outlawed.
While you sit and cry about how lame it is to live in someone elses house, there are actual homeless people all over the world wishing that they could sleep in a bed or on at least a floor. I guess your not starving since you dont ever talk about food in your faux homeless stories. But hunger is the key element of the homeless.
Actually the things that you are not complaining about says a lot about your situation. Those omitted facts of every homeless persons daily existence is why I dont believe your story. Instead i believe that your are a writer that is trying to use your writing skills to convince the readers that your narrative is the way to salvation.
Meanwhile real homeless people are starving and dying from the elements. Some are innocents caught in a machine of corruption, while some are drunks that are after the buzz more then a home.
Its the drunks that give the homeless a bad name. The drunks are the visible homeless people in missions and soup kitchens enduring the sermon for a meal. Now added to this distraction is the pseudo homeless person that thinks since they are not living up to their standard that they are homeless.
I know its hard living on someones couch. I have been there myself. But trust me a couch is an opportunity to improve yourself. To fix where you went wrong.
The reality is that outside of the rare situation, we become homeless because we didnt do things right. Hold on with your “it wasnt my fault” stories. At every step of adulthood we must make decisions on our future. The priorities of being an adult entail keeping fed, healthy, and shelter from the elements. Each time a situation comes up that threatens any of those 3 things, a responsible decision must be made. Sometimes it requires one too give up somethings to maintain those 3 elements of survival.
Many Americans have never been in a dire survival situation. So being inconvenienced may seem like things are bad. But in reality are not anywhere near as bad. Living in someone elses house sucks, but it isnt the end of your survival.
I know, I know now your going to say that we shouldn’t have to be forced to survive like this. That its all the Governments fault.
Bullshit. There is no bogeyman to blame. We are all responsible for our own actions. Why are you ‘homeless’ and other people are not? Are they not in the same country with the same Government? If its Capitalism or our non-socialist country then why arent there billions of homeless and unemployed citizens?
While you accuse the majority of living outside of reality, shouldnt it be obvious who isnt viewing reality?
Hello daveparts! You are such a gifted writer, I always look for your posts.
I have a question. As you may know, we dive dumpsters for survival at the moment, and we have, believe it or not, a surplus of clothing, bedding, food, you name it, that we (books also) want to actually get to those who need them. A lot of the stuff was removed from charity dumpsters, and I have had the experience of donating to major charities…only to find the items in the dumpster the next day. So naturally we are reluctant to donate to major overwhelmed charities.
Our tent city is in a beautiful wooded area. The gracious landowner just sold the land to a local church for a dollar, and the church has been very helpful in terms of grounds
keeping as well as positive publicity.
We would like to take some of our things to tent city, but we do not want to walk up on people and invade their privacy.
First of all, what do you believe people need the most? Food? Clothes? Books? Other stuff?
Second, what is the best way to donate?
The wooded area has a fence that folks walk around to gain entrance ( there is NOT a ‘no trespassing’ sign). Would one leave items at the ‘entrance?’
Or, should we wait and speak to someone in person?
We are also very poor, but are fortunate in that we have a roof, and we firmly believe that poor helping poor is part of the answer, at least now.
We would appreciate your input, and I really, really hope that you are not offended by these questions.
Again, we love and look forward to your writing, recommended.
You speak in ignorance, I think. Many families are just one critical illness away from foreclosure and homelessness, and many are made homeless by fraudulent mortgage servicers who eject them from their houses even when they are making their payments (I’m especially thinking of those in trial mortgage modifications).
Since the US population is only 310.5 million, it would be unlikely that billions might be homeless, but then…facts aren’t your strong point: moralizing from your perch is. Plenty of people do right and get into financial crises; more who do moral WRONG on the backs of working Americans live in sublime security.
Many of the homeless are veterans; but you don’t want to know that, since many have been traumatized by the wars our government sponsors. Many are mentally ill, let out to the streets during the Reagan years as a cost-saving device. But you don’t want to face that. Many children are homeless because there parents have gone through any number of financial crises, maybe even some of them of their own making at first (credit card debt, for instance), and lost their jobs in the financial meltdown. But you don’t want to know that.
You’d rather pretend in your comfortable, moral self-righteousness that it could not happen to you or those you love. I hope it doesn’t, because I’d imagine that you wouldn’t cope very well with it.
And actual tent cities exist all over the nation, even in the cold climates of Colorado, but you would deny them if you saw them.
A sailboat with an address that moves with you is a sublime fantasy, Dave! And you’ll find your home again; that’s clear.
Treat them as you would treat your neighbors, ask what they need help with. Many might need a ride to the library or the grocery store. They might need help with a drivers license or a ride to a clinic. They want to be treated like anyone else, I’ve met a salesman from Delphi electronics, school teachers and store managers all homeless.
Thank you for your kind words
Pretty holier than thou . . . there but for fortune go you and I n all that. Sad you felt you had to denigrate someone else’s harsh reality for yer own.
Great read Dave, thanks for sharing.
My best thoughts for you and your future.
As Mz. Davis suggests, the majority of we the people are all one pay check or illness away from the street harsh.
Uh, my bad, rcc’d of course.
“You speak in ignorance”
Right back at you.
“Since the US population is only 310.5 million, it would be unlikely that billions might be homeless, but then…facts aren’t your strong point: moralizing from your perch is. Plenty of people do right and get into financial crises; more who do moral WRONG on the backs of working Americans live in sublime security.”
Billions? Well I was making a point. Notice that I didnt mark an exact number?
“Many of the homeless are veterans; but you don’t want to know that, since many have been traumatized by the wars our government sponsors. Many are mentally ill, let out to the streets during the Reagan years as a cost-saving device. But you don’t want to face that. Many children are homeless because there parents have gone through any number of financial crises, maybe even some of them of their own making at first (credit card debt, for instance), and lost their jobs in the financial meltdown. But you don’t want to know that.”
I did not dispute any of those points. Maybe you thought you were in a conversation with someone else.
“And actual tent cities exist all over the nation, even in the cold climates of Colorado, but you would deny them if you saw them.”
Ok, show me a tent city. I live in one of the poorest counties in the nation. There are no ‘tent cities’ here.
There are lots of deceptive photos on the internet showing brand new expensive tents all huddled together. These are photos from various events (sporting, music festivals, natural disasters, Etc.). SO dont link me some photo without proof of the circumstances and the location, and date.
“The reality is that outside of the rare situation, we become homeless because we didnt do things right. Hold on with your “it wasnt my fault” stories. At every step of adulthood we must make decisions on our future. The priorities of being an adult entail keeping fed, healthy, and shelter from the elements. Each time a situation comes up that threatens any of those 3 things, a responsible decision must be made. Sometimes it requires one too give up somethings to maintain those 3 elements of survival.”
You seem to be conveniently forgetting about the role that simple “luck” and being in “the right place at the right time” plays into each choice that we adults make. Most times, without that “luck”, choices are no longer as simple and non consequential as “shall we eat at Steak & Ale or at The Texas Roadhouse tonight, honey?” but more like a meager offering of desperate decisions, the lesser of two evils if you will. Try playing several games of “Spider Solitaire” to get the gist of this.
If it were completely up to individual “choices”, attitudes and personal responsibility, we’d all be friggen millionaires, I’d imagine.
http://www.bing.com/search?q=photos+of+homeless+tent+cities+in+the+US&form=QBRE&qs=n&sk=
Oops; forgot to stick ’2011′ into the search engine; you can, and it’s more current photos and newpaper articles. some, I admit, like in Colorado Springs, have been taken down. Don’t know where the people went.
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2010/09/census_shows_cleveland_is_the.html
We’re poor, too. I don’t see many tent cities around here, butTh I don’t have to see any to know that folks here are poor. I imagine that most of them sleep in the glut of abandoned buildings around here:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4036/4248650575_cd73b2686b.jpg
This one is on St. Clair, maybe 5 minutes from our house.
I would care about Daves plight if I believed him. But I dont believe him, because he is talking about a subject that I know very well, homelessness. Like I said its the points about homelessness that hes not making that speak volumes about his honesty.
But go ahead cry for the guy that sleeps in someone elses house. Meanwhile there are actual children dying in America from starvation, and the elements from actually being homeless.
If you want to help the homeless, offer them jobs, food, shelter, clothes, and friendship.
If you really want to help homeless families try volunteering for your community. Homeless people are not obvious, we all look the same. In fact theres no difference between an homeless person and a person with a home. So you cant just go hunt down some homeless people to help. Besides most homeless people have too much dignity to be looked down on. I never advertised my homelessness when I was homeless. I never went to a shelter or lived near other homeless people. Frankly a tent city would be the last place that I would have lived. There isnt always safety in numbers.
Ok, I see that i touched that taboo talking point of responsibility.
Here I’ll make this clear and to the point.
Yes the Rightwingers say: “People are homeless and jobless because they are lazy.” Or something to that effect. Thats not what i said at all. Should I say that again? I did not parrot some Rightwinger talking point.
Dave would have us believe that he was doing whatever Dave did before he was homeless, then boom one day he was homeless and it was all because of Capitalism. And damn if only this was a Socialist country then there would be no homeless people.
Dave seems very politically insightful, dont you think? Shouldnt he have seen the warning signs? I mean he has written volumes about the woes of Capitalism, you would think he would have realized that he was going to become homeless. Shouldnt he have done something about it? Instead he wants us to believe that he was helpless.
If you know your going to ‘possibly’ lose your job. You make plans to keep those 3 things that I mentioned above.
I can see the bull, and am calling Dave on his bull. Isnt that what skeptics do? Should I just turn a blind eye and accept the propaganda as the holy truth? Glen Beck is villionized for creating stories to further his talking points, I see the same here. Or is this different since Daves a big Socialist fan?
FFA, I think that the picture that Dave is trying to paint here is not so much pro-socialism, but that our government is two wings of the same Oligarchy. He is trying to point out to folks that we are being fed a line of bull with this constant kabuki theater of good cop/bad cop mean ol’ Republicans vs bleeding heart Democrats mentality. And behind the scenes we have our administration (under both Bush and Obama) being bought and paid for by the moneyed interests, the interests of the powerful, and they are making their political decisions based on those small but powerful groups at the expense of the rest of the citizens of this country.
I get that you are no fan of Socialism, so I’m not going to try and convince you otherwise. I also get that you don’t believe Daveparts, and again, I’m not going to get into an argument there, either. By all means, don’t turn a blind eye and become an accepting sheep, but simply ask yourself what do you call a government that acts in the interest of the powerful and moneyed few at the expense of the many? Because, IMO, this is the question that Dave is asking us to ask ourselves; he is asking us to look at examples that he has provided and give some thought to the big picture, and what might actually be going on behind the scenes.
Yeah, this wasn’t very well put, but hey, what can I say…..it’s my youngest kids 16th birthday today, he just got home from school, so I was trying to rush through this response.
“The reality is that outside of the rare situation, we become homeless because we didnt do things right. “; fallacious ad hominem hypothesis.
“that taboo talking point of responsibility” ; there are plenty of people who acted in what they though was a responsible manner that now are ‘homeless’; then there is also the biblical question of “am I my brother’s keeper?”
Instead of attacking the author, why not write a diary expressing your views about homelessness and ‘responsibility’?
Like Crane Station says, you are a gifted writer and I, too, look forward to your posts.
Excellent post and recc’d. I hear ya, dude. I believe you. For one thing, there but for the Grace of the Odd Gods of the Galaxy(they must be very odd indeed to look out for me)go I. I have lived less than two months away from homelessness for most of my adult life. I’ve never been homeless(sound of me knocking on my head) but I’ve come perilously close several times. In short, I’ve been lucky, and I know it.
Because I have never been homeless, I cannot truly empathize with you. But because I’ve been close, and have known many people like the benefactors you describe in your post, I completely understand what you think of them. They DO live in bubbles. They truly do not understand the plight of those less lucky than themselves.
I use “lucky” instead of “fortunate” deliberately, to shake up the meme of my readers a little. A few twists of fate, and you, Daveparts, could be President of the United States, and Barack Obama could be living in a garage. Or I could be CEO of JPMorgan and Jamie Dimon could be struggling to make a living on a county salary. Capitalists and apologists for capitalism, like FFA up there, always ignore the element of luck. They have to, for the propaganda of capitalism seldom allows luck into the equation.
Socialism does. That’s why one of its fundamental principles is an adequate standard of living for EVERYONE, no matter what happens.
Reporter: In just a few words, please describe the objective of the Socialist Party.
Francois Mitterand: To allow everyone to dine in a nice restaurant once a month.
You see? Socialism is not antithetical to restaurants. Think about it. It’s an important point.
“fallacious ad hominem hypothesis.” Exactly who was i attacking in the sentence that you quoted? I was giving advice.
“there are plenty of people who acted in what they though was a responsible manner that now are ‘homeless’; then there is also the biblical question of “am I my brother’s keeper?””
I never said that there wasnt innocent people, made homeless. That would be some Rightwingers talking point, not mine. I did say something that sounded similar but was not applied broadly at anytime while I was saying it. Everybody isnt innocent. And bad control on ones money isnt unusual in America. Remember terms like ‘plastic economy’? Or those people buying a hamburger at McDonalds with a credit card? How about those people who took out a second mortgage to take a vacation? Those are some responsible people arent they? They need this years model of vehicle to be cool. A flat screen in every room.
How many of these innocents lost everything trying to ‘flip’ some houses? Then ran up huge credit card bills to continue there wasteful existence.
“Instead of attacking the author, why not write a diary expressing your views about homelessness and ‘responsibility’?”
Well because those are not my talking points. Besides I am not attacking anyone only his work. Are you encouraging an echo chamber?
Thank you daveparts, and please do continue writing.
We will try to speak to folks in person and ask.
Ironically, semi-organized communities such as ‘our’ tent city seem not to have a serious food problem. But I HATE good, nutritious food going to the landfill!
I would love to start a walk-in center here, where folks could use phones, computers, showers and washer/dryers (the washing clothes thing is really difficult, I found out when I was near-homeless.) But that is probably just a dream.
Please keep writing, and thank you.
“They live in unreality”
almost forgot: Odd, is it not, just how thin and grey the line is, between ‘them’ and…’us?’
Once you cross the line, well, let me say this: I used to just go and sit on a curb, at the periphery of a grocery…and watch what ‘normal’ people buy, what they wear, and what they DO, say, on a Saturday afternoon.
Time slows to a crawl on that curb. It does. But only when time slows to a crawl…do you really notice your surroundings, the beauty of the moment, all the tings that ‘they’ drive by every single day, and never, ever notice.
Here’s an example (just one): right on one of the ‘main drags’ in the small community here, is a tiny cemetery. Some of the graves date back to the early eighteen hundreds. Hardly anyone is even aware of it. Even though they pass by it every single day, usually several times.
You have to be on foot or on a bike to notice.
You know?
edit: above “tings” should read “things”
Funny but true: I just read the post again. I seriously thought the prison job listed meant that one of the workers was a prison inmate.
Had to read it again.
“The key here is that you were in something.”
Somehow I got the impression that daveparts was speaking of what it may mean to have a home rather than a roof. There is a difference.
A long time ago I came up with an expression ‘homeless with a roof.’ (I am undoubtedly not the first but I really did think of it on my own)
I believe that it is entirely possible to be homeless, and still have a physical roof.
Did I miss something?
…and something like 300,000 of our veterans, many of whom are disabled, are homeless or living in their cars.
What did they do wrong, exaclty? I missed it.
What did the homeless children do?
How about…well, actually with all due respect I cannot agree with anything you are saying here.
300,000 ‘rare situations,’ I guess.
Our tent city is hidden in the woods.
Dear Gringo,
My friend, I know that you need no explanation. I know that you live in the real America. I told FFA several months back that I would not answer him. I don’t answer those whose sole point is the argument itself. He gave himself away with his homeless one upsmanship. I’ve spent time with hundreds of homeless people and never once did any of them ever say or imply, “Oh yeah? Well I’ve been more homeless than that!” There is an unspoken equality and an acceptance of who we are in the brother or sisterhood.
The little old lady that used to pick up aluminum cans in a baby buggy after I met her I became immediately protective of her. She was the same as me only older and not as strong. Would I question or value where she was better or worse off than myself? I met a man in a Burger King or I should say that he met me. He walked up and asked how I was. He knew by my clothes and I knew by his who we were. We related to each other instantly and instinctively, greed? Envy? Spare emotions of those who have not of those who do not.
But my friend I could not be President of the United States and you could not be a bank President, those offices require that we give up a component of our humanity. I couldn’t send men into battle for oil companies and you couldn’t foreclose on widows to make yourself look good in the quarterly financial report.
“Be true to yourself and you cannot be a traitor to any good cause on earth.”
Eugene Victor Debs
You said the man was LYING! That is ad hominem! Now it may be that for you, lying is not an attack. For many of us, and I include myself, it is one of the worst charges we can receive. The owner of the site at which I cross-post accused me of it last week. Every two hours I asked him to explain himself until he did. He was wrong and paranoid, but I would not let it rest. He had besmirched my honor.
My God; you talk like Republican talking points: blaming the victims of the mortgage bubble. You could find out by googling what ‘liars loans’ are, or any of a number of frauds perpetrated by loan officers in search of easy marks to sell a house to; how many buyers were given sub-prime loans who actually were qualified for prime rates.
But again, hyou want to swallow the belief that Dems forced banks to loan to everyone who wanted to buy a house. It makes them responsible, not the liar banksters who robbed them blind, then foreclosed upon them.
“none so blind…” la la la.
Heh! FFA, you just made one of the best arguments against capitalism I’ve ever seen.
” Everybody isnt innocent. And bad control on ones money isnt unusual in America. Remember terms like ‘plastic economy’? Or those people buying a hamburger at McDonalds with a credit card? How about those people who took out a second mortgage to take a vacation? Those are some responsible people arent they? They need this years model of vehicle to be cool. A flat screen in every room.
How many of these innocents lost everything trying to ‘flip’ some houses? Then ran up huge credit card bills to continue there wasteful existence.”
All true. Why did they do that? Look a little deeper. They were TOLD to do those things, encouraged to with easy credit. By capitalism. “Greed is good.” “Flip this house!” “Look cool in this car and get laid, guaranteed!” This all goes back to advertising. Look how much money corporations spend every year, every day on your TV and radio, enticing people to buy! Buy! Buy! New and improved! In a non-capitalist society, or even in a Social Democracy, this would not have happened. The system would not have been allowed to go as far as it did, and safety nets would have guaranteed few if any would have wound up homeless.
Remember that all of these things that were allowed to happen were permitted by POLITICAL decisions, not economic ones.
Capitalism’s only purpose is to create more capital, more profit. It can only do that by turning everyone possible into a consumer of the goods and services offered by capitalists, for a profit. Great investments have been made in the study of psychology so advertisers can sell their services to the sellers of goods and services. Advertising is, in essence, manipulative psychology. I recommend a book for you, an oldie but goodie: “White Collar,” by the great sociologist C. Wright Mills. It was written in the fifties, but the psychology of advertising, and its effects on the advertisers themselves, is skillfully and accurately examined.
I have zero sympathy for the fixers and flippers and get-rich-quick schemers who lost their shirts. But millions more people, people like Daveparts, did nothing of the sort and still got screwed. People like me who refused to incur debts we knew we could never repay are now denied credit because we refused to do so, even though now we could actually afford home loans. People like you and me are paying so that the investor class doesn’t have to pay for its own mistakes. By government bailouts to the banks, while the same government does its best to reinflate the housing bubble yet again.
And that isn’t just capitalism. That’s using government power to advance the interests of large corporations. That’s fascism.
Thanks. You’re right. I’d make a lousy bank president in this capitalist system. Maybe in any system. Hell, I couldn’t even make myself finish law school because I couldn’t stand the person I was turning into. That was my decision at the time, which was the right one then, though maybe I should have gone back a few years later after I was a stronger person.
My father desperately wanted me to go into politics. The problem was twofold. First, I can’t remember names worth squat, and that’s essential for any politician. Second, I wasn’t willing to sell out what I believed in, and in Texas at the time if you didn’t sell out to business interests your political chances were slim. There were, and are, exceptions to the second rule, but I didn’t think I was one of them. So I learned a trade instead.
The demand for that trade was obliterated by technological advances and outsourcing, so I worked hard for several years to get into the government bureaucracy where there were still benefits and job security. Now those are being attacked by those who want to plunder public assets in the name of private profits.
Sorry for the ramble, but that Debs quote made me think of these things. Thanks again.
“Capitalists and apologists for capitalism, like FFA up there, always ignore the element of luck. They have to, for the propaganda of capitalism seldom allows luck into the equation.”
Are you now calling me an “Capitalists and apologists for capitalism”?
Interesting.. you quickly fell back onto the villionize the foe stance. You have ignored everything you know about me and parroted the rest of the flock. I know you know that i am not anywhere close to Rightwing. But I suppose it is a stretch for you to stray away from the many canned Far Left vs Far Right arguments. Should we go into the whole greed thing now? You know the argument where you accuse me of being greedy? Oh wait I guess you already went there. With the “Capitalists” slur. Socialists always use word definitions to trick people.
The word Capitalist has several meanings, but when Socialists are using the word it means: A wealthy greedy asshole that wants profit more then anything including other peoples lifes. And Capitalists became this way from the evil greediness of Capitalism.
Every time I hear a Socialist parrot that above definition I cant help but to be reminded of the exact same talk by McCarthyism. Both are systems portrayed as so corrupted and evil that people within the systems are like possessed zombies. Seriously you wanted me to think about fine dining once a month (which I did) well think about how Socialists treat non-Socialists.
“I believe that it is entirely possible to be homeless, and still have a physical roof.”
Yes, that is technically considered homeless. The government includes those that are adults but do not have their name on a lease, mortgage or utilities as being homeless. That’s the gist of it, anyhow.
“He gave himself away with his homeless one upsmanship. I’ve spent time with hundreds of homeless people and never once did any of them ever say or imply, “Oh yeah? Well I’ve been more homeless than that!” There is an unspoken equality and an acceptance of who we are in the brother or sisterhood.”
So now you only new some homeless people, instead of being the all knowing homeless person. And no ones trying up you on your homelessness. Just pointing out that you were never really homeless.
Theres no in between either your homeless or you live in something.
Homelessness isnt a technicality. Either you have a home to live in of some sort or you dont.
So what now you trust the Government? What they say goes?
Or are you just hell bent on proving me wrong?
I suppose you also go by the federal poverty line to decide who is in the class below you too? In case your wondering, I am in a lower class then you. A lower class financially, Socially, and apparently politically….
“You said the man was LYING! That is ad hominem!”
He said that he was homeless. He is not homeless. He lives in someone elses home. Notice the word ‘home’? He lives in a ‘home’ he doesnt own it himself but what renter does?
Most of the places I rented were under the table rental agreements. So if we went by Daves homeless qualifications then I have been homeless for most of life.
Actually, my reply was to Crane-Stations post directly above; it looked pretty clear to me, but oops, my bad, I should have addressed Crane-Station to make it abundantly clear to all.
@ The Poster Formerly Known As _______;
Now, you know that your response to me was ridiculous and over the top. I think you know perfectly well that I don’t think that you are in some kind of “lower class”, nor do I particularly care about ones “class status” one way or the other unless we are talking about the ruling Oligarchy class. But I seriously doubt whether you or anyone else posting here is in that class.
Dude, you know that I love and respect you dearly, but what the hell has crawled up your ass and died lately? Put down whatever you’re smoking and quit bashing me and everyone else! Come on, now, you’re acting like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde here.
T.
To the poster formerly known as Freedom From All formerly known as Nogod: I was not villainizing you. I was DISAGREEING with you. I was not personally attacking you, though you certainly personally attacked me. You dare to compare me to Joe McCarthy and, by implication, Stalin? You call me a zombie. And what’s wrong with fine dining once a month, anyway?
Whatever. You want a personal attack? Here it is. Screw you, man.
Your jumping to conclusions.
Apparently it is unacceptable to say anything that resembles a known political talking point. I guess in the online political debate world there are cookie cutter talking points that instantly cause other debaters to respond with the typical cookie cutter responses.
Maybe I should google this subject and spew whatever the Rightwing cookie cutter response would be. Then you guys could continue this ridicules little game of cat and mouse.
Look all I pointed out is that adults are responsible for their own welfare. Do you guys dispute that fact of life or what? When an adult signs a contract they best know what the fuck they just signed. Only if the bank or lending company didnt express verbally and in writing that there was an balloon payment or other important legal binding aspects, does it become the lenders fault and not the borrowers.
I never denied any wrong doing by the credit industry, or banks or anyone. I was talking about becoming homeless, not about someone making someone else homeless. Thats different.
But non the less, it is still an adult responsibility to acquire living space. And if one becomes homeless their 24/7 existence becomes the battle for shelter. And once basic shelter is acquired then the battle shifts to getting proper shelter. This is how the world works, you have to take care of yourself because no one else will.
So there my work is done. While you were caught up in your superior Socialist attitude you were treating me like I was some poor fool who hadnt seen the light of how fucking wonderful Socialism is. You simply have no tolerance of any other ideology but your own.
You say now that you were only disagreeing. Yet the times that i have tried to engage you about issues I have has with Socialism, you ignored those questions, and kept on with your idolizing of Socialism. And when I tried to question other Socialists you blasted me for even questioning Socialism.
“You dare to compare me to Joe McCarthy and, by implication, Stalin? You call me a zombie.”
Shouldnt I now point out all the fucking times you implied I was some Rightwing fuckhead? All the times you implied that i was a greedy fucking lowlife that only values profit?
I could go on and point all the times that you personally have offended me beyond belief yet you dont either care about such behavior or dont realize how you are treating non-socialists.
So heres my message to all fucking Socialists: ‘You are not superior to everyone else. We are all equal. Just because you believe Karl Marx’s theories does not mean that everyone opposed to those theories is a fucking fascist Capitalist greedy war mongering christian redneck rich Republican Etc.
And it also doesnt mean that we non-socialists have been brain washed by a dead general.
Believe it or not I do not like Socialism based on to things: the first being that Socialist’s tend to be intolerant of any other system. Socialists tend to believe that non-socialists are too stupid to understand just what exactly Socialism is.
Then if you criticize Socialism watch out after being called all kinds of names, then after being marginalized and practically spat on, they will then say that your not even talking about ‘their type of Socialism’. Yet Socialist’s will never actually tell wtf type of Socialism it is that they are promoting. BTW Democratic Socialism isnt a type of Socialism really. Instead its an category.
Then my favorite undereducated excuse for Socialism; the Netherlands. I dont now who started the ‘Netherlands is the perfect example of the type of Socialism needed in the US’ line. But damn the Netherlands are a bad example of Socialism or any other type of Government. Sure they rank high on scales on most things, but so did the US. Its funny to listen to people go on about American exceptualism then turn around and talk about the Netherlands being so damn perfect. All what researching the Netherlands has done for me is to prove to myself that I was correct.’
OG I think that you need to take a good look in the mirror. And I say that as a friend. Remember that I have never required you or have asked you to believe anything that i believe, can you say the same about yourself? Why do you think i have become so cynical as of lately? Since you dont ever seem to take my hints.. I am cynical because of intolerance. Because I am being told be people that subscribe to a type of ideology that I am evil just based on the fact that i dont agree with their ideology. I dont tolerate being treated that way by religions, and the same goes for ideologies.
Just the other day you were telling about the Social Conservative propaganda about the whole godless commie crap. How are you not falling for the same exact type of propaganda?
Thats one of the things that keeps pissing me off, the far left acts as if everyone is an elite.
I cant even say anything to criticize Socialism without being told that I am a Rightwinger nut job. Over and over even OG implies it when I start typing anything to do with his sacred ideology.
Just how do you think someone like me should act? Should I stand around and let people keep calling me foul names? Should I become a mindless idiot and accept my second class status among Socialists, just because I disagree with them?
I am a peace loving person. I am very, very opposed to war. I have walked away from more fights then I have been in. But that doesnt mean that I am a push over. If pushed far enough I protect myself. And the one thing that will push me far enough (among others) is intolerance of other people based on their beliefs alone.
You cant accept a persons differences, then turn around and talk about those same beliefs as if they are evil.
I see that you have both noticed that I am doing something here. As I told your other half, it would be wise to take a long look in the mirror. And I also mean that as friendly advice. And by now you should know that I do everything for a reason.
To Mr. Hyde,
Well, have a Happy Birthday anyways. :)
T.
Good, good comment. A worthy defense of a brilliant diary.
Well, Thank you.