XáreneSat, Jan 19, 2008 Pinar and I were on the bus the other day when a piss-stenched homeless man got on. We had to move three rows back and were still suffocating. Being from Turkey and not used to such sight, Pinar was disgusted. Her disgust, she voiced was that "in Turkey, which is not a very rich country, we don't have this because people take care of each other."
I had also thought the same long ago when I moved to San Francisco. I made a mental note jumping over SF's sidewalk piss rivers, that I had never seen such sights in Iran because the people of that culture have compassion for and take care of each other. (There are beggars and panhandlers who are usually gypsy or illegals. To be honest, they are the ones who get the shitty end of compassion: none.) Both those countries are states without any real welfare system. Wealth and care is passed on by private charities, private citizens, private businesses, the neighbourhood mosques and other religious organizations.
The problem the US has is that we are a Welfare State. We have become dependent on the State, and the State of course does a shitty job of not even providing a minimum standard of care for the poor. In this process the State has bred us to be greedy, non-caring, irresponsible individuals who walk past someone in need, asking ourselves "Why isn't the Government doing something about this?!"
We are disconnected from each other and disconnected from humanity. That is exactly where the State wants us to be, otherwise they can't control us. Cliché, but "Divide and conquer" right? Yes, the Black Panthers as you noted were a threat because they were bringing a huge community together.
We must get rid of the Welfare State, which in our case is merely a path to the Police State. Not every Government is fit to be responsible for its citizens and ours is pretty irresponsible considering where its priorities lie. We, not just as citizens caring for our countrymen, but as intelligent human beings looking after our own kind should "re-learn" to care for each other. Sigh... isn't that f***ing idealistic...
Pinar and I were on the bus the other day when a piss-stenched homeless man got on. We had to move three rows back and were still suffocating. Being from Turkey and not used to such sight, Pinar was disgusted. Her disgust, she voiced was that "in Turkey, which is not a very rich country, we don't have this because people take care of each other."
I had also thought the same long ago when I moved to San Francisco. I made a mental note jumping over SF's sidewalk piss rivers, that I had never seen such sights in Iran because the people of that culture have compassion for and take care of each other. (There are beggars and panhandlers who are usually gypsy or illegals. To be honest, they are the ones who get the shitty end of compassion: none.) Both those countries are states without any real welfare system. Wealth and care is passed on by private charities, private citizens, private businesses, the neighbourhood mosques and other religious organizations.
The problem the US has is that we are a Welfare State. We have become dependent on the State, and the State of course does a shitty job of not even providing a minimum standard of care for the poor. In this process the State has bred us to be greedy, non-caring, irresponsible individuals who walk past someone in need, asking ourselves "Why isn't the Government doing something about this?!"
We are disconnected from each other and disconnected from humanity. That is exactly where the State wants us to be, otherwise they can't control us. Cliché, but "Divide and conquer" right? Yes, the Black Panthers as you noted were a threat because they were bringing a huge community together.
We must get rid of the Welfare State, which in our case is merely a path to the Police State. Not every Government is fit to be responsible for its citizens and ours is pretty irresponsible considering where its priorities lie. We, not just as citizens caring for our countrymen, but as intelligent human beings looking after our own kind should "re-learn" to care for each other. Sigh... isn't that f***ing idealistic...