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Poverty and the rapidly growing numbers of homeless people have no place in this agenda ... or even in the comments made so far.
I guess, once you fall through the non-existent safety-net, you really don't matter anymore in this culture, no matter what the political leaning of the people who are looking the other way is.
That goes to show you how the, "It's God's will!" or, "It is solely your own fault" has been so deeply, and successfully ingrained in the "feel-good", consumer-oriented political landscape today, no matter how vociferous and adamant some are about their own pet issues that either concern them directly or allow them to feel a sense of relief for guilt of their own status and privilege.
It is, after all, about status quo and preserving one's one self-interest, no matter how radical the response may seem to be as the indentured servants of Multinational Corporate America vent, but dare not make much in the way of sweeping and undeniable sacrifices for the benefit of the many.
We can go on comfortably ignoring poverty, (both local and international) because it is a VERY uncomfortable subject when you are sucking, literally at the very teat that you are gnawing and biting with relatively insubstantial verbalizations of malcontent while it feeds you everything it has taught you to want, need, work for, and even perpetuate while ignoring the long-term costs and impact on a far greater good.
While ignoring that tumor of poverty on our planet, and here at home in one of the richest, most consumptive Nations, it is so easy to so subtly yield to a rather obvious, yet unspoken and unreported, survival of the fittest mentality. The burgeoning homeless not only represent something we are not certain to be immune to, they can easily be written-off as worthless, lazy, or, if you are really callus, mentally ill/crazy/dangerous rejects. We can console ourselves by sort of imaging that they are all adults who are not redeemable and capable of extracting themselves from an urban desolation that we would think unimaginable for our own, beloved pets ... mere cats and dogs, etc. Oh how we tend to love and want to protect poor, defenseless animals.
Regardless of how much we can easily not care enough about homeless, desolate, forgotten, adult men and woman, we too easily lose sight of the numbers of children living in poverty, both sheltered and, in growing numbers outside or in autombiles parked in frightening places we wouldn't even drive through. Look up the numbers. Follow the no-money.
That's at home. It is appalling and, by the media, and even here, not much of an issue worth noting, even though we are talking about the real lives of people just like us who fell through the cracks and have, thanks to our lack of concern, a winning ticket in the lottery of no return. If you could even stomach widening the scope of the problem to a Global scale, you might become very queasy opening your awareness to the thought of watching a Baseball stadium full of little children dieing in agonizing pain before your eyes every, single day, with the numbers growing. Why are they dying? Oh, simply for the lack of very basic sanitation, food, and medical care that we even take for granted here in the States.
I don't mean to cast a haze of gloom on anyone's enjoyments of copious excretions of corporate-owned techno-lustful domination of everything, but why not be brave enough to know just how very Elitist subscribing to it actually is? You should be able to manage to enjoy your current life and experience while being aware of the larger context of it. It might even lessing your bitching and moaning about what you don't have, or, more importantly, about what you are being told you really want/must have. At the very least, your perspective, and corresponding actions, will be far more realistic.
I would call it the immense suffering of the Buddha, (I use that word for illustration only) You can still experience joy, peace, wants, but you do so without blinders on. This changes the experience you have though. It changes everything.
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