Well, some societies take care of people like that. They provide retraining or unemployment benefits or an employment service that helps match that narrow set of skills with potential employers somewhere who could use them. And they obtain the resources to do these things by taxing those who benefit most from the status quo.Originally Posted by Queeg
That this guy isn't a millionaire is unsurprising. But that he ends up homeless and hopeless while the architects of the financial crash walk away unscathed? That's a product of decisions made by the political class. That isn't just the "inevitable way of the world". Whether or not it's an injustice depends on your own sense of what justice is, I guess. But there are plenty of countries that have chosen to place a higher priority on economic fairness where this man would be far, far better off.
I'm unsure where you live, but where I live we absolutely do not take care of them. Heaven forbid they have worse problems than this guy.
Saying from my grandmother's generation (born late 1800s): "There but for the grace of god, go I".
Well, ok, rich parents help too.
Short of society just giving everyone money so they don't have to work what do you suggest? Or is that what you suggest? Not everyone gets to do their dream job or even work in their dream field. Most people make do with what they can find.
My city has several programs for the homeless. They have places available for them to stay and get fed. However one of the problems (according to many who deal with these people) is that they don't want the limitations. They want the freedom. They prefer being free to live in a cardboard box under a freeway than in a controlled environment featuring warm food and a bed.
Scuzz, I realize this is your ass talking, but try to calm down. Homeless people do not "want the freedom"; you're mistaking them for beatniks. Many homeless suffer from mental issues and can't afford to get treatment, for example, or they live in areas where the treatment centres are overwhelmed. Many homeless shelters are temporary, not permanent, solutions, and might be overwhelmed with demand as well. Many homeless have no social net at all - no friends or family for support or assistance - and have no way of finding out about treatment and programs available in their areas.
You're reducing a serious, complex issue to something idiotically reductive.
Oh no, I absolutely don't suggest just give people money. Our city is doing much worse on the homeless. Some of the rules on existing shelter's are religious (yep deep south), some are drugs and behavior rules. Where we break down worse here is in mental health.
The guy in the story doesn't seem totally mentally healthy, but at least mostly functional. Help in those areas, usually in school - as they do in richer schools here btw - social coaching probably would have increased his chances in society greatly. How about once he became jobless, having one of the benefits be classes in networking in his case? Using just him as the example. I don't believe in giving people money, and expecting it to solve their problems. I do think helping them identify their problems and giving them the tools to help themselves is a better approach.
Going back to most of the chronically homeless here, most can't stand the shelter rules since they can't engage in their only known coping mechanisms for their mental health issues. And I'm no idealist, the vast majority of the time that means they are self-medicating very inappropriately. Even when it is not, often the behaviors are very difficult to handle in crowded conditions. The shelter's can't handle them really, and the rules are often to force the disruptive element out. We badly need but do not have, long-term, non-naive treatment programs for people with chronic mental health and addiction problems. Handing the guy on the street 10 bucks, or worse 400 for rent is an utter disaster without the underlying problem that put them there addressed.
We're closing facilities here tho very rapidly under budget cuts. Last I checked that trend was nationwide. Volunteered at a local shelter recently?
I agree that the article doesn't seem to present an example of our social structure failing in general. It looks like this guy was something of a loner, and kept to himself to an extreme. Even when he got to OWS, he still relied on himself, instead of asking for help or becoming part of a community. It took him hitting rock bottom to realize that he could reach out and rely on others and participate in the world around him.
This seems like a personal failing of his own, not a failing of the social structure in general. Maybe if he had reached out sooner, he would have been able to find a new job or some support, instead of just finding a new sleeping bag in the rain.
So what do you suggest? Lock them all up for their "own protection". Drug them all into compliance. Let's here some ideas.
Many homeless prefer that to being in controlled conditions, such as no drugs, no booze, time limits etc. Sure they may be nuts, but in America that is not against the law.
Who are these many? If you mean the "many" who work aggressively to undercut social services, particularly for the mentally ill, in service of waging war on any aspect of the safety net that doesn't have strong lobby then you've given an exact quote. I'd be interested in seeing what kind of people advance this hobo-American dream rationale for any substantive portion of the homeless or near-homeless.
Genius.
Citation needed.
There several private and public services available here. Sure they are having money problems but what public service agencies wouldn't like more money.
I don't know conditions everywhere. But I have seen how it is here. There are homeless who are not they way by choice and they have available services, not abundant services but available. There are others who would rather be homeless than be told what to do. They are either mentally ill or "free spirits" for lack of a better phrase.
Ask any group that runs a shelter. That is what they will tell you.
Well, that certainly answers that!
And most will also tell you that is because they need services to become functional (and in some cases that may not even be possible, the goal may be to become manageable in a group situation) that are far above the services the shelter can provide, which is usually a bed and a meal.
They do ask, why does this person keep needing a bed and a meal? That is the question really.
No alcohol/no drugs can literally kill addicts. Many/most homeless people have an addiction. I'm not surprised they wouldn't want to stay in an environment that might actually kill them, and will make them sick.
It's staggering to me find people that actually believe in the myth of "poor people choose to be poor." That is, essentially, what you are saying, before you stutter out that "I'm putting words in your mouth!"
However, handwaving away the very real drastic shortages these services are facing as "money problems" is as casual as it is cruel.
Hobo-american, indeed.
V for Vendetta’s Alan Moore and David Lloyd, the "godfathers" of the Occupy movement, have joined Occupy Comics.
You mean like the ones that I work with, all the time? Funny, they've never mentioned it.
You want to play battling anecdotes, it's your move. Or, you can double down on the stupid. Whichever.
He also responded rather awesomely to Frank Miller.
Burn.
http://www.badhaven.com/comics/comic...s-occupy-rant/
V for Vendetta was a good movie.
I'd be slightly less annoyed by a bunch of protesters smoking on the lawn while not having taken a shower for a month if they were wearing guy fawkes masks.
I'm tired of the attitude of, "I disagree with this person, so I'm going to bash everything they've done for the past twenty years." I get annoyed at the idea of retroactively hating someone's work based on whatever their position happens to be that you disagree with. It's just childish.Originally Posted by Alan Moore
“Well, Frank Miller is someone whose work I’ve barely looked at for the past twenty years. I thought the Sin City stuff was unreconstructed misogyny, 300 appeared to be wildly ahistoric, homophobic and just completely misguided. I think that there has probably been a rather unpleasant sensibility apparent in Frank Miller’s work for quite a long time.
Frank Miller is a hack though.
I very much doubt Moore is retroactively hating on Miller. Knowing Moore's frequently expressed tastes and passions he would have naturally been dismissive of most of Miller's work long before this latest outburst.
Basically Moore has been thoroughly left wing for as long as Miller has been thoroughly right wing and they have both been familiar enough with each others work and opinions since the 80's. They shared artists on occasion and even once found common political cause in opposition to the censorship of comics.
I think where this comes from is that in the bottom 20% there is a very, very thin slice of people who do indeed say "Fuck it, good enough." and live on the teat. Scuzz and his ilk see a news report on these people and assign the same lack of motivation to the rest of the cohort, when in fact the 10% above them need job training and opportunity to work, and the 9% below them need mental health services, addiction counseling, and yes, occasional institutionalization to help them either re-enter society or at least thrive within their own parameters.
I walk a few miles every day through downtown Louisville, usually stopping at the main branch of the library where the homeless congregate after the shelters kick them out. It's a diverse lot and I wouldn't assign any characteristic to them as a group, except for "poor." They are universally defined as not having money. Some dress pretty sharp, some look like dirty hipsters, some are having conversations with their psychoses, some are obviously marking time between the next fix, and some are reading and trying to figure out how to get out of their situation. There's really no common thread to them other than their being trapped in their situation for the time being.
That, and there are no Asians.
H.
The numbers are absolutely tiny in an absolute sense, though.
The UK's long-term (5+ year) unemployment benefit claimant count, who are NOT disabled, is about 4000. For that kind of number, hundreds of millions are spent on harassing most of the people in the cohort.
So you're saying the criticism of Miller's work is incorrect? You've seen/read Sin City, no?
I'm pretty sure Alan Moore isn't joining some kewl Frank Miller backlash. Alan Moore has always been a bit more left than a lot of people. Like a lot.
I can easily believe it when he says he's always disliked Miller's work.
Not saying it is incorrect, but did he say it before now? If he didn't I can see someone thinking he is just jumping on the bandwagon to talk badly of him now.
To be fair, I get the impression that the answer to "Does Alan Moore hate this?" is almost always "Yes", regardless of subject matter.
Yes.
You might want to try Googling for two seconds before you say something stupid.Frank Miller, I haven't been able to read him for some time. Have you seen his latest idea? It is - and I can hardly believe this - Batman vs Al Qaeda. What can you say to an idea as absurd as that? This is our response to thew Iraq war? Miller's trapped in a teenage world of macho violence. Look at Sin City. Every woman is a bloodthirsty, semi-naked whore; every man is a indestructible killing machine. It's nasty, misogynist, Neanderthal Teenage, but it sells.
Bull Shit Sir..........You only read into it what you want to read into it don't you. Nice talent.
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