We are constantly told that solutions to some of the greatest challenges facing poor and working class people in the U.S. do not exist. Meanwhile, billions taxpayer dollars are being used to fund the genocide of Palestinians.
That very money could have ended homelessness in the United States.
Money for our needs, not the U.S.-Israeli war machine!
We barely kept from defaulting on disability payments to our own veterans at the beginning of October. But we’ve got all the money in the world to create more suffering. Including putting our own troops in harm’s way.
FFS.
But if they don’t send them to Israel then what will the poor arms manufacturers do? Some still haven’t bought a yacht for this month.
For those with a skeptical nature, I hunted down these numbers.
HUD does not provide numbers to “end homelessness”, they report on the state of homelessness including an estimated census of the homeless.
Some annalists have taken these numbers and multiplied them by the cost to imprison someone, or the average cost of American housing. These estimates come out to $11-30B.
So the numbers check out. The only fault I could find with this meme’s claims is that they are slightly misleading in suggesting $20B could “end homelessness” without the caveat that that’s only for one year.
20 billion could go a long way to curbing homelessness.
20 billion invested in high density, low rent housing units could make housing more accessible to millions of people, including the homeless.
Remember, not all homeless people are completely jobless. Many are couch surfing or sleeping in their cars, have stables jobs, and just can’t afford rent where their job is. An apartment they can afford could do a lot for these people.
You are correct. I like to focus instead on those lacking shelter who’ve been completely alienated from society and cannot be ‘re-rehabilitated’. These are the people who are erased when we speak about how lifestyle or work ethic “redeem” those in extreme poverty.
Lack of housing really isn’t the root cause of the homeless epidemic. That money would need to go to revamping the mental health services Reagan destroyed to help the chronically homeless.
Lack of affordable housing is certainly an issue.
When rent is over half of your budget, how do you keep a roof over your head when an emergency comes up.
We need mental health care too, but we also need to correct the housing market in general. Building lots of cheap housing is still a good option.
The new housing development near me is trying to sell brownstones for half a million, and the new condos are going for 250K. They’re all nearly empty because very few can afford them. So we either need higher wages, or actually affordable housing. Ideally we’d get both, it’s not like we don’t have the money to try multiple solutions.
Wages have not kept up with everything else.
There are two demographics of homeless people. The first is people who are down on their luck and just need some help to get back on their feet. Those are not the people being talked about when the homelessness epidemic is being discussed.
The homeless epidemic is largely people who are mentally ill, drug addicts, or both.
These people need help, but giving them cheap housing isn’t going to be the help that they really need, and will just end up with them being back on the street.
Housing First is the correct way to reduce homelessness. The main cause of homelessness is being priced out of the housing market, because the vast majority of housing in America is entirely privatized. Plus most public housing in America is not done nor funded well, until our European counterparts.
The problem in America is the housing market is nearly entirely private, zoning laws that prevent dense housing from being built, and the lack of public funded (nice) public housing. Housing is first and foremost an investment here, not a fundamental right to shelter like it should be.
Drug addiction is a symptom of late-stage homelessness, not a cause. The cause is almost always the private housing market pricing people out of affording even rent.
Numerous studies show that housing first participants experience higher levels of housing retention and use fewer emergency and criminal justice services, which produces cost savings in emergency department use, inpatient hospitalizations, and criminal justice system use.
https://www.pdx.edu/homelessness/housing-first
This has worked famously in Finland
Of course the numbers are good.
My bullshit detector is going off for a different reason. This is an arbitrary short term vs long term comparison. The money that went to Israel wasn’t going to HUD either way. As someone correctly pointed out, $20B is a rounding error here.
Biden just wants to see more dead children
I don’t know about all that, but I do believe he has been captured by the MIC/Corporate influence and has no choice or control at all. But, I might just be naive in my thinking, lol.
Biden? No. Here’s him in 1982 wanting to kill women and children:
Begin said he was shocked at how passionately Biden supported Israel’s invasion when Biden “said he would go even further than Israel, adding that he’d forcefully fend off anyone who sought to invade his country, even if that meant killing women or children.”
https://theintercept.com/2021/04/27/biden-israeli-invasion-lebanon/
Yikes, thanks for sharing that. I’ve not seen anything like this. I have seen him say other pretty asinine things in his past, but nothing like this.
Unbelievable, but at the same time, being the USA the military hegemony it is, unsurprising too that these are words said by their leader.
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Oil companies and oligarchs provide the funding. The person in office still has to make the decisions and still bears responsibility.
This implies that they care about the homeless issue. 23 billion is a rounding error in the budget. They just don’t want to fix it.
American democracy in action.
Homelessness isn’t a bug in the system, its a feature. Employers need the threat of homelessness to push wages down and artificially inflate the labor supply. They need high rents to segregate portions of the community into “worthy” and “unworthy”. They need car-culture to keep people isolated from one another in between work and home. They need student debt to trap people into corporate jobs, rather than setting out on their own as entrepreneurs, co-operative partners, and social workers. They need mass media to keep people more afraid of “crime” and welcoming of the “police” than they are welcoming of neighbors-in-need and hostile to state surveillance and harassment of dissidents.
The $26.7B we’re sending to Israel is money towards an experiment in regional social controls and ethnic domination. If the Israelis can do it over there, the plutocrats back home can do it over here.
Need poors so that the middle class can think they will become the billionaire class and continue to support their needs
Classes aren’t income divisions, but social relations to production. The US, since WWII, has always been thoroughly dominated by the Imperialist Bourgeoisie.
By all means, vote independent in state and local elections. We need more choices than a two-party system offers. If the candidate seem qualified, then help new parties establish themselves. Once they build enough followers to make a difference, we can start electing senators. Then the presidency becomes a serious option.
Unfortunately, there aren’t currently any third party candidates with a realistic chance of winning. The only responsible thing we can do for now is choose the lesser of two evils.
Unfortunately, there aren’t currently any third party candidates with a realistic chance of winning. The only responsible thing we can do for now is choose the lesser of two evils.
I don’t know anyone who thinks this is about winning. Everyone knows their third party vote isn’t going to result in a win for their candidate, and their candidate also knows this, and they know their candidate knows. When you lecture someone on what they already know, all you do is annoy them. You’re not going to get far with them if you don’t understand what their reasons really are. I can’t tell you; you’ll have to ask them.
One reason for some, that I think you can easily understand, is that unless you live in a swing state, it costs nothing to vote left of genocide. There is no downside, and it may make the Democratic party sweat enough to move slightly left. The party isn’t going to move left if they know you’ll always vote blue no matter who: all that does is make you a reliable and politically irrelevant punching bag.
Swing states aren’t the only states that matter. Also, states “flip”, surprising even experts.
Do you understand how incredibly privileged your stance is? You’re willing to let a horrible person take control of the country just so you can make a point.
Also, states “flip”, surprising even experts.
Everyone also knows that states flip.
Do you understand how incredibly privileged your stance is?
Are the undecided Palestinian-American voters whose families and friends are being slaughtered by the current administration also incredibly privileged?
One reason for some, that I think you can easily understand, is that unless you live in a swing state, it costs nothing to vote left of genocide.
Everyone also knows that states flip.
Pick a lane.
There is no good solution to the problem we’re currently facing - at least, not one that’s legally available to us right now. I’m simply advocating for the option that does less damage.
American women, immigrants, and minorities are particularly in danger. That includes Palestinian-Americans. They have the especially unpleasant choice of voting for a candidate who supports genocide, voting for another candidate who also supports genocide and has promised to discriminate against them, or boycotting the election/voting 3rd party, which for them is effectively the same as option #2.
Let’s imagine that voting 3rd party does actually change things for the better. How much will that matter to the Palestinian-Americans who are illegally deported and get sent home to die? What about the women who will die because of complications during pregnancy? What about the further erosion of civil rights in this country? Will those precious lessons that Democrats may learn ever even matter? We could ALL become politically irrelevant punching bags.
I don’t understand how those concerns can be so easily dismissed.
Pick a lane.
That’s fair. It’s not entirely without risk, and polling isn’t magic. The deeper
$COLORa state is, the less risky, and if it’s deep enough it approaches nil. Wyoming isn’t going to pick Harris and D.C. isn’t going to pick Trump.This was a description of one reason that some people are voting third party. It’s not comprehensive by any means, and I don’t even know if it’s a predominant reason people abstain or vote third party.
I wonder if Claudia should rebrand their logo (that they have in the bottom right hand corner of OP) to say something like “*swing state? Vote Harris”
There’s no way she wants 45 to become 47. So she must have some guilt about marketing herself and Karina where a swing state voter might accidentally help get a bad man elected.
(I don’t know anything about her but I’m trusting she has her heart in the right place and is alarmed at all the same things the average Lemming is)
PSL is a Marxist Party. They believe revolution is necessary, and despise the Democrats and Republicans alike. They want their voters to vote in swing states to advertise their party platform and delegitimize the failure of the electoral system in general. They aren’t pulling punches because, like all Marxists, they believe the Democrats are unacceptable as well as the Republicans.
There’s a part of my brain that totally gets the logic behind needing a revolution to shake up the system, but then the other part of me is like, ‘Violence? Nah, hard pass.’ So I end up with this funny little cognitive dissonance. I’m all, ‘Yeah, REVOLUTION!’ and at the same time, ‘But let’s make sure no one gets hurt, okay?’ It’s like being stuck between a revolution and a group hug, if that even makes sense!
‘Violence? Nah, hard pass.’
people are experience violence in this genocide to maintain the lifestyle that we’re accustomed to.
we’re still choosing violence when we support politicians who enable violence; it’s just that, that violence isn’t for us this time around.
our declining status gaurantees that the violence will eventually come back to bite us in the ass and the sooner we change things; the less violent it will be.
the sooner we change things; the less violent it will be.
this is the most succinct argument illustrating the issue that I’ve seen so far, kudos!
unfortunately for us we’ve doing it for around 100 years so far so violence is already a guarantee.
the best we can do is minimize it; but an overwhelming majority hold a similar opinion to the one you shared and are acting upon it by voting for politicians whose actions are in direct contradiction to that minimization.
Marxists would pick reform 100% of the time. The reason Marxists are revolutionary is not because they desire violence, but because reform is about as likely as asking the owner-board of your local megacorp to hand over the regins. Impossible without force.
Trying to plead with corporatists to reform is wasting your breath as they will offer empty promises to do something after your support is required then inevitably do fuck all afterwards, saying either they need to get so many other things done or they’ll look at your concerns at the next election cycle/when they need your support.
Also when corporatists realise their coercion has failed, they will immediately use violence to obtain your complicit obedience.
Yes, that’s also why Marxists are revolutionary. Reform is impossible because there are more layers than a croissant required to work through, and each layer is made of iron.
Absolutely, it’s unfortunately a law of the status quo. My biggest concern is that once force is used to take the reins, you’re stuck defending them, which just brings us back to the same place. I’ll admit, I’m likely ignorant of many Marxist ideas. Maybe they have a solution for that, but knowing how humans tend to operate, things often fall short of ideals. Are there any proposals in Marxist thought that address how to avoid falling into the trap of constantly defending the new status quo? I’d love to understand more about that, because honestly, I don’t know what the solution would be. That’s way above my pay grade!
That’s a complicated question. The short answer is that, until Socialism is established world-wide, states are necessary, along with millitaries to defend them. All AES states have had to defend themselves, the USSR was invaded by 14 Capitalist nations right after the October Revolution.
Additionally, Socialism is not “the same place as before.” Establishing Socialism through revolution has fundamentally changed who has the reigns, the bourgeoisie vs the proletariat.
Have you read any Marxist theory? I can give some reading lists, either a “full course” or I can recommend specific works going over the Marxist theory of revolution and the state, but that may raise more questions than it answers.
This is a good article on why pacifism has not helped us overturn injustice historically, and won’t in the future.
I do understand this to some degree, and unfortunately, only through the lens of privilege, I’m sure. I will have to read this in full later, but my quick glance take-away is that, by being a pacifist you essentially will be ruled by those who don’t care at all and will commit atrocities against you, and, the least anyone can do is to defend themselves? Please correct me, and as I said, still need to read the entire thing!
I’ll let you read the thing first.
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“THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.”
― Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
The current system is holding up a violence far beyond any revolution. And the violence doesn’t have an end. It is selfish and cowardly to not oppose such a system.
Thank you!
You should be using your voice to pressure Democrats to change their stance on genocide, not shaming voters into becoming complicit in the genocide. This is the one time you have any power and if you back down now, it will not end. You are a coward if you continuously put yourself above the project of ending American empire.
Either candidate who has a real chance of winning endorses genocide. One hates millions of Americans; the other doesn’t. I don’t understand how siding with those millions means I’m putting myself “above” them. The accusation of cowardice is laughable.
Advocating for third parties under our current voting system, and at the current moment, is indistinguishable from advocating for Trump.
This is not about winning. Putting votes on third parties is a long term investment. It directly shows both evil parties they are missing out on votes.
Votes they would have had if they changed their agenda.
Rewarding a “lesser evil” for not appealing to left wing voters will teach them they need to keep doing evil because that is what makes them win.
Real human beings could suffer because of your decision, but apparently that’s fine, as long as YOU are heard. That’s the kind of selfish hypocrisy we’re supposed to be fighting.
real human beings are already suffering, both abroad due to the genocide and endless wars our country funds, and also at home where people are condemned to the slow deaths of poverty and homelessness. you are privileged enough that the suffering has not reached you yet, but it will. I would argue that the selfish hypocrisy here is voting to preserve your own comfort at the cost of the countless people suffering that you can’t see.
Read the thread again. You have it precisely backwards. I’m arguing to reduce the suffering of others as much as possible.
And in doing so, not demanding an end to the actual suffering currently occurring.
I can say “I’m arguing to reduce the suffering of others as much as possible” an infinite number of times, and people will find infinite ways to misinterpret or twist my words. I’m starting to understand the thinking process behind voting 3rd party for president.
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I understand your confusion. The campaign names at the bottom are what set me off. Candidates are taking advantage of people’s anger over the genocide in Palestine and using it to siphon votes. It irritated me, so that’s what I responded to.
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Thank you for your highly intelligent reply. I wish I lived in a utopia like you apparently do.
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The responsible thing is to fully endorse genocide?
The responsible thing to do is to mitigate the damage.
Genocide is inevitable regardless of which candidate wins. I’m not happy about that, but that’s the situation we’re in. The less awful thing to do is pick the candidate who will protect women and immigrants. I am not willing to sacrifice their well being in order to make a political statement.
Genocide is never inevitable. It says a lot about the US’s supposed “democracy” that you think it is.
Cherry-picking statements to make a point is a bad habit to get into. Try to avoid it in the future.
Genocide is not inevitable if we respect one another, and politicians become more empathetic. Unfortunately, genocide is inevitable in the current US election, because both major candidates support Netanyahu.
Genocide is not inevitable if we respect one another, and politicians become more empathetic.
This is liberal idealist nonsense. Genocide isn’t happening because we’re insufficiently respectful of one another or because our politicians are insufficiently empathetic.
That does tend to be a “flaw” of mine. I expect better of people. I think that “matter” bit is garbage, but that’s not the point.
Are you saying that disrespect and a lack of empathy don’t play a significant role in genocide? That doesn’t seem right, either, though.
I think that “matter” bit is garbage,
Most liberals are idealists*, so they usually do.
Base and superstructure
Are you saying that disrespect and a lack of empathy don’t play a significant role in genocide?
You can look at it that way, but it’s not very helpful. It’s a bit like blaming a ball for rolling on account of it being round. It’s rolling because the surface isn’t level. You’re not going to un-round a ball, but strap it in place, level the surface, place a wedge, etc. And plenty of people in the world are no less disrespectful and unempathetic who aren’t genociding. And the people genociding are disrespectful & unempathetic to specific people under specific conditions for specific reasons. Those are symptoms, not causes.
*You do find the occasional materialist liberal. Realists sometimes are, for instance.
The tiny minority of sociopaths that sit at the top of the pyramid of US corporations and its state are the self-selected few who got to where they are because they lack empathy. They’re the ones who can’t be convinced out of it.
Take any large group of ppl and there will be a few assholes among them. What’s unique about the capitalist mode of production, is that it makes sure those people run the entire society, and control the nuke codes.
The site design could be better though. Human brains don’t understand how insanely large those numbers are without a visualization.
Secure connection failed. Lemmy hug of death?
Lemmy not big enough for that, at least not yet.
Why would you end homelessness though when you can simply criminalise it and send them to prison to work as slaves?
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Depends on what class is in control, this is true for dictatorships of the bourgeoisie.
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If there are no homeless, how will the corporations scare the middle class into wage-slave labor?
Imagine giving the DoD $800 billions in yearly budget while still has billions of surplus equipments.
If you’re in a poorly made boat that has a hole in it with two other people…
And you are all actively sinking in that faulty boat, about to die in the middle of the ocean…
And one of the people states they will make more holes so you all drown…
And the other wants to work to keep the boat floating enough to get to shore, but not to your ideal…
Who do you help in that moment, or do you fold your hands and sink on principle? And you understand that sinking is not a moral victory here, because you’ve effectively supported the person who wanted to make more holes and sink the boat.
If you don’t get to shore, you won’t live to attempt to sue that horrible boat company to hold them accountable and keep others from using their faulty boats. And if you don’t help the person bailing out water, the person making more holes will kill you all with less effort.
The “people” above are to represent general philosophies of the two “sides” in this discussion, not insightful candidates. There is no option to truly stay neutral here, direct action or willful inaction, both have impacts that you are responsible for.
What do you do?
And you are all actively sinking in that faulty boat, about to die in the middle of the ocean…
And who does this represent in your scenario?
This post, at this time, is very obviously pointed at influencing the US election. This analogy represents the entirety of the US population eligible to vote in that election and the two dominant political parties in the US as a country with two party politics - a flawed degradation of the system originally designed to be sure, which is a separate conversation you can have, but there is an objective truth that one of two parties will win this election. Period.
That objective truth acknowledged, there is no neutral or third option here, regardless of how hard some may try to convince themselves otherwise. You have no moral high ground in the middle or to the side, you’ll either vote for assured destruction or you’ll vote for a chance at stopping it. You missed your chance to fundamentally shift our political structure the 4 years, and 200+ years, prior. So now we come to the table as adults, get Harris in as the better option, and then as soon as she’s sworn in and has the power to do so, we fill the streets in protest and demand the immediate end to this.
trump and his people have literally talked out loud about how great the “beachfront property” will be for Israel once they annihilate Gaza and the Palestinian people. There is no maturity in the false vitriol and attempts to solicit votes for trump/stein/no vote (which are all the same enthusiast vote for trump and for the assured destruction of every last Palestinian person.
This post, at this time, is very obviously pointed at influencing the US election.
Criticizing a genocide doesn’t automatically mean someone’s trying to influence an election, especially considering that it been constantly criticized for over a year.
trump and his people have literally talked out loud about how great the “beachfront property” will be for Israel once they annihilate Gaza and the Palestinian people.
If both political parties geopolitical goals align with Israel, what exactly leads you to believe this is meant to influence the election? It’s not telling you to vote for stien, or trump.
Maybe if people didn’t go out of their ways to shield any level of criticism of their representatives we might have a more functional democracy, and maybe there would be less kids dying in Gaza.
Most of the aid is in the form of weapons, not raw dollars. Something tells me that a homeless person wouldn’t have much use for a THAAD air defense system
Huh? The money is going into the monopolies manufacturing the weapons at a 500% price for the government to send them. If you send them away you have to spend to make more of them (101 war profiteering basics).
Exactly. Just one minor nuance, Much of these weapons were developed and stockpiled years ago, sometimes a decade or more before any current conflict. The twisted logic becomes: since the weapons are already made, they must be used to justify the expense, or it’s seen as waste. What’s even messier is the possibility that these crises and wars are sometimes invented or escalated just to ‘spend’ the stockpile. It’s really disturbing to me, lol.
So you want to give them a home, but not the means to defend it?
ISIS might.
The weapons are there, a soldier dies, his gun is found and sold, off to the cause it goes.
You should know. You paid for it.
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Most of the aid is for defense like missiles for their air defense systems, to shoot down rocket and drone attacks. But believe what you want.
