Homelessness is the great moral quandary of this country. nnThe homeless are people excluded from our economy. Capitalism is the systematic application of John Smith’s dictum to the settlers of Jamestown: “If you don’t work, you don’t eat!” (Never mind that Smith was addressing gentleman idlers, not labor.) A strife-based economy like ours quickly separates strivers from proles, those essential workers who do the truly necessary labor that sustains life (unlike the better paid occupations shuffling money and forms and verbiage). The proletariat must have more workers than work to keep the toilers at their tasks.
When workers are discarded they are supposed to perish. The complication is our cultural obligation to “the least among us.” Municipalities and charities maintain the poor in poverty (as distinct from actually elevating them back into the workforce). This squares with capitalist “morality” that failure is a choice and desperation poverty’s due.
Capitalism teaches us to blame its victims for their plight. This absolves capitalism of responsibility, and gives the broader public a false sense of security in their status. Capitalism preaches personal responsibility while shirking its social obligations. Society accepts this as dogma (the last refuge of hypocrisy) and feels resentment against the “takers.” The practical truth is there is no work for people lacking a shower and toilet. But an astonishing percentage of Americans buy in to the fatuous premise that the poor have too much.
The great welfare programs of this nation are directed at the middle class. These are the generous make-work bureaucracies. These agencies communicate with a private sector bureaucracy, exchanging forms and correspondence in the service of regulation. The regulations originate in worthwhile purpose. But promptly their enforcement becomes secondary to the rituals managing red tape.
Among our bureaucracies are the penal system. As our homeless situation tips from nuisance to crisis, hardliners seek to criminalize lack of shelter. No one stops to think it’s far more expensive to build and staff jail cells than dormitories.
Post-WWII, capitalism very nearly delivered America the workers’ paradise that the Soviets’ nominal communism (actual kleptocracy) failed to approach. Perhaps from gratitude, we’ve blindly followed capital’s dictates to the outskirts of economic ruin as its various staggering bills come due. Socialist remedies stand ready, but there is no political will to apply them. Our commitment to capitalism is total, a cult actually. The Christian right is correct that this has always been a godly nation—just never Jesus. Mammon.
M. WARNER, Minneapolis, Minn.
Re: “Why Supreme Court ethics is an oxymoron” (Jim Hightower’s column, 1/1-15/24 TPP) nnUntil it came to light that for centuries, thousands of Roman Catholic priests were guilty of molesting children, the Church, like the Supreme Court, claimed that their ethics were beyond reproach because they policed their clergy.
Well, who believes that now?
And let’s never forget that on Dec. 12, 2000, that august body of Supreme Court jurists ignored the Constitution and set their own rules to proclaim George W. Bush president of the USA, because they wanted a Republican president. They, like the Vatican, believed that the law didn’t apply to them.
Must we feel obligated to respect those people?
DAVID QUINTERO, Monrovia, Calif.
You know, it really amazes me that these MAGA zealots are so worried about grade school kids being groomed because they are too young to understand what’s going on, while, ironically, these same MAGA zealots of voting age are being groomed by Trump and molded into exactly what he wants them to be, strictly for Trump’s own personal and financial gain. Do they understand what’s going on?
MIKE EKLUND, La Porte, Ind.
Remember the Fairness Doctrine? Remember how programs were supposed to give each side of an issue equal time. Remember when the Fairness Doctrine disappeared? [Editor’s Note: It was rescinded by Ronald Reagan’s Federal Communications Commission in 1987.] Know why? The Fairness Doctrine was done away with so that an open vein was created to pump poison into.
This allowed for the spread of misinformation and disinformation. And this is now contributing to the death of civility, the very death of human beings, and the death of American democracy. It is possible because media empires like Fox News and Sinclair Broadcast Group have stepped into the opening and happily pump their poison 24 hours per day, seven days per week, 365 days per year, infecting and addicting the residents of rural America with their brand of misinformation and disinformation.
The cure is a healthy and continuous dose of pre-bunking and debunking of the poison being spread.
MURRAY SMART, Beardsley, Minn.
Why is it taking so long to get Trump in a criminal court trial? Are trials scheduled in chronological order? Maybe, such as grand theft auto, burglary, shoplifting, insurrection? Would someone in this space or on TV explain why it takes weeks from the conclusion of a trial for a judge to hear closing arguments? Ain’t that part of the day after day trial process? Please explain in nauseating detail the paperwork that needs to be filed to get a trial started. Include the Latin incantations that are required to be spoken over each piece of paper. Yeah maybe that’s what’s taking so long. Another appeal I have is, explain why Trump gets so many appeals. At least after more than three years since the coup attempt we have learned what granting certiorari means, and mens rea and en toto. Until someone informs me its lente festina which I find risible.
ED GIBBONS, Cedaredge, Colorado
As I read articles in TPP all your contributors seem to have the opinion that prohibiting firearms is the answer to our nations problems with gun violence. How did our experiment with alcohol prohibition work out? How about our “war on drugs?” We sure don’t want book bans. Have we considered what the unintended consequences of firearms prohibition for the US may be?
As a society, we seem to have an unquenchable thirst for make-believe gun violence. Our entertainment industry finds make believe gun violence highly profitable. Movies, television and video games contain a large quantity of gun violence which often glorify these acts and leave out the pain and suffering. Maybe virtual reality games should include the pain of being struck by a bullet and not merely a notice of “game over.” How many people have attended a rally asking for gun laws and then are entertained by some form of make-believe gun violence?
We live in a world full of nuclear weapons, which were used in only one conflict, somewhat experimentally, with consequences so horrible that they have never been used in a conflict between nations again. Yet most nations will invest vast quantities of national treasure to acquire nuclear weapons and none will eliminate them from their inventories. The policy is called mutually assured destruction. Could it be that the unintended consequences of unilateral nuclear disarmament are now too large?
Tobacco, another highly profitable industry, has in many ways brought under control not by prohibition, but by decreasing tobacco’s social acceptability. We prohibit young people from acquiring alcohol, tobacco, and here in Vermont cannabis, but adults have access. Should children have such easy access to make-believe gun violence? Should television have such a high quantity of make-believe gun violence? I have personally viewed television and movies were the people shooting could not possibly carry the quantity of ammunition used.
In Rwanda, not that many years ago, we had one group of people incited by extremist right-wing radio to massacre 800,000 fellow countrymen with machetes. I have the opinion that if half of the 800,000 victims had access to firearms that the number of victims would have been far less.
We now live in a highly divided society with many people believing in some crazy ideas. Could the only thing keeping things non-violent so far is a form of mutually assured destruction? Progressives prohibiting firearms would be unilaterally disarming as those who don’t want progress will not give their firearms up.
I want progress, not violence. However, don’t threaten me with a machete.
JAMES BOSEK, Essex Junction, Vermont
On Wednesday, Dec. 20, Secretary of State Tony Blinken had his year-end press conference. It was pretty much all hypocrisy. Here are a few of the biggest jokes he told: “How can it be that there are no demands made on Hamas, the aggressor, and only demands on Israel, the victim?” asked Blinken.
He is comfortable saying this when right now, in Iraq, the aggressor, the US, is getting tough and demanding that the victim, the Iraqi “militias,” stop attacking the US military in Iraq.
On to the next joke, Blinken says: “This would have been over a month ago, six weeks ago, or this would be over tomorrow if Hamas would just lay down its arms” … and the Iraq “war,” which now enters into its third decade, would also have been “over” in less than three months if the aggressor (the US) would have laid down its arms after only two months of attacking.
There’s more: “There seems to be silence on what Hamas could do, should do, must do if we want to end the suffering of innocent men, women and children.” He has the audacity to say this after the US terrorized innocent men, women and children in Afghanistan and Iraq and killed over a million of them.
And lastly: “Any country in the world faced with what Israel suffered on Oct. 7 would do the same thing.” No, no, not even close, Mr. Blinken. The main reason the cowards in Washington attacked Afghanistan and Iraq is because they knew the Muslim nations could not defend themselves the way Israel is.
Are you tired yet, tired of all this lying that keeps coming out of Washington?
FRANK ERICKSON, Minneapolis, Minn.
I usually don’t agree with Ted Rall on a lot of his political beliefs. But I do Agee with him about Israel, in that the United States should cut off all military aid and support.
DIANA BRUNSWIG BOSSO, Wichita, Kansas
From The Progressive Populist, February 15, 2024
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