Saturday, January 5, 2013

Kindness?

Greetings good citizen,

As usual, when the opportunity to flog one of my pet concepts presents itself I hop on it.

How sad is it that the opportunity comes wrapped in ‘nice gesture’ that is likely to end in tragedy?
A California lawyer is giving up his fully-furnished home in Los Angeles for a homeless family to live in for a year, according to the New York Daily News.

Tony Tolbert, 51, says that his act of kindness just feels like the right thing to do.

“You don’t have to be Bill Gates or Warren Buffet or Oprah,” Tolbert told CBS News. ”We can do it wherever we are, with whatever we have, and for me, I have a home that I can make available.”

Tolbert will move back in with his mother for the year and continue working. It was in his mother’s house that Tolbert says he learned to be a giving and caring young man.

While I laud the Esquire’s noble gesture, I deplore its necessity. Push come to shove I’ll bet Tony doesn’t like it either.

He’s probably going to find himself in a real difficult place once the year passes and the folks he ‘gifted’ his home to are forced to return to the streets.

(One would hope the ‘advantage’ of having an address could be parlayed into a steady job. The homeless frequently cite that not having a ‘real address or a phone number’ prevents them from getting a ‘good’ job.)

I have both but still can’t find work…and the jobs I apply to be still begging for help…must be conservo-whackos!

AS A SOCIETY, we must ask ourselves why we don’t shelter all members of our species and why we don’t make room for them to contribute and be a part of our community?

Sadly good citizen, the answer to that terrible question is capitalism and it’s ‘fuck you, pay me’ mode of operation.

This is what comes from allowing ‘a few’ people to ‘own’ what we all need to live.

A Simple Plan erases that ‘inequity’ of capitalism and restores the economic balance that is destroyed by ‘fuck you, pay me!’

Think about it good citizen, the ‘exit door’ from the nightmare that has been your life until now is beckoning!

What do you suppose the nice Mr. Tolbert is going to do when it comes time to return the unfortunates to the street?

Will he have to sic the cops on ‘em?

He’s an attorney and obviously smart enough to have his beneficiaries’ sign a quit agreement nullifying their ‘squatters rights’.

How friggin’ sad is that?

Sadder still is this entire masquerade. Mr. Tolbert should not sacrifice his home nor should there be any homeless people in the first place!

Shelter is a human right.

In fact capitalism denies us all many of our rights (so the capitalist can enrich themselves at the public’s expense.)

The part that SHOULD surprise you good citizen is how the capitalist KNOWS what they are doing SHOULD BE a criminal act…but isn’t because they are in cahoots with law enforcement!

And you wonder why you can’t catch a break?

You’ll never catch a break if you play by THEIR RULES…and you will NEVER prosper working for somebody else.

Mathematically impossible…although there are some extremely well compensated ‘toads’ out there.

While they are not criminals themselves, they do the criminals bidding (while fueling the plot lines of many a writer’s speculative scripts!)

Sadly it is the actions of these toads that are responsible for our species’ deplorable state.

But I digress.

While it is ‘wonderful’ that this individual is willing to help the needy, it is tragic that he feels compelled to do so.

We can play the ‘what if’ card here and speculate, ‘what if the people he initially ‘helps’ succeed in improving their circumstances. Has he ‘done his share’?

Libertarians and conservo-whackos would both opine Mr. Tolbert has gone too far and that these people should find their own way to prosperity…because the word ‘gratitude’ is lost on either brand of ‘psycho’.

But let’s suppose that through judicious selection of who receives aid, let’s suppose a ‘few’ families get back on their feet, thanks to the ‘loan’ of Mr. Tolbert’s house.

Should he stop?

Is he ‘poisoning the well’ and wrecking the hired help? (By giving them what capitalism refuses to?)

That is a question society will have to decide…sooner than you think in an energy starved world…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

After posting I encountered this 'must read' article over at Jesse's crossroads cafe...enjoy!


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