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I watched a homeless man wash
himself and shampoo his hair with Palmolive Dish Detergent this morning while
taking my morning bicycle ride along side San Diego Harbor. You see a lot of
homeless folks, mostly men in this area napping in a spot of shade alongside
their entire world stacked up in a shopping cart. The more affluent ones have
old bicycles themselves.
It is so very beautiful along
the bay here: downtown buildings in the background to a bay dotted with moored
and docked sailboats, fishing boats and tourist excursion ships. An almost
constant breeze blows in off the ocean and today there were puffy clouds
parallel to and floating idly over the mountains to the east.
I thought to myself that this
must be one of the finest cities to be a homeless person in. The weather is at
its worst times, survivable and far more frequently a comfy, dry 72
degrees. To have a public bathroom with
an outside shower (presumably to wash the salt off swimmers and surfers) is a
wonderful gift to those who have no home to clean themselves in.
I used to pull up to
intersections and either shake my head “no” or look away if there was someone
requesting spare change. I’d heard that often they spend this money on booze,
cigarettes or drugs and it’s better to give them a hamburger than a dollar. I
don’t know about you, but I rarely have a hamburger sitting on my dash board
keeping warm for the first handout of the day. But hey-I’ve changed my
thinking.
If I was living on the
street, sleeping outside in parks, doorways, deserted buildings and the like I
would probably choose some hard liquor or drug over food often. Why? Because at
least I would temporarily become artificially but experientially content for a
brief while. And happiness on occasion
should and would take precedence over nutrition at times. Who am I to control
what they do with a contribution I’m willing to make? And further, who am I to ignore them and look
the other way while sitting in my comfy air conditioned car. I have way more
than the essentials of food, clothes, safety and space to live and sleep and
even bath.
There are a number of gentle
climates that attract the destitute who live outdoors but there are few if any
services or considerations for these unfortunates who have no home and perhaps
even the greater hardship of having no family-not a single brother or aunt or
relative to turn to for support, for love.
Would it really be too
expensive to provide areas for the homeless to congregate and sleep? Would it
be too expensive for a city to allocate a few dollars to providing public
bathrooms where the poor can clean and relive themselves? We surely can afford
to provide security in the form of volunteer social workers in set aside parks
or just areas of parks where people can legally assemble and simply
survive. We have parks built just for
dogs but not for people. Why is this? How is this possible?
The poor and homeless are not
alone in what we turn our backs on; we turn away more and more from the obvious
blatant corruption in politics, banking, and corporations. We know clearly the
injustices perpetrated daily on those at the bottom of the socio-economic
level. We sit and do and say little or nothing when it comes to light that
another politician has abused his position and privilege, or when corporations
tell their bought politicians what legislature to write and pass; legislation
that furthers the aims of most of the top 1% in the U.S. Police incidents get
more and more out of control and nothing is done. The media is owned and
controlled by big money getting bigger. The news has become one long
commercial, biased, fear based and meant to either convince the majority that
everything is really okay and just or acquit the greed and evil it nurtures
turning man against men-against women, against immigrants, etc.
I bring this up because if we
don’t stop looking the other way…if we don’t stop our apathetic response to
horrible injustices then they will continue to grow. We condone crime at the
highest whitest level in this country.
In God we trust but in money we REALLY TRUST.
Now back to the bottom of the
barrel. Maybe there isn’t much that we can do separated from one another which
is exactly the strategy of politico-corporate affairs because we have become
divided by the powers that be. And without a united cause, we will remain
complacent; throw out hands up in the air and order another drink. Or turn on
the tube for sedation.
I know that we can afford to
put a few bucks towards making the poor slightly cared for. With the wealth of
this country it is a travesty that we allow anyone to be homeless here. It is
unjustifiable. That argument that the poor are just “lazy” is a weak lie at
best but one many of us lean toward believing because it relieves us of our own
guilt and human obligation to care for our neighbors, our fellow humans. It
would be so easy to erase corporate loopholes and collect far greater taxes
that could provide support to society as a whole. Education and social services
should be more important than controlling the cost and availability of oil for
obscene profiteering.
It’s hard to find a place to
stop because the inhumanness rampant in our culture must be addressed!
But then again, we have all
been told and taught to “look the other way” in this super duper culture of
opportunity. Oh yes, we have opportunity and opportunists who take advantage of
their privileged color and connections, and family ties.
This world of people operates
almost everywhere as it always has through out history. We have kings and
emperors and rulers in every society that hoard the wealth and ignore the
common folk. We have armies and knights and warriors trained to defend the best
interests of that ruling class. One thing the poor and the rich agree upon is
that Money decides what laws are written and what people have advantage and the
rest of the peons who don’t. An occasional success story about some ghetto kid
who climbed out poverty and violence into opulence is meant to prove to us that
most poor are just lazy. They do drugs and join gangs and kill and steal from
one another. Well, if I were the great
great grandson of a black cotton picking slave abducted from his home and
enslaved and yet went to school and graduated and discovered that it isn’t who
you are that matters but who you know…well, I’d probably turn to drugs and/or
violence too. Ya know, sometimes force is justified because it is the only way
to fight all that is so very wrong.
Short of individual
enlightenment and a spiritual awakening to the truth that we are all of one
family, this species of humans that we are-none of our practices on either end
of the scale will ever change this nation or this world into a place that
supports the quality of life for ALL people.
We are well on our way to
hitting our bottom like any addict must do before he is faced with a decision
to turn his life around or just wither, let go and die. America is addicted to money and consumption.
We are addicted to having the latest and greatest. We are concerned about
keeping up with our affluent neighbors. We buy so much more than is needed or
even used. Just like any individual addict, our culture reflects our values and
we are a frighten people here in America.
We have always been afraid that there wasn’t enough to go around so
better race out there and grab your share while it’s still there. Compete
instead of collaborate. Ahhhh-shit. Ask
the American Indians how compassionate and generous the Europeans who stole their
country and lives away, were. Well, that’s
where many of us came from. Question is….where the hell are we going?
