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Platystemon)
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The Oldest Man posted:Waking up to way, way too many of the people in my social circles being OK with the brutalization of the homeless this year was a real bucket of cold water for me. The people getting turned into the street right now are out of work service workers and gig economy uber drivers and poo poo who were perfectly able to hold down work and keep an apartment a year ago that just got one too many hits of bad luck this year, and I figured homelessness creeping up the economic ladder would wake people up that this poo poo is not a moral failing. Except that's not what happened and a few of the people I know have actually gotten more accepting of random and cop violence against the homeless as the number of people living outside has exploded here. For years and years, people have said that not only is human life important, it is scared and beyond value. A brief walk down any city street and the presence of the homeless will tell you that the idea that human life is important and beyond value is what is important and beyond value, not actual human lives. People get really, really mad if you bring this up.
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Feb 8, 2021 00:48
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at them and go, "What the gently caress do you think is the endgame here when you're not able to give any more of your blood for a billionaire's profit margin?"
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| # ? May 27, 2024 20:19 |
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iirc, Cuomo's recent COVID press meeting included a slide prompting Cuomo to talk about how much he values human life and that no amount of money is too much or some transparently lying crap like that.
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Feb 8, 2021 00:53
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bedpan posted:For years and years, people have said that not only is human life important, it is scared and beyond value. A brief walk down any city street and the presence of the homeless will tell you that the idea that human life is important and beyond value is what is important and beyond value, not actual human lives. People get really, really mad if you bring this up. Bet theyre self described good christians to a man
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Feb 8, 2021 00:55
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Cuomo made clear where he stands: “A human life is priceless. Period.” No one followed up on this by clarifying if by "priceless" he also meant without a price AKA worthless.
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Feb 8, 2021 00:59
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I do this work primarily because I am a Christian. While evangelism is not something include in my work, I take Christs commandment to serve the least of these seriously, but most Christians don't care enough to really get involved. They are happy collecting socks in their sanctuary, the bravest might come by and be the person who drops off the stuff the collected. I meet a few pastors here or there, and know one guy who holds service every Saturday. While the church doesn't do enough to help, and their silence is deafening to me I don't think that is one of the major causes for the demonization of homeless people.
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Feb 8, 2021 03:03
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JesusIsTehCool posted:I do this work primarily because I am a Christian. While evangelism is not something include in my work, I take Christs commandment to serve the least of these seriously, but most Christians don't care enough to really get involved. They are happy collecting socks in their sanctuary, the bravest might come by and be the person who drops off the stuff the collected. I meet a few pastors here or there, and know one guy who holds service every Saturday. While the church doesn't do enough to help, and their silence is deafening to me I don't think that is one of the major causes for the demonization of homeless people. username/regdate/post combo, holy lol
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Feb 8, 2021 03:11
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SchnorkIes posted:username/regdate/post combo, holy lol enduring a lot of lovely SA posts for 19 years is some Christlike endurance for pain and suffering
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Feb 8, 2021 03:13
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Feb 8, 2021 03:20
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Private Cumshoe posted:enduring a lot of lovely SA posts for 19 years is some Christlike endurance for pain and suffering Yea I am mostly a lurker, sometimes I will post in the more niche threads about the dumb things I care about. Not really sure I belong in C-SPAM completely but D&D feels delusional to me and I am a socialist so...
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Feb 8, 2021 03:54
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JesusIsTehCool posted:Not really sure I belong in C-SPAM completely but D&D feels delusional to me and I am a socialist so... yeah same lol
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Feb 8, 2021 03:55
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JesusIsTehCool posted:Yea I am mostly a lurker, sometimes I will post in the more niche threads about the dumb things I care about. Not really sure I belong in C-SPAM completely but D&D feels delusional to me and I am a socialist so... embrace the succ
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Feb 8, 2021 03:58
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JesusIsTehCool posted:Yea I am mostly a lurker, sometimes I will post in the more niche threads about the dumb things I care about. Not really sure I belong in C-SPAM completely but D&D feels delusional to me and I am a socialist so... That's C-SPAM baby. Dumb things we care about, socialism. Religion isn't my bag but at least you're not one of the hypocritical ones. Rock on with the things you do.
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Feb 8, 2021 04:00
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There’s actually a lot of Christian socialists in my SRA chapter. More than M-Ls, though most are obviously demsocs/varying flavors of anarchist.
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Feb 8, 2021 04:57
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jesusistehcool is the best username ive seen here since govtislyingaboutcovid
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Feb 8, 2021 05:00
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Linking christianity to socialism was the best chance leftism had in this country, tbh, it worked really well until televangelists and prosperity gospel hosed things up
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Feb 8, 2021 05:02
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JesusIsTehCool posted:Yea I am mostly a lurker, sometimes I will post in the more niche threads about the dumb things I care about. Not really sure I belong in C-SPAM completely but D&D feels delusional to me and I am a socialist so... lol yeah you do
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Feb 8, 2021 05:03
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there were a lot of folks from the catholic worker involved in my local occupy/fight for 15/etc. they were cool.
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Feb 8, 2021 05:13
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My sister does a lot of food not bombs and the Catholic Workers Party is a huge help in their region.
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Feb 8, 2021 05:19
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JesusIsTehCool posted:Yea I am mostly a lurker, sometimes I will post in the more niche threads about the dumb things I care about. Not really sure I belong in C-SPAM completely but D&D feels delusional to me and I am a socialist so... lmfao badass rare goon type
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Feb 8, 2021 05:28
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d&d is the flying spaghetti monster, c-spam is the anabaptist munster rebellion
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Feb 8, 2021 06:00
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I got the tude now posted:lmfao badass rare goon type I am posting on this page to record my sighting. 
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Feb 8, 2021 06:08
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I am not super heroic or anything. I do the things I can reasonably do and stay safe and healthy. I sort of wondered into this and found myself knee deep because I made some unhoused friends and just wanted to try and help them out. Like this one time there was this 60 something wheelchair bound air force vet who got kicked out of his PATH housing. This guy heard voices that weren't there and had a heart condition. All his medication got lost when he was kicked out of his housing. He was out on the curb with his chair and 5 bags of stuff. Additionally he had lost his therapy dog and that dog was like the last thing this man really had that he loved, so we worried he might harm himself. Even though I knew that man didn't belong on the streets I still left him with my best unhoused friend with $60 and a tent next to the 405. I wasn't going to bring him into my apartment. I cried a lot that night, the world is such a hosed up place. That story has a semi good ending though, the man found his dog and got back into VASH housing which is better than PATH housing anyways. And by housing I mean being on a waiting list and being bounced around motel 6's every 30 days so you don't get any tenet rights. But this dude still had to spend a full week sleeping on the loving ground in the middle of an onramp. I have seen homelessness up close and personal for the last year and I am still constantly shocked at some of the poo poo people on the street have to tolerate. People who think unhoused people are lazy have no loving idea what they are talking about, it is so hard to do anything when your unhoused its terrifying.
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Feb 8, 2021 06:48
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JesusIsTehCool posted:I have seen homelessness up close and personal for the last year and I am still constantly shocked at some of the poo poo people on the street have to tolerate. People who think unhoused people are lazy have no loving idea what they are talking about, it is so hard to do anything when your unhoused its terrifying. Seriously. I spent years in and out of it and it's fuckin' soul-breaking. Waking up with your bones feeling ice cold because you had to sleep under a bridge is a feeling that'll never leave you.
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Feb 8, 2021 07:16
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Private Cumshoe posted:enduring a lot of lovely SA posts for 19 years is some Christlike endurance for pain and suffering  I know you're not telling us this for accolades, I think we just want you to know that people here recognize what an awesome and admirable thing this is that you're doing, myself included.
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Feb 8, 2021 07:42
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I spent one year homeless, or unhoused, or whatever is appropriate, and never again, I would rather die.
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Feb 8, 2021 09:42
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Another thing I've found endlessly frustrating is the way that people have been coached that in-kind donations means "get rid of your garbage" by the "regular" donation charities. Like you think that a newly homeless person wants to deal with your ratty five year old clothes and broken camping gear? Or that a mutual aid group wants to sort through trash bags of random poo poo you wanted to get rid of? The idea that people might need brand new purpose-bought poo poo to survive rather than whatever loving trash you have in your basement - and that you might have to buy it retail - is taken as offensive. Meanwhile the same people can't go camping without a thousand dollars in goretex to protect their tender fleshy bits and a thousand dollar tent.
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Feb 8, 2021 09:47
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The Oldest Man posted:Another thing I've found endlessly frustrating is the way that people have been coached that in-kind donations means "get rid of your garbage" by the "regular" donation charities. Like you think that a newly homeless person wants to deal with your ratty five year old clothes and broken camping gear? Or that a mutual aid group wants to sort through trash bags of random poo poo you wanted to get rid of? The idea that people might need brand new purpose-bought poo poo to survive rather than whatever loving trash you have in your basement - and that you might have to buy it retail - is taken as offensive.
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Feb 8, 2021 10:00
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I spent a year and change homeless but off the street after my dad kicked me out as soon as i turned 18; the kind of homeless where I had a big enough group of people that i could sleep on couches or in the corner on the floor with my backpack for a pillow and take food from their kitchens at night, swim regularly enough at apartment complex pools that I just smelled like chlorine all the time rather than smelling like 'hasn't showered in six months'. Everybody just assumed it was fine I still have trouble with feeling guilty existing in a shared space, don't shower as regularly as I should because it feels wrong and still feel like I need to get food from the kitchen at night sometime when none of the roomies can see even in my own loving apartment and it was over ten years ago
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Feb 8, 2021 10:01
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strange feelings re Daisy posted:We did a donation event for Native American tribes hurt by the pandemic and people donated used blankets. Like Jesus Christ, use your heads. They're just following a classic American tradition.
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Feb 8, 2021 10:05
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Platystemon posted:I am posting on this page to record my sighting.
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Feb 8, 2021 10:27
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My partner was unhoused for a minute. It wasn't even a long stint, and she found herself in a shelter within a few days, and in a job training program shortly thereafter, that led into a job, and her family "graciously" letting her back under their roof. It was still traumatic enough that it deeply informs how she feels about homelessness. She literally cannot stop herself from sheltering friends and even acquaintances in need, as long as she can. Once you've felt that life, it gets inside you and twists you the gently caress up, and you just want to scream that nobody should have to live that way, and drat the expense. I was never unhoused, but I was close. two months behind rent, with about two weeks before the eviction process was due to start, with no power or running water, literally using neighbor's spigots to fill buckets and bottles while they were gone... for weeks at a time sometimes... *that's* traumatic, and it's not even the bottom. It's still nowhere near being totally unhoused. I still had people who could pick me up for showers, and other minor support. I had family that was generally destitute but willing to throw what they had at us... Many folks don't have that. Yeah, we can't do much, but we do what we can, allowing only the basest level of consideration for our own needs and wants? We both know what it's like to suffer at the bottom of the poverty chain and I guess... Idk if you go thru that loving meat grinder, and don't find yourself needing to deal with the problem in a humanitarian and compassionate way... You need to heal. You've got damage.
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Feb 8, 2021 10:36
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My family (dad ran out and moms the sort that begged me to move in with her after I got a job so she could charge me rent instead of my money going to some other landlord) and friends didn't give a poo poo so what I learned was to be hyperaware of emotions and super accommodating at all times, so they'd want me to crash with them because we were hanging. Can't be because I need a place to sleep, you find out real quick a friend is good for exactly one favor and the second time you ask for anything they'll ice you out, so you don't risk it Can't bring up what you're going through or anything personal because people want to listen to themselves talk, or be engaged with on their interests (I still can't answer the question of what my favorite whatever is, since not having any personal preferences was necessary) I still panic and enter survival mode if any of my roommates exhibit negative emotions, thinking I'm hosed because I should have defused it or bailed before it happened so they didn't associate me with bad thing.
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Feb 8, 2021 12:35
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Screaming Idiot posted:They're just following a classic American tradition.
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Feb 8, 2021 14:07
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Inceltown posted:Can't you just not check your email? lmao yea, this is a big thing that just really sank in for me in the past few days... that constant discomfort/anxiety is a result of internalizing the stupidity that comes from "well we're poors, so we have to work like slaves if we want to have a decent* life" which just results in always needing to be busy doing something and needing success/accomplishment. what it leads to in reality is poo poo like (as my sister mentioned) soviet workers manufacturing buttons with no buttonholes. everyone has to be producing something, even if it isn't actually beneficial in any way; working just for the sake of not letting any time be 'wasted', because we're working for The Economy God joke's on us, we thought our parents only forced us into one death cult, but nope.
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Feb 8, 2021 14:31
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atelier morgan posted:My family (dad ran out and moms the sort that begged me to move in with her after I got a job so she could charge me rent instead of my money going to some other landlord) and friends didn't give a poo poo so what I learned was to be hyperaware of emotions and super accommodating at all times, so they'd want me to crash with them because we were hanging. Can't be because I need a place to sleep, you find out real quick a friend is good for exactly one favor and the second time you ask for anything they'll ice you out, so you don't risk it I am sorry you experienced this first hand, this is the kind of poo poo I don't even pretend to understand. Fortunately I have found you don't need to understand to listen and care. The things people are most thankful for are the weed and talking to them for 30 minutes. When it comes to homeless/unhoused I don't know if there is a "correct" word. Home in my experience is a much more packed word than house. I have met people who have made a home for themselves with out any kind of house/apartment. I have meet people who own houses who have no home. Some people find it "activist speak" to use unhoused, which is a fair point, I only hear other activist use it. I don't really care too much but in the spaces I organize in they prefer unhoused and its not really a battle I am interested in engaging in so I just go with the flow.
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Feb 8, 2021 17:18
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In the local mission house I occasionally volunteer at the term used is 'clients' which I think is cool.
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Feb 8, 2021 18:07
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the word you use for people who have less than you is kinda irrelevant if you keep sharing everything you can with those you can help. just remember to keep telling yourself youre definately not doing anything worth calling yourself a heroic, and im sure we can avoid you from being voted the hobo king after empire falls
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Feb 8, 2021 21:44
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JesusIsTehCool posted:I am sorry you experienced this first hand, this is the kind of poo poo I don't even pretend to understand. Fortunately I have found you don't need to understand to listen and care. The things people are most thankful for are the weed and talking to them for 30 minutes. I was traveling lately from one location to another recently. Really long distance. I was in Appalachia high up in the mountains at this lonely little stop on the road. A town that had a gas station and a taco place and a motel and a bunch of abandoned property. Trash was piled high and strewn out in the parking lot. I go in because I got maybe four hours of sleep and I need coffee. It's late and the temp has dropped to about eighteen degrees outside. I get the coffee, snacks, all that good stuff and there's this guy who's looking for a place to sleep. He asks the clerk. The clerk says no. I hesitate, because this place is sketchy as gently caress. But I tell him to come out. He's got on a hoodie and long pants and some shoes and he still has the sticker from a local church charity with a "Hi, my name is..." on him. He's a bit confused and not doing so hot. He asks me for a ride. I say no, because covid. I'm returning to immunocompromised people and going into gas stations where half the people don't wear masks is stressful enough. He has on a mask, but he doesn't wear it well. It keeps slipping over his nose. I can tell he's new to being homeless because he's refusing basically everything I try to give him. Not in a performative way, but I have to press to give him anything. It's hard to get him to accept and about half of what I tried to give him was like pulling teeth to get him to take. Except the beer. He liked the beer I shared with him from the stash I was taking home. I gave him my old coat. It had a rip in the side, but I'd had that thing for like ten years. drat good coat. He took it with little fuss and I wore my hoodie. But as I'm talking to him I realize he basically has nothing. Maybe some friends in the area, but good luck getting to them because he has no phone. And those friends from what he's saying he wore out his welcome with in that shamefaced way of someone who knew that they hosed up. The temperature is freezing and I 100% need to get calories into him in case he sleeps outside so he doesn't freeze to death, which is basically a certainty unless someone helps him. I could either assume that someone else would help him, which is probably not going to happen or it's me. So I choose to help. He tells me that the motel is going to open up tomorrow to everyone as a service, but I need to keep him from freezing to death tonight. He's living day by day. So I get him some beer. Not to get him drunk, but to get calories in him. He's all about it. Two beers is how I get his mood up and get him buzzed and happy. He goes for the handshake. Covid has made me weird about touch. I offer him an elbow. We touch elbows. He laughed. It was cool. And then I handed him an orange soda too. All local poo poo from far away. The beer and the soda. Nice stuff. Presents that were supposed to be for myself. An aside. Now see, in order to avoid motels and hotels, because I have zero idea who is cleaning it and I've worked in hospitality, I know for a fact that some housekeepers just have covid and power on through it if they can. I don't blame them. They need the money. But rooms are dangerous and I really don't want to roll the dice. So I was at a KOA. I got a cabin because no one would use one. It hadn't been used of course because it was deep, DEEP into the off season for those. It's dusty as gently caress. But the heater maybe raised the temperature inside ten degrees. It wasn't insulated against the cold. So one of my prized possessions, this REI 32 degree bag, ultralight, this thing that will keep your rear end from freezing to death in the snow. I'm in that and I got no sleep. I tracked in snow into the cabin and when I finally got up, the snow was still there. It's that poorly insulated. It was an absolutely miserable night and I bought another day and got a space heater when the people that ran the KOA actually showed up. No sleep, cold as gently caress even with the bag and a tiny heater. And I'm looking at this guy and everything is closing down. And I'm telling him to take my 32 degree bag. This thing that will keep you toasty in thirty-two degrees. But it's not a balmy freezing temperature. It's eighteen and dropping. You need to wear clothing in the bag. Jacket, shoes, pants, shirt, everything. You get in the bag or you freeze. And I'm telling him to take my bag and he thinks it's too nice for him and he doesn't want to throw it away. I'm smiling and joking and being jovial because that's what's keeping him talking to me, but inside I'm screaming to take my bag because if he doesn't, there's a good chance that he freezes to death outside of a dirty gas station. No one is coming tonight. Maybe tomorrow, but not tonight, because if someone was coming they already would have been here by now. This is not a good place. I'm worried that I oversold the bag and how good it is, because it frankly is a good bag. My favorite camping bag. I keep things for a long time. So my stuff is old, but tough and well taken care of. And eventually he takes it because I tell him straight up that it will keep him warm and that he needs to stay warm because it's freezing out and again, he's a bit confused so it takes repeating. I tell him to go to the gas station, which is closed, but the attendant is still inside. He'll give you cardboard to lay on from the beer boxes. Get a shitload of it. Put it between yourself and the ground because a 32 degree bag doesn't mean anything unless you have something to lay on so the earth itself doesn't steal the heat out of you and kill you with cold. He relents, takes the bag. He's happy with the beer and the soda. I try to give him a bag of chips. It cost me just over a buck. Another three minutes trying to get him to take it. I tell him more than a few times that I don't need it and I'll just get snacks the next time I stop. And it's not about giving him beer or soda or chips or whatever. It's about putting enough calories in this dude that he can warm up so he doesn't freeze to death. Easy, quick calories. Also a buzz for a little mood boost. And the bag should help him not freeze to death as well. Probably. If he puts broken down beer boxes on the ground. And I depart. This guy is 100% new to homelessness and he is on the rural version of hard mode. I wonder if I should have gotten him a room for the night. It would've been cheaper than the bag. I didn't. I don't really have the money in case he destroys the room as it was late in the month. I didn't think he would, but that's not something I can afford. I did more than anyone else he'd asked that day, but it still felt inadequate. I still felt like poo poo for days after. I still feel like poo poo now a week plus. I wish that helping people felt good, but as someone who does this sort of thing now and again, it frequently doesn't. It's taxing. It's draining. Making the world better hurts. Sometimes you luck out and have a good time of it, but not this time. There was no resolution. Just enough to get him to the next day and with some extra gear besides. I get why a lot of people don't want to help. They don't want to think of houseless people as deserving of help. They want to think of them as lazy and awful and dirty because to consider that these people are deserving of warmth and care and love and just the basic needs that humans need, and that they're increasingly surrounded by that, a person with any empathy at all is going to hurt. And to contemplate the scope of it hurts. To seriously consider why this is happening puts so much of what we believe and are taught into question and the answers would upend so much that they believe in. And this is already an uphill battle because many people are taught that the houseless are dirty and lazy nuisances. It is emotionally less taxing to consider houseless people less than people. Less taxing to look away. And if you feel guitly, you assuage yourself by cutting a check in order to silence that guilt. We are almost all emotionally overtaxed at the moment. This isn't to defend them, but I do understand why that they don't want to help when so many people are whiteknuckling it financially and emotionally. It's wrong. But it makes sense at the smallest, meanest level to protect yourself. I'd do it again in a heartbeat, but actually helping people face to face can be bleak as gently caress. Ice Phisherman has issued a correction as of 23:30 on Feb 8, 2021 |
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Feb 8, 2021 22:47
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Taintrunner posted:Seriously. I spent years in and out of it and it's fuckin' soul-breaking. Waking up with your bones feeling ice cold because you had to sleep under a bridge is a feeling that'll never leave you. sleeping in a car for a while was enough for me and I'm aware of what a luxury having a car to sleep in is/was
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Feb 8, 2021 22:56
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| # ? May 27, 2024 20:19 |
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https://twitter.com/business/status/1358918551470489607
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Feb 9, 2021 01:06
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