Tick Tock Sheptock

The logic that caused government to federalize social programs in the 1930's has been turned on its head in late-2017. During the great depression the federal government was willing to run up the deficit in order to save the working class (including lower-income people, as opposed to just the middle class). Then came fiscal responsibility and cuts to social programs in the 1980's. Now Trump and the 115th Congress have passed a tax plan that runs the deficit up in order to greatly decrease corporate taxes and taxes on the wealthy. The stated goals and purpose of the federal government have completely flipped since my adoptive mother -- Joanne Elizabeth Sheptock (80) -- was born in 1937. ***************************************** As my last post indicated, I see a series of 15-year patterns in terms of what government has done over the past 30 years. I also see the recently-passed tax plan bidding terribly for the working poor of America who will soon have the rug pulled o...

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom. -- Martin Luther King, Jr. Ecclesiastes 9:11 King James Version (KJV) 11  I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding , nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all. Ecclesiastes 9:14-18 King James Version (KJV) 14  There was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it: 15  Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city; yet no man remembered that same poor man. 16  Then said I, Wisdom is better than strength: nevertheless the poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard . 17  The words of wise men are heard in q...

Please share widely and frequently through July 2018. Thank you. "The right of free speech was given to us so that we can annoy people. You don't need anyone's permission in order to tell them what they want to hear -- that they're beautiful or awesome -- because no one will  even try to stop you from saying those sorts of things. You need the right to free speech so that you can tell them when you disagree with them -- when what government is doing is wrong and needs to be changed." -- My eighth grade American history teacher Carl Lampa of Bernardsville, NJ ('82-'83 school year) You read the title correctly:  FREE SPEECH IS A CRIME IN DC: I Might Go To Jail In July 2018 (If I'm "Good" Until Then) . My advocacy for DC's homeless -- which I've done since mid-June 2006 -- could lead to me going to jail in July 2018 . Kristy Greenwalt, the director of Washington, DC's Inter-agency Council on Homelessness (ICH) since 4/28/...

VICTIM BLAMING The phrase "blaming the victim" was coined in 1971 in response to the Moynihan Report which claimed that family structures which were the result of slavery and many years of oppression were to "blame" for poverty among Afro-Americans. William Ryan's book, "Blaming the Victim" argues that it is the larger social structures (superstructures) of our society that keep Blacks poor. Now the phrase "victim blaming" is used in a completely different way -- to defend victims of sexual assault against being wrongfully ostracized -- and few people know the origin of the phrase. What's more is that the "victims" on whose behalf Mr. Ryan was speaking are still being victimized. Before anyone can expect the poor and homeless to do better for themselves, they must first demand that Government do a better job of creating an environment that is conducive to poor people becoming self-sufficient. After all, it doesn't make...

DC Government began its efforts to end homelessness in 2004. They came up with a 10-year plan called Homelessness No More . Then-Mayor Anthony Williams signed the Homeless Services Reform Act into law in 2005. I moved to DC on the night of July 31st, 2005. DC's Inter-agency Council on Homelessness held its first meeting in June 2006 -- just days after I began advocating for the homeless -- and I was in attendance. It's been 11.5 years since I began advocating for an end to homelessness. The January 2007 annual Point-in-Time Homeless Enumeration was the first one after I began this work and we counted 5,757 homeless people in the city that year. Ten years later we counted 7,473. I've looked at a lot of numbers to see what messages I could tease out so as to gauge the city's efforts. It struck me recently that there is a number that none of the homeless service providers are talking about, as they "try" to decrease homelessness: 2,820. I sent the followi...