American Stupidity and Adult Day Care Centers
Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) correctly referred to the White House as an adult day care center as he discussed 45's volatility and the likelihood that he'll tweet us into World War III. He failed to acknowledge that WW III, unlike what World War I was thought to be, would actually be "the war to end all wars" -- possibly by ending all life. Neither did he say that, provided a few elites are chosen to live underground until it's all over, they'd eventually resurface to a world in which global warming has been reversed by the recent nuclear winter. I'm convinced that Sen. Corker is a RINO (Republican In Name Only) because he didn't even point out that war creates jobs by increasing the need for weapons production, causing reservists to be called into active duty and allowing unemployed civilians to obtain the jobs of the reservists. Even so, I agree with his assertion. He's one of the last intelligent Americans.
I was dumbfounded by how many Americans I found to be dumb when talking about war. I understand that some people hate to talk about politics and religion, as though not talking about something means that it won't affect you -- like ignoring an impending war means that Kim Jong Un can't put a missile on your dining room table during your next Thanksgiving Day feast or like being an atheist will prevent you from being judged by an angry God. But there are some aspects of the war mentality that it behooves the staunchest pacifist to acknowledge. One of them is the apparent stupidity in Bush 43's pretext for the Iraq War.
In light of the face-off between 45 and Kim Jong Un (who rightly called him a dotard), I've taken to reminding people of what I've always seen as the most stupid aspect of the Iraq War -- the pretext of wanting to fight Saddam Hussein because of the weapons that he supposedly had. From the time that the first shots were fired in March 2003 and right into late 2017 people's first response to me is, "Saddam didn't even have weapons of mass destruction". Then they say, "Bush lied...and he knew Saddam didn't have WMD's". I quietly think to myself, "They just don't get it". Then I emphasize that, "I wouldn't care if Saddam had 25,000 nukes. It doesn't make sense to fight someone because you don't like their weapons. That's when they'll use those weapons!!!" Most people understand at this point in the conversation. As a matter of fact, I had such an exchange with someone four days ago (12/8/17) while we left an event and rode the transit together. After she got it, she added a very good point: "If Saddam actually had 25,000 nukes, Bush wouldn't have gone to war with him". Whew!!! Somebody else besides myself understands. I'm no longer alone in my sensibility.
It's been just over 15 years since the build-up to the Iraq War began. We have the Valerie Plame outing, Colin Powell having claimed from September 2002 until February 2003 that the pretext for war was a false one, Cheney having twisted Powell's arm so as to make him play along, the war itself and the immense collateral damage behind us -- and a much greater danger before us. Bush called Hussein "a grave and gathering threat" many times over. The "threat" has since been neutralized -- unjustly, I might add. (My heart dropped to my left knee on December 30th, 2006 when I read on-line about the assassination of Saddam Hussein -- with me having only begun to use computers the previous month.)
Since the beginning of the Iraq War and the end of President Hussein, America has chosen a halfway decent president and followed that by electing a full-on idiot. Obama wound down the Iraq War. Trump is moving us into something much worse. Whereas 43 used a stupid pretext against someone who turned out not to have WMD's, 45 is now in a showdown with Kim who has shown his wares. There's no doubt that he has nukes. We didn't prevent him from figuring out how to make them. Now the "game" has become much more dangerous. That's not to speak of the facts that he has the innate right to defend his country, that the weapons he chooses are not meant to be to the liking of his enemies and that both China and Russia are poised to intervene if they perceive the U.S. to have overreacted to the North.
I'm old enough to remember that "non-proliferation" was preceded by "disarmament". I recall discussing current events in middle school and the teacher mocking the "sparse pack" vs "dense pack" debate when it came to the MX Missile. Mr. Lampa of Bernardsville Jr. High (82-83) thought it was quite ridiculous to make an issue of how far apart the missile silos are placed. (Worse things pass for news these days.) That said, I thought that disarmament was a stupid suggestion -- even for those who are trying to avoid war. To this day I tell people that the U.S. telling another nation not to build up its military arsenal or not to have WMD's is like Mike Tyson telling Evander Holyfield, "Don't train for the fight; because, I want to be able to whoop you". Were Mr. Holyfield to go for that, he'd be really stupid. I respect Kim Jong Un for holding his ground. It's not that Hussein or Kim have been angels. It's that I expect any president to want to win in the event of a war. That's basic military intuition. Any American (or world citizen) who doesn't understand that is just plain stupid.
As we talk about the political idiocy of the fall of 2002 and how it has resurfaced in a much worse way with a much more volatile U.S. president having it out with a much more militarily advanced regime, we need to also talk about the poor choice that 62.9M Americans made in November 2016 and about how the archaic (s)electoral college failed the world. Emotional, uninformed voting began the process that could lead to WW III. Recognize!!!
Though I work as a homeless advocate in Washington, DC, I obviously think about a lot more than homelessness and affordable housing. Coincidentally, Sen. Corker's metaphor works for DC homeless services too. Well before he said that the White House is a day care center [where the children are playing with fire], I was talking about how DC homeless services are glorified adult day care. Hereto now DC Government and its homeless service providers have managed homelessness rather than even trying to end it. The proof of the pudding is in the tasting:
2004: DC had 8,253 homeless people and devised a "plan" to "end" homelessness.
2017: DC had 7,473 homeless people and was more than a year into its second "plan" to address homelessness, making it "rare, brief and non-recurring".
Taste of the pudding: With us being 13 years into the "plan" to "end" homelessness, we only have a 9.45% net reduction (as opposed to the 100% reduction we should have had by December 2014) and an administration that is doing its best to ostracize an outspoken and mathematically inclined advocate. There's no sense of urgency around actually ending homelessness. Those charged with ending it get paid well for maintaining it three years after the 10-year plan ended. My analysis as to why is that:
There is no shortage of places for DC's homeless to hang out indoors. There hasn't been any such shortage for quite some time. Nonetheless, they now have a new place to just hang out. SOME (So Others Might Eat) has been serving DC's homeless for over 40 years. Though the free shuttle bus stops in front of SOME to take the homeless over to the Adams Day Shelter which opened over two years ago, SOME has now begun to have day-program style activities in its dining room for the 30-something and 40-something adults who eat there. (Some clients are older...and younger.) DC's homeless now have another day care center. In their defense, breakfast ends at 8:30 AM and the building reopens for lunch at 11 AM, leaving 2.5 hours for those who didn't go to work to just hang out. What's more is that it's winter, though it was a balmy 42 degrees this morning when the announcement was made that the dining room would remain open for activities. It also costs time and money to shuttle people from SOME to the Adams Day Center. I get it. Even so, we have another place where adults can watch movies and play games during business hours.
This brings me to an issue that only a few people have asked me about over the years -- why it is that I'm always hammering government and its homeless service providers and not talking about personal responsibility. Some people have gone so far as to assume that I think that homeless people can't ever be guilty of a wrong. just for the record, I am fully aware of the fact that homeless people can do wrong. Hammering government doesn't imply that I think the homeless can't do wrong -- just like saying that Trump is a sexual harasser doesn't imply that I think Harvey Weinstein isn't. My reason for going after government the way that I do is so that I can get them to create an environment that is conducive to able-bodied homeless people being able to work and maintain housing. It would be stupid for me to send the homeless who lack resources on a wild goose chase while those who fail to address the social ill that they get paid well to cure -- with our tax dollars -- keep their jobs and don't get punished. I'm inclined to believe that, with DC Government, it's more a matter of them being underhanded and evil than it is a matter of them being stupid. Yet and still, the solution is the same -- informing the voting public so that they can make better choices in 2018.
I guess the silver lining in this dark cloud of government failures is that a government that has done so well at sheltering the homeless will know how to shelter us during WW III. DC Government IS good for something -- as long as there is a war. Like 45, DC Government is playing with people's lives -- albeit in a lesser way. Trump is playing Russian Roulette with North Korea and the world. DC Government is giving the homeless a place to play checkers at 9 AM. Given a choice, I'd take the latter -- the lesser of two evils. So, when we hear the 20-minute warning that Kim's missile is about to hit DC, I'll grab the checker board and make my way to Capitol Hill where I can hide underground until the mushroom cloud disappears and nuclear winter reverses global warming.
I initially planned to write a much longer litany of stupid things that Americans in large numbers believe; but, this post is long enough and I had some government idiots to go dig into at a quarterly meeting which is ending right now, as I finish editing this post which I did earlier today.
To be continued.....unfortunately.
I was dumbfounded by how many Americans I found to be dumb when talking about war. I understand that some people hate to talk about politics and religion, as though not talking about something means that it won't affect you -- like ignoring an impending war means that Kim Jong Un can't put a missile on your dining room table during your next Thanksgiving Day feast or like being an atheist will prevent you from being judged by an angry God. But there are some aspects of the war mentality that it behooves the staunchest pacifist to acknowledge. One of them is the apparent stupidity in Bush 43's pretext for the Iraq War.
In light of the face-off between 45 and Kim Jong Un (who rightly called him a dotard), I've taken to reminding people of what I've always seen as the most stupid aspect of the Iraq War -- the pretext of wanting to fight Saddam Hussein because of the weapons that he supposedly had. From the time that the first shots were fired in March 2003 and right into late 2017 people's first response to me is, "Saddam didn't even have weapons of mass destruction". Then they say, "Bush lied...and he knew Saddam didn't have WMD's". I quietly think to myself, "They just don't get it". Then I emphasize that, "I wouldn't care if Saddam had 25,000 nukes. It doesn't make sense to fight someone because you don't like their weapons. That's when they'll use those weapons!!!" Most people understand at this point in the conversation. As a matter of fact, I had such an exchange with someone four days ago (12/8/17) while we left an event and rode the transit together. After she got it, she added a very good point: "If Saddam actually had 25,000 nukes, Bush wouldn't have gone to war with him". Whew!!! Somebody else besides myself understands. I'm no longer alone in my sensibility.
It's been just over 15 years since the build-up to the Iraq War began. We have the Valerie Plame outing, Colin Powell having claimed from September 2002 until February 2003 that the pretext for war was a false one, Cheney having twisted Powell's arm so as to make him play along, the war itself and the immense collateral damage behind us -- and a much greater danger before us. Bush called Hussein "a grave and gathering threat" many times over. The "threat" has since been neutralized -- unjustly, I might add. (My heart dropped to my left knee on December 30th, 2006 when I read on-line about the assassination of Saddam Hussein -- with me having only begun to use computers the previous month.)
Since the beginning of the Iraq War and the end of President Hussein, America has chosen a halfway decent president and followed that by electing a full-on idiot. Obama wound down the Iraq War. Trump is moving us into something much worse. Whereas 43 used a stupid pretext against someone who turned out not to have WMD's, 45 is now in a showdown with Kim who has shown his wares. There's no doubt that he has nukes. We didn't prevent him from figuring out how to make them. Now the "game" has become much more dangerous. That's not to speak of the facts that he has the innate right to defend his country, that the weapons he chooses are not meant to be to the liking of his enemies and that both China and Russia are poised to intervene if they perceive the U.S. to have overreacted to the North.
I'm old enough to remember that "non-proliferation" was preceded by "disarmament". I recall discussing current events in middle school and the teacher mocking the "sparse pack" vs "dense pack" debate when it came to the MX Missile. Mr. Lampa of Bernardsville Jr. High (82-83) thought it was quite ridiculous to make an issue of how far apart the missile silos are placed. (Worse things pass for news these days.) That said, I thought that disarmament was a stupid suggestion -- even for those who are trying to avoid war. To this day I tell people that the U.S. telling another nation not to build up its military arsenal or not to have WMD's is like Mike Tyson telling Evander Holyfield, "Don't train for the fight; because, I want to be able to whoop you". Were Mr. Holyfield to go for that, he'd be really stupid. I respect Kim Jong Un for holding his ground. It's not that Hussein or Kim have been angels. It's that I expect any president to want to win in the event of a war. That's basic military intuition. Any American (or world citizen) who doesn't understand that is just plain stupid.
As we talk about the political idiocy of the fall of 2002 and how it has resurfaced in a much worse way with a much more volatile U.S. president having it out with a much more militarily advanced regime, we need to also talk about the poor choice that 62.9M Americans made in November 2016 and about how the archaic (s)electoral college failed the world. Emotional, uninformed voting began the process that could lead to WW III. Recognize!!!
Though I work as a homeless advocate in Washington, DC, I obviously think about a lot more than homelessness and affordable housing. Coincidentally, Sen. Corker's metaphor works for DC homeless services too. Well before he said that the White House is a day care center [where the children are playing with fire], I was talking about how DC homeless services are glorified adult day care. Hereto now DC Government and its homeless service providers have managed homelessness rather than even trying to end it. The proof of the pudding is in the tasting:
2004: DC had 8,253 homeless people and devised a "plan" to "end" homelessness.
2017: DC had 7,473 homeless people and was more than a year into its second "plan" to address homelessness, making it "rare, brief and non-recurring".
Taste of the pudding: With us being 13 years into the "plan" to "end" homelessness, we only have a 9.45% net reduction (as opposed to the 100% reduction we should have had by December 2014) and an administration that is doing its best to ostracize an outspoken and mathematically inclined advocate. There's no sense of urgency around actually ending homelessness. Those charged with ending it get paid well for maintaining it three years after the 10-year plan ended. My analysis as to why is that:
Sensitivity and emotion having been woven into the fabric of working America has caused the much-needed critical thinking skills that Americans used to have to be impeded in some work places and eliminated in others. This truth is manifested among DC homeless service providers as they refuse to acknowledge that, in 13 years of "trying" to end homelessness with billions in tax dollars, they've accomplished less than 10% of what they were originally supposed to accomplish in 10 years.
It's just too mean, insensitive and brutally honest to point this out and then to force real results. My foot!!! (The old-fashioned, polite way of saying "Bullsh**!!!")Various homeless people, other advocates and I have complained about DC's focus on homeless day care rather than offering solutions for all homeless people. While the government has worked since 2008 to house the most vulnerable (disabled homeless people and families with children), they've avoided taking the steps to make housing affordable for able-bodied, single homeless people. They've taken steps to qualify even the most able-bodied homeless people as disabled before offering any housing options, so as to avoid creating the public perception that the working poor can find affordable housing in DC. People have complained to me about being made to knit, crochet or draw pictures before the day program allows them to wash clothes for the job interview that the shelter/ day program didn't help them obtain.
There is no shortage of places for DC's homeless to hang out indoors. There hasn't been any such shortage for quite some time. Nonetheless, they now have a new place to just hang out. SOME (So Others Might Eat) has been serving DC's homeless for over 40 years. Though the free shuttle bus stops in front of SOME to take the homeless over to the Adams Day Shelter which opened over two years ago, SOME has now begun to have day-program style activities in its dining room for the 30-something and 40-something adults who eat there. (Some clients are older...and younger.) DC's homeless now have another day care center. In their defense, breakfast ends at 8:30 AM and the building reopens for lunch at 11 AM, leaving 2.5 hours for those who didn't go to work to just hang out. What's more is that it's winter, though it was a balmy 42 degrees this morning when the announcement was made that the dining room would remain open for activities. It also costs time and money to shuttle people from SOME to the Adams Day Center. I get it. Even so, we have another place where adults can watch movies and play games during business hours.
This brings me to an issue that only a few people have asked me about over the years -- why it is that I'm always hammering government and its homeless service providers and not talking about personal responsibility. Some people have gone so far as to assume that I think that homeless people can't ever be guilty of a wrong. just for the record, I am fully aware of the fact that homeless people can do wrong. Hammering government doesn't imply that I think the homeless can't do wrong -- just like saying that Trump is a sexual harasser doesn't imply that I think Harvey Weinstein isn't. My reason for going after government the way that I do is so that I can get them to create an environment that is conducive to able-bodied homeless people being able to work and maintain housing. It would be stupid for me to send the homeless who lack resources on a wild goose chase while those who fail to address the social ill that they get paid well to cure -- with our tax dollars -- keep their jobs and don't get punished. I'm inclined to believe that, with DC Government, it's more a matter of them being underhanded and evil than it is a matter of them being stupid. Yet and still, the solution is the same -- informing the voting public so that they can make better choices in 2018.
I guess the silver lining in this dark cloud of government failures is that a government that has done so well at sheltering the homeless will know how to shelter us during WW III. DC Government IS good for something -- as long as there is a war. Like 45, DC Government is playing with people's lives -- albeit in a lesser way. Trump is playing Russian Roulette with North Korea and the world. DC Government is giving the homeless a place to play checkers at 9 AM. Given a choice, I'd take the latter -- the lesser of two evils. So, when we hear the 20-minute warning that Kim's missile is about to hit DC, I'll grab the checker board and make my way to Capitol Hill where I can hide underground until the mushroom cloud disappears and nuclear winter reverses global warming.
I initially planned to write a much longer litany of stupid things that Americans in large numbers believe; but, this post is long enough and I had some government idiots to go dig into at a quarterly meeting which is ending right now, as I finish editing this post which I did earlier today.
To be continued.....unfortunately.
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