tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6686836919298979885.post7067780093578298689..comments2023-07-19T07:25:41.266-05:00Comments on Urban-Crawl: Blind EyePatch O'Houlihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15689502417806841807noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6686836919298979885.post-31178462778984027562009-08-19T14:31:39.405-05:002009-08-19T14:31:39.405-05:00As for the why, listen to the "Harlem Renaiss...As for the why, listen to the "Harlem Renaissance" segment on <a href="http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=364" rel="nofollow">last week's</a> This American Life. I've lived in low income neighborhoods most of my life, and it's a question (WHY?!) that's always bothered me. I've tried breaking it down from a dozen different angles, but was never completely satisfied with what that told me. This program actually put the last pieces of the puzzle into place.Paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01695514502744440775noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6686836919298979885.post-85809490287988329642009-08-10T09:52:31.088-05:002009-08-10T09:52:31.088-05:00Conservative in a Reaganistic way and I'm none...<i>Conservative in a Reaganistic way and I'm none too proud of that. Our neighbors don't have jobs. This fact is confirmed. They are sitting on their porch day after day, getting drunk and stoned, on someone else's dime. That's where the mindfuck occurred for me: They're blasting a stereo that keeps me up all night -- but I payed for it; They're erupting into alcohol-fueled disputes multiple times a week -- but I bought their booze.</i><br /><br />I'm wanna ask a couple questions here, not because I'm preaching or teaching or anything else, but because I'm interested, and because I'm not immune to the same kinds of thoughts.<br /><br />- I'm assuming you're saying they're on the dole. Let's assume for sake of argument that their kids were fed, and they weren't screaming and blaring music. Would the fact that they were drinking or smoking bug you? What if they were working for a WPA or CCC type government funded works program?<br /><br />- Are you angrier about the fact that they're being assholes on your/our dime than you are about the $400 billion dollars a year, plus the additional costs of the specific wars we're waging, to fund our international hegemony? Or the $700 billion plus dollars we paid to bail out Wall Street? Or the renewal of the Cash for Clunkers program, where our tax dollars are funding a massive rebate for people to buy brand new cars to kill us with? And I don't mean abstractly angry about it, I mean do your neighbors gaming the system we're funding make you viscerally more frustrated, like you can feel your cortisol levels going up in a way that's different from when you read an infuriating headline?<br /><br />The last question is a puzzle to me. Intellectually, I'd rather fund programs to help my neighbors, even if some percentage of them game the system, than support any of the idiotic other things we're paying for. But when I've come face to face with the people that actually are exploiting the system (and I don't just mean welfare, I knew a guy in Ventura that would shoot himself with a nail gun a couple times a year to get a week of disability to stay home and drink), it really, really pisses me off.chigginshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03515259782735086616noreply@blogger.com