Greed Observer
- Photography
-
Blog
society politics Publish: Wed, February 28 2024
I check the news only to see if the other shoe has finally dropped.
Today, I found this.
I don’t want to die out here.
I don’t want to die just another homeless guy, just another number.
– David Bentley
That’s the statement of a homeless man who lived in my community, recorded just 6 months ago. David Bentley was murdered intentionally by a man in his car who had been intentionally driving into homeless camps in the area just 2 days ago.
Like this man, I don’t want to die just another renter, just another minimum wage employee, just another taxpayer of a failed system.
I currently live in a city that is more infatuated with the side effects of the fall of society rather than with the root causes of it. We put in so much effort to ostracizing those who have fallen over the edge and yet put minimal effort into prevention. It’s evident in literally everything we do in the US, from our healthcare system to our tax system to our education system, and so on.
The American way is to complain and rage about climbing the mountain but ignore the pebble in our shoe.
So naturally, the results of the many complaining about the “problems” in our city, the city has responded by regressing policies that led us to this very place to start with, rather than addressing or even acknowledging the root causes.
The drug abuse in most cases is the result of the failed lifestyle in the first place. They are the side effect, not the cause. The lack of stock in affordable housing is one of the prime issues causing homelessness.
I can’t imagine being able to afford the landlords’ crazy year-after-year increase when you are getting constantly laid off as most companies are cutting around 10% of their workforce.
I just quit a job I had for less than 3 weeks. I was working at a local convenience store. I can tell you from firsthand experience that these “convenience” stores are bad for our communities. Never in my life had I really taken notice of the level of alcoholism in my community or gambling (“you know, for the good of our schools”). Then we have all the “food,” which most people avoid because they are buying cigarettes at over $100 a carton. Oh, did you think I was going to talk about the fentanyl issues? Nope, that really comes after all this other stuff erodes your life.
I wouldn’t don’t worry about Oregon, it’s everywhere. https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/reports/files/Harvard_JCHS_Americas_Rental_Housing_2024.pdf
This is the real 90-day fentanyl crisis. Don’t give me this bullshit about how this drug is solely responsible for everything wrong I’m seeing about my city day in and day out. Measure 110 was never about drug abuse; it was about policy and systemic abuse. These motherfuckers never once attempted to address that part of this broken-ass system, which is the reason why people voted this shit in the first place. The drug rehabs are just a bonus, not the objective. Measure 110 was about the snowball effect this shit has on your whole society.
We must help these people or be honestly the hypocrites we are.
I guess they probably will as soon as these Muslims stop beating their wives for not covering their face or these Jews stop bombing children because they are brown.
When you tamper with the inner fabric
Of people’s lives
Expect there to be unsettled scores
To equalize
You build a city on feeble lies
Then cry when the ground opens up wide
And swallows your highrise
You live ignorant but expect to die wise
becoming sencier in your last breath of air
And nobody knows where you’re going from here
But you can’t handle change
So it’s something you fear
Release everything that you held dear
Like your car, jewelry, your cash and your career
Don’t forget all of that time you couldn’t spare
To sit down and lend your three children an ear
– Huevos with Jeff and Rani by Prefuse 73