Valentine, I’d like to point you over to the Israel thread as exhibit A of “Why no one will think less of you for not talking to Dawn Falcon. Seriously.”
Really? Ok, sorry about this. Thanks for the tip.
Yeah. Just don’t engage when the postings get dumb. If a child plays too rough it is best to tell them they are being mean and you don’t want to play any more. Try the same with the trolls.
What? No, no.
We’re saying that you should only try to engage on a reasoned basis with people with whom it’s actually possible to do so (so not Brett, Andy Bates, Dawn Falcon, Janster, or newbrof) and, for those people with whom it is not possible to engage in reasoned discourse, you should simply troll in the most hilarious way possible.
Fixed that for you.
There can be no dissent permitted!
Dawn Falcon has nothing to do on weekends and grows more bitter then, it would seem.
Fantastic article about one of the OWSers in particular, and the rapid failing of our institutions in general. Very worth reading. George Packer writes good.
Raife
1989
Here’s kind of an amusing video of how protesters at Occupy Melbourne dealt with police when they came to clear out their tents.
Lovely New Yorker article, charmtrap, thanks for sharing.
Queeg
1991
Very well-written New Yorker article, as usual. But I have to ask:
The central character is a guy who attended community college but dropped out. He eventually “became something of a hermit, with just a few friends.” We worked as a freelancer but developed no contacts for sources of work. He could have worked as a barista but “didn’t think he was capable of chatting with customers all day.”
How exactly is his story an example of the failure of society? Or the fault of the system or the banks or the 1 percent? He’s a guy with limited education, a narrow set of skills and an antisocial streak.
None of that makes him a bad person, of course. But nor does it make him a victim of economic injustice.
Well, some societies take care of people like that. They provide retraining or unemployment benefits or an employment service that helps match that narrow set of skills with potential employers somewhere who could use them. And they obtain the resources to do these things by taxing those who benefit most from the status quo.
That this guy isn’t a millionaire is unsurprising. But that he ends up homeless and hopeless while the architects of the financial crash walk away unscathed? That’s a product of decisions made by the political class. That isn’t just the “inevitable way of the world”. Whether or not it’s an injustice depends on your own sense of what justice is, I guess. But there are plenty of countries that have chosen to place a higher priority on economic fairness where this man would be far, far better off.
Queeg
1993
We already do exactly that. There’s nothing in the article to suggest this guy ever even asked for any help.
I’m unsure where you live, but where I live we absolutely do not take care of them. Heaven forbid they have worse problems than this guy.
Saying from my grandmother’s generation (born late 1800s): “There but for the grace of god, go I”.
Well, ok, rich parents help too.
Scuzz
1995
Short of society just giving everyone money so they don’t have to work what do you suggest? Or is that what you suggest? Not everyone gets to do their dream job or even work in their dream field. Most people make do with what they can find.
My city has several programs for the homeless. They have places available for them to stay and get fed. However one of the problems (according to many who deal with these people) is that they don’t want the limitations. They want the freedom. They prefer being free to live in a cardboard box under a freeway than in a controlled environment featuring warm food and a bed.
Scuzz, I realize this is your ass talking, but try to calm down. Homeless people do not “want the freedom”; you’re mistaking them for beatniks. Many homeless suffer from mental issues and can’t afford to get treatment, for example, or they live in areas where the treatment centres are overwhelmed. Many homeless shelters are temporary, not permanent, solutions, and might be overwhelmed with demand as well. Many homeless have no social net at all - no friends or family for support or assistance - and have no way of finding out about treatment and programs available in their areas.
You’re reducing a serious, complex issue to something idiotically reductive.
Oh no, I absolutely don’t suggest just give people money. Our city is doing much worse on the homeless. Some of the rules on existing shelter’s are religious (yep deep south), some are drugs and behavior rules. Where we break down worse here is in mental health.
The guy in the story doesn’t seem totally mentally healthy, but at least mostly functional. Help in those areas, usually in school - as they do in richer schools here btw - social coaching probably would have increased his chances in society greatly. How about once he became jobless, having one of the benefits be classes in networking in his case? Using just him as the example. I don’t believe in giving people money, and expecting it to solve their problems. I do think helping them identify their problems and giving them the tools to help themselves is a better approach.
Going back to most of the chronically homeless here, most can’t stand the shelter rules since they can’t engage in their only known coping mechanisms for their mental health issues. And I’m no idealist, the vast majority of the time that means they are self-medicating very inappropriately. Even when it is not, often the behaviors are very difficult to handle in crowded conditions. The shelter’s can’t handle them really, and the rules are often to force the disruptive element out. We badly need but do not have, long-term, non-naive treatment programs for people with chronic mental health and addiction problems. Handing the guy on the street 10 bucks, or worse 400 for rent is an utter disaster without the underlying problem that put them there addressed.
We’re closing facilities here tho very rapidly under budget cuts. Last I checked that trend was nationwide. Volunteered at a local shelter recently?
I agree that the article doesn’t seem to present an example of our social structure failing in general. It looks like this guy was something of a loner, and kept to himself to an extreme. Even when he got to OWS, he still relied on himself, instead of asking for help or becoming part of a community. It took him hitting rock bottom to realize that he could reach out and rely on others and participate in the world around him.
This seems like a personal failing of his own, not a failing of the social structure in general. Maybe if he had reached out sooner, he would have been able to find a new job or some support, instead of just finding a new sleeping bag in the rain.
Scuzz
1999
So what do you suggest? Lock them all up for their “own protection”. Drug them all into compliance. Let’s here some ideas.
Many homeless prefer that to being in controlled conditions, such as no drugs, no booze, time limits etc. Sure they may be nuts, but in America that is not against the law.
Who are these many? If you mean the “many” who work aggressively to undercut social services, particularly for the mentally ill, in service of waging war on any aspect of the safety net that doesn’t have strong lobby then you’ve given an exact quote. I’d be interested in seeing what kind of people advance this hobo-American dream rationale for any substantive portion of the homeless or near-homeless.
