One time on peyote I wondered if Cain and Abel had been split personalities for the same guy, his parents learning that free will was not in fact real after all and that god was insane for having the first born human made broken in two, allowing in turn for all of their family’s descendants to play coy about reason’s chances when battling monsters.
If power corrupts not just some of the people and not just some of the time but irrefutably, then this society’s culture contradicts every past/present claim of egalitarianism by making constant distinctions between troublesome egos, and permissible egos. Fandom for anything is never actually an owed thing, whether it concerns a corporate brand’s loyalty or a religious fundamentalism’s zealotry or a political partisanship’s marksmanship, all are made obligatory by whichever personality cult’s centerpiece lest met with castigation. The most responsible people are too busy volunteering at food banks to have any free time to run in whatever campaign for whatever office. Longevity in DC only comes to the biggest bullies and paperweights most harmless to the system. The same can be said for religious hierarchies and corporatocracy alike. We ourselves can do what we task the government with. We the people find welfare for those who need it, we make justice when cops are too busy snorting pills.
As a guy who has been homeless more often than not throughout my adult life, I think many people would be surprised how few homeless are junkies or criminals, and how many have proactively chosen to not contribute to this society no matter what gets sacrificed. Homeless are belittled and ostracized publicly and demonized legally *because* they are not enabling plutocrats or oligarchs. My first homeless winter was in the months after my big sis was murdered. I worked, but drank a lot and just could not be around people. I woke in a parking garage one snowy morning to a uniformed patrolman pissing on me. A defining moment. You get to where you can sniff out resources anywhere, like if you need pot in a new city, go to the greyhound/peter pan bus station, etc. Meanwhile, it’s the monied who pay for unearned degrees.
There’s more homeless than we’re led to believe, even pre-pandemic. Mayors downplay their own stats from ignorance or embarrassment, local news remembering them only on turkey day. The census cannot hit moving targets, as homeless are made to be perpetually migratory, shunned endlessly from one neighborhood to the next state. The reality is that upwards mobility is confined to private schools, private clubs, and gated communities. Homeless can never pause. But to be eligible for food stamps one of the few federal guidelines all states abide by is the requirement of a physical street address, not a PO box or any other substitute. Meaning the numbers of homeless and numbers receiving SNAP are largely two different sets. During the Obama administration, federal aid to shelters was quietly but massively cut, unless meeting the provisions of assisting exclusively those fresh out of jail or fresh out of detox and in need of chemical dependency counseling. If you’re neither junkie or felon, it doesn’t matter what your story is or if you’ve kids in tow, shelters are forbidden from helping unless privately funded 100%. Such as by churches, who usually insist on a requirement of attending services even if you’ve a job to get to. Americans are made to think homeless only exist in the larger cities like New York or San Fran, when there is not a city in the USA without their presence. I’ve written at length about homelessness in the Bible Belt, one of the most taboo topics today, because each and everyone is a living example that the system does not work.
Unlike this system, I was always working homeless, never in debt and with a laughable criminal record. Despite the dramatic isolation I was not alone, as privacy is the first right to get lost. People fetish how they’d fare in the walking dead of a well-earned zombie apocalypse, while giving nonstop side-eyes to the homeless for physically and metaphysically doing it every day, surviving against what remains of the world. If you seeing this feel that you understand what they go through and could survive it yourself, consider this experiment where the only tracking is you divining your inner constitution. Turning the other cheek only works with masochists. Whatever justice we know in our lives we find for ourselves whether we throw away billions of public tax dollars to law enforcement fiefdoms or not.
Spirituality without sacrifice is hobby, and that is the extent of nationalism for the haves. Wealth has zilch loyalties. And by extension if mankind was made in the image of God, then that means God has a butt-hole. And I think we all know what comes out of it. Plausible deniability. Why is art without profit in mind illegal?
The words “rich” and “egoless” are antonyms.