The price of a 55 gallon of oil has gone up to above $90.00 which equates to over $3.00 a gallon. Yes it hurts us all but the poor is the first to feel the pinch the most. Many of them are already having to make choices between paying the rent, buying food or medical care. Now they have the added burden of putting more money into gas just to get less. Which means that many of them will not be able to get to work, medical appointments, get to the grocery store or take care of other business that is necessary to their survival all because it takes 15 or 20 dollars to put 5 gallons of gas in their car. How many of the poor's vehicle get 20 MPG if they can't afford a tune up or essential repairs their vehicle is probably getting much less mileage than what it should be. How many of us are checking on or assisting an infirmed or ailing relative that does not live with us. If the poor are doing the same and cannot put gas in their car that means that their relative is now in jeopardy and may end up in a nursing home, Homeless or worse dead.
Those high in our government do not have a clue about the reality of economic disparity in our country they have committees of people whose job it is to feed them information on the state of their constituents. They never get a true picture because politics and personal prejudice or agendas color the reality.
Take Katrina for example every one was told to evacuate and the assumption was that every one could do so. You just gather your family put them in the SUV and get the hell out. But no consideration was given to the poor who if they did have transportation it was probably unreliable, needed repair or there wasn't enough money put gas in it. What was all those other people to do that didn't have any transportation or didn't know anyone that did. There was no consideration for the poor because the people in power the ones that make the major decisions do not have a clue about the reality of the condition of the poor in our country.
If they did know the reality of how the poor has to exist would they have allowed a bill to be vetoed to provide heating oil for the poor or extend health care for children of poor people.
Our Politician and government leaders are living in a world occupied only by themselves and their peers. Their reality is not ours.
Our poor will perpetually be in distress unless we the American public stop electing these people that promise one thing and then do another when they get elected. We have become complacent and apathetic with the type of Politian we have been accepting as our leaders. Nothing will change if we continue to allow our media to use money as a benchmark for the worth of a candidate. We need to demand accountability and truth saying from those that we elect. If we do not we who are less fortunate than most will continue to suffer from lack of care by those who make the major decision in their lives.
My grandma was a full blood Seminole Native American. And she lived in Richmond Virginia, USA. The last I remember of her she was 102 and man she was a spry old lady. I remember that when ever I did something wrong she would grab a Willow wand off a tree and run me around the yard, now I'm a kid like10 or 11 and she is runnin me, I'm hawlin ass and every 5 or 6 strides I'd take I could feel that wand caressing my butt with intensity.
Thing I really hated was when she said "boy, go get me a chicken", I knew what was up then we was goin to have chicken fo dinner. I'd catch the chicken and give it to her and somewhere out of the bowels of her voluminous dress she'd whip a knife and off would go that chicken's head, now here goes the part I didn't like. "Boy go get the chicken". That chicken would be headless and runnin like all get out, slinging blood every which where. It be ziggin and zaggin and I'd be chasin the thing and finally I'd catch it after it done run out of life. I got blood splatters all over me.
She didn't have electricity and fetched her water from a well. I remember she had this big cast iron wood burnin stove and boy she could burn on that thing. She baked, fried boiled and did anything in or on that stove ya can do on a modern one. It had an oven connected to the flue and she could adjust the temperature in the oven by adjustin the flue damper.
In the community she was a sort of Medicine woman. People would come to her for their ailments, she would go out into the woods and gather herbs and stuff and hook 'em up with a cure. But she went much further than just herbs she also had some ritual stuff she would do in different circumstances when an illness or condition required more than herbs. She was well known fo her abilities, people would show up with their problems and pay her with a pig, a side of beef or even some hebs that she requested that she didn't have access to. At night those that didn't want to be seen in public seeking her services would come, people of influence and position like the Mayor, Police Chief or city Councilmen even leaders of industry. They would bring her money and favors. Ya see she also made her own corn liquor which was known to be the best in the County. So some of her visitors were not there for just a cure.
So one evening she says to me "how old are ya boy"? I said" I'm 13, mom". She says that about that time. I didn't know at the time what she was speakin of. But she told me that after dinner and not as you usually do before bed I want you to take a very through bath in the Zink tub. This was the usual way for me to bathe. She also informed me that she was going to wash it out with some special herbs before I do and after I have drawn the water for it she will also mix some other herbs in my bath water. I knew something momentous was gong to occur but I did not know what.
After I took my bath in the Zink in my bedroom I emerged into the living room and a fire was goin in the fireplace and there was a chair placed about ten feet from it and facing it. In addition she had candles burning all over the house, I didn't know she had any candles because she used oil lamps to light the house. These candles were giving all sorts of scents, none of them were unpleasant but they had a slowing down effect upon me. This slowing effect is hard to describe, it was like I was under water and moving very slowly. I addition she had taken chicken blood and drawn some sort of arcane sigils on one of the walls. She physically sat me down in the chair in front of the fireplace and started throwing herbs into the fire and instructed me to focus my attention on the fire only and to pay no attention to anything else. I did so and watched the fire dance with various colors that a fire does not normally exhibit. Shades of greens, blues from the very lightest in color to the darkest ones. All sorts of colors were represented.
Then suddenly I spied an unnatural movement in the fire as if there was some sort of living thing in it. I knew this could not be possible because what ever it was it would be burned up and consumed. But yes there is some thing in the fire and it is moving as if unknowing of the flames licking about it.
Granma's voice intruded and asked me if I see something, I replied in the affirmative. She instructed me to move closer to the fire so that I can make out what it is. She also said that it is imperative that I know exactly what I see. I moved close low and behold there was a salamander about eight inches long in the fire. Its flesh ran with a montage of bright metallic colors, it was iridescent with bright flowing, undulating and ever changing color.
She asked me for a description of what I am seeing. After my description she quickly and with movement that belies her age moved around to the front of me and slapped me real hard, she slapped me so hard that she knocked me off the chair.
Immediately she bent to one knee and grasped me in her arms and pulled me to her bosom and held me close while I sobbed.
After all was done she informed me that what I saw in the fire was my totem. The salamander will be my personal guardian. Whenever there is to be a great change in my life I will see the salamander and when this occurs I need to prepare for a momentous occurrence that is yet to come.
I have seen the metallic salamander running with colors three times in my life and three times I have experienced great upheaval, twice the upheavals were very positive but once it was very negative. I have experienced that the time span between the sightings can run between a week and three months.
On September 19th, 2007 I saw the metallic salamander again.
I'm in San Diego, I'm walkin around in town I come to this corner there is a group of obviously homeless individuals with there one liter water bottles tied to their backpacks, their mangy dogs and one or two of 'em eating out of cans. I casually walk in their direction, tryin not to be too obvious. I barely notice one old man sitting on a stoop slightly away from the group. My intention is to start a conversation and find out what services are offered to them in town and compare those services to the ones offered in Tucson Az. While acting like I am waiting fo the light to change I nod to one and he says "what's up". This is my chance an icebreaker has occurred. I am about to say something trite about surf and sand to start a conversation when something momentous occurs.
The old man on the stoop says "hey pimp", I look over at him and he moves his head to beckon me over. There is a vague hint of familiarity in his voice but it triggers nothing in my memory. I start to walk over to him and suddenly I am down wind from him and the stench form his body odor is overwhelming. Well I have smelled decaying bodies before so I can get past this. He is wearin on his shirt and pants a piece of every bit of food and drink he has probably consumed in the past ten years. His clothes are stiff from the lack of cleaning for who knows how long. His face and exposed skin is matted with dirt and scum from what seems millennia. But his eyes, those eyes (something familiar about them) are clear and bright, they are green (a piece of memory surfaces just barely out of reach) as if he is peeking out of a prison made of bone, skin, muck and yuk. "What's up pimp' he says again. I said "do I know you"? He drones on oblivious to my question, "I can see ya ain't a pimp no mo wearin them $2 jeans and PF Flyers.
Suddenly the lilt in his voice, the intonation, pronunciation and the emphasis on the first letter of the word "pimp" as that letter explodes out of his mouth dragging the rest of the word with it triggers other pieces of memory that float up to the original one, they combine illogically, rearrange themselves several times and finely settle them selves in cohesive order and they float into reach and realization stupefies me.
He was a motherfuker, that pimp was. Every time I turned around he was snatching one of my girls and had them locked up in his stable. What was his game mine was the very best crack that ya could get anywhere in the world. Once I hooked a bitch with my shit and had her totally strung out she was mine forever 'cause she couldn't get shit like I had anywhere. But he always managed to steal the cream of my crop whenever he chose. What did he have going that I didn't. They called him Sweetmeat, The Woman's Treat. His shit was tight, he had a cadre of highly dangerous and capable men and women around him that would die fo him at the slightest command. He was like the Hashhishin that would have his followers demonstrate their loyalty by committing suicide in front of the masses.
"You ain't no pimp, no mo" he said. Yeah ya right, I'm not. You ain't either obviously. He said No, I am an old decrepit, straight razor toting, spiteful shadow of myself now. I told him ya always did have a good grasp on whom ya were and where ya was at. Ya wanna know how I was able to beat ya at yo own game? Do ya wanna know, I'll tell ya religion. You had crack the very best crack that there was a highly persuasive drug once hooked. But I had invented my own religion one that I was the center of. Once you were indoctrinated and vowed yo fealty to me at that point no drug or other inducement could sway ya 'cause I had ya tightly in my grasp.
Suddenly in the middle of his talking to me he broke off and his mind when some place else, he started mumbling as if orating to a group of people, gesturing in the air. Just as suddenly after a minute of that he would pounce back into reality. He would start talking again as if there had not been an interruption taking up his conversation right after the last word he spoke.
I learned from him that after a time he realized that he was getting older and slower and his mind was getting more befuddled. He made the decision to quit the streets and marry one of his girls. Fortunately he had bankrolled a lot a money none of it in banks (he didn't believe in banks). There was some under the floor boards of his house, some in the attic, in a 10 can buried in a park and some in a box buried in the woods somewhere. All to the tune of $200,000.
His wife became very expensive she wanted and got furs, diamonds, expensive clothes but when he started buying her cars that is what broke him. Ya see he never had to worry about money before in his life he started out in the streets at age 13 and from then on he never was without plenty of money so he didn't have to learn about being frugal. What ever he wanted he bought or stole.
While he was allowing his wife to drive him to the poorhouse he was getting sick. He was a heavy drinker and his liver was going out on him. He had always been a very big man until now and diabetes had caught up with him. He also admitted to me that he didn't have much feeling in his extremities. He never in his life went to doctors, a good drink was all he thought he needed and sometimes he would take these medieval concoctions of garlic cloves, red peppers, egg yolks and of coarse liquor. He was dieing and he knew it.
Just before parting with him he said "pimp we did it, we had our time we were the cock of the roost, no one was better than us we had the money, the women, the good times we ruled the streets you and I".
I look back in time and I ask my self "how did I make it this far" how did I ever break away from all that chaotic shit? I look back at him as I am leaving his mind has gone to that other place again and I think had it not been fo time and circumstance I would also be a dead man walkin'.
So, here I am sleeping on the banks of a wash (so I think) in Tucson Az after consuming large amounts of crack and copious amounts of beer (to get to sleep). I am dreaming of my miss-adventures of the previous night of being paranoid and suspicious of every real or imagined sound that the desert produces. I see myself firing my .44 at all the miniature cops, FBI agents and other government task force members (they have all been shrunk to about two feet especially for the task) assigned to take me down. I can here my self screaming "I know you are out there I can here you skittering around trying to get in close, your not going to take me down". I can here the echoing reports of that cannon which is my .44 Magnum. I can see the five boxes of shells sitting beside me which I acquired specifically for an emergency like this. I knew this was going to go down soon because I could here them planning there strategy in low whispers under the floor of the beds of various hotels I occasionally stayed in.
Suddenly I start to waken feeling a choking sensation, I open my eyes and I am under about two feet of water. It had rained while I was asleep and washed the bank I was sleeping on with me into the wash. I struggled to rise and could not because my sheets and blanket was wrapped about my feet. I looked out of the water and there above me was a black man at my feet bending down and reaching his hand toward mine. He pulled me out of the water.
His description is worth mentioning here because it struck me that he looked older than anyone could possible look. He was about a foot and a half shorter than I was, he wore denim pants, a denim prison jacket, and floppy denim hat and had a bedroll tied with a leather strap over his shoulder. But his face is what struck me it was creviced with unmanageable age and I could not tell the color of his eyes they seem to flicker from light brown to dark black.
He waggled his finger in my face and said "I was originally told that it is your time but something just now changed it's mine". I said wait a minute and I bent down to unwrap my bed clothes from around my legs and when I finally looked up (it was only about ten seconds or less) he was gone. I mean that it was as if he had not been there. I ran up on the bank and looked all around, no body to be seen. I looked in the sand and dirt around both banks, surely anyone who had stood in the water would leave some sort of wet prints. All I found was mine.
Jump forward about two weeks,
I am sitting in a hotel with a some time crack smoking girlfriend and I am seriously stuck on stupid. We were nearing the end of two eight balls which I had rocked up in a mason jar and I am setting in this chair and cannot move. I need to go to the bathroom bad and can't. She is talking a mile a minute as she is wont to do when she is high but her voice starts to fade in to a background murmur as another voice slowly comes into the foreground in my head.
It is the voice of the old man in the wash. What is happening here? I am a prisoner in my own head. I can't move I can't shut the voice out; I can't do anything but have this running conversation with some old black haint in my head. He describes to me how I have degenerated to a crack smoking, gun toting feral predator, with food stains on my clothes that I haven't changed for a month. I counter with this and he says that, we go on for an hour or more and I can't escape the logic of his presentation. I suddenly feel naked to the world, I have been laid bare, all that I was, all that I am comes in perspective with the dreadful future that is to come, if indeed there is actually going to be a future for me. At that moment of realization, at that point of momentary clarity I realized that I needed to do some thing different or I would be lost. My mind was already going; I knew that I was not what I was.
Suddenly the ability to move came back to me as if some invisible straps were released and I stood up. She asked me what I am doing I informed her "I have got to get this monkey off my back, what do you want to do". She replied "I want to get another eight ball". I walked out of the hotel and never saw her again.
I found a pay phone and called a very, very close friend of mine and told her my predicament and all that I have gone through and that I have no Idea how to get out of this. She made all the preliminary decisions for me until I was able to do them myself. She took me to the Primavera Shelter for men from which I went to the Veteran's Administration Substance Abuse Treatment Unit as soon as they had a slot open for me.
Now I was on my way back again.
You know, when I started working in the streets I was not especially vicious, brutal or predatory. I was your normal everyday Joe Blow heir to bouts of anger accompanied by the usual cussing, frowning and mumbling under the breath but nothing particularly violent. So one of my first lessons that I learned was that everyone I dealt with from those that were successful to those that were struggling to rise in the field of crime were particularly volatile. They were all very dangerous feral creatures of the asphalt jungle. The conditions remind me of a saying that my street mentor use to tell me.
The beast feeds where it can
And I was named a beast
At every feast before I was
Ever named a man
He would often say it to me when he would find me being compassionate, forgiving and kind to others. "You'll never make it like that" he would tell me. You will always be a low level street urchin if you don't learn to toughen up. At some point I did acquire the understanding that though all the street people were dangerous the most successful ones were the most dangerous. I realized a correlation between success and volatility.
I got tired of making the small change while others were making the bucks. I also got tired of folks shitting on me, giving me the left over's, treating me like what I was a low level street urchin. I started developing the qualities that I recognized that was necessary for success. It wasn't easy to burn and cauterize the good guy in me. I would slap around the one female that I had on the streets hoeing for me (in the street vernacular she would be called a two-bit hoe in that she didn't charge very much) because she didn't bring much money back. At first I would slap her pulling my slap, then I would have recriminations and seeing her crying, flinching from my movements and red from the blows I would want to take it back. But I couldn't if I was to be successful.
Slowly and over a period of time I became more predatory but then something peculiar would start to occur. Something that I recognized when ever it happened. When ever I got into a situation where my money, status or welfare in any way was jeopardized some where in my head a sinister voice would chime in and say something like beat that bitch, shoot that motherfucker, show him who he is messing with or some such.
Over time I gave it a name "My Beast". It was my guardian, when ever I became ladi da like every thing was cool and I consciously was not particularly aware of changing situations around me and something would occur that I was oblivious off that could jeopardize my existence My Beast would speak up and spur me into action and most of the time that action was violent.
So I decided to get clean (you can read about that in my first two Blogs) I'm gonna straighten out my life, go mainstream and live happily ever after. Not!!
Ya' see it wasn't that easy is any goddamn thing ever? It was a fuggin chore it was the first hardest thing I ever had to deal with in my life. Ever!! Not only was I a predator with all the appropriate predatory instincts (somewhere in one of those first two blogs I give you more detail on this) I was a gaddamn drug addict to boot.
Now My Beast is also My Addict, combined it is an extremely difficult facet of my mind to ignore. Well, I did get clean and have stayed so for these 11 or 12 years. But I am going to tell the real truth my beast/addict is still with me. I am mainstream now I help provide services to the homeless through the Primavera Foundation in Tucson Arizona and my beast to this day while I am going through my normal work day will rise and suggest actions to supplement my income and sexual adventurism based upon the people and situations over which I have control. I always say no. But it tries me often and it uses pseudo logic in attempts to sway me. I have to be on it 24/7 there is no time that I can let down my guard. I have to be aware at all times of my motivations and intentions to continue in this life style that I have chosen..
Ok, it sounds like I am some sort of paranoid schizophrenic but I believe we all have a voice that either compliments or works against us. Some of us have more than one voice and we always, always have a choice between yes and no. Even in situations in which we are in that we think we don't have a choice we always have a choice. We can even make a choice by not making a choice. I have chosen right over wrong and though my beast may push and prod me I have continued to hold to the coarse. I will not succumb to the beast within.
I entered the Veteran's Administration Substance Abuse Treatment Unit and was treated extremely well by all the staff and visiting veterans. I was surprised by the camaraderie of veteran's, I surely expected to be treated as some sort of pariah but this never occurred.
The VA experience was a time of contemplation and soul searching for me. I knew I was a predator every time I saw a new person I went through that mental assessing process in which in which that person would be evaluated for their potential use for me. When I would encounter a particularly attractive female I would asses her personalities and weaknesses what approach I would take to break her down to satisfy my financial needs. Women were just a tool to be exploited and manipulated.
When I graduated form the VA program I chose Primavera's Five Points Transitional Housing program as my net stop on my road to success. While there at five Points I met a very dear lady that ran the program that was instrumental in my success, to this day I like to call her my friend in which I hope that it is mutually so.
While at Five Points I earnestly started on my personal evolvement process.
I read many PMA (Positive Mental Attitude) books, CDs and courses in order to facilitate the process of reintegration back into mainstream society. I extracted from this book or that course and some info from CDs and came up with my own personal eight steps to success which I have used ever since for re-inventing myself. The one book that assisted me most in this process of adapting my personality to a level of acceptability by society was a book written in 1926 called The Secret of the Ages by Robert Collier. This book had a tremendous effect on my progress. I first focused my transformation on my attitudes toward women and forced myself into meaningful, productive and sometime trite general conversations with them, I formed friendships and bonds all the while forging my self into a person that could interact with a women without attempting to figure out how I could use her. Finally when this effort started to work it spilled over into my dealings with all people.
I next focused my eight steps to success and my efforts on my anger issues. I was quick to anger and I could easily strike out with physical violence from hardly any provocation. I bought myself a Nintendo and every day after I returned from work I would mentally place the faces of those that I perceived (often my perception was wrong) to have angered me in a violent game and shoot them, blow them up or beat them up until the negative energies disappeared. Sometimes when I felt particularly hateful toward an individual I would write on a sheet of paper as if writing to that individual all my hateful thoughts that I harbored toward him. I would then after expending all that bile into the writing process I would then burn the sheet of paper. These processes helped me considerably in my efforts to control my anger.
All these personal efforts my eight steps to success, the tricks that I used on my mind to change my personality all helped and contributed to the person that I am now. Now don't get me wrong my beast still resides within me, it still wants to abuse, use and throttle people but I am always in control and the answer is always NO. You see I am a recovering crack addict and I have to be on guard from my motives, environmental influences and what other negatives that might trigger my beast/addict. I have to be on it 24/7 I can never let down my guard be cause at any point I could use any excuse to relapse. Yes, it is work it is a lot of work but I did this to myself and this is the price I have to pay.
I stayed at Five Points for over a year concentrating on my foundation I remained celibate (so that I don't have to take on any one else's problems while working on my own) and progressed greatly. I don't even think that anyone there noticed what I was going through but the nature of the place means that everyone was probably combing through their own skeletons.
At some point in my stay at Five Points that dear lady that I informed you that ran the program hired me to be the resident manager of the Alamo a resident program for men next door to Five Points. What do you know I am back again?
Admittedly I had to skip probably some important aspects of my life but I didn't want to make a book out of this thing. Those that really know me are probably aghast at some of my omissions but you got to pick and choose.
I don't know if anyone has read this and it probably doesn't make any difference if any one has or not. For me this writing is closure to a life that probably should not exist today but I believe I am a better person for trying and of late I believe there are some people that are better off by my presence in their life.
If any one has read this I would appreciate if you click on "Comment" below and add your thoughts whether positive or negative all will be accepted and appreciated.
Corruption in public housing
Public housing in our country is a disaster. Corruption abounds with bribes, prejudice and other inequities. Many of these housing authorities have their own investigative units that turn a blind eye to the injustices that go on right under their noses.
We all know that the cost of housing has gone well beyond what many poor people can afford to pay. How many of you are struggling to pay the rent or the mortgage while still having to factor in health care or even food.
Look at New Orleans tearing down perfectly suitable public housing while many, many people that were left homeless because the preventable floods from Katrina, many of them men, women and children. After Katrina the number of the Homeless doubled.
Watch an eyewitness report on what the New Orleans Housing Authority did to keep the poor people from coming back to the city.
Ok, some of that might seem like conjecture and personal opinion to you. How about a investigative exposés on public housing in Miami.
Now that was only the tip of the iceburg and it was not complete. There are 11 videos in this series and if you want to watch the rest of them go here:
If that link didn't work try this URL:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/expose/episode206/watch.html
Read "Alley Cat Ways " blog on corruption in Chicago's Section 8 Program. He was a team leader of a group of 8 to 12 housing specialists. He will tell you from his own position as a insider about the corruption that he saw.
The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) is the largest public housing authority in the United States. It owns and operates approximately 181,000 apartments in 346 developments throughout the five boroughs, providing public housing to over 600,000 low-income residents, including an estimated 150,000 doubled up persons. In addition, NYCHA administers a federal Section 8 housing program, providing rent subsidies for approximately 77,000 families living in apartments owned by 25,343 private owners. It is the largest housing authority in the US.
Tenant.net the public watch dog of NYCHA (New York City Housing Authority) has been documenting bribery, gender based harassment and other very serious issues since the 80s.
Their site is chock full of allegations such as $50,000,000 in missing security contracts, wide scale bribery going on in the Inspector General/Department of Investigations offices, inspector bribery rackets and corruption on the executive level of NYCHA.
Oakland, Dallas and many, many other cities are fraught with scandal that goes to the very core of the evil that our federal, state and city governments perpetuate on our disenfranchised, poor and underemployed peoples.
I have already said in a previous blog that housing plus supportive services is the key to getting people of the streets. But how are we to do that when our so called public servants cannot be trusted.
I have already stated in my blog ">Truth and Deception Final Cut and I quote " In reality our government cannot do anything without our permission remember we also give our permission by keeping quiet. When are we going to wake up to the fact that we are the true power in this country. There is power in numbers. When you get enough people of the same mind focused on one point something is going to change dramatically. There has been some talk in the media about "The Power of one" which is actually bullshit it is the power of the many that brings about change.
It is our responsibility to unite with our peers and agitate for change write our congressmen, call the media and have press conferences. Enlist more and more peoples into our effort to form our government into our own image. This can be done but unfortunately you have to stop watching COPS, CSI, playing with your Blackberries, text messaging and so forth. Use that technology that you have access to unite with your countrymen for common cause."
It is time to wake up and unite. If you see a thing that is wrong and you do nothing about then you give it permission to occur.
I was trolling the internet the other day for a specific piece of information on Homelessness when I came across this person's blog on Homelessness:
http://heidiharris.com/columns.html
I found her blog to be not only offensive but full of inaccurate and biased drivel. She speaks from the view point of a person that is speaking from opinion and not from substantiated fact. It is obvious that she did not at any point seek out any information on the subject that she wrote on. She fed directly into the stereotypical images of the Homeless that pervade our society.
You would think that a person that is responsible for giving out information (she is a talk show host in Las Vegas Nevada) would attempt even meagerly to seek out sources of correct information.
Just is just a blatant example of how the public mind set feeds on its self. It has been said that once a person comes in contact with a lie ignores it, then he tolerates and eventually through constant repetition of the lie he then accepts it.
This is where you and I come in. You would not be a friend of mind if you didn't think that the Homeless condition wasn't a worth while cause. The only way that the condition will change for the better is not through legislation but through our consistent and steady lobbying of our fellow citizens. Regardless of what laws Congress passes/fails to pass or Bush fails to sign that could have a positive effect on Homelessness we if we choose can be the final arbiter.
There is much spoken about the "power of one" but I think that is done to distract us from where the power actually lies. The actual power is in the multitudes. If a large number of people lobby to effect enough other people those people of a changed mind when aimed and focused on one point can change the mind of the Congress and even the President of the United States. This I would call public opinion in action.
So, if you and I are of one mind on the subject of Homelessness we can have a great effect by giving the facts to our friends and neighbors. We can gather people together and research Homelessness in our city. What is available, who are the providers, what is the demographics of theHomeless. How can we help, what can we do to alleviate the situation.
If you and I advocate with our neighbors our friends, people we meet in the stores and libraries and then bring those people into the fold and when we have enough we can then turn our collective might on the powers that be. Not only then will we effect their mind and decisions we will also effect the minds and verbage of those that spout biases, prejudice and unsubstantiated pseudo fact about the Homeless condition.
I hate the word conspiracy because in the idiom of our culture it has taken on the context of crazies predicting weird things and strange happenings. But conspiracy best describes why I believe that the state of our country has gotten so that the poor, underemployed, disenfranchised and Homeless part of our population are being given little consideration from our government and generally our populace.
You have already read in the first blog Truth and Deception about how the media desynthesizes us from all the violence and the real wrongs that are perpetuated on the less fortunates of the world. You have also read in the second blog Truth and Deception Part 2 how our government uses lies, deceptions and even bodily harm on the citizens of whom they are suppose to be looking out for their welfare to further their own depraved and selfish agendas.
The conspiracy I was speaking of earlier is one of which I believe after all my reading, watching videos and talking to people is being contrived by our government to control and manipulate us into not caring about what they are doing to not only our peoples but also the peoples of the world.
I will have to admit that initially I had a lot of inner resistance to believing that our government the bastion of "democracy" in the world, the upholder of all that is right in the form of government is not what we think they are. I mean it was extremely difficult for me to see, believe and accept the raw facts that was right in front of my face.
I am not only ashamed of our government I am also ashamed of we the American public that we have allowed our government to deteriorate to such a state. Everytime I see in the news media that we are going into another country to do whatever I'm thinking what disasters are they cooking up now. We are the one that have allowed this to occur. We have sat back complacently and allowed our President to veto a bill that would help poor children in our country to have extended health care, we have also allowed him to veto a bill that whould assist poor peoples in getting sufficient oil to heat their homes in the winter. That is not the worst we have also given him a blank check to invade a sovereign country under false pretences and totally disrupt their lives.
We our the power, no our government does not want us to believe that. They want you and I to think that they are the power. Which is the reason that they have pushed that our government is a "Democracy" and not the Constitutional Republic that the creators of this country intended. Remember that in part 2 I informed you that a "Democracy" allows the majority to take advantage of the minority and a Constitutional Republic does not. Google it and see for your self and while you are there google which form of government the forebears of the country intended for it to be.
In reality our government cannot do anything without our permission remember we also give our permission by keeping quiet. When are we going to wake up to the fact that we are the true power in this country. There is power in numbers. When you get enough people of the same mind focused on one point something is going to change dramatically. There has been some talk in the media about "The Power of one" which is actually bullshit it is the power of the many that brings about change.
It is our responsibility to unite with our peers and agitate for change write our congressmen, call the media and have press conferences. Enlist more and more peoples into our effort to form our government into our own image. This can be done but unfortunately you have to stop watching COPS, CSI, playing with your Blackberries, text messaging and so forth. Use that technology that you have access to unite with your countrymen for common cause.
Are you not tired of seeing people sleeping in the parks, card board boxes and in drainage ditches. Can you continue to stand back and watch our government go into another country and raise up and arm another dictator to turn around a few years later under false pretences and depose of him and leave his country in shambles. Will we just watch complacently as our government spends millions upon millions of dollars on their phony war when we have people right here in the United States of America whose lives can be greatly benefited by a influx of monies and infrastructure. Is this what we are going to continue to allow.
It is time to stand up and be counted, now is the time. The problem is that if we don't stand up and stand for what is right we are heading for a state that will be totally run by the government in which the citizens will have no say what so ever. Are you ready for that?
In the first part of "Truth and Deception" we showed you how the media distorts the news and present a biased view of it based on their own needs rather than our need to see the news as it really is.
Part two will demonstrate to you how the government also lies to us and feeds us their twisted, biased and sometimes fabricated rendition of events in the world.
Have you noticed that there has been a lot of tossing about of the word democracy by the administration? We hear about how they want to democratize the East, how Muslim extremists are a threat to democracy and how democracy this and democracy that.
Do we know what a democracy is? Well I am not going to give you the definition, you can look that up your self. But I will touch on one aspect of a democracy that we need to focus on in this blog and that is that in a democracy a major principle is that the majority rules. In a democracy a minority can suffer from the tyranny of the majority.
We are not living in a democracy because the forefathers of this country that is your forefathers designed this country to be a constitutional republic in which one aspect of it is that the will of the majority is tempered by protection for individual rights so that no individual group has absolute power. The individual protections under our government is called The Bill of Rights. This is the type of government that used in the United States of America. Think I don't know what I am talking about , look it up and be educated. The Federal government has been pushing the democracy thing because they want to have absolute power over all decisions. You have seen and heard Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld making up shit on the fly. You have seen them trying to squeeze Congress out of the decision making process. They have been usurping powers that they don't really have illegally firing Attorneys Generals across the nation to replace them with cronies and others they are in bed with. All the time re-educating us on what type of government we have in preparation for their complete domination of all policy and decision making processes. Though you may not have known about the constitutional republic thing you do know though you may have attempted to ignore it, sweep it under the rug or just hope that shit will straighten itself out.
Look at this and listen and view well:
That didn't get ya did it maybe this one will:
Getting the idea, not yet? Listen to a discussion on the hill about a bill pay attention you will hear the words Constitutional Republc but most important is in what context it is used.
So therefore we are not a democracy we are instead constitutional republic this is not what the federal government want you to believe nor does the media because they are in bed with the feds. Our freedoms are being eroded when people for any reason do not have the right of habeas corpus. But you have seen the feds deny it to the so called "war on terror" detainees. Many of these peoples that have not been proven to be guilty of anything.
Ok you are not yet convinced look at this list of atrocities and tell me that our government is not corrupt, that they will not do anything to further their own purposes even to the point of sacrificing any of us.
1932 The Tuskegee Syphilis Study begins. 200 black men diagnosed with syphilis are never told of their illness, are denied treatment, and instead are used as human guinea pigs in order to follow the progression and symptoms of the disease. They all subsequently die from syphilis, their families never told that they could have been treated.
1935 The Pellagra Incident. After millions of individuals die from Pellagra over a span of two decades, the U.S. Public Health Service finally acts to stem the disease. The director of the agency admits it had known for at least 20 years that Pellagra is caused by a niacin deficiency but failed to act since most of the deaths occured within poverty-striken black populations.
1940 Four hundred prisoners in Chicago are infected with Malaria in order to study the effects of new and experimental drugs to
combat the disease. Nazi doctors later on trial at Nuremberg cite this American study to defend their own actions during the Holocaust.
1942 Chemical Warfare Services begins mustard gas experiments on approximately 4,000 servicemen. The experiments continue until 1945 and made use of Seventh Day Adventists who chose to become human guinea pigs rather than serve on active duty.
1943 In response to Japan's full-scale germ warfare program, the U.S. begins research on biological weapons at Fort Detrick, MD.
1944 U.S. Navy uses human subjects to test gas masks and clothing. Individuals were locked in a gas chamber and exposed to mustard gas and lewisite.
1945 Project Paperclip is initiated. The U.S. State Department, Army intelligence, and the CIA recruit Nazi scientists and offer them immunity and secret identities in exchange for work on top secret government projects in the United States.
1945 "Program F" is implemented by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). This is the most extensive U.S. study of the health effects of fluoride, which was the key chemical component in atomic bomb production. One of the most toxic chemicals known to man, fluoride, it is found, causes marked adverse effects to the central nervous system but much of the information is squelched in the name of national security because of fear that lawsuits would undermine full-scale production of atomic bombs.
1946 Patients in VA hospitals are used as guinea pigs for medical experiments. In order to allay suspicions, the order is given to change the word "experiments" to "investigations" or "observations" whenever reporting a medical study performed in one of the nation's veteran's hospitals.
1947 Colonel E.E. Kirkpatrick of the U.S. Atomic Energy Comission issues a secret document (Document 07075001, January 8, 1947) stating that the agency will begin administering intravenous doses of radioactive substances to human subjects.
1947 The CIA begins its study of LSD as a potential weapon for use by American intelligence. Human subjects (both civilian and military) are used with and without their knowledge.
1950 Department of Defense begins plans to detonate nuclear weapons in desert areas and monitor downwind residents for medical problems and mortality rates.
1950 I n an experiment to determine how susceptible an American city would be to biological attack, the U.S. Navy sprays a cloud of bacteria from ships over San Franciso. Monitoring devices are situated throughout the city in order to test the extent of infection. Many residents become ill with pneumonia-like symptoms.
1951 Department of Defense begins open air tests using disease-producing bacteria and viruses. Tests last through 1969 and there is concern that people in the surrounding areas have been exposed.
1953 U.S. military releases clouds of zinc cadmium sulfide gas over Winnipeg, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Fort Wayne, the Monocacy River Valley in Maryland, and Leesburg, Virginia. Their intent is to determine how efficiently they could disperse chemical agents.
1953 Joint Army-Navy-CIA experiments are conducted in which tens of thousands of people in New York and San Francisco are exposed to the airborne germs Serratia marcescens and Bacillus glogigii.
1953 CIA initiates Project MKULTRA. This is an eleven year research program designed to produce and test drugs and biological agents that would be used for mind control and behavior modification. Six of the subprojects involved testing the agents on unwitting human beings.
1955 The CIA, in an experiment to test its ability to infect human populations with biological agents, releases a bacteria withdrawn from the Army's biological warfare arsenal over Tampa Bay, Fl.
1955 Army Chemical Corps continues LSD research, studying its potential use as a chemical incapacitating agent. More than 1,000 Americans participate in the tests, which continue until 1958.
1956 U.S. military releases mosquitoes infected with Yellow Fever over Savannah, Ga and Avon Park, Fl. Following each test, Army agents posing as public health officials test victims for effects.
1958 LSD is tested on 95 volunteers at the Army's Chemical Warfare Laboratories for its effect on intelligence.
1960 The Army Assistant Chief-of-Staff for Intelligence (ACSI) authorizes field testing of LSD in Europe and the Far East. Testing of the european population is code named Project THIRD CHANCE; testing of the Asian population is code named Project DERBY HAT.
1965 Project CIA and Department of Defense begin Project MKSEARCH, a program to develop a capability to manipulate human behavior through the use of mind-altering drugs.
1965 Prisoners at the Holmesburg State Prison in Philadelphia are subjected to dioxin, the highly toxic chemical component of Agent Orange used in Viet Nam. The men are later studied for development of cancer, which indicates that Agent Orange had been a suspected carcinogen all along.
1966 CIA initiates Project MKOFTEN, a program to test the toxicological effects of certain drugs on humans and animals.
1966 U.S. Army dispenses Bacillus subtilis variant niger throughout the New York City subway system. More than a million civilians are exposed when army scientists drop lightbulbs filled with the bacteria onto ventilation grates.
1967 CIA and Department of Defense implement Project MKNAOMI, successor to MKULTRA and designed to maintain, stockpile and test biological and chemical weapons.
I have not given the complete list but it goes on and on. These are examples of what our government is capable of. But I am not done with you yet not by a long shot.
All the afore mentioned incidences of the governments abuses and atrocities of our citizenry were in the past. You say none of this can happen today. Is that what you are saying? Look at what has been perpetuated on our Gulf war veterans. This is an atrocity that has perpetuated by the bastards in our government. By those that don't give a damn for those that they are suppose to be looking out for the welfare of.
Can you see now the lies and deceptions of our government. Maybe you need one more of this depleted uranium bullshit.
If you read Just Because you Don't See Chains Doesn't Mean There isn't Any you have already been inundated with the possible deceptions and contrivances of our government. Despite all the eyewitness reports of explosions going off within the buildings and also the testimonies of explosive experts in the movie Zeitgeist that you saw in part 1 you are still not convinced. Ok, let me give you a template of something that we know for sure was planned. Operation Nothwoods or Northwoods was a 1962 plan by the US Department of defense to stage acts of simulated or real terroism on US Soil and against US interests and then put the blame of these acts on Cuba, so as to generate U.S. public support for military action against the Cuban government of Fidel castro.
As part of the U.S. government's Operation Mongoose anti-Castro initiative, the plan, which was not implemented, called for various false flag actions, including simulated or real state sponsored acts of terriorism (such as hijacked planes) on U.S. and Cuban soil. The plan was proposed by senior U.S. Department of Defense leaders, including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Lyman Louis Lemnitzer.
Did any of that sound familiar? Google it, look up everything I have said here you will find that it is all true. The people who run our government from the top down to the bottom are all bastards of the worst sort.
The next and final installment will bring it all together. You will then see why government and the media will not help the impoverished, Homeless or the indiginet. You will find out why they want to keep them in their condition and also why it benefits them.
We noticed that the media never really showed the realities of homelessness as they really are. When ever you saw on the tube videos of a homeless camps they were either being bulldozed by the city or they were pictured as a blight on a particular neighborhood. But you never saw the very clean and and ordered camps that exist.
Whenever you saw homeless people in the news all you ever saw was folks with backpacks, one liter bottles full of water hanging from them and they always are wering tacky clothing. The other aspect you saw were them panhandeling on the coners. You never see the well dressed individuals that you could not tell from any one else you saw on the streets of America nor have you seen the families that use to be your next door neighbors struggling to get back into the mainstream.
Look at the example of Katrina in that even the government did not know that the poor didn't have the means of the middle class to jump up and leave before the storm hit.
They did not know because the media and other entities do not portray their conditions as they are. The reason why they don't is because the poor and the downtrodden don't have money to spend nor do they have political power. They are therefore minimalized because they are not news that sell.
Because of the minimalization of the poor, homeless and downtrodden in our society the public does not perceive them as worth while beings and this is the reason why homeless people across the nation are being brutalized and killed.
We at the Center for Creative Chaos are out to change to change the stereotypical images of a large group of underserved people. People just like you and me that need to have a more just and equal representaion in our society. Thank you for visiting our site and if you are a member thank you for joining the under served of our society will thank you also.
THIS BLOG WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED TO MY OTHER SITE AT:
myspace.com/homelessadvocate
I was in a store in down town Tucson Arizona today getting myself a pack of cigarettes. The guy staggers by the store trips on his own feet and falls down. He is obviously Homeless . He is wearing a backpack slung over one shoulder with a bedroll tied to the bottom and a one liter water bottle tied to the bedroll with a piece of cord.
This guy in the store had just made his purchase and was walking out of the store and on the way out he says "them goddamn fukin Homeless folks there all a bunch of drunks and drug addicts". Well I'm in no mood to get into confrontation today so I let the guy go.
I went out side and knelt down on one knee next to the fallen fellow and I asked him is he alright. He states that he is alright but then I notice something about him. He is wearing a combination of civilian and military clothes and on his military shirt he has pinned all these metals. So I ask him where id he get these metals? He tells me he spent two tours in Iraq and he received them for his bravery and valor. I then asked him how did he get into this condition of being Homeless and drunk. He says that the alcohol is the only thing that takes the pain away and if he gets drunk he won't have the reoccurring nightmares.
I asked him having been in the military and served during wartime why isn't the military taking care of him (I already knew the answer but I had to hear it from the horses mouth). He said that he has PTSD and at first the military health care system acted like they were going to take care of him but then his superior officers accused him of being a slacker and for the sake of the morale of his company and the rest of the military they kicked him out. He said that drinking was the only way he can keep from killing himself and that killing himself would be a sin.
To make a much longer story short I put him in touch with a military support group that will help him.
The point I want to make here is let us say that you are Homeless and mainstream society makes it a point that you know that they look down on you in a most disparaging way what means of surcease from the sorrow of it would you seek out to give you at least a meager break. Suppose you wanted to escape from the whole scene at least for a short period of time what avenue is available to you? Drugs and alcohol is the answer.
Yes there are a lot of Homeless individuals that started out addicts and plummeted because of the addiction into Homelessness . But you and I contribute to the number of addicted Homeless people because of our apathy toward them. Because of the way that we treat them we drive even those that were not addicts before they became Homeless into addiction.
There are an estimated 200,000 Homeless vets and an estimated ¾ of a million combined Homeless people in 2007. many, many of them are turning to addiction because of our and our governments lack of care.
The ex soldier that I just told you about is not an exception to the rule. The military with it's callous and militaristic thinking processing are kicking soldiers out of the military left and right they have created an atmosphere in which no soldier that wants to make a career out of the military will admit that they are having problems. You then wonder why he hear of atrocities such as soldiers killing civilians that are not enemy combatants?
Our system is fuked up I mean seriously fuked up. When we allow any person man or woman who has lost limbs and possibly their own sanity to protect us to end up on the streets eating out of dumpsters and sleeping in the alleys then we have really, really screwed up. Colonel Davud Hunt, US Army (Ret) states that "A nation that does not care for its veterans does not deserve them".
It is not just the Veterans any time we allow anyone to end up on our streets groveling for a mere existence is a crime.
I say that we have got to change the public mind about this very bad problem. We need to find out about Homelessness in out towns, where are the shelters, feeding kitchens, what are the needs. We need to help fulfill those needs. We also need to form public interest groups and lobby our congressmen, hold news conferences, make public service announcements. We need to do what ever we need to do to alleviate the situation in our cities and towns with our Homeless .