FROM THE STREET
By Charles Springer
This and many other proverbs I have heard, watched and observed as life delivers them upon individuals, entities and society as a whole.
Observation is one of the best ways to “see” through the propaganda about this economic “recovery in progress.” With every job gained, it seems another corporation moves out of America. And NAFTA goes to the hogs with this move — completely off the North American continent!
To India and all points east it seems. Levi Strauss is a 150-year-old “All American” company, formerly based in America.
“Who ever gives to the poor will lack nothing. But a curse shall be upon the head of those who close their eyes to poverty.”
How long are we, as a nation, going to take to wake up to the reality which is beyond the four walls of your dwellings? What is happening is slowly but surely. We have become so used to trusting our “reality” to that which is seen in the press that by the time we see it coming, reality slaps us in the face.
How many homeless do I know that regularly watch television? Not many, unless we, by chance, can afford a hotel room for a few days. The reality is this problem of homelessness is not going to get rectified until our “American” corporations stop putting profitability over people and put the stimulus back into the economy. Provide jobs!
How can anyone afford to buy anything and keep the money printed in circulation if they do not have jobs? It’s that simple. Some people might disagree with me on this but it’s true.
Jobs help keep the youngsters from running wild in the streets and help teach them responsibility. Jobs would help to unclog the bottle neck in the shelter system and open up beds sooner so more of us can get off the street. Jobs would also help to keep people from falling into the downward spiral of homelessness. Jobs provide the tax base needed to close the deficit on all fronts as, again I’m guessing here, we need money to survive.
But what we have seen over the past 20 years is a slow mass migration of good paying jobs going everywhere on the planet from our soil. Putting profitability over people, so the corporate upper echelon can keep and even increase their pay. These “American” corporations are thumbing their noses at the America people and dodging corporate taxes, which would help close the deficit if the government collected them. These outside companies then come back to America and receive sweetheart deals from the government through the employees of the people, which are the officials we elect. To top that off, we buy their products. They pay people in poor countries about $18 to $24 a week, about one-twelfth of the pay here, to make an American item while people here on our own soil lose their jobs and go into economic uncertainty.
This economy is getting worse — the amount of new faces among the homeless out here prove this. I feel we need to stop blaming the symptom of the problem of poverty and homelessness and begin to address the causes. I say it’s time to stop all this and speak up not only to the elected officials but to the private sector as well. The “10 percent” has to learn the basics of math. Ten percent is less than 90 percent. In a democracy this does matter. (Charles Springer is a homeless resident of Santa Monica. As well as a free-lance artist and writer. He)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 27, 2003. Read the original PDF.