AMERICA
by
Hossca Harrison
2015
With all this talk about Syrian refugees coming to America, I watch and listen to the absurd talking points of men and women who want to become the next president of the United States.
I hear people asking where is the compassion for the homeless in America? How can we give compassion to the Syrian refugees if we can’t provide empathy to the American homeless?
Homelessness in America, where is the compassion? I have the same question. Below is a quote from the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness.
“People become homeless for a variety of reasons. Homelessness is primarily an economic problem and is also affected by many social and political factors. The number of people experiencing homelessness exploded in the 1980s (Regan Administration) as federal funds were withdrawn from low-income housing and social assistance programs for low-income families and the mentally ill. Current federal spending on housing assistance programs targeted at low-income populations is less than 50% of 1976 spending levels.”
What did Ronald Reagan say about this? “What we have found in this country, and maybe we’re more aware of it now, is one problem that we’ve had, even in the best of times, and that is the people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless, you might say, by choice.”
In my research on this subject, I find the politicians who continue to refuse to fund the homeless are the same politicians who are shouting the loudest against the Syrian refugees and the most boisterous for promoting war. Where is the compassion? Ask these same politicians, but you will find they know it not.
Would these same politicians show compassion to refugees who are of Northern European descent? What if boatloads of refugees say from Belarus, often called the whitest country in Europe, sought a new home in America? Would these politicians be screaming about these people, or would they show compassion? If they show mercy, then it is not compassion. It is racism.
Citylimits.org quotes. “One can also look at race as a factor in homelessness. The statistics are stark: Black persons in families make up 12.1 percent of the U.S. family population but represented 38.8 percent of sheltered persons in families in 2010.”
That was five years ago. This issue has only increased. Indeed, where is the compassion?
Study the money trail for war. Study how the poor in the U.S. were denied food stamps, how children went hungry, how homelessness increased to pay for this war killing a half million people. Indeed, where is the compassion?
Follow these politicians who can be found sniffing money trails. Follow how they deny the elderly through Social Security and Medicare. Follow these politicians who refuse assistance to the mentally ill. Follow these politicians who deny food stamps to our veterans. Follow these politicians who deny equal rights to African Americans. Follow these politicians who deny equal rights to LGBT. Yes, follow them, so you know who they are and how they vote. I would ask the American people to vote against war and for compassion.
One can look at George Bush and all the congressmen and senators from both parties, who voted to go to war with Iraq, killing 500,000 people. Indeed, where is the compassion?
According to Jonah, the death count is closer to two million when you count all the men, women, and children dying of cancer caused by the remains of toxic radiation bullets that litter Iraq. This includes Americans. Veterans of these wars continue to live in mental and emotional pain. Yet these veterans are not the guilty ones. It is the American politicians, some of which made millions of dollars on these wars. Indeed, where is the compassion, versus where is the corruption?
Many people with compassion are assisting the homeless with housing, clothing, and food, despite some local governments interfering with this assistance. Yes, some local governments have made it illegal to assist the homeless. Indeed, where is the compassion? Where is the heart, versus where is the corruption?
This is almost 2016. Must we still live in the Old Age of racism? Must we always see men, women, and children as colored statistics, or can we move into the New Age and see there is only one race, the human race?
I wrote the above in 2015, and now it is 2020. It is again voting time in America. Has any American politician been campaigning to cut the military budget to provide housing for the poor, increase Social Security, or Medicare for the elderly? If there are, I would certainly like to know who they are. America spends more on the military-industrial complex than China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, India, Japan, France, Germany, South Korea, Australia, Brazil, and Italy all combined. Compassion does not do this: greed does. Is it not time we voted for compassion?