The Truth

I am going to be traveling tomorrow so I am putting up the weekly blog one day early...

Last night, front desk called at 10:30: There was a transient out front who said that he wanted an ambulance. So, I go down there and ask him—a timid man in his 30s—what he wants. The transient says he wants an ambulance. I go back to the office and call 911 and the operator tells me they can’t dispatch an ambulance without knowing the guy’s symptoms—which the guy cannot articulate, he’s just out of sorts, not feeling right, needs somewhere safe—

And I am getting angrier and angrier at him, feeling all this hate having to deal with another transient just like I feel all these negative things when I come across the homeless in my neighborhood or smell their piss in doorways or hear them screaming from a couple of blocks away.

We are to be ashamed and I definitely include myself in this; there is the understanding that my disgust is simply a defense mechanism. We are the wealthiest country in the world and this is the way we treat the helpless? This guy shouldn’t have to go to a hotel’s valet parking every night and beg for an ambulance, he should be in a hospital along with the other people suffering mental illness including drug addiction.

But do we direct our resources to that?

No, because compassion doesn’t create profit and profit is what our culture is all about.

We allow the genocide in Gaza to continue because all the weapons used to kill the Palestinians make people rich.

We shrug at the deportations, deciding not to acknowledge the real reason they are happening is money—all the staffing, and arms sales, and contractors building facilities, on and on and on—all those things make people wealthy.

Do we band together and address these things?

Of course not; we’re all shouting at each other because half of this country believes Trump is an incompetent criminal and half believes he’s one of the greatest presidents.

The national minimum wage is still $7.25 after sixteen years, more and more people cannot afford housing, and some guy has to beg a hotel to call an ambulance for him.

And we just dig deeper into our prejudices, attack other working people instead of realizing how little our differences are and much we have in common—

Including a common adversary. 

If you say people deserve medical care and affordable housing you are called a socialist. Even working people barely above the margins go on and on about the “evils of socialism.” 

What is more evil—making sure a family has food and can pay their rent or giving/selling arms to Isreal so they can continue their genocide?

What is more evil—helping someone pay for college or paying so Trump can drive his limousine on the track at Daytona?

Our representatives, including the president, have the best healthcare in the world—what do you have?

Do you ever look that in the eye or are you too busy screaming at Progressives or MAGA people?

MAGA is a problem but the Democrats aren’t solving things, are they?

Trump is a problem, but Biden and Obama and Bush and (keep going back) all played along with arms buildups and corporate welfare—

Going along what the wealthy want.

The minimum wage has stayed the same through both Democrat and Republican presidencies.

I demonize my neighborhood homeless people because I don’t know how to process my own frustration. I feel this frustration because I don’t know how to solve the problem—

I mean, if I had the power and the resources I know how to solve the problem as do you but—

I don’t have the power nor the resources.

A lot of people think that by marching down a street waving a sign they can change the world, right wrongs—

That is not the way our culture, this country, works.

Marching down a street, printing a sign at Fed-Ex, it’s easy and it feels good. Frustration is one of the most isolating things to feel; it feels good to be in a crowd that is clearly feeling the same things and shouting the same things.

Real change doesn’t come so easily.

To change things in our culture, in our country, you have to effect the means of businesses to increase profit and revenue.

In other words, you have to fuck with the money; you fuck with the money, you get Their attention.

Easier said than done: This is not a process where you snap your fingers and the problem is solved.

This takes a lot of thought and work, this takes changing what you buy and how you buy it—

How you get to work, how you finance things, on and on and on. Lots of work—

And this is part of my frustration: You expect me to cut up my credit cards? To stop having Amazon bring things to my door? To cut off all social media and many other “sacrifices”?

And to change things at least a quarter of us would have to make those sacrifices, we would all have to come together—MAGA, Progressives, and us Centrists—and work towards a common goal.

That understanding make me feel helpless, defeated.

Last night, one of our regular transients came to the hotel to ask us to call him an ambulance. My response was to get pissed off at him. I didn’t yell at him, but I definitely let him know he disgusted me—

The disgust is actually directed at my own frustration, I see no way to make it so the priorities of the people in power change. Maybe it’s the same with you.

There is no tidy conclusion to this, no solution wrapped in a bow and delivered with a smile.

This is life...