american deceptionalism

Should shelter be a basic human right?  In this culture, the answer seems to be a resounding no.  Work for it, or suffer and die - and don't do it where we'll have to see you, or we'll hasten the process.

Criminalization of Homelessness in the US

Has the American Dream always been nothing more than a big advertising campaign?  In our efforts to promote the facade of American Exceptionalism, separating the wheat from the chaff, rewarding success, punishing failure, in the attempt to crush it out of existence.  Driving the weakest among us to the margins, out of sight, out of mind, so that we can't detract from their psychopathic show of materialistic abundance.

From the corporate elite, all the way down to an interwoven culture of tough love, families are driven apart by obsession with success and independence.  Chasing that dream, working ourselves to death, only to bury ourselves in debt.  Support networks spread so thin that we can't even afford to help each other, when we're all just scraping by ourselves.  Is this the great American prosperity we're supposed to be proudly striving for?

I think most of us do live for each other, as much as for ourselves.  I don't even know anyone who hasn't helped, when they've been able. We could all stand to be ever more mindful of each other, understanding of the differences in circumstance that have made us who we are, but when it comes to the logistics of really being there for each other, we do what we can.

I'm lucky to know the people that I do, though.  Of this society at large, that doesn't seem to be the case at all.  So much fixation on material worth, in this collapsing system of rampant inequality.  When we need help, we're mostly just punished for it.  If we can't work, we might as well be worthless, as if serving the capitalist machine matters above all else.

Fuck that.  Society's never done anything to give me a chance, leaving me with no option but to collect whatever government handouts I can.  Call it entitlement, but I just call it karma.

(Even back in my punk rock days, I could never really listen to this band.  This song is so very apropos, but christ, they're awful.)