When it comes to the unhoused, liberals really do go full mask off. It's awful.
Facebook community groups and Nextdoor are full of KKKarens being like "we need a Final Solution to the annoying kids in the park being loud"
My partner joined our town’s groups on Facebook. I have noticed her become more reactionary w/r/t local issues and news ever since
Google reviews too when boomers don’t get their treats how they want
Don't forget the one comrade who gets piled on by the Nazis and the liberals (crypto-Nazis) that agree with everything the Nazis say but in a less offensive way.
Wasn’t Hitler literally inspired by the US ideals of westward expansion
IIRC he was initially inspired by the fictional stories of some german guy doing manifest destiny in the US.
Our local splintered and became a private one named after the gas station you buy crack at and the city one
Niot going to read it.
all of them . I was talking to some kid in austin on a CoD lobby last night. Has a job, but he's going to be homeless at the end of the month anyway. It's everywhere, there's no way to not see it anymore, but these freaks persevere. tTop comment:
It’s such a fine line and a touchy subject. I wonder if this correlates at all with the recent SUPER AGGRESSIVE car window knocking that’s been happening at the Wealthy and Division light more lately
Scratchtap on the window of a liberal and a fascistbleedsrounds up the unhoused.I mean Calvinist’s we’re never known for their creativity or their kindness
before you know it, we're gonna be the ones begging THEM for money and food!
That Reddit thread makes me hate the word unhoused. Such obvious lib language sugar coating and skirting the issue of homelessness. It's a different issue, but it reminds me of how people call maids "domestic workers" now in South Africa.
I work around a lot of homeless people and have a friend who works directly with them. This subject came up and he said "none of the people I work with are upset at the term homeless."
There are other reasons to change language on the topic, but to me this suggests it should not be a priority. Someone can talk about putting homeless people in actual housing while someone else can talk about how the police should round up "all these unsheltered;" we know where the focus should be.
Exactly my point. Can't imagine telling a homeless person that they're actually unhoused.
Many libs I've encountered are against using the word "unhoused," which from my understanding, is a term that was coined for genuinely good reason.
I'm lazy, so I'm going to paste from a thread from a couple weeks ago. It should be self explanatory, but just to be clear, it's a reddit chud quoted at the top who is complaining that using "unhoused" is "injecting socialism" into language.
The term "unhoused" is constructed in a way that implies that there is someone who should be "housing" the homeless person. It's a funny way of injecting hardline socialism into everyday language, which is surely the point.
I mean, they did get it, that is the point of that term. But that’s why it’s a good term, because someone (Us collectively, through the government) should be housing the homeless person. [ - @ClimateChangeAnxiety@hexbear.net
That's part of the reason. There are also plenty of unhoused people who do have homes (campsites, vehicles, shelters they've built on so-called public land, etc.) So calling them "homeless" is often, though not always, inaccurate and can be rather demeaning for someone when that is the case. Also the term "homeless" can help let the fascist pigs off the hook for destroying people's homes and literally beating people for the crime of existing in their home. I mean, how could cops do that to someone who is "lacking a home" to begin with?
If the piece of shit you're quoting is aware of any of that, I'm sure they also think those are good reasons to keep using the term homeless, but it might be harder for them to openly defend those reasons without their mask slipping a lot more.
The old man in me has a knee jerk reaction to the word "unhoused", but I think it has a legitimate purpose.
Language has always evolved words from helpful terminology to dehumanizing slurs. Then new terminology is created in response to that. When I was a kid people used the word "bum" to dehumanize, and "homeless" was a response to that. Now people use "homeless" as if they were a different species, something not worthy of human dignity. So we use "unhoused".
it will get turned into "homeless" soon enough, in implication/tone. I don't mind it as a term, but I don't think it's really important one way or another
and why do people entertain the idea that this euphemism treadmill is a useful construct?
i remember some people on the old sub got weirdly pissed about the term "rough sleepers"
the post was something like "just use the word unhoused jfc"
it was linking to an article about sleeping rough from The Big Issue, which is a magazine sold by homeless people mostly about homelessnesson the other hand I once worked for a south african who called me a slave and that shit hit different.
Why is it that the unhoused are the issue that makes liberals go mask off the most?
I figure it's a combination of several things:
- The unhoused are a safe target socially speaking. Only actual leftists (I would hazard a guess at <10% of the US population, a large share of whom are young enough to be disregarded) would call someone out for suggesting we need a final solution for homelessness.
- Libs generally believe in institutions over people. They blame the unhoused for being unhoused (typically due to "all being drug addicts") rather than the government and, more broadly, capitalism.
- Most libs aren't politically engaged and just want the unhoused gone, but don't care how. If the only solution presented to this is fascism, the libs will become (at least tacitly) supporters of fascism.
- Libs are insulated from the suffering inflicted by capitalism, and seeing an unhoused person makes them feel unsafe as they realize that the bubble of security in which they live is actually an illusion.
- America lives in a culture of terror of the other, which has been exacerbated by the bourgeois media and most policitians. Unhoused people committing crimes or being otherwise violent are also disproportionately amplified by bourgeois media, which increases this effect.
My roommate used to BE unhoused and punches down at the unhoused -_-
most americans have most of their wealth tied up in a home that they own
I always hear this, and I know the stats say it’s like 60%, but to be quite honest I don’t fucking believe that. Who are these 60% of people that own their homes? I don’t know them. Some of my friends parents (not even all) own a home, and one of my friends. If I estimated based on people I know I would say around 1/5th of Americans own their home.
I mean it just depends on the area you're in and your background right? If you live somewhere with a higher COL the rate is lower (42-55% in DC, CA and NY) locally. Also it's calculated as (homes occupied by owner)/(all occupied homes).
So like if you have 2 houses in a neighborhood, both owned by Bourgeois Bobby and he lives in one and rents the neighboring one to a group of 4 roommates, that's a 50% home ownership rate.
If you added a third house owned by Family Fred and Family Francine, a married couple, who also live with the following adults who don't own the home: Francine's ailing mother, adult son Chuck, adult daughter Samantha and Chuck's boyfriend Tom who they let move in because he was going to be homeless otherwise.
66% home ownership rate in this neighborhood now. Mind you Fred and Francine can own 3% equity in the house and owe the bank 97% of the houses value: they still count as a home owning household.
EDIT: to clarify, most of my point here is that most people would say 1/11 of the people in this neighborhood, 3/11 of we're being generous, own a home. The rate is calculated in a way that maybe is misleading.
So like if you have 2 houses in a neighborhood, both owned by Bourgeois Bobby and he lives in one and rents the neighboring one to a group of 4 roommates, that's a 50% home ownership rate
Ah yes okay, so a 60% home ownership rate is a lie. The right way to calculate this situation would be a 20% home ownership rate, not 50%, as 1 in 5 people owns the home they live in.
Being deliberately miscalculated to tell a lie does explain why that number feels like bullshit.
I think there is also the fear to be as them at one point in time.
For all the reasons barrbaric wrote that is something they want to avoid. I do disagree that libs are insulated from the suffering inflicted by capitalism. However wanting to avoid becoming a "non-person" in their view is quite important, too.
the essence of liberalism is you get what you deserve.
Because liberals believe that 1. Inequality is good and natural, and that 2. People get/earn what they deserve
When you talk about making things better for the poorest of the poor (according to them: the worst people, because of course), you are challenging their core beliefs about how the world works and their sense of justice in the meritocracy they claim to love
There's REALLY mask off stuff thats from genuine fascists but there's still otherwise fairly normal libs doing more soft mask off stuff or not totally disagreeing with the fascists and thats what bothers me because at least on reddit the unhoused seem to be the issue that brings out that side of them the most.
there's still otherwise fairly normal libs doing more soft mask off stuff or not totally disagreeing with the fascists
Agreed, but this is a really important difference.
Libs can get moved either way. Put them in a room with a bunch of fascists and they'll probably go along. But put them in a room with a bunch of people talking about housing first, or guaranteed basic income, or the evils of landlords, and they'll probably go along with that, too. The trick is getting them to reject the bad things and push the good things on their own, that is, to make them leftists.
Mistaking libs for fascists is bad analysis and actively harmful to growing the left.
As is the case with many other subjects, they'll agree with a surprising amount of leftist points until you label them "socialism" or start referencing AES states. Progressive ones will agree with basically all our reasons about why landlords are bad, and may even agree with "we should just take their rental properties" -- especially if framed in the context of local reactionary landlords and their influence on local politics -- but you'll lose them talking about Mao. Your more mainstream Dems might draw the line at rent control, but will at least talk about it, and will nod along to everything you say about enforcing existing housing laws or expanding renter protections.
You'll of course have some neolib psychos or lib landlords who'll have far more reactionary opinions, too.
I’m all for a good lib bashing but Grand Rapids doesn’t have liberals. It’s the Devoss families seat of power, it’s run by calvinists who make women wear ankle length skirts to their colleges, it’s where all the deranged right wing GOP Michigander leaders that say shit like “premarital sex gives you demons” come from.
Gerald Ford’s presidential library is there. It’s not a fun place
Grand rapids also has a very large community of rich liberals with the "in this house" yard signs.
Every “liberal” I’ve ever meant from there was just as conservative as the average Grosse Pointer. Hell Grosse Pointe has further left liberals then Grand Rapids
Only on the internet really I’ve found. You don’t find people IRL doing that.
Nah, Phil Ochs made a hit song called "Love Me, I'm a Liberal" in 1966 that used the word correctly
People around the world also understand liberalism and liberals correctly
It's just modern day Americans and Canadians that have completely lost the meaning of the word (and many others) thanks to propaganda and the terrible discourse around politics
I mean, it's alright to use it colloquially to refer to the "left" wing of liberalism at large. Especially when communicating with people in Anglo America.
Not to say it isn't funny to catch chuds off guard by calling them libs.
FYI Grand Rapids is the dark heart of US Calvinism and the Reformed movement, which anecdotally has grown significantly within the US Protestantism over the last 20 or so years (grown via cannibalizing other sects, I mean). The idea that “people get whatever they deserve in this life then hell in the next” is right up their alley.
So I don't know shit about religion but I recently moved back to the small town I grew up in which was always on the decline... and there seem to be more and fancier churches than when I left. Where are these people getting money to build huge expensive churches when supposedly church attendance is at an all time now?
Can confirm, have lived there. Went to an indoctrination cult camp there as a kid. Dark heart is putting it mildly. Homeless folks need to have some statement about "willing to work" in there panhandling signs if they want money. So many people there have work so engrained in their minds it's insane.
I visited a female friend at Clavin and had to sign a document saying I wouldn’t be alone with her for more then half an hour.
Boy they sure do think you've got some stamina!
She snuck her Bf in like every other day because she was based like that. Currently works as a social worker in Kentucky God bless her soul.
Listen to Worst of All Possible Worlds to hear more hatred of evangelism, Calvinism, and Grand Rapids, MI.
One of them grew up there raised by evangelicals so it’s just mentioned frequently, especially in the Whit’s Endless Summer series where they talk about Adventures in Odyssey, an evangelical children’s radio show
Many of these comments are not coming from libs. u/jerryredbob has the top comment in the thread now, about homeless people "getting in your face" and "harassing" you for money. Clicked on his comment history, this was halfway down the page:
RIP your electric bill once this takes effect. If you thought it was high before its going to get worse with more regulation on gas and coal.
Looking at chud comments > projecting them onto libs is a bad idea for a number of reasons. Lots of good comments in the thread, too.
I mean... chuds are technically liberals by the Marxist definition. 🤓
"we have a homeless problem and a shitload of empty houses problem"
"give the homeless people houses"
"no"capitalism.jpg
I'm getting to the point where I want everyone who says "not everything can be solved with free stuff", in response to stuff like this, to become intimate with a wall. It's infuriating to be hit with the same tired, disingenuous remarks as widespread crimes against humanity carry out on our own streets.
