I welcome the ongoing discussion of homelessness and believe that examining the roots of how this nationwide problem got so bad may be of value. I posit that the essential cause of homelessness is selfishness. We have not always been a selfish society. In 1960 people were inspired by John F. Kennedy’s challenge, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”
I welcome the ongoing discussion of homelessness and believe that examining the roots of how this nationwide problem got so bad may be of value. I posit that the essential cause of homelessness is selfishness. We have not always been a selfish society. In 1960 people were inspired by John F. Kennedy’s challenge, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”
Likewise Lyndon Johnson’s “War On Poverty.” Much was accomplished. The middle class grew. The top marginal tax rate for individuals earning over $200,000 (the equivalent of $1.5 million today) was 91 percent. Unfortunately, Kennedy tiptoed into Vietnam. Then Johnson and Nixon slogged in up to our eyeballs.
The only winners — as is always the case — were the death merchants of the military industrial complex. Americans paid with our taxes and lives to end or destroy the lives of our erstwhile allies halfway around the world. Our government and our media told us it was to fight communism and make the world safe for democracy. For years, except for the “radical left,” we dutifully believed, cheered, became numb to nightly casualty reports, to body bags coming home, to the suffering inflicted in our name in a foreign land we cared nothing about. Most people didn’t know, didn’t want to know, and didn’t care. Altruism was mocked as “bleeding heart liberalism” and people got really mad if you told them facts they didn’t want to know. Sound familiar? Coincidentally, it was also around this time that politicians, bureaucrats, liberals, conservatives, all of us, completed the switch from calling ourselves “Citizens” to calling ourselves “Consumers.” Isn’t that interesting!
What has this got to do with homelessness today aside from the fact that there are a shameful number of homeless veterans of wars that America didn’t need to fight? Well, for one thing, the nearly $1 trillion being annually sucked from taxpayers and into the war machine isn’t available to help address domestic needs including homelessness. But more fundamentally, America’s perpetual state of war continues to desensitize us to the humanity of others. Simultaneously, the incessant urging to buy more stuff, to consume and acquire, has made selfishness acceptable and fostered the worship of wealth. The golden rule of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” has been replaced by that bumper sticker, “The guy that dies with the most toys wins.” We have either been subtly trained or have trained ourselves to ignore that which would call us to either show some compassion or admit we are hypocrites. Now a lot of us just don’t care or we blame the victim. Look at the popularity of Donald Trump or any Republicrat and tell me greed isn’t an “American Value.” Trump draws cheers for his selfishness, lack of empathy, hate speech and piggishness while “poor” and “poverty” have vanished from the political lexicon.
When you see a homeless person do you see a person? Do you pretend not to see them? Do you think, “There but for my own good fortune, go I” or do you think, “No one ever helped me!” If you give them some money, do you spend a few minutes with them as a fellow human being? Here in the richest country the world has ever known, the United States of America, we have made being poor or mentally ill a crime. This could never have come to pass were it not for our glorification of wealth and our culture of selfishness and greed.
Search Youtube for “homeless experiment sharing food” or https://youtu.be/1fC6RP6tZ1Q.
Jake Jacobs has lived in Kailua-Kona since 1975. He works as a 747 pilot for a worldwide cargo company and writes a monthly column for West Hawaii Today.