half_giraffe [comrade/them]

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  • 7 Comments
Joined 4 years ago
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Cake day: July 27th, 2020

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  • you want to bus people from the streets of LA there and call it the cure for homelessness?

    No I don’t, and it’s wild because I double checked what I wrote and I absolutely did not say that. If you really need it spelled out, the homeless people in LA would just be handed the keys for the empty houses and apartments inside of LA that outnumber them (and - gasp - some of those are even non-cabin vacation homes, trust me those actually exist).

    You can smugly pretend that anything less than your one idea is inhumane so we shouldn’t do anything to help anyone, but why not advocate for any solution that can help people?

    This is really getting away from you. My “thing” or “one idea” (lol) is to actually end homelessness by giving homes to people that don’t have them - it’s actually a really simple idea that can be implemented immediately since we already have more than enough housing for everyone. I am not “pretending like anything less than that is inhumane,” I’m directly saying that stacking people into the smallest possible living spaces is inhumane; I definitely wouldn’t want to live in 100sqft with shared plumbing, and you wouldn’t either.

    You’re all over this thread talking about “doing both”, but no one’s biting because your idea is bad - it’s more complicated and expensive to build a bunch of pods or tents or tiny homes or whatever than it is to just hand the keys of already constructed empty places over to people who need shelter. And further, your idea does nothing to change the societal relationship towards housing, which means the conditions that create homelessness are reinforced - there’s a reason why every city that deploys some unorthodox housing arrangement still fucking has homeless people!

    Why not do both? Why not advocate for “any solution”? Why not “do SOMETHING”? Because a solution already exists that is easy, effective, and well within the existing powers and legal framework of the current state.


  • There’s a good faith discussion to be had on locations of empty homes and how the problem isn’t supply but distribution, but it’s clear that you aren’t really interested in any of that because of how you ended the comment:

    But that said, I never said we couldn’t do that

    I mean, right before this you spent a paragraph calling vacation homes inhabitable, but sure whatever. And, the cherry on top:

    if you can get the votes to pass your thing then sure let’s do both

    It reveals so much about your thought process that your imagination ends at what policies can “get the votes.” If you’re justifying potential government activity within the bounds of what the current system allows to pass then anything beyond tax cuts for the rich and increased military spending is straight up off the table. You can smugly pretend that you’re being reasonable and pragmatic but ultimately anything that changes the status quo will be violently opposed by people in power - so why not advocate for the most humane and society-improving solution?



  • It’s an article literally saying that “leftists can push Biden to the left” while pointing to these accomplishments as proof:

    [Biden’s administration] embraced massive government intervention to stave off the worst economic impacts, including handing millions of families monthly checks (by expanding the child tax credit), giving all kids in public schools free meals, boosting unemployment insurance and extending health coverage to millions.

    All of those policies were temporary and have now expired. Truly the most progressive president since LBJ.