You don’t even need to go that far (though this is not an argument in favour of the government keeping a deathgrip on that land) - in the USA, like in pretty much every developed nation (and many others, I’m sure) there are more empty houses than there are homeless people in need of them.
What you neglect to take in to account is that homelessness is 100% a deliberate and essential part of capitalism. Homelessness is the threat of what will happen to you if you don’t sell your labour for whatever the capitalists decide it’s worth, and it must remain present and visible at all times to maintain that power.
Homelessness isn’t being solved because those in power needed it, not because there is any shortage of anything at all (homes, food, money, community support - all exist in abundance and yet are controlled and manipulated to create artificial scarcity to maximise profits).
I won’t disagree but it also blows my mind that I get downvoted for being uppity about how we don’t do anything about it, with no explanation behind the downvotes. Am I being a callous asshole or something? I sincerely believe and feel as though we could use resources in a more amiable way
I can’t speak for the people who downvoted you (I didn’t even see that thread since I had the first person to reply blocked, so I had to go in private browser to check it out), I don’t think you’re being callous, you made a valid point, and I’m sure you didn’t mean we should just dump homeless people on empty plots of land and call it a day, but also provide all the other things that person pointed out would be needed. I think maybe some people just don’t see providing the other necessities as an obvious, or even acceptable part of your suggestion, but that is a different matter for them to explain, since I can’t.
Either way, try not to take downvotes to heart, they’re just anonymous internet pixels, they don’t actually matter (E: though I definitely understand how they can be discouraging and even confusing at times).
I also just want to add that being an anarchist, one of the most common responses we get from people who aren’t to our ideas (that are almost all entirely outside of the box capitalism forces us to think within), is basically “that’s not a perfect solution therefore it isn’t worth of any attention or consideration”, as if the current system is perfect (E: or taken the time to properly understand our views in the first place).
I would class is as part appeal to tradition in defence of cognitive dissonance, part being so heavily indoctrinated they’re incapable of even imagining a society that functions in any other way but the current (even though how we live now is an insignificant blip in the timeline of human history), so their instinct is to reject anything that threatens the (patently false) sense of security they get from what they know (which in this case, includes shit like dropping homeless people on an empty plot and expecting them to be grateful, which is why they mistakenly assumed that’s what you meant).
You don’t even need to go that far (though this is not an argument in favour of the government keeping a deathgrip on that land) - in the USA, like in pretty much every developed nation (and many others, I’m sure) there are more empty houses than there are homeless people in need of them.
What you neglect to take in to account is that homelessness is 100% a deliberate and essential part of capitalism. Homelessness is the threat of what will happen to you if you don’t sell your labour for whatever the capitalists decide it’s worth, and it must remain present and visible at all times to maintain that power.
Homelessness isn’t being solved because those in power needed it, not because there is any shortage of anything at all (homes, food, money, community support - all exist in abundance and yet are controlled and manipulated to create artificial scarcity to maximise profits).
I won’t disagree but it also blows my mind that I get downvoted for being uppity about how we don’t do anything about it, with no explanation behind the downvotes. Am I being a callous asshole or something? I sincerely believe and feel as though we could use resources in a more amiable way
I can’t speak for the people who downvoted you (I didn’t even see that thread since I had the first person to reply blocked, so I had to go in private browser to check it out), I don’t think you’re being callous, you made a valid point, and I’m sure you didn’t mean we should just dump homeless people on empty plots of land and call it a day, but also provide all the other things that person pointed out would be needed. I think maybe some people just don’t see providing the other necessities as an obvious, or even acceptable part of your suggestion, but that is a different matter for them to explain, since I can’t.
Either way, try not to take downvotes to heart, they’re just anonymous internet pixels, they don’t actually matter (E: though I definitely understand how they can be discouraging and even confusing at times).
I also just want to add that being an anarchist, one of the most common responses we get from people who aren’t to our ideas (that are almost all entirely outside of the box capitalism forces us to think within), is basically “that’s not a perfect solution therefore it isn’t worth of any attention or consideration”, as if the current system is perfect (E: or taken the time to properly understand our views in the first place).
I would class is as part appeal to tradition in defence of cognitive dissonance, part being so heavily indoctrinated they’re incapable of even imagining a society that functions in any other way but the current (even though how we live now is an insignificant blip in the timeline of human history), so their instinct is to reject anything that threatens the (patently false) sense of security they get from what they know (which in this case, includes shit like dropping homeless people on an empty plot and expecting them to be grateful, which is why they mistakenly assumed that’s what you meant).
Complaining about downvotes? That’s a downvote.
Adding nothing to the discussion? Believe it or not, downvote.