Re: Low Rent District: Spending the night at the Berkeley Public Library


peace dream wrote:
http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/

Low Rent District: Spending the night at the Berkeley Public Library

What did I do last night? I spent the night at the south branch of the
Berkeley Public Library. Why? To see what it was like to be homeless in
America.

In June, I took a trip to Afghanistan with Global Exchange. Afghanistan is
the fourth poorest nation in the entire world but in all the time I was
there, I NEVER saw anyone sleeping on the street. Or in doorways. Or in
front of public buildings. If you were homeless in Afghanistan, you could
always find SOMEONE kind enough to take you in.

Under Islamic theocracy hospitality is the LAW....

The pretext for attacking Afghanistan was that the Taliban were
shielding Osama, so how come the Coalition is still there? [rhetoric]


Is that true in America? No.

I was driving through the streets of south Berkeley one night last week when
I got a really big shock. Right there, on the front porch of the south
branch of the Berkeley Public Library, I saw about 30 or 40 lumps. Lumps? In
Berkeley? I took a closer look. They were sleeping bags! With sleeping
bodies inside. I was shocked.

I went home. I thought about this. I decided to join them.

Last night I dragged my ratty old sleeping bag down to the corner of MLK and
Russell Street and spent the night. How did it go? It was cold!

It was hard.

It was scary.

There were freaking FAMILIES camped out in front of the library. Little kids
played on the grass in front of the library. They were normal little kids,
playing tag. "I gotta go to the bathroom, Mommie," one little kid said.
Mother and child then took a walk down the street. At 10 o'clock at night.

The light is on for you all night long at the Berkeley Public Library. The
man next to me snored. The woman on the other side of me had nightmares. How
do they do it? Night after night? Under these conditions, who could sleep?

In the morning, I got up after a very restless night. The sprinklers came on
at 2 am. At 4 am, the cops cruised by and shined their spotlight on me. At 5
am the garbage truck made an incredible amount of noise and at 6 am, "I
gotta go to the bathroom, Mommie," started up again. At 8 am some of the
working poor started combing their hair, changing their clothes and getting
ready to go off to their jobs.

You try sleeping on cold, hard concrete. With twenty or thirty other bodies
huddled up close to you. With no bathing facilities. And no TV! As more and
more jobs disappear and more and more people in this formerly-great country
become homeless, these impromptu camp-outs appear to be the wave of the
future for America under the leadership of the Bush bureaucracy. Hey, that
makes me a fashion diva. I'm a trend-setter! I'm getting in on the ground
floor!

At 8 am, I said goodbye to my new roommates and toddled on home, back to my
safe warm sweet little bed. With the down comforter. And the bathroom
nearby. It was a great social experiment, my night at the Berkeley Public
Library. The people there were kind to me, protected me from the dangers of
the night and even offered to share a bag of Cheetos with me. Nevertheless,
I hope that I never have to do it again.

Neo-cons such as Bush and Cheney and Schwarzenegger seem to be working on
the theory that they can do ANYTHING to Americans and get away with it. And
Americans keep proving the neo-cons' theory is right -- time after time
after time. The neo-cons take away our healthcare, our schools, our
Constitution, our good-guy image with the rest of the world,

I'll go along with the rest of this list of stuff the neocons have and
are stealing, but not this; IMHO "the rest of the world" knows that the
fat cats in US Government do not represent the sentiments and concerns
of the general populace of the United States. In my thinking most of
the civilized peoples of the Earth pity the people of the US because of
the murderous oligarchy "we" live under.

our jobs, our
housing, our wages, our money, our CHILDREN -- and what do Americans do?
They keep voting for neo-cons! "George Bush is MY President! I LOVE George
Bush," says my friend Jean. "Why do you keep saying such bad things about
him?" And she'll probably still be saying good things about George when it
is HER turn to spend her golden years spending her nights at the Berkeley
Public Library.

PS: Did I ever tell you about the time I served an eviciton notice on
President [sic] Bush? For violating his lease, the U.S. Constitution? "You
gotta be ELECTED to live there," my eviction notice read. But did the
sheriff show up, evict George and Laura from the Lincoln bedroom, throw
their stuff in the street and change all the locks? Sadly, no. But I still
have hopes!

The moment any office sanctifies the holder of it the end has learned
to justify the means.

Sanity

.

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