Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Occupy Wall Street
taiyaki
Veteran
Are you guys aware of what is happening in Wall Street?
https://occupywallst.org/
Thought I'd share considering there is barely any news coverage on this.
https://occupywallst.org/
Thought I'd share considering there is barely any news coverage on this.
0
Comments
Do you believe that everyone should be provided with shelter, that it is a right?
Are healthcare, food, and shelter human rights?
But if you had the wherewithal and someone asked you for help, wouldn't you give it?
We should be helping one another, not hindering one another. Social Darwinism is not a solution, but just more ideological fuel to justify greed, hate and delusion.
While I wish these things for all, I do not grant them (particularly shelter) as entitlements. To do so would , in my opinion, degrade the recipient ( I am not speaking of those in need, those who cannot fend for themselves).
Perhaps you misunderstand my use of the term "human rights." I have never read as broad a definition as yours outside Karl Marx, and even he insisted that work is required for these rights to be earned. He did not insist these things were entitlements.
Article 25
Why in the United States do we consider it a right of citizenship to have our children educated for free? We consider it a right of citizenship to have good roads. To have police and fire protection (and to have our 911 call answered 24/7). To have the government there when a tornado flattens our home or a hurricane floods our neighborhood. To have air traffic controllers to guide our flights safely (and to have an airport for them to land at). To have our garbage collected. To have clean safe drinking water and sewage disposal.
Yet we don't consider it a right of citizenship to have access to even the most basic health care. To have enough food to eat. To have even a rudimentary shelter over our heads?
Talk about your screwed up priorities... What happened to compassion? Compassion means not just having sympathy or even empathy - but having that *and* wanting to do something about the situation. I think as Buddhists, and more importantly as human beings, it is our duty to one another to have that kind of compassion.
I assert, in general, that if we provide all basic needs as " rights", we will destroy our humanity.
People need to earn a living for their own self respect.
Your compassion is truly idiotic.
why do people need to earn a living for their own self respect?
lol that is the most insane thing i have ever heard.
i make a living and it absolutely gives me no self respect.
self respect comes from the willingness to be compassionate moment to moment.
the willingness to cultivate bodhicitta for the sake of all sentient beings. that is self respect. that is noble.
come on you don't really believe that do you?
Feed me, clothe me , shelter me, provide health care and you will kill me with your kindness.
Insane? You deny what is self evident and call it insane.
Look to generational welfare recipients for a fine example of what a cradle to grave free ride creates: broken families and single mothers making babies for a paycheck while the "fathers" impregnate as many women as possible without consequence. 75% of inner city black children raised without fathers.... Institutional poverty.
http://en.wikipedia/wiki/International?_Covenant_on_Economic,_Social_and_Cultural_Rights
"Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings..."
~Metta Sutta
The Covenant is part of the International Bill of Human Rights
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Economic,_Social_and_Cultural_Rights
We talked a bit, trying to understand her in her broken English. I asked her if she like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (which she did). I had and told her to wait a few minutes, got back to my car, and drove back to my apartment and fixed up a couple sandwiches, as well as packed up the remaining loaf of bread, peanut butter and a butter knife.
I got back to Morning Call, and we sat there, ate our sandwiches together, and I asked her about any family or friends (none in New Orleans). I gave her the sandwich makings and what little cash I had.
Over the next couple weeks I would see her in the same area, or a few blocks within Morning Call. I would stop by and chat with her, give her a bit of cash. After that, I never saw her again.
This woman was not a drunkard, she was a human being. Instead, should I have looked at Vicky and said "She does not deserve my respect" and just pass her by? This woman should not have been in the situation she was in-- Vicky should have been in a shelter.
We can shell out taxes for bombs and guns (more than any other nation on earth BY FAR) and cut taxes for the rich and the corporations, kowtowing to their favor, but to hell with everyone else...? If that makes me a pinko commie, well so be it.
“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why are they poor, they call me a Communist.” ~ Dom Helder Camara
I was once fortunate to work for a halfway house for drug users and alcoholics in 2000-2001 (Bridgehouse in NOLA-- good people there). We worked in conjunction with homeless shelters-- there was a lot of overlap between us and these other organisations (drug users and mentally disabled make up a huge percentage of the homeless actually). These were human beings that needed help. That was all that mattered. What they did in their past was irrelevant. The only thing that mattered was here they were and they needed help. No need for judging.
These "rights" are based on working for a living not being given a living
Wear the same clothes you have on right now and sleep in them at all times. Do not shave your face if you are male) or brush your teeth. Eat meager meals with little nutrition.
Do this for three months.
Now go out and try to find a job under these conditions. Do not bring a resume! Explain to the prospective employer that you have been homeless for three months, being sacked from your previous job.
Good luck.
Well, now this raises some interesting questions. In a compassionate society, the homeless and unemployed are given food and shelter to the extent possible (in homeless shelters and soup kitchens). Is there a dividing line between "earned" rights vs. benefits for the down-and-out? Are the indigent unworthy of rights? And do we provide minimal food and shelter to the unemployed or infirm, but none to those who are voluntarily unemployed, like the person mooching off SimpleWitness, discussed in another thread?
In a society that's unable to provide universal employment, is there not a moral obligation to provide basic needs to those who can't find work? If so, how would we differentiate between those who are "parasites", as people like the young man SimpleWitness is helping were called in the USSR, and those who are involuntarily unemployed? Would we screen everyone who lines up outside the homeless shelter and the soup kitchen, and turn away those whom we determine to be taking society for a ride?
People need this feeling to survive and thrive . Moreover, if my work brings me prosperity, I can (and do)help far more people than those who hand out dollars to homeless ( though I do not demean this activity).
Man is not perfectible. We must deal with the world as it is. John Lennon's "Imagine" is utopian and, by definition, unreachable. I would love to believe the communist ideal is possible but I do not.
"Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice, and need"
Voltaire
Without the basics at the bottom of Maslow's pyramid, along with education and training, the poor will always remain poor. They are ALL in need.
For example, right now I'm simply "uninsurable" in America for health care. I don't live in Hawaii or Massachusetts, so I can't get health insurance because of my history. Sure, I *could* get it, for $3000 a month with no coverage for any kind of cancer or "related" issues (which definition is up to the company I'm paying the $3000 a month, how convenient for them).
See, not everyone is a lazy bum.
was life always like this? no.
i think it is important for one to find work that they feel that they are contributing to something. you could says each individual should find that which gives them passion. as a buddhist you would want to find work that benefits the other and self equally.
it's a shame that reality isn't designed for this luxury. only a few actually get jobs/careers that give "self worth". but it's not really the job itself that gives such worth but a healthy mind that understands the nature of reality itself. thus one isn't swayed by circumstance and position in life and makes do with whatever they are presented. such freedom and integrety comes from living the buddhist life which places emphasis on wisdom and compassion.
but all of this is a human construction. reality itself is merely the expression of the mind of the collective. work as i see it for most people prevents them from actually even asking the important questions. most people work ungodly amount of hours because they have to pay for their basic needs. i understand that survival is important, but i truly believe that as a society we can raise the standard of living so that no one should suffer the lack of basic human needs. then there will be possiblity of consciousness to evolve in the masses. if everyone is only working and thinking about surviving then there is no emphasis on seeking truth and the end to suffering.
consumer captialism and society as a whole is just one cluster fuck of ignorance. to truly realize what matters one must go against the grain. one must see value in being radically different in the face of normalcy.
all problems begin with mind. thus we must actively practice to free ourselves. true change will happen first with the individual and then such change will reflect in the external.
Hang on, what do we need money for again? If we all just did everything for free (or in exchange for other free services), wouldn't everyone get what they needed? And without the unhealthy competition that is a result of chasing wealth, wouldn't people be satisfied with less, knowing that they could always have more if they wanted it?
"Note that money, which ever since it began to be regarded with respect, has caused the ruin of the true honor of things; we become alternately merchants and merchandise, and we ask, not what a thing truly is, but what it costs."~ Seneca
However, go peddle your wares elsewhere until you can act like an adult.
What response do you think you would get if you did?
Capitalism, by its very nature, requires what Marx termed the "reserve army of labour" (i.e., the unemployed), which is one of the tools it uses to create and increase the profit it extracts from the labourer and the commodities their labour produces. In other words, it's a systematic problem, and even hard working people can find themselves out of a job and on the streets, especially when the economy is bad.
Even the likes of Thomas Paine understood some of these problems, e.g., read his pamphlet, "Agrarian Justice," which argues that poverty "is a thing created by that which is called civilized life," and advocates things like free public education, progressive taxation, social safety nets (e.g., old-age pensions), and a fixed sum to be paid to all adult citizens via 'ground-rent' from proprietors of cultivated lands as compensation for the institution of private property (because it privatized land that was once common to all).
Of course, you may not agree with any of this, but I don't think that anyone is an idiot simply because they do, especially when their compassion for their fellow citizens is part of their motivation for doing so. Furthermore, I think @vixthenomad makes an excellent point by questioning whether 'work' has to mean 'wage labour'; a point that's more or less echoed by C. A. L'Hirondelle, who notes that: That's my two cents, anyway.
Who in the USA is not provided basic needs?
Is there some other country ( 50 million or more inhabitants) where these needs are better met?