Many politicians claim to be socially conscious. Indeed they go to great lengths to point out the big problem with homelessness. Like the rabid right wing, these do-gooders state that a society must fund low cost housing. In my many years of being on a form of social assistance, I've rarely seen a 'socialist' in the poor areas of the constituency. And outside the election campaign period, never.
Action must begin at the street level to tackle homelessness. If every New Democratic Party member would open their doors and make a room available to one homeless person tomorrow, homelessness in Canada would instantly disappear. Like I believe that charity does begin at home. To make social action happen it doesn't begin at a parliament, it starts in the basement.
Of course the right wing is more notoriously ignorant of poverty issues. Cornservatives are blatantly greedy people, and enormously self serving. There was a report in the free rag Metro that stated that a lot of the deficit could be easily tackled by reducing the $38 billion that the province of Ontario spends on its sector of the budget that is spent on public housing, security and welfare.
Again, like the Harrisites that ruled Queen's Park a decade ago to fix the economy the easiest target is the poor. You will also note that this is a false message from these Cornservatives. You will note that security is actually the police budget. If you go through any municipal budget the line item for policing usually matches or exceeds the Welfare allocation.
Worse they lump the cost of policing into the social services budget distorting. This does several things in promoting a view that social services are more expensive than actual. It is a strange marriage indeed. Usually police are used against the poor. The police are only there to protect the rich, powerful and connected.
1 comment:
"Usually police are used against the poor. The police are only there to protect the rich, powerful and connected."
This is one of those occasions when I tend to agree with you when considering the grand scheme of things but at the exact same time, I tend to disagree with you on the level of the individual cop.
For instance, I can tell you with 100 percent certainty cops on the street hate the rich, powerful and connected just as much as they hate the poor. They'll never admit it but in fact, they hate everyone who isn't a cop, equally.
It's possible the police only exist to persecute the poor but I seem to recall the rallying cry at the beginning of each shift was, "Let's get out there and persecute the public!"
It's at least as much fun and possibly even more fun to persecute the rich, powerful and connected, who are also members of 'the public'.
Most cops really do take on the job to protect the weak from the strong. It is their true motivation.
Unfortunately, as time passes, attitudes change. Some cops get out when they realize the job is the exact opposite of what they signed up to do. The others adapt and those are the ones you're complaining about here, rightly so.
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