THE CAUSE AND CURE FOR WRETCHEDNESS

MORE REFLECTION ON SOCIAL CASUALTIES This is the lady and the experience that set me thinking. Here is a picture of wretchedness.

She is (needlessly) ----UNCLEAN, UNCOMFORTABLE, UNSIGHTLY, UNWELCOME, UNCONNECTED AND UNABLE TO EARN A LIVING---

On the upside, she is HARMLESS, FREE, MOBILE, FUNCTIONAL, AUTONOMOUS. A PLAYER IN THE COSMIC DRAMA, ENJOYING SMALL PLEASURES, PURSUING SMALL ASPIRATIONS AND SHE COST US ONLY $20 A DAY.

The challenge for our society is how to get rid of the downside wretchedness without infringing on the upside freedoms. (fair warning: I am about to rage against both liberals and conservatives-----and offer my own quaint solution)

Needing more data, I went interviewing several other "casualties". This is Joshua age 27 and Rose age 18. I paid for this info: They live in a nearby patch of woods, pitching their tent nightly. He is a carpenter but has not worked in years BECAUSE HE DOESN'T WANT TO AND DOESN'T NEED TO. He collects about $30 a day panhandling. Rose collects $600 dollars a month SSI but her mother doles it out at $150 a week. Despite a combined income exceeding $1000, they live in wretchedness.

Now consider this: My trailer sits beside the lovely Rogue River, where I camped for 2 days in splendid comfort, enjoying TV, radio, internet access and cell phone conversations with my friends, YET I SPEND LESS THAN EITHER OF THOSE LIVING IN WRETCHEDNESS.

The words of Henry David Thoreau reverbrate in my brain:" THE CAUSE OF MOST WRETCHEDNESS IS NOT SO MUCH A LACK OF MONEY AS LACK OF IMAGINATION!"

Someday I may challenge myself to live among the bums to demonstrate that a cozy and interesting life can be had even there. I'm confident I could build a comfortable house of cardboard in some hidden nook, make it waterproof, furnish it with all the goodies and assemble a circle of friends to relate with.

My contempt for do-gooder liberalism is that their rescue visions are too expensive, lack imagination, infringe on liberties and foster infantilism, deceit and waste. (learn about the enormously costly welfare hotels in San Francisco---Cess pools of humanity)

My rage againt hard assed, self righteous conservatives and libertarians is that their vision is too small and ideologically driven. ("every person for themselves" is their dogma) They would let this woman die by the roadside or put her in the modern equivalent of a workhouse)

What we actually do is give her $600 a month and turn her loose to run her life. All in all a fairly humane solution.

What would lift her from her immediate wretchedness is A BETTER CART for her stuff', A NICE TRAIL TO PULL IT ON, AND A NICE CAMPGROUND TO SETTLE IN (with water and other campers likely there)

Here's my (inexpensive) vision for dealing humanely with the approximately 1% of Americans who cannot or will not play the mainstream social game.

I would first, mandate a national minimum income of $7,200 a year .(indexed for inflation and using biometric identification to prevent cheating) Liberals think you cannot have a decent life on that amount. They are mistaken. Conservatives demand (super expensive) means testing to assure elgibility for payment. A national minimum income would dispense with all that expensive bureauracracy saving tons of money. Those who want a more expensive lifestyle--work for it--LET CAPITALISM REIGN. (accumulate billions--live like a king---but when you die---we (society) will take a healthy bite out of your fortune--because wealth is earned in a context (society) and we have decided that WE (in some sense) ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER)

(interestingly, Bill Gates agrees with the "death tax."

I would have us build bicycle/handcart trails crisscrossing america. Something like the Applachian trail and the Pacific crest trail. (riding a bike across america would quickly become a rite of passage)

I would re-invent the handcart (M.I.T. students decades ago designed a hobo handcart with all the amenities of a good life built in-----shelter, bedding, cooking, bathroom, cleaning) The Mormon Handcart caravans of the 19th century proved it can be done. Shopping carts are pathetically inadequate---wheels too small--and they are stolen property) See the hit movie The Soloist to update yourself on the importance of handcarts to the 90,000 homeless people in the Las Angeles area. One critical thing I would build in would be security measures to protect ones "stuff". With a good cart one can be mobile and clean and comfortable.

I would create thousands of places LIKE THE SLABS for the handcart/bicycle nomads to camp---FOR FREE.

France has paved the way with laws allowing a night's camp on any farm. (I'm told) Phoenix, Az experimented with such a camp. Portland, Or created DIGNITY VILLAGE where the homeless have created a miniature self governing city. Santa Barbara, Ca (surprise) now provides free safe places for overnight camping. My readers might like to know about the SADHUs of India--a common and accepted AND SUPPORTED class of wanderers.

That's my plan to handle the approximately 1% of our population who by choice, accident or fate

"DONT FIT IN" (great poem by Robert Service: The Men Who Don't Fit In) Improperly handled, they are an expensive pain in the ass. Properly respected and inexpensively provided for they may surprise us like the hippies or the Cajuns did by enriching our culture.