The main way opioid and meth addicts get clean is by getting arrested. The majority of people, especially those who read The New York Times and its ilk, don't know this.
You're probably right, but there is another dynamic: drug addiction is SEP (someone else's problem), while COVID is an allegedly deadly virus anyone can catch. Especially in America's urban centers, people are scared shitless of catching COVID.
Contrast this with what I believe was a viral emergency far worse than COVID in terms of death and sickness: the AIDS crisis (someone else can look up the numbers, but until the mid-1990s AIDS featured 100% mortality). I was a young man at the time, and as I recall we did not upend society to "do something" about AIDS, because in fact AIDS was very easy for most people to avoid. I know I never worried about it. AIDS was SEP.
You avoided AIDS by not being sexually promiscuous. You avoid drug addiction by not taking drugs. The media and political classes have convinced the credulous that COVID is almost as dangerous as HIV, and anyone around you can be a carrier. There is no escape!
That's not exactly what I was saying, but your are right. AIDS was the "gay plague," so again it was something that mostly affected a separate population.
On the other hand, I think it was AIDS that helped bring home to mainstream America the fact LGBT people weren't separate at all; they were all around us, part of us. And that led to expansion of civil rights for LGBT people in the 90s and '00s.
I think it would be interesting to compare current progressive thinking on drugs/addiction with how groups like the Black Panthers approached this problem ~50 years ago. The Panthers were organizing in many of the same communities under discussion here, so drugs/crime/homelessness were all issues they had to confront.
My limited understanding is that they were a lot less permissive and tolerant of drug use than today's activist left is, while still opposing the repressive policies of the drug war that were starting to ramp up. It looks like they even ran a detox clinic in the Bronx which linked getting clean with political education, which Tupac Shakur's step-father helped to run. There is a documentary about this, called "Dope is Death": http://www.eyesteelfilm.com/portfolio/dopeisdeath
Anyway, I agree that current-day left thinking around things like the drug addiction and homeless crises seems bankrupt, but history may offer some other paths that are more promising.
There may be something to what you write, and the point of view is interesting (and believable in this insane world with so many people incapable of any kind of thought past surface level), but I find it to be overly generous to those "in charge" and a bit of a rationalization allowing a certain group to maintain the illusion of being well-meaning if completely illogical.
Let's look at these two groups from the perspective of the entrenched political and bureaucratic system (the establishment for lack of a better word) and their desire to preserve the status quo (the status quo being that they don't really answer to voters but to their donors and their own pocketbooks).
The first group is quite literally zero threat to them. They don't live in those neighborhoods. Those people will never reach them. Those people don't have the wherewithal to demand accountability for themselves (they're never going to vote much less organize and protest for a better life). They're too far gone. The added benefit for the establishment is that they create a distraction for the plebeians (the working and middle classes). While people are worrying about their neighborhoods degrading and babies being snatched, they're not paying attention to Nancy Pelosi's sudden increase in wealth due to buying options on semiconductor companies she then funneled money to or the fact that we're tempting war with a *nuclear-armed* nation because an old man needs to distract from his flagging popularity, or the fact that in action and deed, there's very little difference between Schumer or McConnell and it's all a game. And this group can be taken care of later, what's left of them of course. As you pointed out, they're killing themselves off at quite the rapid clip. Finally, there's money to be made (lots of it) in pretending to help them.
As for the other group, they actually are a threat if they get it in their heads that they could be better served by someone else. COVID has been a great way to control them and redistribute wealth (we won't even go into how it was used in the last election to suddenly change all the rules to benefit one party, rules that party would like to enshrine in law under the guise of "voting rights"). Did you really think that once these people got that power they would be strong enough morally to hand it back? And with such things as vaccine passports and mask mandates, you easily force those who dare to question you out of public life, or even out of the state when they get fed up. In other words, you've created an even more homogenous group of compliant, frightened people (either frightened of COVID or frightened of going against the grain), which is perfect for you.
I do think you're being more thoughtful than most and at least you're wondering what's going on and not just attributing it to hypocrisy, but I think honestly you're giving these people too much credit. They really, really don't care about "us." We're just livestock to most of them, our worth based on our usefulness to them.
And also in Austin - a tiny home community for the formerly homeless "Community First! Village is a 51-acre master planned community that provides affordable, permanent housing and a supportive community for men and women coming out of chronic homelessness. " https://mlf.org/community-first/
The main way opioid and meth addicts get clean is by getting arrested. The majority of people, especially those who read The New York Times and its ilk, don't know this.
You're probably right, but there is another dynamic: drug addiction is SEP (someone else's problem), while COVID is an allegedly deadly virus anyone can catch. Especially in America's urban centers, people are scared shitless of catching COVID.
Contrast this with what I believe was a viral emergency far worse than COVID in terms of death and sickness: the AIDS crisis (someone else can look up the numbers, but until the mid-1990s AIDS featured 100% mortality). I was a young man at the time, and as I recall we did not upend society to "do something" about AIDS, because in fact AIDS was very easy for most people to avoid. I know I never worried about it. AIDS was SEP.
You avoided AIDS by not being sexually promiscuous. You avoid drug addiction by not taking drugs. The media and political classes have convinced the credulous that COVID is almost as dangerous as HIV, and anyone around you can be a carrier. There is no escape!
That's not exactly what I was saying, but your are right. AIDS was the "gay plague," so again it was something that mostly affected a separate population.
On the other hand, I think it was AIDS that helped bring home to mainstream America the fact LGBT people weren't separate at all; they were all around us, part of us. And that led to expansion of civil rights for LGBT people in the 90s and '00s.
I wonder what COVID's silver lining will be?
Great analysis of two classes of people. Thank You
I think it would be interesting to compare current progressive thinking on drugs/addiction with how groups like the Black Panthers approached this problem ~50 years ago. The Panthers were organizing in many of the same communities under discussion here, so drugs/crime/homelessness were all issues they had to confront.
My limited understanding is that they were a lot less permissive and tolerant of drug use than today's activist left is, while still opposing the repressive policies of the drug war that were starting to ramp up. It looks like they even ran a detox clinic in the Bronx which linked getting clean with political education, which Tupac Shakur's step-father helped to run. There is a documentary about this, called "Dope is Death": http://www.eyesteelfilm.com/portfolio/dopeisdeath
Anyway, I agree that current-day left thinking around things like the drug addiction and homeless crises seems bankrupt, but history may offer some other paths that are more promising.
There may be something to what you write, and the point of view is interesting (and believable in this insane world with so many people incapable of any kind of thought past surface level), but I find it to be overly generous to those "in charge" and a bit of a rationalization allowing a certain group to maintain the illusion of being well-meaning if completely illogical.
Let's look at these two groups from the perspective of the entrenched political and bureaucratic system (the establishment for lack of a better word) and their desire to preserve the status quo (the status quo being that they don't really answer to voters but to their donors and their own pocketbooks).
The first group is quite literally zero threat to them. They don't live in those neighborhoods. Those people will never reach them. Those people don't have the wherewithal to demand accountability for themselves (they're never going to vote much less organize and protest for a better life). They're too far gone. The added benefit for the establishment is that they create a distraction for the plebeians (the working and middle classes). While people are worrying about their neighborhoods degrading and babies being snatched, they're not paying attention to Nancy Pelosi's sudden increase in wealth due to buying options on semiconductor companies she then funneled money to or the fact that we're tempting war with a *nuclear-armed* nation because an old man needs to distract from his flagging popularity, or the fact that in action and deed, there's very little difference between Schumer or McConnell and it's all a game. And this group can be taken care of later, what's left of them of course. As you pointed out, they're killing themselves off at quite the rapid clip. Finally, there's money to be made (lots of it) in pretending to help them.
As for the other group, they actually are a threat if they get it in their heads that they could be better served by someone else. COVID has been a great way to control them and redistribute wealth (we won't even go into how it was used in the last election to suddenly change all the rules to benefit one party, rules that party would like to enshrine in law under the guise of "voting rights"). Did you really think that once these people got that power they would be strong enough morally to hand it back? And with such things as vaccine passports and mask mandates, you easily force those who dare to question you out of public life, or even out of the state when they get fed up. In other words, you've created an even more homogenous group of compliant, frightened people (either frightened of COVID or frightened of going against the grain), which is perfect for you.
I do think you're being more thoughtful than most and at least you're wondering what's going on and not just attributing it to hypocrisy, but I think honestly you're giving these people too much credit. They really, really don't care about "us." We're just livestock to most of them, our worth based on our usefulness to them.
Great article!
Riverside County has set aside properties like that for "tiny housing," apparently with some success.
The progressive leadership of LA and LA County, however, will not stand for it.
And also in Austin - a tiny home community for the formerly homeless "Community First! Village is a 51-acre master planned community that provides affordable, permanent housing and a supportive community for men and women coming out of chronic homelessness. " https://mlf.org/community-first/