A nation in trouble

The Homelessness Research Institute has released its study of U.S. figures from 2009. The homeless crisis is really bad everywhere, but some cities and states are hit worse than others. Here's a number that jumped out at me: Washington, D.C. had a homeless population in 2009 of 6,228. That's a lot of people for any size city, but for a medium-sized place like D.C. it's incredible. Out of every 10,000 people in the District, roughly 104 are homeless. Isn't it a shame we don't have the resources to help all of these unfortunates? But wait a second... didn't the politicians in D.C. just spend over $4 billion dollars on T.V. ads to get elected? So they could do the people's business, right? Like give tax breaks to billionaires while cutting heat assistance to the poor?

Let's think out of the box here for a moment. Suppose the plutocrats cut their campaign spending by 10%, leaving $400 million to play with. Each of these 6,228 homeless would now have a fund of more than $64,000 to help rebuild his or her life. That might pay for some rent, job training, clothes, medical care-- with enough left over to take a lobbyist out to lunch! I know it's asking a lot, but maybe our deficit hawk friends in D.C. might consider scraping by on $3.6 billion dollars in campaign spending, before they conclude that we have no choice but to let Grandma freeze to death. That reminds me, if these penny-pinching, live within our means politicians cut their campaign spending to a mere $1 billion, there would be plenty of money to restore the heating assistance that President Obama proposes slashing from the budget. Could it happen? While more than $1.7 million dollars per seat might seem like plenty, plutocrats aren't used to limiting their free corporate funded "speech."

We're not going to defeat the plutocrats by appealing to their sense of decency. The time for us has come to organize, and peacefully demand change. Events in Egypt have shown us that solidarity is very powerful. The key to victory is to overcome fear. Each of us as individuals dare not challenge our corporate overlords. Millions of us together will overcome.