What have we become?

[MannyGoldstein]

Last edited Sat Feb 28, 2015, 09:26 PM - Edit history (1)

Please watch this, and resolve to help someone you don't know, in some way, today.

This is how Holocausts happen: we look away.

(Thanks to Quixote1818 for originally posting this video and to 1StrongBlackMan for pointing it out to me. I was surprised by how few recs it got, hopefully GD will give it some more love.)

UPDATE: one_voice *did* post this video in GD yesterday.

[m-lekktor]

1. K & R.nt

[spanone]

2. the person filming this did nothing? all who walked by...how sad

does 'social experiment' mean this was staged? doesn't really matter...same results.

[christx30]

27. 'Social expirment' does mean staged.

It's like that show "What would you do?", where they stage a 'customer' calling his waiter the f-word or the n-word to see if the other customers in the place speak up for the waiter.

[PatrickforO]

28. I think this was an experiment. The kid was the two boys' little brother, and

They wanted to see if anyone would help him. 2 hours and only a homeless guy helped the kid. Apparently everyone else would have just let him freeze to death, just looked the other way. What I don't understand is how the kid DIDN'T freeze to death in that awful two hour span of time. You can die pretty quick in 5 degrees F without a jacket and when that kid got in the trash bag and laid down, I was worried, experiment or no.

But the homeless guy. Those brothers gave the guy $500 for helping their little brother. His reward for NOT looking away and for giving the kid his jacket.

[PedXing]

40. Thank God we're a Christian nation.

[PatrickforO]

46. LOL. In a way, Christianity is like taxes.

There is the nominal rate, and then their is the effective rate.

There are nominal Christians, and then there are effective ones.

Plenty of nominal Christians walked by that kid, but the effective one helped him. Not that he was a Christian. He could have just as easily been a Buddhist, or a Hindu, or a Muslim. Effective is the key word. A guy that practices a living love.

Or maybe you could say the homeless guy who helped the kid was a book of James guy as opposed to an Ephesians guy...

[KMOD]

3. That's horrible.

I can't believe how many people just walked by.

[guillaumeb]

4. why find it hard to believe

it is always the fault of the victimized in the GOP/Libertarian paradise.

Raped: you asked for it.

Homeless: you should have worked harder.

Bankrupt due to medical bills: eat healthier.

Poor: invent an app and get rich.

See how easy that was? Nothing to worry about because bad things only happen to bad people.

[PatrickforO]

29. Yeah, clearly this kid should just pull himself up by his bootstraps...

[kelliekat44]

51. Oh, wait...he doesn't have boots? nt

[GuntherGebelWilliams]

5. What have we become?

Skeptical, extremely skeptical. If I paid attention at all I'd be looking for Allen Funt to be jumping out of the bushes.

Social Experiment my butt.

In association with Damn.com and the Pranksters?

Give me an effing break.

[MannyGoldstein]

6. I've seen it myself in NYC

e.g., http://www.democraticunderground.com/106820167

[Man from Pickens]

13. Me too

I lived in NYC a while. When I first got there I would have helped that kid without a second thought for whatever else I may have been doing before I spotted him. By the time I left, I would have walked around him just like everyone else.

One reason is that the streets are where we dump mental patients. By helping a homeless stranger on the street, you do expose yourself to a danger above and beyond the level or risk of other social interactions.

The other reason is that there are just so damned many homeless, desperate people on the streets of NYC that without attenuating the normal human compassion reflex, you would be able to do nothing else. There is no end to the number of people who need help, and the next one is never more than a block away.

So while it's tempting to think the people passing him by are horrible people, they're not, really. They're just normal New Yorkers behaving as they have to behave to function in the city.

Me, I couldn't take being like that, so that's one of the reasons I left. But I totally understand how people get there.

[AZ Progressive]

24. Another evil that Reagan did to America, also further stigmatizing the mentally ill

As well as the homeless

[99Forever]

10. I feel sorry for you.

Too jaded to get it.

[11 Bravo]

17. Textbook example of missing the thrust of the post.

Now, back to your tigers. (But try not to fuck up[ like Roy Horn did.)

[awoke_in_2003]

30. I generally like to greet new members...

generally.

[840high]

37. So much empathy from you. Shame.

[ReRe]

41. Never took a sociology class huh? n/t

[chervilant]

48. So, you think skepticism kept all those people

from helping that child?

Would you have helped?

[Fumesucker]

7. Kitty Genovese

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Kitty_Genovese

[BlancheSplanchnik]

16. .....

[In_The_Wind]

8. .

[azurnoir]

9. K&R the homeless have become invisible to some, the norm for others

we have to remind folks it was not always this way homelessness is an artificial construct dating back Reagan, there is absolutely no excuse the housing exists, it's the values that don't or it seems the majority of people are more afraid of someone getting something for nothing than of people freezing starving and dieing on our streets

[chervilant]

49. This:

...it seems the majority of people are more afraid of someone getting something for nothing than of people freezing starving and dieing on our streets.

The uber wealthy corporate megalomaniacs relish the divisiveness that thrives among the Hoi Polloi--race, class, gender, economic status and all manner of other justifications for hating and disenfranchising are effective red herrings that prevent us from seeing what should unite us: that a minuscule number of (largely) old, white males are holding more than seven billion people hostage with their wealth (nee POWER) in an economic system designed to benefit ONLY them.

[99Forever]

11. Thanks Manny.

It's something I am glad I didn't miss.

[Tsiyu]

12. this was posted yesterday and few fucks were given

because....*insert reason here*

This is the way I feel about it: no matter what the reason, if you see a child shivering, or you think a child is hungry, you stop and check and you feed the child.

This should be normal human behavior. It was 5 degrees that day.

There are probably more animals who would have stopped to comfort the kid than the number of humans who bothered.

And that is the sign of a very inhumane society.

[LongTomH]

14. Jesus - and Charles Dickens - would weep!

We've let America become a copy of the London that Dickens knew and protested against. God forgive us all!

[daredtowork]

15. Thank you!

Anything "optional" gets overlooked in today's politics. Grr.

[Stonepounder]

18. One (very) slight mitigating factor.

I used to fine myself in NYC a couple of times a year, usually at the tip of Manhattan. I found New Yorkers to be friendly and helpful, not at all like the stereotype of rude and distant.

But...and this was a very important 'but'. If you haven't been to NYC you have no idea how crowded it is. The streets, particularly at 'rush hour' are an undulating sea of people heading to work, their subway, their train, etc. As numerous sociological studies have shown, when animals get so crowded together that it is impossible to maintain your 'personal space', the normal defense mechanism is to maintain your 'psychic space'; that is, you 'tune out' your surroundings. You don't make eye contact with others, you literally do not 'see' the others around you. It is the only way to maintain sanity.

Where I live, if I want to ask something of a stranger,all I have to do is 'catch their eye'. In NYC that doesn't work. You have to break through that 'psychic bubble' - tap them on the shoulder, intentionally black their path, speak directly to the person. Once you do that, New Yorkers are more than happy to help you. They just don't see you until you break that bubble.

(This, presumably, happens anywhere overcrowding exists. It is just that I am more familiar with NCY that, say New Delhi or Hong Kong.)

[JDPriestly]

19. K&R.

The number of homeless people in the County of Los Angeles is just overwhelming.

I agree that as individuals we can do small things to make this better.

But when the numbers of homeless are so high and when they have been so high for so long, this is a social problem that requires government action.

Years ago and for a number of years, I did fund-raising for a homeless project in Los Angeles. The best source of funding was government funding. Feeding, clothing housing and providing job placement, housing placement, psychological and social support -- and that is what is required to help homeless people -- costs a lot of money. Collections of small donations won't do the job. The reason is that it costs a lot to handle and collect and account for small amounts of money while the cost of providing just the essential needs of many homeless people is very great.

I have a friend who was homeless. After a long wait, she qualified for a subsidized apartment. Once she had a place to shower and a place to store things, a small kitchen, the basics, she became quite good at buying great clothes at second-hand shops. If you saw her, you would never think she had been homeless. She has been able to get medical care. She is a different person. I am waiting for her to find a boyfriend and get married. I believe it will happen. She is a great person underneath all the pain she withstood for so many years.

Miracles can happen.

It feels good when we help others. When the government helps, we don't as individuals feel all that good about it. But we should.

A voucher for subsidized housing is something we cannot as individuals give to a homeless person, but it is the key to a better life for that person. We need to urge our government to do more to fund homeless services and especially subsidized housing for homeless people.

In the best of all possible worlds, we would all have the brains of Einstein, the brawn of Mohammed Ali, the wisdom of Confucius, the goodness of Jesus and the patience of Job. But that is not this world, so we have to work together and pool our talents and resources to make the world better. ONE OF THE WAYS WE CAN DO THAT IS THROUGH OUR GOVERNMENT. We need more government money dedicated to help homeless people.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

20. From the Grapes of Wrath...

She started for the door, and when she reached it, she turned about. “I’m learnin’ one thing good,” she said. “Learnin’ it all a time, ever’ day. If you’re in trouble or hurt or need—go to poor people. They’re the only ones that’ll help—the only ones.” Ma Joad

[awoke_in_2003]

31. +1...

great book, and great quote.

[They_Live]

21. Thank you

the other night I took a tray of food and some bottled water and dropped it off for the outside crowd at the downtown main library. I need to do things like that more often. Also clean clothes, new socks, backpacks, pens, notebooks, etc...

[840high]

38. I leave a cardboard box

outside my front door. Have asked my neighbors to drop clothing, canned goods, toiletries, etc. in it. Once a month I take the box to a shelter.

[Oilwellian]

22. I have often wondered...

with more and more Americans becoming homeless, would we reach the point where we would just step over someone who is dying on the sidewalk. I guess I have my answer.

[zeemike]

23. What we have become is isolated from humanity.

We all have our own little boxes to live in and basically the outside world is full of threats in our minds...And every day on the TV we see more reasons to stay in our little box where it is safe and warm...other people are just are objects to us.
We pass them on the street and never look in their eyes.

And the saddest part is I see no change in that at all...the more fear there is the worse it gets.

[TheKentuckian]

25. Thanks to all for keeping. this out

[giftedgirl77]

26. Wow, just wow....

[daleanime]

32. Thanks for reporting....

too often miss what we shouldn't.

[Tom Rinaldo]

33. Speechless. K^R n/t

[one_voice]

34. I posted it here (GD)...

on Thursday. http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026283097

[MannyGoldstein]

39. I added an update to the OP to mention that.

Thanks. I guess the updated title caught people's eyes today, or they saw my name and figured The Swarm would show up for its bizarre antics.

[blkmusclmachine]

35. ,

,

[Lifelong Protester]

36. ...

...

[jimlup]

42. I am so proud that he and I share some of the same DNA

Many people call themselves Christians but this daring man is what it really means to be like Christ. (For the record I am not theologically "Christian" but I hold Christian morality and this exemplifies real Christian morality. Not the horseshit plastic stuff that is peddled as such by the Charlatan opportunists that the typical Republican poliician supports.)

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

43. This is what happens when a nation cares more for the 1%

and is told that the homeless brought it upon themselves.

I fear for what is coming.

[JEB]

44. K&R

[Control-Z]

45. Did you help the woman who

couldn't afford the repairs on her car? Never saw the follow up on that thread.

[Divernan]

47. Where were the Wall Street bankers/hedge fund owners/grifters?

Never look out the windows as their limos drive by on their way to their $10 million condos - in their own greedy bubbles.

[kelliekat44]

50. You know damn well what we have become. And it ain't pretty. nt