Luckily, I have a guitar and some places to stay, so I can play it, for tips, on the street. However, when one teeters on the edge of the abyss of the American homeless nothing is the same anymore, especially when you are advanced in years with all that aging entails.
No, he is not a bum. That derogatory term has seen its day and is merely used as an excuse by those who have internalized capitalism so deeply and thoroughly that is a transparent filter that becomes evident in their disdain and fear when they spew the mantras of predators: "Get a job" and, "You bum!" Though it is a probabilistic matter, deep inside they may realize that, in a world where profit is precious and people become expendable numbers, they too, could end-up in the desert of the real where there is nothing but the completely erroneous assumptions in the minds of the androids of the Great Exploitation, that one simply gets welfare and lives comfortably off the system like a Sultan of social services, or a food stamps mogul.
That's when they find-out that the safety net they imagined is a few strands of dental floss woven together and you easily fall right though it into the land of untouchables in the forbidden zone of destitution for wayward consumers. It is the tunnel at the end of your days of some good fortune where the anticipation of a light at the end leads to nothing but a cold, dark night in the gutter as a plaything for people looking for someone to beat or burn as a catharsis for their own tortures and suffering. Baseball bats and matches take on a new meaning there.
No, none of us are bums, or even hobos these days. The word indigent applies, but it does not convey the reality and meaning of the situation and is as useful in the Profitable States of America as increasingly archaic terms like compassion, altruism in country that has managed to turn a word that relates to our well being, welfare, and make it a dirty, insult laden with contempt and spite.
No, he is not a bum and he is a real, feeling, thinking human being with similar basic needs and wants to the rest of us, (except those who fashion themselves as privileged and exceptional to the rest of us by way of their holdings). Unfortunately, being a human being really does not matter much anymore. What he is not is a useful commodity by the values and standards of America, and therefore, like an old appliance or broken-down car, he, and many of us, simply become disposable people.
You see him and others and fail to realize that that is you in part. That failures is born of fear, ignorance, naivete and an ingrained subservience to the influential rewards and punishments that the system utilizes to preserve and continue itself with the mask of the Status Quo. You know you are complicit in so many ways, but those people on the corner begging remind you of what can happen if you don't play the game just right and do and think what you are told to, overtly or covertly. So, another day for you in paradise, but the human signposts for Hell are there to remind you of the cost of exploitation and what you have been told to believe is normal and right. Concrete results are the most difficult ones to go face-to-face with, but that's the only place we can ever even dream of ending the burgeoning numbers of homeless men, women and so, so many children.
It's growing and it is much closer than you think.
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