The making of "them"

[lightningandsnow]

(Imported from my livejournal)...

Often, when a neighborhood or other geographical area is viewed as substandard, people blame it on "them'.

You know, the homeless. Or the prostitutes, or the illegal immigrants, or whoever.

People get enegized to "clean up the streets". Make "them" go away.

As if the homeless, sex workers, or illegal immigrants are objects. Not people, but some kind of nusiance that you have to get rid of.

You know what? They're human. They have hopes and dreams and aspirations. They have friends and family. They are people, and whether or not you agree with all their actions, they don't deserve to be looked down upon, called names, assaulted, or worse.

Because that sex worker is a waitress with two kids, trying to make ends meet.

Because that homeless man is a Vietnam veteran haunted by demons of the past.

Because that illegal immigrant was desperate to escape a life of poverty.

Because we're them, and they're us.

[Parche]

1. Us And Them

And after all we're only ordinary men..............:hi:

[jtrockville]

2. There is no THEM. There's only US.

[bobbolink]

3. Many years ago, in a sermon, a priest said he was asked by a parishioner

to give his definition of "pornography".

He said, "To me, pornography is the whole concept of US and Them."

:applause:

[lightningandsnow]

6. Amazing.

I like that priest!

[99th_Monkey]

4. The Re-making of "them"

The only "them" I feel viscerally separated from are the Reptilian humanoids passing themselves off
as "neocon human beings", who are destroying our country.

[bobbolink]

7. Yet, more and more, we find many of the Dems doing very similar things.

Really, there is no "THEM"

[99th_Monkey]

9. I'm hip to that there's ultimately really no "them"

While that is an ultimate truism -- from a collective cosmological and psychological perspective -- there is
also the relative truism that as humans we often have the experience of their being some "other" .. a "them"
out there somewhere whose either a) loving me, b) hating me or c) other .. that "they" are "doing something
to me" .. yet I know this experience is ultimately an illusion, as Buddhism points out repeatedly and eloquently.

In the final analysis, it's a living paradox; both are "true" in their own right .. contradictory ... but still
both true.

This is perhaps why -- if there's anything "good" at all about the Bush2 phenomenon related to our collective
healing and up-leveling evolutionarily speaking -- it's that it's forcing us to see this living paradox up close
and personal, and it's forcing our collective hand to make the evolutionary leap, or else.

You may be interested in this website, by a friend of mine who's written a book on this subject and has most of
it in article format on his site. His book is entitled "The Madness of GWBush: a reflection of our collective
psychosis"
http://awakeninthedream.com/

[ThomWV]

5. There is only one question. How can a child be raised for whom this is not selfevident?

It is the greatest failure of our society that even one person would not understand what you have just said so elequently. This failure, more than any other, is what is destroying our nation.

[bobbolink]

8. Truer words were never spoken!

"It is the greatest failure of our society that even one person would not understand what you have just said so elequently. This failure, more than any other, is what is destroying our nation."

:applause:

[lightningandsnow]

10. attempting to kick...

[DavidDvorkin]

11. I thought of the movie about giant ants

I assumed it was about to be remade.

[pitohui]

12. yeah but the way to help "them" is not to make me one of "them"

most americans who are homeowners, their home is the only thing of value they have, once the cops decide not to enforce the law and let the hookers stroll the streets, then you're screwed

i can't afford to lose the life savings i invested in my home because the cops can't be arsed to move the hookers and drug sellers along (and where they allow hookers to stroll, they also allow the drug sellers, don't kid yourself)

cleaning up the streets can make a real difference in a community, that's why homeowners are all for it -- in new orleans, it's noticeable how cops won't enforce the law in some communities and those communities are utterly destroyed by drugs, whores, and the gunplay that comes with fighting over ownership of drug and whore selling territories -- the cops pick and choose which communities are worth defending and don't tell me "well whores have to live somewhere," um, they can live at a halfway house until such time as they lose their addictions and get away from their pimps, how about that?

it's a real issue, you can see the difference between neighborhoods where folks have the power to demand that cops step in and remove sex workers, drug dealers, drunk and disorderlies...and those who don't...where the neighborhoods are not policed by law enforcement, they will be policed by the gangs, at least that's the way it works in new orleans and probably the way it works everywhere

arguments like yours sound all well and good, but in practice they are only used to excuse dumping addicts and drug merchants in poor neighborhoods, the better neighborhoods are always kept "clean"