Our brains aren't adjusting to a reality that crime is dropping, inflation is subsiding, wages are rising, and employment is full. Can we get it into our heads that, actually, things are good?
Small town here with lots of homeless, this is So Cal. I give $ all the time from $5 to $100 and we have churches and charities assisting and not much changes. I know the improvement is nationwide and levels reached depend on many factors. If it's at all in the Green on the scale of success, then I'm happy for those results and I will vote for the person who did SOMEthing to get it there - instead of kanoodling with the Saudis and Putin to put $ in his own pocket and destroy human rights.
I love you Frank, and I would agree . . . however . . . my medium-sized town (not really even what you'd even call a true "city") in the Pacific Northwest is overrun with homeless folks wandering on almost every street and in almost every neighborhood looking much like the undead from some zombie movie (except for their attendant shopping carts and bundles of rags). Churches, relief organizations, county, and municipal government, all are trying to do genuinely positive things to help these people. But not much seems to work. I'm a Democrat too, and a pretty liberal one. But their presence is so all-pervasive and unavoidable that it is really hard to take the Biden Campaign's triumphalism about how well things are going very seriously. We all know it is a complex problem with no simple one-size-fits-all answer. But the "optics" of what people see as they drive around town makes this shiny optimism we're being told hard to feel on a very visceral level. The visuals people encounter everywhere here plainly indicate something is very, very wrong. I am afraid too many of them will wind up voting for the guy with the shortest and simplest answer(s): Lock 'em up, and/or deport 'em all (in other words, make the problem disappear). Trouble is, the problem is people, real people.
Thanks Ted. I just talked with Pulitzer prize-winning Author Dale Maharidge about this topic and others as part of our exploration of his book, American Doom Loop. Have a look.
If we're EVER going to break out of the doom loop, we have to vote - and keep voting - and keep working on behalf of, as you say, real people. Things ARE better, not fixed, AND YET there is still so much work to be done. Both of those can be true.
Homelessness has always been a public policy choice and we need people to stand up and say, firmly and forcefully, that it is an unacceptable choice that WE have made. We all know that Joe Biden was never going to single-handedly reverse 40 years of NIMBY local housing policy in one term, but he doesn't viciously hate certain groups of people like Donald Trump and his followers do. I think that matters. The fish rots from the head, as they say, and we deserve a human being for a President while we instigate a radical shift in our thinking, continue to lift each other up, and celebrate those moments when our choices do lead to making things better.
Thank you, Ted, for your comment and for paying attention to the world around you. ♥️
Guilty! Had not given up but was definately worried. But, in our defense, I think most of us were concerned about the uncommitted voters giving up on him! You javelin such wise words, thanks Frank!
Small town here with lots of homeless, this is So Cal. I give $ all the time from $5 to $100 and we have churches and charities assisting and not much changes. I know the improvement is nationwide and levels reached depend on many factors. If it's at all in the Green on the scale of success, then I'm happy for those results and I will vote for the person who did SOMEthing to get it there - instead of kanoodling with the Saudis and Putin to put $ in his own pocket and destroy human rights.
Thank you, Frank.
Thanks Frank. Appreciate your positive podcast!
Amen Frank! If we could get the media to cover this news adequately!
I love you Frank, and I would agree . . . however . . . my medium-sized town (not really even what you'd even call a true "city") in the Pacific Northwest is overrun with homeless folks wandering on almost every street and in almost every neighborhood looking much like the undead from some zombie movie (except for their attendant shopping carts and bundles of rags). Churches, relief organizations, county, and municipal government, all are trying to do genuinely positive things to help these people. But not much seems to work. I'm a Democrat too, and a pretty liberal one. But their presence is so all-pervasive and unavoidable that it is really hard to take the Biden Campaign's triumphalism about how well things are going very seriously. We all know it is a complex problem with no simple one-size-fits-all answer. But the "optics" of what people see as they drive around town makes this shiny optimism we're being told hard to feel on a very visceral level. The visuals people encounter everywhere here plainly indicate something is very, very wrong. I am afraid too many of them will wind up voting for the guy with the shortest and simplest answer(s): Lock 'em up, and/or deport 'em all (in other words, make the problem disappear). Trouble is, the problem is people, real people.
Thanks Ted. I just talked with Pulitzer prize-winning Author Dale Maharidge about this topic and others as part of our exploration of his book, American Doom Loop. Have a look.
https://youtube.com/live/m98Yahk0CzU?feature=share
If we're EVER going to break out of the doom loop, we have to vote - and keep voting - and keep working on behalf of, as you say, real people. Things ARE better, not fixed, AND YET there is still so much work to be done. Both of those can be true.
Homelessness has always been a public policy choice and we need people to stand up and say, firmly and forcefully, that it is an unacceptable choice that WE have made. We all know that Joe Biden was never going to single-handedly reverse 40 years of NIMBY local housing policy in one term, but he doesn't viciously hate certain groups of people like Donald Trump and his followers do. I think that matters. The fish rots from the head, as they say, and we deserve a human being for a President while we instigate a radical shift in our thinking, continue to lift each other up, and celebrate those moments when our choices do lead to making things better.
Thank you, Ted, for your comment and for paying attention to the world around you. ♥️
Preach Brother!!!
Guilty! Had not given up but was definately worried. But, in our defense, I think most of us were concerned about the uncommitted voters giving up on him! You javelin such wise words, thanks Frank!
Have!
Thanks Frank for sharing the good news 👍