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	<title>Zoonpolitikon &#187; squatters</title>
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		<title>Hypocritical Whores</title>
		<link>http://zoonpolitikon.ca/blog/2009/05/hypocritical-whores/</link>
		<comments>http://zoonpolitikon.ca/blog/2009/05/hypocritical-whores/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 06 May 2009 16:16:42 +0000</pubDate>
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				<category><![CDATA[Political Commentary]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Political Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Social Commentary]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Society:  Us v. The Man]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[U. S. politics]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Bail Outs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bankruptcy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[California homes demolished]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Capitalism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democracy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[economic crisis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[foreclosure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[homelessness]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[housing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[justice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Police]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[squatters]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sub-prime mortgages]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Western industrialized states]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://zoonpolitikon.ca/blog/?p=734</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Homelessness is a chronic problem in Western industrialized states but this current recession is swelling the numbers.  After all it was the sub-prime mortgage disaster that pushed the ball over the cliff in the first place.  Thousands have lost their homes; many of them ordinary working people who had bought into the American dream.  There [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div class="mceTemp">Homelessness is a chronic problem in Western industrialized states but this current recession is swelling the numbers.  After all it was the sub-prime mortgage disaster that pushed the ball over the cliff in the first place.  Thousands have lost their homes; many of them ordinary working people who had bought into the American dream.  There has been a lot of criticism of these people in the interim by holier-than-thou Monday morning quarterbacks who said they should have known better.  I would just love to wander into their houses and see how much junk some smooth talking salesman convinced them they couldn&#8217;t live without.  It is never how clever your con is but how badly your mark wants what you are pushing; whether from greed, need or vanity.  Who doesn&#8217;t want a house?  Who doesn&#8217;t want their kids to have a backyard to play in?  At least the people who fell victim to the confidence artists at the banks were hungry for something useful rather than the critics who only wasted their money on Thigh Masters or the latest rip-off from Jenny Craig or Weight-Watchers or unbelievably a toilet seat that lowers itself (a totally useless item as most homes, mine included, come with a screaming wife that assures I will put it down). </div>
<p class="first-child "><span title="H" class="cap"><span>H</span></span>ow many of us could afford to have our mortgage payment triple overnight?  I couldn&#8217;t and I doubt there are many out there that could.  Now with unemployment rising rapidly more and more families will end up watching their possessions parade out of repossessed homes toward an uncertain future.  Billions, trillions have been pumped into the banks and yet no one stopped them from ripping the life out from under the very people who had provided that money.  They are toxic assets now, not people, not families. </p>
<p><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-753" title="housedemolishscalif1" src="http://zoonpolitikon.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/housedemolishscalif1.jpg" alt="housedemolishscalif1" width="246" height="162" />In recent days a housing project a bank seized from a developer that went under was torn down in California.  Bank officials determined demolition would be cheaper than repairing the houses and completing construction.  Twenty houses, homes, were torn down at this particular development and workers on site reported they had a similar demolition order for another development not far away.  Squatters had moved in and vandals had caused damage.   Much of the vandalism, beyond the usual obscene words spray painted on the walls, was theft of fixtures and infrastructure carefully removed by tools.  Sounds to me like someone was cutting a few costs on their home renovations.  Probably some of the very same sanctimonious individuals mentioned above.  The squatters on the other hand may well have included some of the very people this same bank had ripped from the comfort and security of their own living rooms and thrust onto the street.  Now they became squatters and vandals, the mainstream media purposely or ignorantly making them one and the same in the minds of a gullible public.  Sleeping tonight made easier thanks to a propaganda industry dehumanizing them. </p>
<p>People ask me what I have against a capitalist system.  Well open your eyes.  This is capitalism at work.  The capitalist market is amoral (I would argue immoral).  The bank has no responsibility to care what happens to people.  Bank executives don&#8217;t have to answer for the consequences of their acts.  If people suffer it is not their problem and government should not stick its big nose in, that would just mess things up.  Government doesn&#8217;t know what they are doing;  the financial geniuses of Wall Street do.   Yeah right!  Try selling that argument to anybody today.  That is why the capitalist system doesn&#8217;t work.  It argues that society should be run without any moral oversight.  The law of the jungle; survival of the fitest; all the rest of that crap.  How hypocritical.  Capitalists want society to be dog eat dog until something starts nibbling on their flanks.  Then it is &#8216;<em>call in our buddies the local, state or federal authorities to pound these nuisances back into the muck they are.&#8217;</em> </p>
<div class="mceTemp"> </div>
<div id="attachment_743" class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width: 271px"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2009/04/27/business/27geithner.graf01.ready.html" target="_blank"><img class="size-medium wp-image-743  " title="27geithner-graf01" src="http://zoonpolitikon.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/27geithner-graf01-261x300.jpg" alt="Okay so who brought the vaseline?" width="261" height="300" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Okay so who brought the vaseline?</p></div>
<p>The squatters at that development needed a home and they found one.  That is dog eat dog.  They should have been allowed to defend it.  After all a man&#8217;s home is his castle and as soon as they laid down amongst their meagre possessions those houses became their homes.   Nothing is more beautiful than when an inert mass of wood and metal begins to breathe with the soul of a home.  Our so-called government authorities are truly agents of the monied classes.  Rather than stand aside and do what the capitalists argue they want from government, let the private sector function, they stick their big noses in, not to tell the bankers that they need to be responsible citizens, but to make sure the vulnerable can&#8217;t stand up for themselves. </p>
<p> </p>
<div class="mceTemp"> This horror should be stopped.  These properties should be made available to people who need them.  Our governments should no longer be allowed to work only for the enemy.  We say that democracy is government of the people, for the people and by the people.  America wants to spread this concept to the four corners of the world as a shining utopia.  Well maybe you should start living it at home first.  Western governments are not beacons of democracy but hypocritical whores.</div>
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