The US has exported an economic model with the idea that everyone can organise themselves under that model

how horribly embarrassing when a united nations special rapporteur, banned from exercising her duties in the united states by the bush administration, finally gets to do her job and discovers that, under the capitalist rock, the rock at the centerpiece of the "shining city on the hill," are all sorts of creepy-crawlies...

Raquel Rolnik, the UN special rapporteur for the right to adequate housing, who has just completed a seven-city tour of America, said it was shameful that a country as wealthy as the US was not spending more money on lifting its citizens out of homelessness and substandard, overcrowded housing.

"The housing crisis is invisible for many in the US," she said. "I learned through this visit that real affordable housing and poverty is something that hasn't been dealt with as an issue. Even if we talk about the financial crisis and government stepping in in order to promote economic recovery, there is no such help for the homeless."

She added: "I think those who are suffering the most in this whole situation are the very poor, the low-income population. The burden is disproportionately on them and it's of course disproportionately on African-Americans, on Latinos and immigrant communities, and on Native Americans."

equally shameful is that the major media exposure on this story - no surprise, unfortunately - comes via the uk guardian...

and equally shocking - again, if not surprising - is this...

"One of the first meetings I had at the state department they clearly told me: here, adequate housing is not a human right," [Rolnik] said.

the mindset that has been assiduously fostered in the united states, through an endless stream of propaganda, is that if you're poor, it's your own goddam fault... by definition, you must be lazy and no damn good... and yet my country has taken this bogus philosophy and is pushing it down the throats of people around the world... it's people like rolnik, who is, after all only doing her job, that can blow the whistle on this patent bullshit...

rolnik's conclusion...

"The US has exported an economic model with the idea that everyone can organise themselves under that model. It's very important for the rest of the world to know who fits in to this model and who is excluded," she tells her audience.

damn straight...

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Lest we forget, the economic collapse is affecting REAL PEOPLE

i've read a number of blog posts and commenters' remarks talking about how people stupid enough to drive up their debt to the point where they can no longer keep up, who signed on to mortgages that, no matter how attractive the initial terms, were beyond their means, shouldn't expect a bailout... what this perspective conveniently ignores is that the entire system has been wired for people to easily fall prey to such schemes... our entire society has been structured around a "get while the gettin's good," "i'll take mine and the devil can have the rest" mentality... when all that's ever dangled before our faces are the obscenely rich getting obscenely richer and the american dream portrayed as "whoever has the most toys, wins," what are people supposed to do...? the answer is clear - pull out those credit cards, buy that new car, sign that mortgage, and keep on buyin'... now that the bottom is falling out, it's the poor slobs who believed that bullshit propaganda who are getting hurt, not those who perpetrated it for their own benefit...

ah, america...! what a great country...!



and, naturally, it takes the foreign media (the bbc) to show us our own dark side...

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Make sure the ones you're depriving have no means to fight back

from today's la times...

Gov. seeks to cut mental services for homeless
Schwarzenegger says ending the acclaimed program would save $55 million annually toward $3-billion budget gap.

A nationally lauded program that has helped thousands of mentally ill homeless men and women break the cycle of psychiatric hospitalization, jail time and street life is now on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's list of budget cuts.

The governor has proposed eliminating Integrated Services for Homeless Adults With Serious Mental Illness, which receives $55 million annually, as part of his attempt to close a budget gap estimated at more than $3 billion.

why, it all makes perfectly good sense... the homeless mentally ill have no lobbyists... as a source of campaign contributions, they're practically worthless... they don't have access to the media... they don't own property or stock... they're not affiliated with an ethnic group, religious organization or political party... they don't speak out on issues... they probably don't even vote... hell, when they talk at all, they don't even make sense half the time... what a perfect opportunity for a budget cut...

p.s. $55M is 1.9% of $3B...

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