Debora Juarez
Kshama Sawant
Posted on 05/01/2018 4:35:25 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
Alex Berezow, a microbiologist from the University of Washington, is leaving Seattle after fourteen years in what he believed was the most beautiful city in the world.
He has penned an eloquent column on his decision for the Seattle Times. It makes for startling reading no matter where you live in the U.S.
For starters, Seattle's policies have created a larger homeless population than in the past. Berezow was so concerned about this that he made an appointment with Debora Juarez, the District 5 City Council member for whom Berezow had voted, to talk about the matter:
I believe strongly that it is not compassionate to leave people who are unable or unwilling to care for themselves to suffer and die on the street. Because many (but certainly not all) homeless people struggle with mental illness or drug addiction, I suggested that Seattle find a way to make it easier to provide treatment to these troubled souls — involuntarily, if need be. It could literally save their lives.
Juarez exclaimed, “What is this? Nazi Germany?”
Appalled — in part because my grandparents survived Nazi Germany — I got up and walked out.
Seattle prides itself on being an anti-Trump city, but in some ways the conduct of its elected officials leave something to be desired, too. They have made Seattle unpleasant and as toxic as any place in the nation:
Slowly but surely, Seattle has become an angry place. Councilmember Kshama Sawant called a police shooting a “brutal murder.” She also tweeted that it was “terrible” for a feminist organization to wish that Barbara Bush, on her death, rest in peace. As a congressional candidate, Pramila Jayapal supporters implied that her respectable opponent, Brady Walkinshaw, was a misogynist and racist. And former Mayor Ed Murray, whose pattern of alleged sexual behavior finally caught up with him, remained defiant until the bitter end.
For a city that prides itself on being “anti-Trump,” it is difficult to see how exactly we’re supposed to possess the moral high ground over “The Other Washington.”
Seattle is also becoming unaffordable:
Seattle is well on its way to becoming the next Vancouver, British Columbia, with the median housing price having spiked to an eye-watering $820,000, far outside the reach of the middle class. Unless they are able to save for about 14 years to afford a down payment, millennials can forget about homeownership entirely.
The $15 minimum wage has added gasoline to the fire. Though it hasn’t even been fully implemented yet, the most recent study last summer revealed that when the minimum moved from $11 to $13 an hour, low-wage workers lost about $125 per month. That means that the law raises costs for businesses and customers while actually harming employees it was meant to help.
Meanwhile, the City Council turns its attention to such issues as climate change and foreign policy, neglecting homelessness and traffic problems.
In a nutshell, Alex Berezow is leaving the city he loved because Seattle is a progressive paradise.
Kshama Sawant
I only travel to Seattle anymore to visit my daughter.
The rampant vagrancy throughput the city, along with the feces and urine smell infects much of the city.
Property crime is on the rise and the socialist city council won't allow the police to do their job.
This guy leaving is smart, many are also leaving, I hope my daughter follows suite.
He supported and voted for it, repeatedly, I bet. To bad we can’t wall him up in seattle with the the inmates he enabled
He will probably vote the same way in his new place until he turns it into what Seattle has become and them complain again.
To = too
Yup.
The swashbuckling bon vivant vagabond life has always had its draw.
Gentle on My MindSo, otherwise known as homeless. Oh and, young men used to call it camping out when there wasn't a metropolitan city around it.It's knowin' that your door is always open
And your path is free to walk
That makes me tend to leave my sleepin' bag
Rolled up and stashed behind your couch
And it's knowin' I'm not shackled
By forgotten words and bonds
And the ink stains that have dried upon some line
That keeps you in the back roads
By the rivers of my memory
That keeps you ever gentle on my mindIt's not clingin' to the rocks and ivy
Planted on their columns now that bind me
Or something that somebody said because
They thought we fit together walkin'
It's just knowing that the world
Will not be cursing or forgiving
When I walk along some railroad track and find
That you're movin' on the back roads
By the rivers of my memory
And for hours you're just gentle on my mindThough the…Though the wheat fields and the clothes lines
And the junkyards and the highways come between us
And some other woman's cryin' to her mother
'Cause she turned and I was gone
I still might run in silence
Tears of joy might stain my face
And the summer sun might burn me till I'm blind
But not to where I cannot see
You walkin' on the back roads
By the rivers flowin' gentle on my mindI dip my cup of soup back from a gurglin' cracklin' cauldron
In some train yard
My beard a rustlin' coal pile
And a dirty hat pulled low across my face
Through cupped hands 'round a tin can
I pretend to hold you to my breast and find
That you're waitin' from the back roads
By the rivers of my memory
Ever smilin', ever gentle on my mindSongwriters: John HartfordGentle on My Mind lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
These people are really marginalizing themselves. Soon, “racist” will mean nothing whatsoever. That’s bad, since real racism still exists (mostly on the Left).
Like many others, I have been labeled a “misogynist” because I stood up for a male colleague.
They are neutralizing powerful words and rendering themselves irrelevant in the process. We have to choose the replacements. We should choose wisely...
Most of the homeless are addicts, alcoholic and/or mentally ill. The mentally ill can also be addicted or alcoholic. They have no ability to make useful and safe choices.
When we were a better country, we took care of these people who could not care for themselves. Sometimes we took permanent custody of them.
Current homelessness of the mentally ill is a result of policies implemented in the sixties and seventies and spearheaded on the left coast. The consequences are tragic nationally. This is a national shame.
I recommend that all homeless go to California whenever the topic comes up, it is warm and hell, why not.
Your romanticism of homelessness among the people who are unable to manage good choices is ignorant. Saw four people would lost or almost lost hands and feet because they were unable to make good choices or manage their behavior and get into shelters during freezing spells. This is not romantic nor is it good.
You’ve raised her right; she’ll eventually come around. ;)
yeah? NYC has over 60,000 beds for the homeless in the winter.
With leftist women in high places shouldn’t Seattle be a gentler, kinder, more caring city? Yeh, sure..
“He will probably vote the same way in his new place until he turns it into what Seattle has become and them complain again.”
Given the way he refers to Trump in that article, it’s guaranteed. I hope he stays away from anyplace I live so he won’t cancel out my vote.
Here’s a great video illustrating exactly what you’re talking about.
That's cheating! Once you start doing that, they hang around forever.
“Gentle on My Mind”
Hated that song for the last fifty years. Who wants to be a f***ing vagabond? Look up hobo culture, it’s not a pretty sight.
Finish school, get a job, get married, buy a house, have a family....oh how dull.
Nor is your claim anything but anecdotal and has no more validity than my opinion.
I'm not ignorant just a realist. You talk of circumstances after the fact. I refer to the path that it takes to reach the reality of homelessness. There is no boogieman with a magic wand that zaps individuals on the beam and hey presto, they're homeless.
I have a brother who has been married and divorced three times, was willed a cinder block house yet has been more than once threatened with eviction for unsanitary conditions.
Once he had the toilet drain pipe drop from the flange which allowed his raw sewage to flow down his yard and into the road, yet he continued to use the bathroom. I or any regardful person would have crawled under the house and fastened the pipe back in its place. Another time the yard was covered in junk and trash.
That isn't mental illness just good for nothing lack of regard to better the circumstances you find yourself in. My brother is seventy and could be homeless by the next heedless act or lack of action. It my isn't romanticism, just acknowledgment that there is the gypsy rover in some men's hearts. My brother has always been like that. Some people just give up on life and let it drag them to the four winds.
The songs "Sweet Melissa" the Irish song "Gypsy Rover."
I am firmly convinced that a large number of homeless want to be. How do they become homeless? Individuals make choices or shirk decisions. It doesn’t happen by accident or default.
__________________________
I disagree that a large number of homeless want to be homeless. Many cannot take care of themselves because of mental illness. They do not want to be in a sheltered location because their mental illness does not permit it. they fail, the whole system fails them.
It is tragic. I do not know what is going on with your brother, but he is not representitive of the homeless I am familiar with.
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