Merry Christmas to Homeless Veterans in DC ! (PHOTOS)

[diamond14]

there are 18,000 HOMELESS PEOPLE in OUR Nation's Capital. Half are Veterans, 20% are children/families.....this is bush* faith-based social programs....bush*: the anti-Christ....


http://dc.indymedia.org/feature/display/111638/index.php

Merry Christmas to homeless vets
by n shia (c)2004 all rights reserved
24 Dec 2004

It's Christmas eve. Earlier today, I had a chance to bring some food to La Casa Shelter, next door to the Columbia Heights metro station. Since many veterans are homeless, and our country is still at war, creating more veterans, I thought it'd be a good idea to interview a homeless vet. Jimmie Word is who I found. Jimmie was going into La Casa to get dinner. He doesn't always live there, but he was very hungry and knew he could get fed there tonight.

He agreed to be interviewed with no conditions. Jimmie is 57, and was a combat soldier in Viet Nam in 1968-1969. He was part of the Tet Offensive. He said the last job he had was in '86; he was a merchant marine. Now he cannot work because he is disabled. He said he has PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder, and he said he was paranoid szchizophrenic.

Jimmie was easy to talk with, and when he got going on the effects that the Vietnam War has had on his life, he started thinking back on being in Vietnam, and he started crying. Jimmie said, "War is for one country to get rich, to accumulate what another country has. That's why the vets come back from the war and suffer."

Jimmie Word is an American veteran. He served our country in a time of war. Our country has done very little to serve Jimmie when he needed U.S.. Jimmie Word's struggle for housing and a decent living is the same struggle for many veterans. It is the horrors of their war, brought home to America, where many live homeless.

[leftchick]

1. thanks for the timely reminder. bush* hates people...

especially poor people and veterans... :cry:

[Pam-Moby]

2. The story is very sad.....many more to come to this point in life.

[diamond14]

3. yes, like OUR returning soldiers from bush* wars (PHOTOS)

Purple Hearts: Back from Iraq
http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0412/purplehearts_intro.html

to bush* and the reTHUGlicans, these people are just
"DISPOSABLE HEROS"....


Merry Christmas to these Veterans too....

burned


brain damaged, with his wife


quad


double-amputee with facial burns

[oscar111]

4. 100,000 die/yr fm heat, cold, rat bites. Bush 2 up # of hmlss, by 2 milion

His Budget plan shows cuts that will toss another 2 milion out to live on a piece of sidewalk.. according to a SF Chronicle article posted here at DU. {try Search feature} it was about two months ago.

BOSTON, 3X.. CANADA, 18X
Boston study i recall from the mid 90's, {cannot find on google.. anyone know of it?} showed they die at three times the normal rate. Three million are hmlss at some time during any one year.
one million on any one night... some rise out, some fall into it over a year's time. Canadian study said they die at eighteen times normal rate. I use Boston figure, as Canada will be assailed as "foreign".

100,000 /yr die from the effects of homelessness.

GOP policies kill. Ours do not.

NEWBORNS
Small children.. newborns... the elderly are among the hmless. How are they supposed to keep any medicines they may get? Their shanties and "nests" get razed by the authorities while they are away during the day.

REAGAN TO BLAME
Reagan cut housing aid by 2/3rds, creating mass homelessness for the first time since the Great Depression. And without the excuse of an economic crisis.

"we were pulling frozen bodies off the streets in Detroit in the early eighties"{Democracynow! website, page on Reagan's funeral}. Just read of a hypothermia homelessness death last week.

HYPOTHERMIA
It continues....Hypothermia is freezing death.. can happen in the weak at air temp of above-freezing temps. Anyone know the upper limit for hypothermia?

BEWARE
PS H C covington has a yahoo site on homeless news, yet slammed Kerry and stroked Bush. Beware.

TOTAL WEALTH
$105 trillion is total US wealth

http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/current/accessible/l5.htm

see that page, bottom line.
===============
Bush's taxcuts for the rich totalled over 350 Billion. To end all homelessness.... 4 Billion.

To end all poverty, 300 Billion.

CUT IN HALF, TIME FOR CURES
To double the NIH, add 30 Billion..which would cut in half the time to find cures on roughly all diseases now being researched.

To do all that, 334 Billion... just rollback bush's taxcuts of 350 Billion.

REAGANOMICS SHREDDED
Reaganomics is a flop.. wages now lower than when it began {adjusted for inflation}. 24 years is long enough to wait for results from Reaganomics. Wages lower, overtime gone, no more housewives, company pensions vanishing, company health insurance vanishing, Job Shortage up, to 14 million...Debt at historic record. Middle class is vanishing.

LOW REAGANOMICS = HI PROSPERITY
When Reaganomic policies were LEAST, '52 under Truman, we had prosperity.. top tax rate 90%. Now it is a pathetic third of that.

Resume Truman's healthy tax rate, and the Fed Budget doubles. End all poverty, all homelessness. With Tillions, not Billions.... to spare.

END REAGANOMICS, THE LIE THAT HAS CAPTURED THE VOTER
4 Trillion X .90 = almost 4 Trillion. That would add another three Trillion beyond current input. That would yield a fed revenue total of about 5.1 Trillion.

Current fed budget is about 2.4 Trillion. So getting rid of Reaganomics would instantly more than double the fed's budget.
An extra 2.7 Trillion to solve our nation's problems.

HUNGER ALSO TO INCREASE
Bush's budget also plans to up hunger ...cutting Food Stamps... up hunger from 12 to 13 million.

Absolutely none of the 100,000 coming deaths are necessary. That hundred thousand is not even counting the increase that Bush's Budget plans to cause, .. as mentioned above.

VODKA FROM A MALE OPENING
Kozlowski recently spent 2 million for a birthday party with vodka flowing from a male opening in a large ice statue. Do we need that?

PLS PRINTOUT AND SAVE THIS RE:
you can use the stats later for LTTES letters to the editor.

[diamond14]

5. Many will DIE from the FLU under bush* pogrom from CDC and the

bush* massive failure to get enough vaccine made....check out last weeks FLU spread, which will be MASSIVE after 62 MILLION Americans finish traveling around for the holidays....at least when President Clinton ran our country, there was PLENTY of flu vaccine, and even the homeless got vaccinated as they entered shelters....

homeless aren't counted in this statistic...



http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/usmap.htm

[oscar111]

6. REAGANOMICS dismantled.. see my first re for edited additions

that were not there a moment ago.
thanks

PS diamond, thanks for posting.. you do great work on these boards.
Pls post more! Can you also post in the Poverty forum? There, they do not get archived so fast.

[oscar111]

7. Just added more REAGANOMICS and Truman tax rates

see my first re: for great details.

[diamond14]

9. I try....but most DUers don't want this stuff up where they can SEE it...

REALITY of the bush* KILLING is too much for some DUers.....I also thank you for posting....because keeping the CARNAGE in front of DUers, and freeper interlopers and sometimes MSM looks at DU....keeping it up there can also help to STOP the CARNAGE....like Vietnam, until Americans get REAL sick of bush* wars, real real tired of bush* wars....the wars will continue...


I'm all for posting ALL the horrible carnage right here on the FRONT of DU for reTHUGlicans and MSM and others to SEE...all the KILLING....all the damaged Vets/families....EVERYTHING......

once American's eyes are wide opened, perhaps the bush* KILLING spree can be stopped.....like Vietnam, only maybe we can do it in less than the 14 year Vietnam killing spree.....I'd really like to see bush* nixon-ed out-of-office soon, for war crimes!, but at this point, I'd be thrilled with a "nixon" for something lesser, like corruptions or fraud or theft...

[annabanana]

10. We aren't the ones hiding from these images....

The threads sink because there is never (sadly) a shortage of this horror, and they never, never run out as long as this stupid, venal greedy inexcusable slaughter continues.

Our focus must be on stopping it, by whatever means comes to hand and that work is occasionally energized by your "reminders".

Thank you for posting them.

[oscar111]

11. post more photos: show the devasted lives: they say Civil Rights movement

was really helped by photos of Bull Connors dogs chewing activists.

Exposure is a fine idea.

Your pics are riviting, haunting... esp the double amputee.

At one time, such a handicapped person would have a guaranteed job in a sheltered workshop. Now, in my town only the retarded have a S Wkshp. Perhaps also the blind, tho they are not listed in the yellow pages or by google.

Take millions of photos. I keep hearing of new finds of G Depression photos, and they are treasured. Your collection, esp if large, will be a treasure for historians.

[lpbk2713]

8. Their Commander in Thief has good news for them.....

"Mission Accomplished"







Riiiight.

[oscar111]

12. To all hmls workers:Try to count them in some fixed area:stats needed

stats on the homeless are few.

AREA
Pick some fixed area, perhaps an intersection , and whenever you are there, count the hmless. Keep a central record at home of the number and date and time of day. Try to do this at the same hour, but any hour is of some use.

If you have the time, add how many of them are such things as :

DETAILS
Male or female gender
ethnicity
age, approx
regulars vs new faces
dead bodies on the street
Occasional photos of the area would be priceless.

AREA DEFINED
The area might be one side of a block, either one or both sides of that street. Dont make it large beyond your ability to do the observation repeatedly over time.

POST HERE OR IN A SCHOLARLY JOURNAL

Occassionally , post the data here or any better site. After some data accumulates, a local college sociologist might be interested in coauthoring a journal article with you. You might ask for such a helper at some hmlss site.. even a scholar in another city,... it could be done.
PS might do a photo essay for a mass magazine, too. When Look existed, it would have done it.

VALUABLE INFORMATION
Your data would show changes over time in the hmless.. like how many and how numbers change over time, and how deadly it is. It would show the degree of churning..new faces. How many are kids under six. On and on.

ACT NOW, PUBLISH LATER
But gather the data now. It could be posted here.. or in a Journal years from now. But it must be gathered now, as these foul events happen.

ODD SITE
Avoid H C Covington's yahoo hmlss news site. He slammed Kerry, and stroked bush. I am highly wary of him. To be precise.. the site has good news items, and bad commentary by the site owner. Reminds me of AARP being taken over by a guy who wrote the preface to Gingrich's book "Contract". Novelli also has a long history as a GOP activist.
Or like, Mrs bob dole getting to be head of the Red Cross.. she who fought and killed universal healthcare when Clinton pushed it.
Moles, moles, moles.