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Those Demons Are Us By David Glenn Cox I was writing a witty and amusing post about the alleged New York terrorist supposedly trained by the Pakistani Taliban who didn’t know the difference between ammonium nitrate fertilizer and organic fertilizer. The short version is that one is shit and the other is shinola, and then, well, I lost it. Don’t know where it went; maybe I’ll find it again while it is still relevant. Then I came across an editorial quite by accident and it made me incredibly angry at the slack-jawed, paternalistic mongoloids with their dead-eyed indifference to other Americans and to their fellow man. This is the way it works in the real world: societies problems are created by ignorance, greed or indifference. They don’t just fall from the sky or wash up on the beach. But these self-righteous, sanctimonious, virtuous barbarians cause the problems and then lament the moral weakness of those caught in the traps. The author begins like this; “In ancient Greece a daemon was good or malevolent 'supernatural beings between mortals and gods, such as inferior divinities and ghosts of dead heroes.' "In Hawaii, they seem to be our Homeless and Addicted and Mentally ill. "I was driving to work-out the other day and saw in my peripheral vision a man dressed all in black, walking across some grass. He appeared to be one of the many, many methamphetamine addicts we have here in Hawaii. Nobody really looked at him and he looked at nobody; it was like watching someone from another dimension accidentally cross my own.”
So, out in your car during your leisure time you can diagnose the homeless without even slowing down. You label them "Daemons" because you yourself could never, ever find yourself in such a position. Because you are, of course, superior to the “Daemons.” You see them, diagnose them and pass judgment upon them, all from the front seat of your car. They are all defectives, these “Daemons.” There is something wrong with them but not with you, or with us, but just with them, these “Daemons.”
“There are a lot of homeless people here in Hawaii for a variety of reasons. Hawaii is one of the most expensive places to live in the U.S. We have a ferocious Meth problem here. <"Don't even try it once!" warn the constant ads. But somehow, they all did.> The weather is always nice so people can live outside 365 days a year, unlike say, Chicago. We have three brand new homeless shelters that remain empty because they have rules that nobody wants to follow: No drugs. No alcohol. Nobody sleeps in them.”
I see, it is all their fault because they took drugs and you did not. Well, that’s because you are so much smarter than they are, dear. Maybe, just maybe, they began to take drugs as an escape from not being able to afford a decent place to live. Maybe they didn’t drive to workout classes but took the bus six days a week to two or three part-time jobs that didn’t add up to the rent. Maybe they lament their own situation as much as you enjoy yours. Here’s something they don’t teach at workout class, sweetness: freedom and dignity are intertwined.
Maybe when you’re down to an old cardboard box or suitcase of belongings and the rules say you can’t bring them inside, you, too, will decide to keep your belongings and your dignity over having a bed. I understand your point: they’re “Daemons” that need to be told when they can take shower or when it’s time to go to bed and when it’s time to get up in the morning. If they were smart, gifted and wealthy like you they wouldn’t need to be, but since they’re “Daemons,” they do.
When you offer that, “Nobody sleeps in them” (homeless shelters), you’ve done head counts? Or is that just what all the girls at Curves or the country club say? No need to answer, your tone speaks volumes. “Brand new shelters” huh? I bet they were all paid for by your tax dollars, right?
"What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is that they all want to stay in Texas. Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this (chuckle) – this is working very well for them." (Barbara Bush)
Sound familiar, dear? You are just so good and kind to these “Daemons.” They really like existing in poverty and squalor in your privileged world because you’re just so good to them.
“So they live and sleep and shoot up and drink in an almost separate space than those of us working, driving kids to events, going to a movie. I have several homeless people I give money to. I don't care what they do with it. When my inner voice prods me to give, I give. Those particular people don't live in my periphery and seem to be living in the same place as I do. But to others they are invisible, I can see it in the faces in the cars around me.”
Here’s a clue, sweetness, they are in a separate place than you, an indescribable, hellish place where people with intellect ask do they drink and do drugs to cope with their daily existence? Why is it that these people did not exist in such large numbers in the American economy when jobs with incomes were common? But you’ve already answered that one, haven’t you, sweetness? They are defectives, they’re “Daemons” who aren’t as good as you or as wise as you and you know all this to be true because you judge all that is right and wrong in the universe by the paragon of virtue that is yourself!
But you give them money; it’s worth a few dollars to make yourself feel so good about yourself. Especially when you are helping the lesser beings, doing God’s work helping the "Daemons." God will bless you, I’m sure.
“They become active ghosts, a lot of them. We don't make eye contact because they might ask for money or swear at us or rage at us. We protect our children from them. They are so bored or mentally ill or high they talk constantly to invisible people who I guess live on a level not visible to the rest of us, though quite visible to the 21st century daemons. So there are layers around us at all times and sometimes we see those who pass by and sometimes we don't. It's a bit like Dante's Hell. With palm trees.”
Your powers of deduction are truly amazing, dear. You presume to know what they might do. But do you have any idea why they might want to swear at you or rage at you? Could it be that you call them ghosts and drunks and lazy and crazy daemons and presume them a threat to your children? As lowly as you see them, you see yourself as this wonderful creature who lowers herself to give alms to the poor. You think that they don’t see that look a hundred times a day? You think they can’t see the sanctimonious, self-righteous blankness in your eyes as you avoid theirs?
Maybe they talk to invisible people, sunshine, because they don’t have any visible ones to talk to. They are ostracized and marginalized; they are, after all, “Daemons.” They’re talking to lost husbands and wives and lost children, or maybe they’re talking to God and asking, “Why have you forsaken me?” They need love and understanding and what they get from the likes of you, sunshine, is smug pity.
They infect your world and ruin your palm tree postcard views, but you’re wrong, sunshine. You blind yourself and bind yourself in your motor cars and wealth because you really know nothing about this world at all. You are as naked as a newborn babe. You see, I am one of those "Daemons" and ghosts who haunt your world. I’ve seen the look on your face and heard the locks go down on your car door when I walk by.
I don’t drink, I don’t do meth and I’m not mentally ill, but sometimes it’s hard to understand why not. I once drove fast convertibles and lived on a private lake in a four-bedroom home. I lost my new truck when it was repoed but managed to get it back by maxing out a credit card. Then I lost my home and my wife; that’s a rough week, sunshine. The kind of week that will make you talk to yourself and look around for answers. But I won’t bother wasting them upon you as the old adage “pearls before swine” would be correct. Only this, next time you want to see a really worthless “Daemon” from your driver’s seat, try looking in the vanity mirror.
http://open.salon.com/blog/deborah_young/2010/05/08/the_daemons_amongst_us
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