Really good point! It is great shadow work to try to find common ground and the Christ within those people who particullarly get under your skin! Much easier said than done, no doubt.
I would also say if you think you are enlightened go and do volunteer work in prisons, with the mentally ill, and in hospitals and hospices in extremely impoverished areas or countrys. Talk about doing Gods work, these are not easy missions.
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So true. It can be very emotionally draining or triggering, I think is another powerful teaching tool in highlighting prejudices that are below the radar. Really love how you turned this into a boddhisattva practice.
This comment really hit home with me. In my younger years It shocked me on how anyone in the world could be a conservative or republican, there seemed to be so much social apathy in their politics. Have always loved nature, and I could not wrap my mind around how people would want to purposely destroy it and the planet.
But in getting older and (hopefully a little wiser) I realized that the ‘dream’ did not match the reality, on all sides of the political spectrum. Each side had their ideals (the dreams they ran on) and then the actual outcomes (reality) which almost never matched up to the dreams they campaigned on.
Yes indeed! I’m a mental health counselor and now I’m in private practice, but when I first started out I was working in psychiatric halfway houses and on Native Reservations. I’m still able to work with some poor folks thanks to Obamacare. Side note: a lot of the folks who were in psychiatric halfway houses in the 70’s and early 80’s are now on the street due to cuts in State and Federal funding for such programs. Then everyone wonders why there are so many folks with mental health and substance problems on the streets! Our collective world dream continues but much more compassion is needed on all levels!
That is definitely doing Gods work my friend! What was your most memorable experience in working in the half way houses? How about on the Reservations?
I think you are right that society is going to foot the bill either way. I personally believe it is far less costly and prevents a great deal of harm, when these programs are kept funded. I think the mob and cartels would much rather have these people self medicating and out on the streets dealing drugs and mental illness to the next generations.
Also, in trying to prevent another housing crisis like we saw in 2008, housing has become much more regulated. The downside being supply cant keep up with demand, which has driven the cost of homes threw the roof. I think out in CA there is additional red tape, making all new homes required to have solar panels, and other regulations. I think this certainly is another factor contributing to the homelessness and mental illness crisis.
I’ve heard about some innovative programs where tiny house villages are built for homeless people with fences and locked gates around them to keep out folks who shouldn’t be there. To live in the village you have to be working with a case manager who is making sure that you are getting the mental health and addiction treatment that you need. More funding for programs like this would definitely go a long way.
A little history: Before the 70’s there were a lot of folks who just lived for years in State Mental Hospitals. This definitely cost a lot of money. In the 70’s there was a progressive community mental health movement to bring these folks into the community and to provide halfway houses and community mental health centers to serve these folks. Then in the 80’s a lot of these programs got de-funded and a lot of these folks just ended up on the street. There is now a revolving door where people go into hospitals and detox centers and then back on the street again. We need to go back to the Community Mental health model and fund these programs better.
I agree with you. I wonder if there was a bigger sickness at play which ended up killing off the mental health facilities. I have long been a believer that bad government spending and curruption lead to runaway inflation. And runaway inflation leads to all sorts of cost cutting:
Shared this article in another thread, kind of ties in with the idea that a sick economy (high inflation or high unemployment) will lead to increased sickness and death:
I do not know the best way to combat inflation. But the current solution of this administration is to attack wage growth, and increase unemployment, both of which I think will lead to nasty social consequences in the future. And society pays for this ‘cost’ one way or another.
Inflation being too many dollars/euros chasing too few goods/services. One thing I remember from high school economics is that if you increase productivity, you can add more to the market without rising costs, and thereby decrease inflation somewhat.
How do you increase productivity without raising wages, benefits, or incentives?
The only 2 solutions I can think of is:
Fire people. This cuts costs and lights a fire under the butts of the workers who did not lose their jobs, making them work a lot harder out of fear of being the next ones on the chopping block.
Increase slave labor. While no economist would ever call it that, importing human capital from impoverished foreign countires, and paying them 1/2 the minimum wage or less, is pretty close to slave labor.
The major downside of this (other than the glaring ethical and humna rights violations), is that it is a short term fix. If these workers are replacing other higher paid workers, eventually it will circle back and take more demand away from the products in the economy. While that may be great to fight inflation, it eventaully can contribute to a sick economy.
All are great points. However I dont think that these 3 would fly under the current administration. Especially because the fed has mentioned cutting wage growth and increasing unemployment being one of thier primary goals to killing off inflation.
Economics is a dismal science.
Thomas Carlyle
Yes I have not seen muc from this administration in terms of trying to promote productivity, its almost like they are trying to destroy GDP…
I don’t buy your logic. These mental health programs were still going strong in the late 70’s and early 80’s when inflation was out of control. Do you see where the inflation drops down in the early 80’s? That’s when the mental health funding began to be cut under Reagan’s “trickle down economics.” More like piss down on the poor is what it was. Not the economics of compassion in my opinion. Check this out for the history: Mental Health Systems Act of 1980 - Wikipedia
That was the point I was trying to make. Meaning when the government spending was out of control, inflation skyrocketed. Then the government had to completely gut the spending programs, getting rid of the good ones, along with the bad ones, throwing the baby out with the bath water.
@ KhyungMar
Or, THE Governments can just spend less.
Amen
Doesnt matter how much taxes are raised, the super rich (Both democrat and republican) always find creative ways to not pay them, so it ends up being the middle class and poor who suffer the most from tax hikes.