cannabisnews.com: The New Callousness





The New Callousness
Posted by FoM on November 30, 1999 at 16:15:39 PT
By Arianna Huffington
Source: Arianna Online
Judge Judy, the doyenne of syndicated self-righteousness, solidified that preeminence two weeks ago at a literary luncheon in Brisbane, Australia. On tour to promote her new book, ``Beauty Fades, Dumb Is Forever,'' she suggested that instead of attempting to control AIDS and hepatitis by providing clean needles to drug addicts we should ``give them all dirty needles and let them die.'' 
Instead of resulting in universal derision (and, even more justly, a lightning bolt from the sky) this stunning proposal evoked cheers from her fans in the audience. But it got not a mention from the U.S. press (indeed, if it weren't for the people at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, I never would have heard about it). Granted, Judge Judy isn't William Rehnquist, but the sharp-tongued, dull-witted jurist's opinions -- doled out on her top-rated TV show -- are heard by millions more people than the Chief Justice's. Worse, her views reflect a disturbing trend in our culture toward getting the ``love'' out of tough love. Call it the New Callousness: turning an indifferent shoulder to anyone -- drug addicts, the homeless, those behind bars -- who hasn't had the good sense to become a bull-market rider. After all, they're getting in the way of the Panglossian message that all is well ``in this best of all possible worlds.'' Evidence of this cold spot on the national heart is all around us. In New York, Mayor Rudy (rhymes with Judge Judy) rang in the holiday season by ordering the NYPD to step up its efforts to sweep the city's streets of homeless people by arresting them for so-called ``quality-of-life'' crimes. Declaring that the city has not been strict enough in rousting people ``who don't belong there,'' Giuliani claimed that the right to sleep on the streets ``doesn't exist anywhere. The founding fathers never put that in the Constitution.'' He doesn't seem too keen on the homeless living in city shelters either: He recently announced that anyone wanting to stay in one would have to work or face expulsion -- mental illness or not. Apparently, he prefers sending them to jail, where mental-health-unit beds cost $91,000 annually. It costs $20,000 for a bed in a shelter and $12,000 for the supervised apartments that remain woefully underfunded, even though they have proven the most effective in dealing with chronic homelessness. ``There were times,'' Mayor Rudy said, ``in which we romanticized this to such an extent that we invited people to do it.'' Ah, yes, the romance of sleeping under the stars in a cardboard box in the dead of winter. Proving that heartlessness cuts across party lines, Willie Brown, San Francisco's liberal mayor, is overseeing his own crackdown on the homeless -- just in time for his upcoming runoff election against even-more-liberal rival Tom Ammiano. Brown is clearly reveling in this rare chance to stake out the ``conservative'' position in the race -- going so far as to arrest homeless advocates for handing out soup and sandwiches to the poor. ``Advocate types claim I'm the most hostile'' to the homeless, said Brown. ``That's not true. I'm not the most generous. I'm not the most hostile. But I am the most firm.'' Call Tony Bennett, it's time for a rewrite: ``I lost my heart in San Francisco.'' In fact, more and more of our cities are using the police to enforce arcane laws -- such as sanitation statutes that make it illegal to leave cardboard boxes in a public place -- to get the homeless off the streets, including many homeless veterans who risked their lives for their country. In Los Angeles, Ted Hayes, who has devoted his life to working with the homeless, calls the coast-to-coast crackdown ``status cleansing.'' ``For us to turn to outlawing our homeless citizens,'' he told me, ``is a betrayal of the promise of America -- `Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me.' Perhaps the Statue of Liberty should be turned around to face this country.'' Transforming human beings into nuisances -- problems that must be eradicated -- is a dangerous step along the deadly path of dehumanization. It takes very little to end a life that has been stripped of its humanity. Which is exactly what is happening in Denver, where this fall seven homeless men have been bludgeoned to death, two of the victims beheaded. Is this the logical endgame for a culture so intent on celebrating its ``winners'' that it has no room left for life's losers? Newshawk: DdC!Web Posted: November 29, 1999ARIANNA ONLINEhttp://www.ariannaonline.com/1158 26th Street, Suite #428Santa Monica, CA 90403email: arianna ariannaonline.comCopyright © 1998 Christabella, Inc.This Is Two-Tiered Justice By Arianna Huffington-8/24/99http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread2607.shtmlDiscussions on Judge Judy's comments:http://www.egroups.com/group/drug_war_news/29.html? http://www.egroups.com/group/hemp-talk/7161.html?http://www.mapinc.org/lists/maptalk/v99.n519http://www.egroups.com/group/hemp-talk/7154.html? 
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