|
|
|
Spring 2008
By David Amerson
Staff Writer
Another Memorial Day is upon us. Flags will be raised, stories were praised, and we all can feel collectively proud at once. But our pride is an illusion, for while it is the cultural du jour on holidays such as Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day to praise those of us that spent their youth on great struggles and sacrifices, our pride only exists as a mask of our shame.
Veteran’s day also falls, quite aptly, on National Hunger and Homelessness Week, and while we pay lip service to our respect for veterans, our cultural disdain is shown for them by a national disregard for our veterans once they return to civilian life. This is best shown by the fact that one in three homeless men are veterans.
Where is the flag waving and praise for these folks? It is all too easy to imagine a nuclear family leaving a Memorial Day church service or parade, Father talking wistfully about the “sacrifices” of “fighting men”, Mother misty eyed, children lapping all of it up, only to walk into a homeless man asking for change.
What do you imagine the conversation turns to then? More often than not it involves a general look of disgust from the entire clan with father spewing some hateful rhetoric about lazy men and drugs. The irony never strikes.
America wants its experience with veterans to be neatly wrapped up and distant. Something to marvel at and distort until it fits into our picture of America being a nation of justice.
Springfield, home of Lincoln, seat of state politics, is an especially flagrant example of this Memorial Day hypocrisy. Any walk through downtown will reveal that the homeless population in Springfield is outpacing this town’s ability to handle it in a fair and compassionate way.
Aggravating the fact is muddleheaded municipal politicians and white, privileged business owners and housing developers injecting their venomous worldview into these homeless veterans’ lives.
From blocking low-cost housing on Springfield’s west side, to preventing the construction of a homeless shelter across from a veteran’s cemetery (again, irony abounds) this city has a history of classism that is enough to make Karl Marx roll over in his grave.
None are more disgusting than the ordinance passed by city officials last summer, Mayor Tim Davlin included, banning panhandling downtown. Besides the obvious constitutional objections to such a law, it shows the level of disdain that our leaders really have for our nation’s veterans.
Downtown is not a safer placer now that this ill-conceived law has been enacted. We are merely shifting the locale of these poor pariahs to the north and east sides of Springfield, decidedly poorer sections of the city than downtown or the west side. The problem just compounds itself.
Davlin, (who is not a veteran) formed a “Mayor’s Task Force on Homelessness,” which is “continuously working on a 10-year plan to assist the homeless and put an end to chronic homelessness.”
However, besides the establishment of this “task force”, what has really been done? The city rented PODS for homeless people to keep their personal items in during the day. That’s it.
Anytime the mayor is asked about his plan for the homeless, he always cites “The Salvation Army” or “St. John’s Breadline” and other non-profit private organizations, as if these places did not exist long before the Mayor ever stooped to run for a municipal government position (or rather, the city stooped to elect him).
It would be interesting to see just how much money the city is actually investing in any real solution, instead of just paying lip service in exchange for political capital.
Springfield is no different though than any other city in this nation. There is hardly a city in America that does not deal with poverty or homelessness. The solutions to this problem are also equally diversified and elusive.
However, we could start by telling ourselves the truth about Memorial Day. As long as veterans are subjected to inadequate medical care, endless bureaucracy in the search for benefits, unchecked mental illness, and homelessness, then it doesn’t matter how much flag waving you do, how many yellow-ribbons you affix to your SUV, or how much you ask God to bless America, it is still evident that this country doesn’t care about veterans at all.
This year I think I’ll skip the Memorial Day activities, and give some change to a homeless veteran. Even though our patriotic, lapel-flag wearing city officials say it’s illegal, I can’t help but feel… proud.
