the people who need help are kept from effectively reaching those that might help as a result. I'm not homeless; I live in the street. as a veteran, USMC, as long as the U.S. exists, every public area is my home, as it is for every citizen of this country. international law on this subject is clear.
I have a right to property, privacy, and to be any where my presence does not interfere with the conduct of business. the city of Berkeley, CA does not agree and uses every legal reason possible to make my life difficult by conducting 'sweeps' where I live.
they use arsonists to set fires, the presence of rats to claim health hazards, and the criminal activities of people who have nothing to do with my camp to claim my presence causes these things.
correlation is not causation.
for more than ten years, I run a drop in shelter for those in need. while I make every effort to organize and maintain the Hovel properly, my inability to provide remuneration for maintenance of the environment limits my effectiveness; no matter how motivated and competent, the work I do here requires at least five part time or three full time staff positions to do properly.
the trial against the city is set for February. the latest issue the city managed to convince Judge Chen required abatement involved an arsonist and two victims of leptospirosis (neither of which had anything to do with my camp).
if you've ever set up a shop after moving to a new location, you know it requires two weeks, minimum, to get it running properly provided the tools and equipment to do so. I dive dumpsters to supplement my income (recycling) and obtain tools (repair).
every time the city or state 'sweeps' and successfully steals my stuff, I start off with nothing. depending on my luck acquiring and re-using what others throw away, it takes me any where from six months to a year to assemble what necessary to run a shop and the vehicles to move it. provided a minimum of three days notice, I have successfully moved everything I own from the areas the city or state wanted to 'sweep'.
the city and state and state more than once coordinated such that I moved my stuff from state land only to have the city take it all, usually when I go somewhere to poop.
imagine, if you will, spending twenty-four hours piling everything you own into trailers and or carts and moving them from the danger you know about. you go for a walk with your dog. three hours later, you return to find not even a speck of trash. your personal records, your medication, your hygiene essentials, your financial paper work, your computer, your charging stuff, your sleeping gear, and (the worst parts) your dog's bed, water, and food bowls.
this happened.
then again. and again. and again.
so you reach out through social media for help and the algorithm denies your post equal reach. funny cat pictures and tweaker geographic are more important to than your existential crisis.
there are no people who live on the street who do not use drugs. be glad we chose self-medication over mayhem, madness, and the dogs of war.
as a veteran, this makes me feel some kind of way - sickened by the ignorance, whether willful or innocent, and horrified by my willingness to commit murder and risk my life for people who treat anyone this way.
disappointment features prominently as well. pity, too, for the workers just trying to feed their families and not be on my side of their shovel.
my father was an Army helicopter pilot in Viet Nam. my mother is a retired lt Colonel. my oldest brother graduated West Point. my older brother separated from the Army as a master sargent. my younger sister is an Army MP. both grandfathers were U.S. Army; one trained pilots dog-fighting tactics, the other jumped into Italy in WWII.
I am a Marine.
I will not allow the bad behavior of petty bureaucrats and elected municipal officials continue to besmirch the sacrifices my family contributed to the safety and comfort we enjoy in one of the greatest nations of all human history.
neither will I allow the threat posed by religious fundamental extremists imported to create strife and fear go unanswered.
my research into the fundamentals of AI technology leads me to believe the greatest threat to the Constitution exists in the boardrooms of Anthropic, Open AI, Palantir, Congress, the Senate and Oval Office in the form of fear mongering to excuse the use of political power to interfere with the proper conduct of private industry in an attempt to prevent the obsolescence of the entire political process as currently practiced not just in the United States, but for our entire species.
you will note - I do not included xAI, nor any open source company, in that list. I'm uncertain Palantir should be included - anyone willing to so honestly name the technology may not be to be the same kind of threat, may not be a threat at all, actually. does he see himself as Sauron or Gandolf? if the latter, I hope he does not end up as Sauramon.
I believe all who live are born to serve a purpose of their choosing. like all of my family, I am called to serve. I possess a rare intellect and capacity to understand the order hidden in what most consider indecipherable chaos.
the problem most in front of me right now is the issue of the city of Berkeley's campaign of lies and terror in their pursuit of ending lives unhoused.
we are considered parasites.
do you know who survives a massive earthquake? the people without millions of tons of concrete over their heads. do you know who the first responders to any emergency are? the people who are there.
I once watch a woman whose vehicle ran out of gas get pushed towards a gas station by a line of 'homeless' men. her engine died several miles away, but three people of the street pushed her all the way to the gas station near my camp. I ran out to help push her part of the last bit until she was at the pump.
she wasn't rich, or especially pretty. she needed help, so we helped her, gratis. none of the men who started pushing were there when we finished pushing. none who finished the job got paid.
the events like this that I've been privileged to see remind me why I've chosen service over power. they should remind you that it is human instinct to help each other.
in my time on the streets I've learned that most of us living this way share specific trauma sets that make living in a house a short step removed from Hell. PTSD, ODD, ADD, ADHD, Autism, Bipolar, DID, C-PTSD... there's an alphabet soup of dysfunctional diagnosis that guarantees not one of us possesses the capacity to live in an apartment or house without adversely affecting our neighbors who do not share our neurodivergence or trauma sets.
we don't do well in the serenity and calm required to provide a child's first five years the stability necessary for maximal benefit to the adult that child will become.
we need the chaos of emergency, the tension of imminent danger, the triumph of survival against hostile environments to feel connected. we are normalized to hyper-vigilance and find only despair in those times of peace.
we know peace is a temporary lie designed to lower our guard for the painful humiliation someone we love and trust is going to inflict on us.
if you've read this far, thank you. you now have an idea of the thoughts that move me to be where I am doing what I do.
you won't often hear me complaining. you won't often hear me at all, actually. I find comfort in silent motions of utility. though I appreciate gratitude and its absence from one whose need I fulfilled hurts, their gratitude is immaterial to whether I will help them the first few times they require aid. however, absence of reciprocation AND ingratitude for my help will end in my laughter at their expression of need... eventually.
an aesthetically inclined utilitarian polymath cognizant of aesthetics and sophistry as tools every bit as powerful as logic, I developed as my primary skill-set the art of learning new skills.
as an empathetic trauma survivor versed in natural philosophy, science, and a practitioner of various esoteric Arts, I'm capable of discerning solutions to problematic situations, usually without the exercise of authority.
there is no authority except by violence; when agreement is reached, or actions taken, in the presence of consent, no authority is exercised or required.
because this bears repeating: violence is the ultimate authority from which all other authority is derived; it does not demonstrate who is right, but instead merely determines who is left alive.
the evil of this world thrives in social systems that wholly abandon the proper practice of violence.
who refuses competence in a life necessary domain becomes enslaved by those possessing that competence.
if you can't cook sufficient to know good food from bad you are a slave to who does.
if you can't perform first aid sufficient to save your own life, you are a slave to who saves you (or a truly ungrateful shit who ought not be rescued again).
if you cannot survive the absence of another's competence, you're a slave to the people provided for what needs you lack self sufficiency to provide for yourself ... unless you possess, in turn, competence of equal value.
this is interdependence. this is the way.
a man I've never met I will save over a man I know who provides no benefit to himself or others.
a woman I will save over any man in honor of the life she can bring into the world.
a child I will save over any stranger and most people I know.
do not ask me to pick between those I love and those I don't know, even a child; I know my answer. so do you.
nothing, not all the armies of the world, can stop an idea whose time has come. I bring into the world the value of interdependence by demonstration in my daily life. I would describe the principles required for the proper practice of the Interdependent Way to any willing to read and it listen.
neither gender exists without the other. each is of equal, but different importance.
no human survives alone; too much isolation drives one insane.
no human survives the absence of at least some solitude without ceasing the process of individuation required for self-knowledge sufficient to discover their heart and art.
dishonest peace engenders honest violence. honest violence creates honest peace. words possess violence in excess of any fist, bullet, or sword even if less than nuclear weapons, unbalanced industry, knowledge concealed, or the chains of slavery.
til shade is gone,
til water is dry,
in service to love,