ZADIK

national | miscellaneous | news report Monday December 23, 2002 16:50 by iosaf = o as if ipsiphi23 at email dot com barcelona

charity and traditional values alms and homes.

Some short while ago young people spent a night sleeping rough to raise money in Limerick for homeless people. They did so under a political banner, and received a lot of criticism for the policies of that banner afterwards in this forum. Today is published by POLITEIA an English thinktank the thoughts of one John Bird.

John Bird is founder of the Big Issue magazine.
The Big Issue is 10 years old, during which times it has grown, shrunk, changed content, editorship, policy, price and paper, and organisation several times.
The sellers have always been "the homeless".
But not "the homeless" as though of by many. Most sellers of the issue have not been rough sleepers. And this is central to understanding homelessness.

http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=364011
23 December 2002
The founder of The Big Issue, the magazine for the homeless, has criticised handouts to beggars and said those sleeping rough should be removed from the streets.

John Bird, a beggar for 20 years before starting the magazine in 1991, said that giving money to beggars was "murdering" any chance that they had of getting off the streets because they were not forced to seek any alternative life. "Begging is bad for both the giver and the receiver," he said

Now in the debate which ensued after members of Young Fine Gael much was said that indicated attitudes to the homeless and the problems that exist in tandem with homelessness. YFG incidently have also had occasion to access to the work of Mr Bird´s current thinktank POLITEIA
http://www.politeia.co.uk

The YFG articles are at.
http://ireland.indymedia.org/cgi-bin/newswire.cgi?id=21561
and after a YFG writer published a comment called APOLOGY wherein they said they would never again do such charity work.
http://ireland.indymedia.org/cgi-bin/newswire.cgi?id=21662

The comments as always make the sour dish.

Charity.
For many this is the time of charity.
Tax deductable donations are best made in the seasonal christmas period.
Islam obliges all believers to give a percentage of income to the poor.
Judaism likewise obliges care for the infirm.
Materialist dialectic based movements equally have always supported social services.

Most who sell Big Issue are not rough sleepers they are squatters.
I have written of my Big Issue pitch on High Holborn, where in short bursts of six days we would go sell the issue. But always in reaction to short notice eviciton of a squat. To cover the moving costs encurred, hiring a van, changing locks, finding somewhere new, replacing broken toilets in the new disused house [generally broken by council workers to discourage squatters]
needs money. So "organised squatters" regularly sell the issue as houses for a few days.
help the homeless.
thank you very much.
Now one of those occasions for my community which regular readers will remember was half italian half french was winter of 98/99. Thus I can remember carrying a hosuehold of 5th internationalists big issues from the offices on Pentonville Rd to the Lawyers Temple Inns of Holborn where we´d sell them, and pondering John Bird´s xmas message. Coz it is an xmas message. Every year, Mr Bird rattles some chains for the chattering classes about giving to beggars.
Beggars like buggers can not be choosers.
The homelessness Czar of H:M: Eliz 2 of the UK,s prime minster (tony blair) estimated that there were 300,000 squatters that winter on the seasonal chattering classes TV debate.
Oh yes the joys of the London Assembly.

It is my pleasure to inform the readers that there are still 300,000 squatters in London.
And it is my pleasure to inform the readers that there is still the same level of crises management, interpersonal skills, adaptability, cohesion, directness of purpose, and organisation amongst those squatters.

Charity should mean something.
read the articles above.
In the next few days the Kings, the crowns of Europe will broadcast their christmas messages.
Many have had most terrible years they will say, and they´ll all nod at the latin and tradition of the proving who occupied land and home first, whose castle is Castlemines?

so as always the Sallust quote:
non exercitus neque thesauri praesidia regni sunt verum amici.
not by army but by friendships is the safety of a kingdom best secured. I wrote that to the editor of the Irish Times last year, and I wrote it to Jonh Bird in New Year of 1999, and I´ve written it to all of you, it´s a cool quote from a man who saw the Roman Republic ended by a coup.