Here’s what we know about western nation states in general. There are local realities, state realities and federal realities. Some of this is up and far away and some is local.
Racism still exists
Why praise the Hong Kong protests and vilify the BLM protests?
Why are they at war with only people of dark skin?
Religion racism exists
Why ban visitors from Moslem states but allow from every other state?
Economic racism exists
Why continue with capitalism when it crashes regularly in boom bust cycles? Crashes in 2019–2020, 2008, 2002, 1929 and cannot survive without giving massive subsidies yearly to industries named too big to fail and without stimulus injections?
At the time of this writing about 80% of the population live paycheck to paycheck with nothing to cover emergencies, medical visits, or medicine. Why does the media apparatus vilify any other economic system or the countries that have different economic systems?
Elitism exists
For billions of years animals (and humans when they came around) have lived on the resources of the Earth. Humans and animals would go into nature (or exist in it) to hunt, fish, forage and farm. They would use wood and other resources from nature to build homes.
Only in the last half century and few centuries before that have states (governments, kings, queens and empires) prevented people from their natural right to the Earth for survival during the enclosure movements and have coerced the landless under duress and through economic hardship into working for the privileged rather than working for themselves.
The only option provided to indigent, landless people is servitude and when that is unavailable or inaccessible a social safety net or welfare systems that are means tested. One human judges another human and determines if the the poor deserve food or shelter services.
Means testing is elitism
Those that means test determine who receives food and shelter and who is at high risk of death by the elements.
The Nazis in Germany were elitists. They called themselves the “master race”. In WWII the leadership, who call themselves the “elites”, determined who deserved to live or die in death camps. They just decided who died much quicker. Means testing is simply extending the time span and letting the people die from the elements and state resource withholding.
Information Racism exists
Complete segments of the population have had their stories erased. There is a show Shameless that shows the reality of many living in western nations. Breaking Bad is another show that shows a small view into the gritty reality many face.
These stories have been erased or filtered from mainstream media. Anyone describing these situations is often gaslit. “It’s much better here than in the worse places on Earth”, they say in their food secure, housing secure, financially secure positions. Say that to the people living under a bridge or to the people who live in towns decimated by outsourcing.
Someone having it worse is not a reason to do nothing about it or acknowledge it. If that was true then only the person in the worst situation in the world would have the right to sympathy, compassion or empathy. If it were happening to the gaslighters it would matter to gaslighters.
Profit and control rules above all else
Why ban Moslem visitors but allow deals with Saudi Arabia, also a Moslem country?
Why are the leaders of departments of state run by lawyers and ex-employees of industry?
Why are their military bases all over the world?
Why destroy crops instead of give it to the people?
Why does the mainstream media tell you that immigrants are the reason you are poor in the wealthiest country in the world?
Mute the narrative to see the truth
Everything that raises a red flag a reason is given to justify it. Pretend you can’t hear what they are saying. What are their actions?
They destroy food rather than give it to people
They prevent people / citizens from accessing natural resources for food and shelter when there are 640 million acres of public land
There are over 1000 military bases all over the world dropping destruction on humans
All the places they are dropping destruction the people have dark skin and sometimes have desirable resources
There are sanctions on countries that have different economic systems. That means they use military and economic force to prevent those countries from food, medicine, bank accounts. That starves people, people die from preventable illness, countries economies and then the people suffer when trade is prevented.
They haven’t raised the minimum wage in 20 years (except twice) yet the cost of everything else has gone up every year.
They don’t provide medicine or health care to sick poor people and charge middle class people so much over 500k go bankrupt every year in the wealthiest country in the world. 33 out of the 32 western nations in the world have health care for their citizens.
There are 4 evictions per minute or 240 an hour. At the same time there are 2 million empty homes.
There is a suicide every 30 seconds globally and every 12 minutes in western nation states.
Every week they show the next scary thing on the news
- They are ok lying to you
- They are ok with homelessness
- They are ok with other people suffering as long as it’s not them
- They are ok with poverty
- They are ok with war
- They are ok with exploitation
- They are ok with preventable death and preventable illness
- They are ok with scapegoating vilifying innocent countries, races, peoples or groups causing them harm down the line
- They are ok with manipulation of terror
A Significant Portion of Humans are OK with death by siege
The point is that humans, all through history, and history has shown that there exists people usually out of touch, detached, living in a bubble, psychopaths, who find it acceptable with preventing other humans from the food and shelter they need to survive.
Humans are or have been vulnerable to consenting to preventing others from surviving or resources they need to survive.
A portion of humans are naturally racist or elitist. They don’t care if you live or die or are tortured. These people are sometimes in positions of power that harm millions and billions of people. Over 4 billion people in the world live in painful poverty.
The point is not that western societies are racists, elitist, wage slave, tyrannical, and oppressive or are terrorist states taking what isn’t theirs, it’s that a significant portion of humans are susceptible to racism and racists systems.
The point is that for societies to evolve and not even to be utopian but to simply be fair you need unconditional systems like unconditional basic income.
Not as a gift to be given but because everyone has a natural right to the resources of the Earth. Everyone has a right to a share of the Earth. Wherever you are born, into whatever religion, race, economic system, country and so on you have a natural right to the Earth.
But since people have evolved to live in large groups like cities, it’s not practical to give land (although not to be prevented from it) but it’s more practical to give unconditionally a fair share of the Earths natural resources payment. Without it you are coercing humans into often oppressive, sometimes cruel and twisted actions to survive like working at Walmart as a greeter (sarcasm).
This is even more vital if you have unmanaged, unequal private property. you have an insecure, out of date, affected by automation and outsourcing job market. It doesn’t matter that there is a job that might pay enough to pay bills somewhere out there. That does not matter. It’s a rigged system if only the privileged people who control all the resources chose who gets money for survival resources.
Unconditional payments are not because you deserve it or not but because you are born on the Earth and you are its offspring. It has given you food and shelter resources simply by going into nature and taking it.
Anyone preventing you from those natural resources puts you at high risk of starvation, death and danger. Those that do this are putting you in reckless endangerment.
Endangerment is a type of crime involving conduct that is wrongful and reckless or wanton, and likely to produce death or grievous bodily harm to another person. There are several kinds of endangerment, each of which is a criminal act that can be prosecuted in a court.
The offense is intended to prohibit and therefore deter reckless or wanton conduct that wrongfully creates a substantial risk of death or serious injury to others.
Reckless endangerment: A person commits the crime of reckless endangerment if the person recklessly engages in conduct which creates substantial jeopardy of severe corporeal trauma to another person. “Reckless” conduct is conduct that exhibits a culpable disregard of foreseeable consequences to others from the act or omission involved. The accused need not intentionally cause resulting harm. The ultimate question is whether, under all of the circumstances, the accused’s demeanor was of that heedless nature that made it actually or imminently dangerous to the rights or safety of others.
Public endangerment is usually applied to crimes which place the public in some form of danger, although that danger can be more or less severe according to the crime.
States preventing you from natural basic survival resources are putting you in reckless endangerment and are laying siege and sanctions on you.
Western nations used to provide subsistence homesteading to address this need up until 1980s. They were aware of the fragility and insecurity of job market, they were aware of racist systems and social infrastructures that didn’t provide an adequate support system and they have for a few hundred years supported homesteading.
Providing unconditional basic resources payment using whatever currency is a practical solution in cities.
Further reading
I can’t recommend reading and listening to the works of these authors enough.
Prior to colonisation, most people lived in subsistence economies where they enjoyed access to abundant commons — land, water, forests, livestock and robust systems of sharing and reciprocity. — Jason Hickel
Why we need a Universal Basic Income
Why the precariat requires a basic income?
Why do the poor deserve welfare benefits?
