"I am for doing good to the poor ..."

I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer. ~ Benjamin Franklin

I love the quote, above, that I found at Joel John Roberts's excellent LA's Homeless Blog. But I don't like it in the way it can be commonly, easily interpreted.

WDBO, an Orlando, FL, radio station, used the quote and Fox News's uber-conservative Glenn Beck's reaction to it – "I love this quote: 'We should make the poor uncomfortable and kick them out of poverty.' I love that!" – and then gave readers at its website this skewed poll with three possible answers:

How should we handle the homeless sleeping in our parks?
Make it uncomfortable, move them along
Let them be, hand out pillows
I don't care

Arrrrrrrrgh! Beck and WDBO and those who took the poll [82% of whom voted for the "Make it uncomfortable" for the homeless option] all looked at the Franklin quote as a licence to hate.

I read the Franklin quote differently. Franklin is wanting to do what's best for the poor and is focused on "leading or driving them" out of poverty (or homelessness). Franklin favors a "whatever best works" solution, including those things that might be counterintuitive to an industy [i.e., the homeless-help industry] that gets blinded by its own feel-good catering and enabling and 'parenting' of the poor.

Franklin isn't intending to "kick" the poor. Another quote of Franklin is this [from Poor Richard's Almanak, 1749]: "Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is."

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Loaves & Fishes implicates Buddhism and Jack Kornfield in its June Donations Plea.

The Sukhothai Traimit Golden Buddha was found in a clay-and-plaster overlaid buddha statue in 1959, after laying in wait for 500 years. It's huge and heavy: just under 10 feet tall and weighs 5 1/2 tons. At the beginning of their June newsletter , Loaves and Fishes relates a story, taken from the beginning of renowned Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield's 2008 book The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology . The first part and first chapter in Kornfield's book is "Part I: Who are you really?" and chapter 1 is called "Nobility: Our Original Goodness," which ought to serve as a clue to what the beginning of the book is about, not that that sentiment isn't strewn through-out the chapter, section and book such that what Kornfield is telling us should be crystal clear. Somehow, the not-ready-for-primetime management at Loaves & Fishes have managed to use Kornfield's wise and kindly words in a way that mangles th...

In an act of Collective Punishment, Loaves & Fishes closes its park in the morning on New Year’s Day

Calvin [a "green hat" in Unfriendly Park] makes the argument for continued incompetent management. Hobbes represents me — only, in real life, I don't have that good a coat . In an act of Collective Punishment, Loaves & Fishes closes its park in the morning on New Year’s Day In one respect — and only one — that I can think of, Loaves & Fishes is NOT hypocritical: The management hates the way America is run and wants to turn it into a backward communist country . Consistent with that, Loaves & Fishes’ management runs its facility like a backward communist country. The People’s Republic of Loaves & Fishes. A seemingly minor thing happened on New Year’s Day. A couple of people smoked a joint in Loaves & Fishes’ Friendship Park and one of the park directors, or both of them, determined, at about 10am, that, in retribution, they would punish all the homeless there by closing the park for the day. This is something the managers of the park do all the ...

Common ground on safe ground. Common sense, not communism.

Mayor Kevin Johnson at Safe Ground campground. [ twitpic : share photos on Twitter] For the second week in a row, I attended the Tuesday meeting of the SHOC Homeless Leadership Project effort to achieve safe ground , at the Delaney Center at the Loaves & Fishes facility. [ Here , my account of the prior week's mtg, which provides much the same news that was today's Top Story in the Bee .] I was reluctant to attend. Though I endorse core objectives of the group – support for a currently existant encampment of homeless people, called Safe Ground; and the mayor's effort, with Stepping Stone, to create a legal homeless encampment in Sacramento – the group evidences a lot of troubling Leftist attitudes and practices. Nonetheless, I was encouraged to attend and it became known to me that people were fully aware I was a blogger. [Both the prior week and today I introduced myself as being with Sacramento Homeless blog. Today, Paula Lomazzi of SHOC commended my article " A...

Sacramento Homeless blog

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