Charles Dickens wrote some very compelling literature in the 19th century that the Victorian society of the day found quaint.Although his work led to the first steps toward at least trying to solve some of the problems of the machine age,real progress had to wait till the next century to really take hold.We no longer have debtors prisons.Now we just let people with lower incomes live in the streets and under bridges.We pay “ambassadors” to move them along and direct them to services.Preferably in the DTES,our own version of the American ghetto with all the attendant pitfalls.Up until the end of the twentieth century,things were actually getting better for the poor.With the arrival of the conservative revolution in the new century.Things have gotten worse and worse.The gap between rich and poor has opened to be a chasm and those that have are less and less willing to lend a hand to those with problems that many see as self inflicted.On the one hand we have the children of privilege.Often the first to throw stones these children of wealth want for nothing and seem happy with none of it.The children of the poor are just passengers on a ride which they have no say in and often are over whelmed by.That the current government is responsible for much of the misery in this,the so called best place on earth,is undeniable.This is the most corrupt and secretive pack of dogs we’ve been subjected to in my memory.I can remember my mother telling me that the Liberals would never be a political force in this province again because of the way they had destroyed the province in her day.Resurrected by Gordon Campbell,they’ve risen,not like a phoenix but more like a plague from hell.They took aim at the lowest level of society and slashed and burned the social safety net to where people weren’t falling through cracks but plummeting straight down unabated.Now we have working people living in tents if they’re lucky enough to own one and find a place to set it up where Sam’s citizens patrols(remember,all city employees are empowered and advised to act as deputy’s)can’t find and destroy them.People respond whenever someone in the media points to some person or family that has been hit hard by Sam or crime but it’s the job of the government to see that people get at least the minimum required to sustain life.Food banks,like income tax,were brought in to fill the gap that the social safety net failed to cover when hard times hit in the eighties.Now they’re indispensable,many would be lost without them.The elderly,the disabled and those with drug or mental problems live a sad existence completely bereft of the amenities that make life bearable.Both levels of government have totally abandoned their duty to the lesser in our society.At a time when we should be changing the system to eliminate handouts to the very wealthy,the opposite is happening.In a province next to the worst pollution known to man,we introduce a carbon tax.Not an increase in the cost of fossil fuels but an all round tax grab that’s revenue neutral but requires a payout to ease the pain.What pain if it’s truly revenue neutral?The media is filled with articles full of vitriol and hatred aimed at,why the poor of course.It’s those criminals and shiftless young people that laugh at the courts and have us all befuddled.If Mr. Dickens picked up a newspaper today he’d think he’d died and gone nowhere.People that see no hope and have no dreams will do what they have to to survive.Ghettos have been the cauldrons of despair from which come the tragedies that are the broken lives everyone wants to put behind bars.It does nothing to solve the problem or to decrease the liklihood of the problems diminishing.It does give jobs to those with few skills that can be gate keepers in our prisons.There are two approaches to reducing criminal behaviour.The way our governments have chosen is the most expensive and destructive to humanity but then you don’t see much of that any more.Easier to just wait for them to break something and throw them somewhere we don’t have to look at them anymore.

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