GUEST: Ken Churchill, creator of the American Homeless Land Model campaign to set aside public land for citizens without shelter, will talk about his efforts in small towns across the country.
Ken was a good guest, and politely shared his table with the two college students, who were collecting pledges being called in. Yes, it is pledge week, where we try to keep WVKR a valued part of the Vassar College community. Some colleges have sold their independent stations to the giant media corporations. Giving to WVKR keeps the corporate hounds at bay.
The pledge drive ends on Monday, September 15th, so there is still time to call and give us any amount you want (845 437-7178).
There was a slight irony in Ken sitting with students in the Vassar College radio studio talking about the homeless, while we shamelessly plugged the station and our program. Then, one of the students taking pledges told us that her father was homeless. It was one of those revealing moments when I realized that my stereotypes about the homeless were all wrong. They are the invisible among us, whose bad odor and dumpster deaths (a Poughkeepsie man was crushed recently while he slept in one) are as damning of the American empire as any peace march.
Over 100,000 homeless people are veterans, the dirty side of our ever expanding military dominance abroad. But more than that, homelessness reveals the lack of any safety net in a society devoted to killing people in foreign countries and robbing them of their resources. Why should America treat its own people any better? If they can't or won't work to make our nation's billionaires even richer, then turn them out to wander and starve on our streets.
