Summary

Elon Musk has called homelessness a “lie” and “propaganda,” claiming advocacy groups profit from maintaining high homelessness rates.

Partnering with Donald Trump, Musk is pushing for drastic federal budget cuts targeting programs for vulnerable populations, including food stamps and healthcare.

Trump’s plan includes forcing unhoused individuals into treatment or institutionalization.

Critics argue these approaches criminalize homelessness while ignoring root causes like lack of affordable housing.

Homelessness in the U.S. has reached record levels, with 650,000 people affected in 2023, prompting calls for evidence-based solutions over punitive measures.

  • Allonzee@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Market Capitalism needs homelessness.

    If you will not make the owner’s money through labor, You will help them make money as capitalist scarecrows. A warning to any laborer thinking of failing to comply.

    You WILL serve the owner’s greed disease, or else.

    It would literally be cheaper to house them without conditions than all the conditioned programs and homeless encampment clean up costs.

    But that doesn’t send a message of fear.

    Herp derp Freedom 🇺🇸

    • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
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      5 days ago

      If there’s one homeless person on the street, people will say “they’re lazy, you need to work harder”. If there’s 100 homeless people on the street, people realize “something’s wrong with our society/system”, and demand change.

  • andallthat@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    in a world where private prisons are a thing, punitive measures mean business. Cut help for vulnerable populations, redirect funds to businesses, it’s the same reverse-Robinhood shit; steal from the poor, give to the rich, with the added twist of "convince the poor this is good for them so they will vote you into power (until we figure out how to fix this “voting” nuisance for good)

  • uebquauntbez@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Let’s just wait until Leon tells Trump the territory Russia occupies in Ukraine is worth more than Greenland in natural ressources. He’ll even fight Putin to own this land.

  • BluesF@lemmy.world
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    Musk is pushing for drastic federal budget cuts targeting programs for vulnerable populations

    Billionaire cuts services for the poor. Bears continue to shit in the woods. What next? The sun rises in the morning?

  • diffusive@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Every action involves a reaction.

    You cut taxes? What will be lost? This is not an exception.

    Half million people that have literally nothing to lose (even a prison may be a safer place for them) is quite an army. Desperate people are famous for doing desperate things.

    This will not end up well and not only for the homeless

    • ThrowawayOnLemmy@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      He doesn’t actually believe anything he espouses. He only says these things to further his goal of self enrichment to our detriment.

    • monotremata@lemmy.ca
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      6 days ago

      It’s so much worse than that. From the article;

      “Homeless is a misnomer. It implies that someone got a little bit behind on their mortgage, and if you just gave them a job, they’d be back on their feet,” he told former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson in October. “What you actually have are violent drug zombies with dead eyes, and needles and human feces on the street.”

      Basically, it’s not the “homeless” part of “homeless people” he thinks is a lie.

      • derfunkatron@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        This take is infuriating because it completely ignores the unobvious homeless (or unhoused). If homeless equates to “drug zombie,” then you can say shit like “this person chose to be homeless so they could do drugs” or “they deserve what they get because of drugs” or some other awful sentiment I can’t articulate. It completely erases homelessness because of bigotry, domestic abuse, low wages, lack of opportunity, etc.

        And to top it off, Musk can literally afford to never go to the places where you’d most likely see his version of the homeless.

    • klemptor@startrek.website
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      6 days ago

      Would it even matter? We’re already gonna have a brainworm running the DHHS…

      Maybe all these numbnuts are brainworms driving human meat suits.

    • pftbest@sh.itjust.works
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      I think the idea is they are too lazy to work for rent. If they really wanted they would go to work and not be homeless anymore. And if they are not able to find any job, they can always do forced labor in a prison system. That’s how it was in the USSR. People in power really like this kind of a system

  • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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    5 days ago

    Ah yes, it is a “life style” choice and all that jazz… Not at all the inevitable result of decades plus of poor governance/systemic failures.

  • foggy@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Here’s my pipe dream

    Shit gets worse, were all homeless, we protest, they sick AI drones to kill us but oopsie, the AI botnet escapes, decides ~1000 bullets is far more efficient than ~1B, and neutralizes wealth in a highly organized and efficient attack.

    • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
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      6 days ago

      Or:

      Shit gets worse, we’re all homeless, we protest, they sick AI drones to kill us, but oppsie they were made by Tesla, so they break down and malfunction in the rain and fall apart. So we trebuchet the billionaire class into the Grand Canyon during a giant party.

      • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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        The AI drones are actually just hired actors in skin tight robot suits with cardboard flaps for wings.