Charity vanishes at home or Homeless, I don't see no stinking homeless.

Wow, look at that empty street!

How was that again?

     So here we are a few days after the horrific Paris attacks and, after a brief period where no one tried to blame the Refugees or Obama, things have returned to normal.  You got memes galore blaming Obama for the bombings, the crisis in the Middle East that caused the flood of Refugees to begin with and, of course, you have Conservative Politicians blustering about making completely useless claims that they would ban any refugees from entering their states.  (Newsflash for the dim minded, they can't but hey its all show and circuses anyways right?)

     So the two biggest trends I see in these memes are Homeless Children and Homeless Veterans.  Now I also see Homeless in general and some just using the Poor.  However, the main ones are Kids and Veterans.  Now I get the trends.  I mean nothing pulls at the old heartstrings more than hungry waifs and abused Vets, so when you are trying to fan the fires of hate, who better to use?  Hence, the dozens of memes I have seen working off those heart-wrenching images.

     Now, here is the part that I find absolutely pathetic and simultaneously hilarious at the same time.  I have to wonder, out of all the people posting "Well we should take care of the homeless kids and vets first" memes, how many of them actually give a flying backwards half gainer flip about the very people they are posting memes about?  Do they even notice them when they walk down the streets?  

     I have seen dozens of social experiment videos that pretty much prove the answer to that one is no.  One really great one had the filmers dress family members up as homeless and position them in plain view of another family as they walked down the streets "begging" for food or money.  Even though their faces were clearly visible, the "homeless" were completely ignored.  Here is the link to the social experiment video.

THEY'RE INVISIBLE!

     As for homeless Vets, our so-called leaders on both sides of the aisle have already proven that they are damned good at sending men and women to war, but really don't give a damn about them once they get home again so that little meme is a bit of a joke.  How many people even notice a man standing on the side of the road holding a sign saying "Homeless veteran, please help?"  

     So to all of you "We need to help the  homeless children and Vets out there, I just have one simple question.  What the hell have you done today to help?  Did you "round up your change" at your local grocery store to help the homeless?  Did you buy food and donate it to the local food banks or homeless shelters?  Did you volunteer your time to help out at those same institutions?  Did you stop and speak to a homeless family on the side of the road to see how you could help?  (Wow that's more than one question isn't it?)  The answer for the vast majority of you is probably no.

     There is a great series of books where they introduce the concept of the SEP or Somebody Else's Problem.  It is a comical way of rendering things nearly invisible by making people just not notice them.  The Homeless are basically SEPs, but not in a humorous way.  People ignore them because they think one of two things.  The first is that the people are obviously faking it so they can rake in huge amounts of cash and treasures begging on the streets.  The second is that people actually need help, but helping them is other people's responsibility.

     (As an aside, anyone who thinks you get rich panhandling has obviously never begged for food and money.  You should try it sometimes, you might make enough for a Big Mack.  No fries or soda, though.)

     So here is the deal and it is a simple one. Until you actually care about the homeless and do something to help them, you don't get to post stupid memes about turning away refugees and...well helping homeless Vets and Kids.  Until you spend a few hours in a soup kitchen serving food or hand out blankets to people who are freezing to death, you don't get to pass laws banning refugees from your states.  Until you are willing to give a handful of change to the guy on the street, you don't get to comment on "helping the homeless."  In simple words, put your actions where your mouth is.

End of Rant