--A reader chimes in about his feelings about the state of homelessness in Hoboken. He thinks it’s getting worse. We have a great shelter, but is the situation really falling apart?
“Dear Hoboken 411,What is up with the increase in the number of homeless people in Hoboken? Its feels like they are growing in number. I see the same homeless people walking Washington Street everyday. I don’t think they are dangerous but at the same time I am sure they make us hardworking residents uncomfortable, to say the least. (As well as decrease the value of our homes). And where do they come from? What is so appealing about Hoboken to the homeless? Is this a growing problem in our town? Is there anyway to help alleviate it? Something
has to be done in my opinion. This town is better than what I am seeing. Obviously Hoboken has made great strides over the past 10 - 15 years, but why can’t we clean up the streets?-Anonymous”--
has to be done in my opinion. This town is better than what I am seeing. Obviously Hoboken has made great strides over the past 10 - 15 years, but why can’t we clean up the streets?-Anonymous”-- The post is bad enough in its clear misunderstanding of the plight of homelessness and that the operator of the site actually included it in a post. What is worse, however is the readers chime in: The hateful remarks that occur are mind boggling in light of the state of affairs of our world. The vacuum of people that visit this site is astounding, the lack of compassion, humanity and overall misunderstanding of the plight of homeless is not uncommon in today's society, however to make comments that insinuate the extermination of homeless people was breathtaking and shocking. Still, as I write I am shaken by the comments. Visit and see for yourself.
This week's Assclown(s) is the website of Hoboken 411 and its readers. Shame on you.
20 comments:
You are kidding with this, right? "Plight of the homeless?" The same m-fers who beg for money as I trudge home from my crappy job?
Seems like the biggest "assclown" is you. How about not wasting your time blogging - go spend it helping the homeless.
hi there, we do help... as public interest attorneys, volunteers, grantwriters, program developers and teachers in inner city schools and workers in the non-profit world... in our daily lives. to bring dignity and caring to those around us in difficult situations and who are less fortunate. so, then, what you are doing to help if you want to fix the problem?
you have a crappy job? well change it. find meaning in your daily work in helping others or something you care about. just a thought. i'm not wasting my time and neither is kid radical.
I just hope anonymous up there doesn't lose his "crappy job." He might have to reconsider his holier than thou attitude towards those who are out of work, kicked out of their homes, mentally ill, substance-addicted, and/or downright unlucky. One of the many things we're missing in our society today - at both the governmental and societal levels - is compassion and he's a fine example of that.
It is pointless to carry on an argument so steeped in vitriol. Why would one hate and carry such anger towards homeless people? What's so funny about peace, love and understanding? I feel very confident that no amount of collective hate and disgust will help any single homeless person to find himself mental health, clean clothes, a shower, a comfortable place to sleep and a crappy job.
My comment is not directed at the person who blogged on Hoboken411 regarding the homeless people in Hoboken. My comment is, instead, directed toward Kid Radical: I understand your shock and dismay toward the remarks. However, you also condemned Hoboken411 for posting the remarks on his/her blog. Question: would you censor this blog? Specifically, if somebody posted something on this blog, your blog, that you did not like or felt was "hateful", would you erase it?
Lady Liberal. Absolutely. If it was posted on MY/OUR blog I would erase it. I would never allow myself to be associated with hate or vitriol and disgusting comments. Ever. We are talking about on the blog. A comment is another story. Hoboken 411 put the post on his blog. Understood?
Just look what they are doing to O'reilly...pulling sponsorship because of the hate. Censorship this is not.
This is from R. Thelonius on the homeless post. Because I could not say this myself and is exactly what I am trying to say I am re-posting here.
As to Lady Liberal
First, this is not an argument about free speech. The government is not restricting anyone's speech and kid radical is not asking that anyone's speech be restricted by the government. Congratulations, everyone's first amendment rights remain unaltered. Note that speech is not unfettered and as kid radical points out, society through govt has found it reasonable to restrict speech. Before anyone flies off the handle, the preceding sentence is not an endorsement of these restrictions, just a statement that they do in fact exist.
Second, tolerating difference of opinion and tolerating hate are not the same things. A premise of freedom is that while we respect a legal right to express unpopular, even hateful, views, as a matter of human rights, we should not tolerate, legitimate, condone or otherwise allow hate to live unchallenged.
Third, there is no third.
"Just look what they are doing to O'reilly...pulling sponsorship because of the hate."
This is the part that interests me. 411 posts things like this, then expects people to buy advertising? (I'm assuming he's charging for those ads). If you think this post was hateful, try the very insensitive post about a local businessman who committed suicide. He posted all the awful play-by-play, then hid behind "free speech" while his groupies posted the most repulsive comments about this dead man and his family and friends. But I'll bet Perry was right out there the next day trying to promote his site to the guy's former employer, right?
I have to wonder how many non-profit organizations will continue to ask him for publicity when he posts inappropriate pictures with the information (like the hoochie-mama shot that was attached to a charity car wash post), and then permits his groupies to post hateful comments about the organization, its cause, the people it is meant to benefit, etc. I don't necessarily agree with him censoring the comments, but he could step in and try to diffuse or redirect, but instead cowers behind "free speech" so he doesn't have to try to control the monster he created.
Let's just see how far "free speech" goes when it starts to impact his business. In the absence of good judgment and human decency, perhaps the "free market" they are citing over there will make the difference.
411 doesn't like it that you posted this and is trying to stir up trouble. apparently he's not a fan of free speech when YOu are using it. keep it up. you have teh right to speak just like those people do. he knows by posting about the homeless it just gets people pissed off on both sides.
Why have you done to help the homeless?
The comments were winding down on the homeless issue on 411 so i guess he wanted to stir them up again.
i don't see anywhere where you say that you 'hate' anyone,
411 is a GREAT site but really, he should move on to other issues for the time being.
the homeless often can't help their situatino and need compassion - most people on the site know that. the few that don't are idiots and have the right to be. move on, people....
I agree with you.
Hoboken 411 has banned me for making comments trying to bring people together.
The people on that site are racist!
Thanks cracker. I guess there is a post on there that says we hate them all. So juvenile and ridiculous. If you cannot tell the difference between who were calling assclowns then I really will never be able to explain it to you.
I am on to other things like real blogging about important issues. This ends here for me.
I think the developer of Hoboken411 has a few degenerate interns to run the site for the sumer.
What killed the site were the lame ads, sarcastic titles, and droves of morons who feel the need to exercise their opinions on hating immigrants, the mentally ill, the homeless, and the poor (i.e. anyone who isn't 'them'). What started at as a great site to post community happenings evolved to a place for people to air their grievances with anyone who doesn't live up to their elitist projections. Yet if you listen to them talking on their cell phones or to each other walking home after a night of binge drinking, you'll hear some of the most juvenile, inane BS in North America. I'm glad that the picturesque streets and shops that sprinkle the Hoboken streets offer nothing into the mentality of the a good percentage of the people who live there.
i love the posters who automatically label anyone trying to promote tolerance and understanding towards the plight of the suffering as radical liberals or hippies. Yeah, trying to be understanding about someone's disposition is pretty disgusting.
Each and every person on line would be up at arms at being silenced.
But I sit here and listen to people that think nothing about censorship.
I will defend a jerk's right to say hateful things. I will not respect them or what they say, but they have the right to say.
They have the same right I have to voice my opinion.
And if you want to talk about hateful. Cracker was no sweet little angel.
He has the right to his opinion. I don't know why he was banned.
I won't sit quietly and let him spin the story that he was a peaceful, bring the community together type.
I Defend the right for anyone to say what they want. But, I also reserve the right to condemn those acts at any time.
But, it seems at 411 there is a double standard.
I wish circumstances didn't delay my getting into this thread for three days now as they have. I think a couple things have been overlooked by many posters here and even more over at H411.
First, the two websites are attempting very different types of publishing despite surface similarities as 'blogs', whatever that means anymore. Very different, legitimate editorial policies can apply to both.
Second, First Amendment principles and spirit apply equally to the editor/publisher and the reader/commentator. The e/p can quite legitimately impart character and message to the publication as a whole, just as any r/c can to a personal post.
H411's e/p has to take responsibility (and at times be forgiven) for the fact that his/her forum is going for wide-open public dialogue with topicality largely driven directly by the readership - and that as such, if the e/p largely eschews censorship, he/she can't control the timbre and content of the publication. That's his/her call to make - and live up to. The SG e/p is justified in censoring comment in the political-magazine format he's created; he does not espouse a politically unbiased cast to the whole publication, though he does allow opposing points of view. H411 professes and more or less lives up to an uncensored chat-line format on which he/she expresses personal opinions in order to kick off (rather than strictly direct) the wide-open commentary and new topic generation.
What no e/p has ever accomplished is creating a chat-room or commentary line that is fully representative of the greater public WITHOUT exercising editorial censorship. And that exercise has its own risk of bias. Uncensored, wide-open formats actually tend to acquire commentator profiles that skew off 'the average-guy-in-the-street' profile: the volume of posting leans toward less balanced individual content and disproportionate representation of those contents. The e/p of dedicated content brings whatever skew he/she has right into the format; the more worthwhile publications of this latter sort are open about their tacks. In the end both e/p's should be commended for simply what they attempt to add to the Hoboken community.
Though I'm trying to be as objective about this inter-blog flap as I can (and benefit from my years as a paid, print editor of both political and scientific content), I'm not above, nor unstirred to, my own opinion on the specific nature of this row.
H411 is wide-open: posters can flame another opinion - and be flamed back for content, style or approach - and counterflame that flaming as well. Everything goes and one ought be prepared for the heat in the kitchen. (Just as any neocon ought if he plants foot in the Subversive Garden!)
The only cast and commentary that I found inappropriate or unfair on either site has to do with the Hoboken political subtext played out on H411. This is where an e/p strayed from his/her own guidelines and espoused mission of website. The particular thread about the homeless (and others around the site) is at times dominated by posters with a distinct political agenda imported from without the thread. Several of the posters attacking 'Progressive John' are political enemies he may well not even know of or know he has, ie, local political actors on PACs or party committees. Such is the risk of a wide-open forum.
The only problem with this is that H411 editorship has established support and contribution relationships with some of these political actors on the other side of the fence from Progressive John, whose upfront disclosure of his committeeperson status has probably been used against him in marshalling critique of him. And not necessarily by the e/p himself. The H411 e/p has to engage in some types of censorship - and certainly has at times for good reason - so he/she can't claim utter lack of influence on content or lack avenues for exerting bias. He/she fell down editorially on the homeless thread by not being open about the political biases influencing him and his website when he began dialogue with the other e/p and commentators. Progressive John was very prone to being ganged up on politically ...and was.(As wellas culturally.) The h411 e/p had good reason to know this, whether he/she was proficient enough at the job to have actually been aware of it. As a former editor, I sympathize with the dilemma of cultivating support for a publication while maintaining the principles of fairness one's forum is dedicated to. But it remains the e/p's duty to keep inside support/contributors and their closely in-touch political friends from making forays across the established limitations on censorship espoused. And make no mistake: it is censorship of its own potent kind to turn a blind eye (or, much worse, co-ordinate) such practices.
I can't read the e/p's mind or heart to know whether he/she helped, ignored, or was oblivious to such practices - but it has constituted a major flaw in the stewardship of the website.
to anonymous: August 2, 2007 8:46 PM
you read my mind exactly. do you have your own blog.
p.s. thank you TSG for this post. I completely agree with you
Kid Radical
Give me three examples of this double standard. Just post the links.
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