Suggested Discussion Outline

[johnkarls]

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A. Anything Anyone Wants To Discus Vis-à-vis Inner-City Conditions As Described In Our Focus Book (pp. 1-292)



B. The Short Quiz Questions For Which The Suggested Answer Was “What Do You Think??? Let’s Discuss!!!” --

Question 4

Many of the book reviews for “Evicted” proclaim that it is so shocking, it is bound to confront Christian America with its hypocrisy in NOT loving its inner-city neighbors as themselves -- is this realistic or only wishful thinking?

Answer 4

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 21

What would be the effect if America’s Permanent “Untouchable” Under-Caste abandoned Christianity’s Opiate of the Masses and converted to the passive-aggression of the brand of Buddhism practiced by Vietnam’s Buddhist Monks?

Answer 21

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 22

In other words, what if the residents of America’s inner-city ghettos whose despair drives them to suicide, decided to commit their suicide by self-immolation on the steps of America’s iconic buildings that house government, business and the news media? After mailing their suicide notes to members of the media (if any) who are willing to publish them?

Answer 22

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 24

If the Chris Matthews’ and Gwen Ifill’s of the world were willing to constantly cover the self-immolation of the Buddhist Monks of South Vietnam and they refuse to cover the self-immolation of America’s Permanent “Untouchable” Under-Caste who are driven to suicide by despair, would it be fair to say that the Chris Matthews’ and Gwen Ifill’s of the world are racists?

Answer 24

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 25

Last month we studied The War On American Workers and The War On America’s 30% Permanent “Untouchable” Under-Caste, both of which have been conducted for decades by The Establishment which was defined as the billionaires (A) who “own” virtually all of the politicians of both political parties as a result of campaign contributions, (B) who “own” many members of the media and many members of academia, and (C) who “own” political “think tanks” such as Brookings, Heritage, CATO and AEI -- and this month we are studying “up close and personal” the real-life stories of quite a few members of America’s 30% Permanent “Untouchable” Under-Caste and their unspeakably-painful struggles just to survive -- so why do you think The Establishment believes that, per the famous saying, "their shit doesn’t stink”???

Answer 25

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!



C. Suggested Discussion Q’s Re Our Author’s Proposed Solution (pp. 293-313)

C-1. In a single paragraph on p. 301, Matthew Desmond proclaims that public housing is inherently unworkable!!! Do you believe his unsubstantiated claim is true, or is the failure (and bulldozing of some public housing projects) due instead to the refusal of pols to appropriate sufficient funds to maintain the public housing properly???

C-2. After all, don’t we constantly see in Hollywood movies, massive high-rise public-housing projects (such as in The Bourne Supremacy when Matt Damon goes to Moscow to tell a young woman that years earlier he had assassinated her parents) that appear to be in wonderful condition because, presumably, the Russian government DOES maintain its public housing???

[And please, no quibbling over whether such massive public housing projects were privately owned.]

C-3. And after all, haven’t we all landed at JFK and taken the Long-Island Expressway into Manhattan and seen the zillions of high-rise apartment buildings that were erected by Samuel LeFrak half-a-century ago and that are still well maintained because the Lefrak Organization is unlike our pols who only like to cut ribbons and then let buildings go to hell (please pardon “my French”) and because Samuel Lefrak’s dream was to provide affordable housing to the lowest level of society that could actually afford decent housing without a governmental subsidy???

C-4. In proposing housing vouchers, isn’t Matthew Desmond correctly cautious in explaining at great length why a subsidy will only increase rent levels, benefitting only the slumlords and NOT the inner-city residents???

C-5. But why does that mean that we need a vast new Federal Governmental bureaucracy to impose and administer rent controls with respect to the zillions and zillions of slumlords that were described by Matthew Desmond in pp. 1-292???

C-6. Wouldn’t it make more sense, if inner-city Moms are going to immolate themselves in order to make a better housing policy possible (if, indeed, the American news media will permit such a movement to be publicized after the Moms who are driven by despair to commit suicide spontaneously decide to do so by self-immolation), for the Federal Government to contract with the Lefrak Organizations of our major cities to build the same kind of massive housing projects that they have already built and maintain for the lowest level of society that can actually afford decent housing without governmental subsidies -- with the minor tweaks that the new housing projects will house all of the nation’s poor and there will only be 50-75 Lefrak Organizations to oversee???

C-7. In other words, if a rent-voucher program already specifies the per-person subsidy to be awarded, why should we accept Matthew Desmond’s recommendation to have zillions and zillions of slumlords to police rather than 50-75 Lefrak Organizations who would be comparatively easy to oversee???