And now we have had Thanksgiving, the least commercial of all the winter festivities. Can you name ten Christmas songs? Easy-peasy. But try naming even one Thanksgiving song. The only one you’ll come up with is Arlo Guthrie’s classic “Alice’s Restaurant.” (But if you want to get really obscure, how about a rousing rendition of the “Thanksgiving” movement from Charles Ives’ Holidays Symphony?) So, so far, the giving of thanks has escaped the fate of Whitsuntide, buried under “flash and filigree” (in Terry Southern’s apt phrase). May it always be so.

Here’s what Thanksgiving looks and feels like for the unhoused. It is one of a handful of days on the calendar in which the resourceful can get a free meal and perhaps a social service or three thrown in for good measure, when Christian charity rears its comely coif and produces cornucopias of turkey, stuffing, jellied cranberries and other seasonal fruits and vegetables. Another day to remember broken lives, broken promises and outright lies. An echo of disappointments.

So, no offense, do-gooders, but don’t expect us to kiss your feet just because you gave us a plate of food and maybe some free dental work. One day a year of such largesse is nice, but it’s a tiny drop in a very large bucket. It’s also why the argument that private charity can take the place of government charity fails: no institution, no matter how well-intentioned, can even try to be all things to all people without government assistance. It was tried earlier this century. It failed miserably. As much as you may argue about the shortcomings of government-organized food and medical assistance, it still works better than any alternative,

If our society expects to rewrite the unhoused equation, it’s going to have to open its hearts (not wallets) a lot wider. For a start, NIMBYism must end. You can’t lay claim to giving Christian service while chanting “Not in my backyard, you don’t,” thus denying homes to people without homes. We are not asking for mansions where a studio apartment or tiny house would do. We are struggling to become whole, and a home is where wholeness can begin. So help us. Don’t dismiss us. We are where you could end up. All it takes is a month’s missed salary, or getting fired, or any number of bad breaks.We are willing, most of us, to do what it takes to have a roof over our heads. We’re willing to work to pay for what we’re given. All any of us are asking for is another chance. And if American society can’t meet that squarely, then you should take your holiday meals and throw them in the trash.

“Oh, Andrew, you’re so ungrateful! Look at all we’ve done for you and others like you!” To which I reply with two words: minimal compliance. That’s what social services do, or are forced to do: the bare minimum according to their own guidelines. The idea of going above and beyond has become anathema. Expediting the delivery of needed medicines, visual and hearing aids? No can do. You’ll have to wait until the paperwork clears. Weeks, maybe months. And yes, I’m not unmindful that people with good jobs and insurance can experience the same difficulties. That also needs to end.

Unfortunately, there’s been more emphasis on cutting the number of employees doing social work, while culling food stamps and Medicare rolls, and less on reducing or cutting through the redundancies in paperwork. Somehow, it’s easier to hurt people by depriving them of food and medicine than it is to remove bureaucratic obstacles to get those resources to them. “Eliminate the middleman” should be the motto, not “Move fast and break things.”

But all of this seems like a tempest in a teapot compared to the situation in Tanzania, where, after the election of Samia Sululu Hussein as President with a preposterous claim of 98 percent of the vote in her favor, Tanzanian police and security forces have gone on a literal rampage, killing hundreds of unarmed protestors. Meanwhile, the opposition candidate, Tundu Lissu, has been languishing in prison since April on the highly suspicious charge of treason.

Besides the utter barbarity of these killings, with bodies literally stacked like cordwood in front of morgues and hospitals, Tanzania may have given us a glimpse of our own future if Donald Trump is not removed from office. So far, US security forces have been content to tear apart families, take sick children from their mothers, and pepperfog priests. But what if Tom Homan, Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller say “F– it” and let slip the dogs of war? Can you imagine turning on the news and seeing the crumpled bodies of protestors lying in the streets of American cities?

And what of the six Congresspersons who had the temerity, the utter gall, to remind US armed forces members that part of their duty and responsibility is to disobey unjust orders? What if they were summarily executed by the President of the United States? He’s already called for that. It can happen here–just as Sinclair Lewis and Stanley Milgram warned us.

(Quick reminder: If you love the writing – if it touches you – and you’d like to help this starving scrivener, you can go to patreon.com and make a donation to Andrew Cameron Williams, aka Thee Opinionator. Peace and blessings.)