Sex Pistols frontman Johnny Rotten isn’t afraid to buck the establishment and sound the alarm over L.A.’s homeless epidemic, which has literally landed at his front door.
The 63-year-old lives in Venice Beach where there has been a surge of homeless vagrants that have vandalized his multi-million dollar home and spoiled the beaches with “poo” and “needles.”
“A couple of weeks ago I had a problem,” he said. “They came over the gate and put their tent inside, right in front of the front door. It’s like . . . the audacity. And if you complain, what are you? Oh, one of the establishment elite? No, I’m a bloke that’s worked hard for his money and I expect to be able to use my own front door.”
He added that his wife Nora, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, isn’t able to cope with bums trying to “steal the iron bars off the windows” for the scrap metal and bricks coming through his windows.
“My wife’s ill and she can’t cope with this. But at 2 a.m. last week, a brick whizzed through the top floor window, the bedroom. Sorry, Mr. Policeman. I need your help.”
“The vagrants moved in en masse . . . [in] tent cities. They’re all young; they’re all like 24,” he said, adding that, “They’re aggressive, and because there’s an awful lot of them together they’re gang-y.”
They have also spoiled beach life: “And the heroin spikes . . . You can’t take anyone to the beach because there’s jabs just waiting for young kids to put their feet in — and poo all over the sand.”
This might sound like hypocrisy coming from a punk rocker, but it’s really not. The whole ethos of ’70s and ’80s punk rock is live and let live. No rules … at least until you interfere with me living the life I want to live, which is exactly what is happening to Rotten.
If you want to know what an actual punk rock sellout looks like, I give you Henry Rollins, the Vandals legend who endorsed … Obamacare.
In fact, Rotten (whose real name is John Lydon) is bucking an establishment that treats these vagrants as sacred cows while at the same time pretending they do not exist because their rising numbers reflect badly on the Democrat-run strongholds that cannot manage the growing problem.
The media and the left-wing political establishment want us to see the homeless as victims of a cruel American capitalism that allows good people to fall through society’s cracks. Naturally, the only solution to this problem is big government socialism.
But the truth is that American capitalism licked poverty decades ago. The so-called “poor” in this country now have cable TV, central heat, air conditioning, videogames, microwave ovens, iPhones, and struggle with over eating. The homeless are an altogether different problem.
Certainly, good people slip through the cracks temporarily. No question. But there are all kinds of avenues to help those who are sincere about getting back on their feet. The homeless epidemic is actually an epidemic of mental illness, addiction, and tolerance.
City’s that tolerate poopy beaches and sidewalks, hypodermic needles, and aggressive panhandling only end up attracting even bigger problems and making the lives of their normal citizens miserable.
Johnny Rotten complaining about one of the most sacred of sacred cows is as punk as it gets, and so is his support of Trump and Brexit.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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