Saying that the reason he lives in wealth is because he “earned” it.
Which is a backward way of saying that those of who live in Poverty never “earned” anything.
Like me, I guess. Working construction labor for 20 years, in a non-Union state, made minimum wage for or sometimes a buck or two extra an hour. Minimum wage which the Reaganite Snobs like my “friend” who of course “earned” every penny of his wealth (and his employees of course did nothing but leech off his generosity, I guess) kept at $3.35 an hour. Can Our Rich Snob “friend” live off a hundred and ten take home a week? No? But we’re supposed to live off that. And support our families, our landlords families, etc…
Until I fell from the roof…
From that Minimum wage I was supposed to be able to build a miniature empire, or at the very least buy (after buying food, clothing, keeping the clothes clean, paying rent, and Rental Property is taxed at a higher rate than owning your own home, so that means I paid a much higher percentage of my wages in taxes than the Rich do, transportation, health care) and somehow in all that I was supposed to squeeze in Health insurance and investing in the Real Estate market like these “self made” millionaires who look down their long noses at me and anybody else who Is Not Rich.
Then when the inevitable work accident happened…. Inevitable because it was Texas, no workplace safety regulation (it would infringe on the “liberty” of the Masters to be forced to provide good working conditions for their Wage Slaves.) and what a surprise, there was no requirement for the employer to carry any kind of insurance either.
The pendejo I was working for had taken the ladder to a second job site. And had us walking up and down a conveyor belt like a ramp.
Can’t refuse the job, if you REFUSE a work assignment in a “right to work” state, the Masters can force you to work, through such “vagrancy” laws like the No Camping Ordinance.
Right to work under the conditions The Masters decide are sufficient and for a wage The Masters decide is sufficient. Never mind if the wage isn’t enough to actually survive on, that it forces you into a downward debt spiral, debt you won’t have any chance of paying if, say, you fall from a God-Damn rigged up ramp made from a conveyor belt because your “self made, I earned every penny of it” Millionaire Master was too cheap to spend a couple of hundred bucks to buy sufficient equipment for the Slave Workers to actually get the job safely done, before contracting the job.
And in that twenty foot fall to the concrete below, I busted three bones in my right foot, and my left tibial plateau, which was fixed in the emergency surgery that was allotted to me before they figured out (to be honest, before I figured it out too) that the Master had sold the business to his brother in law, left the state, and the Massive Slave Corporation (Halliburton, by the way) which had rented out my labor at a cost of 5 times what they paid me… (but they too “earned” every penny of their wealth, right, Stephen?) and used some of their obscene profits to make sure I didn’t have a day in court… and thus, no medical bills resulting from the accident THEY caused were going to be paid by THEM.
For 14 years the Rich Bitches blocked any attempt to get any help, finally I came up here. And Camped. In the mountains rather than at Fountain Creek, coming into town about twice a week, riding a bicycle or walking down Rampart Range road for 30 miles. Step after painful step for those stretches where I couldn’t manage to ride the bike. Going to doctors and those Bad, wicked naughty SOCIALIST government offices who inherited the responsibility of trying to fix a worker the “Free” Market Capitalists broke.
Because the “self made we earned every penny of our wealth” so-called “Free” market capitalists couldn’t be bothered to pay their own way.
By that time one of the bones in my right foot had died. The metal which the surgeons had put in my foot and knee was supposed to be taken out after TWO years, and it was 14 YEARS before I got SSI and medicaid… 14 YEARS of exactly no treatment for the injuries, because the “Free” market Capitalists prevented it with obstacle after obstacle.
When I finally cleared their obstacle course, the Right foot is now trashed. They had to fuse my ankle, a procedure called Arthrodesis.
My left knee, a screw broke off right at the top of the tibia when they were removing the metal plate. I feel it every time the weather changes.
Because the earlier procedure wasn’t designed to last for 14 years, only 2. Then the LEFT foot started to die. Mostly from the circulatory and nerve damage from the injuries and the surgeries.
SOCIALIZED MEDICINE which the Right Wing Retard “self made I earned everything I have” Millionaires also oppose, saved the left foot. With a device that cost $500.
But under the No Camping Ordinance, my first year up here would have been in violation of the “law”. My very existence would have been prohibited by “law”.
Right now I’m this close (picture my thumb and forefinger nearly touching) to once more being Homeless. All it would take is for the Right Wing freaks who were embedded into Social Security by the Republican Party to make absolutely sure that nobody gets assistance unless THEY approve it, people who don’t believe that anybody deserves assistance in the first place get to make the decisions…
All it would take would be one of them making a procedural decision and I would once more be homeless.
And I’m not the only one. The City Council and their minions, and the Real Estate “professionals” all of whom claim to have earned every penny of their wealth (selling land that was taken violently away from the people who occupied it first, through acts of outright murder, by the U.S. Army and at considerable public expense, but that’s not Corporate Welfare of any kind, right Stephen?)
In short, the Stuck Up Rich Bitch “owners” of this town, the ones who declare people like me to be “Bums” and now, criminals, refuse to acknowledge that many if not MOST of us are in our condition due to circumstances far beyond our control.
But, it’s our fault we’re not rich like you, right, Stephen?
