SO PISSED OFF!!!!

OK, well it's another day that I set here in my apathy and think about how pissed off I am at the current regime in office, and how every day of my adult life has been spent in slavery for the rich fuckers that perpetuate their wealth by screwing the already poor even more.

The more I think about the state of affairs in this fucked up country and the filthy bastards in office cheated to get there - there is documented PROOF that these lying thieving fuckers cheated to get where they are and nobody has the power or resources to put an end to this shit.

If I thought for a second that I could march my crippled, disabled ass to Washington and kick those fuckers in the ass - I would do it myself. It's not bad enough that we're already slaves to the corporations and these corrupt bastards, but now we have to be slaves to the military industrial complex too?

I say screw that - If I wasn't married with a family, I would take advantage of my 2ND amendment right to bear arms and take care of business.

But what can one poor, almost homeless, living on welfare and fighting for disability person do?

I can at least write about how I feel... Putting it into words is not as effective as actually doing it - but I am trying to be more involved lately.

At least I can say I have written to my representatives and senators and congressmen - at least they know how offended I am at the current administration and I am one of hundreds, and thousands, and hundreds of thousands that want a change.

I have heard this proverb/saying more than once and it made me think about how most of my life has been.

We are all created equal (from the Declaration of Independence)

– just some more equal than others (Orwell/ Vonnegut, maybe even others earlier.)

During the course of trying to find the origin of that quote, I find more than one article or discussion regarding the impossibility of “all” people being created equal, and that it would be a “horror” story if we were.

I was absolutely amazed at the sheer “idiocy” of those morons. They totally missed the point of the “philosophical” meaning of this statement put forth by our forefathers when they wrote the Declaration of Independence. Yes, even our forefathers I am sure; thought of the sheer stupidity of everyone being “identical” in appearance.

This brings me to why I tell my story. I have lived my adult life in poverty. My childhood wasn’t too bad I suppose – as far as I know we were “middle class”. OK, so it was just barely over the poverty level. Yeah we had a house, and a car, and food and… Now that I think about it; that’s all we really had. I wasn’t the best dressed kid my school, and mommy and daddy sure as hell didn’t buy my first car or my first crappy trailer home for me. Hmmm, maybe we lived in poverty then too.

I have had to live my life in this country; from my birth until now I am a citizen of the United States of America. And I can honestly tell you that “We” are not equal, we aren’t even close to being equal.

I have tried to be equal. I have worked long and hard. I have tried on more than one occasion to improve my life – be it through buying a house, be it through continuing education; be it through changing careers.

And every step of the way through my life I have tried to be a good, “productive” citizen. But there have been several hardships along the way. There have been hardships along the way that no human being anywhere should EVER have face, especially not a citizen of the greatest nation on earth (Which has been effectively eroded away to nothing during the current Regime of our “so called” elected leaders) The United States of Greed.

For the seventeen years of my life that I was actually able to work, I managed to earn a massive $117,000 (according to my social security records, that’s an accurate assessment). That looks like a pretty good number doesn’t it? Let’s do a little math and see just how much money I really make.

$117,000 divided by 17 years = $6882.35 per year. WOW, what a great life I’ve had. (My wife still loves me and only 1 of our 4 children has abandoned us – I guess that’s not too bad).

It never ceases to amaze me how there are people out there that can make my yearly average salary in one month. And even more amazing that some people make my entire life’s earnings in one month.

Why is it, that some of this nations most skilled workers (I “used” to be a carpenter) are paid the least amounts of money? I’m not by any means trying to imply in any way that I am any better than anyone else – quite the contrary. I am saying that I should be considered an equal. Yet, my yearly income does not reflect equality in any way, and some of the hardships I have had to endure during the last 17 years would suggest that not only am I “less than equal” to many of my peers – I have from time to time thought that my only purpose for being a citizen of this “so called” great country, was so that my “more equals” could have a laugh at my futile attempts to survive.

When the carpenters of this country cannot afford to live in the houses they build, and the janitors cannot afford to use the services of the hospitals they clean, and the teachers of this country cannot afford to pay for car insurance to get to our schools and teach our young – this country is failing miserably to achieve the dreams set forth by our founding fathers.

The last three years of my life have absolutely been the worst three years of my life. Not only have I had to endure being homeless (with my family) but I have received the absolute worst treatment ever from our countries own division of human services. As if it’s not bad enough that the division of human services has been a part of my life on and off for the last 15 years in three different states, but the state of Oregon in particular has the absolute worst case policies and the worst case workers I have ever had to deal with.

If it were not for the amazing help from my church, and the amazing luck of blindly stumbling into a subsidized apartment, my family and I would be homeless. Imagine that, the luckiest thing to happen to me in my life has been to get a subsidized apartment.

I am currently in the process of fighting my government to get my disability. I worked for 17 years as a carpenter. For 17 years I have spent countless thousands of dollars trying to maintain unaffordable car insurance, I have spent countless thousands of dollars to re-instate my driving privileges, I have spent countless thousands of dollars replacing vehicles that were “taken” from me by the very system that I spent so many years building houses for.

Now, after 17 years of pain and servitude and for my country, after 17 years of being FORCED to sacrifice a percentage of my income whether I wanted to or not, I have to “SUE” my own government for money that is rightfully mine. Money that was taken from each and every paycheck I ever received.

I didn’t vote for mandatory insurance, yet I have suffered through the indignity imposed on me more than once of being forced into the “legalized racketeering”. Our own government is nothing more than a façade hiding the “mobsters” with the most votes.

I have suffered through 17 years of honest hard work through poverty and homelessness and I as a citizen of the United States of America DEMAND to be treated with dignity and respect and I DEMAND that this country that I have faithfully served through poverty and homelessness GIVE me my disability.

State of the Union - for the poor anyway

State of the Union (for the Poor)

My early years before I entered the world of adulthood were filled with stories of the American dream. But alas, that’s exactly what they were; Stories, Tall Tales, Fictions to soon be discovered.

I always knew we weren’t ‘Rich’. But my parents managed to keep me fed and a roof over my head. They did O.K. We lived in a middle class neighborhood for 8 to 10 years, so everything wasn’t too bad. Little did I know just exactly how far in debt my parents really were? At any given moment the smallest catastrophe could have sent them reeling into bankruptcy.

I did OK in school – I was a ‘C’ student, not because I had any learning problems, I was actually in some advanced art and math classes. I was a ‘C’ student because my parents were hammered with the day-to-day stress of trying to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads. I was a ‘C’ student because nobody had any idea that the world or at least the US was going to be driven by unforgiving corporate greed and some of the most corrupt government officials and policies ever imagined.

I quit school in my senior year. Yeah stupid move – there were some issues with the Dean being a moron, he could have very well found some other way to resolve an issue other than failing me at the end of the first semester – So my battle with absolute idiots began before I even left high school.

While I continued to work on my ‘Rock Star’ future, I took up carpentry as a means of being a productive citizen.

This is where the so called ‘American Dream’ has been dismantled and torn asunder.

You hear stories of ‘Work Hard’ and you will be rewarded – BULLSH**. I stuck with carpentry for 15 years. I “WAS” very skilled in my chosen trade, I even managed to work my way up “lead carpenter” and “foreman” a couple times. But amazingly enough, I was never able to make enough money to keep up with the bare necessities needed for survival. All my years of hard work and perseverance my family always relied on public assistance and charities.

I dealt with employers that offered me a raise if I signed insurance waivers and moved to 1099s (the worst thing ever). I dealt with employers going bankrupt and not paying me. I dealt with spending entire tax refunds to re-instate my drivers’ license and pay exorbitant insurance fines (nothing more than legalized racketeering in my book).

I tried to get an SBA loan once to start my own business – That was a joke, the bank said I had one of the best proposals they had ever seen (my advanced high school math skills paid off) – but the bank wouldn’t even submit my proposal to the SBA because not only are carpenters the highest rated “credit Risk”, but I didn’t have any collateral.

So I continued to spend every dollar I could muster to pay for my almost unaffordable car insurance while working for employers who would outright rig paychecks - refuse to honor verbal agreements and just about every other abhorrent behavior that contractors use to screw their workforce. It’s no different from corporate theft really, and when poor broke carpenters have to rely on public assistance programs to pay the bills, there no way we could even imagine the luxury of hiring a lawyer to fight the battle. So we just move on to the next ‘dirty’ contractor who was lucky enough somehow to get his business started.

Look, I know the simple fact that we can’t all be doctors and lawyers and such – but there has to be more to the ‘American Dream’ than wishing we had born with a ‘Silver Spoon’ in our mouths, or even worse yet – waiting diligently for some older family member to ‘DIE’ so we can reap the rewards of some small fortune that they may have.

I have re-educated myself. I have a G.E.D, I even have an Associates degree, I even have several ‘Certifications’ proving that I can at least pass a test.

Once again I got screwed believing in the ‘American Dream’. During my families’ first battle with being Homeless, I took advantage of every re-education and re-training program I could. I thought that I could ‘Work’ my way up a more respectable ladder. After all, carpenters – the people that put roofs over our heads are considered scourge of the earth – so my being in technology has got to be a better career choice right?

WRONG! It seems that the ‘so called’ shortage of technology workers in this country is another farce created by the countries financial institutions in an effort to generate even more debt for the poor people on this country that just want to make their lives better. After all, If I owned a corporation and my government gave me a tax break for sending all my work to another country – I suppose I could the allure of not having to pay an American a decent wage while getting rewarded for it.

After all my efforts and hard work and thinking I even had a snowballs chance in hell, I couldn’t even get a Job in the Technology industry because I am just a stupid carpenter who doesn’t have any experience (even though I graduated with a 3.9 GPA and have industry certifications and generated another $20,000 in debt for myself – WHOOPEE)

I had to resort back to carpentry to try to survive (after having a back surgery) and now I have even more problems. After resorting back to the career that caused me so many years of pain and a surgery, it seems that wasn’t the wisest of choices either – now I have brought myself even more pain and suffering. Not only did trying once again to provide for my family cause me to work for yet another ‘Less than Desirable’ employer, but now I have had to file for disability.

How’s that for the ‘American Dream’? I thought that since I had done such a great service to my country (OK, so I wasn’t a soldier in the sense of being in the military, but I spent the better part of my life being a soldier of the workforce – building and repairing the structures that keep roofs over our nations heads) that I could at least be rewarded in some small way by at least getting disability. Yes, that was my ‘American Dream’, to grow up and file for disability.

It seems that even our countries social programs are under attack – I have received some of the most berating and abhorrent treatment from the Division of Health and Human Services – I received some of the worst treatment ever from our countries social services.

Not only do I have to fight for my right to be considered disabled and receive some form of help from my government – but I have all but given up on even considering using the Division of Health for help because their treatment of people needing help is so abhorrent (probably due to the fact that the current administration is more concerned with ‘Liberating” Iraqi oil fields than with caring for it’s own citizens).

I have a wife, I have children. My entire life has been spent chasing the ‘So Called American Dream’. I can see no way that we call ourselves the most ‘Powerful Nation’ on earth. If we as a country cannot even liberate our own poor and homeless, how can we ever expect to do the same for others.

Our nation is driven by corporate greed and a corrupt government – we need HELP.

When the American people are ‘enslaved’ into debt by the countries financial institutions and our government is run by the corporations who pay for the laws they want or need – we are the ‘Weakest Nation’ on the planet.

Brutal Honesty

Well people, it's that time of year again when the bills are catching up with us. I've had an OK year so far, hell I even managed to score some odd jobs here and there - I guess thats not bad for a crippled carpenter.

But my good fortune (and I use that term lightly) is not enough. If any body has a spare couple bucks(LOL - like there's a possibility of that in this day and age). Make a donation to the broke carpenter.

With any luck I can find another odd job to hold on to the phone - but the electric co., those guys are real a-holes to deal with.