|
I didn't know this person, but he was staying temporarily (as most do) in the RV park in which I have lived for five years. I don't even know what he was talking about ... what the $500 was FOR. I simply overheard him in the park office.
But you say this OP is about language, not the "gas holiday tax relief plan" or whatever it is the morans who had this "brilliant" idea call it.
So my point is relevant. And my point is ...??
That you can surely tell a LOT about people by the language they use -- in this case, in talking about the cost of something. They use terms (and tones of voice and body language too) which illustrate what their reality is. We all do, actually, when you think about it.
This guy (I'll call him "Jack") who was unconcerned about forking over $500 for whatever, drives a late model motorhome that is at least 45 feet long and is no doubt loaded jam full with special "conveniences" (I'd call 'em luxury items) such as built-in CD and DVD players (two or more) which probably flip out of sight at the touch of a button, a sun roof, garbage disposal and automatic dishwasher, among other things. And in fact most of the fancy appliances in that motorhome probably disappear from view when not in use.
I didn't get to see the interior of the motorhome that Jack owns, of course, but I "toured" a similar one recently when it was for sale, and I well remember the amazing "extras" it had -- many of which probably come standard on such high-end vehicles.
I was stunned. The thing was like a palace on wheels. And I'll bet everything on that motorhome actually works, too! Compare that with what many of us who live in this RV park LIVE in (we're NOT on vacation!), and it's easy to understand why we're parked "permanently" and never drive our old crates (or tow our rickety old trailers) anywhere at all.
We inhabit what once were "vehicles" that now are dwellings for the poor, living on one street within the park that I refer to as "Poor Man's Alley." Our units are so decrepit that it wouldn't take a tornado to turn them into kindling and bits of metal; hell, they're falling apart all on their own!
Some are rentals that the park owner charges ridiculous amounts for, but those tenants scrape together the funds to pay their rent if they possibly can because otherwise it's the street for most of them. Thirty dollars may well be the difference between keeping a roof (such as it is) over their heads or being homeless, some of them with children.
I own my unit; I bought a 1973 motorhome in 2003 when I received $2,000 as my dad's "legacy" and knew I might well have to live in it. I have no running water (line broke during our December ice storm), no flushable toilet (flusher pedal broke two years ago and it's not fixable -- I know, it's been tried), had no HOT water anyway because the heater pulls too much juice and trips the breaker when the fridge comes on), and no propane (oven leaks and that, too, is unfixable). The floor is rotting out, and four years ago I had to put two-by-fours down so I wouldn't fall through; I covered them with indoor/outdoor carpet pieces someone gave me. You can't see the boards, but you can feel them in the lumpy, uneven flooring.
I can't run the air conditioner and the microwave at the same time, also due to the inadequate electrical system in this unit AND on this one street of the park. The rest of the park has 220 and plenty of 110 and supplies plenty of juice for those huge, fancy, new motorhomes and trailers that surely demand way more of it than my unit or the shabby rentals on my street. In the hottest part of the summer, these old crates are like tin cans sitting in the sun, but I still have to turn off my AC to use the microwave (in the winter, it's the space heater). Transformers blow on this street about once every two weeks in summer, so we have NO electricity for several long hours in the hot part of the day then. These dwellings then get as hot inside as a car does when parked in the sun.
I keep the roaches and spiders at bay in my place because I HAVE TO -- a neighbor was bitten by a brown recluse spider and nearly died last year, so I fight the infestations very hard and will spend food money on the poison if I must. The owner will NOT eradicate the bugs in the rentals, so unless the renters can get it done, they have to live with the bugs.
Why am I telling you guys all this? To illustrate just how significant thirty bucks can be to some of us out here.
Has nothing to do with any "gas tax relief," though -- just the language of the haves versus the have-nots. The $500 that Jack was referring to as "only" that much money could well have been what he pays in a week of driving his motorhome, for all I know. But whatever it was for, it clearly didn't faze him to spend it.
Language is indeed very revealing. And one thing it demonstrates is just how clueless some folks are about the standard of living many of us have; and if they do know, then it reveals how little concern they have about it. If THEY can spend $500 without worrying about it, why should they care if millions of people can NOT do that, or even come up with $30 for necessities?
To their way of thinking (I guess), that's just the way it is. "The poor have always been with us," after all.
Yep, we've always been here, all right. But many of us have NOT always been poor who are poor now. A disability which puts an end to one's career can change everything overnight. So can the simple loss of a regular job for other reasons that a person cannot avoid.
A poster here on DU a couple of days ago said s/he was not pleased with the "hate-the-rich" attitude here on our board, and I wondered where in the hell s/he had encountered that! (I honestly haven't seen it.)
It's not hating the rich if you wish not to be forgotten and abandoned to the wolves if you are poor, imo.
I don't wish anything bad on those who have plenty. I just feel it's a crying shame that, in this "rich" country, some folks have to live the way we do, suffering and doing without important things and worrying ourselves sick every day over financial matters.
MY language reveals that I cannot fathom what it must be like to consider five hundred or even thirty dollars as "only" that amount. I think I remember when maybe thirty was "only," but that was years ago. Before I became disabled and had to stop working. "Before," period. I never had a LOT, but I never figured I would be in the circumstances I find myself in now. When you can no longer work and support yourself -- and for many, support their families, then everything changes. EVERYTHING.
I wish the many who are just one paycheck away from such dire circumstances understood how quickly that can happen, because it CAN affect THEM at some point. If people don't know how bad it can be for them when they must depend on the government programs which are supposed to provide a "safety net" for the poor and meet their essential needs, they will never raise the ruckus it would take to fix our very broken System ... until it's too late for them.
Once you're in this situation, you become "persona non grata" to most others and you lose whatever voice you had. We poor folks are expected to "deal with it" -- our lot in life, as it were -- and be silent, not bothering everyone else. We are, in the real world I inhabit, expected to be as invisible as possible. Many people don't like us reminding them we exist.
Why do we think communities periodically make sweeps of "tent cities" or whatever else passes for dwelling places to many of the homeless, flushing them out of locations where the rest of the population has to SEE them? Why does the owner of this RV park and his staff treat us who live on Poor Man's Alley like we're lepers and delay or refuse to make repairs on his rentals? Why are they trying to persuade us to move to another park this wealthy man owns, which is in a worse part of town and is a dangerous place to live, especially for the disabled and others who are especially vulnerable?
Why do we think a great many homeless people end up inhabiting our over-crowded prison system? Why are the mentally ill now in prison, ones who were put out on the street when Raygun shut down most shelters and clinics that provided some of their needs, including a cot, a blanket, something to eat daily, and a roof over their heads?
Hey, those prisons, now being privatized at an alarming rate to the financial benefit of some -- they're GREAT places to HIDE the people our general population out here doesn't want to see or think about! Great idea, Saint Ronnie!
Language. Yes, it says a lot, to make a bad pun.
Too bad lots of folks don't listen, or can't hear. Or won't.
Oh, and I'm fortunate enough to have a car, too, unlike some of my neighbors on this street to whom I offer a ride when I go to Walmart. I put only 50 to 100 miles per MONTH on my 10-year-old vehicle, but even so, with the price of gas going so high these days, I have to cut back on that. Let's see: food, medicine, or the gas to go get my food and medicine? Something has to go!
(A friend pays for my ISP, or I wouldn't be able to "rant" here for folks to read -- or ignore. Felt I should explain that, or else some folks would "assume" a non-reality. That happens a LOT.)
|