The earlier post may have been a bit confusing. I don’t want to waste any more time on this, but a photo may give you a better idea of what’s happening.
On the left is my truck. As a homeless veteran, I live in it. I come here because it’s too cold to be outside where I live/lived. I have the same privileges as the other thousand or so other people here, the only difference is that, for some reason, I had to pay $75 more than everybody else.
In the background, on the right, is where the BLM “volunteer” that pulled a power trip on me and get another $15 on top of the $75 for the cash only permit operation lives. This huge mobile home, so big it has to be towed by a semi truck, would cost $500-600 a month for space rent with utilities, that in the 105° heat, will be hundreds more. Parked here with two people and a dog, for free. What do you do to live on federal land, rent and tax free, utilities paid? First, you have friends at the local BLM office. Then, whenever you feel like it, once a week or so, you drive your taxpayer funded vehicle around to check permits that will not expire for three months, you’ve been checking for three months and many of these people have not moved in the three months you’ve been checking. “Volunteers” treat long term “visitors” like trespassers or home invaders. A number of these people are veterans and senior citizens whose only crime against humanity was to run out of money one way or another.
Over the years I’ve been coming here, I’ve met some of the local fishermen. They told me that they have been coming here for years and never bought a permit because only out of state vehicles are ticketed for not having a permit. This is about as ironic as it gets because this BLM facility, which of course, is federal land, is in the state of California. It is managed by the BLM office in Arizona and most of the users of this area over the course of the year, including day users, are from Arizona. You don’t have to look too hard to see a lot of people don’t pay to use the area. The long term campers, like me, don’t move and are easier targets. And have out of state plates. Since Arizona, that manages the place, is a far right kind of place, politics wise, and California is far left, I’ve been told this whole deal is a way of “sticking it to the libs”. I would hope that’s not true, but the more time you spend around here and the way America is going, it sounds more reasonable every day.
Just like in the Pacific Northwest, far right on one side, far left on the other, and lucky me always seems to wind up on the Berlin wall in the middle.
Another reason. American veterans are by far the most fucked over people in this country. Now I’ve become one, I see things much differently in regards to patriotism, nationalism and politics. I happened across an online article in the Arizona Republic/AZCentral.com, a media outlet in a far right wing state. They do an excellent job of telling one side of the story, whichever side their client base wants to see.
They had an article about how the state of Arizona is spending $250 million to ensure every homeless veteran has a place to live. Of course, this is total bullshit. The lack of support from the VA and the American government in general that put veterans on the street in the first place. I’m a homeless veteran in the Arizona desert surrounded by other homeless veterans and unfortunate Americans. I haven’t been able to see a VA doctor for an annual physical in over two years. Apparently I don’t even have a doctor any longer, just a Physician’s Assistant. Never met him/her. $250 million for homeless veterans? More like $249,999,999 for administration, overhead and expenses, $1 for homeless veterans. If you read this post and the previous post, you would know that the homeless veterans are paying the rent for government employees, not the other way around.
If you took the salaries and benefit packages from all the organizations claiming to “help” veterans, and gave it to the veterans themselves, there would be no homeless veterans. Like all Americans except government employees, they still would not be able to afford health care, but that’s a whole different story.
The reason for this long post about to what many would consider nothing, is that I’ve had a lot of time to think about it. It’s cold here in the desert, in the thirties last night. Pretty cold for a seventy year old guy to be sleeping outside. The injuries to my hips from the semi accident hurt every night to the point where I have to wake up several times a night. When it’s cold like this, it hurts even more. I wake up when it hurts to much to lay down, and usually go for a walk until the sun comes up. Gives a person plenty of time to think.
The sun is up, solar power for the laptop, time to move on to something more constructive.