- Some people will, with a sneer, remark to you that the
the "good old days" never existed. Things were always bad, people
always corrupt, sleeping around, and fleecing their neighbors. They go
on to remark that TV, and the telecommunications age, just has us more
aware.
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- Well--maybe in their bubble worlds, removed from deprivation--strikes--hunger
and cold; life has been appreciably the same. Comfortable homes, acres
to play in far from industry; dad a professional, vacations, private schools,
the best in medical care etc. And then they grow up, and it's pretty much
the same, just a different residence--different circle of friends--all
like minded.
Voyeurs, they know and see that poverty, hunger, suffering and oppression
exists all around them; but there's no connection--no identifying with---no
empathy for, and no emotional attachment. On their way, to or from vacations--concerts,
fairs, the theater, the golf course, dining, yachting, a seminar, maybe
a peace rally; they glance at the shuttered mill towns, the empty forlorn
streets, the blur of haunted--shuffling men out of work--the unsightly
generic strip malls; but those in a bubble, can't hear the scream--the
fear--the hunger--the humiliation, nor the echoing loneliness, of those
remembering the days of their youth, the "good old days."
Dad worked in the mines, the steel mills, the auto factories, farmed, ran
a small business, worked for the rail road or drove a bus. He was the carpenter,
the steelworker, the coal miner, the construction man, the brick layer,
the stone mason, the electrician, the machinist, or the mail man. He was
the milk man, the bread man, the logger, the laborer.
- Maybe, it wasn't the exclusivity of bubble world people,
who never gave a thought as to where their next meal was coming from; or
whether they had a job or not. GW and his ilk being a prime examples.
Daddy would take care of everything. His money, his connections, would
see to that next cushy position, monies or the squashing of any trouble-making.
The 'good old days', to men of today; was when they had a job and could
care for their families. Nothing fancy, no vacations, Disney Land nor dining
out. Just making a living and educating his sons to do better-reach for
the stars. Something awful happens to a man, when he can't feed his family,
or take care of daily living expenses. Bubble world people wouldn't know
this. To them, the 'others' outside their rarified lives, are an oddity--commoners--the
masses--the herd--useless eaters--breeders--losers--white trash--trailer
trash--hicks--hillbillies etc. Something to amuse themselves with. Not
like them! Cultured, traveled, well read, moneyed, titled or connected.
We live in a country of the" Haves and the Have Nots", though
the media would propagandize otherwise. As long as they (the elites) can
keep the cauldron boiling, of Blacks vs.Whites, Immigrants, Gay rights,
domestic violence, restitution for slavery, voucher systems, tree huggers
vs. business, the confederate flag, mascots, guest workers replacing American
workers, flags, yellow ribbons, peace marches, color coded fear days, boo,
watch out...etc., things will be fine. As long as the "unwashed masses"
keep fragmented in their own anger, and demands, and insistence on this
or that right or entitlement, no-one will be the wiser and see the real
issue. The implosion of this great nation.
 The
power rests in the people, but its the people together, putting aside their
differences, bias, prejudices and religious doctrines. Conditions for the
working man in the mines, the factories and mills were improved, because
the people united in their despair. Why do you think unions are being dismantled,
and discouraged with men now working part time, or as contract workers
(no benefits-no protections)? Overtime gone? Greed, infiltration and corruption
can tarnish, the most reputable of movements, and unions weren't immune.
But it doesn't have to be that way, not if men want to protect their jobs--their
benefits and this nation.
- Corporate America, is just a more elite transformation
of the mine owners and mill owners, living in their opulent mansions,
above the filth and fumes of the mills and foundries, they allowed to ran
to ruin. They made their money, and when they found a cheaper labor force,
moved overseas, writing off their empty mills as a tax deduction. Then
they collected their subsidies for moving off shore, and now bank their
money in (legal--thank you Washington) off shore accounts so as to avoid
taxes.
- Modernized steel mills were built in Japan, South America
etc., leaving thousands out on the streets. Pittsburgh-Pa., transformed
itself into a convention Mecca. The steel workers, promised retraining!
What a colossal joke. Never happened. Retrained for McJobs! Nurses Aids!
or computer programmers! These men of scarred body and hands, blackened
and cracked from foundry filth! But you won't see the empty-vacant-once
vibrant little towns on the outskirts of Pittsburgh or West Virginia or
Ohio or Michigan on your nightly infotainment. GW tells us that he's going
to hire a Manufacturing CZAR to investigate what happened to the jobs that
fed America. He can hire me...I'll tell him. For free.
- The 'good old days'. Below, are pictures of the place
I resided until age nine. These row houses sat above the mills in the valley
below. I took these pictures a few years ago, when I went to visit my childhood.
Gone were the trees, the flower gardens, the vegetable gardens, the clothes
lines (no dryers) and the sound of children playing ball, building race
cars, and the firemen putting on their fair. Gone the chalked hop-scotch
on sidewalks, stilts, and grandma's in aprons.
 Gone
were the mill workers and families, gathered in the evenings around campfires,
singing, telling tales, roasting marshmallows for the kids shouting out
"alley--alley--in-free!" Gone were the hills, the fields of wildflowers,
the waterfall deep in the woods where I had my secret camp; and the clay
mine where I would gather bucketfuls of the gray stuff to make sculptures.
- I looked, and all I saw (pictured below) was a mountain
of slag and ash from the mills...a legacy from the mill owners long gone.
My past is covered in filth. My waterfall, my secret camp, the wooden stairs
that the men had built, leading down to the valley, so that they could
walk to the mills. All under thousands of ton of corporate pollution--left
in the backyards of the poor and powerless--the unmoneyed.
I turned around, and what had once been acres of fields, filled with blackberry
bushes and sunflowers, was now a sea of shimmering asphalt, for the mall
that was now there. I thought about the baby bird I had buried there in
a matchbox at age eight, and how we used to sled ride where the dumpsters
now sat outside of some generic store.
And from the valley below, where I attended a small Slovac school, {most
who lived in the town below were immigrants}, I looked up and saw the mountain
of ash and slag looming over the dusty-sad town. No life here either. The
mills just rusting hulks, stores boarded up, grass in the streets. I wondered
what Jackson Hole, Wyoming or Andover, VT., would say to this?
Word had it that a new age was dawning. Have your children computer literate;
for that high paying job in Silicon Valley. No more...those jobs are also
being shipped abroad, to lower paying countries, where there is no need
to worry over vacations, medical benefits, vacations or pensions. Globalization.
Silicon Valley a few years back on top of the world, raking in the big
bucks. No more.
- As the high-tech entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley told
it. This new super-competitive business could be summed up in the story
of the lion and the gazelle in the jungle. Every night the lion goes to
sleep in the jungle knowing that in the morning, when the sun comes up,
if it can't outrun the slowest gazelle, it will go hungry. Every night
the gazelle goes to sleep in the jungle knowing that in the morning, when
the sun comes up, if he can't outrun the fastest lion, it's going to be
someone's breakfast. But the one thing the lion and the gazelle both know
when they go to sleep is that in the morning when the sun comes up, they
had better start running. Unfortunately, not all of us are equipped to
run fast.
- And so, what neither the lion nor the gazelle took into
account, was that the larger prey of insatiable-cunning-conscienceless-heartless-vultures;
impersonating men, in designer suits, silk ties, $200.00 haircuts, bejeweled
sausage or skeletal fingers saw them both as road kill.
- Politicians/regulators, today (for the most part), are
the scut workers, messenger boys, and indentured lackeys for the money
boys. Morning now sees the vultures--pigs--cockroaches---crows--maggots--and
vermin off and running; plundering, raping, poisoning--bombing--beating--gassing--and
sucking the very life from the earth. In the 'good old days' it was called
robber barons--snake oil salesmen--flim flam men--hucksters--shysters--and
sharks. Today it's called power run amuck. Madness. They are privatizing
the world for themselves.
"To every man there openeth
- A Way, and Ways, and a Way,
- The High Soul climbs the High Way,
- The Low Soul gropes the Low,
- And in between, on the misty flats,
- The rest drift to and fro." The Way...Wm.Arthur
Dunkerley
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