| The war at home
I can't pinpoint when it all started. I was too young when it happened, so I can't date any of my memories. I was old enough to be frightened, though--by the looks all around me, on the faces of parents. The factories that once fed our economy lay vacant and crumbling. Men primarily (my apologies to the feminists--it was a different time) were losing their jobs. Fathers were still breathing, but the look of death was already in their eyes. Once smiling and happy homes were now depressing to live in. They even smelled different. Mothers cried and held their children close, not knowing what the future had in store. We were Americans and our faith in our country would not be shaken. Still, we were terrified. Working-class families were under attack. All through the Reagan years we sat helpless as the rich got richer, the poor got poorer, and the working class was reduced to rubble. We read magazines articles about the multimillion-dollar salaries the CEOs and stock traders were getting as we waited in line for the government's monthly free cheese giveaway. It was hard because the people attacking us were us. Fellow Americans ate us up and spit us out like hyenas on the kill. Merging, downsizing, buying, and selling us like the paper stock they traded. We watched helplessly as we were picked off groups at a time. One day we watched 40,000 General Motors employees collect their pink slips at the end of the day. No warning and no options. Like the Twin Towers, the jobs vaporized. We stood ready with our shovels, waiting for the leaders of Wall Street to come and rebuild. This they did. But much to our horror, they put up their new factories overseas. Still we had faith. Change is stressful, but we were Americans and we were ready to do what was asked of us. Surely the men and women of Wall Street would come to their senses and help us. Surely they would convince stockholders that it was vital to national security to provide jobs and keep our communities healthy. So we waited. We waited some more. The help never came. Our anger grew as we saw our fellow Americans get rewarded with huge paychecks for "trimming the fat"--even though the fat happened to be us. Some families fell apart fast. Others suffered slow deaths. The few that stayed strong were the exception. For us, life had forever changed. Schools deteriorated. Neighborhoods that once proudly sported white picket fences now had metal bars over all the windows. Without our jobs, the desperation of crime and drugs soon consumed us. The response was to build more jails--to put us out of sight and out of mind. So many people with so many wounds that desperately needed healing were instead locked away. No one from Wall Street came to the rescue. There were no pleas for support from our fellow Americans in the upper echelons of business. Some of us felt that they must be ashamed of all that money they made by destroying our communities, but really they didn't care. These leaders of business--these "bulls" of the market--escaped to suburban homes the size of hotels, with giant security gates and armed patrols. We watched them on TV as they showed giddy-eyed reporters their lavish estates, battleship-sized yachts, and stables of exotic cars. The war at home |