The Haves and the Have-Nots (The Two Americas)

I look at the TV your America's doing well,
I look out the window My America's catching hell,
I just want to know, which way do I go to get to your America?

I change the channel your America's doing fine,
I read the headlines my America's doing time,
I just want to know, which way do I go to get to your America?
- Living Colour, "Which Way to America"em>

Hi Again,

As I move through this world and live my life I am often oblivious to things around me that should be glaring, and it slapped me in the face on my recent trip to Myrtle Beach.

Former Presidential candidate John Edwards used to talk about "Two Americas," one in which the "haves" live in a very nice style while everyone else is struggling. I guess you could classify me as one of the "haves." Although I'm certainly not rich by American standards I would consider myself upper middle-class. I am an educated person with a nice home, a nice white-collar job that pays well and a wife who is clearly out of my league.

Right down the road for me immigrant workers are lining up for work.

Here in the quiet, mostly white suburb of Melville, it all looks very rosy and I don't think about what's going on in the streets just a few miles away. Drive a few miles north on Route 110 and suddenly you're in the Ghetto! Huntington Station is one of the worst crime spots and centers of gang activity on Long Island. If you get on Route 110 any morning and drive about two miles north you can see all the immigrant men standing on the side of the road, hoping to get a day's work.

My wife and I recently drove from Long Island to Myrtle Beach, SC. The journey mostly looked like the Interstate, with its massive structures and rest stops. But then we got off the interstate and took Highway 501 South from Conway, SC to Myrtle Beach and it was a real eye-opener. It was a barren highway littered with abandoned structures along the roadside; the wreckage of what once was a thriving economy. Each one of these abandoned buildings represented a failed business - someone's hopes and dreams dashed on the rocks of financial ruin. The kept coming every couple of miles, one after another. Sometimes they were situated in clusters.

The highway from Conway to Myrtle Beach was littered with abandoned businesses.

Even in Myrtle Beach, it was mostly big chain stores and big-money attractions. The Applebees, Planet Hollywoods seemed to be thriving while the strip was littered with the remains of small Mom-and-Pop restaurants. Yes there were some left, but there seemed to be far fewer than when I started going there back in the Nineties.

The shopping areas could have been the Walt Whitman Mall (such irony in that name!) right here at home. It's amazing how they have a sameness to them, perhaps by design. The days when different areas of the USA offered unique shopping experiences are coming to an end. You can still find them if you look but it gets harder every year, and one day soon they will disappear altogether.

The drive down 501 from Conway to Myrtle Beach and then north on Highway 14 on the way home reminded me all too well that there is another America that I'm not a part of. The America where people walk away from their homes because their mortgages are underwater. The America where your employer only lets you work 33.5 hours every week so they don't have to pay you benefits. The America where the hospital Emergency Room is your primary care physician. The America where entire rivers are fouled with toxic coal ash because the government believes in "deregulation." The America where mine workers die because the owner is too greedy to allow them to unionize.

This is what happens when you let Big Business do whatever it wants!

We live in a country where Big Business rules, and it's only going to get worse. With the Supreme Court ruling that allows businesses to put unlimited money into political campaigns, their unfluence will become unlimited as well. Look for some truly heinous legislation to come starting two or three years from now. These people want to go back to the Gilded Age - child workers and robber barons. They want their colossal corporations to be near or total monopolies so that no small businesses can compete. The Government likes to talk about helping small businesses but it's mostly lip service. They want the so-called "Free Enterprise" the Republicans like to talk about so much (translation: let Big Business do whatever it wants and screw everybody else).

Thanks a lot, John! ...And say hello to Rielle for me, willya?

Yes indeed, there are "Two Americas." It's too bad the political conversation can't be had now because John Edwards couldn't keep it zipped.