Life On The Road NAFTA-SHAFTA, and other ghost stories
By Paul Still
Jul 19, 2008 - 4:48:42 PM
But first, some background. I was born in downtown Atlanta,
GA down near the stadium. For those of you that don't know, that's public
housing; red clay brick houses packed together like cars in a parking lot,
barely room between them and a 4x8 piece of land behind them so that you could
scratch out of the earth handful of corn, sweet potatoes and peas. We moved
north when I was young to Morrison, IL to make a better life. Staying with my
grandparents on the farm, my mother – a single woman in the seventies – went
out to find work. (Background done: guy writing this been there done that, can
relate to being poor and wanting a better life.)
Fast forward – Pat,
and the point.
In high school, like in most high schools, a group of us
would hang out well into the evening after school, and usually at Jeremy's
house. Jeremy's parents were great, welcomed us all in, and even fed us. They
had everything: cable T.V., Coleco-vision, air-conditioning and rock-n-roll. We
were teenagers, head banging and getting into trouble. But no matter how much
trouble, and how many police rides we took, their house always welcomed us
back.
Pat started hanging out with the group, and at first he
seemed to want to really take part in what we were doing. He accepted our
choice in music, seemed fine with the food Jeremy's mother would whip up and
seemed fine with our choice of activities. But after a time Pat started getting
critical. It started simple at first with comments that he really didn't like
the food, and quickly moved on to criticism of how clean the house was and how
Jeremy's parents really needed to be more disciplined on their kids. Over time,
his comments grew more jaded and really started to piss off the group. One day
we simply asked him, if the food, the environment and the company were so bad
why was he coming around? He said; “’Cause it's better than my house.”
My grandfather had a saying for it: “Put up or shut up”.
The letters and emails I receive talk about how “...we should really quit
blaming illegals for the job situation and start focusing on the government...”
and I'd like to respond with; “...if you can't change your own country, don't
change mine...” Don't get angry at our frustration at cheap labor and
opportunity- the “opportunity” here didn't happen overnight. This opportunity
came from countless generations building up the land and its companies,
defending this land and its laws, communities contributing to growth, and
creating a common country where dues were paid. Take, for example, the little
town of Morrison IL. The community grew out from the G.E plant established
there over 80 years ago - subsidized by the state from community tax dollars,
infrastructure created from local tax dollars, generation on generation loyal,
buying G.E only products to build the company up. We may not have stock
options, but we have blood and sweat invested in these American companies that
now provide jobs abroad to an imported labor market willing to work so cheap
that it may as well be deemed slave labor.
It's not prejudice fueling the fire of frustration with the job market and
NAFTA, it’s division and dilution of the dream that was once America. When we
stand together as “Americans” we can bring about change, but how do we stand
together when we separate the masses into groups like “Hispanic-Americans”,
“Cuban-Americans”, or “African-Americans”? My grandfather used to say, “You
can't be a little bit pregnant or a little bit married” and you can't be a
little bit American – and a lot of us are tired of fair-weather freedom
fighters, supporting the dream as long as it supports your needs.
But I appreciate the hate mail - after all, this country defends the rights of
every one of its citizens to believe and have whichever point of view they want
to take. Even a negative one.
Next Month: Petro petrified politics - falling freight, fractured futures,
fabled freedoms a reckless recession.