Frequent killing sprees, a growing poverty population, overcrowded prisons, a failing education system and fewer good job opportunities. Sound like a second world country? That's what is happening to much of America, except for the privileged caste. The once bright hope of the future of humanity, the formerly expanding middle class that realized the American dream, is now being discarded. After various historical struggles, the elements that combined to form a united, collaborative nation are being separated, not by race, creed, color or class, but by wealth. The process started insidiously in the early 1960's, when it became apparent to certain American corporations that their industrial processes were becoming obsolete. Instead of allocating the capital to upgrade, retool or completely rebuild, they found it more profitable to invest in their foreign competitors, abandoning any responsibility to America, leaving us the cancer of rust belts.

Great upheavals affected our society in the 1960's, the civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam war movement, assassinations of our leaders, all set against the terrifying threat of nuclear annihilation in the Cold War. For the most part, these complex events were reduced to simplistic blurbs by the media, politicians and universities, secure in the belief that we were too burdened by day to day obligations to care, and that we would only monitor the flow of events superficially. The sound bite became a primary information tool. And while we were struggling with the issues of white flight from the cities to the suburbs, we overlooked the insidious flight of capital from domestic investments to foreign shores.

The blue collar workers were the first targets of corporate de-accessioning. Their battles against begrudging management that frequently won higher wages and better benefits would not stop. The policy makers of the steel, automobile and electronic industries took no pride in their superior work force. It didn't matter that their workers were experienced and competent. There was certainly no concern for the contribution the workers made to the economy, either in taxes or consumer spending. As soon as another option for investment was decided, the workers could be dispensed with. So the steel mills and factories began closing and the jobs went abroad. Yet no one alerted us that we were being permanently abandoned by the owners of our vital industries, whose obligations to profit took preference over the needs of the nation.

Our public education system, primarily designed to prepare our youth for factory jobs, did not evolve to discover alternatives while the factory jobs were evaporating. Somehow or other many of the crucial elements necessary to comprehend a difficult, complex world are not part of the educational process. The world began turning faster. Television showed us daily the goods and services that most of us hunger for. And unlike many human institutions, television doesn't discriminate. Its wares are broadcast for all to see and it conditions us to desire what we are shown. Only cost determines what we can or cannot get. And we still dreamed of a better life, not understanding that the corporations that don’t care about us have ended many opportunities for a better future.

As computers took over industrial functions, the blue collar work force was further reduced, replaced by a new techno-class that thought itself indispensable in the burgeoning Information Age. The techs learned the hard way that they were as dispensable as toilet paper and easily replaceable. So the blue collar class was disappearing, the last organized component that possessed the will to resist the abuses of capital. Small businesses were being devoured by chain stores. Durable products were giving way to cheap substitutes manufactured abroad. The national debt became so enormous that we could no longer grasp its significance, let alone recognize who it benefited. The depletion of decently rewarding jobs was eroding the optimistic fabric of American life.

More and more corporations are setting up outposts abroad to avoid paying taxes to the government. The assault on high paying jobs continues unabated, leaving low paying service jobs as the main field of employment for most Americans. Our leaders still insist we are the richest country in the world, but as the lights go out in homes across the nation because of foreclosures, who will pay our bills? Recent studies indicate that we in the U.S.A. have more millionaires than any other country in the world. Once our pride was in having the largest prosperous middle class, now we are fearful of the future and fervently respond to politicians who promise change, blindly hoping for a savior, refusing to accept reality. The pressures and tensions of our times are disconnecting many of our youth. The increasing suicide attacks on our schools, workplaces, shopping malls and restaurants is one small symptom assailing a diseased national body that urgently needs attention, before it decomposes. The changes we require are not empty promises from politicians, but a regenerating of opportunity for a huge segment of our population who are as American as the wealthy.