re: #160 Targetpractice

They want our tax dollars because their way of life is no longer sustainable. The days of the factory town and the mining town are being left behind. They really started dying after WWII, when the centralization of manufacturing began to wipe out the small family-owned factories, then accelerated when later presidencies saw the US opened up to a larger world market full of countries looking to industrialize on the cheap. The days when you could get by on a basic education ended the moment companies began incorporating computers and robots into the factory line, replacing task after task until now the only guy who can get by is the delivery driver and even his days are quickly being numbered.

The old ways of life are over and they’re not coming back. The people who live in small towns may do so because they like being away from the “rat race,” but they’re delusional if they believe their “way of life” is in any way supported by more than the folks living in those big cities they despise and deride.

So they’re moving somewhere else now
With their cloths and fabric press. They found themselves another town where they’ll make shirts for less…
The day they closed the factory down they had nothing,
Nothing left to say
So they’re talkin’ of the changes the closing brings about.
Talkin’ of the hard times and the young folks moving out.
Yes, they’re talking as if talking can make everything all right.

—Harry Chapin, The Day They Closed the Factory Down, 1979

Well we’re living here in Allentown
And they’re closing all the factories down
Out in Bethlehem they’re killing time
Filling out forms
Standing in line

Billy Joel, Allentown, 1982

Now Main Street’s whitewashed windows and vacant stores
Seems like there ain’t nobody wants to come down here no more
They’re closing down the textile mill across the railroad tracks
Foreman says these jobs are going boys and they ain’t coming back
To your hometown

—Bruce Springsteen, My Hometown, 1984

plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose