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Sometimes it's downright embarrassing. My town is a grubby, aging industrial berg of about 60,000 on the Wabash River whose best days are long behind her. Efforts are being made to correct the decades of stagnation, but only so much can really be done if people do not even try an effort to open their minds and inform themselves. Most of the people here are decent, unpretentious, hardworking, church-going folk; but somehow the dull-eyed, slack-jawed morons among them seem to dominate. The local paper isn't too bad -- it does try to print editorials from a wide variety of poionts of view -- but that isn't enough. You have to be able to think, and that isn't the most popular pastime around here. Got a college degree? You're an alien being around these parts.
Part of it, I guess, is the lousy economy. Kind of hard to get people to worry about politics when they're worried about more pressing concerns like getting laid off or fearing that their kids will get sick when they don't have health insurance. I work in a local plant that makes packages DVDs, and it's a veritable laboratory for sociological studies. Many of my co-workers long ago let their dreams die -- if they ever had any in the first place. Non working hours are spent in the local corner bar, for there isn't much else to look forward to around here. The smarter ones take comfort in considering themselves better than everybody else and sneering at everybody and everything. Believe me, if you're in this town, you're not nearly as smart as you think you are (and yes, I include myself).
I often wonder what would happen if the working people in this town -- and all over the country, for that matter -- just got sick and tired of struggling all the time. Maybe some day we'll find out.
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