Someplace like America responce

Michael Keene’s response

Dale Maharidge’s Someplace Like America

Do we as Americans have the knowledge, understanding and dedication to overcome the economic turmoil that we are facing?  America has been built on the principle “United we stand, divided we fall.” This is the way the American people, through generations of adversities, have built this great country that we survive in.  As Dale Maharidge states in his book Someplace Like America, “Some say that Americans are no longer able to stand up to the tough times the way the greatest generation of the 1930’s Depression and World War Two did”.

Let’s look at the reasons for America’s unstable economic state.  Major corporations are leaving U.S. soil to pursue avenues of cheap labor, lower taxes, and ultimately a lower production cost, causing higher profits.  On paper this briefs well to the executives who have financial interests in their company.  The promised profits then trickle down to the stockholders, who give their vote for the company to relocate to a non-first world country.

This causes unemployment to skyrocket.  Communities depend on citizens to be employed.  Without jobs people are forced to abandon their former lives and create a new existence.  “The eyes of a woman who has fallen from upper class privilege and is now standing in a charity food line are still proud and hurting a year after she lost her big home.  A frugal white collar mom raising children on her own works two jobs year round, in some seasons, three: her eye’s fill with tears as she talks about how she is barely surviving…  There is something else visible in these eyes: toughness… You cannot defeat people with eyes like these.” (Maharidge, 3) Even the depressed have faith that America will again rise to better times.  We live in a country of opportunity, regardless of the economic state.

There are tears for the laborers and cheers for the others—two opposite reactions due to major corporations relocating to third world opportunities.  The times are depressing by day and optimistic by night.  Will this perspective be enough for the American people to find a stable middle ground?  I hope so, but if not I believe America can still survive.  Maybe not as we know it to be now, but there is still time to change.

Bibliography

Maharidge, Dale   Some Place Like America. Berkeley and Los Angeles California: University of California

            Press, 2011