Page 80 - Šolsko polje, XXVIII, 2017, no. 3-4: Education and the American Dream, ed. Mitja Sardoč
P. 80
šolsko polje, letnik xxviii, številka 3–4
-class, including socially registered suburban dwellers who loathed ple-
bian sociabilities and were often unforgiving of the errors of their own
employees, pushed for a Trump win, hoping that a further deregulation
of the business world might bring them some fast cash, at least enough
to stoke their meager retirement savings before the system eventual-
ly fell apart like it did in 2008. Some folks were just looking for a good
luck charm in the man with the Midas touch, without anticipating that
Trump’s economic plan would raise taxes on 8 million low and middle
class families while providing massive tax breaks for the rich. It’s no se-
cret, especially in the hinterlands of the unemployed, that the internet
and its burgeoning platforms of automation are poised to cut half of
US jobs in the very near future. All of these Trump supporters, both
the bedraggled and bon-vivant, were feeling trapped in Palookaville
with Trump their only hope for reaching Xanadu as they followed “the
Donald” like a mesmerized Sonny Malone running after a roller-skating
Terpsichore played by Olivia Newton John. After all, Trump could sing
a good populist tune, and it was music to the ears of those down-on-their
luck and fearful of being left behind. Perhaps on the wings of a foul-
mouthed billionaire playboy, factory ghost towns could be replaced by
Vegas versions of Fourier’s Phalanstères.
For many of those hooked on drugs, it was too late to enjoy a Trump
victory, or to see what kind of health care program Trump would put
in place of Obamacare. In Stark County, Ohio, people down on their
luck shoot up meth mixed with carfentanil, an animal tranquilizer that
is normally used on elephants and tigers, and is 100 times more power-
ful than fentanyl. There are so many overdose fatalities that the coro-
ner’s office in Canton has to borrow a 20-foot long cold storage mass
casualty trailer, known as the “death trailer”, normally used for victims
of airplane disasters, since their morgue facility in the county jail com-
plex on Atlantic Boulevard, that holds about a dozen bodies, can’t
deal with the body count. The coroners in Ashtabula, Cuyahoga and
Summit County have to do the same thing—call in the death trailers.
In Montgomery County, to the south, the coroner calls local funeral
home directors for help.
Okay, what I described above consists of Appalachia and the “heart-
land’ of the country, the Midwest, where I lived and taught for 8 years.
Where is the American Dream in these places? Instead you have the
American Death Trailer. My family is from Canada where I spent the first
35 years of my life—and my grandparents and great grandparents lived in
a part of the Canada that some consider the Canadian Appalachia, Ap-
78
-class, including socially registered suburban dwellers who loathed ple-
bian sociabilities and were often unforgiving of the errors of their own
employees, pushed for a Trump win, hoping that a further deregulation
of the business world might bring them some fast cash, at least enough
to stoke their meager retirement savings before the system eventual-
ly fell apart like it did in 2008. Some folks were just looking for a good
luck charm in the man with the Midas touch, without anticipating that
Trump’s economic plan would raise taxes on 8 million low and middle
class families while providing massive tax breaks for the rich. It’s no se-
cret, especially in the hinterlands of the unemployed, that the internet
and its burgeoning platforms of automation are poised to cut half of
US jobs in the very near future. All of these Trump supporters, both
the bedraggled and bon-vivant, were feeling trapped in Palookaville
with Trump their only hope for reaching Xanadu as they followed “the
Donald” like a mesmerized Sonny Malone running after a roller-skating
Terpsichore played by Olivia Newton John. After all, Trump could sing
a good populist tune, and it was music to the ears of those down-on-their
luck and fearful of being left behind. Perhaps on the wings of a foul-
mouthed billionaire playboy, factory ghost towns could be replaced by
Vegas versions of Fourier’s Phalanstères.
For many of those hooked on drugs, it was too late to enjoy a Trump
victory, or to see what kind of health care program Trump would put
in place of Obamacare. In Stark County, Ohio, people down on their
luck shoot up meth mixed with carfentanil, an animal tranquilizer that
is normally used on elephants and tigers, and is 100 times more power-
ful than fentanyl. There are so many overdose fatalities that the coro-
ner’s office in Canton has to borrow a 20-foot long cold storage mass
casualty trailer, known as the “death trailer”, normally used for victims
of airplane disasters, since their morgue facility in the county jail com-
plex on Atlantic Boulevard, that holds about a dozen bodies, can’t
deal with the body count. The coroners in Ashtabula, Cuyahoga and
Summit County have to do the same thing—call in the death trailers.
In Montgomery County, to the south, the coroner calls local funeral
home directors for help.
Okay, what I described above consists of Appalachia and the “heart-
land’ of the country, the Midwest, where I lived and taught for 8 years.
Where is the American Dream in these places? Instead you have the
American Death Trailer. My family is from Canada where I spent the first
35 years of my life—and my grandparents and great grandparents lived in
a part of the Canada that some consider the Canadian Appalachia, Ap-
78
