Just like the lonely soldier at the end of Born in the USA, we are quickly coming to a point where there is no longer a place to run. The age of white flight is over.
Most Americans all know Bruce Springsteen’s biggest hit Born in the U.S.A. This is one of those songs that everybody knows but you probably don’t know the lyrics to. At patriotic events and on the radio most folks mumble the words until they get to the chorus of “Born in the USA!” and we all get that warm fuzzy feeling about being citizens of the “greatest” country in the world.
As is common with American mass media, the people consuming it generally do not even examine the message of what it is they are consuming. This was demonstrated back when the song was originally released and Ronald Reagan decided to attempt to use this song as an anthem for his campaign, not realizing the true point of Springsteen’s lyrics. What was meant to be a ballad of the disenfranchised white working class was draped in the American flag and called patriotic by the very Establishment that the song was written against.
The white blue collar working class in America has always faced a dilemma, both the Establishment Right and the Establishment Left have forsaken them since the beginning of this country. Republicans and Democrats both advance policies that are a slow suicide to the working class through the use of free trade, high taxes, outsourcing of jobs, and using our young men as cannon fodder for international conflicts.
As is the nature of the hard working blue collar, we are the last ones to lose faith in the system. Our base is around the three most important things in the world: Faith, Folk, and Fatherland. While the elites bicker in ivory towers about tax cuts for millionaires and if bringing in millions of Third World immigrants will help their bottom line, the blue collar is more interested in providing for their families and worshipping God. Paying the mortgage and getting their kids braces is more important than comparing the geopolitical implications of invading some backwater Third World country. Without fail however, when the elites make a decision to go to war, the blue collar is the one who stands up to–as they see it–“defend their country.”
more here…