Measure of a Nation We Are the Change
- March
- 14
10:49 am Live Crew
MUNCIE, Ind. - It’s almost noon, almost time for what drew Carey Youngblood and his pals to the abandoned General Motors plant. Hands tucked deep in dirty jeans pockets, the factory men stomp their feet to stay warm as the countdown begins.(Ten … Nine …)Youngblood, a stocky 47-year-old with 13 years at GM, eyes the plant’s soot-stained smokestack, the name “Chevrolet” emblazoned in vertical lettering. “My daddy and daddy’s daddy were Democrats,” Youngblood says, “but I wouldn’t claim either party right now.”
Terry Terrell nods his head. “Politicians sold us out.”Billy Dugger ends the small talk. “I blame politics,” he says, “for what’s happening here today.”(Seven … Six …)Carey, Terry and Billy are the last sweaty stewards of the industrial age. For decades, men and women like them graduated high school on Friday and reported to the plant on Monday, their bargains struck quietly with a society that rewarded manual labor with decent wages, health insurance, tuition, pensions, mortgages and — with overtime pay, thank you — a boat and cottage.”Almost time,” Terry warns, glancing at his watch.They’ve lived their entire lives in a town emblematic of middle America. Muncie has been known as “Middletown” since a husband-and-wife team of sociologists moved here in the 1920s to study how the nation’s transition from a farm society to an industrial economy affected how people live, work, play, worship, raise families and view politics. Eight decades later, Muncie is again lurching from one era to the next, with its anxious people craving a new brand of politics that offers accountability, security, competence and hope — all things that seem lacking in their world.Carey and his pals are lost in transition between a brawny past and an uncertain future, and they’re not alone.(Three … Two…)This year’s presidential candidates have talked a lot about change — as something to be embraced, as something to be desired. But there’s been far less talk about the kind of wrenching changes that have strained the fabric of Muncie — and America.So let’s view U.S. politics through the prism of its fast-changing culture. Let’s visit Muncie for a fresh perspective on the tumult of the 2008 election: the clamor for post-partisan politics; the yawing gap between “haves” and have-nots;” the growing number of independent voters; the public’s loss of faith in government and the widespread belief that the country is on the wrong track.Politics is only part of the story, the stuff of small talk between life’s rude interludes. Still, if you want to understand how Americans are voting in 2008, come see how they live — and have lived — in Middletown.(One …)BOOM! The explosion jolts Terry’s eyes from his watch to a spot 190 feet in the air where the “C” meets the “H” in good-ol’ Chevrolet. Billy sucks in a cold rush of air — “Whew!” — and Carey’s jaw goes slack.With a pitiful plume of dust, the smokestack collapses upon itself so that the C-H-E-V-R-O-L-E-T briefly spells out H-E-R-T. Carey, Terry and Billy wince as the structure loses its struggle with gravity and tilts ponderously to the left. In the two beats it takes Billy to cry softly — “No! No!” — the smokestack crumbles into a heap of concrete and steel, joining the months-old mountains of scrap where a factory once stood. Across the street, three dozen Muncie old-timers honk their car horns in one-note salutes.Opened in 1935 and closed in 2006, the place where 3,400 men and women once carved out their lives is no more.”Our time is up,” Billy says.___
