I was driving through the bleak, forgotten areas of Jim DeMint's old congressional district today; not deliberately. En route to somewhere else and got lost. Ended up in the old Greer mill village, which used to be entirely composed of poor whites, then during the 80s it was entirely poor blacks... and now it is 100% Hispanic, including all of the skimpy corner food-marts (that don't sell actual food), the hair salons, gas stations and other tiny businesses. Does Senator DeMint know all of these brown people are here? Miles and miles of them? He must know. Do they mow his lawn or launder his dress-shirts that he wears to important Tea Party events?Obviously, from the looks of the place, he counts on them not voting.
It had grown cold and dusky, as I meandered through the extremely depressing atmosphere... when suddenly, I heard this song on WNCW... it was perfect accompaniment for what I saw everywhere, all around me. It made me cry.
An excellent introduction to the holiday season. As Ebenezer Scrooge famously asked, Are there no poorhouses?
~*~
This amazing song is from Hadestown by Anais Mitchell. I could only find this version (with two songs). "Why we build the wall" is the first, "Our Lady of the Underground" is second. "Why we build the wall" ends at approx 4:00.
You must hear it.
The first song features Greg Brown, the second, Ani DiFranco.