Let me relate to you a story. I commute via subway several times a week. I see the whole of Washington D.C. on the train...Everybody, from senior congressional staffers to construction workers, to career civil servants, who will forever move the same paperwork they always have, and keep the government running for us.
Once, on my way home, I was sitting on the train. I had gotten on at the same stop as a Latino construction worker. He had obviously been doing cement work all day, probably removing molding from some pour job that had been done a few days before. There he sat, taking the occasional sip of water, a man who had obviously put in a harder day's work then most.
A few stops later, I see a man get on, roller suitcase in one hand, Samsonite briefcase in the other. He gets on the train in downtown DC, bound for National Airport. He is smart, the Metro is faster then a taxi during rush hour. This man is obviously wealthy, his clothes are tailored, as no suit that comes right off the rack could fit this un-shapely person correctly. As he gets on, he looks left, and sees the construction worker, cringes, looks down at his suitcase, now very tightly in hand, and turns right on the subway car, to take a seat. He sits, and looks over the the construction worker, realizing that there is no threat, that the worker is practically asleep.
As the train stops over the river and a few stops later at National Airport, the man gets up, and prepares to exit. His eyes and the worker's eyes meet for a brief second, and the man nods to the worker. We all know that nod...it is the one that says empathy: "You worked your ass off today, I know how that feels, and I respect that, and therefore you as well".
The construction worker nodded back.
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My point is simple. The subway, like the community college I attended, is filled with suburbanites, welfare recipients, military men and women, and others. It is a melting pot. It is my personal melting pot. I like seeing all facets of America, and I think it is important that people see their fellow Americans.
Public transportation, policies that prevent excessive wealth accumulation like the estate tax, public education, the military programs that payed for Markos's education and that of thousands more are all egalitarian institutions that draw us together. I fear the loss of these. The loss of these means the loss of our social fabric.
I fear the loss of the knowledge that we are all Americans, that we all put in a hard days work, and go home to a family, rich or poor, or middle-classed.
I fear that we will de-humanize our fellow Americans. The rich will see the poor as lazy, the poor will see the rich as over-privileged and resent them. Whites will see latinos as a threat, and latinos will self-segregate as others shun them. Liberals will see conservatives as evil self-hating luddites, and conservatives will see liberals as evil self-hating socialists.
I fear the loss of our melting pot.
And dammit, I don't want to lose my interesting metro ride.