Trangbang68 makes a very important point. As a country, the US has shed much of it’s low-skill yet decent paying manufacturing base. The better educated have moved into service jobs, technology, media, whatever, and ought to be thankful they don’t have to stand on an assembly line all day for their coin. But the low-skilled have much less access to decent paying work. Making things worse, the endless onslaught of immigrants, both legal and illegal, drives down the pay of those low-skill jobs that exist.

Why, I wonder, do we allow a single low-skilled immigrant into this country while we still have thousands of able-bodied black males on welfare? Why, I wonder more, haven’t the Republicans scored hugely on the devastation immigration causes to black men? (Never mind, I know why — because the Republicans are gutless whores.)

Tbang also notes the growing disparity between upper and lower classes. Yes, there is always a range of wealth in any society, but vast differences ultimately bring damage. Making things worse, our media worship of the uber-wealthy and the constant voyeurism of their lives (“Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” started a very poisonous trend in American media) only slaps people in the face with how much they don’t own.

The pillaging of the corporate till by CEOs has been disgraceful, especially in the face of moving jobs out of the country. And to answer the more glib counter-arguments: yes, I WOULD prefer to pay $300 more for my television or ten dollars more for my shirt, and have it made in America. Americans have entirely too much junk anyway. God almighty, ever middle-class kid in America must have fifty articles of clothing he never wears.

One of the great things energy development would do for America is bring back vast numbers of blue-collar jobs. Though of course as things are now, those jobs would all be filled by Mexicans.

It’s a quaint irony that in the 80s, Lefty punk musicians would sing bitter songs about life in the factory, cajoling the youth into quitting those soul killing jobs (as per The Clash: “it’s better than some factory/now that’s no place to waste your youth/I worked there for a week once/I luckily got the boot”). A scant few decades later we’re complaining about not having those jobs. A factory would look pretty good right now to a lot of people.