The BRAC Pack

When Fayettevillians first heard the acronym "B.R.A.C," a bubble was created to glamorize an event which has inflicted dire consequences upon a small southern town.  The bubble, created by the real estate community, civic leaders, and local merchants painted Base Realignment and Closure as an economic infusion for Fayetteville and Cumberland County.  The numbers are impressive, the daily dollar amount the expansion of Fort Bragg and its influx of new military personnel has brought to southeastern North Carolina.  North and South Carolina have become military states providing the infrastructure needed by the Department of Defense.  Private contractors and army soldiers comprise Fort Bragg which has grown into the world's largest military base.  The bubble for Fayetteville was the apparent need for more housing and more spendable dollars for local merchants.  Has BRAC been good for Fayetteville and Cumberland County?  Let's look at the big picture.  Fayetteville got I-295, an expansive outer loop bypass.  The function of this highway is to service Fort Bragg.  With her previous population it was not needed.  Increasing the number of active service personnel to fifty thousand demanded a more efficient method of moving bodies on and off Fort Bragg, hence I-295.  The road was for them.  Since 9/11 an obvious change in domestic security has taken place including the battening down of the base.  What once was a freely accessible geographical region became secure.  The military closed Bragg Boulevard to through traffic, a milestone in the history of Fort Bragg and Fayetteville.  The boulevard which connected GI's to Hay Street now is defunct as is the diversion downtown provided for them.  We became institutionalized in a few short years.  The grit and reality of the army became sanitized by big business.  Ground Forces Command is a subsidiary of the Pentagon in Washington, DC.  Fayetteville has yet to realize this change.  What has transpired is unmitigated urban sprawl, over development, and the over taxing of the city's infrastructure.  The North Carolina Department of Transportation has interjected their short term solutions to Fayetteville's traffic problems by building concrete medians dividing merchants on either side of an artificial line of demarcation.  The consequences of this traffic fix are substantial and negative.  Local merchants are less profitable.  They are not seeing those new BRAC dollars.  The real estate community used BRAC as a bubble to sanction and market new housing.  Former green spaces in the city of Fayetteville have been razed awaiting new urban development.  Alarmingly our trees are disappearing, and new homes are occupying the once iconic spare lots in local neighborhoods.  There are no woods left in which to play for local children, but our lifestyles no longer include this activity.  Our children are more sedentary, more addicted, and less motivated to be physically active.  Perhaps BRAC and its consequences on Cumberland Country reflect a national trend of institutionalization.  American has forgotten how to be rebellious against "the man" and its necessity for ensured freedom and happiness.  Donald Trump is the poster child for this new style of militaristic dictatorship patterning his ineffective governance and lack of American solidarity on the regimes of Russia, China, and North Korea.  These  are communist nations.  This should be alarming to all Americans.  In the past Fayetteville's liason with the post has been strong championed by local business icons, politicians, and military leadership.  Daniel Toven, a former bandmaster for the Ground Forces Band, worked tirelessly utilizing his accomplished musical ensemble as a motivating, inspirational, and entertaining patriotic vessel.  The bands at Fort Bragg were a necessary liason to the Fayetteville community reinforcing military ideals, needed community support, and American patriotism.  They worked in tandem to keep military activity transparent and supported by the local populace.  Today Fort Bragg seems more a sequestered, secretive, and sometimes threatening entity with very little public relation.  One can remember the thundering of army cannons at the conclusion of the 1812 Overture on a holiday concert at Festival Park.  Our current president systematically has appointed adversaries to most agency positions in Washington, disapproves of funding for the arts, and favors only big businesses which continually abuse the public and their trust.  It would seem the building of muscle at Fort Bragg is the perfect metaphor for newly emerging military dictatorship led by Donald Trump.  Luckily Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats have been able to see through the presidents facade and put into place measures to thwart such a politically incorrect, unAmerican, and fascist takeover.  Let's pray the entire Senate is not as mindlessly devoted, brainwashed, and corrupt as Mitch McConnell. 

This Christmas

My brain and body feel like Swiss cheese.  Even without the influence of alcohol, my head is swimming like a turtle in shallow water.  Why?  CSX take the opportunity to railroad during Christmas.  Other than churches Fayettenam doesn't have much Christmas.  It has a lot of poverty, crime, and unhappiness.  I have done my best to support local merchants, and it has been brutal.  Stock is low, the influence of Christmas is menial at best, and it feels like rape and pillage.  It shouldn't feel this way, should it?  I remember when Christmas in Fayetteville was good.  Cross Creek Mall was a pinnacle or artistic commerce.  It was decorated to the hilt, it was artistic, and it was uplifting.  Now the mention of the birth of Christ merits terrorist attacks.  This nation no longer is a people of God.  Christianity is a fluke.  The American population for the most part doesn't know what it is, much less how to abide by it.  Serve others?  Be good?  (By the way I am listening to Q.'s album "Smackwater Jack."  It is refreshing, real music.  Real sound.  Something real that is not impoverished.  CSX has been railroading all week.  Non stop.  Locals puttering around funking up the place.  My head spins at the same frequency of their locomotives' Integrated Gate Bipolar Transistors.  A low frequency standing wave is present in 'Nam most of the time, and with it comes the accompanying diesel knock.  It is brutal.  It is a brutal time.  It is fighting for Jesus.  There is very little return, and the spirit is absent. It has been for a long time, ever since Christianity was purged from America.