A Treeless "Fayettenam."

Recently the Fayetteville Observer ask for feedback on what the most pressing issues should be for potential political electees.  There was only space for one issue, but the paper suggested this Facebook forum for more conversation.  My family has lived in Fayetteville since my father acquired the band directors job at Terry Sanford High School in the early 1970's.  I have returned after moving away to earn post graduate degrees in music and having worked abroad playing piano for various cruise lines for over a decade.  This return was necessitated by my father's passing and my mother's need for care, who now is ninety years old.  We are living in our same home in Van Story Hills off Morganton Road.  While I don't publicize my Fayetteville domicile, I have lived here for going on ten years.  I guess I have become a Fayetteville resident again, although the quality of life has regressed almost drastically since the onset of Covid.  I have strong feelings on what issues should concern local politicians, and often they are glossed over because the issues that really concern Cumberland County are severe and daunting.  Why is this?  That is the question.  Why would it be necessary to have a Facebook group entitled "Remembering Our Lost Friends?"  This group was begun, because so many from Fayetteville die prematurely.  Most who graduate from high school and attend college never return, because Fayetteville does not offer the amenities of other less military cities.  This is true.  It is not speculation, and not long ago Fayetteville leaders were trying to query younger people as to why they leave.  The nickname "Fayettenam" can be construed as an accurate determinate.  Life here is more difficult than other places with a combination of ghetto crime stemming from the proximal violence of necessary preparation for war at Fort Bragg.  This dichotomy is real, and while it is part of Fayetteville's challenge it is not all of it.  The unfolding military industrial complex perhaps is more challenging to Fayetteville residents, especially after the creation of CSX by former Treasury Secretary John Snow.  In the 1980's railroads were on the decline financially, and John Snow sought to revive their profitability.  He did so by acquiring and merging the Chessie System with Seaboard Coastline in 1980.  Since this merger then CSX-T has escalated to behemoth corporate monopoly earning almost seven hundred million dollars a quarter for shareholders.  They have positioned themselves as a major controller of federal and state power, and this influence has little to do with common residents.  They earn money for investors, and consequently this earned income overshadows any quality of life for those living near their trackage.  With the onset of AC traction in the rail industry in 1990, CSX, General Motors, and General Electric effectively grew into a dominant corporate monopoly stifling most competition.  The Norfolk and Southern resisted the transition to AC traction for various reasons, but recently with the emergence of Wabtec and Motive Power have begun a conversion process to rebuild their DC engines into AC stallions.  These newly emerging locomotives are like giants on steroids, and this incredible and massive power largely are what have allowed CSX to grow into such a corporate monopoly.  Not unlike the recent unveiling of G5 wireless networks with phased array antennas, the availability of millimeter wave technology at the hands of past president Bill Clinton has skewed electromagnetic pollution and begun to irregularly warm the planet.  Train activity in Fayetteville is a major antagonist, and I have written about it before.  Local politicians would cower at the challenge of both confronting and trying to re-regulate the rail industry.  George W. Bush paved the way for this unbalanced power by deregulating much industry including airlines.  "Fayettenam," while most often thought of because of Fort Bragg, actually is created by excessive rail and air traffic.  Fort Bragg is part of this activity, and we all understand the necessity of the 82nd Airborne and what it provides for national defense.  What is not considered is separate corporate activity in what Fayetteville really has become, an industrial park.  While some enterprises have folded or moved on, Cargill, DAK Americas,  Valley Proteins, Hexion, Goodyear, and now Fayetteville Block have energized their output.  Together with the activity at the Fort Bragg railhead, the Honeycutt Marshalling Yard, rail traffic now proliferates 24/7 with little regard for local life.  Trains are a major antagonist in Fayetteville, and not just because they block grade crossings.  AC traction locomotives pollute at a level misunderstood and not studied in any way, and this is the way CSX, Wabtec, and Motive Power like it.  Add the Aberdeen and Rockfish and its River Terminal, and newly drawn flight paths by the 2014 NexGen aviation plan to vitalize the private sector of the aeronautical industry, Fayetteville has become a huge whore.  While regulating rail traffic should be a priority, stopping commercial air flights  from flying directly over downtown Fayetteville is urgent.  One only has to ask themselves, "Who is this serving?"  They changed the Fayetteville flight paths and added express service to Charlotte, and now Fayetteville is the sacrificial lamb for their profit.  It is a huge disservice to everyone in Fayetteville, but especially for those up the ladder of economic success.  This generation of affluent Fayetteville is becoming extinct, and with its conspicuous absence has come exploitation.  Ask any homeowner living on the Gold Coast, Skye Drive, in Van Story Hills, in Haymount, or anywhere else.  None of these capable money-earning citizens would choose to have PSA, Endeavor, or Piedmont jets flying over their homes at two thousand feet.  They shouldn't be, because they didn't before.  Rail traffic before Fortune 500 didn't operate twenty four hours a day.  They activity was reasonable with no need to earn a gazillion dollars for share holders.  Fayetteville is a whore and to a large extent Roy Cooper has promulgated this title.  The lives of residents of Cumberland Country are secondary, except for the flowing dollars of those in the military.  The pimp in this case is the Pentagon and the Department of Defense.  Life will not improve in Cumberland Country until these issues are understood.  In my humble opinion Fayetteville has been sacrificed for Ground Forces Command, CSX, and the rest.  Investing in children living in Fayetteville is not important to the bottom line.  Once there was a strong Fayetteville society presence because of affluence and subsequent influence.  Because this generation is dying off, new money is gouging the pie.  Before long there will be no trees left in Fayetteville.