No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

 Fayetteville, North Carolina is a metaphor for hypocrisy.  It is one of many examples of a red state run awry.  PBS finally has returned to her old prowess airing relevant social and political documentaries and local music.  Covid sucked the wind out of everything, and PBS was no different.  Even without it far right extreme republicans like Donald Trump prefer a cultural and intellectual void.  It is far easier for old money to maintain its status quo when people are ignorant.  Why is Fayetteville such a metaphor for hypocrisy?  Considering American freedom and democracy, rule by the people for the people, there are few examples of Fayetteville sheltering her citizens from environmental harm.  There is an unfinished fire house on Bragg Boulevard.  There is an unfinished tennis complex on Filter Plant Drive.  Whence did this come?  Roads are crumbling and rough, and travel is difficult.  Where is all of that Biden infrastructure money?  I will be brazen and risking the usual reciprocation from the parties I offend, people should know who are the plantation owners and who are the slaves.  Because the state of the planet Earth has become so volatile, the environment in which we attempt to live is paramount in our everyday lives.  How can a community provide their own clean air and water?  They can't, and in Fayetteville it is more difficult than most places.  Who are the culprits that forsake average Fayetteville residents and make their own corporate profit paramount?  If corporate, industrial, or military activity didn't effect the Fayetteville citizenry it would be different.  It does.  It does in a powerful way, which also makes Fayettevillians the most depressed people in the nation.  Yes, Fayetteville, North Carolina.  Why is this?  Why must we be depressed?  We are depressed because of the continued polluting of our small city.  Throughout my childhood, although Fayetteville always has been plagued with humidity coming up the Cape Fear River basin from the Atlantic Ocean, we never had a big problem with air quality.  That has changed, and it has changed on multiple fronts.  Johnny Carson would agree that the local population did not grieve too much when Piedmont Airlines disappeared.  Often he joked they would just fly low over the city and open the cabin door for you to jump out.  The resurrection of Piedmont with a hub in Charlotte providing direct to Fayetteville routes may be beneficial to some.  Who needs to get to Charlotte at six o'clock a.m. on weekday?  Piedmont's new activity is problematic for Fayetteville residents, because they no longer adhere to the traditional flight patterns established when Ed Grannis was living.  (Grannis Field is named after him)  In their haste to get early risers to Charlotte by six o'clock a.m., Piedmont Embraer 145 aircraft strafe downtown Fayetteville and historical neighborhoods with black soot.  No longer do they climb to a safe distance before making their turn.  They take off north from the Fayetteville Regional Airport and immediately turn left and fly directly over the tree line evidently giving their passengers a show of the Fayetteville freak show.  Because the homelessness problem has not been solved, most of the people that inhabit downtown are poor and/or indigent.  Yes, there are legitimate businesses here too, but the people on the street largely have become indigent.  What's the difference if you burn their oxygen and replace it with deadly cancer-causing carbon emissions?  Why is Piedmont doing this?  The answer is it is easier and cheaper for those buying tickets on a Piedmont flight.  Likewise almost all commercial aircraft have high powered phased array radars in their nose radomes.  Their priority, Piedmont and other carriers, is to provide fast, error free, streaming internet to their passengers in flight.  This necessitates the usage of extremely high powered microwave transmitters that must be turned off before landing on the tarmac.  When these jets fly over our neighborhood at inconvenient times, their electromagnetic refuse is palpable.  It took me several years to figure out whence this radiation was coming.  If black soot and harmful carbon emissions aren't enough, now we have heat-producing, magnetized, vibrating electricity beaming into our homes.  It is so rife most of the time, that my vintage musical gear struggles to operate.  A standing wave from multiple radar isn't not a good match for any kind of electronic equipment.  Piedmont prioritizes their own business over that of the citizens they fly over.  The law provides not safety buffer for this airborne activity.  All of Washington's governmental regulatory agencies are a shell of what they once were.  This was a direct result of the Trump presidency.  Screw the common man.  We will do what we want.  Likewise a local short line railroad has continued to expand it freight activity in the heart of Fayetteville's business district on Skibo Road.  They have replaced rail suited to much heavier and more powerful locomotives, and they have purchased a rebuilt N&S GP-38 which exhibits the same characteristics as commercial jet radomes.  Most of the freight railroads have begun to tout Tier 4 EPA emission standards, but with no oversight they do what they want.  GE developed the GEVO line of reduced emission fright locomotives, but returned to using the 7FDL prime mover instead all but abandoning the cleaner burning GEVO.  This is because its power and might serve them better, and the railroads, like Piedmont, care not about the people living in the midst of their trackage.  These two industries, rail and the airlines, have free reign to do as the please with no regard to local people.  Users of small local airstrips tout the revenue earned by these entities, but in fact they serve the same minute few championed by Phil Berger, Tim Moore, and Donald Trump.  To find any example that the Aberdeen and Rockfish, Piedmont, DAK Americas, Chemours, or CSX help the local populace in any way would be impossible.  They don't.  Contrarily their activity creates severe and palatable obstacles to public health.  They are ignored because of red state politics.  North Carolina still is a hypocritical red state adhering to the same sentiments of Jim Crow.  They care not about the working slaves, and wages are about the same.  People no longer are even breaking even.  We are going into debt.  The fight to stay alive in Fayetteville in the line of fire of this corporate might is daunting, and many have lost the battle.  Federal and state regulatory agencies are the only salvation, and they are not being supported.  Instead the North Carolina republican super majority capable of overriding a governor's veto continues to champion itself and shit on the people.  What I have begun to love about Kamala Harris is she is tough.  We have reached a juncture in America where the meek must stand up for themselves.  The good, the honest, and the righteous are not guaranteed any influence in North Carolina at all.  It is a gerrymandered disgrace.  There are anodynes.  PBS continues to exhibit the cultural gems of a former North Carolina, but the reality is the Carolinas are nothing more than a military industrial complex.  An Apache helicopter firing range?  This is all politics.  Much of the military activity at the Charleston Naval Station was moved to Fort Liberty, because that is what the few wanted.  A general wanted to look out his window in the morning and see a sea of soldiers.  "Let's move it all to Fort Liberty and forsake its host city."  Fayetteville has become a sewer for the former Fort Bragg.  In real estate the effort to dislodge local residents, flip their homes, and sell them at a profit to young officers is rampant.  It is not just gentrification.  Some great strides have been made in Fayetteville in the housing market.  If crime ridden ghettos can be transformed into modern housing for working people, then it should advance.  The efforts in Haymount should be applauded.  Contrarily 1 Jura Drive, a new sub division under construction between Murray Hills and Vanstory Hills. completely decimated acres of trees needed for both oxygen and as a noise buffer for surrounding homes.  Likewise  new development on North Edgewater Drive in Vanstory did the same.  All of the decades old trees simply were wiped off the planet without a thought about conservation.  The corner of Glensford Ave. and Cliffdale once was a mighty pine forest providing a buffer for middle and upper class homes.  Now it is a field of weeds.  This raping and pillaging of Fayetteville's land should stop.  More is required of industrial, corporate, and military commerce.  The North Carolina legislature has become nothing more than an evil oasis for criminal activity.  Vape shops, sports betting, and the like are ruthlessly devouring the local population without oversight.  When a community does need ample and clean electricity, politics is allowing bit coin mining overtaxing America's power grid.  The malfeasance in Washington after the Trump Presidency is grievous.  They don't even try to cover it up anymore.  Those who will vote for Donald Trump have similar attitudes.  They merely take for themselves, because it has to go to somebody.  Why not me?  How cares if we break the law, destroy people, or harm the earth?  Even with the now common knowledge that Trump is evil, the meek must begin to stand up and fight for themselves.  Kamala Harris is an example of such a person.  She is a seasoned fighter for good.  She looks Donald Trump straight in the eye and says, "No!"  Sometimes we have to fight for good, and I mean fight tough.  Kamala is a hardliner, and it is appealing to know your stance and to defend it.  I can think of no other person more qualified to be elected the American President.