(Written 6 January 1999. Published in the Neighborhood Journal. Posted 28 July 2006.)
Several years ago, the Arkansas
state slogan was changed from "The Land of Opportunity" to "The
Natural State." Officially, the
reason for the change was to promote tourism.
You know, to make the outside world aware of all our natural wonders and
all that rot.
Could the real reason have been
that Arkansas is not "The Land of Opportunity?'' If you step back and really think about it, our old state slogan
was nothing more than false advertising.
How much opportunity is there in Arkansas, anyway? Sadly, not very much.
Sure, there are plenty of jobs to
go around. Arkansas has one of the
lowest unemployment rates in the nation.
But statistics are deceiving, for a person employed for minimum wage
counts the same as a person making a livable wage, a wage he can support his
family with. If you dissect the
statistics for Arkansas, you will find that most of the jobs available are at
or near minimum wage. The opportunity
for someone to have a livable wage is slim indeed. And these are jobs, not career opportunities. After all, who goes out of high school
planning to spend the rest of their lives working at Wal-Mart? So far, I have yet to find a person whose
career ambition is to work part-time at Wal-Mart, McDonald's, or one of the
other numerous places that basically only hire part-time minimum wage
help. But, our politicians will pat
themselves on the back for bringing us such jobs!
Jobs may be numerous here in
Arkansas, whether at Wal-Mart, Tyson, or whoever, but career opportunities are
slim indeed. In other regions of the
county, a high school graduate can get a blue-collar job and still pull down a
decent income; not here in Arkansas--those jobs do not exist. You see, the demagogues manipulated the
fears of the populace into a dislike of labor unions, so much so that unions
basically do not exist in our state.
Sure, I'll grant you that unions can sometimes be corrupt, but unions
have done more, and continue to do more, for the common working man than any
politician, bureaucrat, or corporate executive.
Even for those who want to pursue
a white-collar career, the opportunities are slim indeed. Want to be an engineer or an architect? There is --count 'em-- one choice in the
entire state where you can get such a degree.
All of the states around us, yes, even Louisiana and Mississippi,
provide more choices. Want to be a
doctor? Again, there is only one school
you can attend. Want to get a doctorate? Again, one choice. The politicians will tell you that duplication of doctoral
programs is a waste of money. Don't you
believe it for a minute! It has nothing
to do with money, it has to do with education.
The more educational opportunities that people have, the more educated
they will become. The more educated
they become, the less likely they will tolerate the status quo, the corruption,
the kickbacks, the "good ole boy"-ism that permeates all levels of
Arkansas government. Do you honestly
think a well-educated electorate would actually vote for the amoral scoundrels
that we call leaders? I think not. Thus, the best way for the sleaze to stay in
office is to keep the people ignorant and uneducated.
Karl Marx once wrote that religion
is the opium of the people, that is that the totalitarian governments of his
time were using religion to distract the minds of the people. In Arkansas, football is the opium of the
people. We are graduating kids who are
barely literate and have no hope for their future except working for
unappreciative bosses at minimum wage.
But yet it seems that all some of our schools and towns care about is
how well the football team is doing!
Tragically, after the football season is over these superstars will be
forgotten, and will join the ranks of the legions of other forgotten Arkansans
toiling away at minimum wage just to make ends meet, Arkansans whose financial
situation is so precarious, that if they want to eat, they can't afford to buy
clothes.
Hmmm! Maybe that's why we are now called "The Natural State"!