This Land is Your Land, This Land is my Land

Back in the old days it used to be fun to sit around a campfire and sing Woody Guthrie's song declaring the country belonged to everyone, but now when you travel you begin to see how those with the means have bought up a whole lot of the country and told the rest of us we are not welcome. Sometimes I think I know how black people feel when there neighborhood is gentrified. The trust babies move in and tell them to get out. As we drove toward Vail the other day we could see the worker bee huts in the outlying towns. The worker bees cannot afford to live in Vail, so they hop on a bus and go there to serve wine to the elite who followed the creed and grabbed as much for themselves as possible. Long ago we used to take the kids to the beach in North Carolina, some could argue we were playing the role of the well to do. In those days the beach was fairly open to the public. We rented some wealthy persons home on the beach and enjoyed it. Now the super rich have monopolized the beach, and they don't need to rent their homes to the less than super rich, so the beach is effectively closed. The same trend can be seen all over the country. Does the country belong to everyone, or just the select few that inherited the tax breaks from George. Someone reading this will think, "Anyone who wants can get off their ass and make a fortune". In a lot of cases this is true, but don't forget a few realities. Erin asked me the other day the old question, "Whats the best way to make a small fortune?". I gave her the classic reply, "Start with a big one". Many of the people buying up the country did nothing to earn the money, but be the first sperm to a rich egg. The tax system also puts the people starting at zero at a big disadvantage. When the dust settles do we really want a country of haves, and have not's? Bush and his gang have done everything in their power to make this a banana republic, where a small elite lives at the expense of the peons, I hope in this election we take the country back.