Debate and Discourse: AWESOME POST in "License to [chat]", by Best America

Captain Carrot

Captain Carrot has reported a post.

Reason:

Regardless of your feelings on South Carolina this is pretty good prose.

Post: License to [chat]
Forum: Debate and Discourse
Assigned Moderators: Elki, ElJeffe, Irond Will, jacobkosh

Posted by: Best America
Original Content:

I drove through South Carolina once, trying to find my way to Myrtle Beach. I had expected my GPS to work, so I hadn't printed out directions, and so when the GPS didn't work all I had to rely on was the compass readout on my Camry's rear-view mirror.

Ever since that long and arduous journey, I only ever refer to "the desolation of South Carolina"

I saw abandoned cars, still with four tires and hubcaps, too far from civilization to make their salvage economically worthwhile

towns with empty storefronts boasting selections of vinyl records, their stock still on shelves behind dusty glass, implications of worth so negligible that no one has broken in -- or could never reach there

every store or gas station was only open 2 hours for 2 days a week, conciliatory signs apologizing that the rest of the time must be devoted to the fields

and the fields

the massive, sprawling, unused land

lumber pine unharvested, invasive, spreading slowly but surely over roads-unused in forests that bear the name of the hospitals that bear the name of the three farms that rule over everything, grim and uninterested, tyrannical to the last

the only towns with inhabitants were each town's county seats

every public works building was consolidated under a single roof, and the names for each position or office were the same, and uncomfortably tied to those same three megafarm corporations

the only cheerful thing in South Carolina was the alligator mascot/logo of the private industry that brings running water to the people too tethered to their valueless property -- and too fenced off from anything greater -- to leave

Arch

and like i said, as a native, it is pretty fucking accurate

and very scary