Counter Punch Reports: My friends Pete, Ellen and Mark have been fighting a plan by Stewart’s Shops to build a gas station/convenience store in the midst of their (desirable, mostly white) South Utica neighborhoods. The matter came to a vote before the city’s Planning Board last week, in front of a fairly big turnout of opposition. Stewart’s won 3-2. Ellen told me the chair of the planning board, a neighbor of theirs who lives a bit further from the Stewart’s proposed location, said to them a couple of weeks ago in honest consternation, “I don’t see the problem.” Apparently, even after 21 people explained the problem last week, he still didn’t.

Pete and Ellen have told me more than once how hard it’s been to enlist their neighbors in the opposition effort. The time of day for which important meetings are scheduled is generally prohibitive for working people (except for the Stewart’s rep!) But my conclusion is the middle class, riding the American Dream, has caved in to inevitability (yes, because they could afford to). The resulting spiritlessness has cost them their political clout which will only return if people on the left regain the kind of “underdog,” chip-on-the-shoulder spirit that keeps a skeptical eye on corporate, big-moneyed interests that favor the few over the many, including, prominently, the war-making interests of Empire.