What Is The Fruit of Progress?

What Is The Fruit of Progress?

I have been living just a stone's throw from my hometown of Plymouth here in Plympton for about twelve years now.  I thought I'd have the best chance of being insulated from so-called 'progress' in this very rural town.  

My luck ran out.

The gorgeous view of dense forest I once enjoyed both en route to route 80 and actually on that road has been utterly destroyed--a shell of its previous natural beauty--all in the name of "progress."

At least the turtles which cross the now-widened Spring Street which connects to the new route 44 and the old route 80 still had a fighting chance, especially with animal lovers such as myself who has always been willing to stop his car and jump out to rescue one of my poky, shelled buddies as they try to cross the road.

Then came Sysco--more 'progress.'

Just last month, I helped a beautiful young turtle of average size cross the road.  It had gold markings on its shell.  I rarely see turtles of this variety, so when I saw an identical turtle squished by a Sysco truck about two weeks later, I was fairly certain it was likely the same one.

Even closer to my home, we were totally fine with the intersection in front of our house just the way it was.  But someone from the state saw an opportunity to make money, and seized upon it.  Over a period of nearly a year, they monopolized my neighborhood with disruptions to my sleep, (I work nights) our ability to get out of our driveway, and my son's ability to catch his bus.  It was ridiculous.  There is no one who can tell me that such a project should have taken as long as it did.  But there was money to be made, after all.

Before all of you red-faced, outrage-mongers scream at me and tell me that I'm "opposed to jobs," grab some wood.  Don't you dare suggest because I am against exploitation that I'm against jobs.  Dealing meth provides employment.  Prostitutes rationalize what they do because they need money.  Just because what we do results in a paycheck -- legally or illegally -- doesn't automatically make it right.

If you come into my neighborhood and cause great disruption at the expense of our way of life, only to yield...what? An intersection which was said to be a "more defined" (intersection) but in fact has only resulted in numerous crashes due to a very awkwardly placed median which we had done just fine without, what is the fruit of your so-called "progress?"  The answer is just as cold and clinical as this: a group of exploitative men under the very false pattern (I have banned the overuse of the word 'paradigm' -- too pretentious for me) of 'fixing' roads (which are not even broken) while there are plenty of very valid projects which could actually use attention, but go ignored.

What is the fruit of progress when we take so many trees down every day so that businesses like the vacant Sam's Club can rot where they once stood? Again--money for the greedy.

What is the fruit of countless unnecessary development all over Plymouth, Massachusetts and the rest of the country?  You want to see it?  Go somewhere where a million-dollar house sits quietly in an area where the question of whether or not they might be a 'NIMBY' is never called into question, because their money talks...even screams sometimes, angrily asserting its right to egregious hypocrisy.

Getting down to brass tacks, the word 'progress' is quite obviously subjective.  In the case of the intersection in front of my house (for example) I would submit an antonym, because that fruit is nothing but rotten.