President Clinton is hanging out in the Duke boys’ stomping grounds this week as part of an attempt to encourage big business to invest in all of the poorest and crappiest areas of the country.

Apparently, mi jefe either doesn’t realize that many of the areas of the United States that suck do so because big business already ran roughshod over them.

For example, Appalachia has been done over hard by mining companies for the better part of a century. Where was the U.S. government when Pinkertons were brought in to kill miners who audaciously went on strike like a bunch of stinking communists.

Apparently they weren’t enthusiastic enough about being disposable pieces of machinery. They didn’t see it as their patriotic duty to risk black lung disease and cave-ins.

According to an article in this month’s Mother Jones, mining interests are still soundly in control of that region flattening mountains and filling valleys and destroying communities (www.motherjones.com/mother_jones/JA99/mountaintop.html).

No matter how little some people care about the environment, most people can still manage to be at least a little shocked when our nation’s purple mountain’s majesty start getting leveled by coal companies looking to suck a little more out of an already exploited area.

According to the Associated Press, President Clinton believes that America’s poverty-stricken regions really represent an untapped, $80 billion resource that businesses really need to find a way to exploit in the name of helping even the poorest of Americans take advantage of the current economic boom.

“At this time of prosperity, if we can’t find a way to give every single hardworking American family a chance to participate in the future we’re trying to build for our country, we’ll never get around to doing it,” Clinton said.

Such compassionate words. Let’s get out there and show people how much we care about their sorry lives at the last possible minute, Mr. President.

I have gone out on a limb on more than one occasion to support President Clinton while he was getting screwed by Ken Starr and his Republican lynch mob, but when it gets right down to the serious issues, this guy has really come up lame.

If he isn’t dropping the ball on healthcare, he is choking on gays in the military. He started his first term with more pie-in-the-sky liberal dreams than Jane Fonda smoking weed at Timothy Leary’s house listening to Joan Baez and Bob Dylan singing “Puff the Magic Dragon” in falsetto.

Why Republicans don’t love Clinton is beyond me; his behavior has done more to help the Republicans’ image than the Democrats’. They should have just stepped back and said “I told you so” instead of going hogwild with right-wing witch hunts.

I am as surprised as anyone when I find out that every scandal leaves Clinton even more popular in the polls.

I think that has to do with getting caught and admitting it … eventually. Americans expect that everyone gets up to some silly business, especially sexually. When a politician actually gets persecuted for it, it makes them look like less of a hypocrite than the ones doing the hounding.

But when it comes to efforts on behalf of the poor in our country, I take it personally. I do not descend from the wealthiest folks in the nation. In fact, at times I have lived in pretty nasty conditions. What amazes me is that even at the lowest points in my life, I was still better off than most of the people on Clinton’s itinerary.

Clinton’s little “We are the World” benefit and road trip through the United States will take him to Hazard, Ky., the Mississippi Delta, East St. Louis, Ill., South Phoenix, Ariz., the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, and Los Angeles.

These aren’t areas where you can simply plug-in economic opportunity and watch them take off. If you could, big business would already have been in there exploiting the populace.

What of areas like Flint, Mich. where you have a well-trained, blue-collar population used to decades of factory work. This town is going down the tubes so fast you need a stop watch with nano-seconds on it.

The problem is getting big business involved; the problem is that big business has been allowed to do its nasty best on this country for far too long.

We have all been operating under the delusion that our forebearers came to this country for the right to do business however they saw fit. Social Darwinism has left entire cities reeling in the wake of exploitation.

When GM pulled out of Flint, the company was making a profit. GM was doing just fine. The powers that be simply thought they could be doing better.

As messed up as this country’s work history is, during the economic boom following World War II, some companies were capable of providing a decent living wage for their employees and a future of proud employment. If you worked hard for the company, then the company worked hard for you. Company profits meant job security and benefits.

Ma Bell was always talked about with respect by the men and women who were genuinely proud to punch a clock for the phone company.

But in these times of quick, dynamic schemes, human beings are becoming faceless cogs straight out of Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis.”

The work force is subject to the whims and fancies of amoral corporate policy-makers hell bent on increasing power and profit for no other end than getting an ever-increasing portion of the marketplace.

The theory seems to be that though we are doing well now, in 10 years time we might regret not having done more to be on top. This theory is working well for the time being since no one with a white collar is getting screwed too terribly bad.

When the corporate philosophy finally makes its way towards screwing everyone in the company with a desk, then maybe CNN and the network news boys will get around to taking a serious look at working life in America.

We are drones living at the whim of giants right now, and the only ray of hope might be that we are living in a period of transition. Maybe when we come out the other side, all Americans will be able to participate in the good times.

If we can’t include all Americans now, then when will we ever be able to include them? Good question. Unfortunately the answer is far too simple. Never.

Americans are just not interested in real change. As they sit in their reasonably comfortable houses after a long day of wage-slavery, the last thing they want to do is think, let alone change.

We are all guilty of it. How many of us took time away from TNT’s Wild Western Weekend marathon to remember that the Fourth of July is about the fight against tyranny? And not religious tyranny. Not simply the freedom to govern ourselves. We were in the revolution to over throw economic tyranny. No half-assed, off-his-rocker English king was going to get away with sticking his hands in our pockets, looting our hard-earned cash.

Oh, how we have strayed. Given half a chance, the average American would sell out his heritage for a few bucks and feel good and patriotic about it because we have come to associate having money with being a good American.

Nike makes its shoes in the third world. Ford assembles trucks made from parts made in Mexico. Even the computer industry we invented uses parts made in Asian countries.

Soon, the only jobs left to Americans will be telemarketing, fast food and snotty movie theater usher.

News flash for the corporate world: The good times will come to an end if no one can afford to buy your crap any more.

You may be thinking you’re pretty smart right now moving that plant to Mexico for a slight increase in your already fat profit margin. You might see some returns for a few years yet.

But eventually, more areas of the United States are going to look like Hazard, Ky., the Mississippi Delta, East St. Louis, Ill., South Phoenix, Ariz., the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota and Los Angeles.

And when they do, who is going to be left to buy your products? What will happen to your fat corporate profits then?

We live in a complex biosphere and there are economic considerations that go right down to the grassroots level.

If people can’t make money, they can’t spend money.

Wake up, corporate America. It’s time to remember you are part of a team, too.

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Greg Jerrett is a graduate student in English from Council Bluffs (another town Clinton doesn’t give an effenheimer about). He is opinion editor of the Daily. His home on the web is at: www.geocities.com/SoHo/Coffeehouse/3366.