We see images of the other America all the time. Few of us ever experience the real blue collar nature of America. I've seen blue collars as they work so silently and so hard, but I've never been able to live their lives. What does it mean to be a construction worker, a farmer, or anybody else that makes America possible? As a political scientist, I can only analyze but never really understand.

Being a white collar student who studies social scientist, I feel cut off from this other America. I've never attended a cattle auction, worked to build public infrastructure, or rebuilt an engine. Many people do this all the time, and without them we could not survive.

Yet too many Americans forget them in their busy lives. As we move into a post industrial era, we all to often look down on these people as being lower class or somehow less then the rest of the Americans. We depend on these people more then want to believe. Yet we never give them the respect we should. Why do we treat the President with more respect then the farmer next door? The President may shape public policy for the next year, but he won't get us milk. And the farmer next door might be more honest.

Why do we depend so much on others and not on our own hands? We really shouldn't as it makes us dependent on others. None of us really knows what the workers where doing or thinking in the factory producing our car. We have to wonder if they where proud to be supporting us, or if they where in a state of virtual dispair.

It would be great if we could live a million different lives. I would love to experience a life from a million different viewpoints, and work with many different people. Maybe pushing cows around or welding together a section of steel roadbed that makes up the Interstate.

The greatness of America is the greatness of it's people. The next you pass a silo with a flag on it or the Empire State Plaza, remember it's the greatness of the American people represented on those monuments, not just the greatness of a flag or of the middle class social scientist. Most of these great people have blue collars, and work hard.