The Road from Dixon, Illinois

... leads to Rockford.

The birthplace of Ronald Reagan is just an hour from the other town, some of whose residents were featured on the January 23 cover of the New York Times Sunday magazine.

Alec Soth/Magnum Photos, for The New York Times

Caption: To illustrate the human dimension of the economy, the photographer Alec Soth traveled to Rockford, Ill., where unemployment is high. Above: Sara Carlson, 29, a salesclerk, and Andrew Jury, 28, an assistant vice president at a bank.

I saw these photos via Bag News Notes, where Michael Shaw muses on the visual aims of the magazine, in focusing on

... a group of people who had jobs; how secure these workers thought their jobs were; and what the workers felt their prospects were of hanging onto those jobs.

An illustration of the human dimension of the economy?

These images convey a troubling uniformity in their Stepford-like lack of affect. Far from the condition of insecurity, a condition we'd be able to tell through some form of fresh expressiveness, the only emotion I can really discern in any noticeable degree here is guardedness or self-consciousness.

The results certainly look like there was a decision to go for shots of depressed workers in (largely) dead-end jobs.

This is a far from gritty—and crusading—WPA photography.

But today: the thought of championing the Common Man—never mind the poor—would be in unthinkably bad taste. Which seems to leave only the sleekness of this portraiture; possibly an effort at visually branding our era's Depression.

Shaw's post is followed by some interesting comments on the esthetic of these photos, versus the more human dimension that comes through the Times' audio clips of interviewees.

The audio does give a very different impression of these workers, who struck me as a pretty representative cross-section of employed America. Some like their jobs; some believe they will do better someday; all are believers in Positive Thinking.

For me, the familiarity of these workers and their situations came through the audio. Which demonstrated just what is missing from the photos: smiles, whether real or masks.

Because employers demand those smiles. And employees, whether true believers or putting on a show for those who watch, have been conditioned to wear the smiles.

From the "have a nice day" customer service routine, to the expectation that employees must at all times show they are happy campers, ready to Embrace Change: we had better be smiling.

In the words of Dee, the 55-year old assembly worker, "If you do your job... don't cause problems: you'll keep your job."

Thirty years of Reaganomics have seen to the destruction of unions; the looting of the domestic economy, along with any semblance of security for most of us.

And then: there's the article linked to the cover portraits, "The White House Looks For Work."

This is White House correspondent Peter Baker's long piece about Obama's economic team. Baker's "reporting" on the process of determining policy is focused on the personalities and rivalries of "brilliant" figures like Larry Summers and Peter Orszag.

Summers looms "larger-than-life," as these players do, in any proper DC narrative. The article's unstated corollary is that the masses outside this heady atmosphere— including the ever-growing ranks of the long-term unemployed—are abstractions.

The article did note one piece of chutzpah I hadn't seen before—

Across Lafayette Square from the White House is the headquarters of the United States Chamber of Commerce. Last spring, four massive banners were hung on its building spelling out "J-O-B-S," a message presumably visible from the third floor of the White House, where the president wakes up.

Baker continues, "By fall, the chamber and Obama were at war during a midterm campaign that ended with repudiation of the president's party."

Stuff happens; let us not mention Citizen's United and the Chamber's role in vacuuming up billionaires' secret campaign cash.

Baker: "Given Obama's actions lately, [Chamber president Thomas] Donohue said 'he's moving in a direction that shows he's figured it out.'"

There's no doubt Obama has "figured it out"; "it" somehow seems to spell something other than "J-O-B-S" for ordinary Americans.

But that's the larger story of the road from Dixon: the triumph of Reaganism.

With its bipartisan endorsement of the corporate takeover of this country.

And the ease with which what's left of the working class has been conditioned to keep their mouth shuts.

And if they go to the polls: their willingness to vote for the people who will harm them the most.