“Has The American Dream Become A Nightmare?”

I have to confess that I have my good days and my bad days. If I permit myself, I can become as immersed in a sense of hopelessness and futility as the best among us. But, the crucial question is, “How does all this serve to solve the myriad problems we face and what can we, as individuals, do about them? Well, as the Brits say so well, “We can damn well buckle up, keep a stiff upper lip and get on with it.” For my money, that isn’t a bad idea and one which I think a lot of us can keep before us during the course of our daily lives. As was once so brilliantly coined, “It ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings.”

I have seen this country and a good many of us slide, ever so slowly, into a deepening state of depression with the constant bombardment we get, each and every day, about how bad things are getting or, worse yet, the false promises of how things are beginning to look up. My question is, “And for whom?”

I have, at times, lost sight of what a complex world we live in and that has our every waking moment programmed in order to respond to all of those who whet our appetites for the panoply of every conceivable materialistic appetite and hedonistic pleasure the human mind can possibly contemplate. When we buy into those notions, we quite unconsciously dismiss or disregard some of the values that have served mankind so well for a very long time. As we become focused on outward validation of our sense of self worth, we become immune to the vast resources we have at our disposal to bring us back to reality and, in the course of time, make us better citizens. With that comes a renewed commitment to our humanity and the unlimited wonders of all that is good and decent about and within us. That is what will sustain us and make us better when the “fun” and “things” produced by commercial enterprises become transparent and clearly reflect back to us the seductive power of what we have been led to believe is what we want and need, all at the expense of our own individuality.

We need to be conscious of the fact that Our Creator, however one may choose to conceive of and define that higher power, there is nothing that is produced by Apple, Microsoft, Hollywood or factories producing tons of things we really don’t need that can even come close to the wonders of the human spirit. We can’t be made in cheap slave shops in poverty-stricken centers of economic power, shipped overseas and sold at inflated prices to enhance the wealth of greedy entrepreneurs at the expense of the common good. At the end of the day, no matter how they try to convince us otherwise, they are simply human trash. They are empty human souls with not a modicum of compassion for the human race and their untapped responsibility to become responsible citizens among the rest of us. They are not to be emulated nor trusted. In the final analysis, they are just another species of predatory animals. Nothing more and nothing less.

I cannot conceive of how any human being can ignore the cadre of law enforcement officials that were aligned against the demonstrators in the Occupy Wall Street movement, and whose avowed reason for being is to protect citizens against the forces of evil brought down on them by corporations, financial institutions, and governments duly elected by the people to protect the people. No wonder they gave up the ghost and faded into the night. Who wants to try and overcome those odds? If that isn’t putting the cart before the horse, I don’t know what does.

How is it that the institutions and officials we have elected to serve us, the people act, not for us, but against us? Why do we tolerate their arrogance? It sure seems to me that about all an election does is use our votes to legitimate their role in a government that they see as our adversaries and a license to shower themselves with every kind of inflated compensation and perquisite that is the envy of those who put them there? Where is the justice and fairness in all that? I can’t see it.

How about all those students who desperately want to get an education so they can better serve society and become better providers for their families? They are saddled with exorbitant loan fees they may never be able to repay, while the fat cats in banking and finance get cheap or interest-free loans from the government in order to better serve their affluent stockholders and officers?

Let us not forget the bloated cost of supporting a military/industrial complex that never finishes the job. There is always a better mouse-trip that will, somehow, stave off the latest identified terrorist and threat to our “freedoms” (whatever that means). There is no satiating their appetites for the money they ostensibly need for our common good and welfare. Now we have the Department of Homeland Security that will surely dwarf our military establishment when we are sufficiently convinced that the “bogey man” is to be found on our streets and among us, causing us to cry out for them to “protect our freedoms!” Where does it all end? Go figure.

When is there going to be enough for us to repair our decaying infrastructure? When is there going to be enough for us to provide the social programs and health care services that any civil society has every right to expect? Don’t you love it when they label those as “entitlement programs,” but conveniently avoid any such nomenclature for the licentious thievery by the financial industries and the burgeoning defense industries? I suppose there is something noble in the latter and so parasitical to the former. Ah, the power of words and the epistemological whores who ply that trade for our consumption ……. and without a modicum of shame.

Then there is my favorite of all time. The greatest ruse ever thrust upon the American people was convincing the populace of the superiority of all-volunteer armed forces rather than the draft. And the result? We have young men and women “volunteering” because they cannot find a decent job and need the money, going off to distant lands to put their lives on the line, in the national interest, for a mere pittance. Meanwhile, those of privilege and wealth go off to Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford and the like, live the good life on campus and graduate with all the skills necessary to pillage and plunder the nation of more of its wealth in order to further enhance their family fortunes. I ask you, what is fair about that deal? Ask those who come home from the front lines maimed, permanently disabled and pleading for the medical and rehab care they urgently require. But, if God had intended them to be valued members of society, He would not have made them poor. All the accolades, flags waving and parades cannot compensate them for their sacrifice on behalf of a nation owned and controlled by oligarchs, international corporations and a political establishment that is totally beholden to those who finance their ambitions and profit from their votes and their tax dollars. They are the very ones who have consigned their families, friends and communities to a permanent state of desolation, poverty and unemployment. Proof that the “free enterprise” models we are expected to revere and emulate are all, at the end of the day, one of the cruelest hoaxes ever perpetrated against civilized people.

The luster of what we call a “democracy” long ago faded into oblivion as far as I am concerned. I simply no longer buy into the notion that the rough and tumble, cowboy mentality of this nation necessarily serves the best interests of all of us. I am no longer inclined to believe the message, for the poor and underprivileged, so the top “1%” can blithely go through this life with a harbored disdain for those of lesser means. It is a bill of goods sold to us by some of the most skilled manipulators in our history, so they can continue to plunder what rightfully belongs to all of us in the name of “free enterprise” and “entrepreneurship.” I regard that mantra as no longer credible.

Practically every institution we have revered and respected as being integral parts of the American way has failed the majority of us miserably. Churches, once the moral compass of the community have proven themselves to be just as avaricious and hypocritical as all other institutions of society. Business and government, in all its forms, has done nothing to better the life of the people or to strengthen the fabric of this society. They have mercilessly exploited the working people of this country, callously shipping jobs over seas and hiding their wealth in offshore accounts so the burden of keeping this ship of state afloat falls on the shoulders of those who can least afford it. Our government takes tax dollars from those at the bottom of the economic pyramid in order to finance their political ambitions and support those who lace their pockets in order to ensure they remain loyal to their avaricious pursuits.

Meanwhile, our national infrastructure is crumbling around us, and our social and economic institutions are drying up so there is less and less left for people who are only asking for the right to honest and fairly compensated labor. All for the sake of those who believe they have some sort of divine right to a life lived in opulent splendor, the human cost be damned. To them, I cannot help but wonder, if human life is carried on their books as an “expendable resource.”

The resources of this great country belong to all of us, equally. Just because the majority may permit exploitation of those resources by a select few, it most assuredly does not mean that a fair and just portion of those resources are not to be returned to its rightful owners, and that means all of us, for our common welfare. Greed and avarice has no place in this equation.

Say what you will, but the sanest forms of government in the world are those found in the Scandinavian block of countries. They are more environmentally and socially conscious. Their entire political systems and social structure are sane, sound and supported so everyone can have a decent life and a fair share of the countries’ resources. With time, I believe that will become ever so much more apparent to all of us. When that day comes, I hope it will be a peaceful transition.

In the meantime we must remain vigilant and not be seduced by those who seek to abdicate their social responsibility to the country that opened the doors of opportunity to them, but remains for the benefit of all of us.

For the Tea Party and the other mutations of what is passed off as ordained by God, how about this one: “Whatsoever you do to the least of my brethren, you also do to Me.”

Permit me to close with some words by one of history’s most famous, if not notorious, public figures:

                          “Political power does not rest with those who cast the votes;
                           Political power rests with those who count those votes.”

                                                                                             *** Joseph Stalin

Cowboy Bob
aka The Sagebrush Philosopher
June 5, 2013