Is The Dream Dead? Or Did We Forget to Sleep?

I just love the way that our elected officials are so double jointed that they can pat themselves on their back while taking our money out of our pockets at the same time.



This country was founded on the issue of unfair taxation and lack of representative government. A lot of people, who believed in that premise, fought for, and died defending that belief. Since the founding of America, people from all over the world looked at the American dream and tried to model their existence after it. Some with success, some with failure. America has always been a bright spot for those living in oppression and less than ideal circumstances. Still to this day people from all over the world are drawn by the American Dream. Some die trying to get here. What ever their reason is they want a piece of the Dream.



We as a society paint this picture with a broad colorful brush. But if the truth be told America is not all it's cracked up to be. Much of the dream today is generated and hyped by Hollywood. Yes it is a country based on many freedoms and ideals that others in the world can only dream of. We are still a free society. A society that can legally stand up and criticize our government and live to tell about it. It truly is a great country, but the dream is more a fleeting vision than a reality. A vision being diluted each day by forces within out control but out of our hands.



America has become so poisoned by its political process. We were warned when President Eisenhower left office. He said beware of the Industrial / Military Complex. He saw the potential of the problem fifty years ago. After America, the arsenal of democracy, bailed out the world from tyranny and oppression in world war two we were left with a society that needed a break from deprivation and sacrifice. The industrial complex that was built to fight the good fight needed to switch gears. Money was invested in factories and the allocation of natural resources to feed this beast. So beating swords into plowshares we became a consumer driven society. The war machine and the technology it developed gave us newer and better products. Appliances to make the normal daily chores easier. Cars to take us wherever we wanted to go. Cheap oil to run it all.

As we consumed the world jumped on board. The economies of the war ravaged countries, seeking to rebuild, saw the American marketplace as their golden goose. American industrialists took their fortunes and invested them elsewhere and the spiral began.

There was a time companies prided themselves on their longevity. Customer and employee loyalty. This soon changed. Stockholders invested in companies and the sought to divide and conquer. Sell off assets and plunder the fruits of the plant that grew and made America Great! Money trumped moralism. The capitalistic society was perverted. Companies became bigger, swallowing competition, big and small. Hostile takeovers, fiscal rape, and pillage became the norm.

Looking for higher returns on investments businesses outsourced their operations to other countries with lower standards of living. The balance of trade shifted. We became a debtor nation.

Yet who do we have to blame for this situation? Ourselves. America has become schizophrenic. We want jobs with rock star salaries but buy imports at dirt cheap prices. We substitute quality for quantity. We stand by passively as our elected officials pour trillions of dollars into the coffers of their special interest friends on Wall Street while overlooking the problems on Main Street.

We stand by as we become a bilingual country. Our history is solid in that as immigrants came to America they brought their cultures and assimilated them into the American Dream. Our food, our language, our traditions all have roots based in our ancestors heritage. Yet rather than adding to our cornucopia of flavors, that we call America, the latest immigrants have held fast to their language and customs without seeking to blend into our American Society.

We stand by and allow our government to leave our borders porous to illegal entrants. Our open society allows these illegals to hide in plain sight without recourse.

We have allowed our elected officials to sell out America to their special interest groups and foreign nations. What we have spent overseas for wars and special favors could have made America a stronger place. Yet we all sit back and talk a good talk but when it comes to action we keep electing the same old same old. We only have ourselves to blame.

When will we wake up? When the foreigners come calling looking for their payments on the debit we so graciously foisted on them so we could fatten the pockets of the special interest groups and elected officials?

Wake up before it's too late! The dream is real. History proves it. Many hold it near and dear. We can dream it again. We need to hold our elected officials accountable for the dream rests in our hearts and minds! We're tired of the nightmares.