We seem to always have a political treatise or memoir hitting the book stands. Most of them are self-serving and annoying. But the number one job of a politician is to keep his job and basically not give a damn about yours!
A while ago a man who currently resides in the White House wrote a personal book that was not meant to garner him political gains, at least not yet. The book was a big seller made even bigger with his eventual rise in World prominence.
This post merely uses his title to play off and it is with some small apologies to Mr. Obama that I do so.
But frankly it fits with the current atmosphere of America so...
In America we are all given a fair chance to succeed. This is what we have commonly called the
American Dream.
And we want that America Dream for ourselves and even more so
for our children.
But just what is The Dream?
Back in 1928 it was simply a chicken in every pot and a car
in every garage as then candidate Herbert Hoover pronounced.
Sadly after winning by a landslide over Alfred Smith he and
his Republican Party could not deliver on his great claims. Funny that from them not much has changed in that department in the 4 score and 6 years since.
In fact the only thing great
about his Presidency turned out to be the Great Stock Market crash and
subsequent Great Depression.
The American Dream then became a next meal and a roof over one’s
head.
Millions were out of work and looking to Washington for
help.
Mr. Hoover did get some small accomplishments during his
tenure such as increasing our Nation’s National Park footprint but basically
far too little to help those who found themselves on the ground, literally!
It was the Great Depression that outlasted him and
catapulted Franklin Delano Roosevelt into the White House.
And after several social programs were put in place by Mr.
Roosevelt the nation appeared to be headed back in the right direction.
But we still needed something more.
And we got that nudge when Germany and Japan decided to take
over the world.
World War II turned our economy around and it only took the lives
of some 60 million people worldwide to do so.
Naturally there were many in politics upon whom that fact
was not lost. I mean the first part, the
part about the economy, although the collateral damage probably slipped into
their equation at some point.
These, for lack of a better term, war mongers realized the
monetary benefit of war. Of course only
if they did not have to fight it themselves.
Former General Eisenhower famously warned about these hawk archetypes
in his Presidential farewell speech when he coined the phrase, the vast
industrial military complex.
And today that vast industrial military complex sucks the
air out of America in many ways.
When the right wing continues to kow tow to their owners in
the 1% by lowering their taxes while keeping the middle class down there is
only one thing the country can do and that’s cut services!
Now of course you may say that we are all affected by
service cuts but be real! The uber
wealthy do not need publicly funded services when they can literally buy an island
with the petty cash in their pockets.
So service cuts hurt, harm and eventually kill the poor and
middle class.
And let’s face it, when you’re dead the American dream is
the least of your worries!
So we may still dream but between the Republican Party trying
to gerrymander Democrats out of existence and the wealthy pulling the strings behind
them there isn’t really any chance of a Disney ending for most Americans.
We will go into the big sleep with only our dreams perchance
to keep our hopes alive.
Rudyard Kipling wrote “If you can dream—and not make dreams your master…“
Well we can dream but unless and until the American voter
wakes up from their stupor and realizes what a terrible blight the Republican
Party has become we shall only have dreams without any hope of achieving them.
And until then I must admit, Dreams? Why bother!
