Listening to the chatter across the airwaves it is often difficult to ascertain who is doing the dreaming, the rhetoric of fear and division often drowns out saner voices and we are lead down the road to division. The Constitution and Bill of Rights laid down the founding principles of our collective dream; however both we and the world have moved on from those heady days.
Two dreams collided and bloody civil war in part resolved the issues, yet to some distance makes the heart grow fonder for the "gone with the wind" nostalgia for an unjustified oppression.
We became isolationist after the senseless loss of life of an "A war to end all wars" that pitted fading Imperial powers one against another; many said never again. Yet even during these dark times a spark was kept burning and in the end women won the right to vote.
Two dreams collided during a Great Depression and a "New Deal" was struck, we said we must care for one another and that our collective dream must be protected from the insanity of a few.
We were drawn from our isolationism by a direct attack by an Imperial power in the East and the declaration of War by a madman in Berlin we went most unwilling into this fight. From this darkest hour our dreams were reborn in "the greatest generation", however we slipped into the longest period of war in our history that flashed both hot and cold. We turned inwards and chased shadows in the McCarthy period none were free from suspicion.
Yet, during these dark and suspicion laden days were forged "The Great Society” and we fought with success the battle against segregation we moved forward as a nation. In the decade that followed with economic depression and violence in our streets we slowly lost our way, we demonstrated hubris in our hegemonic control of our own hemisphere with little regard to the freedoms of others. Around the world we supported regimes whose very existences were antithetical to our dreams in the name of resisting a greater evil.
Inside our borders we began to roll back economic equality and our political system lurched ever further to the right the richest amongst us were heralded as our saviours and given unjust rewards. Once we heralded the wealth generated by us all we now began to exalt those who profited most from our work. We became a nation of hope we make it; not a nation driven to succeed as a whole.
A dark and authoritarian Empire imploded from within its inequality and injustice impossible to sustain, we hailed this as our victory; but at the same time we forgot who we were. For a brief time economic success hid the fractures developed during this slow corrosion of our dream.
One bright and glorious September morning our dream was shattered we shocked beyond belief, yet this was foreseeable from the arrogance we had shown for many decades. We financed and supported in our need to defeat an “Evil Empire's” oppressive regime, hence many detested us for our arrogance. The same methods that were used to justify the coldest of wars were then turned inwards profiting on our fears, we lay down and accepted this new norm.
Our fear allowed our system to be perverted and laws passed that impinged upon our privacy to be passed. Radical elements across our nation used the fear to breed intolerance and ignorance, these voices are gaining ascendency and we stand now on a precipice. We now attack those principles that lead to economic equality as being the cancer within and put our faith in those wealthy enough not to care. We slander and abuse our fellow Americans for their faith, gender and sexuality by denying or restricting their rights. We allow the very organizations that fought for our economic equality to be trashed whilst once again allowing a privileged few to plunder the rewards, we ask too little in return.
We have become a society that lauds excessive wealth and denigrates the poorest amongst us, we allow the poor to pay for the rich. We twist the first amendment until it squeals; we have become intolerant of and fearful of others. Yet many Americans seem to revel in the hate and fear; it generates news, but can tear apart a nation. To think that fear and loathing may become a winning campaign slogan breaks my heart.
Whose Dream Is It?