Here's to the dreamers

Occupy Raleigh Kick Off Rally 10/15/11

According to Wikipedia: "The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States in which freedom includes a promise of the possibility of prosperity and success...regardless of social class or circumstances of birth. The idea of the American Dream is rooted in the United States Declaration of Independence which proclaims that 'all men are created equal' and that they are 'endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights' including 'Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.' "

I like this concise portraiture of what it means to Americans to feel successful. It reminds us that our aspirations are rooted in the very nascence of our country and its ambitions for its people. There are varying versions of the dream, but it comes from the same place, the same sentiment that we're all in this thing together. For me, it seems that all I’ve ever hoped for was a comfortable house, a family of whatever kind I choose, and simple happiness. That's my "American Dream." I’ve hoped to live in a land where all people of all walks of life are given equal opportunities to better themselves and their loved ones. I’ve hoped to be able to help people, and to surround myself with people who care about me enough to help me if needed. I’ve hoped to be able to continue to learn and to discover all that the world around me has to offer – the good and the bad. Sometimes though, I don’t know how much more I want to learn about the bad. Especially when it comes to what I see as the new concept of American exceptionalism and success.

Seen on Facebook: “Dear 1%. Thank you for inspiring us 99%er’s to live the American dream and giving us something to aspire to.” 

I don’t know if this statement was made in jest, but it didn’t come across that way to me. This made me profoundly sad. This statement, offered by one of my peers, seems to read as if the now named 1% are the ones who’ve attained the elusive Dream we’ve all been taught to hold dear to our hearts. That this ephemeral notion of “making it” of “success” is predicated on making bazillions while others struggle. Yes, I do admit that many of the wealthy are good people who worked very hard and came from nothing to get where they are, and yes, I do contend that not every rich person is a corporate whoremonger. Yet I refuse to believe that such immense inequality of wealth is what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they set this whole Ferris wheel in motion. I refuse to accept that Thomas Jefferson envisioned a world like ours - a society, so staunch in its adherence to its own superiority, that it would sit idly by while it's wealth becomes so unevenly divided as to foster a climate that would drive thousands of citizens across the nation to take to the streets in bipartisan protest. 

Occupy Raleigh Kick Off Rally 10/15/11
  

Our new America and we as the new Americans have been tasked with a responsibility our predecessors failed to accommodate for. When they dreamt up the grand ideal of prosperity that we should all attain to, they didn’t count on the culture shift that enabled the Gordon Gekkos to reach idolism. Who knew that one day the filthy rich, the business men in monkey suits, the Corporations with a capital C - who have long been the archetypal bad guys of cinematic lore - would be the ones we “aspire to” become?  How did it come to this? How did we come to this? And who do we have to fuck to make it go back to the way it was meant to be?

Perhaps planning for the inclusion of greed and its inevitable destructive forces should have been a part of this America Dream concept. Perhaps it’s me who’s failing to see the bigger picture here. Putting the likes of Washington, Adams, and the others up on this pedestal only to point out their failed intentions might be the hindrance to my overall sense of happy wellbeing.  Yet when I see that the Herman Cains, the David Kochs, the CEOs in power ties – when I see that they have become the motivators of political policy, I want to pull the plug on this whole thing and call the experiment an epic failure! 

America is supposed to be and often still is a beautiful, cultural, prosperous, and fair nation – one of the greatest examples of collective progress the modern world has ever seen. No one here makes it on their own. We as citizens are supposed to hold up our fellow Americans and be held up by them in return so that we can continue to lift each other over adversity because we know, deep down some of us still know, that without the many, the few are…well just that. Few. Inconsequential. Worthless and alone.