The American Dream

The men who fought for Washington to make a new nation had to wonder - what do I get? Cuz the conditions were horrible - lack of food, boots, weapons. The only thing you could be sure of was dying. A given no matter what the endeavor. But if the soldiers asked  "hey George, whatta we gonna get." He might've said "when it's all over, you can come work for folks like me. And someday your kids in the far off future can maybe work for a Wall Street corporation."

The soldiers might reply "that's fucked up George" and they'd be right. If the American dream is to work for someone else - to enrich a very tiny few by the lives of the very many, that's amazingly stupid. Imagine telling kids when they're little - all your little life will ever be - is a paying job. Kids would look at their parents and think - man, yall are fucking idiots. But that's how it is. 

The problem stems from imitating the European model in the 1700's. It was a given that stupid peasants would work for enlightened aristocrats cuz that's how it'd always been. The land you worked belonged to someone else. So you were never working for yourself. Everybody knows this, but it's like syphilis - nobody wants to talk about it. Cuz it'll drive you crazy, or at least make you real sad - the fact that our geniuses in sociology and politic can't come up with a sane system. 

Young kids about to set off on a new life gotta think - it's fuckin hopeless - like Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate who mighta said "you mean this is the future yall got planned fer me?" My freakin Jesus, it's all pointless - it don't mean nuthin. Merely a glittery glossed up form of eternal slavery - me workin fer you. And gettin peanuts in return."

And the bosses say "tell you what, in exchange fer humpin yer ass, I'll give you free speech so's you can complain about it all y'want - hey, it'll make y'feel better."

Well, they say the first step in problem solving is to identify the problem. Okey dokey, then what? We're drifting in space and running outta oxygen - so, who's got a plan?

PS - y'know I wonder.......the saddest thing is a Russian emigre sayin "if you think this is bad, imagine how much worse it is in Russia." D'y'spose that's intentional? Could you imagine world leaders gettin' together saying - they'll relish what little they have if we can give them an example of how much worse it is elsewhere. And somebody says - yeah, cool, let's make a genocide in someplace like Yemen so's everybody'll be happy they aint there.