Shutting Down the American Dream…

Johnny-on-the-Spot … by John Foster …

I couldn’t help but wonder if the recent Federal government shutdown was having an effect on the American dream.

It’s the belief that anyone in the United States can achieve success, prosperity and upward social mobility through hard work, determination and initiative.

Many of the loudest voices in the shotdown seem to have forgotten that they really have no money.

It’s all from “Joe Public” via the taxes we pay.

But they seem to act as if it’s all theirs and theirs’ alone to dole out as they see fit with small regard to people like you and me.

Now, not everyone in D.C. is that way but with the current political structure and the media, a few outspoken folks seem to command all the attention.

I think we’ve lost our way when folks started to decide “politics” could be a career.

There was a time folks ran for office to serve this nation’s citizens for awhile and then they returned home to tend to things.

I suppose that sounds way too simple for many to believe it can work but, frankly, does our current collection of “career politicians” really work?

(See Government Shutdown)

The “American Dream” was popularized by James Truslow Adams in 1931 during the Great Depression.

The five basic elements of the American Dream were based on our ideals of democracy, rights, liberty, opportunity and equality.

“Ideals” are supposed to be “lofty goals or models for behavior, a standard of perfection of a set of principles that a person or society strives for”.

It was all associated with upward mobility and enough economic success to lead a comfortable life.

Adams had also concluded that America had lost its’ way by prizing material success above all other values.

The nation had started to treat money as a value instead of merely a means to produce or measure value.

There was a time when we all started our school days with the Pledge of Allegiance”.

The pledge was first written in1885 by by Union Army officer Captain George Thatcher Balch.

It was revised in 1892 by Frances Bellamy and has undergone 3 additional revisions, the most recent in 1954.

But before that, as recently as 1945, many schools recited the “American Creed”.

Do you know it?

It was written by William Tyler Page, a congressional employee who wrote it in 1917 after winning a patriotic contest.

Page was a direct descendant of out 10th U.S. President John Tyler.

“I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people, by the people, for the people, whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed; a democracy in a republic and a sovereign nation of many sovereign states, a perfect Union, one and inseparable; established upon those principles of freedom, equality, justice and humanity for which American patriots sacrificed their lives and fortunes”.

It distills fundamental American political faith from historic documents and traditions.

The American Creed was adopted by the House of Representatives on April 3, 1918.

I am particularly fond of the lines “whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed”.

That’s very strong statement as to who really holds the reins of government.

In 1900, the New York Post warned “the greatest risk to every republic” was not from the so-called rabble but discontented multimillionaires”.

The article noted “all previous republics had been overthrown by rich men” and this could happen in America, too, when these persons were “deriding the Constitution, unrebuked by the executive or by public opinion”.

To this writer it seems as though a few of our public servants and their choice comrades have acquired the wealth and power to impact a lot of Americans quest for the American dream.

The tail is wagging the dog.

But I’m the eternal optimist.

We need to remember that we provide government the resources needed to function.

If the car sputters because the oil is dirty, guess what?

Change the oil.

If you don’t, remember the wise word of Groucho Marx.

“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and then applying the wrong remedies”.

I think the toilet needs flushed.