OP ED: The Dream That is America »
Posted By Bkumm 1 year, 8 months ago in NewsSome see us as decadent, oppressive, willfully ignorant of the world. Others see us as strong, economically vibrant and possessing a rich, unique cultural heritage. But, to the rest of the world, America is still largely a dream, a dream that we seem to have forgotten.
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Bkumm
Ex-Navy, degrees in History and Marketing and Management.
Socially liberal, fiscal conservative.
Just following my own brand of atheistic spiritualism.
" [T]he only purpose for ...
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Poulenc1 year, 8 months ago
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" But to dream? Ah that, that is our greatest gift to the world..."
I agree, if by dream one means that America proposed a liberal (original sense of he word) egalitarianism that was something new under the sun. In America, one was not condemned to die in the same "station" in which one was born.
But the world today is infinitely smaller (and larger) than it was even a century ago. We are one of many, which is to say that the dream is increasingly considered a global prerogative. Let us not try to hog it for ourselves.
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Bkumm1 year, 8 months ago
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Agreed, but I think that is the point. It is the dream of hope that America represents to the world. Once, that was also the dream that the United States represented to the world. I hope (dare I say dream?) that one day they will again be one in the same.
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rdy2rckComment removed: Hard Banned10 Replies
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jumpmaster1 year, 8 months ago
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Bkumm1 year, 8 months ago
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I don't know what that has to do with this, but I think that's very possible. They may not know it or show it, but I know that when I think about it, it bothers me somewhat that I don't seem to be doing enough to bring the United States back to some kind of rational path.
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Goppy1 year, 8 months ago
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I personally believe that there is a spiritual malaise in our nation that comes from an over-emphasis on material acquisition.
Almost every religion teaches the vapidity of materialism ... the perversion of perception that a life based upon acquisition brings.
Our nation has become the foremost purchaser of junk. The availability of all this junk fulfills a desire to acquire.
The massive amounts of junk requires larger vehicles to cart it home, and larger homes to store it all.
Poeple in other nations see all the glittery junk that we all have access to and dream of coming to America where they too can have easy access to all the junk.
It;s liek a drug.
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texangelwings1 year, 8 months ago
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"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." By Thomas Paine.
As with any good thing, it is imperative that everyone work to keep what we have, for this thing called America is the land of liberty, opportunity and freedom that can disappear and revert back to the days our forefathers who chose to fight King George, in order to be free. To be treated like human beings was achieved only through the hope, the blood and persistance of people who were willing to risk all!
Never give up, there is always hope, as the sun rises, so shall the spirit of human kind! We must keep America on track! Like a garden that must be tended, so must we tend America.
Thanks Bk, good Op-ed! Thought provoking!
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Bkumm1 year, 8 months ago
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Thanks and you're absolutely right.
I have long claimed that if we could just set aside the "moral" agendas that seem to drive us and work together most Americans agree that something should be done about the larger issues.
We've allowed ourselves to become distracted by inanities and this keeps us from concentrating on the larger issues, which in turn seems to sap our will to hope.
We can never give up. In the end, hope is all we have.
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splitrch1 year, 8 months ago
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Gardens also need weeding in order to remain healthy. We haven't done much weeding lately. We are choked by greed - corporate and personal. Rather than feeling outrage at the disparity between the super rich and the rest of us, we feel jealous. We are lost in 30 second sound bites, corporate politicians and phony religious doctrines.
It's a downward spiral when both parents have to work to make ends meet and the kids are left on their own. Their values are dictated by the tube and their minds are conditioned to buy the latest overpriced "must have" piece of crap that they really have no need for. Combine this with the assault on public education and I think the dream has turned into a nightmare. I wonder what the percentage of highly educated people from industrial societies migrate to he U.S. compared to poor laborers from undeveloped countries.
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Poulenc1 year, 8 months ago
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rd, I think, rather, that the rest of the world has "caught up with us."
I don't think "lethargy" is the descriptive term; rather we've crashed (particularly in the last eight years) to earth. The curtain has parted, if only for a minute, and we see the limit of our power.
Sobering.
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RickyDawkins1 year, 8 months ago
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Bkumm1 year, 8 months ago
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True, Rick, the problem is that we disagree on what "greatness" means.
Personally, I think it means a country that will follow through on what it says it will do and that lives by the same values that it espouses to the rest of the world, while not surrendering that unique hope to dream that gives America its gravitas throughout the world.
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simonsez1 year, 8 months ago
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The world of nations is in transition: a positive move where power is distributed between nations of equal status.
Economic development requires new responsibilities and as more countries raise their living standard, they become better citizens of the world.
We've led this development at least since WWII and continue to do so, but the baton will be passed in the next 20 years.
Not something to fear ...
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Goppy1 year, 8 months ago
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Agreed.
Post WW2, we were ideally positioned to be the absolute leader of the planet.
England, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Japan ... all of Europe and all of Asia had been bled dry by years and years of warfare. World War 2 began in Europe a full 5 years before we entered. We didn't experience any loss of infrastructure - whereas Europe and Asia were devastated.
Nations immersed in warfare almost always suffer economic and social setbacks. Just as our nation is suffering due to the Iraq war.
I find it instructive that the nations of Japan, Germany, England and France made complete recovery after complete devastation within 3 decades of the end of WW2.
Now, the two nations we fought the hardest against and whom we devastated the most are the two nations who most Americans prefer to buy their cars from.
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Charlson1 year, 8 months ago
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Immigrants who become naturalized citizens seem to love and cherish what America represents even more so than those born here. The new citizens have experiences to compare while native born don't unless they have traveled to other countries. I say this because many of us are guilty of complacency in what we do truly have to what others in third world countries have not. America is far from perfect but espouses an ideal of freedom and liberty that others dream to have. But the last few years that flame of liberty, justice and freedom for all seems very close to being extinguished. In the next election we must vote for the person who we feel will stroke that flame higher and bring our nation back closer to the ideals it was founded and established. Good post, Bkumm.
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joeblowe1 year, 8 months ago
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Yes - anyone who thinks WE have it bad only need turn to another story on the top of the page: the idiot government in Afghanistan is attempting to BAN several soap operas on the grounds that they just aren't suitable. While the FCC -has- been taking itself WAY, WAY too seriously lately, at least they haven't gone THAT nuts. And - they usually do their dirty work (fines, and the like) AFTER an infraction.
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simonsez1 year, 8 months ago
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We've only had the ability to be vetted beyond our group of friends for a short time. Internet blogs opened the way for multiple opinions to be aired on a regular basis.
We may have been dysfunctional and ungrateful for what we have for years and didn't know it.
How would I have known what the average guy in Seattle thought about anything?
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Bkumm1 year, 8 months ago
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And furthermore, why would you care? I don't mean that in a harsh way, but the way that the "average" Iranian feels about the United States was only shown to me on television. I didn't see blogs about how they love their new BaskinRobbins. I didn't see pictures of a half dozen skateborders with "Sk8rboi" on their shirts and American flags on their sneakers.
You're right, we didn't know. Now we do. What's going to be our excuse now? And I think the ennui (lethargy) is worse internally. We're distracted and we're confused. We've lost our way. I wonder how we find it again?
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Lurch1 year, 8 months ago
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I think we all know we have a pile of the stuff in our closest.
The problem is, that so many including the entire Republican Party refuse to acknowledge our responsibility/accountability for our mistakes.
To admit a mistake to them is to `surrender`. Instead, they find it easier and more palatable to escalate the mistake to the point where there is no solution and there is no way any one person or country can be held accountable. The damage is too great and too deep.
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amazed1 year, 8 months ago
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Good and thought-provoking essay, bkumm.
((I wonder why we Americans seem to have forgotten that?))
perhaps the reason Americans have forgotten what beacon of hope we are and how blessed we are is that there is a certain segment of society that insists on focusing on our warts, ascribing the worst possible motives to anything we do, and derides anyone who dares to say, "hey, we're NOT evil and we DO mean well".
As someone quoted Paine above, if you hear that something is bad often enough and long enough, you will believe it.
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SonOfTheMask1 year, 8 months ago
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It was a well-written opinion piece, as always.
My commentary focuses on the distinction you make between "America the dream" and the United States. To me, "America" has always been a dream and the United States has always been the reality, from the birth of our nation. And that is the case, even for us as citizens. I don't see that as new or different.
Today's United States is a much better United States than 50, 100, or 200 years in many, many ways. This is true, to me, because "America the dream" always beckons us forward with the song of liberty. I hear that song loudly, clearly, and beautifully right now.
To be sure, modern communications have made the truism "Nothing travels faster than bad news" into a firm reality. Perhaps that accounts for your view that people around the world see the United States in a less-than-flattering perspective while still hearing that "song of liberty" from America.
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Bkumm1 year, 8 months ago
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I'm glad you think so and I thank you. Personally, I thought it was below my usual standards. For some reason I am not thinking very clearly today.
I think that you have summed up the heart of the piece quite well. I am hoping (daring?) to dream that someday the dream that is America and the reality that is the United States will be the same thing.
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Amazing11 year, 8 months ago
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Thought provoking. I think we have a lot of work to do. The founding fathers pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to guide this nation into being. That kind of sacrifice is called for now. We have lost our way. The dream lives on, but the reality has become tainted with greed. Show me a single member of Congress who is willing to pledge anything to bring this nation back to the Constitution.
By and large, politicians are societal sycophants whose main goal is to get re-elected. Should they happen to do something that is in line with the original framers of our Constitution, it is only because it falls in line with the corporations and lobbyists who contribute heavily towards their campaign coffers. It is certainly not due to principle. And that, boys and girls, is why the dream is only a dream, and the reality is putrescent and obscene.
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Francisca1 year, 8 months ago
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I appreciated very much your post Bkumm! America, America. You are young, enterprising, you are frightened by nothing, you are courageous, with you it seems that all is possible even the impossible.....Nothing stops you! It's why other countries are a little bit jealous of you. You always are in advance on us. But, but, but, as everywhere to be the first, to remain the first asks huge sacrifices and there is no pity for the weakest...The problem is how to find the right balance between the globalisation and the wellbeing of everyone ( the whole World is concerned and I don't think America is worse than the others...I am a simple citizen and consequently very naive: sorry!)
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Francisca1 year, 8 months ago
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Concerning the last part of your post Bkumm, I would like to add something. I know that for a lot of you Henri Miller isn't a right reference...and I never know what we must think about these few words of him: "Hope is a bad thing. It means that you are not what you want to be. It means that part of you is dead, if not all of you. It means that you entertain illusions. It's a sort of spiritual clap, I should say."
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riverdog1 year, 8 months ago
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On the comical side, I like George Carlin's quote about the American dream. With all the wealth moving upward from the middle class to the rich who now own 51% of everything and with the media telling us all how to look and live, endless distractions to keep us from noticing our evaporating liberties, parents working two jobs and no jobs for many, ah yes, the American dream, you'd have to be a fool to believe in it.
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Buck21 year, 8 months ago
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America has become the most powerful country in the world, technologically speaking. Like a big, spoilt child (a boy, naturally)in a supermarket it is easily seduced by the biggest, shiniest toys, the fastest cars, whose father has the most money, who lives in the biggest house. Though I agree that it is the land of hope and opportunity, that dream has become corrupted by greed, selfishness and unlimited access to the world's natural resources, particularly oil. It is time for the spoilt child to grow up and prove that old chestnut false - power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
The US could so easily recreate that dream - show the world a kinder way - cut back on technological research - put money into alternative energy, lead the way in recycling efforts, and stem the tide of global warming - the rest of the world would once more believe that America is indeed the land of plenty.
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thoughtforsale1 year, 8 months ago
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The decision between the United States as a country and America as an abstract symbol for the need to dream and hope is a quite useful one, I think. This unbreakable and, in the eyes of other nations, sometimes incomprehensible optimism is clearly part of this country´s fascination. But what the United States should think about more critically, is the question, if this kind of dream, in its American appearal, is really fitting for each and every nation. I do believe in something like a national character and a cultural heritage, which have their roots in history. What America has to give to the world, must stay an offer, and nobody can be forced to take it! It has taken hundreds of years for the Europeans to learn that civilization can mean a lot of different things and that values mustn´t be spread violently. So, it´s time to wake up and remember the universal roots of the American dream!
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tiredofwhiners1 year, 8 months ago
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Most Americans have been corrupted by materialism. I also have been to some extent. But I still am conservative in that I recycle, drive a 10 year old fuel efficient car, do my own gardening, try to save, help others to the extent I can, and don't whine and blame others if I am lacking. I try to be self sufficient. Unfortunately the new America is about big houses, fancy cars, all kinds of new and different electronics, gadgets we don't need and junky do-dads that get thrown away. Much of this takes up our time or prevents us from saving or helping the less fortunate. (contd)
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tiredofwhiners1 year, 8 months ago
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Take away what I have and give me an old shack in the hills and I would consider it a challenge of survival. I have in the past grown all I could eat and then some. Very few would want to do this or consider it as a challenge. They go for the government taking care of them or expecting others to take care of them and they buy into the promises of politicians that they will get something for nothing. I probably would miss cable TV because today there are great informative programs (Discovery, History, Science, Natl. Geographic, CNN and Fox News). But there's always books and magazines.
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