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The American Dream
Well i didn't want to post this in the main story thread so here it is. For those of you new to this expedition, just click on the website in my sig to find out more.
JULY, 16TH. THE AMERICAN DREAM I have received the following question: “Please, I hope nobody takes offense to this. I’m not trying to start any arguments but I have to ask, “How many mouths could have been fed with the monies being used for this crusade?” When talking about raising awareness, I don’t believe there are too many people around that don’t know about world hunger.” Thanks for tuning in and subscribing to the blog. This question is valid and no offense taken. My response is an open letter to you and those with the same curious mind. I used to make fun of an organization called “Bladder Control Awareness Group” and I used to say well, if you have a bladder control problem, I’m sure you’re aware of it! It was funny then, but I really didn’t know squat about that issue. Awareness is not just knowing, but doing. When I was a kid, my mother always told me that if I don’t finish my food, some kid in Africa will die, and I used to think how preposterous that statement was. We as individuals are responsible for what we do, whether it’s what we do at home or at large like voting to elect our servants (AKA government). We have neglected and for most parts forgotten our rights. Our rights have become temporary privileges that our so-called servants take away whenever they feel like it. If you ask 10 people what their political views are, 9 out of 10 will claim to be either Republican or Democrat. This is a country which was supposed to be ran by the people for the people, but it’s being run by Corporations for the Corporations. When you go to a supermarket, there are over 100 brands of cereal, 50 different types of soft drink, 200 different brews and there is even a whole aisle devoted to tampons. But when it comes to political parties, we are only allowed to choose between two. This is not a freedom of choice; it’s an illusion of choice. The illusion that you have the right to choose between Pepsi and Coke, Captain Crunch or Corn Flakes, but in presidential debates there are only two parties to entertain the American public while they forget how badly they are getting screwed with red, white and blue bull**** being shoved down their throats. I have no problem with Democrats or Republicans or any other party as long as they do their job which is serving the people, but do they? I’m probably coming across as a hippy dreamer or a tree huger but I’m not. I’m not against guns (I have quite a collection myself), hell I’m not even against killing people. BUT and this is a very important BUT: when it’s justified, not by the greedy corporations, but by our constitution, our true civil laws and our morals. Let’s put the rest of the world aside for a minute and concentrate on our own country. There used to be activists who stood up to corporate greed, wrong doings and out-of-line politicians; that was 40 years ago. Speaking of politicians, in the Roman era, being a politician was an honor, a noble position to be a servant of the people, but now days, being a politician is worse than being a crook – because they ARE. There are over 50,000 lobbyists on Capitol Hill as we speak, lobbying for their corporate bosses. They don’t care about you, they don’t care about me, they don’t care about us. All they care about is their own pocket and their own power. People of modest means, poor, middle-class, hard working people of any race continue to elect these rich crooks to the office with hope of CHANGE but refuse to question their integrity and qualifications. Change: \ˈchānj\. a) to make different in some particular b) to make radically different c) to become different Maybe my dictionary is wrong or I can’t see the “change,” but I’ll let you be the judge. Have you seen any? Change for greater good that is. One in every six adults in this country doesn’t have health insurance including me, or perhaps you too. There are 13 million children suffering from hunger in our own country. We have 680,000 homeless in this country. We have a 64% obesity rate with over 80 billion dollars in medical expenditures. The unemployment rate has rocketed to 9.5% in 2010 and that’s just the federal figures conducted by our trustworthy government, the more realistic figure is 16.6% nationally. We handed a small chunk of change, 700 billion dollars, on a silver platter to our financial criminals no question asked. If that wasn’t enough, our heroes of the auto industry took 17.4 billion dollars back home on their private jets to “save the auto makers jobs”, visit Michigan and Illinois to see how many auto workers are left. Journalists, bloggers or any schmuck with a reputable voice is forbidden to say another word about the Gulf fiasco, yet we concentrate on our “biggest issues”: abortion, gay rights, gun control and foreign policy. Good thing we have figures like Mahmud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro to pick on, otherwise the American people would actually realize there was something beyond wrong in their own homeland. Our system has and will continue to produce a generation of obedient workers who are just smart enough to push the buttons and run the machines and dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly ****tier jobs with the lower pay, longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. That’s against their interest. We are dedicated to fight street crimes given that street isn’t Wall Street. So it’s not “change” that we are seeing, for lack of a better word, it’s diversion. And we know what happens when some brave souls stand up to these fascists, they get imprisoned, beaten and disappear. This is not a conspiracy theory, this is reality. Look back to Pittsburgh just a year ago. Water cannons, sound cannons, tear gas, batons, these are the instruments I am quite familiar with; it’s a daily life in Iran. But Pittsburgh is not in Iran, it’s in the United States of America. That’s what they got for trying to voice themselves peacefully around the G20 summit. Maybe it is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence. Next time your friendly neighborhood senator comes around for more votes, don’t be fooled by their label, Democrat, Republican, Independent, whatever he is, hold his feet to the fire. Put away your political brand loyalty and be loyal to your family and community. Demand your rights, your hard-earned money, your freedom. They are your servants not vice versa. Demand equal opportunity to live, demand a shelter over your head, demand three meals a day for your kids, demand free healthcare for all. If you don’t, they will happily give it to their friends and supporters on Wall Street and Capitol Hill. Know your rights, demand and take them with vengeance. Some of you might say mind your own business, ride your damn bike and take care of the hunger issue, don’t get involved in politics. Hunger doesn’t come out of nowhere, it comes out of poverty and poverty is a bastard child of this fascism. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: imagine all the money spent on nuclear weapons and meaningless wars each year, all the embargoes and sanctions imposed upon innocent people – trillions of dollars. If we spent that money feeding, clothing and educating the poor of the world, not one soul excluded, it would pay for itself many times over. Awareness is knowing and doing, otherwise it’s just a headline. A trendy buzzword. Meaningless. We are too concerned with our daily lives and the so-called “American dream” that we forget to look behind the smoke and see the fire. To see that in our own neighborhoods, there are hundreds of kids going hungry every night while we fill our shopping carts with useless gadgets and imitation food to feel better and get closer to the dream. We don’t have the power; we ARE the power. You ask questions, I admire that. This is what everyone should do. No one should be afraid to ask. It is with questions that we get answers. Give us a helping hand. Let’s make it happen together. I hope to see a day that we shouldn’t have to call it awareness anymore. We will call it reality. ~To know and not to do is not to know |
There are a number of contradictions in your post.
Anytime the phrase 'for the greater good' is brought out of the stable, watch out! Someone is trying to take something from you or tell you how they think you should live your life. You point out how fallible our gov't is several times...yet you propose we demand health care, free shelter, and free food. Just what organization has the means to enforce the policies so all these 'rights' are provided? The American dream is for equal opportunity, not equal results. |
“The American dream is for equal opportunity, not equal results.”
Food, shelter and healthcare are the basic needs of any human being, regardless of the race, nationality or religion. They should not be dreamed for. These are not the elements that should make one happy, they are necessities. If the American dream was more like having a shot gun, a dog, big Cadillac and a big screen TV, sure, the result wouldn’t matter. “Just what organization has the means to enforce the policies so all these 'rights' are provided?” All of these rights are already provided. It is called the Constitution. And our government is supposed to enforce it. And if they don’t, the people of the United States should. Don’t underestimate the power of the masses. People have changed the course of history many times; the formation of the United States itself is the best example of this. Throughout history, people rise up for what inconveniences them. These might not be necessarily ethical issues, most of them are actually the issues that hurt their pocket. The Stamp Act of 1765 (Imposed colonial tax by England) was arguably the single greatest catalyst of the American Revolution. We, as the people, have to get our priorities straight. We have to ask this question: what do we need the most? Food, healthcare and shelter or bombing another nation with brown people in it. It’s interesting and somewhat ironic that I’m saying this to someone in Germany (No matter that you are a German or not) that in 1944, Franklin Roosevelt proposed an amendment to the constitution of the United States, called the Second Bill of Rights, which vanished by his death. The Second Bill of Rights would guarantee: Employment, with a living wage, Freedom from unfair competition and monopolies, Housing, Medical care for all, Education, and Social security The irony is that in reconstruction of Germany and in particular your constitution, these very same rights were implemented, but not in our own country. And if you have never read the American constitution or just need refreshment, here is the preamble to it: We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. I wasn’t born in the United States by accident of birth. I chose to become an American citizen by making a pledge to protect, carry out and defend this very important piece of paper: the constitution. Am I being holier than the pope? No. I have lived under a totalitarian government to see the result of negligence and willful ignorance of its people. I don’t want my new country to go down that road. I believe that we already possess what we need; we just lack the willingness to see it through. |
I've read the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the following 17 Amendments many times and no where does it say that anyone is guaranteed shelter, food, or healthcare.
FDR was a piss poor president. Thankfully his intrusive policies were not ratified. What he proposed in the second bill of rights is irrelevant. You are given the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What you do with that is up to you. The only way you can guarantee all these other rights that you demand is by infringing upon the rights of others. Your rights stop where mine begin. For every government given secuirty, you give up some of your freedom. The more security you are given the less freedom you have. Sort of sounds like the road to a totalitarian gov't to me... |
"demand a shelter over your head, demand three meals a day for your kids, demand free healthcare for all."
Sorry Chris, but shelter, food and healthcare all have to be earned. No free lunch. The world owes you or anyone else nothing. IMHO one should have the right to the opportunity to EARN a living - that's all. Don't like it? Go live in a communist country. |
Doc,
You don’t seem to care one bit when using the Canadian Healthcare system; a free (well sort of) healthcare for all. Some could argue that’s communistic. If you have ever been to the library (they loan free books to EVERYONE, don’t they?) you are a communist. Police services are free, fire departments are free, public schools are free, free public radio, free public television and so on… You don’t seem to argue with any of that. If someone broke in to your house and the police didn’t show up you’d be furious, because you would be personally inconvenient. But if some kid died on a side of the road you would give less than a damn. Who cares? No free lunch eh? So if you get it for free, it’s just fine and dandy, but god forbid if someone else demands the same thing. I’m not a communist nor I ever will be and this is not capitalism vs. communism. Wish it for your own family before you wish it for others and see how it feels. My argument is that If we can build a free library, organize a free police force, have a free fire department all with our tax money, we should be able to give free healthcare to everyone, access to food to those who can’t afford it, a roof over head of those who don’t have the means. We have the money but we spend it on wrong things, we give it to crooks rather than the people. If caring about someone other than myself is communism, call me a communist all day long, it’ll be an honor. HillbillyWV, “You are given the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” What is life and how do we sustain life without its necessities? How is it possible when our farmers are being controlled beyond means by a handful of corporations? How is possible when every piece of packaged meat you eat in this country comes from factories with different names but in reality they are controlled by the same body and they decide what goes in that cow. How is it possible when our government misuses our trust and hands over our tax money to people who don’t deserve it? How is one supposed to pursue the happiness? Or is just the right to pursue but not the tools and freedom to achieve it? I’m not proposing that everyone should sit and do nothing and they should be entitled to everything. We are talking about hard working people. We are talking about people just like yourself who put in their fair share and they still get screwed. Or maybe I’m wrong, maybe you are pretty well off. All I’m asking is this: Live and let live or perhaps don’t make it harder on the rest. Live simply so others can simply live. “For every government given security, you give up some of your freedom.” You couldn’t say it any better it seems like that we have lost a lot of our freedom for securities already, should we wait till the rest is gone too or we should do something about it? |
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO... Sorry, I could only read 1/4 of that before my head hurt.. :blushing:
All politians are heartless money grabbing wankers... It's a stereotype worth believing ! As long as you don't expect anything from them, you can't be dissapointed... I try and live as far away from all that crap as I can. I don't get involved unless I have to. I don't see the point. The whole world is totally corrupted by greed and megalomania. It's been like that since men could walk and talk. It's not going to change !!!!!!!!!!!!!! There has never been a single 100% fair, unbiast , unselfless government in any country at anytime... This is a Motorcycle Traveller forum, super heavy politcal government rants don't really go down too well. You seem like you have an axe to grind... Hop on your bike and go enjoy the great out doors !! Ride safe and smile amigo !! :thumbup1: |
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T.H.E., sort out the contradictions in your post.
For example... Either the public library is free or it is funded by taxes. Again, just who is going to provide all these necessities/rights you demand when you admit that the gov't misuses our taxes? |
Well said Ted, how is the DRZ?
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wow TED
Jezz Ted that was profound for you!!
Looking forward to Tedstock mate...... |
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