by Dr. Ellen Brandt
Americans are all - every one of us - on the same "Dream Team." And we need to support every American Dreamer.
If we are to reestablish the GOP's historical stance as the Party of YES, we need to sweep away the various misconceptions about the American Dream that have arisen over the past few turbulent decades and to restate and reinstate the core principles that should unite us all.
We need to understand once more why this nation was founded and why it became a "Guiding Light" to other nations around the world. If we are no longer that "Guiding Light," we need to figure out what has recently gone wrong and how we can correct our missteps - even, perhaps, some misdeeds - and return to the inclusive and humane and moral path from which we have strayed.
Here, then, is my take on what the American Dream encompasses - and what it does not:
***** The American Dream Is Not the dream of a mythic realm where All the Streets Are Paved With Gold.
The American Dream Is
the universal goal of freedom from hunger and plague and desperate
want. It's the promise and the assurance that our Democratic system will
serve as a shelter against the ravages of extreme poverty for any of
our citizens - and for all of them.
***** The American Dream Is Not your favored group of citizens - or mine or his or hers or theirs - gaining supremacy over all other groups of citizens.
The American Dream Is
all groups and all constituencies - based on age or sex or ethnicity or
religion or any other possible basis of division - finding collective
ways to coexist happily, with respect and tolerance and kindness towards
one another.
***** The American Dream Has Never Been garnering wealth or power or fame, so that you and yours can lord it over your fellow Americans.
The American Dream Is putting
everybody's Meritocratic assets - their intelligence and talent and
education and experience - to universal use, benefiting both you and
yours and everybody else in the Nation.
***** The American Dream Is Not greedily amassing assets to provide for 20 generations of your blood descendants.
The American Dream Is
striving for a productive and secure life for you and your immediate
family, while working to extend the same opportunities and security for
your fellow Americans, your de facto sisters and brothers and sons and
daughters in our extended National family.
***** The American Dream Is Not
hoarding media power, so that those who shout the loudest - or control
the most outlets of propaganda - will be heard clearly and nearly
incessantly, while the vast majority of American citizens become
voiceless and, by extension, hopeless.
Open, free, and easy-access media, in all their permutations, Are a requisite of The American Dream, part and parcel of a government by and for the People.
***** The American Dream Does Not
revolve around promoting your pet causes - whatever they are and
however worthy you believe them to be - as the only ones that matter.
Concentrating
on a narrow or too-partisan agenda tends to create rancor, while
splintering the citizenry into groups working apart, instead of
attempting to come together and reach consensus for the good of all,
which Is the crux of The American Dream.
***** The American Dream Is Not looking
at Life - or our Nation - as a game, computerized or otherwise, in
which one "plays" to win the most points - or power - or dollars - one
can, while everyone else is viewed as a competitor or an outright enemy,
who needs to be vanquished, punished, and eventually obliterated.
America Is a venture - and an adventure - in which we are all on the same Dream Team.
That which benefits Any of us should also benefit All of us. And the
same rules which are allowed to apply to Any of us should likewise apply
to All.
***** Similarly, The American Dream Is Not and Has Never Been a struggle for "survival of the fittest."
As Humans - and specifically, as Humans in America
- we should strive to overcome the "law of the jungle" and our "animal
nature." Democracy - and Democracies - evolved to minimize the civic
ill-effects of Rule by an Elite, on the one hand, and Rule by an
(anarchic) Crowd, on the other.
***** By extension, no one who believes in The American Dream,
should strive to please and cajole and finagle their way into a
powerful Elite, which we hope and pray will somehow "take care of us." The American Dream Is Not a dream of cringing servitude.
In contrast, The American Dream Is
the dream of individualism and self-worth and self-reliance, which no
powerful and pervasive Elite should ever be permitted to take away from
you or me or any other American citizen.
***** Perhaps most important of all, The American Dream Forbids looking at any of one's fellow Americans as "The Other" - the strange, the unwanted, the discarded, the Them who are not Us.
We should be vigilant to stress that All Americans are US, as we are All U.S.
*****************************************************
Link to the Party of YES Group at LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/Party-YES-7472991/about
Link to Group manager Ellen Brandt's LinkedIn profile:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ellenbbrandtphd
And her Google+ profile:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/115282763756107439379/posts/p/pub
Link to the landing page for Bring Back the Meritocracy!, founder Ellen Brandt's project to help the estimated 400 million "Highly-Educated But Under-Employed" in the United States and abroad:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/114091094386273464410/114091094386273464410/about/p/pub
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