The Dream Is Over - Part 3

In Conclusion


The myths of our youth no longer have relevance and we have little faith in a system that has become corrupt several times over. Add to this the delusion of the populace from massive (both legal and illegal) immigration and the cultural dilution from global communication. You end up with a modified core belief that you don’t trust institutions, either corporate or governmental and the result is the banding together of political blocks in the global sense and not the geo-political sense (contained by borders on maps). The end result is a type of worldwide Balkanism where factions pit themselves against one another due to ideological/economic beliefs or worse yet, religious beliefs.

We need to break away from the primeval core belief that life is all about getting ahead and beating the other person, tribe, state, and nation and create a new core belief that we are all in this together as one planet.

Knut Gingrich, a disgraced right wing political leader here in America recently chastised President Obama for stating that he is a ‘Citizen of the Word’. As if stating so indicates that he is for ‘One World Government’ or something. It concerns me much more that Knut and his ilk are so fearful and protectionist of losing the power base that they have created on the backs of the taxpayers and working class that they will use fear and the media to try and convince us that it is still ‘us against them’.

So the dream may be over. The compression of the world’s societies and criminal ineptitude of those in power may finally be reaching an end. The dream was of a bright future with endless possibilities. The reality is the future is going to be bleak when viewed in the terms of our past expectations. However, I am finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.

I am looking forward to a time in our future when we will finally learn that those things we have been told to long for and struggle towards were not worthwhile or a good idea. There are more important things than collecting stuff and having more money and power. I have to assume that is where we are headed. Because to stay on the same path we have been on for the last 50 years makes me shudder.

The dream should be for a happy life, a simple life, a life without fear. One of the more profound things that I have come across recently is my daily trek to a website called Shorpy.com. This is a photography blog where old photographs are posted in high resolution. Photographs from the Civil War, the Great Depression, World War I, are all there, in extreme detail. I have often found myself gazing at the faces in these pictures.

The confederate soldiers preparing for battle, the share-croppers in the dust bowl, the street venders in 1901 New York. In their faces I see the same dreams and hope that I see today. Things really haven’t changed over the years. We all still hope for the same things. Only the trappings of our time have changed, and gotten faster and more condensed.

Hopefully, we will all come to the conclusion that it isn’t about winning. It is about living together and having faith in each other and not in ivory towers and governments.