The American Dream

The Public Wants Help Achieving the American Dream


By Ruy Teixeira

Reaching the American Dream is a traditional goal in this country. According to a September, 2007 Change to Win/Lake Partners survey of registered voters, that dream includes the following components:
having a job that pays enough to support a family (78 percent say this is extremely important for reaching the American Dream);
having affordable, quality health care that you can depend on (73 percent);
being able to ensure your children have the opportunity to succeed (73 percent);
having a secure and dignified retirement (71 percent);
being treated with respect for the work you do (67 percent);
being able to afford your own home (66 percent);
having benefits that fit your life in the new economy and follow you when you change jobs, move, or become self-employed or unemployed (61 percent);
being able to afford to spend more time with family and in your community (60 percent);
and having access to training at work so that you can advance and do well (51 percent).

While Americans remain optimistic that they and their families will eventually achieve the American Dream, they are overwhelmingly convinced that achieving the Dream is becoming harder to do
. In the Change to Win/Lake Partners poll, 70 percent of voters said it is becoming harder these days to achieve the American Dream,
compared with 8 percent who thought it is becoming easier,
and 21 percent who thought it is about the same.

Moreover, the public believes, by 57 percent to 15 percent, that the Bush administration policies of the last seven years have made it harder, not easier, to attain the Dream.

The public wishes the government would step in and do something positive for those striving to attain the American Dream. An overwhelming 84 percent agree, including 62 percent who strongly agree, that "government has a responsibility to help restore the American Dream and help people who work hard to be able to achieve it," compared with a mere 14 percent who disagree.
The conservatives have argued for years that government is the problem, not the solution.

When it comes to achieving the American Dream, the public evidently disagrees.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/11/po_americandream.html

What is the American Dream?

The term was first used by James Truslow Adams in his book The Epic of America which was written in 1931.
He states: "The American Dream is "that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.

It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it.

It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position." (p.214-215)

In the United States' Declaration of Independence, our founding fathers: "…held certain truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness."

Might this sentiment be considered the foundation of the American Dream?

Were homesteaders who left the big cities of the east to find happiness and their piece of land in the unknown wilderness pursuing these inalienable Rights?
Were the immigrants who came to the United States looking for their bit of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, their Dream?
And what did the desire of the veteran of World War II - to settle down, to have a home, a car and a family - tell us about this evolving Dream?
Is the American Dream attainable by all Americans?
Would Martin Luther King feel his Dream was attained?
Did Malcolm X realize his Dream?

Some say, that the American Dream has become the pursuit of material prosperity - that people work more hours to get bigger cars, fancier homes, the fruits of prosperity for their families - but have less time to enjoy their prosperity.
Others say that the American Dream is beyond the grasp of the working poor who must work two jobs to insure their family's survival.
Yet others look toward a new American Dream with less focus on financial gain and more emphasis on living a simple, fulfilling life.

Thomas Wolfe said, "…to every man, regardless of his birth, his shining, golden opportunity ….the right to live, to work, to be himself, and to become whatever thing his manhood and his vision can combine to make him."
Is this your American Dream?


http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/lessons/97/dream/thedream.html

The American Dream is no longer just about money. Better pay, a nice house, and a rising standard of living will always be attractive. But my research and others' show another factor emerging: The new American Dream is to maintain a reasonable living standard while doing work that we enjoy doing

America is far better positioned to survive and prosper in the new creative environment than were these other civilizations. Despite the current hard times, our still-growing rates of productivity suggest that our ability to innovate--and to bring out the creative potential of many people--remains strong. But if we don't take our creative strengths to the next level, with policies that bring more citizens into the creative sectors, America will begin to lag behind. Getting us to the next level will require real political imagination and leadership, guided by a new political vision rooted in an understanding of our new economic situation. The old American Dream was a job with which to feed your family.

The new Dream is a job you love, with which to feed your family. The political party that best understands this dream, and can make it a reality, will be the party that thrives, and makes America thrive.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0303.florida.html

The story of America is an exciting one, filled with swift evolution and an amazing energy unprecedented in world history. In America's short existence, it has progressed from a small collection of European rebels to the economically dominant nation that it is today. Mixed up in the provocative reputation of America is the celebrated ideal of the American Dream, the fantasy of complete independence and self-reliance mixed with the opportunity to attain wealth through one's labors. On the surface, this reverie seems almost enchanted, offering people the unprecedented prospect of achieving success regardless of one's race, religion, or family history. The American Dream is exactly what it appears to be; the opportunity of utopia, the ceaseless temptation of pleasure, the undying knowledge that eternal bliss lies just around the corner. But the very nature of this fantasy prevents the enjoyment of the success one has earned, as the temptation is always nagging, always insisting for more progress, urging one to work a little harder and gain a little more. The American Dream destroys any opportunity of complacency; its very essence, the immense libido it inspires and the eternal need for progression that it creates in the hearts of its followers makes any true realization of the mythical nirvana impossible.
F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is an immortal illustration of the Paradox of the American Dream


While the Dream itself is a vision of intense prosperity, the phenomenon of the American Dream inveigles people not to prosper, but to endure, because the insistent pressure the dream puts on one to continue to progress will never allow prosperity. The Dream is not a means to an end; rather, it is a way of life, a non-tangible, non-achievable, hyperbolic myth - a mirage in the desert of eternity, always just one step out of reach.

http://www.literatureclassics.com/essays/335/

M L K's American Dream




And so this morning I would like to use as a subject from which to preach: "The American Dream."

It wouldn't take us long to discover the substance of that dream. It is found in those majestic words of the Declaration of Independence, words lifted to cosmic proportions: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by God, Creator, with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." This is a dream. It's a great dream.

The first saying we notice in this dream is an amazing universalism. It doesn't say "some men," it says "all men." It doesn't say "all white men," it says "all men," which includes black men. It does not say "all Gentiles," it says "all men," which includes Jews. It doesn't say "all Protestants," it says "all men," which includes Catholics. (Yes, sir) It doesn't even say "all theists and believers," it says "all men," which includes humanists and agnostics.

Then that dream goes on to say another thing that ultimately distinguishes our nation and our form of government from any totalitarian system in the world. It says that each of us has certain basic rights that are neither derived from or conferred by the state. In order to discover where they came from, it is necessary to move back behind the dim mist of eternity. They are God-given, gifts from His hands. Never before in the history of the world has a sociopolitical document expressed in such profound, eloquent, and unequivocal language the dignity and the worth of human personality. The American dream reminds us, and we should think about it anew on this Independence Day, that every man is an heir of the legacy of dignity and worth.

Now ever since the founding fathers of our nation dreamed this dream in all of its magnificence?-to use a big word that the psychiatrists use?-America has been something of a schizophrenic personality, tragically divided against herself. On the one hand we have proudly professed the great principles of democracy, but on the other hand we have sadly practiced the very opposite of those principles.

But now more than ever before, America is challenged to realize its dream, for the shape of the world today does not permit our nation the luxury of an anemic democracy. And the price that America must pay for the continued oppression of the Negro and other minority groups is the price of its own destruction. (Yes it is) For the hour is late. And the clock of destiny is ticking out. We must act now before it is too late.

And so it is marvelous and great that we do have a dream, that we have a nation with a dream; and to forever challenge us; to forever give us a sense of urgency; to forever stand in the midst of the "isness" of our terrible injustices; to remind us of the "oughtness" of our noble capacity for justice and love and brotherhood.

This morning I would like to deal with some of the challenges that we face today in our nation as a result of the American dream. First, I want to reiterate the fact that we are challenged more than ever before to respect the dignity and the worth of all human personality. We are challenged to really believe that all men are created equal. And don't misunderstand that. It does not mean that all men are created equal in terms of native endowment, in terms of intellectual capacity?-it doesn't mean that. There are certain bright stars in the human firmament in every field. (Yes, sir) It doesn't mean that every musician is equal to a Beethoven or Handel, a Verdi or a Mozart. It doesn't mean that every physicist is equal to an Einstein. It does not mean that every literary figure in history is equal to Aeschylus and Euripides, Shakespeare and Chaucer. (Make it plain) It does not mean that every philosopher is equal to Plato, Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, and Friedrich Hegel. It doesn't mean that. There are individuals who do excel and rise to the heights of genius in their areas and in their fields. What it does mean is that all men are equal in intrinsic worth. (Yes)


The other day Mrs. King and I spent about ten days down in Jamaica
Here you have people from many national backgrounds: Chinese, Indians, so-called Negroes, and you can just go down the line, Europeans, European and people from many, many nations. Do you know they all live there and they have a motto in Jamaica, "Out of many people, one people." And they say, "Here in Jamaica we are not Chinese, (Make it plain) we are not Japanese, we are not Indians, we are not Negroes, we are not Englishmen, we are not Canadians. But we are all one big family of Jamaicans." One day, here in America, I hope that we will see this and we will become one big family of Americans. Not white Americans, not black Americans, not Jewish or Gentile Americans, not Irish or Italian Americans, not Mexican Americans, not Puerto Rican Americans, but just Americans. One big family of Americans.

"All men are created equal." (Amen) And that means that every man who lives in a slum today (Preach it) is just as significant as John D., Nelson, or any other Rockefeller. Every man who lives in the slum is just as significant as Henry Ford. All men are created equal, and they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, rights that can't be separated from you. [clap] Go down and tell them, (No) "You may take my life, but you can't take my right to life. You may take liberty from me, but you can't take my right to liberty. You may take from me the desire, you may take from me the propensity to pursue happiness, but you can't take from me my right to pursue happiness." (Yes) "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights and among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." (Yes, sir)

Now there's another thing that we must never forget. If we are going to make the American dream a reality, (Yes) we are challenged to work in an action program to get rid of the last vestiges of segregation and discrimination. This problem isn't going to solve itself, however much [word inaudible] people tell us this. However much the Uncle Toms and Nervous Nellies in the Negro communities tell us this, this problem isn't just going to work itself out. (No, sir) History is the long story of the fact (Yes) that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges without strong resistance, and they seldom do it voluntarily. And so if the American dream is to be a reality, we must work to make it a reality and realize the urgency of the moment. And we must say now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to get rid of segregation and discrimination. Now is the time to make Georgia a better state. Now is the time to make the United States a better nation. (Yes) We must live with that, and we must believe that.


And I would like to say to you this morning what I've tried to say all over this nation, what I believe firmly: that in seeking to make the dream a reality we must use and adopt a proper method. I'm more convinced than ever before that nonviolence is the way. I'm more convinced than ever before that violence is impractical as well as immoral. If we are to build right here a better America, we have a method (Yes, sir) as old as the insights of Jesus of Nazareth and as modern as the techniques of Mohandas K. Gandhi. We need not hate; we need not use violence. We can stand up before our most violent opponent and say: We will match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force. (Make it plain) Do to us what you will and we will still love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws, because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good, and so throw us in jail. (Make it plain) We will go in those jails and transform them from dungeons of shame to havens of freedom and human dignity. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities after midnight hours and drag us out on some wayside road and beat us and leave us half-dead, and as difficult as it is, we will still love you. (Amen) Somehow go around the country and use your propaganda agents to make it appear that we are not fit culturally, morally, or otherwise for integration, and we will still love you. (Yes) Threaten our children and bomb our homes, and as difficult as it is, we will still love you. (Yeah)



But be assured that we will ride you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we will win our freedom, but we will not only win freedom for ourselves, we will so appeal to your heart and your conscience that we will win you in the process." And our victory will be a double victory.

Oh yes, love is the way. (Yes) Love is the only absolute. More and more I see this. I've seen too much hate to want to hate myself; hate is too great a burden to bear. (You bet, Yes) I've seen it on the faces of too many sheriffs of the South?-I've seen hate. In the faces and even the walk of too many Klansmen of the South, I've seen hate. Hate distorts the personality. Hate does something to the soul that causes one to lose his objectivity. The man who hates can't think straight; (Amen) the man who hates can't reason right; the man who hates can't see right; the man who hates can't walk right. (Yeah) And I know now that Jesus is right, (Yeah) that love is the way. And this is why John said, "God is love," (Yes, sir) so that he who hates does not know God, but he who loves (get in the door) at that moment has the key that opens the door (Yeah) to the meaning of ultimate reality. So this morning there is so much that we have to offer to the world. (Yes, sir)

We have a great dream. (Great dream) It started way back in 1776, and God grant that America will be true to her dream.

About two years ago now, I stood with many of you who stood there in person and all of you who were there in spirit before the Lincoln Monument in Washington. (Yes) As I came to the end of my speech there, I tried to tell the nation about a dream I had. I must confess to you this morning that since that sweltering August afternoon in 1963, my dream has often turned into a nightmare; (Lord) I've seen it shattered. I saw it shattered one night on Highway 80 in Alabama when Mrs. Viola Liuzzo was shot down. (Lord, Lord) I had a nightmare and saw my dream shattered one night in Marion, Alabama, when Jimmie Lee Jackson was shot down. (Lord) I saw my dream shattered one night in Selma when Reverend Reeb was clubbed to the ground by a vicious racist and later died. And oh, I continue to see it shattered as I walk through the Harlems of our nation (Yes) and see sometimes ten and fifteen Negroes trying to live in one or two rooms. (Yes) I've been down to the Delta of Mississippi since then, and I've seen my dream shattered as I met hundreds of people who didn't earn more than six or seven hundred dollars a week. I've seen my dream shattered as I've walked the streets of Chicago (Make it plain) and seen Negroes, young men and women, with a sense of utter hopelessness because they can't find any jobs. And they see life as a long and desolate corridor with no exit signs. And not only Negroes at this point. I've seen my dream shattered because I've been through Appalachia, and I've seen my white brothers along with Negroes living in poverty. (Yeah) And I'm concerned about white poverty as much as I'm concerned about Negro poverty. (Make it plain)

So yes, the dream has been shattered, (Amen) and I have had my nightmarish experiences, but I tell you this morning once more that I haven't lost the faith. (No, sir) I still have a dream (A dream, Yes, sir) that one day all of God's children will have food and clothing and material well-being for their bodies, culture and education for their minds, and freedom for their spirits. (Yes)

I still have a dream this morning: (Yes) one day all of God's black children will be respected like his white children.

I still have a dream this morning (Yes) that one day the lion and the lamb will lie down together, and every man will sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid.

I still have a dream this morning that one day all men everywhere will recognize that out of one blood God made all men to dwell upon the face of the earth.

I still have a dream this morning (Yes, sir) that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill will be made low; the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places straight; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

I still have a dream this morning (Amen) that truth will reign supreme and all of God's children will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. And when this day comes the morning stars will sing together (Yes) and the sons of God will shout for joy.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men (All right) are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, (Yes, sir) that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/publications/sermons/650704_The_American_Dream.html

The Shortage Myth

The Lies at the End of the American Dream

By Paul Craig Roberts

12/04/07 "ICH" -- -- Last June a revealing marketing video from the law firm, Cohen & Grigsby appeared on the Internet. The video demonstrated the law firm's techniques for getting around US law governing work visas in order to enable corporate clients to replace their American employees with foreigners who work for less. The law firm's marketing manager, Lawrence Lebowitz, is upfront with interested clients: "our goal is clearly not to find a qualified and interested US worker."

If an American somehow survives the weeding out process, "have the manager of that specific position step in and go through the whole process to find a legal basis to disqualify them for this position--in most cases there doesn't seem to be a problem."

No problem for the employer he means, only for the expensively educated American university graduate who is displaced by a foreigner imported on a work visa justified by a nonexistent shortage of trained and qualified Americans.

University of California computer science professor Norm Matloff, who watches this issue closely, said that Cohen & Grigsby's practices are the standard ones used by hordes of attorneys, who are cleaning up by putting Americans out of work.

The Cohen & Grigsby video was a short-term sensation as it undermined the business propaganda that no American employee was being displaced by foreigners on H-1b or L-1 work visas. Soon, however, business organizations and their shills were back in gear lying to Congress and the public about the amazing shortage of qualified Americans for literally every technical and professional occupation, especially IT and software engineering.

Everywhere we hear the same droning lie from business interests that there are not enough American engineers and scientists. For mysterious reasons Americans prefer to be waitresses and bartenders, hospital orderlies, and retail clerks.

As one of the few who writes about this short-sighted policy of American managers endeavoring to maximize their "performance bonuses," I receive much feedback from affected Americans. Many responses come from recent university graduates such as the one who "graduated nearly at the top of my class in 2002" with degrees in both electrical and computer engineering and who "hasn't been able to find a job."

A college roommate of a family member graduated from a good engineering school last year with a degree in software engineering. He had one job interview. Jobless, he is back at home living with his parents and burdened with student loans that bought an education that offshoring and work visas have made useless to Americans.

The hundreds of individual cases that have been brought to my attention are dismissed as "anecdotal" by my fellow economists. So little do they know. I also receive numerous responses from American engineers and IT workers who have managed to hold on to jobs or to find new ones after long intervals when they have been displaced by foreign hires. Their descriptions of their work environments are fascinating.

For example, Dayton, Ohio, was once home to numerous American engineers. Today, writes one surviving American, "I feel like an alien in my own country--as if Dayton had been colonized by India. NCR and other local employers have either offshored most of their IT work or rely heavily on Indian guest workers. The IT department of National City Bank across the street from LexisNexis is entirely Indian. The nearby apartment complexes house large numbers of Indian guest workers filling the engineering needs of many area businesses."

I have learned that Reed Elsevier, which owns LexisNexis, has hired a new Indian vice president for offshoring and that now the jobs of the Indian guest workers may be on the verge of being offshored to another country. The relentless drive for cheap labor now threatens the foreign guest workers who displaced America's own engineers.

One software engineer wrote to me protesting the ignorance of Thomas Friedman for creating a false picture of American engineers being outdated and for "denouncing American engineers and other workers as 'xenophobes' for opposing their displacement by foreign guest workers." The engineer also took exception to the "willful ignorance or cynicism of Bruce Bartlett and George Will" who he described as "bootlicks for pro-outsourcing lobbies."

On November 6, 2006, Michael S. Teitelbaum, vice president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, explained to a subcommittee of the House Committee on Science and Technology the difference between the conventional or false portrait that there is a shortage of US scientists and engineers and the reality on the ground, which is that offshoring, foreign guest workers, and educational subsidies have produced a surplus of US engineers and scientists that leaves many facing unstable and failed careers.

As two examples of the false portrait, Teitelbaum cited the 2005 report, Tapping America's Potential, led by the Business Roundtable and signed onto by 14 other business associations, and the 2006 National Academies report, Rising Above the Gathering Storm, "which was the basis for substantial parts of what eventually evolved into the American COMPETES Act."

Teitelbaum posed the question to the US Representatives: "Why do you continue to hear energetic re-assertions of the Conventional Portrait of 'shortages,' shortfalls, failures of K-12 science and math teaching, declining interest among US students, and the necessity of importing more foreign scientists and engineers?"

Teitelbaum's answer: "In my judgment, what you are hearing is simply the expressions of interests by interest groups and their lobbyists. This phenomenon is, of course, very familiar to everyone on the Hill. Interest groups that are well organized and funded have the capacity to make their claims heard by you, either directly or via echoes in the mass press. Meanwhile those who are not well-organized and funded can express their views, but only as individuals."

Among the interest groups that benefit from the false portrait are universities, which gain graduate student enrollments and inexpensive postdocs to conduct funded lab research. Employers gain larger profits from lower paid scientists and engineers, and immigration lawyers gain fees by leading employers around the work visa rules.

Using the biomedical research sector as an example, Teitelbaum explained to the congressmen how research funding creates an oversupply of scientists that requires ever larger funding to keep employed. Teitelbaum made it clear that it is nonsensical to simultaneously increase the supply of American scientists while forestalling their employment with a shortage myth that is used to import foreigners on work visas.

Teitelbaum recommends that American students considering majors in science and engineering first investigate the career prospects of recent graduates.

Integrity is so lacking in America that the shortage myth serves the interests of universities, funding agencies, employers, and immigration attorneys at the expense of American students who naively pursue professions in which their prospects are dim. Initially it was blue-collar factory workers who were abandoned by US corporations and politicians. Now it is white-collar employees and Americans trained in science and technology. Princeton University economist Alan Blinder estimates that there are 30 to 40 million American high end service jobs that ultimately face offshoring.

As I predict, and as BLS payroll jobs data indicate, in 20 years the US will have a third world work force engaged in domestic nontradable services.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: [email protected]
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18830.htm

Let me continue to search the American Dream

"We talk about the American Dream,
and want to tell the world about the American Dream,
but what is that Dream, in most cases,but the dream of material things?
I sometimes think, that the United States for THIS REASON is the greatest failure the world has ever seen,"
---------------Eugene O'Neill----------------

„I feel that I am a citizen of THE AMERICAN DREAM
and that the revolutionary struggle of which I am a part
in a struggle AGAINST
the american NIGHTMARE" -----Eldridge Cleaver-----------

2005 Writers Notes Book Award Winner!



Christopher M. England's Outsourcing the American Dream is featured in Issue #3 of Writers Notes Magazine as a 2005 Writers Notes Book Award Winner!



Outsourcing has become one of those hot button words in America, especially within political discourse, but too few people understand that movements within a capitalist economy are a byproduct of trends and pervasive thought rather than any one deliberate decision. Since an economy is composed of people, not money, Mr. England begins with the individual by taking the Maslow approach: only after a person is secure and sound can that person begin to integrate into a unit and self-actualize, contribute to the whole with inspiration and creativity. A company desires the best of its employees, but when it downsizes, the individual becomes fearful, drawing him into a protection response, hardly able to operate at his best. England looks at both the worker and the company, offering ways for each to take responsibility for his future while restoring belief in the American dream.

http://www.christophermengland.com/2005_Writers_Notes_Book_Award_Winner.htm

"Many people in America (and other countries of the world) today have achieved this American Dream. But life in America (and elsewhere) reveals that "the golden palace" is indeed illusive; that physical plenty, comfort or luxury, fame and power, are not enough"
----------------------------------------Stephen Lapeyrouse-------------

SEARCH FOR THE "AMERICAN DREAM" , PART

"American Dream", as a sort of vaguely grand, invocation of an secular ideal of human life and achievement in America, is an expression used throughout the world today, and heard in post-Soviet Russia as well. Like the "Statue of Liberty", or a few well-known words from the American "Declaration of Independence", this phrase?-and the images it evokes?-is immediately and easily associated by people around the world with the United States of America. This very pervasiveness in our time tends to obscure the fact that in the greater course of human history, it is of comparatively recent origin; an origin the actual historical source and meaning of which is, unfortunately, but symptomatically, unknown to most of those who use it?-including in America itself.
In spite of the widely-recognized, deeply troubled social and moral conditions in the USA today?-including those which make it impossible to imagine the "American Dream" as in any way a realistic possibility for millions of Americans (such as the poor in the inner parts of most major cities)?-the "American Dream" is nonetheless alive in America today. As an expression, as an ideal, it is a part of the national psychology and social conception: the "American Dream," at least rhetorically, is part of the discussion of what the USA is to itself, to the world and to history. It could in fact be argued that there are as many "American dreams" as there are those who conceive it. But the little-known fact is that the expression has an historical origin; one which is however much deeper than the world-wide popular image of the "American Dream". And the differences are crucial.
The "American Dream", pursued also throughout the nations of the world today has, at least the popular image of it, become a part of the search of humanity for how the human being should live in our time. And if it no longer competes with active political socialist-communist utopian ideals--being closer to what is called a liberal-democratic, humanitarian social conception; it must still be recognized as a vital, secular contrast to religious conceptions of human society in the world today. For it also, if in a perhaps less articulate way, presents a vision of how man should live on earth. (It might be called, in its popular version, an earthly or secular utopian vision of man and society.) And it is a powerful vision to mankind.
Because this expression and its ideal -- both central to the late 20th century's idea of America, and very influential in the world as it is?-is now known in Russian culture as well, it is selected as the appropriate introductory theme of "American Reflections". In this author's view, if the popular idea of the "American Dream" is simply unreflectively copied in Russia itself, as some final human and social goal and achievement of man on earth, this would tend to being a loss to both Russia and the world. However, in deeper fact, the original idea of the "American Dream" is certainly such that it can be enhanced by being complemented and completed by some of the best characteristics of Russian culture and character. The "American Dream" is mistakenly viewed if it as seen as some sort of superior replacement for the "Russian Idea"; perhaps, rather, as its practical, physical counterpart. As Nicholas Berdyayev wrote in 1948:

One cannot imagine the future of Russia as determined and fatal; it depends on human freedom. One can foresee an extraordinary development in the economic and political force of Russia, and the birth of an American type of new civilization, dominated by technology and the thirst for earthly goods which, in the past, the Russian people lacked. But the will should be directed towards the creation of another future, where the social problem will be equitably solved, where the religious calling of the Russian people will manifest itself, and where the Russian people will remain faithful to its spiritual nature. The future also depends on our will power and our spiritual efforts. One must say the same thing for the whole world.

By considering the original, historical idea of the "American Dream" in contrast to the popular one, it will be clear that--however deeply contrasting though the histories, cultures and characters of these two peoples are--some of the best of Russian culture should be viewed as a vital, necessary element in the search for the "America Dream"--at least in Russia itself. However little inclined Americans may in fact be to do so, they could do well to learn in this way from Russia. But any such complementation does not here refer primarily to any great impersonal political or social organizations and institutions, nor to uncritical followers of world mass consumer cultural trends (in mind and styles), but rather to "greatness in our own individual souls"--the significance of which to the original "American Dream" we shall soon see."

Part two continues

The Search for the American Dream, part 2
THE POPULAR "AMERICAN DREAM":
MIRAGE OF PALATIAL HAPPINESS
As widely as the expression is used throughout the intellectual and popular cultures of the world today ("culture" in the American "general" sense of culture, not Russian "elite" sense), in books, articles, conversations and arguments, one might readily expect the phrase's origin to be rather well-known. However, this is not the case. Rather, it seems to float around like some polymorphous intellectual creation (without an author), receiving various shapes given it by different writers and speakers from a multitude of divergent social perspectives -- especially, though not exclusively, in the USA. It has no "official definition", nor obvious clear meaning in itself, aside from its obvious association with America. But it is there, in the world, in the hearts and minds of multimillions around the world, pursued like some long-sought, illusive, golden palace situated somewhere in the West...
A few years of lonely labors amidst the well-stocked, open book stacks in major libraries of Northern California, eventually led this author to the discovery of its little-known historical source. This author believes that it is important for people in Russia -- especially in this time of great historical, cultural change, (including their new, deeper knowledge, experience and inter-penetration with the West, including America) -- to clearly recognize and understand the "American Dream's" original source and meaning, so that they may thereby better understand this influential social ideal in relationship to Russia's own very different history, culture and Idea. But first...
What is the prevalent, popular image of the "American Dream"? (AD). Though there are millions of variations in the details, most imaginations of the achieved AD would share much of the following: living in a large, luxurious, private home, surrounded, perhaps, by land and trees, a swimming pool and gardens; a grand house of many rooms, with a very fashionable, custom-designed home interior, and all of the indoor and outdoor amenities -- and servants -- which make life easy, convenient, comfortable and enjoyable. Add to this, of course, the many various objects and playthings of leisure and entertainment such as electronic entertainment, cars, boats, tennis courts, saunas, etc.; plenty of gourmet food and designer clothes, etc, etc, etc. In sum, it is material prosperity and success, comfort or luxury, which is generally popularly seen as the achieved AD; this is the life which is the goal in the popular conception of the AD. The popular tendency is to see it as some end, some complete human achievement in itself.
But how, and whether, one needs to earn this, is, perhaps, less clear today. Honest, moral, hard work was for many decades believed by perhaps most in the USA to be the open path to success in America. But the ways to wealth and fame have not -- especially in the past two or three decades -- always followed such obvious, clean moral paths; and thus there is present in the USA today a certain competing belief in "easy money" -- whether it is morally gotten or not. This is one of those social conditions in the USA which is widely acknowledged to be a part of America's social and moral crisis -- the so-called "crisis of values" in the USA.
For some people, the freedom to work in their own chosen field, creatively and actively, is the vital element in the AD. To others it is simply a comfortable home, with family, and a tolerable, good-paying, reliable job. For others, it is pure luxury, unencumbered by any work at all -- at least this is how the AD is seen by some. But, in itself, the popular idea of the AD is of material comfort and prosperity -- and perhaps the freedom to live as one would like within one's success. At its maximum, this would be all of the physical and material comforts one could possibly imagine. It must be noted that this image does not in itself include much of a philosophy of life beyond that of comfort and enjoyment.
But these are more the popular images than the realities. It often requires a full life's commitment and work, first to acquire, and then to maintain a prosperous AD in the USA today. Anyone who has a realistic knowledge of social and economic conditions in the USA, knows that now a great deal of effort and emotional strain is often necessary for people to get and keep their AD. What one might now call the Hollywood version of the AD is most often a sort of easy mirage ideal of palatial happiness... The reality is often a great deal of work and (di)stress.

In sum, the AD in the popular imagination -- and this affects the lives and aspirations of multimillions in the world -- is often seen as a physically, materially prosperous and comfortable life of pleasure, enjoyment and relaxation -- a sort of heavenly earthly life. Perhaps at its "best" it is imagined as some sort of permanent luxury vacation.
It must be recognized that this idea of the ideal, successful human life presumes a rather earthly conception as to both man's inner being, happiness and destiny, and the nature of life. Unreflective as the popular AD is in the minds of most of those who pursue it -- often most of their lives; it does not in itself even attempt to answer rather deep and fundamental questions of humanity, life and world. The AD often tries to exist with either very mild such beliefs, or even a complete disinterest or agnosis in God and ultimate human meaning; an ahistoria of the human condition; and a simple avoidance of what Dostoyevsky called the "cursed questions" of life. (Indeed, one might even say that the successful attainment of the popular idea of the AD is an attainment of a life completely "uncursed" by the deeper questions of human existence.)
The popular AD, as an ideal, is especially strong today -- whether named the "American Dream" or not -- in the world's mass, consumer culture, though it is often in fact associated with the unusual, apparently -- happy lives of the world's rich, powerful and famous. To the questions of life it supplies little more than the image of earthly comfort and pleasures. But this is not so for the original expression and conception of the American Dream. There the "American Dream" is seen more as a part of the greater, nobler life and history of mankind.
--------------------------------------------- Part 3 is one way------------

THE NOBLER "AMERICAN DREAM":
"GREATNESS IN OUR OWN INDIVIDUAL SOULS"
The idea of the "American Dream"-- however one may conceive of it -- has many precursors and kindred conceptions in America's history (and not only in America, of course). From the colonial Puritan's religious idea of a "citie (city) on a hill", through the political idea of the United States of America as a New Order of the Ages (Novus Ordo Seclorum; see the US $1 bill) of 1776; the "land of the free", "the land of infinite possibilities"; up and through the more recent social ideals of the hippies and "new agers", or the technocrats and computer virtual realists, America has been a land of many ideals and experiments in social utopias. The American Dream is one such grand social vision in the USA; one which -- as an idea shared by most Americans in its pluralistic culture -- affects the ideas and lives of, perhaps, most Americans in some way or other.
Whether in America's earlier literary, philosophical, historical or social writings, the particular phrase, "American dream", is to be found, the expression "American Dream" received its current modern origin, conception and wide publicity from a widely-read work by an American historian: James Truslow Adams (1878-1949). In his 1931 The Epic of America -- an examination of American history published in what turned out to be only an early year of the Great Depression -- the expression was taken out of whatever general or incidental use it may have had before that time, and placed solidly into the vocabulary of America's intellectual and cultural life. In the "Epilogue" to his The Epic of America -- and this is the modern source of the expression "American Dream" -- James Truslow Adams wrote:
If, as I have said, the things already listed were all we had to contribute, America would have made no distinctive and unique gift to mankind. But there has been also the American dream, that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of a social order in which each man and woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth and position....
No, the American dream that has lured tens of millions of all nations to our shores in the past century has not been a dream of merely material plenty, though that has doubtless counted heavily. It has been much more that. It has been a dream of being able to grow to fullest development as man and woman, unhampered by the barriers which have slowly been erected in older civilizations, unrepressed by social orders which have developed for the benefit of classes rather than for the simple human being of any and every class. And that dream has been realized more fully in actual life here than anywhere else, though very imperfectly even among ourselves...
The "American dream", stated Adams, is "a dream of a social order in which each man and woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable...." Here we find the necessarily-related social ideas of society and the individual. For Adams, the society should be so ordered that it allows the fullest, free development of the individual. (This emphasis on the individual, rather than the community, nation or state, has a long history and America and the West.) In contrast to the popular vision of the American Dream today: physical comfort, prosperity and pleasure, Adams considered the American Dream to be much more that "merely material plenty". Indeed, rather it placed far higher demands on the "simple human being".

"Things of the Spirit"
When Adams, in the The Epic of America, articulated his ideal of the expression American Dream, and how it was to be realized and maintained; he examined and critiqued the conditions of American society and culture. The high, noble character of the "American Dream", as he conceived it, must be considered in relation to that which he criticized of American society up to his time. His concerns of decades ago are still troubling and real in America today.
He lamented, for example, how "business and money-making and material improvement" had come to be viewed as ends in themselves; how the pursuit of such worldly accomplishments had come to be seen as "virtuous" in themselves. He castigated America for a tendency towards blind "unthinking optimism"; that is, for ignoring the darker and "sordid" realities of history and man in the USA. He denounced anti-intellectual tendencies amidst the American culture, and the predominance of a tendency towards quantity and material development, over quality and "spiritual values". He rejected the Americans' tendency to forget the past in their rush towards the future. Utilitarian tendencies in education, the dissolution of moral values: all of these receive his criticism. It is important to note that most of these criticisms applied not primarily to the social order in itself, but to the inner life of individuals that make up the society.
Adams repudiates, especially strongly, the economic-business view of man and society in which the human being is considered and treated primarily as a "consumer". He criticized this misconception, in relation to the deeper questions of the nature of the human being. Adams wrote:
If we are to regard man merely as a producer and consumer, then the more ruthlessly efficient big business is, the better. Many of the goods consumed doubtless make man healthier, happier, and better even on the basis of a high scale of human values. But if we think of him as a human being primarily, and only incidentally as a consumer, then we have to consider what values are best or most satisfying for him as a human being. We can attempt to regulate business for him not as a consumer but as a man, with many needs and desires with which he has nothing to do as a consumer...
Adams lamented the growth of uniformity and timorousness in men -- in contrast to the "strong individualism" he noted in America's colonial, frontier and pre-industrial days; and called for an equivalent strength and independence in his time. Rejecting the degrading influence of economic motives and realities on independent, intellectual creativity and literature, he wrote: "The theory of mass-production breaks down when applied to the things of the spirit." (A line worth remembering). For such, he held, leads also to the degrading of the needed standards for all of society.
Reversing what Adams criticized in the USA, one finds that he called America to: a viewing and evaluation of "business, money-making and material improvement" as means rather than ends in themselves; for a deeper recognition and understanding of the dark side of humanity and history; for an intellectually-vibrant culture; for the predominance of quality and "spiritual values" over the material; for a wise knowledge of history; for high human goals in education; moral vitality; a realistic sense of life and the world's complexities; viewing the human being as a full human being, and not as just a physical consumer; individual courage; a recognition of excellence in literature and thought: the "things of the spirit".
Adams is not looking to political-social ideals of state organization, nor to religious community and ideals in his articulation of the American Dream; he looks to the individual, the "simple human being".

--------------------------------------- not yet over-------------------

THE SEARCH FOR THE "AMERICAN DREAM" , PART 4

A High Standard of Being
A materially "high standard of living" is only the basis upon which the "American Dream" is to be realized. It is certainly not the end, nor the goal. Not to James Truslow Adams, whose use of the expression placed it into the language of America's twentieth-century national social conception -- and thus into world vocabulary.
As Adams saw it, a materially "high standard of living" is the base upon which should be realized, what we may call, a ?'high standard of being' of a person, in his mind, soul, education, cultivation and, ultimately, spiritual striving.
Above and beyond the mere economic base, the need for a scale of values becomes yet greater. If we are entering on a period in which, not only in industry but in other departments of life, the mass is going to count for more and the individual less, and if each and all are to enjoy a richer and fuller life, the level of the mass has got to rise appreciably above what it is at present. It must either rise to a higher level of communal life or drag that life down to its own, in political leadership, and in the arts and letters... The point is that if we are to have a rich and full life in which all are to share and play their parts, if the American dream is to be a reality, our communal spiritual and intellectual life must be distinctly higher than elsewhere where classes and groups have their separate interests, habits, markets, arts and lives. If the dream is not to prove possible of fulfillment, we might as well become stark realists, become once more class-conscious, and struggle as individuals and classes against one another. If it is to come true, those on top, financially, intellectually, or otherwise, have got to devote themselves to the "Great Society," and those who are below in the scale have got to strive to rise, not merely economically, but culturally. We cannot become a great democracy by giving ourselves up as individuals to selfishness, physical comfort, and cheap amusements.
There is a great deal here which could be commented upon: the relationship of the economic and intellectual life and values; mass and elite culture; responsibility to the shared society vs. class struggle; the moral requirements of democracy, et al.

"We cannot become a great democracy by giving ourselves up as individuals to selfishness, physical comfort, and cheap amusements." -- James Truslow Adams.
It is essentially a question, as Adams saw it, as to what is a worthy, noble life for the individual (as a human being) and society in the United States of America. What are the higher values by which a society may live and thrive, and how are they to be determined. Adams wrote:
If we are to make the dream come true we must all work together, no longer to build bigger, but to build better. There is a time for quantity and a time for quality. There is a time when quantity may become a menace and the law of diminishing returns begins to operate, but not so with quality. By working together, I do not mean another organization, of which the land is as full as was Kansas of grasshoppers. I mean a genuine individual search and striving for the abiding values of life.
So that it is the individual human beings working together (which should be considered in relationship to Russia's own community traditions and ideals) and their striving towards which Adams looked to determine the true and important values in life, and how the "American Dream" was to be realized.
Wisdom from Politicians? Businessmen? or...
Adams stated further -- in words which should be considered by all in the world who use the expression American Dream with any serious intention of meaning, especially today:
I have little trust in the wise paternalism of politicians or the infinite wisdom of business leaders. We can look neither to the government nor to the heads of the great corporations to guide us into the paths of a satisfying and humane existence as a great nation unless we, as multitudinous individuals, develop some greatness in our own individual souls. Until countless men and women have decided in their own hearts, through experience and perhaps disillusion, what is a genuinely satisfying life, a "good life" in the old Greek sense, we need look to neither political nor business leaders....So long as we are ourselves content with a mere extension of the material basis of existence, with the multiplying of our material possessions, it is absurd to think that the men who can utilize that public attitude for the gaining of infinite wealth and power for themselves will abandon both to become spiritual leaders of a democracy that despises spiritual things. Just so long as wealth and power are our sole badges of success, so long will ambitious men strive to attain them....
This entire quote merits long and thoughtful consideration; not only in relation to American history, past and present. It is important to recognize that after Adams rejected leaders in politics and business as the source of wisdom and values in his social vision, he did not then look towards any traditional religious doctrines, institutions or figures, nor to any social-political utopian ideology of any sort, in order to help determine what is a "genuinely satisfying life, a ?'good life' in the old Greek sense...." Recognizing as he did the secular character of the age, and the pluralistic culture, he looked, rather, to the individual human being: "the simple human being", who must search and strive to discern the better and richer life, and who must participate in raising "our communal spiritual and intellectual life". The individual human being, who, in multitudes, must "develop some greatness in our own individual souls". This is the actual core idea, the spiritual core of the idea of the "American Dream".
James Truslow Adams' ideal of the American Dream was not a description, but a call, an injunction, a summons decades ago to mankind in America. And one quite far from the current popular idea of the American Dream as an achievement of "merely material plenty". Unfortunately, this nobler ideal of the American Dream is less known and understood than this material ideal; and the spiritual contrast is far from clear or solved in the spiritual and cultural life of the USA today. It would be impossible for Adams to say that America had wisely pursed and achieved his nobler ideal of the American Dream.
James Truslow Adams, on business in America (1929):
If people wish to tramp about the countryside remote from cars, or read a book, or go to an art museum, or simply engage in intelligent conversation at home, the manufacturer is loosing a possible profit. The constant endeavor of modern business is therefore to get people to fill up their leisure with things, things that can be made and sold.
Plenty of business men are much more than business men and outside of their office and business hours have other qualities and other interests. But there is this to be said. Society at large, including the business man, owes its opportunity for a fully rounded life mainly to those who have not been business men. What will be the effect on all of us of the growing dominance of the business type and the hold which the business man and business ideals have attained upon our civilization?
----------------------------------------------------- have some patience to understand this topic-----------------------

"CURSED QUESTIONS" AND THE "AMERICAN DREAM"
Much which James Truslow Adams criticized and called for in the USA of his time, can readily be seen -- and recognized -- to be problems and necessities in America today. Indeed, Adams would vehemently reject the popular idea of the American Dream as it is viewed today. He would readily say that a materially rich but spiritually impoverished individual is a bad example for society and the human being; that a life of "merely material plenty" and enjoyment is beneath the level of the human being. As Adams wrote in 1929 in an article entitled "Our Business Man's Civilization":
Moreover, dealing with material things and with the satisfying of the world's material wants, the business man tends to locate happiness in them rather than in the intellectual and spiritual unless he constantly refreshes his spirit away from business in his leisure. When the pressure of business on his time, or his concentration on it, becomes so great as to preclude his reasonable use of leisure for the development of his personality, he is apt to become a materialist.... He may live in a palace, ride in the most luxurious cars and fill his rooms with old masters and the costliest manuscripts which his wealth can draw....but if he cares more for riches, luxury and power than for a humanly rounded life he is not civilized but what the Greeks properly called a "barbarian".
The USA there should be not naivete about this is, at the close of the 20th century, in a social and moral crisis. The President of the USA himself clearly and unambiguously acknowledged this with deep personal concern in November of 1993, in a unique, historical speech in Memphis, Tennessee (in the church in which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had given his last, "Mountaintop Speech"). As the President stated: the problem of "values" -- of morality -- in the USA is a spiritual crisis. The government could only address the outer, external aspects of the social and moral crisis. But he acknowledged that all that the government could do externally -- like putting an extra 100,000 policemen on America's streets -- would fail unless the inner aspect of the social crisis was met. In this speech the President of the USA stated many problems and themes which were in fundamental agreement with those six decades earlier by James Truslow Adams.
Things of the Dollar
The government of the Soviet Union used to present an image of life in the USA and the capitalist West which was exclusively and unrealistically terrible; often the people responded by an impossibly idealized image of life, culture and society in the USA. (This author experienced this, under late Soviet conditions, as some sort of spiritual compensatory need in the Russian people's psychology.) It is now long past time for a broad realistic knowledge and understanding of America, good and bad.

In this first America Reflections we have compared the ideas of the popular and the original, nobler "American Dream". In the first, the human being pursues and achieves a "high standard of (physical) living", wealth and comfort: things of the dollar. Many people in America (and other countries of the world) today have achieved this American Dream. But life in America (and elsewhere) reveals that "the golden palace" is indeed illusive; that physical plenty, comfort or luxury, fame and power, are not enough. The human being requires a greater meaning to his life, and cannot -- without some sort of adequate spiritual anesthesia, active distractions, or avoidance of its own inner life and questions -- really forget the deeper, "cursed questions" of human life.
Certainly there is much more than enough quantity of external, physical secular entertainments and distractions in the USA (and elsewhere) to aid in this avoidance if it is wished. But we have seen that the original, nobler idea of the American Dream not only presumes individual inner striving and achievement, but also a certain individual spiritual maturity: "greatness in our own individual souls". Here, history, literature, philosophy, religion, poetry, music, art, proverbial lore, et al, are an essential part of the development of any such inner greatness; they aid in the "genuine search for the abiding values of life". In other words, material comfort is only the basis, the context, the means towards the real achievement of the American Dream in the inner life, culture and questioning of the "simple human being" -- be that in America or Russia.

Dollars and Dostoyevsky?
Most people in economic, dollar Russia are merely trying to survive the difficult economic conditions, social climate and moral environment. Only a few are nearing material luxury. But the life of the majority of those in the world who have already achieved the material, popular American Dream, reveal that it, in itself, is not at all enough for the human being. It would be a great illusion were Russians to imagine that the prosperous or luxurious popular images of the American Dream are some magical and happy solution to the problems of the human being and society. If not all people wish to actively engage the "cursed questions"; it should not be imagined that the popular American Dream is their solution. This it most certainly is not; this can be easily learned from America's own experience.
Perhaps it will be a consolatory inspiration to some post-Soviet Russians to realize that their own intellectual and spiritual history can in fact provide a vital, necessary contribution to the achievement of the nobler American Dream. The pursuit of US dollars and "merely material plenty" -- the things of the dollar -- which forgets Dostoyevsky and the "cursed questions" of life -- the things of the spirit, is a false, illusory philosophy and direction -- and in historical fact, as we have seen, not even the true pursuit of the nobler, original American Dream. Russia should learn from America, that a materially-achieved American Dream -- in the its popular meaning -- is not sufficient to the human being and society. Dostoyevsky and the "cursed questions" are not extraneous, irrelevant or ignorable to the actual American Dream; they are vital to it. The President of the USA himself called for a turn to the "things of the spirit", and if Dostoyevsky -- and this which he represents in this essay -- cannot help guide us here, who can?
If Russians are now pursuing "an American type of new civilization" (Berdyayev), they would be misled to imagine the popular American Dream as a social or spiritual solution or as an end in itself. The culture of Dostoyevsky is a vital element to any true achievement of the nobler American Dream, and in this way individual Russians of good-will -- in their own individual lives, families, communities, villages, towns and cities across Russia -- have the possibility, task and burden to try to seek a Russian combination of a "high standard of living" and a ?'high standard of being' -- the things of the dollar and the things of the spirit. Not dollars or Dostoyevsky, but somehow, dollars and Dostoyevsky. The "cursed questions" belong to man spiritually, just as much as the necessity to eat does physically; and the nobler "American Dream" cannot be truly achieved--in America, Russia or anywhere else in the world--without the developing "greatness in our own individual souls," and facing the "cursed questions" too, in the search for the "American Dream."
http://www.americanreflections.net/
Dream unfulfilled.
Death is a communist

Let me put an end to the DREAM topic with a quote

"No foreign policy will stick
unless the American PEOPLE are behind it.
And unless Congress understand it.
And unless congress understands it,
THE american people are NOT going to UNDERSTAND it.--W. Averell Harriman

Let me respectfully close this CUT AND PASTE topic with one quote from
a member of this chat club.

c.i.- That is what is so great about this country. No matter how humble the background, a person with drive and motivation can do wonderful things here!.
Phoenix - december 5 2002.
There are still people who seek shelter to SURVIVE.

The Sierre Leonean filmmaker Sorious Samura wrote a letter to Jesse Jackson for openDemocracy's My America: Letters to Americans series. This is its first publication.23 - 12 - 2004


Dear Reverend Jackson,

As a child, like almost every other African, America to me was a dreamland, a land with the sort of values that we all cherished - and in many ways it still is.

It's the freedom - the freedom of speech, the freedom of association, the justice, the opportunity, the tolerance and religious pluralism that still makes America the big shining light for so many of the poor people of the world. I've always been attracted to America.

In 2000, while filming a documentary in Liberia about the long-running conflict with my country, Sierra Leone, I was imprisoned with three of my colleagues. If it wasn't for the efforts of the American government to get me and my three colleagues out, I would still be there now - or worse.

Not one of us journalists and filmmakers was an American citizen, yet your government - even President Clinton himself - worked very hard to get us out. I received a phone call from you, checking we were okay. Even as I spoke, I was surrounded by the chief justice, the head of police and five gunmen. You prayed for me over the phone and assured me of our release.

I will always be grateful to America. You showed me you are the good guys who care about our world.

So how can I describe how I feel today? I think the one word for me is "disappointment."

openDemocracy's "My America: Letters to Americans" series published eighteen exchanges between July and November 2004.
The series includes letters between the Somali journalist Harun Hassan and the American journalist, Michael Maren.

If you share openDemocracy's concern with illuminating the relationship between the United States and the world, please consider subscribing for just £25 / $40 / €40. You'll gain access to easy-to-read PDFs of all our articles and debates
The lives of so many people in Sierra Leone and the rest of Africa have been made worse by the ancient rule of African governments: "might is right". If someone more powerful wants something, they generally get it. If you are a member of a tribe or group that is weak then you will suffer if you get in the way of the powerful. Being innocent is no protection.

In my country, Sierra Leone, hundreds of thousands of my innocent neighbours have experienced a more awful toll of human pain and suffering than you can possibly imagine, Reverend Jackson, and as I have grown up I have come to understand that this crude idea that might is right is probably responsible for most of this pain and the sadness and madness of my country and my continent.

America was the living, breathing example of what the world could be like if "might" was not automatically "right"; if justice was blind to wealth, if opportunity was available to all and if the innocent knew that the United States of America stood for them and all the innocent of this one world.

I say "America was", because now I have seen things that have made me change my mind.

Two years ago I travelled to some countries where the American military have recently operated, amongst them Somalia and Afghanistan.

In Somalia in 1993 the US army was initially welcomed - there was famine and terrible banditry - but things went quickly wrong. I walked through the ruins of a two-storey building where seventy of Somalia's clan leaders had been killed.

Four American helicopters, one at each corner, had hovered at the second-floor level of the building and opened fire. No one walked out of that place alive.

When I was there I asked myself how Americans would feel if someone did this to their own Senate.

Needless to say, the people of Somalia, until then divided by civil war, came together to fight the presence of Americans in their country. The famous "Black Hawk" was shot down, its pilot dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, and America withdrew its forces.

In Afghanistan, I visited a village in Oruzgan province. There had been a wedding feast a week before I arrived. According to the US army, they had been fired on from the village.

You could still see the abandoned food in the rooms where the villagers had been celebrating at the wedding party. The groom lost twenty-five of his relatives that night. The villagers told me that, right after the attack, American ground forces arrived and took away all the munitions they could find. I saw bomb-craters and bullet-holes all over the place.

In the hospital in Kandahar I found thirty victims, amongst them women and children. I saw evidence that plenty of women and children had died as well.

So, Reverend Jackson, I have seen what American power can do. I truly believe that those women and children were as innocent as any who died in the twin towers or on board those aircraft on 9/11. I know this is a very traumatic period for all Americans and many others as well. I understand that the evil killers must be stopped - but surely with more care for the innocent, the defenceless who get caught in between?
Sorious Samura's letter to Jesse Jackson is published by special request of openDemocracy's editor Anthony Barnett; see his "Best of '04: openDemocracy, open politics"
More by Sorious Samura on openDemocracy:


"My American dream" (March 2003)

Caspar Melville, "In an African voice: a profile of Sorious Samura" (February 2004)

"Re-presenting Africa: an interview with Sorious Samura" (February 2004)

If you consider this work valuable, please subscribe to openDemocracy and ensure a regular supply of articles, analysis and debates about the real world.
America to me has standards and values which for most of my life I have respected and admired. Reverend Jackson, my question now is: where were those standards and values, in the rubble of the village I visited in Afghanistan? Where were they in the destroyed homes of the innocent families who found themselves caught between American soldiers and their enemies?

I believe your government and many good Americans believe that your country's involvement in Iraq is "a righteous cause". But I don't think that is enough to justify the death of so many good people, people like you and me, whose only crime was to be between the American military and the people who hate what America stands for.

I honestly fear that the result of all this killing of innocent people will be that more and more people will join those who hate what America stands for. The children, parents, relatives and friends of the innocent who have died will become the enemies of America.

So how come "my America", the defender of democracy, voice of the voiceless and supporter of quality lives and human values, the America I grew to love, has become the America hated by millions in our world … now more than ever before?

How did we get to a stage where my respected America has become the resented United States of America ... an America believed only too willing to risk all simply to force weaker nations to accept its "made in America" label of democracy? How did we get here?

You know, in my mind, Reverend, America has always been the friend, my friend, the ally of the innocent and the free. Is this really true now? I'm afraid I don't think so.

Yours sincerely,
http://www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-africa_democracy/article_2276.jsp

I imagine that America's founding myths were conceived of the desire to escape persecution in the old world, to come to a new place and start afresh. But I am mindful that these freedoms were won at the expense of the indigenous people who had to be cleared out of the way to plant the new project of America. And that seems to me to be the problem now - America's domestic market has outgrown its domestic resources.

America has only 5% of the world's population but it consumes 25% of the world's energy. The gap is measured in the distance between the ideals of the Founding Fathers and those of the neo-conservative Project for a New American Century. The United States government must satisfy the gluttonous thirst for life, liberty and happiness of its citizenry. This takes energy. The liberty of Americans requires America to control the world's oilfields - and this means America has to threaten the life and liberty of countless millions of non-Americans.

Nonetheless, a Supreme Court ruling in June 2004 rejected an effort by the administration of President George W Bush to narrow the application of a 215-year-old law (the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789) that allows foreigners to file suits against violations of certain international laws - regardless of where in the world they occurred. This, I suggest, is the kind of ruling that maintains the world's faith in American justice. Lawsuits like my own rely on these decisions that challenge and limit the ability of corporations to get away with murder. Can you see how important it is that the nation of liberty respects the liberty of all the world's citizens?

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