I have a problem with the "American Dream"

I have a problem with America, and with the carrot known as the "American Dream". I believe it used to be a truth and I know it still is from certain perspectives, but for me, living here, it mostly feels like a hamster wheel which is powering the machine. The more I run, the more I chase it, the more power I'm adding to it.

Our focus as a country changed, it was changed by the elite for the elite and it sacrificed the common man. That's me. The slope which brought Corporations to count as a person and given the right, essentially, to vote didn't happen overnight. This was an erosion which began long before that act; the final nail in the coffin as it were. This country, in which healthcare is a booming business, sacrificing our nutritional & health needs in order to be able to copyright a plant is looked favorably upon, dirty energy is clung to and gone to war for, the power of the people to come together and protest is stripped and met with brutal force, the rights of the people to form unions is attacked, this country is not the country of my youth.... the American dream is dead and the elite killed it, or rather stole it from us all so that only they may have it.

That is where I disagree; you see I believe that we are the United States of America. We are united, or we are supposed to be. That means we succeed when we all have the equal opportunity to succeed. This country was built on the backs of men and women who gave to this country in the spirit it was founded upon; freedom. This is a free nation, though you can't tell from living here. Sure I'm free, I'm free to work, and shop and buy, and consume and spend and pay taxes to a government which doesn't care for me. I'm free to never get sick, or pay the price of what can only seem Spartan in its rigidity. You tell me, does getting too sick to continue working scare you? Are you scraping to get by? Are you taxed and charged ridiculous "fees" by banks, phones, gas & energy and so on? Only the richest are making money, moving forward. This doesn't look very United to me. We've got religious fanatics trying with all their might to infiltrate the government to turn the country to their interests. Will we be United then? I won't be. I'm not Christian, I'm Buddhist. Big Business has already slithered it's tentacles up the chapped and broken sphincters of our "elected officials" by way of lobbyists and special interest groups and this has gone on for years. Money buys the vote now, our leaders are puppets; don't be fooled. Is this United?

Why can't we cast off the wrongs of the past and emerge truly United? Why? Because our government blacks out cell phone coverage, limits media coverage and covers its shame, it doesn't deal with it. This is country whose President spoke out in favor of the free people being able to change their governments; from Egypt all the way through the revolts in Libya he supported the will of the free people; that is until it was happening here. This country is taking plays from China's playbook. Is this were you want your country heading? We wanted a government we could trust. We wanted a government that actually looked out for the interests of those who elected them, the people. We wanted to be able to relax and rest assured that what needed taking care of was getting taken care of in a manner in line with the wishes of its people. The sad truth to this is that it was a dream. When we stop paying attention, there is no reason for those in power to avoid corruption. The power of that corruption is too much to ask of any of us, and we know it. I don't know a single person with the morals or ethics strong enough to survive the gauntlet of corruption which is American government. So, tell me, why are we expecting of those who serve what none of us could be strong through either? Answer: we are not United, yet we are not yet broken either. We perpetuate the US vs THEM dynamic which we see in our government today. It used to be they listened to us and tried to take the most careful approach and stay popular, now they feed us the news they want and tell us what to think.  Neither approach seems very honorable to me.

There is an assault on the American people being waged by its protectors. We see it in the response to the Occupy-Movement. We are a free nation allowed to peaceable assembly, yet this right is taken from us. You may not say "us", you may not believe it, but this country is made from all of us, every man & woman and yes, WE are having our rights stolen. There is an assault on our education by way of our textbooks. In the long standing Republican state of Texas, where the majority of textbooks are printed, the religious right (which is neither) managed to sway the way our children are taught by changing the content of our textbooks. How about that for a long stretching plan for control? If we don't raise free thinkers all we're raising are sheep. Those sheep are bred to conform. Do not take my word for this, research it yourself and come to your own conclusions.

There is an assault on our health by making sick people a commodity to be counted on for revenue. Health-Care is a business; it's a business for doctors and for pharmaceutical firms as well as the insurance business. We're paying imaginary dollars for inflated service fees. Yes, there are medical advancements; to health problems caused by the change in the focus of our country. Think of is as a company spending capitol on R&D to sell a new product, because that is really all it is. Insurance has tied our doctor’s hands, how did they manage that? How could they supersede in a matter of health over a trained doctor? How? It's business, that's how. For every new advancement they make they keep obsolete machinery which has the highest ROI, such as the CTscan. Again, do your own research as I'm writing my opinion and not citing sources. 

There is an assault on our food people! If nothing woke us up before, this should. Monsanto is creating GMO foods solely so they can copyright them and force out the small farmer. They sued a farm because an adjacent, Monsanto farm, grew crops which spread onto that farmers land. He didn't take it, he didn't even want it, but he's being sued by Monsanto. So tell me, who has the money to fight this ridiculousness in court? Monsanto does. So tell me how is this fair? How is this right? How is this the action of a country which touts itself as “the land of the free and home of the brave”? This doesn't smack of either to me. You may think this is an isolated problem with a single company in the country, you'd be wrong. The rest of the world knows of our shame and recently President Sarkozy stated "The French government keeps and will keep its opposition against the cultivation of the Monsanto 810 maize on our soil,". Another country has the strength and resolve which we lack? Why don't you do a little googling for yourself and see how the government has mandated the use of Monsanto seeds for all government subsidized farms.  So unless you're buying from a known small farm, with known seed source, you're on the GMO folks. So let's get this straight, GMO crops are NOT grown for its nutritional completeness. No, they're genetically engineered to not produce viable seeds (can't lose THAT money), fast growth (screw Mother Nature, we know best) and appearance, because a bright and sharp looking fruit or vegetable is more important than feeding our people the nutrition they need. Think of this though, these are only the reasons we can infer by the actions we’ve seen, what do you suppose are Monsanto's long term plans? You know one hand washes the other and it's time for Monsanto to pucker up. What do you suppose our Government  Big Business will want in return? Well, all it has been after since its beginning is control.

What I'm saying is we cannot trust the regime which has power now, their main focus is, and has always been, staying in power. It’s the elite using the Dems and Repubs like puppets, it doesn’t matter how you vote.  Don't believe it? Just scroll back through our political history as watch as each side has brought doom by in-fighting and vying for popularity by using every disaster as a spin tool to make their party look better. Now, to me, that's treason. It's treasonous that they have neglected the good of our country and its people for their own gain. I'm saying we can't trust us. That's right, it's US or it's nothing. If we don't stop the damned in-fighting we already have we're going to sink and cease to be.

We need to face it; we are not heading in the right direction. There is nothing noble in the leaders of our country anymore. Our rights are being taken away and all we seem to care about are the antics of “reality tv” stars. We have not faced our energy crisis, at all. Our educational system is not any kind of focus in our country. How are we to perpetuate this beautiful country when we don’t produce learned people? We all know our healthcare system is a huge problem and we’re not fixing it. Our political parties fought that one to death, but we aren’t even trying to keep ourselves healthier. We don’t fight the destruction of the nutritional value of our food. We raise our kids on fast-food and wonder why we have an obesity problem and a diabetic epidemic. We want change and our government isn’t doing its job.

We are the people; we make the change by demanding it, by settling for nothing less than the honor and integrity called for by our founding fathers. We can argue, squabble and dissect all of our founding fathers and say they didn’t live up to this ideal… well that’s a great excuse for us not to and while we’re at it; don’t punish your kids for anything you’ve done since that’s how we wish to proceed forward. I say it’s time to shoulder the responsibility of the fabric of this great nation and walk forward, proud and United.

I would propose a few changes, while acknowledging that I am no politician, no maker of policy, no learned person. I’m just your average Joe who wants it fair for all of us.

I propose we start by enacting a clearer definition of the separation between church and state. We need to make all religious paths equal, none higher than the other and none of them as any grounds for political movement. If a politician uses their personal religious belief in any campaigning they forfeit their position and return to the private sector where religion belongs.

I agree with this, which is attributed to Warren buffet: "You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election.”

I propose shorter term limits for all Congressmen and Senators. I think that four years, like our president, is enough. Term limits should start out two years into a presidents term.

I propose we enact the United States of America act which unites ALL people by eliminating the designation of marriage (A U.S. legal contract in which is separate from any definition by religious means) as a union between a man and a woman and rewrite it as a union between consenting adults. It should also eliminate the wage discrepancy between men and women and simply be about doing the job at hand. There should be no preferential treatment for either side. It should truly be equal.

I propose that, in the interest of a strong country, taxes should be assessed equally and that tax-breaks be eliminated while the entire taxing system is brought up to ethical standards befitting the country in which we live.

I propose that infrastructure, health-care, education should have their budgets increased while the entire budget is analyzed by an unbiased third party accounting firm made up of one representative from each major accounting firm in the country with supplemental people brought in from the next tier down according to number of clients and complexity of accounts should more man-power be necessary. All frivolous budgets, as named by the unbiased board, should then be prosecuted as criminal for the politician which enabled it as "misappropriation of funds"

I propose that a constitutional amendment be enacted which requires the federal budget for Military spending (defense) be equal to, at all times, the budget for Education.

I propose a cut to federal pensions. Service in our government, "for the people, by the people", used to be a sacrifice, where as now it's profitable to be a politician. That was put in place for a noble reason which we no longer understand. You see it is by the people, which means us in the private sector sacrificing our own interests to run for office. It leads to political decisions which come from the very roots of us, as our politicians came from us, not "career politicians" whose only concern is staying in power. That is why our highest offices have stringent term limits.

I could go on and on about what I believe would help our country, and you may disagree with what little I've written here, but that's the point. We all must think freely and take an active interest in the affairs of our country lest it be taken from us forever.

I genuinely fear a civil war. I fear the atmosphere in our government right now isn't about returning this country to its place by adhering to the ideals laid down by our founding fathers, but rather making money, reaping power and exerting control.

Take a look around folks, take a real hard look around with your own unbiased eyes and see. Is this the land of opportunity? How can it be when all you have built can be taken, taken, by imminent domain. How can it be when the most ruthless of all loans you can take is for education? That means those that have money move forward and those that don't run the hamster-wheel and power the country all while chasing an ever elusive dream which once was.

And if you don't believe any of this, take a look at our future, here and now:

Top 10 in Mercer Quality of Living survey

1 Vienna Austria

2 Zurich Switzerland

3 Auckland New Zealand

4 Munich Germany

5 Duesseldorf Germany

5 Vancouver Canada

7 Frankfurt Germany

8 Geneva Switzerland

9 Bern Switzerland

9 Copenhagen Denmark
http://www.mercer.com/qualityoflivingpr#city-rankings

There aren’t any cities in the U.S. on this list.

Are we paying attention??? This is our country, here and now, and I'm sick of what's been done to it.