General

The American Dream Has Been Irreparably Broken

by William Hanna, 27 november 2017.


There are many respects in
which America, if it can bring itself to act with the magnanimity and the
empathy appropriate to its size and power, can be an intelligent example to the
world. We have the opportunity to set an example of generous understanding in
our relations with China, of practical cooperation for peace in our relations
with Russia, of reliable and respectful partnership in our relations with
Western Europe, of material helpfulness without moral presumption in our
relations with the developing nations, of abstention from the temptations of
hegemony in our relations with Latin America, and of the all-around advantages
of minding one’s own business in our relations with everybody. Most of all, we
have the opportunity to serve as an example of democracy to the world by the
way in which we run our own society; America, in the words of John Quincy
Adams, should be
the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of
all
but the champion and
vindicator only of her own.’”

U.S. Senator James W.
Fulbright (1905-1995) The Arrogance of Power, 1966.

Despite having met and
befriended some fine Americans over the years, my long-held low opinion of the
U.S. in particular and the American people in general — an opinion confirmed
after I read Senator Fulbright’s book in the late 60s — has not only remained
doggedly unchanged, but has in fact become more entrenched and pessimistic.
Such entrenched pessimism stems from the inescapable truth that regardless of
an illusory concept of the “American exceptionalism” that arrogantly presumes
to present itself as the “superpower” champion of democracy and human rights,
the U.S. is in reality the world’s biggest violator of the very ideals it so
hypocritically claims to champion. This superpower which straddles the world
with some 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and territories abroad —
Britain, France, and Russia combined have only about 30 foreign bases — has
been responsible for the killing of more than 20 million people in 37 “Victim
Nations” Since World War Two.

 


“In the councils of
government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence,
whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential
for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must
never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic
processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable
citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military
machinery of defence with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and
liberty may prosper together.”

President Eisenhower in
his 1961 farewell address to the nation.
Needless to say,
Eisenhower’s warning fell on deaf ears and the latest Congressional homage to
the military-industrial complex was recently payed in September to the tune of
a $700 billion defence policy bill designed to maintain America’s position —
with an endless War on Terror and military interventions including regime
changes — as a global military power. 
As a consequence of such
largesse to the military-industrial complex and billions more in aid to a
brutal Apartheid Israeli state bent on an expansion policy of Palestinian land
grabbing to build more settlements for Jews only, the U.S. has become a nation
where more than 50 million Americans live below the poverty line; where 48 million
of them receive food stamps; where more than one in five children is on food
stamps and living in poverty; where an astounding 15% of senior citizens live
in poverty; where ethnic poverty rates are 28% for Blacks, 24% for Hispanics,
10.5% for Asians, and 10% for Whites; were being Black lowers one’s credit
score by 71 Points; where a new AFL-CIO study on corporate salaries found that
CEOs made 335 times more than the average employee who earned $36,875 while the
the big company CEOs got approximately $12,400,000; where according to a Forbes
survey 56% of Americans have less than $1,000 in their combined cheque and
savings bank accounts; and where an observation once made in 1967 by Martin
Luther King Jr. has become a stark reality: “A nation that continues year after
year to spend more money on military defence than on programs of social uplift
is approaching spiritual doom.”
To make matters even
worse, according to the most recent study conducted by the U.S. Department of
Education and the National Institute of Literacy, 32 million adults (14 percent
of the population) in the U.S. can’t read; 21 percent of adults in the U.S.
read below a 5th grade level; and 19 percent of high school graduates can’t
read at all. The prevalence of such illiteracy in the U.S. may explain why
62,979,984 Americans voted for Donald Trump — an egocentric mentally disturbed
racist illiterate with psychopathic tendencies — to become President of a
nation whose government’s first allegiance is not to the welfare of the
American people, but to the Apartheid policies of an Israeli state guilty of
barbaric crimes against humanity. Some of the wide ranging downsides of
illiteracy — the U.S. Federal Outlay on education is only 3% — are outlined on
the following link:

My continued scepticism
regarding the American people’s ability to finally wake up to the reality of
their dire straits and determine to do something about salvaging what little is
left of their “American Dream” was recently justified when at a London
restaurant I frequent, my friend and I met Danielle and Brian — an unusually civilised,
intelligent, literate, and most likeable American couple from Westminster,
Colorado — who were on their first visit to England. After the initial
introductions and customary friendly banter we eventually got round to the
subject of America. While they readily acknowledged their distaste for Trump
and the fact that much in America needed to be repaired, they were nonetheless
resigned to a hopeless inability to do anything about it. Such hopeless
resignation by decent and educated American people represents the sad reality
of the “American Dream” with its distant mirage of an “American Democracy.”

William
Hanna is
a freelance writer with published books the Hiramic Brotherhood of the Third
Temple, The Tragedy of Palestine and its Children,
and Hiramic
Brotherhood: Ezekiel’s Temple Prophesy
which is also due to be published in
Arabic, Chinese, French, Italian, German, Portuguese, Russian, and
Spanish. Book and purchase information, sample chapters, reviews, other
articles, videos, and contact details at: