The American Dream

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
The Paz Files

AUSTIN, Texas - At what point do citizens engage their own country? Is now the time? Here, as we get ready for the World Series of Baseball, as we settle in for the long year ahead of the obscene 2012 presidential election, here we are, pondering our next move. Already, the noise coming out of New York and Washington, D.C. and San Francisco and Los Angeles speaks of revolution.

Are we up to risking what little we have?

Do we dare go the way of the brave Egyptians and the Libyans and the rest of the Arab Spring rebellions? Americans aren't so gullible as to think that any sort of charge against anything or anybody will sell from sea to shining sea. But we'll see. This could be one of those moments in time, a time when too many rise to say, "Enough is enough."

They call it "Occupy Wall Street." It is a demonstration, we are told, being mounted to scream the idea that corporations have too much influence over our political system. Read banks and Wall Street into that evil influence.

"Corporatism has become the standard, and people forget they’re part of government," one young man from Maryland told a TV reporter yesterday afternoon. "It's power that’s come for sale. Our government has allowed policy, laws and justice to be for sale to the highest bidder."

It is, of course, an obvious conclusion. What this young man is saying has been the case for the better part of the last quarter-century. Big money has crafted our economy and it has bought pretty much every politician of note. You rise with money in your pocket, is what they say in politics. It has never been so true.

This upcoming presidential election will cost in excess of $1 billion. Perhaps it will save the major television networks and some newspapers. It should be the best year in media advertising in decades. That's big money buying major influence.

What's especially intriguing about this current unrest is that it seems to have found legs as word moves across the country. These protesters are targeting well-known exterprises, such as Bank of America and Wells Fargo and Chase. They see these businesses as being a major part of the social problems that have been laid at the doorstep of all Americans. They see greed running amok.

It isn't the first of its kind. Back in 1967, a smaller band of protesters pulled a similar stunt in the same general location (see photo atop this story). They issued the same complaints and went about walking with with placards that damned Wall Street. It, however, was short-lived, as these things tend to be when authority is challenged.

But it should be challenged, and Americans ought to go public with every bit of protest from the local level to the national stage whenever someone tries to buffalo the balance. It is that balance, that sharing of the nation's wealth, or the opportunity to at least imagine sharing, that is at stake here. Something's askew when 4% of the population has more than 50% of the country's wealth. In our capitalistic society, the word is that anyone can birth a dream and become a millionaire.

Who knows? Maybe these protesters have come to realize that the American Dream died sometime back and it's now time to recognize and accept it. Something has to die so that something new can begin, is what I say when the dust won't settle. That's what drove Hosni Mubarak and Moammar Khadafy out of their palaces, this notion that a Human Being will take it, but he will only take it for so long.

Today, when you overhear someone talking about these protests, lift a voice and say something in support. The status quo does not serve the collective. The status quo serves only a few. A recent report said that some 33% of our military servicemen did not believe we should have been in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Decisions were made and the treasury was gutted. Another said the number of American corporations paying their share of taxes was the lowest ever. These are the corporations that won't pay a livable wage, that ship their jobs overseas, companies such as American Express and Nike, among others. It is a wicked and cruel time for all Americans.

Politicians have circled their wagons and are taking care of themselves.

It is the people who are in the streets, and there is no question that it is time...

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