The American Dream

 

What is The American Dream? Where can it be found? Is it in the Porno-Pop Culture of  Fame? Does it reside in the Shimmering-Limelight-Illusions of Hollywood? Or is it entrenched in East Coast Wealth passed down from Generation to Generation? Is it in the Get-Rich-Quick California kinda dreamin' ? From all the land grabbin' to The Gold Rush to Silicon Valley? Is The American Dream captive of all those bouncing balls in the Powerball Lottery machine? Is it in our hopes for the Next Generation of Americans? Funny that American Dreaming seems always to be on the surface, but the thing about it that isn't so funny is The Native Americans had a dream too, and we extinguished that one. Replacing living, as one with Mother Nature, with some kind of Sadomasochistic Rape & Bondage Theme, a movable feast of fetishes, power, and greed. A dream turned into a nightmare, for these days we have begun to realize we gotta start dreamin' like the dream we extinguished, or the livability of Mother Earth is doomed, and we, along with it. Funny? Not so funny? What they call Global Warming has made even The Hippies of The '60s seem on the right track. The American Dream has to turn from the exterior world of things, which we have surely abused, into the interior world of values, which we have sorely neglected.

 

Now the deal is dreaming is an interior kinda thing and sets up how we relate to reality. Our dreams make sense of the way we live and tell us about the world we live in. Dreams tell us who we are. MLK saw that The American Dream in this kinda way, and his was a dream of interior values. The American Dream of acceptance and equality.

 

The American Empire is crumbling 'like matchsticks into one another' to quote Dylan, who as the Poet Laureate of The '60s was not kind to The American Dream. He got inside her and tap danced around, as Dylan always said, he was just a song and dance man. The only revolution is a Revolution of Consciousness and The Psychedelic '60s pointed to the fact that everything is alive, connected, whole, and sacred. Living is being. The moment timeless. Such dreaming can take us ever deeper into The River of Life. 

 

So are we as Americans going to continue to let The Dogs of Capitalism, psychopathic international corporations, define The American Dream for us? Dumb us down and market her as a shallow whore of consumption ? Will we continue to let the religious dogmas that gave birth to Manifest Destiny, and dominion over all, continue to blind us to the fact that everything is alive and deserves it's place under the sun? Will we forever dream so shallowly? Fitfully? Tossing to and fro? Well? The Smart Boys in Las Vegas always put their money on The Capitalists when they place their bets. The Hippie Way is such a long shot you can always get good odds on that one. Me? I think The American Empire is gonna fall because we were dreaming the wrong dream. We did have a chance in The '60s to start dreaming a different dream, a dream of interior realities, but the intrinsic value of what the young were saying to their elders in those days was ignored, and only met with control, disdain. Thought always trumps love in this World of Illusions, a realm where Maya readily grows and flourishes. It's like this world is supposed to be fucked up. What can go wrong will go wrong. Murphy's Law.

 

So what do you want from this life? What's going to fulfill you? How do you see The American Dream? How do you see things? What do you dream of? It's all about the individual you know. Societies are only as strong as the character of their citizens.

 

There are two links posted below, one is a Wikipedia link to The American Dream, the other a talk given by Krishnamurti. Are we gonna end up like Willy Lohman saying: "I realized what a ridiculous lie my whole life has been."? Are we gonna jump in The Red Shark with our lawyer and head to Vegas from The Polo Lounge, ignoring all the bats along the way, searching for The American Dream? Are we gonna be as accepting as Huckleberry Finn? As loving as MLK? What's it gonna be?

 

 I believe that Americans these days see The American Dream as an interior kinda thing, spiritual values over materialistic accumulation, so to speak, but you rarely get that from the media. Like old Norman Rockwell up there painting his portrait it's a question of how we see things? How do we see ourselves? America needs to take a good look in that mirror. We need to see ourselves as we actually are, because The American Dream may be dead and buried upon the grounds of Robert E Lee's old home, resting by The Potomac River. Arlington National Cemetery. We have to dig her up and breathe new life into her.

 

We need a new American Mythology. One that's alive in the moment. Not the one entombed in the plastic of Disneyland. 

 

 

 

Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me,

I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.

Hey! Mr. Tambourine man, play a song for me,

in the jingle jangle morning I'll come following you.

 

Then take me disappearin' though the smoke rings of my mind,

Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,

The haunted frightened trees, out to the windy beach,

Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow,

Yes to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,

Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,

With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,

Let me forget about today until tomorrow. 

 

Bob Dylan

 

 

 

 How can we dream

 The American Dream

 unless

 American Mythology

 wakes up?

 

 

 

Mother Earth

has set

the clock

ticking.

 

 

 

 

The Great American Spiritual Desert 

 

         "Las Vegas is the savage heart of The American Dream." Dr Hunter S Thompson

            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream#History

From February 6th through the 9th 2013 on Kinfonet....The Krishnamurti Quote of The Day.....gives account of the 5th Public Talk given in Ommen, Holland on the 12th of August, 1938. Just hit.....'next quote'.....and over 4 days you get the entire talk. 

    http://www.kinfonet.org/krishnamurti/quotes/desire-cannot-exist-by-itself-it-must-always-be-in
 

The American Culture of Guns and Fear

  Gun laws work, all you have to do is google Australia to find a shining example (the assault rifle ban worked here for years too with the exception of Columbine), but now the NRA is going to tell us that even though it might have worked 'over there' you'll have to pry my gun out of my cold dead hands to take it from me. I ain't gonna give up my guns. Why in Virginia these days I can even pack heat at the local diner. That's The 2nd Amendment my boy. That's what America is all about. Guns and Fear. Arm the schools. Arm the churches. Arm the parking lots. There will come a time when The Guys in the Black Hats show up with their guns and The Guys in the White Hats better be carrying their pieces too. All very Cowboy and Indian. All very very  Bad Karma.
   There's going to be a lot of Fear and Loathing in the carnival of our political discourse in the coming days and it's going to last more than one or two news cycles. There's a lot of people fed up with guns and the killing, and there's a lot of people paralyzed by that fear and dependent on their guns. Things are going to get real nasty, because we as a nation have more guns than the rest of the world, and we're good at killing each other with them.
   This is going to be just another 'litmous test' of  our American Character. We'll watch the pundits, politicians, and talking heads as we remember the twenty dead 6 year olds.........all this dialogue destined to make the sane sick at heart. And there will be questions........
   Will we expand our mental health programs to the Pre-Gipper Years and beyond? Will the CDC take up gun violence as a health issue like they did car accidents? Will owning guns be regulated like owning cars? Will assault weapons be banned again? Will any of this stop the killing? Not only the fame of mass murder, but the ignominious everyday run of the mill murders we see on the news everyday? Will our sense of community embrace our outcasts so that they would not attack us? Not in the America I know......
   Wars of aggression, torture, drone killings, predatory financial practices, domestic spying: we live in a Kingdom of Corporate Whores, shills for the military-industrial-congressional complex, and we spread death better than the proverbial Four Horsemen of The Apocalypse. All you got to do is watch. It's on your television set everyday, but whomever speaks in favor of guns will do so with a backdrop of 20 dead children's faces.

  
  
    

Democracy versus Capitalism

   Another school shooting. Another American Mass Murder, graded on the amount of indifference and carnage, weighed in upon the scales of fame, and now, the POTUS says that this is unacceptable and we must change. Change what? Gun laws? Mental health programs? The fabric of American community? How deep must the change go for such atrocities to end?
  When democracy finally realizes that capitalism has no values, with the exception of the more, and that our capitalist culture is what denigrates our personal relationships, and the fabric of community, maybe that would be a start of some real change. These days it seems as if all the functions of capitalism, of management itself,  have turned on American society. The financial crisis of 2008. Shipping manufacturing jobs overseas. Capitalism seems to value labor only as a commodity and fails to realize that consumers and employees are essentially human beings, much more than functions and commodities. Americans are citizens, and it's democracy that allows every corporation the right  to exist. Democracy has the ability to pull the plug on any capitalist venture, but our representative government has been bought wholesale by capitalism, ruled by their narrow interests, all covertly administered by corporate lobbyists. Even banning assault weapons is a law we passed that was washed under the bridge.
   Change? Our society is based on competition, individual relationships of mutual usage, all based on greed, on wealth, on fame, and such a social compact has it's very foundation resting upon such violence. No wall streeter went to jail. George Bush is a war criminal and nothing at all happened to him. We started this country on the genocide of the Native Americans and the enslavement of other races. We're the only country to drop atomic weapons on another people. We have a deep history of violence. We're even killing other peoples children with drones, but these days Corporate America not only feeds on the other nations of the world, but on it's own people. Violence seems to be 'the flowering' of who we are. To change that demands more than outlawing assault weapons, requiring background checks, and upping the scope of community health services. Such change requires a change in the way we see ourselves, a change in the way we live.
   You have to find this out for yourself, for there are no political or religious answers. All the people of the world are more than employees, more than consumers, more than accumulated wealth, more than fame, even more than citizens. What are we? We all have but a short time upon this earth to ask these questions, made even shorter by corporate environmental degradation and poisoning: what we call Global Warming. What is the answer?
  

~~~Success Implies Brutality~~~

   Our stomachs demand that we kill to survive~~~as this Remington painting Hungry Moon reveals. It's a sorrowful part of living within the violence of space-time, as the second law of thermodynamics applies to all systems. It is the way it is. All things must pass~~~they are temporary~~~and~~~death is at the end of everything. But in our temporal existence here on earth where all in the end is impermanent~~~do we have to be so ruthless in our accumulations? Do we not see ourselves in our fellow man? Can we not take what we need and leave the rest? Hunter gatherers like the American Indians above were much more sane than my fellowman these days~~~for thought and mankind's inventions~~~have brutalized us more than we can imagine. Some tribes of Indians had no word for~~~sacred~~~for everything was sacred to them. The culture that I grew up in looked at everything as an object~~~to be acquired~~~and used. Is everything living~~~or dead? Krishnamurti put it this way~~~the essence of control is suppression. We suppress the life in ourselves and in others~~~all to try and hold on to what by nature is impermanent. Much dark humor in this. Fragmentation is insanity. Thought is destroying the planet. And we think of The Indian Lifestyle as savage.

~~~~~The Birth of Politics~~~~~

Kinfonet Quote of the Day: We are always caught in this misery of an everlasting battle with ourselves and with society. That is a fact.

~~~The Fate of Global Capitalism~~~

Kinfonet Quote of the Day: The present civilization is based on greed and individual competition; it cannot last forever, because it has no intrinsic value.

~~~~~~~~~Just Desert~~~~~~~~~

   "Why are you going there? It's just desert." This is what the convenience store clerk told my brother~~~when he said~~~we were heading for Yuma, Arizona~~~and so we left that Tucson quick stop parking lot~~~going onward~~~going west. Just Desert~~~was what we were all about~~~what we had planned~~~as we headed towards Pichaco State Recreation Area, California~~~an old mining area accessible by The Colorado River in the old days~~~and a twenty mile dirt road~~~that was cut through and follows all the paths that water makes through the wilderness~~~arroyos~~~& arroyos are all~~~Mother Nature's Highways~~~and that's what gets you to Pichaco SRA~~~these days. But it was~~~Just Desert~~~and we wound around the desert southwest~~~in the dead of winter~~~down I 25 from Santa Fe to Hatch and over to I 40 to Tucson and Yuma~~~up to Pichaco SRA for a couple of nights~~~and onto Palm Springs~~~then Baker, California~~~through Death Valley~~~to Tonopah, Nevada~~~down The Extraterrestial Highway~~~and on to Vegas. All to the tune of 2,500 miles~~~for~~~there is more open land in the western united states~~~than one can ever imagine~~~and we covered only~~~a small fraction of all of it.

   Barren~~~ & way too hot in summer~~~most life hides underground~~~lives in the night~~~or~~~in trees. The biggest shot of adrenalin i got all vacation long was not on the highways~~~where the monkeys drive to win their crazy races~~~but in a hollowed out tree that i peeked into~~~and saw~~~a little face staring back at me. He was ready to make a run for it~~~the little critter~~~knew two monkeys had invaded his campsite~~~his home was that tree. I had dropped a small pebble into the hollowed out trunk to see if something was living in there~~~and he headed for~~~the escape hatch. So why do things live in the desert? May be the same reason we incarnate on this earth~~~it's a seeming spiritual desert~~~you know. I guess in both cases it's just where you need to be~~~to play~~~the good old game of~~~Spiritual Hide & Seek.

   Reincarnation. Is that the game around here? Our world is so illusory~~~and real~~~but all that exists is~~~impermanent. All things must pass. Death is at the end of everything~~~it walks hand in hand with life. So as for reincarnation? It must die too~~~for there one day will be nothing to return to. The only thing that's going to last around here is That Which Is Timeless~~~and isn't That at the core of everything? Creation? Doesn't that mean there is a creator~~~and apparently~~~this world is not his home.

  Oh~~~the western monkey~~~is so full of~~~Whitewashed Jesus ~~that reincarnation is a subject never broached~~~never considered~~~never even thought of~~~even though Jesus said that he and John The Baptist were~~~Elijah and Elisha~~~you can read it in The Bible~~~Matthew 17: 9-13~~~in a conversation that came down~~~right after what happened on The Mount of Transfiguration. Theoretical physics so mirrors eastern philosophy~~~these days~~~that one day~~~we may see that what goes around also comes around. But as for me~~~i was never even introduced to reincarnation~~~it was something outside the western box of thinking~~~pictured as a heathen cartoon. So i ask myself~~~is reincarnation real~~~or~~~an illusion?

  Well my brother and i spontaneously began this dialogue on the subject of~~~reincarnation~~~not to seek to become better and better people through many lifetimes~~~or~~~to excuse bad behaviour because we'll make up for it later~~~but~~~in order to let  the spirit do it's work fully in people's lives~~~must it not take more than one lifetime to wake up? God's love wouldn't even leave one stray sheep to die alone in the wilderness~~~and so~~~with the short stack that all of us are born into~~~well? How can we realize~~~what life is~~~from this our whacked out perspective~~~our fractured conditioning? Some of us die too young. Some aren't born with a full deck. Some are whacked by their families. Some just by society~~~itself. We all fall through the cracks~~~somehow~~~so to speak. No one~~~gets everything right~~~gets it like they want it~~~ 'cause there are no perfect monkeys~~~on this planet~~~period. Reincarnation would give the spirit an ability to get it done~~~over many lifetimes~~~and the people that I've met that think they they know it all? Well~~~they're the ones that need reincarnation the most. One lifetime? Look around you~~~the people that i see aren't getting very far spiritually. These days are dark. It's a Spiritual Night~~~here within the confines of~~~The Great American Spiritual Desert. It seems as if~~~we all need more time~~~in the oven.

   Everything has a life cycle. Everything dies. Impermanence reigns in space time~~~it even trumps reincarnation. But what holds it all together? I mean all that has been created? There is a timeless consciousness that permeates all that exists~~~and the timeless does manifest itself~~~in time. What creation could exist without a creator? That's the game~~~spiritual hide and seek. God's lost and found. Maya and illusion are forever the essence of all the stories told within space time~~~our lives we live~~~deep within the confines of Plato's Cave. I mean that~~~the most important thing in all of Life~~~seems hidden and missing~~~'cause thought just can't seem to see the creator~~~and therefore~~~God~~~seems missing.

  I guess it's like UFOs~~~you can believe in them~~~but if you happen to see one? Then it's quite a different thing~~~then all belief is irrelevant. So really it's all in the seeing~~~not thought and it's flawed constructs.

   So i guess you're wondering why i would put a picture of Las Vegas Boulevard~~~taken from the 63rd floor of The Encore~~~atop this story of desert and reincarnation. It was the hotel room that i got for the both of us~~~but i really got it for him as i am pretty sure that this would be~~his last night in Vegas. He's not dying or nuthin' but god knows David is no fan of Sin City~~~Las Vegas, Nevada~~~it is what Dr. Hunter S. Thompson referred to as~~~The Savage Heart of The American Dream~~~a place where you're never too far from a mirror~~~and it's hard to find out what time it is. As i looked down upon all the invented environments and their lush trappings~~~and saw what mankind could have created~~~beautiful and adorned spaces with artistry and unique structures~~~and here in Las Vegas, Nevada~~~they had even sprung from the desert floor. Too bad that their foundations have no intrinsic value~~~they are all based on illusion, greed, individual competition, and a bunch of silly monkeys that think that they are so special that they can defeat the Laws of Probability~~~it's like fighting off death~~~and we all know how that one ends~~~but they all try to win what's never been won and do what's never been done~~~and don't you know~~~like they said in Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life~~~when a bell rings another angel got their wings? Well~~~every time a horn blows~~~it's just another monkey like Rodney Dangerfield~~~getting no respect~~~and~~~every time a light blinks in Vegas? It means another monkey~~~just lost a bet. Vegas~~~i look out the window and think what might have been~~~all my brother could say was: "They're all Monuments to Stupidity". May be one day we all will have reincarnated so many times that we all can see this~~~and that through such virtue~~~we can see~~~what is~~~and be free~~~of it. I'm not like my brother~~~i did gamble~~~and dug myself a hole at every sit down~~~poker, roulette, and a few machines~~~but it was not like it usually is~~~as i climbed out of every hole~~~seeming to walk away winning 70 bucks or so at every thing i did~~~but i tired of it~~~got tired of the hole. Like gambling or that critter in the tree~~~may be we keep reincarnating until? We tire of the holes we get ourselves stuck in. 

   So~~~at the end of the 3rd day~~~after~~~my brother flew out of Vegas~~~on my last night in town~~~i went to Larry Flynt's Hustler Club~~~& there  a sweet young woman picked me out of the crowd to make some money~~~and we enjoyed each other~~~and our time together~~~so much so~~~that at one point she looked me in the eyes and asked: "Did we know each other in a former life?". I said that i didn't know about those things~~~but? Who knows? All things timeless are related~~~and may be we did~~~but before we went up to the private rooms i asked her if she~~~had any rules~~~'cause i liked her and wanted to stay inbounds. Her reply? "We're gonna break all the rules!". And that's the best thing a woman has said to me in years~~~for underlying such a statement is trust~~~and a hint of~~~what real relationship~~~is all about.

   Me? Reincarnation? What with all the stories of people dying and flying above the operating table~~~and seeing a bright light? With my brother's son's presence appearing to him~~~before he was born~~~telling him his name and that he was going to be a part of his family? I gotta go along with the existence of The Timeless Soul and Reincarnation~~~but what i really long for~~~is the time when All of God's Creatures~~~great and small~~~are as~~~One~~~and return Home~~~into the loving arms of their Creator~~~and~~~i'll take as many lifetimes as it takes~~~on the face of this earth~~~this spiritually barren desert~~~or whatever oven~~~whatever hell~~~that i have to go~~~to get~~~There. 

   And it is my hope~~~that one fine day we will all together~~~pass through the sun~~~each one finding their own way and walking their own path~~~all following the timeless road~~~back to our creator~~~and back to our~~~Timeless Home.