Day Dreamin'

"Once there was a way to get back homeward
Once there was a way to get back home
Sleep pretty darling do not cry
And I will sing a lullabye"

Ah, the evasive American Dream; what we wish for-what we want. Leaving aside the old adage "Wish in one hand and shit in the other-see which gets fuller, faster"; what exactly is the American Dream? Is it the sum of all that is important to us or rather, what we have been programmed and socialized into believing that we think it's important?

I think George Carlin summed it up best when talking about education and the owners of America. He says,

"The owners of America know the truth, it's called the American Dream cause you have to be asleep to believe it"

Personally, I think we've all overslept and now we must rush around frantically, try to get our ducks in a row.

It has been my observation that when asked, most people will tell you the most important thing in their life is family. Yet when pressed as to how many hours per week they spend with this very same family, it soon becomes painfully obvious that the majority of time is spent outside the home and away from their families. Between school, work, various sundry sports and/or grooming tots for acceptance to the right colleges, not to mention a nation of latchkey kids; it's little wonder that the home environment is more akin to ships passing in the the night.

In my admittedly fractional observations, money seems to play a big part of the American dream. Media constantly bombards us with the pursuit of happiness via the bank account; to achieve the American dream means that we, too can sport diamond "grills", expensive cars, McMansions and hopefully, leaving it all to our dog when we die and having to bribe our offspring into visiting our graves.

Of course, the one small dark cloud on the horizon might be the realization that not everyone can be at the top. The concept of waiting until one has saved up the money is so last century. And savings? Forget about it.

Perhaps freedom is really what the American dream is all about-after all, it's really quite easy. Slap a magnetic sticker on your vehicle, maybe dash off an email to your elected officials and voila! You're a patriot. Don't worry your pretty little head about such things as disappearing rights or total apathy towards the trashing of our Constitution; the government can and will fix everything...they have a plan to make all your dreams come true.

But dreams are funny things; so often they have little bearing on reality and upon awakening it's not unusual to feel somewhat of a let down. And maybe we take that dream and try to make it a reality; but we have to wake up first.

What will we do to achieve it-how far will we go and what will we sacrifice depends on us being awake and able to function in the real world.

In the 60s, Mario Savio wrote "...there comes a time when the operation of a machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part-you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop".

The alarm clock is ringing, and it sounds like the screaming of the dying and the hungry and the forgotten of this world.

Time to wake up.