American Dream Redefined: Union Domination

There is a war of words going on, Newspeak in action: just what is the American Dream?  Is it just having as much money and stuff as everyone else or is it liberty, the freedom to fail, and opportunity for all with no guarantees, but you get to keep what you earn?

From the horse’s mouth at MoveOn.org:

Rally to Save [ed. Kill] the American Dream

In Wisconsin and around our country, the American Dream is under fierce attack. Instead of creating jobs, Republicans are giving tax breaks to corporations and the very rich—and then cutting funding for education, police, emergency response, and vital human services.

On Saturday, February 26, at noon local time, we are organizing rallies in front of every statehouse and in every major city to stand in solidarity with the people of Wisconsin. We demand an end to the attacks on worker’s rights and public services across the country. We demand investment, to create decent jobs for the millions of people who desperately want to work. And we demand that the rich and powerful pay their fair share.

We are all Wisconsin. We are all Americans.

Here’s a list of the co-conspirators:

Campaign for America’s Future, Crooks and Liars, Daily Kos, Digby, Down With Tyranny, Firedoglake, Blogging Blue Blue Cheddar, Blue Hampshire, Blue Jersey,  Blue Mass Group, Blue Virginia, Calitics, Dane 101, Delaware Liberal, Delaware Way, Democracy for New Mexico, Florida Progressive Coalition, Not Larry Sabato, Forward Lookout, Green Mountain Daily, Keystone Progress, Left in Alabama, Left on the Lake, MN Progressive Project, My Left Nutmeg, New Nebraska, One Wisconsin Now, The Pennsylvania Progressive, Sacramento for Democracy, Solidarity Wisconsin, Uppity Wisconsin, West Virginia Blue Blogger.

Michelle Malkin reports on the makeup of the ‘protestors’ in New Jersey :

Hey, hey, outta their way, CWA renting protesters for pay in NJ

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Eager to boost their rent-a-mob numbers, the Communications Workers of America (yes, the same union linked to the attack on FreedomWorks employees) in New Jersey are bribing union members to protest GOP Gov. Chris Christie. Via Newark Star-Ledger h/t Chris Wysocki:

There appears to be efforts from unions to get more members to beat the drum today in Trenton. According to an e-mail obtained by The Star-Ledger, CWA Local 1038 is preparing for the rally with boxed lunches, leaflets and ponchos because of the expected rain.

The union is also offering to reimburse wages for anyone who takes a half-day off to participate in the rally.

“You must use your own time, either vacation or AL (administrative leave), and give the local a photocopy of your paystub. Please note that the payment for lost-time wages will be mailed to you; it will not be paid tomorrow,” the e-mail states.

It is just mind-boggling to think that Socialists… Marxists… can truly believe that they are the protectors of the American Dream.  Truth be told, the term itself is an invention of the ‘progressive’ left during the Wilson administration.  Their version is a concept characterized by greed, jealousy and retribution, accomplished by government confiscation and destruction of private property and income, which benefits no one and harms everyone.   The greedy are never sated, but their actions cut off the very fountain of commerce which must flow free to quench their endless desires for more!

For a little history we can google the American Dream on  Wikipedia:

The American Dream, sometimes in the phrase “Chasing the American Dream,” is a national ethos of the United States in which freedom includes a promise of the possibility of prosperity and success. In the American Dream, first expressed by James Truslow Adams in 1931, “life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement” regardless of social class or circumstances of birth.[1] The idea of the American Dream is rooted in the United States Declaration of Independence which proclaims that “all men are created equal” and that they are “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights” including “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”[2]

20th century

Historian James Truslow Adams popularized the phrase “American Dream” in his 1931 book Epic of America:

The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, also too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.[1]

And later he wrote:

The American Dream, that has lured tens of millions of all nations to our shores in the past century has not been a dream of material plenty, though that has doubtlessly counted heavily. It has been a dream of being able to grow to fullest development as a man and woman, unhampered by the barriers which had slowly been erected in the older civilizations, unrepressed by social orders which had developed for the benefit of classes rather than for the simple human being of any and every class.

Martin Luther King Jr. in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” (1963) rooted the civil rights movement in the black quest for the American dream:[6]

“We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands. . . . when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judeo-Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.”

A German immigrant during the 19th century eloquently described the “American Dream” in terms that I think we all can agree with again from Wikipedia:

In the 19th century the most articulate immigrants to the United States were the well-educated refugees who fled the failed revolution in Germany in 1848. They often compared the two countries, laying great stress on the political freedoms in the New World, and the lack of a hierarchical or aristocratic society that determined the ceiling for individual aspirations. One of them explained:

”The German emigrant comes into a country free from the despotism, privileged orders and monopolies, intolerable taxes, and constraints in matters of belief and conscience. Everyone can travel and settle wherever he pleases. No passport is demanded, no police mingles in his affairs or hinders his movements….Fidelity and merit are the only sources of honor here. The rich stand on the same footing as the poor; the scholar is not a mug above the most humble mechanics; no German ought to be ashamed to pursue any occupation….[In America] wealth and possession of real estate confer not the least political right on its owner above what the poorest citizen has. Nor are there nobility, privileged orders, or standing armies to weaken the physical and moral power of the people, nor are there swarms of public functionaries to devour in idleness credit for. Above all, there are no princes and corrupt courts representing the so-called divine ‘right of birth.’ In such a country the talents, energy and perseverance of a person…have far greater opportunity to display than in monarchies.”[5]

FYI here is a poster of the groups sponsoring the nationwide revolution of  ‘solodarity’ on Saturday:

Comments

  1. Maybe even a liberal/progressive/socialist can understand this:

    Understanding the differences between Public and Private sector Unions:

    http://therealrevo.com/blog/?p=41406

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