Conquistadores
Pravda is a Virgin
Reality is the wall that has proven the American Dream a delusion. As with any disease, I may spend the rest of my life getting the latest updates on the diagnosis from experts, compare the results and get lost in the jungle of a lingo and expertise that exceed my understanding. Or else I take charge of my life and destiny in accordance with my understanding …
The post-seventies worked on the assumption that the American Dream was impaired by an inequality of rights, the victims being just about everyone who is not white Anglo-Saxon or Jewish of Zionist denomination. In the course of the post-seventies’ colonization of public discourse, the American Dream was once again aborted, this time in the guise of political correctness. Whatever issue arises is used to gain leverage for the liberals and guilt trippers. Those whose interests purportedly are at stake, are degraded once again to serve the power gambling of one or the other party or organizations of activism. The term ‘billionaire activist’ makes a wonderful pun of the whole shebang known as public discourse …
The term was coined, I believe, by Mr. Marc Andreessen, and referring to billionaire investor Mr. Icahn, but the cream of irony is that Mr. Andreessen most likely includes himself in the line-up: “Hey, we can afford to be ironic. We are the wheelers and dealers, so whatever you or whoever calls us cannot hurt us. We are calling the shots. Names and labels are just so much noise, good for a pun, but only once. In the meantime we are shaping reality. The rest of you may cover the collateral damage ...”
No, I’m not suggesting that Mr. Andreessen is of such cynicism, but others may well be thinking and operating along those lines. The saddest aspect of cynicism among the wheelers and dealers is that most of them did not start out with that attitude. Long as you have not become a brand, and unless you are in entertainment and the media, cynicism does not carry you far, if anywhere at all. Success, however, is the trap that inspires cynicism, if only because of a lack of new challenges. The only protection against it would be humility as inspired by gratitude, both to your customers and to the dream that has carried you that far …
The dream, however, is not an agency. It is the product of hardship and inspiration. For me to maintain my humility, I must stay in touch with the source of my inspiration, with the agency that has bestowed its vision on me. I am but an instrument to serve the agency who is my safeguard against hubris and cynicism. Whatever success I may achieve is my tribute to her …
As a taxi driver, I had met many entrepreneurs who had built a company from scratch in the aftermath of the Kraut’s blazing failure at world dominion. As most Krauts they had been pardoned and were given another chance by their previous enemies, and those who made the deepest impression on me were entrepreneurs, proud of their achievement in a very humble way, not boasting but still driven by concern over the future of their efforts …
As they approached retirement, they had to find someone who would be capable and could be trusted to continue their work and lead the company and its employees to a future of sustained success, and almost all of them felt they could not trust their own off-spring with the task. All too often their sons and daughters did not care to take over; not necessarily due to laziness, but rather they wanted to find their own way, make a career that had not been laid out for them by someone else …
Whatever the intricacies of family policies and shared memories may be, as entrepreneurs of a humble spirit of gratitude, and of the most sincere concern not for themselves but for what they had made of their dream as something that was shared by others as employees, as customers, and as partners, I was struck time and again by the discrepancy between human effort and how the results are perceived not just by observers at the fringes (yes, the media first of all), but by the participants as well. That alone should sober anyone up who may, however temporarily, succeed in shaping reality in accordance with their dream …
With the soft treaders of post-seventies political correctness it is standard to see evil with those who deal in the more serious business of shaping reality, very happy with the life they have made for themselves by blaming and finding fault with others. Victimization has become their standard of evaluation, replacing notions of merit and value. By default success is seen as reason for scorn, suspicion and chastisement, with the exception of themselves who are as self-righteous as once their parents’ generation had been against whom the seventies had rebelled. The guilt trippers in the name of political correctness are the establishment of the post-seventies, as blind and stubborn as their foes had been …
The media strive on guilt-tripping and blaming, yet as a business they depend on making money. Since the prey and victims have no money to pay the media for their services or to place ads and commercials, the media somehow have to bridge the gap of inconsolable contradictions — commiserating the victims and finding fault with the wheelers and dealers, while simultaneously selling their product as an advertising platform to the wheelers and dealers. Thus the media, along with the politicos, have become the prime source of corruption of what once had been the American Dream. What memories of the dream have survived is but a wrapping to cover up the corruption of society and of the minds that shape it …
A German proverb says, lies have short legs. Reality will be the wall for those who have abandoned and betrayed the American Dream. No agency, no matter how influential and resourceful, can make reality comply with their fake version. Those who have fallen for the lie will come awake in grief and agony …
In its essence, the American Dream was about shaping reality in ways that offer hope and promises of a better future. The corruption of the American Dream has interpreted a better future in materialistic terms as a promise of increased wealth and comfort. The reality we are facing is a youth devoid of notions that might make life worth living and competing over diminishing resources. Neither reality nor parents and society offer anything that might make a difference in the face of less comfort and safety. At the same time they are facing ever fiercer competition over the basest of resources. Reality proves too much for them to deal with in a sensible way, so they take refuge in random acts of violence and abuse …
Society tries to cover up by applying chemo therapy and slightly less toxic coddling, thus only spurning the weakness and corruption at the core of what once had been the American Dream. A dream may be seen as a corrective and guidance to help us navigate reality, offering hope and promise that we may eventually find ways to live in accordance with our needs and without fear. No more cheating, lying and covering up. Only by owing up to our claims and professions, including our failures, will we develop the strength of character and integrity that will help us succeed without taking refuge in brute force and violence …
This has been the Dream that once had invigorated and emboldened the desperadoes and misfits of the Old World to cross the ocean, facing odds that made them look mad and insane in the eyes of those who stayed behind. Their dream empowered them to leave the cave they had been born to, and venture out to make it happen, unsure of what they would find. The dream proved more powerful than all the odds they were facing, and the dreamers bestowed this power on their dream and kept it alive by not backing down, willing to pay whatever the price would turn out to be …
