They never cease to amaze me, the thoughts of many in this country regarding socialism. Many reject it outright with scorn and derision and remain blissfully ignorant that America already has forms of socialism at work in it. When tax dollars are taken from people and spent by the government for the betterment of society, that is socialism. While many reject socialism as a word, they support it as an ideal.
Spending tax dollars to buy weapons, fund the NSA, wage war in third-world countries and set up tin pot dictators that benefit already-rich U.S. interests: That’s “Murican.” Using tax dollars to fund education, health care, social programs and lift up the lowest citizens: Why, that’s God-durn socialism. It’s a sad delusion many live under, brainwashed in a sense and polarized by a single word.
John Steinbeck said, “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” It’s a thought that still holds true today: Many of the masses still believe in the ‘American Dream’ that they will one day be rich, and that they will then need the protection of a system that perpetuates the rich staying rich and the rest remaining static.
That’s why it’s called the ‘American Dream’ and not the ‘American Reality’ — it is a dream to believe anyone can just become rich one day in America. The American Reality is that this is not true. The large majority of Americans work hard their whole lives and end up needing socialist programs in their old age, never knowing wealth.
Hard work and effort will not make anyone wealthy, and the rich will not open their doors to the average American drone. They decry solid public education but believe that the educations they received in U.S. schools trained them for things greater than being cogs.
The typical American system-educated oaf has as much a chance of becoming rich and climbing into the upper class as a fiddler’s fart has of becoming a symphony. Many will work hard and make the rich richer, and in doing so will buy items that make them feel they have succeeded … items that make them feel above those who cannot attain them.
Average Americans despise socialism because they see it as some evil effort to pull the top tier down, of which they foolishly believe they will be a part any day now, as opposed to seeing it as a system that is meant to bring the lower tier up. They see any effort in that direction as a preemptive strike against their future status and the hierarchy they are sure to belong to. They do not see a better-educated, healthier nation spending money as a good thing.
To try to explain this to many is anathema to them. Their faith in the American Dream and the American Way is only second to God, and to question any of that shakes them to the cores.
Also, the rich and entrenched do not like the average person. They do not want them finding their ways to their country clubs and vacation spots. They do not want them dating their children or mixing at their soirées.
A man such as Mitt Romney, who many people believed could have been a good leader and man of the people, would burn the average person like cordwood to keep his show ponies warm if he could, not welcome the average American into his social circle with open arms. The system works exactly how they like it, and they do not want to see change.
The wealthy do not just want to see no change to the lower classes, or to their own tax status — they do not want to see change in the middle class either. Middle-class people are the true cogs, the real drones that provide the cushion and labor to make them richer and stay there.
Members of this cushion look down their noses at those beneath, decrying any system that might raise the unfortunate up. They are the buffer between changes that could level the playing field for all, as long as they are blind to the American Reality and choose to sleep awake longing for the American Dream.
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It will not hurt to help those beneath you, to invest in education and health care and the betterment of all lives. Bombers and missiles will still be built. Fears will still be raised toward foreign nations in need of American intervention. We can still have the nationalism and zeal any true “red-blooded socialist-hating citizen” could want. The rich can even still be rich, but we may find along the way that we’ve bettered our country for the present and for the future.
