THE HIDDEN

NEW THIRD WORLD

Been thinkin'.  Got a little food for thought I'll share with y'all.

People seekin' a better life here in our country are lured by the chance to find work, and they are willin' to work hard.  They don't find work here because they pushed someone out of line, they find work because there are people that are anxious to exploit 'em by payin' 'em less, not matchin' FICA, not offerin' holidays/sick days, safe working conditions required by law...  Even refusin' to pay 'em for time worked or time and a half for any hours over forty in a week.  (That last one?  That's what that phrase "Wage Theft" refers to.  Think of it as makin' your employee act as your part-time slave.  That sums it up nicely.)  All in the name of Increased Profits, aka More Friggin' Money.  

The "Illegals" ain't takin' jobs from Americans.  Businesses are.  It's scarcely different than when American Jobs are moved Overseas.  It's the Same Sorta Thing for the Exact Same Reason- Increased Profits.  

If many of our politicians, particularly Those on the Right, have their way, (which is the Way of Those To Whom They Are Beholdin'), the jobs that have left this country may possibly one day return.  After the destruction of safety requirements, the right to bargain collectively, the rights to safe food, water. air, after the repeal of the Minimum Wage, Child Labor Restrictions, Overtime Pay, Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Protection from Discrimination, etcetera, perhaps then these so-called "Corporate Leaders" may decide to move jobs back here to the country that provided 'em the opportunity to prosper and profit in the first place.

When Our Middle Class has been sufficiently beaten down and forced into a dangerous, unhealthy subsistence living, then some of our jobs may return.  If They feel like bringin' 'em back.  But no guarantees!  They don't have to guarantee anything.  Just like They don't have to guarantee job creation or any other types of returns in exchange for more and more tax cuts, these self-described "Job Creators".  And we'll be expected to grovel and show Our Everlastin' Gratitude, gratitude for bein' given the opportunity to dine on their Scraps as they grow ever fatter as Our Unfortunate starve and die.

Huh.  I just described a Third World Country, didn't I?  Just the kinda place where they shipped our jobs to begin with...

Now how crazy is that!

Fish~

LUMPY THINKIN'

Couldn't sleep the other night.  Been thinkin' of the Track of Common Discourse.  Perceptions, Attutudes, Opinions.  That kinda stuff.

So- I got up, poked around in the fridge, came up with a slice of cold pizza and a nearly full can of Pepsi, and grabbed the remote.  Slim pickins' that time of night: Infomercials, Ancient Aliens, Miracle Diets.   Typically, I opt for the Ancient Aliens thing: wide-eyed characters with crazy hair positin' even crazier theories, cheesy re-enactments, even cheesier special effects.  Good stuff.  But that night, I found myself slowly clickin' further and further down the digital dial.  Down to that Dark Place where Twenty-four Hour Cable News lurks.

I knew better.  But I thought I'd just zip through...

Didn't take long.  Bad stuff.  All of it. 

Particularly all the Meanness.  The Hateful.

And then I got to thinkin' about some of the folks I know and have known.  People and families that have a damn tough time makin' it- good people. People that work hard, raise good kids, go to church (or don't), help their parents and families.  Good people.

I even know some people that used to be in a decent spot- maintained a comfortable, if modest, livin' for them and theirs, but now find themselves in a bad way through no fault of their own.  I've also known some that never had nothin', and never would.  Not because they missed or misused a chance, but because they just never really got one.  And from the look of things, I'd bet money they ain't about to get one any time soon.

Know what?  Everybody that falls on Hard Times ain't a Sorry-Ass Slacker.  The World just ain't that damn simple.

Sure, there are plenty of Takers around.  With a population of over three hundred, seventeen million, the rough number of people in our country alone, it would be ridiculous to think otherwise.  Again- ain't that damn simple.  But, there are also a whole lot of other people, people of all kinds, people from a near-infinite number of backgrounds in a near-limitless set of situations.  Plenty of Users.  Plenty of Liars and Cheats- some Poor, some in the Middle, some Rich as Hell.  Hippocrites, Bigots, Racists, Extremists, Fools and Intellectuals, Greedy and Giving, Compassionate and Cruel... on and on, ad infinitum.  (I use that a lot, I know.  Sorry...)

But, when we choose to embrace the Bullshit spewed by parties with somethin' to gain through redirectin' our gaze in a particular direction, when, in Times of Great Frustration and Confusion, we allow ourselves to be conned into feelin' the Need to Lay Blame so intensely that we choose to lock arms with folks that paint our very own people with such broad strokes that Common Sense and the Simple Law of Averages alone would prove it a Falsehood Absurd, when we choose to participate in the Wholesale Condemnation of large groups of our citizenry en masse, then we are guilty of behavior that is neither Devout nor American.

It's time for us to once again view television and radio as forms of Entertainment, as Diversions.  Time to stop turnin' to 'em for Advice, for Moral and Spiritual Direction.  It's time to Think for Ourselves and scrutinize the Words and Deeds of Others and take them to task when we witness use of the Media to spread Dogma and Supposition as though it were Irrefutable Fact.

Time to end the takin' of pride in our Selective Ignorance.  Time to wake up, open our eyes, and engage our brains.

Time to stop bein' so damn lazy.

Fish~

TO SLIP

Fragile old man

He lies sleeping but not still

On a narrow bed with wheels and motors

The sheet at his back cool and smooth

A vague shape beneath a cotton blanket

Thin but heavy pure white

I look down at him

Paper skin over bones of chalk

I am selfish

I want to wake him

Hear him speak and see him smile

But I do not

His chest rises and falls

Breaths short and shallow

That start with a twitch

A microscopic gasp

Puffed out past dry lips

An exhausted sigh

His hands twitch

With opiate dreams

A brow furrows then melts 

Now a tight-lipped grin

He's holding a small child

Or perhaps turning a screw

The release of a spring

Or a shudder from cold

A leap from a branch

Or stumbling on a ledge

I watch it pass by

But am unable to tell

Another breath

His lips scarcely move

A whisper answers a question

Asked only of him

Another breath

Fragile old man

Fish~

21 September 2014

CAREFUL WITH THAT AXE, ALVEERA

Gotta take a little time to set this one up...

Fifteen plus years ago, me and mine were in Wildie, Kentucky for a reunion of my Dad's people.  Everyone had gathered at Vincent Fish's place- beautiful day, big shelter set up in his front yard, shady, huge spread of good food...

After a couple hours, Vincent's daughter said she'd like to take everyone who wanted to go for a wagon ride over the family property.  She was familiar with some family history, as well as some other local things and would act as our "guide".  A number of us loaded up.   My cousin's husband drove the tractor and we set out.

At one point, we stopped up on a high ridge.  The stone chimney of a long since gone cabin stood lonely.  A hundred feet or so away, right  at the edge of the woods, were the barely noticeable ruins of another small log structure.  My cousin proceeded to share the story of a couple that had once lived in the cabin that Time had all but reclaimed, leavin' only this chimney, like a giant grave marker.

Cut to last summer:  I'm visitin' with an old friend at his folks' new place in Middletown, Kentucky.  My friend asked his mother if she'd fetch a particular guitar he wanted to show me.  As she walked up with the guitar, my friend joked as he reached for it, sayin' to her, "Careful with that axe, Alvira!"

That phrase instantly brought back the memory of the story I had heard years earlier.  

After about a year of messin' around, I wound up with what follows here.  Hope you enjoy it...  Timmy 

CAREFUL WITH THAT AXE, ALVEERA

Among the hills of poplar and pine

Kentucky- nineteen and three

There stood a tiny whitewashed church

As our Lord would have it be

There in that valley, lush and green 

Where runs the Path of Life

Tall and handsome Willie Monroe

Took fair Alveera for his wife

To a cabin small, on a rocky ridge

In a place both lonesome and wild

Willie did bring his precious bride

Where she'd bear him an imperfect child

Willie set out each day before the dawn

To provide his young family a home

He'd work the fields of burley and corn

And leave lovely Alveera alone

Careful with that axe, Alveera

Its trouble you might not know

In Spring, her days were plantin' and chores

With Eelie on her hip

He never spoke, he wouldn't walk

Just bruised her with his grip

Out past the smokehouse, in early Fall

With heart and fingers hurt

Alveera split the Winter's wood

While Eelie squealed and scratched in the dirt

Then Willie took to returnin' late

And set himself a liar

While Alveera lived with Eelie's screams

And stared into the fire

The days grew shorter, the nights grew long

The leaves commenced to fall

Alveera and Eelie would sit alone

And Willie might not come home at all

Careful with that axe, Alveera

Your slight frame might not manage its weight

As Willie rode home, one cold Fall day

In evenin's fadin' light

There on the ground, near Winter's wood

He saw that dreadful sight

Eelie's body, cold and wet

Bespoke a gruesome fate

While his head lay quiet in his mother's arms

As she crouched by the smokehouse gate

What made you do it, Alveera

What made you kill Little Eelie this way

She'd draw a breath, and "Trouble, trouble, trouble"

Was all that Alveera would say

Careful with that axe, Alveera

It may be sharper than you think

Fish~

NATIONAL PORK

Over the past few months, several stories have surfaced concernin' the proposed "openin' of Federal Land, much of it part of our National Parks System, to private  ventures involvin' the natural resources that may or may not happen to be located in these public, but currently protected, areas.  The goal?  To bolster the Fortunes of a Select Few, with little or no regard to the Consequences.  (Not unlike startin' a War based on Lies and Fabrications.)

 

Our National and State Parks are not there for Political Vultures to usurp, then auction off to the Highest Bidders.  They are controlled by Our Government, because that's who, like it or not, had the Collective Intelligence and Foresight to set these treasures aside for Future Generations of Americans to enjoy, and thus keep the Greedy Bastards Among Us from exploitin' and destroyin' 'em in their Vulgar Pursuit of Wealth. They belong to Us!  (Pretty sure that's also why we call 'em "National" and "State" Parks.)  Our Parks have been, up until now, protected from the Carpetbaggers and Corporate Spoilers by Our Government, Our Collective Representation.  

At least until recently, anyway...  

This latest Example of Twisted Socio-Political Capitalist Subterfuge reminds me of all the insanely dangerous Idiots' Indignation that arose when one Crooked Nutjob Millionaire Bastard refused to pay the insanely cheap lease fee for runnin' his cattle on Federal land, like all his fellow ranchers (who knew and acknowledged what a sweetheart deal they were gettin') were doin'. 

Just more Treasonous Prattle used to rile up a Certain Portion of the Population that's been manipulated and bullshat to the point that they can no longer see even the simplest of things because they're too agitated and too narrow-minded and proud to understand or admit they're bein' taken for a ride.  (Not the one they've been tricked into thinkin' they're on.)  

Sorry- that's about as nice as I can describe 'em, and it's far nicer than most of 'em deserve.

None of this has a damn thing to do with a Particular Interpretation of the Constitution or Somebody's Rights.  It is, in reality, just another example of the Manifestations of the Limitless Greed, Hubris, and Unscrupulousness of the Rich, all dressed up, disguised to appear as Proclamations of Inalienable American Privilege.  A Mask covering the Faces of Liars.  All Straight Up Bullshit.

(Gonna leap!  Stay with me...!)

So, just what do all the folks that seem to be just waitin' for their next chance to rally behind the latest Stream of Falsehood, (not all, but mostly from the Conservative Side, insistin' that the only way to create jobs and "save" this country is to continually give the Rich more and more breaks and subject "Corporate Citizens" (ugh!) to less and less regulation), what did they make of former State Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA), that Perennial Cheerleader for Freakin' Big Business, when he announced that he would bail on the remainder of his term to take a position on Wall Street for over Three Million Dollars a year?  Where's the outrage?  Where's the acknowledgin' of the fact that we've all been lied to, hard, and these sonsabitches barely even try to hide it anymore?  Are we so embarrassed when this kinda shit takes place that all we got left is to look the other way and act like it didn't happen?  Have we become that weak-willed, that apathetic?  That ignorant?

Lookin' the other way, puttin' it out of our minds.  I reckon that's what a bunch of us are fixin' to have to do when the drillin' starts in Yellowstone, the loggin' begins in the Smokies, and the minin' commences in Yosemite.  

But wait!  Perhaps Yellowstone could be spared!  Sure:  Divide the iconic gem into large residential tracts, thus allowin' for the construction of New Gated Communities, filled with golf courses and clubhouses nestled among Palatial Estates, Grand Palaces for the Über Wealthy!  After all, they're the Real Deservin' Americans.  Right? 

Now there's some Real Money waitin' to be made!  

Now that's American!

Fish~

WHAT AMERICAN DREAMS MAY COME

 Okay...

The followin' essay is not my own, as I have invited someone, if so inclined, to contribute somethin' here in my stead.  I now offer to you the resultin' piece.  (But the accompanyin' image is mine- thought it sorta fit.)

Many thanks, O Mysterious Anonymous Contributor.  Here ya go, y'all...

~Fish

WHAT AMERICAN DREAMS MAY COME

        The American Dream.  A nebulous term to say the least. Do you believe in it?  How do you define it?  Can you even define it?  

        For many Americans, this Dream is moving farther and farther outside the Realm of Reality.  In some sectors, a poisonous view has even developed in regard to the Dream, one of the most substantial and long-lived concepts of our American Identity.  To those people who have abandoned the American Dream, it represents nothing more than a broken promise, an incriminating stain on the Tapestry of Hope and Progress in the United States.  

        So, what is to explain this phenomenon?  And is it, as current literature might suggest, a universal American feature?  Well, we have delved into the history of the American Dream, and universality is far from what we have found.  The not-too-peculiar story of one Mohan Sopori, an Indian immigrant to Lexington, Kentucky in the 1980s, shows how the view of the American Dream from one sector of our society has remained relatively unaffected by this Cultural Ragnarok.  The Immigrant Point of View has persevered in holding the American Dream aloft as a vibrant beacon of potentiality, opportunity, and success in an otherwise pitch-black night of inferior alternatives.    

​

        But who’s to say that non-immigrant Americans are really that dour about what the American Dream means?  Do statistics actually support the idea that modern Americans view their namesake Dream in a much more negative light than previous generations?  In many ways, current trends do reflect just that.  

        The Washington Post conducted research on the changing tides of the American Dream in September of 2013.  In addition to some startling statistics about public opinion, the Post also interviewed a run-of-the-mill, typical 2013 American, Rachel Bryant.  Bryant told the Post that, despite being the American Dream herself, “It’s not what it used to be.  It was a lot easier for my mom and dad to get where they are than my generation. I’m scared to death for my children… I’m worried to death over where the country is going” (Morello).  

        "Worried to death."  This seems like some very dire rhetoric to describe a “Dream.”  Could this be a sign of a developing American Nightmare?  Many Americans now seem to think so.  A core component of what has defined the American Dream is the idea of progress.  It used to come naturally to many Americans to simply assume their children would have better lives than they had.  The Post’s survey reveals, however, that only 39%—far less than half—of all Americans believe their children will enjoy better lives than they themselves have experienced (Morello).  

        This Dream, or Nightmare, as it were, was first defined by historian James Truslow Adams over 80 years ago, and yet perceptions have never before been so low (Morello).  ABC News reports that whereas people used to view the success of the American Dream as home ownership, they now disproportionately view it as a life free of debt (Levin).  Basic psychology would suggest that when an ideal changes from owning a positive to lacking a negative, a fundamental worldview has changed.  Indeed, modern Americans frame their Dream in surprisingly pessimistic terms.  And while this pessimism certainly does not extend to all sectors of the country, its reach is definitely troubling.  

        To what can we attribute this pessimistic turn?  Some would indict the Great Recession and the ensuing social depression as the key culprit.  ABC looks to a USA Today poll taken at the height of the pre-Recession economic boom that indicates how this negative view of the American Dream was not always the case.  The poll reported that 81% of young people saw getting rich as their primary or secondary life goal, with 51% saying the same about becoming famous (Jayson).  Six years and one economic crash later and these results have certainly shifted in the opposite direction.                All these findings point to the variability of the American Dream.  Not surprisingly, Americans define the Dream in a positive way during good times and in a negative way in hard times.  Similarly, they view the Dream as attainable when things are going well, but when they take a turn for the worse, the Dream moves just out of reach.  Nevertheless, such a fluctuation is to be expected.  

        What then can be said about the way the American Dream is perceived by different types of Americans?  Our research has found that, for one group of Americans, this fluctuation hardly seems an issue; to them, the American Dream is, and always has been, an attainable and desirable goal.  That group of Americans?  Immigrants.  

        Remember Mohan Sopori, the Indian immigrant we mentioned above?  Well, here’s where his story comes into play.  Sopori grew up in the Kashmir region of India after independence, but his prestigious collegiate career in his home country eventually took him to fellowships across the United States and eventually, by 1984, to Lexington, Kentucky (Sopori). While he saw a career in India as one potentially plagued by the undervaluation of his skills and a lack of resources (Sopori 30:38), the United States seemed to offer Sopori every incentive to stay within its borders and achieve his own version of the American Dream.  As we have seen, for those who have lived their entire lives in America, complaining about it seems to be almost second nature.  The American Dream only represents anxiety about the future, the loss of opportunities and the gradual decline in America’s greatness.  However, even after he had lived there for three years, America impressed Sopori enough for him to laud “How much freedom one has” in the United States.  He states that “You could do almost anything…You could always interact with people from the same place” that you have come from.  Sopori’s alternate experience, having grown up in Kashmir where ethnic and religious discrimination abounded and a system of “positive discrimination” had hindered his career goals, allowed him to view the quality of the American Dream through a starkly different lens.  Sopori even avoided that one unique complaint that immigrants, of all people, seem entitled to these days.  In his interview, Sopori stated that “No [we have not experienced any discrimination], in fact we have been very fortunate and the people have helped us quite a bit” (Sopori 34:42).  Alas, even the taint of discrimination failed to tarnish Sopori’s view of his American Dream.  What can we take away from Sopori’s optimism, then?  His comments definitely provide a diametric contrast to those of one man named Martin who, as part of a special segment of Bill Moyers Journal dealing with views of the American Dream, claimed:

Before we can take a step forward towards the American Dream again, we need to recognize, collectively, that America has been disassembled and shipped overseas, even as we watched it all happen, believing the promises of "global expansion." Our confidence has been shot through with...betrayals, and, yes, deception... (Moyers).

        Our friend Martin has the temerity to flip Sopori’s narrative on its head.  To this American, (and definitely many more across the country, as studies have shown) it is the exportation of the American Dream that has diluted it for natural-born citizens.  While Sopori cherished his opportunity to fulfill “every biochemist’s dream…to go to the United States” (Sopori 23:59), Martin saw the opening up of the American Dream to global citizens as “betrayal, and, yes, deception” (Moyers).  But can we safely conclude that Sopori’s experience in 1984 parallels Martin’s morose description of globalization from 2009?  Perhaps in this day and age Sopori would agree that his American Dream has been disassembled, too.  He did gain access to the Dream via the lawful and noble path of education, after all.  Perhaps immigrant views have changed since the time of Sopori’s interview.  

​In order to obtain a better comparison of the shift in views of the American Dream across different groups of Americans, we turned to modern surveys of the Dream in the hopes that they might place Sopori’s interview in a more current context.  What we have found, however, reinforces the immutability of immigrant views of the American Dream versus the views of non-immigrant Americans.  

        Xavier University’s Annual State of the American Dream Survey provided exactly the kind of comprehensive data that we sought.  The 2011 edition of the survey results reports that “A range of indicators concerning the direction of the country have worsened over the past year” (“The American Dream?”).  However, it goes on to say that “1st and 2nd generation immigrants remain much more optimistic than the general population” (“The American Dream?”).  The immigrants’ view of the future of America is also notable for remaining almost wholly unchanged, compared to the dramatic declines among the general population.  Perhaps most telling, however, is the statistic that 17% more immigrants than the general population rate the American Dream as being in “good condition” (“The American Dream?”).  These statistics prove that the American Dream has remained in a much higher standing among immigrant Americans than among natural-born citizens.  As Sopori’s experience showed, the relative difference between immigrants’ home countries and the United States in terms of discrimination and opportunity largely accounts for this disparity in opinions.  

​The story of Martei Plange, a modern counterpart to Mohan Sopori, proves this assertion.  Plange’s story evinces an impressively exact parallel to Sopori’s, with one key difference: Sopori told his story during the relative prosperity of the mid-1980s, while Plange recounts life in America during the height of the Great Recession.  The similarity in their views of the American Dream highlights the unchanging nature of immigrant optimism toward it; the malaise that the Dream suffers in the minds of non-immigrant Americans during “hard times” remains notably absent from Plange’s story.  His story, which he told in a 2010 issue of the Tampa Bay Times, mentions how the educational opportunities that he pursued as a path to American immigration paved his way to what should have been a personal American Dream, a narrative that greatly mirrors that told by Sopori.  Unlike Sopori, though, Plange’s American university degrees culminated in two part-time jobs- stocking shelves and parking valet (Kruse).  

        However, despite what many non-immigrant Americans would view as a failure of the American Dream, Plange could only describe his experience in America by saying "In a lot of countries, you're restricted in some way, but here you don't have that… You can pretty much do whatever you want to do. You can pretty much get anything you want"(Kruse).  This optimism similarly reflects Sopori’s attitude despite deriving from a time of economic hardship, showcasing the durability of the American Dream in the lives of American immigrants.  

​So, can we conclude that immigrants share a common experience vis-à-vis the American Dream?  In a way, yes.  They share experiences, though it might be the Indian upbringing of Sopori or the Ghanaian youth of Plange, that are similar in their dissimilitude from the upbringing of so many natural-born Americans in the relative abundance of opportunity and expectations in this country.  The fact that immigrants so often have worse alternatives to which to compare their pursuit of the American Dream allows a greater, more positive understanding of it to develop.  Maybe natural-born Americans should take a lesson from their immigrant counterparts on this one:   Rather than being disappointed in failing to achieve affluence or fame, perhaps they should be content to achieve “A good life for [their] family,” a definition of the American Dream favored by immigrants more than any other sector of the country (“The American Dream?”).  

        In conclusion, I would like to leave you with the description of one immigrant woman, all the way back in 1944, of her experiences in America: “I found the finest of souls in all nationalities and breeds in the grandest mansions as well as the most modest huts on our prairies” (Spies).  

        Prairies, huh?  Is there anything more American than that?    

 

3 November 2013

(Author's name withheld by request)

 

        Works Cited

"The American Dream? Second Annual State of the American Dream Survey." Center for the Study of the American Dream. Xavier University, Mar. 2011. Web. 3 Nov. 2013. <http://www.xavier.edu/americandream/programs/documents/Final-American-Dream-Survey-PowerPoint.pdf>.

Jayson, Sharon. "Generation Y's Goal? Wealth and Fame." Usatoday.com. USA Today, 10 Jan. 2007. Web. 3 Nov. 2013. <http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-01-09-gen-y-cover_x.htm>.

Kruse, Michael. "For Young Immigrant, American Dream Still Shines." Tampabay.com. Tampa Bay Times, 2 Apr. 2010.Web. 3 Nov. 2013. <http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/workinglife/for-young-immigrant-american-dream-still-shines/1084705>.

Levin, Adam. "The New American Dream: It's Not What You Think." ABC News. ABC, 8 Sept. 2013. Web. 3 Nov. 2013. <http://abcnews.go.com/Business/american-dream-longer-involves-home-ownership/story?id=20177980>.

Morello, Carol, Peyton M. Craighill, and Scott Clement. "More People Express Uncertainty in Chance to Achieve the American Dream." Washingtonpost.com. The Washington Post, 28 Sept. 2013. Web. 3 Nov. 2013. <http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-09-28/national/42479842_1_american-dream-james-truslow-adams-basic-living-expenses>.

Moyers, Bill. "What's the Future of the American Dream?" Bill Moyers Journal. PBS. N.d. Pbs.org. PBS, 13 Mar. 2009.Web. 3 Nov. 2013. <http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/03132009/watch3.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+pbs%2Fmoyers%2Fjournal-video+%28moyers%2Fjournal-video%29>.

Sopori, Mohan.  Interview with Arthur Graham.  Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History.

30 Nov. 1984.  Digital.  3 Nov. 2013. <http://kentuckyoralhistory.org/interviews/20651>.

Spies, J. A. "The Immigrant's View of America as I Saw It." Emmetsburg Democrat 5 Oct. 1944: n. pag. USGenWeb Project. Web. 3 Nov. 2013. <http://www.celticcousins.net/paloalto/immigrantview.htm>.