[PLUG-TALK] Re: [PLUG] Sounds good to me ;)

Miller, Jeremy JMILLER at ci.albany.or.us
Thu Jun 20 18:50:27 UTC 2002


> However, the ability to control's one's own destiny is an 
> inate need in
> all people.  It's not the American Dream.  It's older than 
> the American
> Dream.

True.

>  It's older than America.  To call it the American Dream is to
> steal the idea from all of the other people and cultures who 
> have held it
> as a fundamental goal throughout human history.

Yes, but I submit that I can still call it the American Dream.  Because
Americans wish to attain it... holding it in common as a Dream.  (Well,
maybe not all but I think you get what I mean.)  This makes the term
accurate.  I don't think it implies that we had the idea first, or that we
are the only ones who share it.

Because the Elbonian Dream can very well be the same thing.  As can the
theoretical Anarctican Dream, Earth Dream, Mars Dream, the now long past
Roman Dream, and I'll even go way out on a limb and say the Anarchist Dream.

I don't think they're mutually exclusive, or that calling it any of those
things detracts from the fact that it can be shared by those not using the
same name for it.

But I'm just playing word games, I guess.  I'll stop. :)


>  It is a dream that
> belongs to all people of all time.

Yep.

> I hope to see it become a reality on a massive scale.  But as 
> long as some
> have the ability to amass inordinate power and wealth, that will not
> happen.

Human nature seems to dictates that that ability will always exist, simply
due to the fact that not everyone is alike or thinks alike.    And that no
matter how we set a system up, it can and will be abused.  I like to think
and hope it can happen anyway, in spite of those facts.





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