The January sun had yet to set. The street poets’ tourists, and locals were outside in the raw elements braving single digit temperatures. A middle-aged woman, Mary, a regular serenader, sang out her version of the well-known biblical passage John: 3:16. Having an opportunity to improve on the lives your ancestors built was Matt’s definition of the American Dream . The idea of America is to have that chance. An opportunity that no matter the circumstances you are born into you have more of a chance in America than any other place in the world. In the weeks that followed those new years’ protests Matt’s little town regained the look it had settled into post Covid. The regulars moved about as if the world was ticking at its normal beat. A funeral procession of two teenagers, whose dreams died in car crash earlier in the week, passed by. The “new regulars” were pushing shopping carts with their life possesions making their way back to their homeless encampment on the edge of town. Matt easily recognized many new faces wandering the streets. Of the 10,000,000 lost in America, completely undocumented, Matt had noticed 10 to 20 new people hanging in the streets. People who have been looking for a place to call home, anywhere they can and so far, this was their spot. This is America now. In the small towns and the big cities, the new world order has arrived uninvited and untethered. The pieces, of what the ruling class describes as a reset have been shoved down the proletariat’s throats and we are all going to see what gives. There certainly is feeling that 2024 is our last legitimate hope of healing and becoming one again. The narcissist in him said “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” but the little boy who dreamed big dreams realized he is living in most titillating times ever and planned on being right in the middle of the fight.
A crowd had gathered to listen to Mary strumming her prophecies. It was a Friday night in a small city located on the perimeter of the biggest city of them all. The sights and sounds were a blend of baited anticipation and an unsettling malaise. There was an aura of being on the edge of history. There wasn’t a film crew in sight on this day, yet the setting was like a panoramic scene to the opening of the movie “2024”. Matt loved movies. He viewed life as a big picture show that each one of us gets to develop the part of their choosing. There are some assignments (race, gender, and ancestry) that you cannot control. Everything put together is called “the hand of cards that you are dealt.” ‘Other than that , you get to pick your character,’ Matt mused as he left the coffee shop and stepped out into the twilight. ‘If you can survive the battles of life long enough you get an opportunity to evolve into the role that leads to purpose and meaning.’ Further down the street Mary’s voice gave way to a tiny woman in her seventies reciting ‘Homer’ through a bull horn. In the 2024th year since the birth of Christ, on the streets of an upstate New York town, Homer’s words read like it was the eighth century B.C., “No one alive can escape it, neither brave man nor coward. I tell you- its with us the days we are born.” Matt stopped in his tracks. ‘When we are born it is simply the first step toward death. Since the creation of Adam and Eve every human life that enters this world is on a rocket ship to the end of their days.’
Matt walked along the main thoroughfare with a focused gaze. It was on Fair street that a group of approximately 50 protesters had formed a processional causing a stoppage of traffic. The red, green, white, and black flags decorated the night. Down the street things were getting out of hand. “Freedom for Gaza’” was the chant of a group of five protesters who attempted to break down the door of the local congressman. As wars rage across the world, the inevitability of this kind of event increases in all hamlets across the country. Matt was standing still, taking in the madness that had found his way to his doorstep, when a stranger approached him. “Hey man can I ask you a question? “ Matt prepared for a tale of woe as stared into the man’s brown eyes. “My aunt passed away yesterday; can you spare me a bus ticket to Connecticut to get to the funeral?” Matt reached into his pocket and handed the man a bill with Andrew Jackson’s picture on it. Matt was a sucker for a good story, especially a short and clear one, even when he knew it was a lie. Yes, the bible says: “It is more blessed to give than receive.” A repeated biblical refrain that is often preached and rarely executed. Sure, the world and its people are in constant need of assistance since the beginning of man’s time on earth. Turning back to the street Matt could not help but think of the millions of misplaced persons in all the cities across America. They were here now; in all the nooks and crannies of America coming to get their piece of the American dream.
The top and the streets have been taken. The fight will be in the middle. He had heard the modern-day populists screaming “the end of times” and the day in front of him was painting a similar picture. There is no one questioning the fact that we are living in extraordinary times. To Matt It was getting more and more obvious that in the coming year Americans will find a sliver of common ground or perish. The signs and warnings have been everywhere all you have to do is look up. The enemy is upon us, and we are waking up to the realization that the enemy is ourselves. Since 2020, 10,000,000 refugees now roam the American landscape without jobs, homes, or the skills to make a living wage. Matt’s grandparents were immigrants via Ellis Island in the 1920’s. His grandmother worked in the subways of New York. She never smoked a cigarette in her life and died of Emphysema in her early 60’s. Matt’s grandfather had been a bank teller before retiring to the country and went to an early grave. Matt said a ‘thank you,” to two people who had blessed him with his father as he headed back to his car. “The American Dream that Matt was living had been gifted to him as “an opportunity” all those years ago by Wilhem Siegel and Margaret Shumacher.
Matt abandoned the cry of his politically correct friends’ pleas “to go along to get along” prior to unelected officials signing us all up for the implementation of the new world order under the guise of the ‘Green New Deal.’ The people of America have been bamboozled, lied to, and pushed around like the sheep our government believes they are. History hasn’t written the ending. History tells us all civilizations meet their demise but Matt could not but help lament , ‘What now?’ Has the moment that we all seem to be anticipating already passed us by? The story is being written before our eyes. It is a story of division in a country that’s name alone is United. The Union has a wide gap that has been hemorrhaging at a rate of no return for several years now. We have been dangerously hovering over the line of ever returning to simply a moderately divided country. The issues causing the divide have outgrown political parties and have roots in a far too cooperative government and media. The conventional ways of getting our ship rowing together seem to have failed. The issues such as Immigration, Education, and equity, which have been long held standards of why the United States has positioned itself as the standard. We have come together after Civil War, after World Wars, and after Cold Wars in the name of United States. In today’s moment we can’t even come together on the definition of male or female.
The police cars surrounded the parking lot of Barter town’s Holiday Day Inn. The area’s assemblyman, a bought and paid for Green Machine product of the United States Military Academy at West Point, was railing to local businessmen about how lucky they were to have big brother protecting their interests. The best irony should be greeted with silence, but the fact is this congressman would have been happy to take a legitimate meeting with the protesters. It was during the pol’s blathering socialist ramblings that a pro Hamas group of protestors stormed the gathering with anti-Israel signs shouting’s,” Free Hamas now”. The event was described in the local news as peaceful, but the sounds that have been ignored for so long had arrived in the middle of a business class private ritual. Matt was driving past the melee (the same day that New Hampshire was holding their 2024 presidential primary) that had traffic stalled for 30 minutes. The granite state and the other 49 territories the ‘American Dream” is on the ballot. To a large percentage of the American public, who never felt included in the dream, there is a sense of relief of absolving personal accountability. It appears too many citizens have allowed the crutches of government to be their only means of personal evolvement . For those among us who have only marched to the beat we create there will be no more placating the weak who “go along to get along.” It is time to officially take a stand. “There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.”…….Socrates.
