The American Dream

So what is the American dream? I've been thinking about this for a long time now although at this point I still don't think I have the words to explain what I'm feeling and thinking. The concept is something I feel so strongly about, something I just know in my heart but just can't explain. This is regarding Kevin, of course. It's also something like my ideas about democracy. The fact that democracy doesn't bomb other countries into democracy. It is something that wells up from within and then when the people are ready, they will fight for it. I don't know where this came from other than my accumulated knowledge and education. Not everyone agrees but it is my opinion which I feel very strongly about.As I feel so strongly about the dignity of each individual as well.

At one time I thought the American dream was having a house with the white picket fence and anything else that goes with it. That dream I lost a long time ago. Recently I saw an advertisement for the American dream to end discrimination. That all peoples should be free from discrimination, that is in part or all the "American Dream". Last week I heard the term used in reference to a couple of the Olympic athletes who had lost their chance at the American dream - they didn't get the olympic gold they had trained so hard for. The term is used frequently on the news in many different contexts and so I guess the American dream means many things to many different people.

Lately there has been alot on the news about the administration's use of wire tapping or phone tapping, whatever it is. There has been alot of talk about the Constitution, Bill of Rights, civil rights (with the death of Coretta Scott King) executive powers, etc. Yes, and our society gives alot of "lip-service" to many of these things and not much else, but there are a few bottom lines for me anyway. My sons death was blown-off, as far as I'm concerned, in the greatest deocratic country in the world which supposedly gives value and sanctity to each and every individual life. I guess it is really one bottom line, THE bottom line, which should hold for Kevin as well as everyone else regardless of race, nationality, sex, age, etc. What a joke, as we all know, and unfortunately some of us find out more than others.

Kevin's life wasn't treated with the dignity and respect it deserved, as I've said before, and this is wrong. I know it's wrong, although, as I said, I don't have the words or explanation for it. And ,yes, this is my son so I feel it even more. So many things we overlook because it doesn't involve us, and I am guilty, then it does happen to us and we know, only then, how countless others are feeling or have felt.

So I guess I have re-evaluated my American Dream and it is to have justice for Kevin. To get down to the bottom basic core issues of what our democracy really stands for and fight for that idealism regarding Kevin. It is my duty as his mother...