American Dream Monologue

With all things happening in our crazy world, it makes sense that a nationwide panic
wouldn’t exactly be a great situation for a society to deal with, but the veil of consumerism and
pleasures covering our anxieties is paper thin and shrinking by the day. Nuclear weapons,
threats of war, fear of the unknown, it’s all culminating in a massive mobilization of a full blown
media propaganda campaign in an attempt to quell the tensions felt by American citizens. Some
of us are fooled, but not all.
Missiles in Cuba put there by Russia, escalating conflict in the Middle East, and none
printed in the Sunday paper. Apparently the solution to these pressing global issues is not to
educate the American populace, but sedate and blind them to the truth when it’s within arm’s
reach. A nuclear war would almost certainly spell the end of humanity in big, bold letters, and
people are being force-fed news about the newest cars, the latest and greatest consumer
technologies, and fiction depicting a completely alien and immaculate future. This wouldn’t be
inaccurate if the immaculate future shown was without humans after they all blew themselves to
shreds with H-bombs and entirely alien because it was devoid of any semblance of human
influence.
I went to a Sakowitz in the city a few days ago with my wife, and the feeding frenzy of a
consumerism fueled gluttony was mind-boggling and jarring. Instead of worrying about if people
were going to see the sun rise tomorrow they were worried about getting a Lektronic and their
Swanson mock oriental TV dinner! And worst of all, when I asked an employee if they had
newspapers, he looked at me like I was the oddball for wanting to stay informed! These people
are so blind to the going-ons of the world because of these massive corporations trying to
smother fears with indulgences, but just because you paint a new color onto your house doesn’t
mean the old color is gone. As the days pass by and people begin to wake up, the old paint will
start showing again. It is treating a symptom and not the cause, and therefore it will never be
enough to calm Americans. We aren’t stupid, we’re susceptible to suggestion.
The real future that needs to be presented is one of impending possibilities: a future of
death, destruction, and suffering, caused by an insatiable arms race that has no end in sight,
maybe even spreading to space! With Russian spacecraft zipping over our heads it seems
downright stupid to be focused on what film or music concert you and your family will be
attending. If we continue to ignore the ever expanding threat of self destruction, there won’t be
any drive-ins or concert venues for you to enjoy yourself! And more importantly, if this
disingenuous dream spoon-fed to the American people isn’t halted in its conception, there will
be no public awareness of current pressing and possibly lethal issues, and if things get out of
hand, which let’s all pray they don’t, America will no longer be the land of the free but the land of
irradiated human ruins and remains.