Beyond Blue Part One: The Crisis of the American Dream

The American Interest ^ | January 29, 2012 | Walter Russell Mead

[neverdem]

[This post begins a series on how the United States can move beyond our current political, economic and social impasse to create a new kind of society. The series continues Via Meadia's examination of the demise of the blue social model and its effects on American politics and culture.]

The frustration and bitterness that fills American politics these days reflects the failure of our current social, political and economic institutions and practices to deliver the results that Americans want and expect. It’s comparable to the frustration and fear that swept through the country in the late 19th and early 20th century as the first American dream – that every family could prosper on its own farm – gradually died.

From the era of the first European settlements in North America up through World War I, the family farm was the key social, economic and even political institution in the country. Until the 1920 census, a majority of Americans lived in rural areas and, unlike the oppressed peasants of Europe most owned and worked their own land.

The individual family farm was, in mythology and often enough in reality, prosperous and independent. For Thomas Jefferson and a long line of ideological descendants, the family farm was the cornerstone of American democracy. For generations, government policy sought to ease the path to cheap and — after the Homestead Act — free western land for American families...

[neverdem]

Read the blue social model as progressivism.

[apoliticalone]

Speaking of the American dream a buddy of mine on the left just sent me this you tube link. This is a rant by George Carlin that I hadn’t seen before, and it uses extreme profanity, so beware. You have been warned. It is quite provocative too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q

[denydenydeny]

Thanks for posting this. I read the link on Instapundit today, and it's a long and thoughtful piece.

It confirmed my feeling that the Democrats have become--in spite of their avowed "progressivism" and their radical social agenda--a party of nostalgia. They live their political lives as if it were still the 1960s and they have a right to create any social program they can think up, in spite of the fact that there is absolutely no money left.

[Valin]

Beyond Blue Part Three: The Power of Infostructure
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/02/05/beyond-blue-part-three-the-power-of-infostructure/