We've Lived So Well So Long

American Dream

“…And I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered

I don’t have a friend who feels at ease

I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered

Or driven to its knees

But it’s all right, it’s all right

For we’ve lived so well so long

Still when I think of the road we’re traveling on

I wonder what’s gone wrong

I can’t help it, I wonder what’s gone wrong…”

Paul Simon (from “American Tune” on “Here Comes Rhymin’ Simon, 1973)

  

           In 1973, when Paul Simon wrote "American Tune," we were deep into the Vietnam war, and it was not going well. There were protests at home, marches, and demonstrations; mostly by college kids who knew that the minute they graduated they’d be sent to the jungles of southeast Asia to fight. No doubt those were troubled times, but this song could have been written today and would be just as accurate.

The wars, the pandemic, the political unrest in this country has us all on edge. Gas and food prices are through the roof because of supply chain problems and the sanctions on Russian oil. These issues don’t affect me very much; I could simply ignore them if I wanted to turn off the television and not inform myself about the world. In fact, they simply make me more aware of what I purchase and cause me to be more conscious of what I need and don’t need. But this is not true for most people. When I see the prices in the grocery store, I wonder what women who work for minimum wage feed their children—how do they afford even the basics?

Paul Simon goes on to say in this song, “We can’t be forever blessed,” and that is correct. American capitalism has allowed us to live far beyond our means for a long time; to live on credit cards and wrack up debt. Now, that chicken has come home to roost, and we’re squealing and looking for someone to blame. That’s where the song’s meaning diverges from the 70’s. To me—having lived through both times—the reason for the unrest is both different and the same.

Then, it surely was the war, and we blamed the "military industrial complex" that Eisenhour had warned us about. We didn’t understand what we were fighting for, and we didn’t want to die for a misguided cause. Today, we just blame the government for everything. For mishandling the pandemic, and for the shortages, and for the rise in prices, and for inflation and for almost anything that we don’t like. Do you ever wonder how we pick and choose what to protest? It’s like there are millions of dots everywhere that never get connected, and somewhere in the middle of it, we find 5 we want to connect.

 In Birmingham (and New Orleans and Atlanta) the homicide rate is way up from years past—mostly from guns. Out one side of our mouths, we blame the government’s lack of public security, and out the other side, we applaud the governor for taking all the regulations off gun ownership—you can conceal carry, no permit, and no background check. All the political ads show the candidates wandering around in fields with a shot gun slung over one shoulder; one even has our 77-year-old female governor at a firing range shooting and blowing the smoke off her pistol like Annie Oakley—seriously. Yet, we don’t connect the dots from glorifying guns and gun ownership to the increase in homicides. How does that even happen? The American dream verges on hallucination. At least for some of us, “we wonder what’s gone wrong; we can’t help it, we wonder what’s gone wrong.”

Today, I hope you are at peace. I pray your soul is at peace. And I pray that enough of us are connecting the dots to bring this beautiful nation to a place of peace and unity. May it be so.

                                        In the Spirit,

                                        Jane