Is the American Dream Dead? Who Will Save Us?

Dwight Yoakum wrote "Readin' Writin' and Route 23" about the exodus from Appalachia to the auto boom driven industrial states of Ohio, Indiana and Michigan. And for decades this was the norm. Men left families and worked in the automobile plants and foundries and finally moved their families up North with them to a better life. But the heyday of plentiful, lifetime jobs, with great benefits has caused a similar exodus from the former industrial center of America. Poornima Gupta, in a Reuters news story, recently reported; "U.S. auto industry and its recession-hardened hometown, Detroit. GM, once an emblem of U.S. post-war economic might, is being driven to the brink by dwindling sales that are expected to test cash reserves and the nerves of investors in the months ahead."

According to Gupta, the Big Three American auto makers have slashed more than 100,000 jobs since 2006. As plants close and downsizing occurs men are left jobless after decades invested in what they thought was going to be a life long career followed by a hard earned, deserved, retirement with benefits. Some of the older workers are faced with buyouts or trying to commute to other areas in order to stay employed and try to salvage what is left of their American Dream. But with gas prices at $4.16 per gallon as of this writing, that is proving to be a nearly impossible solution. And due to the housing slump in general and in particular in the hard hit areas of industrial America, selling one's home for what is needed to pay it off and relocate is a grim prospect.

What I was struck by was a particular part of Gupta's story about a man who left his family to travel to another state for work. The story really rang an historical bell in my brain, albeit with a strange twist.

I'm from East Kentucky, and my parents made the trek to Indiana in 1965 for my dad to work in the foundries of Kendallville, Indiana. Dad retired from those foundries and died and is buried in Indiana. Many men and women came from the Appalachian areas of Kentucky and West Virginia to settle in the industrial rich areas of Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. But the man in Gupta's story reverses that exodus! While his family lives in a suburb in Michigan he must live in West Virginia and work to support the family. He can come home on weekends for a short visit, but only when he can afford the outlandish fuel cost for the trip.

I know that change is inevitable and we have to roll with it. But I believe we have been sold down the river of greed and speculation that cares little about those of us who live and work and drive the engine of the economy. As the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, where does the money that the rich accumulates come from? It's simple. Their money is derived from you and me. We purchase the products they sell. But in their greed they are about to cause the engine to seize and the wheel of the economy to stop turning.

I am amazed by the shortsightedness and absolute delusion that greed brings. As the greedy market speculators laugh all the way to the bank with the spoils of their conquest they fail to remember a lesson from history. During the Great Depression money was not worth much more than toilet paper. There was nothing to buy! No manufacturing, no jobs, no goods! You can't eat money and it BTU value to keep warm isn't that good either!

I am a believer in the Yahweh, the Almighty Creator of the Universe, and HIS Son Yeshua, known as Jesus, by the professing church. The more I study Torah, the Prophets, the Psalms, Proverbs, and the Apostolic writings called the New Testament, the more I see the headlines of today written in those sacred texts. The greed and arrogance of mankind to live outside the Law of the One who created them and set in motion His plan and Instruction for man is bringing man down to his final destiny. Man left to himself always destroys himself, while believing that he is getting better and evolving into a better human and a better race. But a quick, unbiased look around, shows that just the opposite is reality.

We can't trust in the Republicans or Democrats, Libertarians, Baptists, Methodists, Protestants, Catholics, Lutherans, Communists, Socialists, Armies, or any other man centered and concocted group to get us through this mess. They are all established and maintained by men who are liars! We all are liars according to Yahweh. Shouldn't we turn from these frail faulty men, even ourselves, and trust in the One who created us and knows us and knows the end from the beginning? Shouldn't we turn to Him by faith, believing who He is, and what He said, and live? Or should we continue to believe the lie and die?