Dreams
by Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

I heard someone say that economic news is so depressing she is becoming afraid to buy more of anything than she absolutely needs. While shopping carefully is good advice to people who buy on credit all kinds of things they don’t need, convincing people to withdraw from the marketplace hurts the economy. Those folks who are determined to drive President Obama from the White House by denying him a second term have a carefully orchestrated litany of negative descriptions of Government under his administration. The economy is said to be broken. Government is routinely called “the beast,” and the Obama presidency is blamed for everything from the price of gasoline to higher rates of unemployment. The more people say the economy is in the toilet and not likely to get out of it for a long time, the more depressed the economy becomes.

America has always been especially good at dreaming and at making dreams come true. Positive thinking really can make things better. Today I came across a smashed bird, probably a pigeon. It was so broken that I can’t say for sure what kind of bird it was. It is definitely dead. America is not dead; it isn’t broken. It is still the strongest, most stable country in the world. It is still the place where people over the world dream of coming to live. It is a country that can lead a troubled world to better times. Between now and the November election next year, I am going to turn off the naysayers on television and radio when they launch into lamentations about what they call the steady decline of the American republic. I may not control the economy, but I do control the clicker that can shut down machines when they preach doom. I can dream of better economic times. I can celebrate and believe in America.