The American Way by Steve Naples
True to form, my way is to procrastinate. During my procrastination period I wondered, is my procrastination part of The American Way? Better yet, what does The American Way mean for people today? What cascading sense or meaning or pathos does it conjure up in a time when freedom is under fire from all sides? Such as the freedom for U.S. farmers to freely grow industrial hemp to further support and benefit their business and families without fear of prosecution. Hemp was everywhere in the 1700s when The American Way was commonly thought to “refer to a nationalist ethos that purports to adhere to principles of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’” In 1955, after the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, at almost the same time the television series Superman opened its famous show with, “Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive.” Included in this opening was, “Truth, Justice and The American Way.” One commentator in that decade tried to describe The American Way as such, “The American Way of life is individualistic, dynamic, pragmatic. It affirms the supreme value of the individual to ‘get ahead.’” His long statement is scattered with words like, self-reliance, merit, character, deeds, not creeds, humanitarian, forward looking. All great attributes you would agree. However, in the end of his statement he throws in “…Americans cannot go on making money or achieving worldly success simply
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on its own merits; such ‘materialistic’ things must, in the American mind, be justified in higher terms of service or stewardship or general welfare and because they are so idealistic, Americans tend to be moralistic; they are inclined to see all issues as plain and simple black and white issues of morality.” The question I’ve spent a good deal of my procrastination asking was, I get what people of the past thought about the subject and freedoms, but what about my fellow Americans today? Well I should start with a big shot politician or a school teacher or maybe that guy who talks to himself on the bus. Not me, procrastinators like me, we ask our girlfriends. She is after all a red blooded American, so I can trust she will tell me her real feelings. She came right out of the gate with this: “The American Way used to mean one for all and all for one. Now it’s ‘every man for himself.” So of course I have to continue to ask others. Same thing, some said, selfishness or take what you can. Alright, but what about my hero, Superman, and the ‘Truth, Justice and The American Way’ thing? Obviously they would not put that on daytime television in the 50s, 60s,70s and Nick At Night if it was not real, right? Wouldn’t hemp that you could cook with, make clothes, rope, shoes, fuel and much more from be part of The American Way? Remember those words like merit and pragmatic and all from the 1700s. Hemp, a crop everyone grew during our