The United States as Super Nova?

Was the brilliant attempt at freedom and justice for all that we called the United States just another brief flash in the pan of human history? Will our children's children even know there was a time...

When common people earned a better than "living" wage that gave them respite from the constant challenge of housing, clothing and feeding themselves and their offspring?

When regular folk, freed from the restraint of constant hunger and deprivation, created a culture of innovation and self realization until the very sky did not appear to be the limit?

When a day's hard labor earned a fair day's wage?

When people banded together in times of tragedy and catastrophe not to prey upon each other but to bind each other's wounds?

When individuals could influence events and advance policy?

When the humblest citizen could obtain a world-class education?

When those who had worked hard and conscientiously all their lives could rest on the fruits of their labors once advancing years robbed them of the strength to continue laboring?

Perhaps some distant echo of those times will endure in a fragile oral history once the "official" chronicles have erased them, denying their very existence.

Was this ever a perfect society? Far from it. But it strove toward greater goals and might have achieved something far more sublime had it not been short-circuited by the veniality of those it trusted to guide and protect them.