Community | December 09, 2010 | 23 comments

The American Dream is a thing of the past

MotherForTruth
As official unemployment in the United States jumps to 9.8 percent, many are left wondering – Who stole the American Dream?
The days of Marilyn Monroe used to be the symbol of the American Dream. Those days are long gone, and for many, the ability to dream has become a dream in itself.
In over two years of recession, enormous sums have flowed into corporations, but not into the pockets of Americans in need.
“If you took the 1.4 trillion dollars that were initially spent just to bail out the banks, and you had redistributed that money among all the millions of Americans who were having trouble paying their mortgages and who had just lost their jobs in the year or two – each one would receive a check for 350 thousand dollars,” said editorial columnist and cartoonist Ted Rall.
But that money is nowhere to be seen for 1 in 7 Americans living in poverty.
“The American Dream historically has been the ability to own a house, may be a car, to eat what you wanted to eat, to get a little vacation, and to be able to save a bit of money,” said Economist Max Fraad Wolff from The New School in New York.
Millions do not have homes, do not have jobs, and simply do not have dreams any longer.
“What dream? It’s survival,” said Kian Fredericks, who is unemployed.
Kian is a single mother struggling in New York, who has been out of work for more than a year now.
“Unemployed people want jobs. There is one in five, one in eight applicants for every job. I don’t know what people want you to do,” she commented. “You can’t invent a job, right?”
Kian said her dreams have turned into a constant worry to stay afloat.
“My dream would be to be able to pay my rent on time, frankly and not just have to stress every, every minute,” she said.
While some of the lucky few have been able to avoid the stresses of a recession, according to official numbers, unemployment long at a hefty 9.6 percent, has shot up to 9.8 percent. But many experts have said that number may actually be closer to 20 percent.
“I just heard a report that they freed up seventy thousand jobs. Where are they? Can you send one over here?” said Sahai, who is struggling in the down economy. “I feel like I am looking for jobs that don’t exist anymore.”
The poverty is even more shocking considering the advantages the US has historically enjoyed.
“The United States is the richest country in human history in terms of its general wealth, and yet it has had more poor people than any other rich country in human history,” said Professor Norman Markowitz of Rutgers University.
For the majority of Americans the loss of prosperity took place recently.
“It’s changed a lot in the last two years because of the broken promises of Obama,” said journalist Jerry Mazza in New York.
It is the priorities of the government that are now often blamed for the shattered American Dream.
“54 percent of US federal tax dollars go into the military. 19 percent is just paying off the interest on old wars that are over and we are not fighting anymore,” said Rall.
While officials engage in their own games, many Americans have been left to mend their broken realities and dreams by themselves.
“Our government stole the American Dream; I think that is what the bottom line is. Our own Government did it and we as Americans let them do it. It’s really sad,” said Fredericks.
http://rt.com/usa/news/american-dream-economy-unemployment/
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23 comments // The American Dream is a thing of the past // Video

  • CalgarC
    • 0
      CalgarC  
    • the american dream still exists... i see it in movies all the time haha...

      its sad i guess you have to bend the rules a little to reach any dream these days

    • 2 years ago
  • MotherForTruth
  • CalgarC
  • JohnA
  • sdtgfvdtgf
  • CalgarC
  • PressCore
    • +4
      PressCore  
    • http://Current.com

      I read an article posted by one of our Current.com conributors,
      Global Political today: " The worst year ever, 1913." It talked about
      the Fed, the Banksters tool of oppression, and how it thieved
      the American Dream from Americans, by transfering our middle
      class wealth to the uberrich, who own controlling shares of every
      major publicly traded Corporation. It's no secret the Fed was realy
      invented to feed fiat paper money to expand their Corporations so
      that they could export American jobs to former 3rd world countries
      like India and China. And rob Americans of their means of making
      a living so that they could never experience real ,lasting prosperity.

      I clicked the link and read the speech of President Andrew Jackson
      after he vetoed a 2nd term for the Bank of the United States in the
      1830s. It was one of the first charter Corporate central banks the
      then Congress used to have handle all the U.S.Goverment' financial
      affairs. You folks realy owe it to yourselves to read President Jackson's
      speech,in its original, unabridged content. It will startle and amaze you
      every bit as much now as if you were in that crowd hearing it live in 1830.

      I can't say that he himself wrote the speech he read to the 13 Million
      Amercians living then. But I get the distinct impression he did. It's so
      loaded with precise explanations of how extremely corrupt & rotten to
      the core, the central Banksters are, and even more importantly how,
      and why, they infect and corrupt every politician they approach. I've
      read an aweful lot of people render their own description of how the
      Banksters operate. But I've never read such a totaly comprehensive
      360 degrees in every direction ex'pose of their Ponzi Scheme as
      originated by this very intelligent, courageous, honest President in
      office 180 years ago. Keep in mind 1830 was only about 55 years
      after the American Revolution had begun. The words President
      Jackson used will awe and inspire you. Every thing he said came true.

      But as for the American Dream being lost forever HA !, You can't
      know anything about the American character based on constant
      renewal & regeneration if you presume such defeatism.Virginia
      is one of the power centers of the American Revolution where
      both Washington & Jefferson had their cannabis plantations.
      The Commonwealth of Virginia, along with Texas, and 8 other
      States have begun a Constitutional Convention to establish a
      Repeal Amendment where 2/3 of the States could legaly band
      together to repeal corrupt UnConstitutional Federal Statutes
      which are written by Corporate clerks, and passed by the seats
      they bought & paid for without even having read them first. That
      essential States' Rights function,and the repudiation of a central
      Bank was the cornerstone of the Confederate States of America.
      The Virginians have read their native son Thomas Jeffersons' writings
      warning us what a central Bank would do to make us all paupers.
      And in the future we will be able to repeal the Federal Reserve Act,
      Prohibition, the Patriot Act, Nobamacare Corporate Slavery etc.
      And one step at a time, we will reverse all the past 96 years of Robbery.

    • 2 years ago
  • NothingIsAbsoluteTruth
    • +2
      NothingIsAbsoluteTruth  
    • Thats really who they are going to blame it on, the government? The American people make up the government, blame it on ourselves, we give ourselves the hope that everyone can be rich. But remember, if there is rich people in a society, than by default there has to be poor people so when does the line stop to how many poor people there are? Hell as long as you arent poor you dont really care about the other guy. There was never an american dream, it's always about money money money. I'm sick of money in fact whoever wins the lottery should just burn it all so everyone else can become richer...

      let me ellaborate this because it is very important for everyone to understand. There is a limited amount of resources in the world and the amount of resources gives most of money it's value. Not everyone has the same amount of money, some people have a lot some people have none and some have average. The average is all the wealth in the world divided up equally between each person. If the wealth was split equally amongst everyone then no one would be rich or poor. But if one person gains a little bit more wealth than everyone else, then by default you will have another person somewhere lose the wealth the other person gained. This is why everyone cannot be rich, because the rich is only rich because there are poor and the poor or only poor because they are rich. This is not a fair economy what so ever and im not promoting communism but im promoting anti-monetarism (I think i just made that word up). This probably didn't make sense at all but I tried.. i'll perfect the idea sooner or later.

      another thing to think about:
      54% of our taxes go towards killing our own race and 4% towards educating it. Seems like a joke... what a big joke we live in

    • 2 years ago
  • treewolf39
  • MotherForTruth
  • NothingIsAbsoluteTruth
  • MotherForTruth
  • NothingIsAbsoluteTruth
    • 0
      NothingIsAbsoluteTruth  
    • MotherForTruth:

      Well maybe you personally have but America as a whole has not, and I think america can if we start putting more resources into education than killing and imprisonment of it's own people. If america made jails that actually tried to help the mind of its inmates then giving them an overwhelming time-out I think we would be taking a big step towards the american dream.

      I think the american dream is simply, the perfect nation, sadly at this rate I can't say we will ever get there

    • 2 years ago
  • DogBoy
    • +3
      DogBoy  
    • That's right When you are the biggest debtor nation in the world, "The American Dream" is all smoke and mirrors.

    • 2 years ago
  • existentialist
    • +3
      existentialist  
    • First off, if every American was given $350,000 inflation would go through the roof. I am not saying that the bank bail-out was justifiable, but to present giving the American people the money as an option is misinformed.

      Another thing, since when are random unemployed people considered authoritative experts on the economy?

    • 2 years ago
  • galwayman
    • +5
      galwayman  
    • The American dream died during the Vietnam War era! It was during this period that The graft and criminal activity of our "elected" leaders became an epidemic,It was also during this period when many rebelled against traditional American Values! The common sense of an entire generation was corrupted! Then came the ME generation that followed it! Get all you can! Doesn't matter how! Selfishness and greed with no limits and no ethics, which has continued to today to the point that most people suffer while the rich get richer and could care less about this country or it's people,While the masses are so brainwashed they don't know how to fight back anymore,and just go under! America, as we were raised to believe in it and it's principals is dead and nothing is going to bring it back!

    • 2 years ago
  • CitizenHill
    • +2
      CitizenHill  
    • Stop govt's runaway entitlements, curtail and rescind over regulation and stop micromanaging the daily affairs of its citizens and the realization of the dream would be reborn.
      It's just plain old commonsense, not quantum physics.

    • 2 years ago
  • treewolf39
  • GLOBALPOLITICAL
  • CalgarC
  • Itsbatman_Durr
    • +1
      Itsbatman_Durr  
    • I believe there is still a dream, although it is a universal one: that we will all one day live in a truly free world where compassion and kindness are the norm, where education and free speech are encouraged and thrive, where each person is free to love whom they want free from fear, and where all issues and problems get discussed and hopefully resolved in peace and compromise. A world where we will each be free to thrive in whatever personal dreams we have for ourselves and our fellow beings everywhere.

    • 2 years ago
  • PressCore
    • 0
      PressCore  
    • Itsbatman_Durr:

      I can't believe someone voted your comment down. Maybe it was their
      mistake. But I voted your comment up. You touched upon all those
      essentials that make us Americans living in a free country where one's
      self determination to live their own lives the way THEY want to live it is
      Liberty. Liberty, the only American Dream I ever wanted ,is directly
      reflected in your magnificent words. Let's keep it simple. Thank you. Peace.

    • 2 years ago
  • MotherForTruth
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