Right, I think it's time we declare the American Dream dead

[Ildem09]

The main issue it seems in society today, is that people still hold on to the idiotic notion that they will uber wealthy one day too, so they want to keep taxes and regulations low so when they make it to the top they'll get to keep more of their new found wealth.

I blame this whole scheme on Horatio Algerism and Conservative thought of Pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. Pure Rubbish.

We have to realize that taxation and regulation are the only way we are going to end this insanity, it's time to stop the looting of the treasury. We should lobby to Bring back the Tax rates to what they were under Eisenhower. That way the rubes would see we want to bring something back to what it was under an R and therefor inherently good

[endless october]

1. it's not dead, but the dream is not getting rich.

the dream is making a good life for yourself in the absence of oppression.

to get it back, we need to tax the shit out of corporations that choose to outsource the dream. if they don't want to pay the tariff, they can sell their shit elsewhere.

also, Walmart needs to be broken up through antitrust action.

[OnionPatch]

14. You make a good point.

The American Dream used to be about making a decent, middle-class living (two cars in the garage and your own home with a picket fence) because that was not possible for so many due to oppression. Somehow they've managed to convince a lot of people that the "dream" is a chance at a get-rich-quick scheme.

[Kat45]

16. But the American Dream of a decent middle class living is getting very difficult to achieve

And this can make the dream seem dead.

[Ozymanithrax]

2. No living conservative Repubican thinks Eisenhower was good...

Modern Conservativism and Modern Republicans are the children of Reagan's halfwit bastard ideas.

The American dream is the great myth of the Consumer economy. IF we drink the beer the rich drink. If we drive cool cars like the rich drive. If we build big houses and fill them with stuff until they explode, we will somehow be rich.

That idea is sold in commericals, and on every TV show and almost every move you will ever see. In the media, the poor are stupid and the rich are smart and good looking.

[Ildem09]

5. I try not acknowledge the RayGun years as happening.

I was a wee lad and it probably did a great deal to warp my mind.

[Ozymanithrax]

6. I was in the Navy. Reagan actually made be a liberal.

Under President Carter, Democrats voted in the largest pay raise in the history of the U.S. for the military.

Reagan tried first to get the pay raise stopped. You see, paying people more threatened his ability to build a 600 ship Navy and buy large numbers of new tanks, not to mention build a star-wars defense. With each budget, he fought to deny a raise and always mannaged to hold raises well under inflation. Durring Reagan's adminstration, inflation was high, especially during his first term. That is when I really understood that the Republican party considered the military that they pretended to like as nothing but creap cannon fodder. If you weren't rich, they wanted your vote and nothing else. Big eye opener of me.

But it happened, and Conservatism as it exists today comes out of ideas that Eisenhower, Teddy Roosevelt, and Lincoln would find abbhorant.

[upi402]

17. The navy guys I know all believe Republicans take care of

the armed forces. It doesn't matter what facts you tell them, they have some reason to believe otherwise. I blame the media for BSing them 100%.

[Taitertots]

3. A 90% top income tax bracket, and we will call it a return to traditional republican values

Then we will play the Algerism (awesome colloquialism) against them by informing them that by reducing taxes on the poor it will increase their chances of becoming rich.

[ixion]

4. stick a fork in it

it's done.

[Kievan Rus]

7. It was a myth to begin with...the Horatio Alger myths have messed up this country

[Lint Head]

8. My sympathy goes out to us all.

[vssmith]

9. Carlin said they call it the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.

[Jester Messiah]

10. Not dead, just increasingly difficult to achieve.

But insofar as the dream is the nuclear family, house with yard & fence, and steady income, I can tell you that it does still exist. We who have it have a responsibility to ensure that others have the chance to achieve it, though. That's my thinking anyway.

[sam sarrha]

11. it's been road kill for a long time..

[proteus_lives]

12. Completely disagree.

The American Dream is different for everyone.

As long as a man or woman strives on, that dream will live on.

[RexS]

13. The American Dream is a myth, live life

don't dream about it.

[Hannah Bell]

15. i've been listening to this a lot lately. Dave massengill -- "It is my dream... to skin a Pilgrim"

Love that line.

The Great American Dream - David Massengill

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Excuse me sir... I am a foreigner
I left the white sands of Zanzibar
Where is this place you call free lunch bar?
I am hungry and have overstayed my visa
I'll work your farm your factory your pizzeria
Is TV more beautiful than the Mona Lisa
Someday my sons will I fight for the eagle
My daughters will never be ashamed of me
It is my dream... to be a citizen

It's the Great American Dream
It's the Great American Dream
It's the Great American Dream

Excuse me sir... I am a prostitute
Just pretend that I'm a Playboy bunny
For a Franklin I will tongue your tummy
My body is a battlefield and a flower
Four score and seven tricks by the hour
O the many men--one might have been my father
Gonna make my getaway in a zeppelin
Take a bubble bath in the fountain of youth
It is my dream... to be a girl again
In the Great American Dream

Excuse me sir... I am a writer
Tho' the critics are jealous of my genius
They say I'm writing with my penis
Perhaps you've read my work in True Confessions
It pays the rent and fuels my obsessions
On the sly I give elocution lessons
Someday I'll write the Great American Novel
To be required reading in the Ivy League
It is my dream... to die infamous
It's the Great American Dream

Excuse me sir... I am a carpenter
Once I built a treehouse for Rockefeller
Tho' now I've been laid off since December
Someday I'll build a castle all my own
In the den the best laz-e-boy throne
In every room a different color phone
These torn hands are skilled as spiders
I hear there's work in Kansas building coffins
It is my dream... to be cremated
It's the Great American Dream

Excuse me sir... I am an Indian
O the white man is as greedy as fire
His heart is wrapped around with barbed wire
My father died of whiskey and religion
But ghosts are cheap on the reservation
In the summer we're a tourist attraction
It is wrong to squeeze the earth like a snake
A deceit to give a stone to the hungry one
It is my dream... to skin a Pilgrim
And the Great American Dream

Excuse me sir... I am Everyman
I'm the good thief of Jekyll and Hyde
I'm the social climber on a mountain of pride
I'm the deaf the dumb and the debonaire
I'm the mouse the monk and the millionaire
I'm the Great White Hope riding an old grey mare
I'm the sad-eyed girl as young as the earth
I'm the mother who died giving birth
To the Great American Dream

I love freedom
I hope freedom loves me

http://new.music.yahoo.com/david-massengill-and-chorus/tracks/great-american-dream--177177899

[dysfunctional press]

18. they've cancelled powerball? since when?

[omega minimo]

19. That's not The American Dream. That's the perversion of it.