The American Dream: Dead or Just Sleeping?

Is the “American Dream’ dead? If it’s not, it’s in a coma and it will take more eloquent speeches an hollow rhetoric to revive it.

If I may quote myself from the piece, below, with relation to my own situation:

“Lest you think this is whining; it’s not. It is a lament that I am sure resonates with many in my age group. We were the generation that created the “youth-worship” that we still see today and it has resulted in our being “tossed to the curb”.

We created the means of our own destruction by elevating youth above experience and wisdom, and now we reap the whirlwind. Collectively, we have dealt a serious blow to the “American Dream”; perhaps a mortal one.”

In my former position, I reviewed resumes and applications, many of them from young college graduates. Many couldn't’t spell or construct a coherent sentence. They seemingly had no knowledge of punctuation and many completed their online applications in either all upper case letters, or all lower case letters. They sent me follow-up emails that began like “hey, this is linda, how r u?”. WTF is in their heads? We have an increasingly uneducated populace, regardless of educational levels.

I desperately want to still believe in the “American Dream”, but it’s more difficult by the day. The lack of basic common sense that exists in America today is astounding; from the White House and Congress, to GM, Chrysler, and the financial industry.

Does manufacturing cars, at a loss of $1,400 per unit, make any sense at all? Does making loans to people with no money, for things they obviously cannot afford make any sense? Does ramming through a health care bill, in spite of the overwhelming objections of the American people make any sense? Does paying generations generations of welfare recipients to make more babies, thus perpetuating the trend, make any sense?

I’m sure that to the political hacks in Washington, and the clueless MBAs that inhabit corporate America, this all makes perfect sense. Unfortunately, it is WE, the American people, who must pick up the tab for their foolishness.

The foundations of the “American Dream” are work, accomplishment and reward. The sense of entitlement that has fallen over our country is eroding those foundations like an acidic fog.

We have forgotten our history, and the sacrifices of our forebears. That loss of memory may well spell our undoing.