Is The American Dream Over? [Update]
By SusanUnPC on April 28, 2009 at 1:30 AM in Current Affairs, Health Care, Obama's Broken Promises, Obamatopia Mirage
Forgotten People Update: “91 protesters arrested at White House“: “The protesters [in wheelchairs!] are calling on the president to support legislation that would give people with disabilities in need of long-term care alternatives to nursing homes.” (h/t American Girl in Italy)
Is “the American dream” over? For most Americans? For you?
John McLaughlin asked the question of his panel the other night on his PBS program, The McLaughlin Group. Eleanor Clift, the Obamabot on the panel, had the rosiest outlook. McLaughlin ended the discussion with this:
I think it’s permanent. I think the party’s over. And there’s probably a big hangover.
The Washington Post had a profoundly moving story of the struggles of two Obama supporters.
Call them dreamers or fools, but they really hoped, I’m sure, that Obama would make a difference in their lives and the lives of those they help.
Trust me when I tell you that, after you read their story, you’ll find it impossible not to empathize with them, or to respect them, particularly 60-year-old Edith Childs who is so generous and kind to everyone she knows who needs help.
From “A Hundred Anxious Days“:
On Day 4 of his presidency, the Solutia textile plant laid off 101 workers. On Day 23, the food bank set a record for meals served. On Day 50, the hospital fired 200 employees and warned of further job cuts. On Day 71, the school superintendent called a staff meeting and told his principals: “We’re losing 10 percent of our budget. That means some of us won’t have jobs next year, and the rest should expect job changes and pay cuts.” On Day 78, the town’s newly elected Democratic mayor, whose campaign was inspired partly by his admiration for Obama, summarized Greenwood’s accelerating fragility. “This is crippling us, and there’s no sign of it turning around,” Welborn Adams said.
On Day 88, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that South Carolina had set a record for its highest unemployment rate in state history, at 11.4 percent. Greenwood’s unemployment is 13 percent — more than twice what it was when Childs first started chanting.
“We have a lot of people who live in cold houses, with no jobs and no food,” Childs says.
Hundreds of them call her, and the most desperate travel to Childs’s single-story house on Old Ninety-Six Highway outside of town and knock on her front door. A retired nurse living with her husband on modest savings, she makes $725 a month for serving on the county council and uses that money to pay other people’s bills: $240 for her brother’s electricity, because he can’t find a job; $300 for a young family’s rent in a two-bedroom apartment, because they have a 5-year-old boy and no income; $168 for a friend’s water bill, because the county threatened to shut it off. When the $725 runs out — and it always does — Childs dips into savings and tells Charles she spent the money on a new outfit. …
If only Edith got $725,000 per month, instead of $725, she could buy into Geithner’s toxic assets plan and have the government add taxpayers’ money at six to seven times her investment — around $4,350,000. Even if Edith’s deal doesn’t pan out, she’s only out that one-month’s investment of $725,000, and doesn’t owe the nation’s taxpayers a dime. But that’s for the big players. Not the little people like Edith and those she’s helping.
Read all of “A Hundred Anxious Days.” You may feel irritated at times, but you’ll also feel just plain sad that these people really thought he was “the one.”
(Release: November 13)
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>>> Is “the American dream” over? For most Americans? For you?
In the sense that, “If You Play Well, Work Hard and Save Your Money, Good Things Will Happen for You,” as many of us Boomers were taught, a resounding “Yes.”
The beginning of The End was the Nixon/Ford recession of 1973/1974.
If, however, one is prepared to kick the next fellow in the nuts; lie, claw and chisel; never give a sucker an even break and consider Life in America to be a large, open air game of “Fuck Your Buddy/Neighbor/Brother,” and, “Do It To THEM Before They DO It To YOU,” well, then this is a GREAT country.
Make or inherit or marry a large enough stack of Benjamins and Justice and Equity become simple commodities you can purchase on the Open Market… an un-regulated, PERFECT Market because, as you know, ALL Markets are Perfect!
It does make me sad that so many desperate people fell for unrealistic promises and a slick persona from an elusive new senator with no known history or experience. A rabbit’s foot would have offered just as much hope and would have cost the country so much less.
And yet, the headline this morning is Obama has 68% approval rating–a number they couldn’t come up with last week.
Pravda?
I said in an earlier thread talking about newspaper bailouts… What does it mean when the government needs the newspapers more than we need or even want them? When I think about that, I don’t get any good answers. It can’t be good.
Interesting….I never followed that route
Is that why I’m the last one standing now!
Always be good to your fellow people.
Helping people help themselves has helped me greatly.
That Seattle Moss is why this is f*&king great country.
Thanks for saying it.
Teak,
You’re a pretty cool dude yourself!
Absolutely!
Be kind to piss bums (you may be one, one day), hookers (each one was someone’s baby, once), all children, and anything with a heartbeat that won’t eat you first.
I still drive around downtown Las Vegas every Christmas Eve with a big box of Miniatures (shots of liquor in small bottles), rolled-up socks, Camels, used books and disposable shaving stuff.
You never know when YOUR luck will run out…
Baba,
We feed 500+ people every week at my church and there isn’t a day that goes by where I’m not grateful for all that I have through God’s grace.
Everyone in that line has a story to tell of how they got into the viscous cycle of homelessness and poverty.
I’m glad to have learned whom I am by helping others.
I always have my favorite people that I give money to each week.
Thank you for all you do, Mossie.
Alas, people such as yourself haven’t been running the Big Game for the past 10 years.
Those who have been have looked at honest American values and virtues as nothing more than predictable patterns of behavior to be exploited.
It is just so sad that these people bought into all of his bullsh!t and he cares nothing about them; nothing at all.
It took quite a while for 0 to get down to that level. He almost had to be forced. For months and months he never mentioned being AA and tried to run on being one of the elite. Finally, he was convinced it would help him if he talked about his fatherless childhood and his mother getting food stamps (maybe for a month or so).
But the disgusting thing was the night of the Iowa caucuses when he fraudulently won those. For the first time he tried to sound like MLK: “They (whoever that was) said it couldn’t be done.” “They said this, they said that, blah, blah, blah”. He definitely was no MLK!
But these folks we are talking about from this post are the ones I feel the worst for. Most still think he won that nomination with hard work and being a mastermind of a brilliant campaign. Nothing, nothing could be further from the truth. He did nothing but show up. The rest was done “for” him. What a fraud. But what a travesty for these fervent believers.
I believe all of us should begin a running daily count of ‘folks’ being eviced…of ‘folks’ who lose their jobs..and of the tent cities that have sprung up all over the USA that are full of ‘folks’ since he made all those promises he never had any intention of keeping. Rest assured though-Reverend Wrights mansion is finished…
Its only getting worse and worse because in addition to the individual issues that have befallen many of us..he is selling our country down the road and is about to abolish Israel so there are no obstacles to all of us being included in his Muslim extremist vision..where men rule and women obey and all of us stand in line to be ‘______’..women first-men second after they attach bombs to their children and send them into crowds of tea party protesters and ex-soldiers.
Lets start the count, shall we? I hear its over a million in the tent cities already.
Get real. He’s completely owned by Israel. All that PLO stuff was nothing more than a superb head fake. Rahm “God is with us” Emanuel, son of an Irgun terrorist, TPB’s handler, is NOT a Palestinian sympathizer.
I am real and his anti Israel beliefs have long been a subject of his non existent past. You are a fool to think Emmanuel has any clout as he hides his own homosexual past from the mainstream.
The power is Muslim and the power is going to sell the rest of what you believe down the river with Nancy Pelosi..He is laughing when he discusses the economic crisis..at us..you should rethink your comment.
….BUT that the present Commander in Chief lacked the political courage to uphold the laws of our country in this case. (As a very strong believer in Barack Obam’s clear vision and high political principles, I am extremely disappointed in this development, and don’t mind saying so.)
Ray Close is disappointed. I appreciatte his honesty But how can one have “high political principles” when it is based on rhetoric?
For these very salt of the earth people reality sucks and escaping it is impossible, but still they are selfless.
I can’t believe people truly believed he literally would pay their bills. If things are still this bad a year from now, he’ll lose the House.
One thing for sure: These people aren’t likely to vote in 2010.
These people may not survive until 2010.
Tarp: The Looming Debacle.
It is safe to assume, however, that the investigations now in progress represent not even the tip of the iceberg. The most troubling feature of the SIG’s report is its documentation of reluctance on the part of Tim Geithner’s Treasury Department to make even modest efforts to protect the interests of the taxpayers. To take just one glaring example, Treasury has refused to require banks to account for what they do with the billions of dollars they receive in TARP money:
Treasury has indicated, however, that it will not adopt SIGTARP’s recommendation that all TARP recipients be required to do the following:
• account for the use of TARP funds
• set up internal controls to comply with such accounting
• report periodically to Treasury on the results, with appropriate sworn certifications
In light of the fact that the American taxpayer has been asked to fund this extraordinary effort to stabilize the financial system, it is not unreasonable that the public be told how those funds have been used by TARP recipients. Treasury is now conducting regular surveys of the banks’ lending activities; however, with the exception of Citigroup and Bank of America, Treasury has refused to seek further details on TARP recipients’ use of funds.
Not just failed, but “refused.”
Tarp: The Looming Debacle.
It is safe to assume, however, that the investigations now in progress represent not even the tip of the iceberg. The most troubling feature of the SIG’s report is its documentation of reluctance on the part of Tim Geithner’s Treasury Department to make even modest efforts to protect the interests of the taxpayers. To take just one glaring example, Treasury has refused to require banks to account for what they do with the billions of dollars they receive in TARP money:
Treasury has indicated, however, that it will not adopt SIGTARP’s recommendation that all TARP recipients be required to do the following:
• account for the use of TARP funds
• set up internal controls to comply with such accounting
• report periodically to Treasury on the results, with appropriate sworn certifications
In light of the fact that the American taxpayer has been asked to fund this extraordinary effort to stabilize the financial system, it is not unreasonable that the public be told how those funds have been used by TARP recipients. Treasury is now conducting regular surveys of the banks’ lending activities; however, with the exception of Citigroup and Bank of America, Treasury has refused to seek further details on TARP recipients’ use of funds.
Not just failed, but “refused.”
‘You may feel irritated at times, but you’ll also feel just plain sad that these people really thought he was “the one.”’
I have ZERO, NADA, NOOOOOOO sympathy for the fool in that article.
Nor for any of the followers, recruits and deluded imbeciles who bought BO’s Brooklyn Bridge hook line and sinker.
What REALLY irritates me is that Childs and her ilk tried to ram down my throat their worldview with no regard for the possible implications of That One’s selection.
Edith is an exceptional person. We have people running around w millions stuffed in their bank account and help people less than she does.
Michelle Obama made it to a homeless shelter w mushroom soup and broccoli. What person in their right mind would take that kind of food to a homeless shelter?? Take some meat, potatoes and bread Michelle. And while you’re dishing up some good, wholesome food, why not say a prayer for these people and offer them some hope instead of thinking just your presence will do it. The food she took was from the White House kitchen. Do taxpayers provide their food or are they responsible for that?
There is no reason anyone should be cold and hungry-it’s sickening. These places cut jobs but won’t cut wasteful spending.
I personally help the local animal shelter. That is my passion. I volunteer and give money. Many animals have been dropped off because people can’t afford to take care of them. Seems they are the last ones to get any help. Am I rich? Hell no. But I can do without a few extras to help someone else. Everyone can and should.
just remember “but for the grace of God go I”…it could very easily be you someday. If God has blessed you, then you need to and God expects you to share that blessing w others.
God Bless America and people like Edith.
Think of what the money wasted on the fuel and salaries for that little stunt in NYC yesterday might have done for people!!! I mean, my God, he’s on the damn thing today flying to St Louis if memory serves. This administration is such a cluster Fuzk they make shrub look efficient.
My post didn’t show up.
Again.
this is very frustrating.
Yes. It was supposed to be a government by the People, for the People. Now it’s a government by the few for themselves.
It was supposed to be with Liberty and Justice for all. Now it’s ‘only government can solve your problems’ so subjugate to it and a justice system that is inconsistent and manipulated by the powerful.
The free market has not failed. We have failed to protect the free market. We have allowed lobbyists, special interests, and those in power to convolute and bastardize our society so that, to those in the know, everything is a loophole, exception, or camouflage for whatever they want to do. Corruption and confusion reign.
Good place to mention this again. For all the media hype Obama is one of the least popular presidents at the end of his hundred days:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/28/baracks-in-the-basement/
Kathy, No wonder the media has patched together a 68% rating for him. No doubt he’s getting ready to do more awful stuff to us and they have to be able to claim he has the majority with him.
Actually, even MSNBC is admitting he is at 60% which is lower than all but one or two of the last eight presidents at this time.
No matter how high you prop up a puppet, it is still a puppet. Sooner or later, even the slowest observer will have to acknowledge it.
can we cut the strings?
Great Article Kathy especially the ending paragraphs http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/28/baracks-in-the-basement/
“Perplexed about complaints over Mr. Obama’s expansion of government, Newsweek editor Jon Meacham asked: “does no one listen during campaigns?”
It was these pundits who weren’t paying attention during last year’s campaign. In all three presidential debates, Mr. Obama promised to cut government spending and reduce the size of the deficit. He blamed the economic crisis on excessive deficits. At no time did candidate Barack Obama say that more deficit-spending was the solution.”
The down hill slide started when big business decided that making hard goods was less profitable than making money.
I’m not sure when it started but I remember a machinist friend of mine working at a large electronics company in Lancaster PA complaining about the condition of his lathe. The company got it from the War Production Board in the 1940’s and never replaced it. I was so worn that he had to stick a screw driver in the tool post to hold tolerance on the parts he was machining.
Meanwhile the Japanese and Germans were updating to the latest manufacturing technologies.
Then the jobs started going over seas and I asked,”If we don’t make anything any more what will we use to trade for the stuff we need to import?”
The big money guys assured me we would sell our innovative technology, that was the wave of the future. Well, that worked for Bill Gates but nobody else.
Then there was the Canadian friend who made the comment that the only industry left in the United States was insurance and yard sales.
Remember the accident on board the USS Iowa? One of the 16 inch gun turrets was severely damaged in an explosion that killed 47 sailors. Had the Navy wanted to repair that turret and the tubes they would have had to sail to China because we no longer have the wherewithal to manufacture anything like that.
Why am I bringing this up?
If we are going to get out of this current financial mess the congress and former presidents visited on us we are going to have to produce and sell goods. Only one problem we don’t have anything any more to make stuff with. At least not on the scale needed. Nor do we have the innovative technology to build that better mouse trap. Big business laid off all the engineers and hired more MBAs.
We are so boned. Too bad we don’t have the No Confidence vote.
That’s why we needed Hillary, she actually had a PLAN to bring manufacturing back to the U. S. She recognized we needed to be a manufacturing nation again.
I’ve been saying this for so long, it’s finally good to discover other people have the same opinion.
I have always wondered at people who would brag about how much money they were “making” in the stock market. It all seemed like castles in the air to me. How can you make money off of money and have it go on forever?
The only logic I followed was to know I could make money only by doing productive work on a job. I never worked in manufacturing because I am basically a klutz, but I always felt that the only way to improve the economy was to have people making and selling actual things.
So when my more well-to-do friends gripe and moan about how much they have “lost” in the stock market, I tell them that I don’t think they really had that money in the first place so they couldn’t have lost it.
Mr.Mikey is a huge 0pologist. So he’s just trying to change the discussion ….
I think what is really sick is how Obama flunts it in their faces. Instead of cutting back at the WH he turns up the thermostat, eats $100 a lb steak dinner and the list goes on. I know the President needs to be comfortable. But I think OBama could put a a bit of a show of cutting back.
I agree, of course; he does seem to be a spoiled trust funder type of person.
But then people (most likely his friends in the media, another greatly overpaid profession) would make fun of that–you know, Carter in his sweater.
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B BIG
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Can you imagine how wonderful it would be if he and Michelle would set an example and say, we’re wearing two sweaters in the White House, we’re eating lentils in the White House — you get the drift — and really cut back on expenditures. He could say, look it may not seem like a big deal, but we want you to know were with you during this time of sacrifice and we’re doing our best to run everything on our end lean and mean to spend as little taxpayer dough as possible. Moreover, other salaries and ancillary expenses come to mind he could take a red pen to…he’s got the dough — he could work for $1 the first year.
Can you imagine the message that would send — it might also have the effect shaming some of these bankers out of the big salaries they are (once again) taking — see Krugman’s editorial — Money for Nothing.
So far I’m not seeing any indications of this.
I read Edith’s story over the weekend. It is really an effective piece that just leaves you feeling gut punched.
I know we often get angry at the Obamatrons for blindly following the empty hopes and promises, but Edith is a real person. She believed honestly and fully and she still holds a whisper of hope. But both she and those from her district are being pushed to their knees with this worsening economy. And I don’t see any end to it. In fact, I think it’s going to get a whole lot worse, and the disappointment will be enormous.
There’s a line in the piece where Edith says, well, the President has a lot to do, so we’ll just have to wait until he gets to us.
Heartbreaking.
Thanks for the piece, Susan.
perhaps such foolishness in voting for Obama warrants a good hard lesson so people don’t repeat their mistake. People like Edith are good hearted but often very naive about what is going on. They want to see the good in everything. While I can see alot of good in this world and in the United States, we have to be aware of the bad too or we will be brought down by it.
We will just have to fight the fight for people like Edith who don’t know any better. She should not be compared to Obots however who are just plain angery and selfish and I doubt the majority have helped few, even themselves.
WAKE UP PEOPLE..OBAMA THE FRAUD !!
AND THE MAIN STREAM SAID..WE ARE JUST A FEW.WE ARE ALL OVER IN ALL STATES AND COUNTIES..
http://www.resistnet.com/
I FEEL SORRY FOR HER AND DON’T FEEL SORRY FOR HER.WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO WAKE HER UP.HER FUTURE WHEN IT’S ALL GONE AND AMERICA IS TORN APART Y THIS FRAUD.. DON’T WATCH THE MAIN STREAM MEDIA MENBC-CNN-ABC-CBS THE TODAY SHOW MSN SHUT THEM DOWN !
The Second American Revolution Has Begun
“Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have… a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean the characters and conduct of their rulers.” - John Adams
“Government is like a baby: an alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.” - Ronald Reagan
“A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned… this is the sum of good government.” - Thomas Jefferson
“Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.” - P. J. O’Rourke
“We are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of Nature has placed in our power… the battle, sir, is not to the strong alone it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.” - Patrick Henry
“A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have.” - Barry Goldwater
“The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.” - George Washington
“It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.” - Samuel Adams
“It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.” - James Madison
“If ‘pro’ is the opposite of ‘con’ what is the opposite of ‘progress’?” - Paul Harvey
“Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.” - Abraham Lincoln
“Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.” - Mark Twain
“Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.” - Thomas Paine
“Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what’s going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?” - Will Rogers
“It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising their sovereignty.” - James Monroe
But Obama’s popularity/approval is supposedly 68%? Maybe the company that does the polling? They are or may be soon handing gov. bailouts to the media companies I believe.
I’m afraid too that it’s going to get much worse. Owning a business gives you the insight into other businesses and the news is not good. Business owners see no reason to invest or to chase after customers that simply no longer can afford to buy.
John McLaughlin dream is over.
Government is not the enemy. The Reagan and Republican era is over.