If You Are Not in the Upper 1% and Believe in the American Dream

[The Whiskey Priest]

Then please tell us what drugs can make you that delusional?

[donheld]

1. The American dream is a myth

It may work for a few but not many.

[On the Road]

2. Do You Mean the Ability to Get Rich?

It's just as possible now as it ever was. However, most of the people taking advantage of that opportunity seem to be recent immigrants. People want to come to this country for a reason.

I'm as opposed to the administration's policies as anyone else, but they have not been able to destroy some basic things about this country.

[BushOut06]

7. I refuse to believe that so many Americans don't want to be rich

Of course, we'd all love to be rich. And lots of us even bust our asses off trying to make it happen.

[noonwitch]

3. My grandpa has lived the American Dream

My grandpa came to this country when he was 11 years old, in 1924. His mother brought he and 3 of his brothers with him (his other half-siblings were adults). They came from Italy, but were actually Austrian. Italy got his village (near Trieste) after WWI. The italians were not very nice to the german-speaking residents of the area, great-grandma was tired of being hungry all the time, so they came here on the USS Martha Washington. They were at Ellis Island, first, where Grandpa said that they were treated well and started to learn English (his mother already knew some). They moved to Detroit after their quarantine, and started a life.

My grandpa went to Detroit Public Schools, where he finished learning English and even went to Cass Tech High for a couple of years before the depression hit fully and he had to drop out and go to work. He then fell in love with a crazy red-haired canadian girl and knocked her up (he still claims that she seduced him), so they got married (and still are married). My grandpa worked a lot of jobs at first, making toys for Kresge, among other things. Eventually, he got into Ford and worked on the line before being found out to be an engineering genius. He eventually became a Ford engineer, even without a formal education, and helped perfect features on new cars. He also invented a special kind of wrench and made a lot of money over the years, by investing and saving wisely the money he earned by working hard. He would tell you he got where he did from hard work.

So I do believe in the American dream-I have benefitted from it. My dad also had a meager upbringing (other side of family, though) and ended up owning a small business and making enough money to live very well and educate me.

I just wish so many people weren't cut out of the American dream. My grandpa and I talk about this and he says the problem is with schools. He's right-the Detroit Public Schools that he attended may use some of the same building as they did in the 20s, but they are not the same district that educated him or my parents. Schools may have been segregated at the time (neighborhoods certainly were), but the schools gave everyone a pretty good education through the early 60s.

[Village Idiot]

4. Librium ROCKS!!!

[FloridaPat]

5. My grandparents came from Europe too. Italy. I've met a lot of

people from foreign countries when I worked in Miami. The stories are all the same. They came from economies with no future for themselves and their children. But I think the American Dream is now dead, killed by our government and I might even say TV making people mindless. However, once the economy collapses, the country goes through a big depression, there is no more electricity for tv, the American Dream will be back once we hit bottom.

[Jayhawk Lib]

6. The dream is still alive!!!

Regardless of your politics, you still have to opportunity to go as far as your ambition and abilities will take you.

Take a look around. Look how many Asians, Cubans, Mexicans and others have come over here and succeeded. Some came here not having the education we get here. Some not even knowing our language but they succeeded. Their secret is hard work, sacrifice, and determination.

I am a retired blue collar worker who did not go very far but the reason that I did not is because I took the easy way out and did not and push myself to go higher. I only have myself to blame.

Not everybody is equal. Some people are smarter than others. Some are more talented than others. AND some just plain work harder than others. The world and this country does not owe any of us a thing.

[Wilms]

8. Oxytocin? n/t