Americans Dreaming

I wasn't sure whether or not this New York Times article was meant to be inspiring or not, but when I read the title, Facing Hardship, Jobless Still Say They Have Hope, my first thought was, "WhY?"

There was a time when the American Dream had at least some substance to it. There was a distinct possibility that if you put your nose to the grindstone, you could eventually achieve the American Dream of home ownership, 2 cars in the garage, vacation time, a college education for the kids and all that other good stuff. There was even the possibility of working your way to the top of the economic heap if you so desired. Personally, I could never see the sense in wasting a perfectly good life in the pursuit of "stuff," but to each their own.

Anyone with a brain that is able to think outside the TV box can see that those days are gone and probably forever. Yet according to the survey cited in the article, "unemployed Americans remained optimistic about eventually landing jobs." Again, I asked myself, "Why?"

Apparently those jobless Americans haven't heard of the Economic Mobility Project and its finding that "Recent economic studies challenge the traditional view that the United States has more economic mobility than other countries." Apparently they were watching an "economic recovery" pep talk on CNBC instead of reading upstart economic observers like Ezra Klein, who wrote that "Americans are in the odd position of fervently believing in upward mobility while not actually having very much of it. Europeans, conversely, don't really believe in economic mobility but have plenty of it."

What? Europeans have greater upward mobility than Americans? What about all those economists on CNBC who say America is all fixed up and the problem now is with the Eurozone. Why, they even cite statistics that indicate that job numbers are up and there are even signs of a housing recovery. Surely they know what they're talking about. CNBC is, after all, "First in business, worldwide."

Citing statistics to disprove other statistics probably isn't the best way to prove a point, but there are plenty of them to show that America's fearless political and economic leaders diddle with the numbers to bolster the American Dream at a time when actual facts would probably serve the public better. Take a look at this chart from the report, "Social Justice in the OECD." According to the colour coding, anything in the dark red zone is in the bottom 5, anything in the red (or pinkish red, if you prefer) is in the bottom 10 and anything in the yellow zone is in the bottom 15. Among the items being rated were overall poverty levels, child poverty levels, senior citizen poverty levels and income inequality. Yes, that's the United States you're looking at, right down there with Greece, Chile, Mexico and Turkey. In all, there were 31 countries on the list. America came in 26th place.Okay, these were all reasonably developed countries. I suppose Americans can still swagger around in places like Bangladesh and Haiti, but I live in Cambodia and see more hope for this country's future than I do for the average American's.

I'm not going to speculate about how and why the United States got itself into the mess it's in or how it can get itself out of it. Personally, I'd suggest spending less on world domination by the corporate elite and their military serfs and more on the American people. I guess the Occupy movement is a step in the right direction, but unfortunately, I have a feeling that the only ones who listen to them are each other.

What fascinates me is the fact that apparently even out of work Americans still believe in the American Dream. According to the NY Times article, "Two-thirds of those surveyed said that they still believed it was possible to start out poor in this country, work hard and become rich — only a little lower than the three-quarters of all Americans who said that they believed that." Yes, I guess it is possible to start out poor in America and become rich, but that's possible anywhere. The numbers of new cars on the streets of Sihanoukville are proof of that. It's really nothing to wave the American flag about.

I don't write this to be cruel. I write it in the deluded hope that a few Americans will wake up and realise that it's time they took control of their own destinies. Flag waving and believing in a system that has abandoned them isn't going to get them anywhere.

endnote: Many thanks to Joel Hirschhorn, whose article, Jobless and Clueless in Global Research inspired this one and whose references I shamelessly stole. His book, Delusional Democracy, is one of those listed below.