What is today's American Dream?

[the_tyrant]

Originally Posted by MothBalls

American Dream V2.0. To have a girlfriend (not a wife) with big boobs who'll pay the rent and buy you fast computers and video games, and she has a best friend with big boobs, who likes to get stoned and play strip poker with your girlfriend, and after they take it out on each other and you, they both cook you dinner.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by MothBalls

American Dream V2.0. To have a girlfriend (not a wife) with big boobs who'll pay the rent and buy you fast computers and video games, and she has a best friend with big boobs, who likes to get stoned and play strip poker with your girlfriend, and after they take it out on each other and you, they both cook you dinner.

I love this guy!!!

[Gerald]

[Gerald]

Is the American Dream still achievable in 2011, amid lingering economic hard times, wars and political discord? Veteran US pollster John Zogby says fewer Americans think it is, but many have redefined what that dream means.

Steadily over the past decade, I have witnessed in my polling a fundamental redefinition of the American Dream, even for that matter, the American character.

While fewer Americans believe that the American Dream still exists for themselves or for the middle class than before (57% compared with 74% just prior to the Great Recession), more Americans say that the American Dream means something different to them than it did before.

Materialism rejected

In the late 1990s, I began probing how Americans define the dream. I discovered in 1999 that about one-third believed the American Dream meant some form of financial success: the acquisition of goods, a bigger house, a home with a piece of land around it and so on. I called them the Traditional Materialists.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12839437

Note: Update Record,29 March 2011 Last updated at 11:29 GMT

[Growler]

I think the American Dream is just that: The Dream of American(s). We all have our own definitions of what our dream is, and no matter what people on the left, the right, the North or the South might say, we all DO have the option to pursue it. Yes, even today.

Is it hard work? Hell yeah, it is. Maybe even harder than it once was.

But it IS still possible - if people start taking responsibility for their past choices, and start looking at consequences of future ones from the perspective of being solely responsible for them. Instead of the culture of blame, where bad things are always someone else's fault, we need a culture of accountability, where my successes are mine, AND my failures - are mine, too. We have become too success-driven, and don't tolerate failures - even when it is the failures that will eventually create the successes. We're too metric driven and not enough idea-driven anymore.

[August]

Originally Posted by tater

Wow. I disagree with him pretty much 100%.

You actually believe that the reason people are so poorly educated is a conspiracy by our "corporate masters" to keep the people ignorant? You believe that? That in a nutshell is what Carlin says in that video.

The implication presumably is that even though MORE money is spent per student in poor areas, presumably they work hard to make sure the teachers there are incompetent. Myself, I don't blame teachers for poor outcomes, I blame parents. Private schools don't select on the basis of affluence, they select for parents who are involved. Affluent people live in nice areas. Nice areas have good public schools in general. Is that a money sorting? Yes, but the people with money have a different culture WRT education. They value it. The sad reality in urban areas is that the culture doesn't value education. Does that mean no poor people value education? Of course not, but just enough don't value it to really screw things up. Bussing in CT found that when they bussed in enough urban kids to the burbs that they hit >10% of the school population, they dragged the whole suburban school down with them.

A great story on an attempt to correct this cultural gap in NYC on This American Life:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radi.../364/going-big

It's the "Baby College" story.

Regardless, it's not a conspiracy, that's as absurd as truthers, etc, frankly.

This ^

[Ducimus]

All i want outta life, my idea of the American dream, is pretty much summed up in this song right here.

[Sailor Steve]

Oh, Duci, you evil, evil man. You had to go and remind me of this oldie about a man who really is living the American Dream.

[Gerald]

Of all the groups of immigrants coming to the US each year, Koreans are said to be among the most successful, many reaching the highest levels of achievement in this country in a single generation. The BBC's Katie Beck went to New York to meet some of those who came, and found the American Dream.

Sunhee and SeoJun Kim came to New York City from South Korea in 1986. They immigrated with hopes of giving their son Ron, then seven, every advantage and opportunity.

When the Kims arrived, along with thousands of other young Korean families, the social make-up of the city, and indeed the country, was undergoing big changes.

Two decades earlier, the US had done away with racially-based immigration quotas and, along with other immigrant groups, Koreans benefited from the new laws.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12888908

Note: Update Record,30 March 2011 Last updated at 11:57 GMT

[AVGWarhawk]

Of all the groups of immigrants coming to the US each year, Koreans are said to be among the most successful, many reaching the highest levels of achievement in this country in a single generation

I would agree 100%

[Ducimus]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Oh, Duci, you evil, evil man. You had to go and remind me of this oldie about a man who really is living the American Dream.

That's pretty funny.

[Gerald]

The American Dream is a driving principle that has led millions of immigrants to head to the United States in pursuit of a better life.

But of course America is not limited just to the US, and neither is dreaming.

Paolo Cabral reports from Brazil where the American Dream is thriving in a unique way.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12942157


Note Update Record, 1 April 2011 Last updated at 22:08 GMT