You mean the present day treadmill goal of trying to achieve the unachievable goal?

For most of us paying attention, the American Dream was nothing more than a marketing ploy so people would continue to buy more and more to keep the economy going (believing that it was never going to end) and to out do the russians.

That American Dream?

I'm of the firm belief that those of us born of the "baby-boom era" honestly believed that this was how it was always going to be. Of course we ate up the propaganda in copious amounts. After all, and believed that "we're Americans and we're just so special!"

Myself, having been born at the very tail end of the baby boom, and having paid attention to the devastating effects of horrible wars (Viet Nam, desert storm, iraq war, afghanistan and the many little micro-wars of choice in between), the slow and purposeful destruction of unions and the hollowing out of a living breathing economy by the right wing and ineffective democrats, the willful ignorance and lack foresight regarding pollution, and the rapid growth of a propaganda business to make us all believe that we are doing better, even though in retrospect, we are underpaid, overworked, less represented and gleefully ignored by our congress people; made for what we have to day. In essence, an American Dream that exists on paper with skewed stats and fudged numbers to make those in power sleep better at night.

Is that again that American Dream that is being talked about?

I don't know about all of you, but I grew up in a solid lower middle class union blue collar family, where my dad (a mechanic for the NY Dept of Sanitation) was able to, on a single salary, put myself and my brother and my two sisters through college, support my mom, buy a small cottage for vacationing, retire with a solid pension and provide for him and my mom, very well, until they passed away.

THAT, is the American Dream. Being able to live a full life without the daily slings and arrows, that seem to increase every moment, to keep us down, afraid and that much poorer with each and every following day all the while keeping us distracted and off balance with a new gewgaw or trumped up "controversy" to prevent us from coalescing into the formidable power we are as the people of this nation.

The real American Dream, is were the people of this nation have a voice and control the means by which they have an actual say in the decisions the effect us directly and not subject to the winds of daily bullshit that ravaged our character and destroys our spirit via the moneyed interests of the 1%. Who, I might add, have zero to nothing in common with us or care one whit of what we think.

The American Dream is to breath fresh air, drink clean water, eat clean food and raise our families without the threat of it all collapsing in the next moment.

We have been suckered into doing a more and more with a hell of a lot less. We are told daily to vote and support things against our own best interests out of fear that the "other guy" might win and "make our lives miserable".

Look the fuck around you. Our lives, compared to 40 years ago, are fucking miserable and they want us all so tied up in fighting for scraps that we don't have to time to realize this.

I love the writings of Robert Reich, but the whole concept and idea of "The American Dream", is nothing but a farce. What he writes of and what I wrote, is how it should be, not some fucking dream.

Dreams, I might add, for the most part, are just that: dreams.