The American Dream is Killing us (Great Article)

[ArtW]

Yup

 

[Every Road Leads Home]

There are some really great replies in this thread. I thank everyone that has taken the time to read the article and reply. It's very interesting to get everyone's viewpoints. Great job keeping politics out of what could have become very political.

 

[GotSmart]

There are some really great replies in this thread.  I thank everyone that has taken the time to read the article and reply.  It's very interesting to get everyone's viewpoints.  Great job keeping politics out of what could have become very political.

Both sides are ignoring the problem.  We have to deal with it ourselves.  MEH.

Once the election is over, we can all go back to being human, and deal with reality.  Such as finding a dream we can live with.    

I am just glad that I live in a place where safe water is available to all. To many in Africa, that would be a dream come true.  We take it for granted. 

Virtually all of the food we buy is not toxic from growing in filth, bad processing or transportation.  Our law enforcement/military will not drag us out of our beds in the middle of the night and shoot us. Our children have education available.  The military does not recruit by grabbing young people off the street.  Our possessions are safe from confiscation just because someone powerful wants it. We can travel around this country without needing official permission.

I could go on.  

All in all, we live in a good place at a safe time in history.

 

[vanman2300]

I think the best way to put it is we don't live in the worst country in the world but it still has a lot of room for improvement in order to bring it back to where it once was...the best. There's too many monetized elements warping the political system into a system that works against the American Dream. I remember as a kid reading The Animal Farm because it was an allegory about communism. I was shocked after reading it again recently that I could draw so many parallels to our own country and the way it works now. For example there's a famous quote from the book: All animals on the farm are equal but some are more equal than others. That is so much more true now than it has ever been before.

Don't get me wrong. I'm still grateful to live in this country. I'm just deeply concerned with where we are headed.

 

[GotSmart]

Times have changed.  People have changed.  I still at my age would partner with someone that would love me.   :heart:

Never give up, Never surrender!

 

[Gunny]

I am no expert on economics, politics or any of that sort of crap but I have, because of my jobs, been to many countries, some beautiful with good health care and find that the cost of living is much higher than ours here. Then there are the shitholes where you can live on 300 a month with a maid, deal with power going out often, brown water and corrupt govts. I'm not the "Love it leave it" type, we have many faults, one being played out in SD right now.

Here in America you can indeed be down one moment but still climb out of whatever hole you fell in and recover. Sometimes a person stays in the gutter but for most of them it is a choice. There is free housing, free food, free everything if one chooses not to work or can't work. No, you won't be living in the best part of town but you are living and fed. On my dime I might add.

I want everyone in this country treated fairly and with respect, be you a poor black, poor white or poor anyone. It's not happening now and change is needed and change begins with a vote. Local, state and general elections are what define our nation. Choose wisely.

 

[Headache]

The Dream was originally: A steak on every grill, and a new car in every garage
Now it's: a McMansion, 2 cars, and all the various toys we think we need, and designer clothes, etc.
We chase our dreams, maybe find them, and then realize we still want more, because reasons

This is what's killing us and those who think we should be dead are trying to convince us we have no value.  Sometimes it even works.

I am just glad that I live in a place where safe water is available to all.

That's good you live in that kind of area because there are more than a few places in this country where the water isn't and the problems have been going on for decades.


Everyone has their own reality.  It's when we project our reality onto others and expect them to live up to it that the problems surface.  We can't "deal with it ourselves" when we are powerless to do anything about it.  I'm living that reality right now.  I'm not allowed to access the "American Dream".  I'm supposed to shut up and sit in the corner...or die.

 

[GotSmart]

That's good you live in that kind of area because there are more than a few places in this country where the water isn't and the problems have been going on for decades.


Everyone has their own reality.  It's when we project our reality onto others and expect them to live up to it that the problems surface.  We can't "deal with it ourselves" when we are powerless to do anything about it.  I'm living that reality right now.  I'm not allowed to access the "American Dream".  I'm supposed to shut up and sit in the corner...or die.

There may be a couple on here that have a clue about my reality.  

I was born in what is now one of the most exclusive places in this country. (Napa Valley)  My land inheritance was stolen from me.   Four homes have been taken from me, one by each ex wife.  I was a single father to three daughters  I have been disabled at least six ( 6 ) times.  Each time I fought back and continued to work.  I paid more in taxes some weeks than I currently take home in a month from my SS check.  I was told more than once I would never walk again, and that there is no medical reason I should be walking.  Two spinal surgeries, many broken bones, and several strokes later, I am now at a point where I am not supposed to do anything that will get my blood pressure up.  Long trips, arguments, even shopping is curtailed.  

Every time I am given a "REALITY" I make it into something that I like better. I live where I am by choice.  Long term planning put me in a place where the water is good, the health care is excellent, and if I desired it, a home can be purchased from the small amount I get from SS.   

When I am told to shut up, and sit down, is when I stand up and speak in a voice that commands attention.  I may not have long left to live, but it will be on my own terms.  They can take away my positions, but I will always have my stubborn will and do what is not possible.  

Most of the old members of CRVL have this attitude.  That is why I like it here, and enjoy the RTR where every day you meet many people doing the impossible. 

The secret is to take what you have, and make it work. 

If anyone needs a illustration of this, read Mama's Bank Account. by Katherine Forbes.  Life has always been hard.

 

[Headache]

When I am told to shut up, and sit down, is when I stand up and speak in a voice that commands attention.  I may not have long left to live, but it will be on my own terms.  They can take away my positions, but I will always have my stubborn will and do what is not possible.

This is not possible for everyone and made even worse when the expectation is placed on those who aren't always able.

It's like expecting a computer to work when the hard drive is dying.  How do you "make it work"?  Despite it coming to life and working eventually the bad sectors make it impossible to deal with.  I can't replace my "hard drive" and like any disease or illness if you don't get proper treatment it gets worse.  I'm not allowed to have the "American Dream".  I don't generate enough income for the cause.  Quite often the people who are called bums and told to get a job really are to work.  Do we let them/me die because we can't do the impossible?

 

[Gary68]

There may be a couple on here that have a clue about my reality.  

I was born in what is now one of the most exclusive places in this country. (Napa Valley)  My land inheritance was stolen from me.   Four homes have been taken from me, one by each ex wife.  I was a single father to three daughters  I have been disabled at least six ( 6 ) times.  Each time I fought back and continued to work.  I paid more in taxes some weeks than I currently take home in a month from my SS check.  I was told more than once I would never walk again, and that there is no medical reason I should be walking.  Two spinal surgeries, many broken bones, and several strokes later, I am now at a point where I am not supposed to do anything that will get my blood pressure up.  Long trips, arguments, even shopping is curtailed.  

Every time I am given a "REALITY" I make it into something that I like better. I live where I am by choice.  Long term planning put me in a place where the water is good, the health care is excellent, and if I desired it, a home can be purchased from the small amount I get from SS.   

When I am told to shut up, and sit down, is when I stand up and speak in a voice that commands attention.  I may not have long left to live, but it will be on my own terms.  They can take away my positions, but I will always have my stubborn will and do what is not possible.  

Most of the old members of CRVL have this attitude.  That is why I like it here, and enjoy the RTR where every day you meet many people doing the impossible. 

The secret is to take what you have, and make it work. 

If anyone needs a illustration of this, read Mama's Bank Account. by Katherine Forbes.  Life has always been hard.

don't forget that time in Kalamazoo with the absinthe,roller derby team and octopus... or was that rvpopeye when he was on tour with whitesnake?

anyways,William Wallace didn't live like a caveman and paint his face,he was the second son of a minor knight and sent away for education to the larger clan to the south which just happens to be my clan so he got a good education in f-you

and the movie word don't hold up to the real ones

"For as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom — for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself."
From The Declaration of Arbroath 1320
http://www.constitution.org/scot/arbroath.htm

so for as long as scottish border reiver d.n.a. roams this land so does the american dream

Clan Johnston in the house and we don't much like being told what to do or where to go

 

[vanman2300]

Why concern yourselves with what others are doing? It's futile since there is nothing you can really do about it. If you're in a position to work enough to get by and not letting work dominate your life then you're probably not making enough to pay any significant taxes that you worry about. Two of the best positions to be in as an American are to be either filthy rich or low income. The middle is the worst, they pay for nearly everything.

As an ex-middle class guy I actually take a certain amount of satisfaction knowing I no longer contribute to the system that use to always have their hand in my pocket. I'm not going after what I want but those things I need. No more accountants and lawyers just a simple enjoyable life living outside the crazy norms of society. I can't be taxed to death, I am judgement proof since I own very little, and I decide what's next and no one else. Sounds like a life worth living and why worry about anyone else other then fiends and family.

 

[Headache]

Why concern yourselves with what others are doing? It's futile since there is nothing you can really do about it.

Knowing where and when to draw the line is a great mystery to me.  How does anyone know it will be futile?  I'm not going to lie, I am concerned.  I'm not "allowed" to have a full life because those others I shouldn't be concerned with keep getting in the way.  I can't go any further or I break rules.

 

[flying kurbmaster]

the American Dream,,,, Salvation,,,, Nirvana,,,, Enlightenment,,,,,, They all seem like something to believe in when the chips are down, something to cling to when the water is high, a destination to go to when where you stand does not measure up, a goal to attain some time in the future, an attempt to fill a perfect empty hole. Very few people die in a dream, usually you wake up just before.

 

[eDJ_]

I find reading through the Article and this thread quite interesting.  Most here know I have an Industrial Design background and I can tell you how  much of my field is tied to making "things" pretty, glamorous, or at least intriguing such that people will see the item in the stores as a "must have".  Next to that is what the advertising designers do with that same product to further hasten the reach for the credit card reflex. 

So much of this happens in our market and those who fabricate and facilitate the structure for it to happen see themselves as bringers of the American Dream.  In reality they may be the bringers of the American Nightmare which is built on the back of the belligerent harvest of natural resources to fabricate those products with,  insane percentage interest rates on credit cards,  advertising that promotes the insanity of consuming these products,  and the hoarding of these goods which so often are never used and wind up in the first yard sales of the spring after arriving under the Christmas Tree only a couple months before.  

One of the leading Designers of the second half of the 20 th century recognized this in the 1960's and his name was Victor Papanek.   He wrote a book where he described this whole inane process and titled it "Design for the Real World".   In it he wrote:

“Advertising design, in persuading people to buy things they don`t need, with money they don`t have, in order to impress others who don`t care, is probably the phoniest field in existence today.”

As to our consumption based American Dream:

"There are Professions more harmful than Industrial Design,  but only a few of them".

As for how people have been turning to Van Dwelling,  Tiny Homes,  Off Grid Lifestyles & Nomadic living,  and even Earthship homes....Papanek's observation was:

The only important thing about design is how it relates to people"

It is the bringing order out of chaos.   And to that end those of of us who are Van Dwelling (or other modes)  are now the ones at the forefront of designing a new vision.   We are identifying tools, methods, resources,  and
sharing ideas with each other for their use and better development.  This is to serve us in our unique lifestyle.  No doubt some in the media will brand us with an absurd name for our finding a better solution for ourselves, but Papanek said this about that:

"We live in a Society that penalizes highly creative individuals for their non-conformist autonomy.  This makes the teaching of problem solving in design both discouraging and difficult.  A Student has massive blocks against new ways of thinking, engineered by some 16 years of mis-education"

How many of us here have left school to pursue the American Dream only to find ourselves trapped in a "revolving door" of mindless consumption,  being herded like cattle on the freeways to and from work to the suburbs,  and feeling like we're winning when we're losing again ?   Just working from payday to payday
while hoping some dearly deceased will leave an unexpected inheritance that would pay off the addictive debt
to the 16 digit "company store".    So if you are ever camped with a view of a freeway in the early morning,  take a minute to observe all the Job-Men and Job-Women sitting bumper to bumper listening to the drive time radio commercials pitching some new must have in order for them to live the American Dream.    Then realize how lucky you are to no longer be trapped in that dream come nightmare like those sitting in traffic are in bondage to.  That's the cost of buying things you don't need, with money you don't have, to impress those who don't care while living with debt that may be equal to half of your yearly income.  You may not appear as prosperous as they,  but you may actually be much wealthier while enjoying a more beautiful dream. (where
you have the luxury of rolling over and continue to sleep a bit longer if you like)

 

[SternWake]

I sometimes get to hear snippets of conversations from people walking by where I park near the ocean. They almost always are talking about the acquisition of shiny objects, display of shiny objects, and the desire for more of them. A hlaf mile away there is a major interstate, that is bumper to bumper several hours each day, likely with people all of the same mindset. money, security, bragging rights, shiny valueable objects. They've been conditioned to put a dollar sign on everything and everybody, and when meeting someone new, marlketing themselves by their possessions and self importance

I am friends with some very well to do people, and the one couple is having marital issues, and the wife has found their monetary success to be almost meaningless. She is miserable, feels trapped.
Mid life crisis with millions in the bank and millions in assets.

She is sitting in her office now, trapped in to making even more, playing her role, and unsatisfied.

 

[TrainChaser]

We've had a lot of training to be that way. Some people get smarter, some don't.

 

[eDJ_]

TrainChaser,  One Book, which some think was one of the all time best ever written,  was authored by Vance Packard.    It was titled,  "The Hidden Persuaders".   About the Advertising industry and how it effects our lives on a daily basis.

Packard wrote many books and was thought to have identified and best described many of the major American Social Conditions in the second half of the 20th Century.   Much of what he had to say regarded "Consumerism" and the perils of it on our lives both directly and indirectly.   Books such as "The Status Seekers" and "The Waste Makers" detail what was going on that so many in that time had no knowledge of.    Hard to believe now with the internet but this was some 60 years ago in the post WW2 and Korean War era. 

In "The Hidden Persuaders"  Packard had said,

“At one of the largest advertising agencies in America psychologists on the staff are probing sample humans in an attempt to find how to identify, and beam messages to, people of high anxiety, body consciousness, hostility, passiveness, and so on.”

“In the field of marketing... the trend toward selling [has] reached something of a nadir [targeting the lowest common denominator of a person's resistance] with the unveiling... of so-called subliminal projection. That is the technique designed to flash messages past our conscious guard.”

Ad Men on Madison Avenue were summed up in this remark,

“The difference between a top-flight creative man and the hack is his ability to express powerful meanings indirectly.”

Packard identified 8 hidden human needs that Advertising of goods and services so effectively targets.

1) Emotional Security
2) Reassurance of Worth
3) Ego Gratification
4) Creative Outlets
5) Love Objects
6) Sense of Power
7) Roots
8) Immortality

You can Google and find detailed descriptions of these "indirect needs" Packard speaks of. Understanding these may allow a person to become more free and even happier as they live on the road in their Vehicle.

What is significant about what I'm writing here, for those of the Nomadic Lifestyle, is to come to understand how far you can live outside of this structure that has evolved to manipulate your mind and teach you to believe in how you need things that you can live better without. There are powerful forces at work making their fortunes in doing this.

Think of Advertising Agencies missions like this.

Leadership appears to be the art of getting others to want to do something you are convinced should be done.”

But we only need to be aware of this stuff to resist it and take command of our own lives and happiness. Then we will arrive at our own higher consciousness.

 

[Richard]

..."The Hidden Persuaders".   About the Advertising industry and how it effects our lives on a dailybasis.
... understand how far you can live outside of this structure that has evolved to manipulate your mind. ... There are powerful forces at work making their fortunes in doing this.

In this vein, Sigmund Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays, deserves a mention. Those unfamiliar with Bernays may appreciate this brief introduction to him and the enormous role he played in propagandizing the public mind for profit and for control:

http://theconversation.com/the-mani...rnays-and-the-birth-of-public-relations-44393

 

[AngryVanMan]

Bernays was the first thing I thought of when reading eDJ_'s posts, too. Public relations, propaganda, marketing, psyops, it's all the same insidious toolset. Imagine how much you get exposed to, start with Saturday morning cartoons and by the time you're in grade school the methods and tactics are already transparent and "normal."

 

[TrainChaser]

dDJ,

Thank you very much for reminding me of that book! I read it after it came out. Now that it's had some time to ferment, I think it's time that I read it again.

And I think I should check on Bernays -- never heard of him. Library, here I come!

I think I've always known that the inmates of a country couldn't be this stupid naturally.....