The Real American Dream Date Thursday, April 25, 2024 - 04:01 AM PST Topic Rant What happened to the American Dream, what happened to America? Often now, I find myself driving through rural neighbourhoods and residential districts and finding these monuments to crap and commercialism and what passes for quality and culture in America. Starbucks, Express Workout clubs, Craft shops and plastic trinket stores dot the landscapes block corners, spreading a kind of disease that seems to run so deep into our culture it can only be a symptom of the greater disease of life. What happened to the American Dream? Success, in all its glory, has been changed; the roles of the victor and what is needed for victory have changed. The dot-com empire boom and the bubble bursting did not shift the new business game plan; creating a killer op website or product, or trying to and just selling out to a larger corporation for what a drastically inflated price. There is no pride in the product, no drive; just the money. The final push. I suppose it comes out in everything now; movies about criminals who cheat the system have become the real 'heroes' of our culture; people love Scarface and Snatch and Confidence. What does this mean? Do people secretly despise this process, despise the world for allowing it and letting the people be successful in this way, and they give their support for the criminals that rob these people? And if this is so, then have people become supporters of the old-money-riche? The hypocrisy is staggering, but only a few mention it and even fewer understand it. With the heroes as criminals, our youths become so in danger of rebelling in the way portrayed in the movies, because rebellion is founded in a picture that the elders despise. How else could you rebel? But the tools, and the message, are so dangerous that permanent extrication is really the only option. But we decide to cage this, and make living outside the box, or living in your own style, so expensive. There's no room to develop a person or character in our society; just a social standard. Sure, there are subcultures, but those Brownian motions don't develop a full human psyche. So what happened? Has anything happened, it just has become a more grandiose scale, a behemoth of popular culture that embraces everything that exists, libeling poorly individuality, and uniqueness? Have people ever really dreamed? Sometimes, I dream of when I'm rich and powerful. I have a terrace somewhere; maybe Tuscany, Something on a mountain where I can look out of the sunsets over the Black Sea; watch the sunrises and feel the fresh breezes of all seasons as they come over the water to me. I sit with a fine glass of wine; a rich red that turns to burgundy and rich neon tones when I hold it up to the sun in toast of life. I dream sometimes of a beautiful woman, olive skin and long black hair that coils and curls gently down her back; the elegant slope of her neck; the delicate curve of her jaw line as she speaks poetry in a language I cannot understand. A language that has words that we do not have in English; words for emotions, dreams, and spirits that were just censored out of our dialects. I'd like to see more dreams. This article comes from Shmeng http://www.shmeng.com/ The URL for this story is: http://www.shmeng.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=519