Babyboomers.com

Time was, the “American Dream” consisted of certain goals that through hard work, some education, a bit of luck and a lot of determination, could be realized.  Now, it seems the American Dream consists more of “nots” than “do’s.”

The “NEW” American Dream is to:

• NOT have your house foreclosed or to NOT have the Sheriff on your doorstep, eviction notice in hand.
• NOT have your job outsourced to Podunktut, India.  And, to NOT have to train your replacement by video link as you sit with the want ads on your desk.  And, to NOT have that Indian replacement possess a third grade vocabulary of English with an accent even a mother couldn’t understand.
• NOT have your car repossessed at 4 AM, with the alarm  waking your neighbors to announce your new carless status.
• Make it from one payday to the next and NOT have to use credit cards (if you’re lucky enough to have one) or savings (if you’re lucky enough to have any) to meet the mortgage or rent, make the car payment, keep the utilities connected, pay the phone bill.
• Remain healthy enough to NOT need medication that costs $1700 a month, and is NOT covered by your Health Plan…assuming you’re lucky enough to HAVE a health plan.
• NOT be disabled and in need of assistance from the government.  If you are disabled, the Dream is to NOT have your disability claim rejected out of hand, which happens fully two-thirds of the time for Social Security and Disability applications.
• If you are disabled and drawing benefits, the Dream is for it NOT to stop because some worker at some desk in some office in some city far, far away ticked the wrong check box and your payments are stopped arbitrarily, without notice and NOT one word of explanation as to why.
• NOT have to park your SUV because you can’t buy gas, and to NOT have to ride your kid’s bicycle to work.
• To have your children vaccinated and NOT be struck with Autism Spectrum Disorder the next week.
• NOT need social services, because they’re NOT there anymore.  If you are fortunate enough to actually be receiving services, the Dream is for those services NOT to stop because the budget requires a cut, the agency decides you do NOT qualify anymore and they give you a phone number to call for help that is NOT answered…NOT ever.
• NOT be trapped in a dead end, go nowhere job for year after year.  Can’t NOT work, can’t quit, can’t get promoted, can’t get a raise.  Can’t talk to the boss, twenty years younger (or older) than you and you do NOT speak the same language, and you are NOT able to avoid the conflicts that causes.
• Have your children make it home NOT having been molested, shot at, threatened, raped, beat up or robbed on their way home from grammar school.
• NOT be arrested due to profiling.  The Dream is to NOT be noticed and to NOT match any names on the “No-Fly” list.
• NOT have to fly in a commercial aircraft in the first place.  To NOT have to pay for the oxygen mask that will drop when the aircraft runs out of fuel because the company does NOT fill the tanks, in order to save money they do NOT have because they just filed bankruptcy.
• NOT flunk out of school, to NOT have student aid stopped, to NOT have your laptop stolen.  The Dream is also NOT to die of alcohol poisoning from ingesting as much booze in as short a time as is humanly possible.
• NOT have your personal data phished, pharmed or otherwise compromised.  The Dream is to NOT have your bank account cleaned out, to NOT have your savings disappear and to NOT have your credit score tank because of identity theft.
• NOT fail.  The Dream is NOT to succeed, it’s to NOT fail.  Big difference.
• NOT be carjacked, assaulted, murdered, beaten, raped or robbed. To NOT be in the invaded home, to NOT be taken hostage by a mentally deranged, just fired, extremely unstable man (or woman) with several guns and a LOT of ammunition and even more anger, who does NOT care about living or dying.
• NOT be shot at work by a disgruntled employee with a grudge.
• Have your teenagers NOT die while they’re teenagers.  Although invulnerable and immortal, the young DO die, through violence, accident and even intentionally.  The Dream is to have sufficient contact and communication so you have at least a peripheral awareness of the trials of growing up in this new and terrifying world.
• NOT come down with Alzheimer’s Disease.  The Dream is to NOT be relegated to a long term health care facility, to NOT fall and break a hip, to NOT develop diabetes, dementia or any debilitating disease that will rob you of your faculties, your job, your home, your savings and your children’s inheritance.
• NOT see your parents decline into abject poverty because the social programs have deteriorated, do NOT provide for even the necessities of life and do NOT have a chance in hell of getting any better.
• NOT die because you opened a letter bomb or slit open an envelope with spores of destruction in it.
• NOT have cancer. Period.
• NOT be on the radar.  NOT the Justice Department, NOT the IRS, NOT the Immigration and Naturalization Service, NOT the Department of Homeland Security, NOT the DEA, CIA, FBI, DIA or the Secret Service.
• NOT be shot on the highway by an enraged motorist carrying automatic weapons in the back seat of his armored Hummer.
• NOT need.  Pure and simple, to NOT NEED!  If you DO need, that need will NOT be met, and future needs will NOT be met, either.
• NOT lose a family member, friend, spouse or neighbor to an unwinnable war in a faraway place, where Americans are NOT welcome, NOT wanted, are reviled, resented and truly hated.
• NOT be poor, miserable, disabled, sick, injured or unemployable.
• NOT be a victim. To NOT be stashed in a trunk, NOT thrown from the bridge, NOT buried in the woods, NOT tied to a tree, NOT shot and left to die and NOT stabbed 28 times.
• NOT be a “person of interest.”  NOT for anything, NOT ever.
• NOT be old, NOT be fat, NOT be unpopular, NOT be on the outside, looking in.
• NOT have a Dream.  Because dreams are artificial, false, hopeful and NOT attainable.  NOT in today’s society, NOT in today’s economic climate, NOT with today’s politics, NOT with today’s policies.

The new American Dream is unattainable, unless you have a lot of money, live in a gated and patrolled community, can afford state of the art security and have a room full of weapons (in your concrete and steel “safe room) to protect yourself from the people who do NOT have a lot of money, do NOT live in a gated and patrolled community, have NO security but DO have a room full of weapons at home.

Be talkin’ to you……………………………..Webrydr