CDZ Requiem for the American Dream

[Wry Catcher]

A documentary which may might make the willfully ignorant begin to question what they believe and who they support, and one which is thought provoking and provides perspective to the entire Right-Left conflict which divides American.

I watched the documentary in full this morning currently on Netflix, and given the hate directed at Chomsky which is prolific on this message board, I thought it best to offer an alternative to the picture painted by those partisans on the right, and maybe have them reconsider their predilections.

Here below is the trailer, which may instill the curiosity of he reader, even those who believe they know who and what Noam Chomsky is all about - they may very well be surprised, and if not bitten by the cognitive dissonance virus, find the documentary and watch it with an open mind.

 

[320 Years of History]

I watched the documentary in full this morning currently on Netflix, and given the hate directed at Chomsky which is prolific on this message board,

We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain that way.
― 320 Years of History​

You know, it's not even about liberal or conservative positions. It never ceases to amaze me when I see folks who repeatedly demonstrate the great degree to which they are bereft of anything that can rightly be called intellectual acuity oft and loudly criticize folks like Noam Chomsky or W.F. Buckley, Jr. More often than not, the folks whom I observe criticising or decrying either are preposterously unintuitive, naively cold-hearted, sub-literate libertine mental midgets who, like geese of a feather, clangorously flock together.

Five percent of the people think; ten percent of the people think they think; and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think.
― Thomas A. Edison​

I mean really. It's downright laughable that folks who can barely construct a coherent paragraph, much less actually read ones composed by folks who've put more consideration into one paragraph than they have into the entirety of whole months of their adult lives, can yet find themselves convinced of the merit (or lack thereof) of ideas put forth by their cognitive superiors.

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
― Plato​

 

[Elvis Obama]

Hmmn, no, I doubt I'll watch it but not for the reasons you offer as choices on your poll. Chomsky is great, one of our most important public intellectuals, but I've heard him speak about these issues, and I already know he's right. I'd only offer one modification, that the American dream isn't dead, it's just in a coma. It can still make a comeback, if we can somehow steal our government back from the insanely acquisitive who have bought it.

 

[320 Years of History]

Hmmn, no, I doubt I'll watch it but not for the reasons you offer as choices on your poll. Chomsky is great, one of our most important public intellectuals, but I've heard him speak about these issues, and I already know he's right. I'd only offer one modification, that the American dream isn't dead, it's just in a coma. It can still make a comeback, if we can somehow steal our government back from the insanely acquisitive who have bought it.

Red:
I agree with this. One need not concur with Dr. Chomsky's views to accord him that much.

Blue:
The American Dream is hardly what's comatose.

Pink:
There's nothing to steal back. There is something to take and that something is "advantage of the opportunities one is given," or absent being given anything, "the bull by the horns." Quite simply there are way too many folks who began from substantively nothing and have achieved far more than what anyone has any business expecting.

• Oprah Winfrey
• Dr. Oz
• Thousands of sports figures
• Thousands of actors, singers, and songwriters
• Thousands of other entertainers
• Hundreds of journalists
• Thousands of doctors, lawyers, and other professionals
• Fareed Zakaria
• Larry Ellison -- Oracle
• Howard Schultz -- Starbucks
• Do Wan Chang -- Forever 21
• Ralph Lauren
• Lloyd Blankfein -- Goldman Sachs
  
• Guy Laliberté -- Cirque du Soleil
  
• John Paul DeJoria -- Paul Mitchell Systems
  
• Ursula Burns -- Xerox CEO (a black woman who grew up in the gang days of the Lower East Side)
  
• Kirk Kerkorian -- MGM Grand, The International, The Flamingo Hotel and Casino (8th grade dropout)
  
• Sheldon Adelson -- Sands Hotel and Casino, The Venetian mega-resort
  
• Sam Walton
• Chris Gardner -- Gardner Rich & Co -- Black, slept in subways
• Harold Simmons -- Eckerd Drugstores
  
• Harry Wayne Huizenga -- Waste Management
  
• David Tran - Huy Fong Foods -- Vietnamese immigrant
• Elon Musk -- PayPal, Tesla Motors, SpaceX -- South African immigrant
  
• Shayan Zadeh and Alex Mehr -- Zoosk -- Iranian immigrants
  
• Jawed Karim -- YouTube -- German Immigrant
  
• Kiran Patel -- WellCare Health Plans -- Zambian immigrant
  
• Shahid Khan -- Flex-N-Gate, Bumper Works, Jacksonville Jaguars -- Pakistani immigrant
  
• Sergey Brin -- Google, Russian immigrant
  
• Gurbaksh Chahal -- GWallet, Indian immigrant
  
• Vinod Dham -- Silicon Spice -- Indian immigrant
  
• Andy Grove -- Intel -- Hungarian immigrant
• Lowell Hawthorne -- Golden Krust Caribbean Bakery & Grill -- Jamaican immigrant
  
• Jan Koum -- WhatsApp -- Ukrainian immigrant
  
• Andrew Ly -- Sugar Bowl Bakery -- Vietnamese immigrant
  
• Indra Nooyi -- PepsiCo CEO -- Indian immigrant
  
• Jerry Yang -- Yahoo -- Chinese immigrant

Now a lot of the individually folks listed above are among the wealthiest folks in the U.S., but the reality is that nobody insists on achieving that degree of financial success. Merely being comfortable is quite adequate, and that's far less difficult to do. What's important about those folks is that none of them were "to the manor born;" on the contrary, most of them, though they now live amid silver spoons, began without so much as plastic spoons.

I have forgotten which of them it is, but I recall reading that s/he arrived in the U.S. with $25 to their name. Twenty-five dollars! Every single person on this forum almost certainly has more than that in their favor. So when I hear folks griping about how hard it is to get ahead in the U.S. and bitching and moaning about the government, I say, "BS." Do you know why I say that? I say it because the surest way to not get ahead is to spend one's energies complaining about how hard it is to get ahead.

Hell, if one has that much kvetching to do, become a writer or a comedian...Oh, and guess what, doing that would be in keeping with the basic concept I've stated over and over again: the way to make money is to do that which is in demand and plays to one's country's comparative advantage. I've over and over said that what pays in the U.S. is intellectual labor, not physical labor. Guess what, writing -- columns, books, comedy routines, songs, etc. -- is precisely that type of work.

 

[Wry Catcher]

Hmmn, no, I doubt I'll watch it but not for the reasons you offer as choices on your poll. Chomsky is great, one of our most important public intellectuals, but I've heard him speak about these issues, and I already know he's right. I'd only offer one modification, that the American dream isn't dead, it's just in a coma. It can still make a comeback, if we can somehow steal our government back from the insanely acquisitive who have bought it.

Red:
I agree with this. One need not concur with Dr. Chomsky's views to accord him that much.

Blue:
The American Dream is hardly what's comatose.

Pink:
There's nothing to steal back. There is something to take and that something is "advantage of the opportunities one is given," or absent being given anything, "the bull by the horns." Quite simply there are way too many folks who began from substantively nothing and have achieved far more than what anyone has any business expecting.

• Oprah Winfrey
• Dr. Oz
• Thousands of sports figures
• Thousands of actors, singers, and songwriters
• Thousands of other entertainers
• Hundreds of journalists
• Thousands of doctors, lawyers, and other professionals
• Fareed Zakaria
• Larry Ellison -- Oracle
• Howard Schultz -- Starbucks
• Do Wan Chang -- Forever 21
• Ralph Lauren
• Lloyd Blankfein -- Goldman Sachs
  
• Guy Laliberté -- Cirque du Soleil
  
• John Paul DeJoria -- Paul Mitchell Systems
  
• Ursula Burns -- Xerox CEO (a black woman who grew up in the gang days of the Lower East Side)
  
• Kirk Kerkorian -- MGM Grand, The International, The Flamingo Hotel and Casino (8th grade dropout)
  
• Sheldon Adelson -- Sands Hotel and Casino, The Venetian mega-resort
  
• Sam Walton
• Chris Gardner -- Gardner Rich & Co -- Black, slept in subways
• Harold Simmons -- Eckerd Drugstores
  
• Harry Wayne Huizenga -- Waste Management
  
• David Tran - Huy Fong Foods -- Vietnamese immigrant
• Elon Musk -- PayPal, Tesla Motors, SpaceX -- South African immigrant
  
• Shayan Zadeh and Alex Mehr -- Zoosk -- Iranian immigrants
  
• Jawed Karim -- YouTube -- German Immigrant
  
• Kiran Patel -- WellCare Health Plans -- Zambian immigrant
  
• Shahid Khan -- Flex-N-Gate, Bumper Works, Jacksonville Jaguars -- Pakistani immigrant
  
• Sergey Brin -- Google, Russian immigrant
  
• Gurbaksh Chahal -- GWallet, Indian immigrant
  
• Vinod Dham -- Silicon Spice -- Indian immigrant
  
• Andy Grove -- Intel -- Hungarian immigrant
• Lowell Hawthorne -- Golden Krust Caribbean Bakery & Grill -- Jamaican immigrant
  
• Jan Koum -- WhatsApp -- Ukrainian immigrant
  
• Andrew Ly -- Sugar Bowl Bakery -- Vietnamese immigrant
  
• Indra Nooyi -- PepsiCo CEO -- Indian immigrant
  
• Jerry Yang -- Yahoo -- Chinese immigrant

Now a lot of the individually folks listed above are among the wealthiest folks in the U.S., but the reality is that nobody insists on achieving that degree of financial success. Merely being comfortable is quite adequate, and that's far less difficult to do. What's important about those folks is that none of them were "to the manor born;" on the contrary, most of them, though they now live amid silver spoons, began without so much as plastic spoons.

I have forgotten which of them it is, but I recall reading that s/he arrived in the U.S. with $25 to their name. Twenty-five dollars! Every single person on this forum almost certainly has more than that in their favor. So when I hear folks griping about how hard it is to get ahead in the U.S. and bitching and moaning about the government, I say, "BS." Do you know why I say that? I say it because the surest way to not get ahead is to spend one's energies complaining about how hard it is to get ahead.

Hell, if one has that much kvetching to do, become a writer or a comedian...Oh, and guess what, doing that would be in keeping with the basic concept I've stated over and over again: the way to make money is to do that which is in demand and plays to one's country's comparative advantage. I've over and over said that what pays in the U.S. is intellectual labor, not physical labor. Guess what, writing -- columns, books, comedy routines, songs, etc. -- is precisely that type of work.

Some of us are quite comfortable and worked in a career which was as much an avocation as a vocation. I'm one of them.

The Red is not the most common take on Chomsky, most of the people who reference him label him a statist or worse. The point of posting this thread is for those people and others to hear what he had to say, not what the propagandists write about him and others echo.

The American dream is at best curbed; I earned my degrees at public universities (CAL and SFSU) and left school with zero debt, that is far from true today (my eldest son has degrees in math and computer science, he now drives for UPS and is in the Teamster Union. Only one data point but his pay is well above the mean and his benefits are exceptional. He no longer needs to pay for gym membership, the labor he does has done wonders for his shape, i.e. his appearance and general health).

 

[Wilbur Right]

The American dream is at best curbed; I earned my degrees at public universities (CAL and SFSU) and left school with zero debt,

IMO the American dream is alive and well. It's just for some it has become a nightmare. Others it's sweet dreams.
There is a rash on bad decisions on the educational front being made by parents, kids and educators. To many young people without the skills needed by employers.

As well as the political class performing very poorly. For most that is.

Bad decisions and poor performance lead to bad consequences. As we are witnessing.

But that hasn't stopped me from dreaming it could get better.
The New American Dream; it could get better.
Dream on dreamer.

 

[320 Years of History]

The point of posting this thread is for those people and others to hear what he had to say.....Here below is the trailer...

??? Really? Do you honestly think folks will believe that is why you created this thread? I'm sure folks will out of courtesy, but that's about it. FWIW, though I have no idea what might instead be a driving cause for the thread's creation, I don't imagine it's baleful, but it may be tenebrous/arcane.



You think the remarks in the OP, especially absent the trailer that is promised in the OP, is a way for folks to hear what he has to say? That when the whole damn film is available on YouTube? Really? Let me google that for you...next, click on the word "videos" at the top of the page and voila, the film is the second one down on the list.

The man has a full bibliography and filmography on Wiki alone, moreover.
-- Noam Chomsky bibliography and filmography
The man is one of the most prolific writers of our time. In 2013 the man wrote five books. In the U.S. the median number of books read per year is five. If folks want to know what he's got to say, or had to say, they need only look.

Below, in addition to the links above, are offered a few highly effective ways to show folks what Noam has to say.









And that's just the tip of the iceberg: noam chomsky - YouTube

 

[Wry Catcher]

The point of posting this thread is for those people and others to hear what he had to say.....Here below is the trailer...

??? Really? Do you honestly think folks will believe that is why you created this thread? I'm sure folks will out of courtesy, but that's about it. FWIW, though I have no idea what might instead be a driving cause for the thread's creation, I don't imagine it's baleful, but it may be tenebrous/arcane.



You think the remarks in the OP, especially absent the trailer that is promised in the OP, is a way for folks to hear what he has to say? That when the whole damn film is available on YouTube? Really? Let me google that for you...next, click on the word "videos" at the top of the page and voila, the film is the second one down on the list.

The man has a full bibliography and filmography on Wiki alone, moreover.
-- Noam Chomsky bibliography and filmography
The man is one of the most prolific writers of our time. In 2013 the man wrote five books. In the U.S. the median number of books read per year is five. If folks want to know what he's got to say, or had to say, they need only look.

Below, in addition to the links above, are offered a few highly effective ways to show folks what Noam has to say.









And that's just the tip of the iceberg: noam chomsky - YouTube

My experience on this message board was the driving force behind posting this thread. It is one of the most current iterations of what is wrong in America (the world?), how we got to where we are and how we might, as individuals, help influence our nations course. The words of Noam Chomsky are not widely known, most of the self defined conservatives revile Chomsky, yet don't have a clue as to his reasonings.

 

[320 Years of History]

most of the self defined conservatives revile Chomsky, yet don't have a clue as to his reasonings.

Re: the ones on this board, yes, I tend to agree with you.

I don't think one needs to agree with his ideas, but given the quality of thought underpinning them, they are well worth understanding and understanding them well.

 

[320 Years of History]

The point of posting this thread is for those people and others to hear what he had to say.....Here below is the trailer...

??? Really? Do you honestly think folks will believe that is why you created this thread? I'm sure folks will out of courtesy, but that's about it. FWIW, though I have no idea what might instead be a driving cause for the thread's creation, I don't imagine it's baleful, but it may be tenebrous/arcane.



You think the remarks in the OP, especially absent the trailer that is promised in the OP, is a way for folks to hear what he has to say? That when the whole damn film is available on YouTube? Really? Let me google that for you...next, click on the word "videos" at the top of the page and voila, the film is the second one down on the list.

The man has a full bibliography and filmography on Wiki alone, moreover.
-- Noam Chomsky bibliography and filmography
The man is one of the most prolific writers of our time. In 2013 the man wrote five books. In the U.S. the median number of books read per year is five. If folks want to know what he's got to say, or had to say, they need only look.

Below, in addition to the links above, are offered a few highly effective ways to show folks what Noam has to say.









And that's just the tip of the iceberg: noam chomsky - YouTube

My experience on this message board was the driving force behind posting this thread. It is one of the most current iterations of what is wrong in America (the world?), how we got to where we are and how we might, as individuals, help influence our nations course. The words of Noam Chomsky are not widely known, most of the self defined conservatives revile Chomsky, yet don't have a clue as to his reasonings.

TY for the clarification. I can readily understand and have no doubt about your motivation as your revised depiction paints it. TY again.

 

[Elvis Obama]

Hmmn, no, I doubt I'll watch it but not for the reasons you offer as choices on your poll. Chomsky is great, one of our most important public intellectuals, but I've heard him speak about these issues, and I already know he's right. I'd only offer one modification, that the American dream isn't dead, it's just in a coma. It can still make a comeback, if we can somehow steal our government back from the insanely acquisitive who have bought it.

Red:
I agree with this. One need not concur with Dr. Chomsky's views to accord him that much.

Blue:
The American Dream is hardly what's comatose.

Pink:
There's nothing to steal back. There is something to take and that something is "advantage of the opportunities one is given," or absent being given anything, "the bull by the horns." Quite simply there are way too many folks who began from substantively nothing and have achieved far more than what anyone has any business expecting.

• Oprah Winfrey
• Dr. Oz
• Thousands of sports figures
• Thousands of actors, singers, and songwriters
• Thousands of other entertainers
• Hundreds of journalists
• Thousands of doctors, lawyers, and other professionals
• Fareed Zakaria
• Larry Ellison -- Oracle
• Howard Schultz -- Starbucks
• Do Wan Chang -- Forever 21
• Ralph Lauren
• Lloyd Blankfein -- Goldman Sachs
  
• Guy Laliberté -- Cirque du Soleil
  
• John Paul DeJoria -- Paul Mitchell Systems
  
• Ursula Burns -- Xerox CEO (a black woman who grew up in the gang days of the Lower East Side)
  
• Kirk Kerkorian -- MGM Grand, The International, The Flamingo Hotel and Casino (8th grade dropout)
  
• Sheldon Adelson -- Sands Hotel and Casino, The Venetian mega-resort
  
• Sam Walton
• Chris Gardner -- Gardner Rich & Co -- Black, slept in subways
• Harold Simmons -- Eckerd Drugstores
  
• Harry Wayne Huizenga -- Waste Management
  
• David Tran - Huy Fong Foods -- Vietnamese immigrant
• Elon Musk -- PayPal, Tesla Motors, SpaceX -- South African immigrant
  
• Shayan Zadeh and Alex Mehr -- Zoosk -- Iranian immigrants
  
• Jawed Karim -- YouTube -- German Immigrant
  
• Kiran Patel -- WellCare Health Plans -- Zambian immigrant
  
• Shahid Khan -- Flex-N-Gate, Bumper Works, Jacksonville Jaguars -- Pakistani immigrant
  
• Sergey Brin -- Google, Russian immigrant
  
• Gurbaksh Chahal -- GWallet, Indian immigrant
  
• Vinod Dham -- Silicon Spice -- Indian immigrant
  
• Andy Grove -- Intel -- Hungarian immigrant
• Lowell Hawthorne -- Golden Krust Caribbean Bakery & Grill -- Jamaican immigrant
  
• Jan Koum -- WhatsApp -- Ukrainian immigrant
  
• Andrew Ly -- Sugar Bowl Bakery -- Vietnamese immigrant
  
• Indra Nooyi -- PepsiCo CEO -- Indian immigrant
  
• Jerry Yang -- Yahoo -- Chinese immigrant

Now a lot of the individually folks listed above are among the wealthiest folks in the U.S., but the reality is that nobody insists on achieving that degree of financial success. Merely being comfortable is quite adequate, and that's far less difficult to do. What's important about those folks is that none of them were "to the manor born;" on the contrary, most of them, though they now live amid silver spoons, began without so much as plastic spoons.

I have forgotten which of them it is, but I recall reading that s/he arrived in the U.S. with $25 to their name. Twenty-five dollars! Every single person on this forum almost certainly has more than that in their favor. So when I hear folks griping about how hard it is to get ahead in the U.S. and bitching and moaning about the government, I say, "BS." Do you know why I say that? I say it because the surest way to not get ahead is to spend one's energies complaining about how hard it is to get ahead.

Hell, if one has that much kvetching to do, become a writer or a comedian...Oh, and guess what, doing that would be in keeping with the basic concept I've stated over and over again: the way to make money is to do that which is in demand and plays to one's country's comparative advantage. I've over and over said that what pays in the U.S. is intellectual labor, not physical labor. Guess what, writing -- columns, books, comedy routines, songs, etc. -- is precisely that type of work.

This is, of course, kind of a silly notion, "The American Dream". Kinda like the great American novel. It's just exists to foster endless debate. If we can achieve a consensus definition of the American Dream there may be something to talk about, but otherwise it's a raft of related ideas:

1- Upward mobility
2- Two cars in every garage and a chicken in every pot. The "garage" implying home ownership, which to many is an important part of the American Dream.
3- The belief that your children will be able to do better than you did.
4- The streets are paved with gold!
5- Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
6- The cradle of democracy. The place where justice is blind. The place where laws matter.

Note the word "belief" in number three. That's what counts. The American Dream does not only live in the leading indicators which reflect current economic realities. The diminishing belief in the American Dream lives in the perception that all the advantages, privileges, golden parachutes etc, which were available after the last economic crisis were employed for the exclusive benefit of the wealthy. In the constant reports of income disparity in the US, and the astonishingly indifferent response of the professional political class to this reality. In the growth of poverty. In the growth of distrust of all institutions, especially the media. You're supposed to believe the articles you read in the paper which your dog delivers to you along with your slippers at the front door of your castle with two car garage. That's all part of the American Dream. In the face of the current insurgent climate in the US it's difficult to believe that belief in the American Dream is healthy.