When the American dream turns into nightmare

2011-01-11 (http://alainet.org/active/43473)

U.S.

When the American dream turns into nightmare

Aram Aharonian

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While the press disseminates cartelized hegemonic "virtual reality" that U.S. world power, seems to be emerging from the economic crisis, sociologists warn of the death of the "American Dream", a fact acknowledged even by Timothy Geithner, the Secretary of Treasury, who in the early days of the year said that "America is on the brink of insolvency."

 

With those words, Geithner has asked Congress the urgency of raising the debt ceiling, currently at "only" 14,300,000 million dollars (14.300.000.000.000). The insolvency was warned days earlier by ABC Obama economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, who noted that if the debt ceiling was not changed, "the consequences would be catastrophic for the U.S. economy, and much worse than seen since 2008 "...

 

Still worse? Goolsbee is right. For 30 years the United States consumed over the account after selling Americans the idea of cheap credit advocated by Ronald Reagan in 1981. Since that time, was not only consume, consume and consume ... at the expense of everyone.

 

And to the surprise of 25 million unemployed and underemployed, Obama named William Daley as chief of staff. It is the Secretary of Commerce under President Bill Clinton, who promoted the free trade and more recently was a senior executive at JP Morgan Chase financial mega company, which enjoys great prosperity after the rescue of the financial sector with the money the American people.

 

The American Dream

 

Back in 1930, the United States out of the famous 1929 crash. " In those years, when he began to center on the world stage, was coined and popularized globally the idea of the American Dream.

 

The content of this was the idea that American society had the potential to equal opportunities and decision suffice own efforts to achieve material prosperity. By extension, this can be extended to immigrants and their children, who may participate in this collective ideology.

 

Well, that's what appears to be deeply questioned in the current reality. Let's see some data.

 

One of every seven Americans-about 44 million people, the highest figure since 1960 when they started these measurements, live in poverty today. But that figure is even more worrying when there are children: one in five children and youth under 18 live in poverty.

 

For this year cartelized media estimate that the U.S. economy would grow by 4%. This means that America is overcoming the crisis period and would be visiting the post recession. The media tells us that the economic crisis is over, and that the world economy is back to its normal mode of growth and profit. On 30 December, French Le Monde summed it up: "America wants to believe in an economic recovery."

 

The spread about the economic recovery is not immediate and important impact on the everyday problems of much of American society. The only reality is still reality. The unemployed, reaching 10% of the workforce, only reduced by about the economy revived. The income of the workforce would remain at current levels below the 2009 income and 2008.

 

This situation and fears about the future are causing major changes in the "American lifestyle" Two familiar manifestations of these trends are very clear: They lower birth rates, like weddings.

 

The recent natural snow storms were on the table other features of the crisis. In New York there were power outages for 36 hours, and gas shortages, with temperatures of 5 degrees below zero. Most of the subways stopped working. Therefore, the largest city in the United States was paralyzed. The natural phenomenon, coupled with budget constraints, by the crisis and official actions to benefit the wealthy-was responsible.

An hour before the New Year, some five thousand birds fell dead in Beebe, Arkansas, and 500 in a village in Louisiana days later. Still no explanation, but maybe it was because of the shock to see from above, all that is happening in the country, says David Brooks.

 

The nightmare

 

The unequal distribution of wealth, grow through tax cuts introduced by Bush II and then by Obama, which means removing the working class yay the poor to give to the rich. The huge inequalities undermine democracy, even representative-declamation.

 

Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, recalls that "The managers of major U.S. companies earned an average of 42 times the average worker in 1980, and 531 times in 2001. Perhaps the most astonishing statistic is this: between 1980 and 2005, more than four fifths of the total increase in U.S. income went to the richest 1%. "

 

Bob Herbert, also in the New York Times, revealed in early November last study put it clear that the economic hardships of the working and middle classes since the late 1970s were not primarily a result of globalization and technological change but rather of a long series of political changes from the government that favored the very rich.

 

"These changes were the result of efforts by increasingly sophisticated, better funded and organized by business and financial sectors to tilt in their favor government policy measures, and thus favor the very rich. Tax laws to the deregulation, business management, to network security issues, government action was set intentionally to allow those who were already rich to amass a growing share of economic benefits the nation. "

 

Obviously, public education deteriorates when wealth is monopolized by a few. The rich pay little tax and so governments lack the resources to subsidize education: each year rejected a larger number of students and classes are overloaded with students.

 

Spencer Bachus, the next chairman of the House Financial Services, told The Birmingham News in late December that "Washington and regulators are there to serve the banks'." And that's exactly what the bankers have been telling him and other politicians.

 

Finally, lawmakers elected in November took office and the parliamentary majority remained in the hands of the most conservative of the Republican Party. One of the actions that they push with greater force is to abolish the right of U.S. citizenship to children of illegal immigrants born in U.S. territory.

 

This would be a "knockout" the constitutional principle of equality before the law of all births in the United States, but its proponents are determined to hold under the slogan: "We can not continue this illegal invasion true"

 

Terrorism

 

While continuing to build the border fence with Mexico, Democrat Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head during a public event in the city of Tucson (Arizona), an attack that killed six people and injured a dozen other . According to The Washington Post, does not seem to have been at random: "It looks like a murder." Everything points to the ultraconservative sector of the Republican Party, "terrorism" encouraged by the so-called Tea Party.

 

Giffords was one of 20 Democrats elected in 2008 who voted for the reform of health and were then identified to be defeated by the vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, in a campaign called "takebackthe20" which included a map of each congressional district marked all as a target for shooting a rifle sight.

 

It all began when the Republican governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer last summer enacted a law to prosecute illegal immigrants was proposed by the Conservatives. In the Hispanic population felt that it was unconstitutional and would lead to discrimination. Griffords said, at the time that the law would do nothing to protect the border and stop the trafficking of drugs and weapons.

 

Today, those who sleep with the American dream, wake up with nightmares.

 

- Aram Aharonian is a journalist and teacher Uruguay-Venezuela, editor of the Question , founder of Telesur, the Latin American Observatory director in Communication and Democracy (ULAC)

 

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