4 Sale: New in Box - American Dream

There is a disease in this country and indeed the world. – that disease is ignorance, and it’s spreading at an exponential rate. Each day we give up our rights and we accept it. We give up our jobs and accept less in life and we do nothing but move on. As the quality of our life degrades so does our expectations and tolerance for others so we conceded rights and hard fought for liberties in order to hold onto our DVD collections and ability to download illegal MP3 playlists from LimeWire.


What the hell is happening to us?


America used to have an economic cherry. From where I stand, it seems in the past 10 years alone, that cherry has been sold down the river in lieu of $40,000+ SUV's and Plasma TV. While America Blogs, surfs for Internet porn, checks fantasy football stats or goes virtual garage sale shopping on eBay, India and China are taking up our slack –AND- their doing it for pennies on the dollar.


To my many over seas friends – this Blog is not meant to take aim at you – it is meant to point out that we American’s have given away our way of life that has supported us for the last century. I know many people in the UK who say that their jobs are at risk or have been taken away too.


In the last 3 years I have watched the demographics of households change right before my eyes. The family across the street from me was the first – The husband lost his job because China bought up the steal factory, dismantled it and moved it to China – they kept him on long enough to train his own replacement over seas and help move the factory onto the boat.


The next to go was the gentleman behind me – He worked for Steiner. Steiner makes lawn equipment and other power tools – those jobs are all over seas now.


The next to go was the man next to me – he worked for GMAC. He was a district manager and they replaced him with “Seasonal work force” from over seas. Every 6 months a replacement manager will be brought over to work his job and sent back to the over seas GMAC subsidiaries. GMAC also owned his home and now, every 6 months, we get a new neighbor. The latest family living there are Egyptians and they will be there until the next replacement comes.


Joining these people will be my wife Rene – her Job was just out sourced to India as well. They gave her notice that her position will be terminated come this November. They are sending 35 people from India to train with her and her co-workers over the next few weeks. They will show them how to do their jobs. Rene has already begun hunting for another job. By the way, the 35 people will replace over 100 America workers working for less than 1/10 of what Americans made and their employer will NOT have to pay 401k’s, Medical benefits or workman’s comp and disability claims or premiums.


Disease IS spreading – but the disease is not our over seas competitors – its our own laziness and ignorance to do something about it. Working for the phone company, I go into many businesses and homes each day. During my 9 year Tenure, I have heard 1000’s of stories JUST LIKE those above. Adding to that, the many people out of work I have talk to online and read about in the newspaper.


I don’t have the answer to fix this – other than we need to get back to basics here in the USA. For me, that means carefully choosing whom I do business with. Utilities companies – Credit cards, food, restaurants – EVERYTHING, I am going to do my best to see to it that my business is kept local as best I can to support the local economy.


I am going to work to spend less on Gas, utilities and products NOT made in the USA. (as best I can). I’m also going to carefully consider whom I choose to vote for in elections and make sure that their priority and loyalties are to the American working families.


The American kitchen cabinets are almost bare. The country is almost in the toilet – if you have money, land and investments, you may not be feeling the pinch – but trust me, many people ARE… and those people are a lot worse off than me or my wife. Some of these people have been unemployed for years and have way more education than I do.


At night I pray….

…Lord, America is almost broke. We need some help here:


People are starving in the unemployment line; soldiers are dying for rich men’s oil drilling rights on foreign shores; American homes are being foreclosed faster than being built; business are closing up and moving away; dignity is for sale online at Monster.com and faith in our government has turned into fear; Our hero’s are in comic books; Children have forgotten how to play tether ball and 4 square because Wii hasn’t digitized the game yet; The elderly freeze for prescriptions instead and predatory reverse mortgage lenders stand waiting with a pen like the big bad wolf outside their door; Planes fly into buildings and complete cities have been flooded leaving still today 10’s of thousands homeless in the street, 4 years later.


Where are our priorities?

Where are our hero’s?

Where is our salvation?


How can we save the world when we can’t save ourselves – and who put us in charge of that in the first place?


Our high wage earning jobs are being given to China and India and our low paying jobs are given to illegal Mexicans. Our social security and now or Medicare system is being put up for grabs for use by the illegal’s. I'm not against Mexicans working - lets just make them legal so they can contribute to the system from which they burden or wish to draw upon.


There are more Baby-Boomer's getting ready to retire that will cause a crash in the Medicare system. They are NOT handing down their fathers business, farms and legacies – those are for sale so they can continue to vacation and live “the life” their fathers never had and the life their children will never have either.


51% of our wages go to the government now before we even get our pay checks and another 9% will go into their hands when we buy something with those wages – another 7- 15% will go into their hands when we die. So build more roads… hire more Post office workers and print up more useless junk mail for them to deliver.


When I was child, my mom use to yell at me – SHUT THE DOOR or you’ll let out all the cool air we paid for and the bugs will fly in – then the house will get hot and be filled with flies.

"AMERICANS: SHUT THE DAMN DOOR!!"

It starts with –YOU- !!

Blog Comments:

Couldn't have said it better myself!

-Matt FM

Thursday August 14, 2008 - 04:25am (EDT)

Amen to that, Sister. America needs a wake up call and damn soon or there isn't going to be any America to worry about anymore.

-Debby

Thursday August 14, 2008 - 06:32am (EDT)

Hi Chloe,

It's just as bad here in the UK.We used to be proud nation leading the way in social policy,education and healthcare.Now we are the most watched nation on the planet.We have cameras everywhere watching our every move while the poorer get poorer and the richer get richer.We have one of the worst literacy rates in the developed world so what hope is there for our youngsters.Unemployment is up,home repossessions are up,house prices are falling,more businesses are being liquidated,food is dearer every week we go shopping,utilities prices are up 35% from last year and we out source more and more work to the far east too.

Like you I don't have the answers ~ like you I try and give my business to local companies.What I do know is if we are not careful our countries will become the dependant ones,the cestpits full of miserable,discontented people.We must wake up before it's too late.

Great blog Chloe. Love,

-Kelly McDonald, UK.

Thursday August 14, 2008 - 12:33pm (BST)

Remember that saying about closing the gate after the horse is gone? This has been going on a very long time. America sold out to the global plutocrats for a line of credit back when Ronnie RayGuns conned the electorate by wrapping himself in the flag and saying jesus at odd and inappropriate moments. Funny how only when the bills comes due do people see the con.

-Teresa Amina

Thursday August 14, 2008 - 07:16am (CDT)

Chloe, I hear you, and I'm worried, too.
Hippies, beatniks and Dylan have been crowing for years; the times they are a-changin'.
Perhaps Americans need to be more self-reliant, in the Amish sense.
But it seems all we want to be is cool, in the pop-culture sense.
"We don't need no education," or so the cool song went (before factories moved abroad!)

Stanford-Binet IQ tests are criticised for being uni-dimensional and culturally biased. Maybe so, but the fact remains, in western cultures, the average Stanford-Binet IQ is 100,
and a score of 120 is considered in the gifted range (un-cool... nerdy, even!)
In Asian cultures, Stanford-Binet IQ scores of 120 are average. (Beaten at our own test!)
So, perhaps we've yet to see, who is "cool" and who is not!
Stay tuned, as fat and sassy westerners attempt to compete with lean and hungry neighbors, in this modern global-village.

-Buffy Orion

Thursday August 14, 2008 - 11:05am (EDT)

I'm afraid it's worse than we even know. Consider if you will that the majority of our nations industries are Public institutions where ownership is traded on the worldwide exchanges. We send over 700 Billion a year to countries that hate us so we can fuel what remains of our economy. They, in turn, buy majority stakes in US based businesses either directly or though surrogates to control the continued flow of funds as economies shift. If we shift to alternatives they are influential enough to direct the path. Even domestic wealth is not immune from deception Consider T.Boone Pickens and his current "Green Initiatives. He states he's an oil Man but advocates wind power in the plains where he is a majority landowner using Windmill Technology his companies manufacture. In addition most of his current oil industry holdings are Natural Gas which he advocated for transportation use.

Answers? Your's is a good one but knowing who owns the businesses we consider local is an exercise in international intrigue. Just because it's sold as local produce doesn't mean it's not grown my a subsidiary of ADM.

'Tis a puzzle

-LoriAnne Blake

Thursday August 14, 2008 - 01:55pm (EDT)

As Kelly says above, it's not just the US suffering from the problem!! The USA may be "almost in the toilet", but in Britain we've gone round the U-bend and someone's about to press flush!!

As Teresa Amina says the origins of this disaster goes right back to the early 1980s with Maggie Thatcher over here and Ronald the Ray-gun over there! Remember the strap line for the film 'Wall-street'? It was "Greed is good" as the mess we're in so well shows - IT ISN'T!!!

This is a pet subject of mine, I'm currently at University doing a degree in 'Community Regeneration and Development' so I'm fully aware of how bad things are for the more disadvantaged in our society. I could go on for page after page, but I'd better give someone else a turn!!!

And when the sea level around the world starts to rise, wiping out countries such as Bangladesh and most of the World's major capital cities,may I remind you that a Texan oil man was in was in charge of what was the world's most powerful country from 2000 to 2008!!??

-Davinia Hilton

Thursday August 14, 2008 - 09:54pm (BST)

Valid points and well made. It's frightening, for sure. I work in higher education and we are feeling times get harder (and jobs less certain) all the time. Burying our heads in the sand isn't going to make it go away.

-Kathy Childress

Thursday August 14, 2008 - 06:29pm (EDT)

Deary, I think I will take that with a grain of salt, coming as it does from someone who drives a German-made SUV :-)

-JamieGottaGun

Thursday August 14, 2008 - 10:06pm (EDT)

Your right Jamie, I DO own a German made vehicle - I have no excuse except to plead insanity - by far THE WORST vehicle I have ever owned! Serves me right. If it counts for anything, I also bought it 4 years used and I DO own a Chevy s10 ss and a Saturn compact as well.

Hey look over there.... CANDY!!!

*slithers away in shame*

-Chloe Prince

Friday August 15, 2008 - 12:43am (EDT)

Great post! This country has serious problems.

As the late, great George Carlin sad on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" a few months ago, "this country is finished".

No one questions anything. No one seems to be willing to fight for anything. They are afraid of authority. When the cops defend the corporations and the wealthy by any means when the majority have legitimate grievances, people cower.

One of the problems is NAFTA. It has made shipping jobs overseas very easy. A representative from your state, Dennis Kucinich, has fought against it. He has declared over and over that NAFTA needs to be trashed. Unfortunately most people in a position to get rid of NAFTA do not have the balls Dennis has.

Buying local is a great idea. There are so many farmers markets that buying veggies and other foods from local producers is easy. Depending on where a person lives, there may be plenty of locally owned businesses. I live in the city, so there are plenty of those. I haven't found that many in suburbia.

There is a field that can not be outsourced: railroads! A person in India can not drive the train from Cincinnati to Cleveland! A person is Mexico can not repair the tracks in Pittsburgh. I wonder how well railroads would mind having a transitioning transsexual in the engineer's seat?

-Patricia Rieger

Friday August 15, 2008 - 11:48pm (EDT)

Try living here in Michigan we are in a depression here. Its time to think outside the box. Its time to get rid of NAFTA and GATT. Its time for globalism to end and be near isolationist again. Its also time for the jo six pack attitude to end amongst most Americans. I don't see much improvement about to happen. The John Birchers were wright.

-Steffi Pawloski

Monday August 18, 2008 - 12:07am (EDT)

We, personally, did not do a damn thing about the decline of America....other than this....

**We allow our elected represenatives to do whatever they wanted to do without accountability on our part;
**We got used to our cable TV, allowing BoxMarts to invade our towns destroying downtown USA and Mom & Pops or the local 5&Dime Store;
**We liked our BIG CARS that guzzled gas cause we were keeping up with the Jones';
**We lost sight our mores, our sense of local, state and national responsibility;
**We're more interested in PSP2 and XBox and how well we can kill another via video;
**We've forgotten to give back to the land that has given to us;
**We think America is the leader of the World (which we're not, we just occupy this planet just like everyone else);
**We've forgotten or ignore tolerance of other world cultures and religions;
**We dislike illegal aliens, yet we let 1-2 million accross our border every year;
**We want the American Dream that our parents and/or grandparents had - to get rich or well to do, but in this day and age, the rich/well to do don't consider the consequences of their actions;
**and so on, and so on, and so on...

Bottom line - we need to go back to basics. BIG TIME. Not tomorrow, but NOW. From education, to politics, to national service, to pride in ourselves in our society and in America. It is time to get the Corporations out of Government and put it back into the hands of, dare I say, "We The People".

-Monique Monet

Monday August 18, 2008 - 08:06pm (EDT)

We are in a recession, although the politicians, and a majority of the republican friends I have keep telling me that we are not. They site the "fact" that we had .01% growth. Sad. They also tell me that unemployment is not as bad as it was in past years. I try to explain to them how the numbers can and are manipulated or things get conveniently left out of the calculation. Like unemployment, they only count those that are collecting, after their unemployment runs out they are magically removed from the count. Michigan is in a depression, GM is close to bankruptcy as is Ford, and the surrounding states are hurting as well. The H1B visa continues to allow more and more foreigners into this country to take American jobs, and the government continues to allow increases in the amount of them. In the last year of my employment with HP , I worked to get the Clorox company in California to have outsourced computer administration, replacing over 20 Americans, Americans that had families and bills to pay.

The irony is that the same work I did in the elimination of their jobs also was put into place within HP to totally outsource their managed services department. I worked myself out of a job. There have been job opportunities that I have turned down, jobs that would have been very good money, because I just will not do that type of work ever again, better I be hurting then to inflict that pain on many others. I am sure someone will do the job, but, it will not be me and I will sleep better at night. It is time for everyone to take some form of action. Write to your reps and let them know that the war is wrong and the troops need to come back now, that the economy is the big picture and needs to be fixed fast. Try to do what you can with buying local, but as many above have stated, it is hard to distinguish what is behind the corporate logo and their clever ways to hide and disguise the truth and put a spin on any questionable practice.
Oh... Don't sweat the vehicle you drive, there really is no such thing as an American car these days, they are all loaded with foreign parts, many even assembled abroad. When you shut the door, make sure your windows are closed too, and, as any T knows... watch your back door!

Breathe Free... Forever,

-Dawn Vorto

Saturday August 23, 2008 - 03:55pm (EDT)

Hey Dawn, thanks for the great comment - by the way, The Mercedes I drive is an ML320 SUV - that vehicle is made and assembled in Alabama, USA!

-Chloe Prince

Sunday August 24, 2008 - 01:25pm (EDT)

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