FYI -- most while American men are NOT wealthy, privileged, and well connected.

[elehhhhna]

Out of respect for my DH, most "white" Duers, and reasonable people everywhere --let's keep that in perspective, m'kay?

It's the ones hanging by their fingernails to their piece of the dream who are really scared, imo. Some (the low-informattion voters)-- are scared enough to be easily persuaded to vote against their own interests. They're defending a romaniticised "American Dream" that they haven't even had access to!

[5X]

1. this may be true but most wealthy, privelaged, and well connected

are white.

[slampoet]

9. They are NOT just white.

They are ethnically from old world Western European Countries and usually NOT from Portugal, Spain, Iceland, Finland or Italy. Also for higher level echelon their ancestors have been in the country since at least before the Civil War. And yes some of them are Jewish but even then they are from people who came over before WWI.

[hfojvt]

21. lots of people, myself included

have ancestors that came over before the revolutionary war. My father (government worker, school board member) my uncle (high school biology teacher) and most of my siblings are moderately well off, but not really ruling elite. Then there's me and my cousins. And actually much of my family's prosperity comes from my dad's mom's side which came over in the 1860s and not from my dad's dad's side which came over pre 1740s. Grandma inherited the money to send her sons to college from a cousin who had, unfortunately, died young.

[emilyg]

17. Not true.

[cali]

19. well, statistically that makes sense. The majority in the U.S. are white.

[thistooshalllpass]

2. Yes, exactly! I have always felt that many of these White, lower-class men

are reacting out of fear. And in some aspects, it's understandable: their jobs have been replaced with other workers in some industries (factories went overseas, meat processing jobs given to others, and construction jobs the same). This idea that if you are born a White male, the world's your oyster is poppycock. At university, I have been amazed at how women of all races/cultures have been the majority of students these days!

[FarCenter]

10. The higher % of female students doesn't matter

At university, I have been amazed at how women of all races/cultures have been the majority of students these days!

Yes, but the majors that most of them study don't actually prepare them to succeed in the current job market.

[lumberjack_jeff]

11. How would you solve that problem?

Demonstrably, men are more likely to view education as an investment in a higher-income future with which to support the family of their aspirations.

The only solution I see that doesn't require major social reengineering is to increase the current 3:2 female/male college ratio to 2:1 or more. If there isn't any room in the english lit classes, some women may be forced into engineering or the sciences.

[FarCenter]

13. Colleges can reduce the number of admissions to those majors

[lumberjack_jeff]

14. There would be significant pushback to limiting admissions to programs which yield low pay. n/t

[FarCenter]

16. Another approach would be to limit student loans and grants to those programs

Student should be getting the education and skills needed for jobs that can pay back the loans and grants.

Note that schools already severely limit the number of slots in some professional programs, e.g. medicine.

[lumberjack_jeff]

18. Medicine is a different kettle of fish.

The ama lobbies to keep a shortage of doctors. So long as they can constrain the pool of doctors, they can keep pay high.

[FarCenter]

20. More doctors and fewer communications majors would help lower health care costs

Increasing the number of Medical School slots would be a good investment towards controlling health care costs.

Also increase the number of slots for educating Registered Nurses, Medical Technologists, etc.

[Hydra]

3. "That's why they call it 'The American Dream,'

because you have have to be asleep to believe it..."

White male, not wealthy, not privileged and not well connected despite all efforts...and not asleep, as far as I know.

[sam sarrha]

4. my brother is very well educated, dirt poor take'n care of all his struggling kids, he's a John Dean...

"Conservatives without Conscience" ..'emotional Conservative', he wants someone to tell him that they will take care of the world and he doesn't wanna hear the F'n details. his whole life was a disappointment, got cheated when he bought that piece of shit house. lost his retirement the first big crash.. Bu$h43 wanted sooo bad, literally demanded just after being appointed Emperor..

he just doesn't wanta worry anymore, and his emotional predisposition is catered to by the very people who put him in that position

it isn't logical.. but the ReThuglicans know how to "Work It" we obviously dont

[dgibby]

6. Republican/ Christian/ Authoritarian Personality Disorder

They need a "Daddy" to lay down the law, tell them what to do, make all the decisions, punish them if they do something wrong, etc. That way they don't ever have to take responsiblity for themselves and their decisions.

[Froward69]

5. I just this week used the "american dream"

To Influence and possibly turn one of those Low information voters. the part of that "American Dream" that is to pass Real property on to future generations. As the Health care system is set up now if you are lucky enough to grow old and need "in home care", Hospice or nursing Home. that home or piece of property must be sold to pay for it.
Forcing future generations to start from scratch. Like our Grand or great grand parents had to.
turning The American Dream into a nightmare.

~~ He had never seen it that way and has tentatively gotten on board With Universal Single payer Health care. As he is battling to keep his parents and Grandparents Homes from having to be sold to cover what His Insurance companies refuse to.

On edit/ Granted we Both are white but neither believe in using that happenstance for anything... We Both joke that we were raised on opposite sides of the same dumpster.
His father was a dilevery driver his Grandfather served under Patton. My father was a Garbage man, my grand father was a Baker.

NO influence nor wealth between either of our families. only Real property to be handed down to future generations.

[Uben]

7. The "American Dream" is a goal

...but some saw it as a right. It was always something to be worked towards, something to achieve, with hard work, honest living, and a regimen of saving money to achieve that goal. It became something people wanted right out of high school or college, and were willing to borrow money, no matter the consequences, to get it, without having to put in the time to save the money and make the sacrifices to achieve it. With the burden of mortgage payments, car payments, property taxes and kids to deal with, saving money became almost impossible. Just staying afloat was the goal, while trying to acquire all the requisite gadgets to remain "in times".

Not that it could not be done sucessfully that way, it just made it extremely difficult for most. And then, the prosperity of the nineties led a lot of people to think the only direction the economy was going was up, and they weren't going to be left behind!
And then, we got Bush. The prosperity diminished, the jobs started disappearing, the swing in money flow was funnelled almost exclusively to the wealthiest among us. Folks were caught in a bind without the security of an ample savings account to carry them through hard times and succombed to the contracts they signed that they thought were their ticket to the American Dream.

And here we are. No money, no house, no job, and little to look forward to. We are paying for the excesses of the last 20 years while trying to stay afloat by bailing water with a Dixie cup. We're tired, broke, and pissed. We are getting little if no help from our elected representatives who bask in the bottomless well of special interest money.

The American Dream has morphed into having enough money to put a roof over head and food on the table. Forget the home, the new car, the vacations, and the gadgets. We are now in survival mode, relegated to taking low wage jobs just to eat.

If ever this nation needed leaders, it's now. We have to change the way businesses and corporations think. They have to put their workers ahead of shareholder profits. If we can't do it, we are doomed to wallow in this mire we find ourselves in now.

That's the way I see it.

[AspenRose]

8. Oh I know that, I'm married to one

:rofl: :hug:

[Odin2005]

12. People look for scapegoats.

And many people only have the cognitive capacity to have concrete, obvious scapegoats like blacks and gays instead of more abstract ones.

[defendandprotect]

15. Rightwing propaganda is also based on male superiority, sexism, racism, homophobia. . .

and that seems too often to appeal to male voters --

Also "Christian" concepts used by rw -- same thing . . . sexist, racist, homophobic --

And, both r-w and Christianity still sell capitalistic ideas of exploitation . .

over nature -- "Manifest Destiny" and "Man's Dominion OverNature" -- which are exploitation

of nature and humans according to various myths of "inferiority" --

And, of course, their system of capitalism is class warfare on non-elites.

[elehhhhna]

23. sounds taliban-esque, huh?

[defendandprotect]

24. Yep . . .

and besides laughing at religion more often -- which is my personal recommendation --

I think we should be calling them the "Christian-Taliban" more often?

[burning rain]

22. You may be missing a point.

You seem to have the premise that lefties care deeply about class, poverty, and working folks' issues. Regrettably, that is not the case with many American liberals. Many, it seems, would be happy with any level of poverty and social injustice, so long as it were spread evenly across lines of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, and national origin. These are our socially liberal, fiscally conservative fellow travelers, and they will travel only so far with us before revealing themselves more or less as plutocrats.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Forkboy]

26. Please do not spam the boards.

[JI7]

27. but you do know that many struggling whites blame minorities, immigrants etc

for their troubles. Joe the Plumber is a good example of this.

[elehhhhna]

28. of course. everyone blames everyone. human nature, i guess..