The American dream once was a Horatio Alger vision of a land where anyone, through hard work and determination, could build a better life. But in reality TV’s brave new world, where we’re all precelebrities waiting to be microwaved by the media into fame and fortune, the American dream is to have a television crew pull up and build a better life for you. (from the Dallas Morning News 9-2-04)
Of course Horatio Alger’s stories weren’t based on reality. How many average joes in the late 1800s became Rockefellers or Carnegies? In an era where people were maimed and killed for trying to organize unions so we could get decent work hours, Alger’s flights of fancy were great propaganda for the robber barons who were stepping on peoples’ necks and trying to run the country. And of course that was back when Republicans really knew their name came from “the public” and were out trust-busting those barons’ asses. Now the Republicans ARE the robber barons and all we have to dream about is sitting on our butts with some dim vision of winning a lotto or making it to reality tv.
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