Is the American Dream Dead? A Lesson From Mr. Blandings

While sitting in front of the tube last night, I had an epiphany[1] about a movie I was watching. I had occasion to be watching a DVR’ed airing of ‘Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House’ that appeared on Turner Classic Movies. And an idea popped into my head how this one movie about a middle class family and the trials and tribulations that they go through to build their much touted “Dream House” and how this story relates to our current society. Or rather, how current society has abandoned the idea of the American Dream.

Allow me to explain…

First we must explain the movie to all of you not familiar with the film. Mr. Blandings (Carey Grant) and his wife (Myrna Loy) are what was called in the film “modern day cliff dwellers”. You know, apartment folk in the big bad city of New York. To put this film in context, we must explain that it was a “modern” film set in 1948.

The Blandings family is what we could comfortably call middle-class for the time. Mr. Blandings was an ad writer making $15,000 a year. They live rather uncomfortably in a small 2-bedroom apartment in Manhattan. The film opens to a narration about life in New York which paints a rosy picture of New York life set against actual pictures of the every day rat race that is life in New York City. Then we are introduced to the Blandings family.

The first actual scene of the film is the morning ritual of the Blandings family complete with a twisted sort of ballet done by Grant as he maneuvers around his much too cramped living quarters. It culminates at the breakfast table where Blandings finds something amiss with his morning paper. One of his children (both girls) had taken upon herself to cut a classified advertisement out of the paper in order to complete a school assignment.

It is explained to Mr. Blandings that the children’s teacher, Miss Stillwagon, believes that adversting is a “parasitic profession” according to one of the children. That advertising makes people “buy things they don’t need with money they don’t have”. This is the root of our current problems in this country. You see even for 1948 profit and success was beginning to be frowned upon. But you may be saying, “Gribbit, it is only a movie.” But is it?

The current Infestation is at war with the American Dream. The idea of building a better life for yourself and your family has become discouraged. We must work for the betterment of all of society even if your family must do without because big daddy government will provide for all our needs. Your wants are now a forbidden subject.

No one in 1948 believed that the federal government had the responsibility to “take care of us” as was famously declared in a film shown to almost every school child in America earlier this year[2]. Instead of indoctrinating our children with videos produced by socialists and radical environmentalists, why not show Mr. Blandings? “Oh no, we can’t do that. It is contrary to the progressive direction of the country.” But it is an accurate portrayal of “The American Dream”.

Somewhere along the way, between 1948 and now, an idea that the American Dream was bad was allowed to be hatched somewhere between the dope smoking and apathy of the common American Hippy in which an idea that socialism is a good thing. That we must all look out for the collective rather than ourselves. Yes I said collective and they don’t deny it.

Mr. Obama and his cronies in Congress are products of this collectivism mentality. They are all fans of Chairman Mao, Karl Marx, Fidel Castro, and Hugo Chavez. They reject what has worked in the United States in the past. The unbridled economic growth of the Reagan era doesn’t interest them. Nope can’t have profit. Profit is bad according to that most brilliant of Oracles, Herr Marx.

America bought a bill of goods a long long time ago. America was sold on the idea of class warfare. Democrats positioned themselves as the party of the little guy, the working stiff, and the poor. Democrats stole the African-American vote with a simple response from JFK. Everything they do is contrary to the best interests of their major constituencies.

Unions are all about power now not their workers. Their leadership never has to lift a shovel or clean a lavatory but yet they claim to have the plight of the working man at heart. Unions are the largest of the Democrat constituencies but yet Democrats do everything in their power to destroy the lives of those who vote for them. Their latest attack? Taxing health benefits. The union leadership is with the White House in it’s health care reform plans but the rank in file are going to be taxed into the poor house.

So how do we end poverty? The answer is more simple than you realize. You can’t. The poor will always be with us. They have since the beginning of time and will be until the end of time. If we haven’t been able to eradicate poverty in over 6,000 years of human existence, how in the world do Democrats claim that they will and keep a straight face.

The only thing we can do is provide conditions with which the poor can climb out of the gutter. Teach them that the American Dream is achievable and set them loose. But how do we do that? Not by raising taxes on those who create wealth because these are the same people who create jobs.

The Obama Infestation is too busy trying to punish the wealthy to understand that they are the ones who put people to work. While all this taxing is going on, unemployment is rising and more people are joining the ranks of the poor. I thought they were going to make everyone rich.

This all comes back to my 3 undeniable truths…

You cannot legislate universal prosperity, but you can legislate universal poverty.

You cannot legislate universal health, but you can legislate universal sickness.

You cannot legislate universal happiness, but you can legislate universal despair.

AMERICA – THEY’RE LEGISLATING!!! ARE YOU WATCHING?!?

As for our film? Mr. Blandings finally builds his house and life is well in their new surroundings outside of the city of New York. But for the American people the future is not so rosy.

Unemployment is on an upward path that the Infestation is hell bent on continuing. The federal budget deficit is 4 times what it was at the beginning of the year and every newborn baby now owns a $4,000 share of our national debt.

As the federal government continues to monitize the above mentioned national debt, the US dollar is worth less and less. In 3 -4 years the US will be in danger of losing our AAA rating which means even China will quit buying our bad paper.

To quote Al Gore from the 1992 Presidential campaign…

Everything that should be up is down and every thing that should be down is up.

Although that statement is true today, it wasn’t in 1992 (just to be accurate).

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1. epiphany – a sudden enlightenment [↩]
2. The Story of Stuff [↩]