"Nickled and Dimed" just has to be a hit musical; the title song brought tears to my eyes. Due to difficult circumstances, since the Reagan era my life has followed the course Ms. Ehrenreich experienced, with accompanying improvements actually measured in nickels and dimes. To truly appreciate the agony of such workers, add on the responsibilities of a parent, and a single parent at that, given that is the condition of very many of our low paid workers in this day. The best observation I heard in this excellent interview was that every job requires great skill, intelligence, energy.

There was one benefit to this ordeal - best expressed by the following quotation from Lao-tse:

"He who knows he has enough - is rich."

Those who make do on very little are the real life of this planet.

I now watch as my son, burdened by college debt, attempts to gain the skills necessary to join a renewable energy work force that so far does not exist. With my approval he turned down lucrative weapons lab employment - I am so proud of him.

On that 'memorable person' poll, I vote for Barbara also. Talk about the silent majority - she certainly speaks for us.

I like old Barbara Ehrenreich and have read "Nickled and Dimed" and "Bait and Switch." People criticize her participant observer research approach, but it is a good way to confirm American's commonality of experience. I worked in survey research and I know how people tend to inflate their well-being and optimism out of pride. No one brags about layoff or foreclosure. You see them with a USDA food card in the grocery or their name appears for unpaid property taxes in the newspaper. I appreciate her work and feel her income from her books and speaking engagements is deserved.

Recently though she has criticized Hillary Clinton for membership in a Senate prayer circle. While the Clinton machine is a dirty campaigner, and Hillary can be a fibber, I do not think this is a valid criticism. Stating the facts of the prayer group would be a better approach. To condemn a candidate due to association with Republicans is to assume that no Republican has empathy for others or any redeeming ideas. I prefer to think that two party partisanship is contrived and artificial, that both are corrupt and nearly useless.
Both Barbara E. and I like Obama, but I will not know if I can vote for him until the election day comes. It would benefit any voter to remain skeptical of their preferred candidate, since our elections offer no assurance that campaign promises will be implemented. I think we need more than 2 or 3 parties. This is a big nation of great diversity. If anyone should realize this it is Barbara E. Girl, keep your eyes open and don't put all your eggs in one Barack Obama (basket). I thought you were a pragmatic feminist: I thought you were a smart shopper: I thought you were better than that.

I hope that you have good friends. If not make them.

I don't understand why you stayed in that situation when you were a teenager. There are people who could have helped you.

Get going, E. There's a new life waiting for you out there.
Best wishes.

For a long time I've been wanting to comment on social and economic changes taking place in the U.S. during the past 50 or so years.

I realize that there many converging issues that create a "perfect storm," but the one issue I rarely hear about is race. Not race in the normal sense, because much has indeed changed, and for the better, during the past 50 years. But the social-economic game has also been shuffled around. I frequently like to liken the situation to a skyscraper. At one time the building had ten floors and certain groups of people were not allowed even entrance into the building. Then we had WWII and had to affect a certain degree of social change for the better at home. No longer could we block certain groups of people from entering that building, but while they have been allowed entrance, building owners and investors went busily to work adding ten additional floors to the building. So now everyone is allowed entrance, but those original ten floors are now labyrinthine in their ability to obfuscate, cloud, divert, etc. the individual in her pursuit of social and economic security. And, it seems, in some strange way the tremendous effort required to navigate that ten-floor maze actually funds the construction of the ten additional (and adding) floors. It is like a giant shell game where the real issues at stake are hidden from view, hidden so that achieving a real sense of individual economic and social security is more difficult to attain than it was 40 or so years ago.

I'm reminded of all this whenever I see some of the fabulous programming on PBS that looks at the current trends in corporate irresponsibility, whether it is insurance companies refusing to honor policies, school systems being unaware of their true purpose in assisting this shell game, even with all their rhetoric to "standards," or a housing market that exploits the mythic pursuit of the American Dream.

I can't help thinking that race, and this country's inability and/or reluctance to see and understand its subtle effects, is a profound impetus for the growing trend in "inequity" in this country.

Thank you, PBS, and especially Bill Moyers, for insightful investigation into this brewing "perfect storm."

I posted a response to the issue of the "American Dream" on my site on Facebook, and I feel quite passionate about what I said. However, I do not know how to get that post from Facebook to this blog. Please let me know!
Thanks!
Felicia

We recorded the Journal with Barbara Ehrenreich and watched it last night. Mr. Moyers asked her about her most recent book celebrating joy. My wife said, "The rich get rich and the poor get poorer; in the meantime, in between time, ain't we got fun? I tought that summarized the class divisions and the search for joy.

The censorship on this site is too tight. I have tried to post two times regarding Impeachment of the president and Vice president . There was nothing in either paragraph that warranted censorship. The fact that his happened only corroborates my sentiment that the US is no longer a democracy and freedom of speech is no more.

I referred to this story in my latest blog post, "How to Solve the Health Care Crisis in 30 Days". I hope you like my spin on the subject.

the dream changes with time passing

Lee Jankowsi,

you are spot on.

The 1931 dream is as good a definition of the American dream now as it was then. Why change a beautiful dream? However, we have fallen away from realizing this dream both politically and socially. If we all would work to realize this dream for all Americans, then all Americans would have an equality under our Flag that would mean something to each of us and to the world. It's why immigrants continue to flock to our shores and have for over a century now. BUT. We have to bring this dream to fruition by our actions and we're not.

Now the inequality in america is referring tome as this is about the low-jobs and the unmployment rate. My reaction to this is that these people have to work 3-4 jobs to get paid and to have all of their lexury. Its really saddened to see that they have to struggle got get what they wanted. The government is doing nothing about and some candidates see it and wants to do something about it but nothing. The song "Nickels & Dimes" told me other than their payment that is is life: boring struggling life and we cant have a good life. That these people end up working for hours and hours to take care of their living expensives and children. I feel really sorry for them. I see it in my school,stores, and everywhere around. I might not understand what Barara was saying., but does how life is when you are stuggling to get where you want in life. They have to work all day and they have no time for anything. This is what my mother went through went she was working and going to college. She work in nursing at serveral hopsitals and she want money to support me and my brother. She has accomplesed that. She spends and makes more money than my father does. It seems like this is how life is. I like the song:"Nickles & Dimes" even though it has a catchy tune. The record deal should put this song in an Albam to tell everybody the importance of it. I wonder is this how life is for me and others forever?

How would you define the American Dream?

The American Dream for me is a human, universal dream. It doesn't pertain just to "America."

But I would define "my" American Dream as the following:
- four day work week
- a single-payer healthcare system guaranteeing access to healthcare for every American citizen
- FREE, universal schooling and education. BAN PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES
- A government that has as its focus, the PUBLIC INTEREST and not that of any "private interest"
- A minimum wage that always rises every year
- GREED does not exist
- Humans are angels

Has it changed for you over time?

No. My conception of the American dream has not changed one bit and I've been a dreamer some 40 years now. But what has changed is how my dream never seems to get any closer to reality.

In America, people live to work and don't work to live. The working/labor class have been scapegoated so badly that their influence has diminished and we do have the makings of a new Gilded Age where the rich become obscenely rich and the poor experience even greater disenfranchisement and sink into penury.
It is the role of capitalism to generate wealth. It is the role of government to distribute it.

Let us consider getting back to the rule of "Law"...
The Constitution...

Liberty and freedom for all may just be what the doctor ordered...

Could somebody explain to me how is this country better off when the present day robber barons of wall street can buy a company with their only goal being to fire over 800 people from good paying jobs. WHY?. So that they can add to their already enormous fortunes.No attention is paid to the damage they do to an area's economy or the effect on the lives of these poor victims.the irony I see in all this is that our government istead of curtailing the practise ,is acually encouraging it by letting these same robber barons pay only capital gains taxes on their ill gotten gains

How would you define the American Dream?
I believe the "American Dream" is an idea that holds the future as a place where all people are created equal, we can all afford to take time off without any repercussions, and we are completely safe in our environment. I think this is the one thing that unites all Americans, what separates us is how we get there, and unfortunately who gets stepped on while getting there.

Has it changed for you over time?
I don't believe so, I still believe it's possible. I thought we where on our way, but I think over the last few years we have stumbled.

Do you think your children or even your grandchildren will define it the same way?
Yes I do, and I hope that they will see it. I hope they will look back on my generation and say, "that was a turning point" that helped people become free and informed again!

I advocate for people who go through domestic violence. I have noticed that woman are more often the victim when violence is present.

In my experience the violence comes from a lack of equality in the relationship and this equality is most common in the area of finances. Most of the women have lower paying jobs( women in general make 75 cents to a mans' dollar in the same work environment), or no job at all and when conflict arises they do not have the resources in order to bargin their position and value in relationship, so they are not respected by the wealthier mate.

This is a smaller version of corporate power struggles with the individual or organized union negotiations. Due to the weight of corporate finances compared to individual worker resources, the corporate people do not respect the individual worker and their situation when it comes time to negociate a workers' value at the discussion table. In this system wealth has the freedom to determine all other value.

Which brings me to this system that permeates our individual and corporate lives. It is the value assigned people through their relationship with capital that decides their place in society. This has come to signify a persons self esteem as well as their social status, which both have become dependent on the resources an individual controls rather than seeing all individuals as having an innate societal respect.

In my job I see women come in to the office without personal value in thier own eyes until they become employed. In this they see that society has given them a value by paying them money. They are now accepted by the system as carrying a certain amount of respect, they are necessary in the production system and in a capitalist society this is the first step towards being deserving of reward, (which means getting food, clothing, shelter, medical and educational needs met).

at this point they seem to change and are said to have achieved self esteem or love and respect for oneself. Yet, all it takes is for them to lose this job and they fall back into a hole again. So I cannot beleive that being a part of the work force is equal to self esteem, personal love or respect as it truly should be defined. It is an illusion of value given without a depth of understanding or knowledge concerning the individual.

We as Americans fail to value the depth of a person and their abilities and our systems of daily life mirror this flaw.

Gaining employment or gaining wealth through any means is not truly equal to self esteem or individual will or wisdom. This truth is proven eveyday when an individual or group of individuals that form a corporation lose their ability to gain wealth and this failure will play out in other aspects of their lives in most if not all their personal relationships for example.

I think it is time to address this situation in order to perceive society and one another, not for what we can get from one another or society or be given by another or society but for the depth of life that exists in us all that carries innate will and wisdom that is to be respected in all relationships.

Otherwise we become products valued by a system we have no control over. when if anything is true, it is that the only thing we truly have power over is ourselves and how we see ourselves. We should never turn that over to anyone else for any reason or amount of money.

Where did you get the data that the fastest growing job in the US a janitorial position? I saw that a recent Businessweek article cited only professional jobs as fastest growing. I would like to find your source data. Thank you.

I think it's pointless to compare life in America today, with life in America 100 years ago.

How about in my lifetime?

When I was growing up, in the 50s and 60s, almost every public school I attended, and there were a lot, since my father was an officer in the military, was excellent, and was adequately to exceptionally funded. Today? Not by any stretch of the imagination. For many reasons, not the least of which is NCLB, I drive my youngest child to a charter school located 30 minutes from my home, and pledge over $2,000 a year to it so that it can provide my child with a basic education.

Over the past 20 years, I have experienced my family's health insurance premiums skyrocket, while our coverage has been gradually eroded. Today, the only reason my husband and I carry health insurance is so that, when we go to a doctor, or to a clinic, or require treatment in a hospital or ER, we can answer "yes" to the question "Do you have health insurance?" Why? Because a "no" answer puts you in a position of being denied treatment.

Even with our, what I consider to be expensive, coverage by a nationally known company, we pay for all of our doctor's office visits, drugs, diagnostic tests, and an alarming proportion of our hospital/ER costs out-of-pocket.

My husband and I calculate that all of our financial advancements over the past 20 years have been taken over by our increased health care and energy costs (utilities for our home and business, and fuel for our personal and business vehicles.)

While it's true that our children today do not contract polio, that we have access to information never before experienced on a mass level by human beings, and that the price of many goods we buy has decreased because of their being manufactured overseas at lower costs to the corporation and to the consumer, many of the basic indicators of basic quality of life are increasingly becoming out of our reach.

So if I judge the quality of my life by the quantity of goods I am able to purchase that are now made in China, well, my life has improved. But if I judge the quality of my life by the quality of the public education available to our children and by the affordability of basic health care, well, we're on a downward spiral.

To Katherin Harris

You are a perfect example of one of the symptomatic problems in this county. You care more about grammar and spelling in a response area than actually trying to understand what is going on. I bet you are materialistic too.

For the rest of you, I was forced to put up with my parents because they put up a good face to others and people don't want to believe that parents can be that cruel and selfish towards their childred. I do not think of my self as a victim, I still keep going but everyday I think why? The point is is that the problems we face are not to rest on one person or one presidency no matter who the president is. Expand your mind and point the finger at yourself. The work is not black and white and it is this type of thinking that leads us to be blind or in denile about the suffering that is going on.

For those of you that having a job is not suffering than read my last post. When parent are trying to make ends meet social structer, honesty, integrity are lost. Insted we become more abusive, selfish, materialistic, fearful, defeated.

I have lived all across the nation and I have personally witness this. People in NC still living with out electricity, plumbing. People everywhere that if they do buy a house can not afford to keep it up and living in ruin or run down houses causing illness.
People still fly the confederate flag and can't think for themselves. Parents still out infecting their children's mind with closed thinking and not trying to teack their children to think for themselves. We breed hate.
In NC their is still KKK organizations, lynchings, and cross burnings. But you do not hear about that on the news.
The point is again that with over 6 billion people you have to think about the stuff you don't hear about or you tell your self silently isn't happening. I've been employed since I was 10. It is scary to not be employed and to hope that every month my GI bill money will show up, that my son still gets his SCHIP money because he has medical problems and perscription are a minimum of $700 a month just to keep him from being sick and going to the ER, also hoping to keep my food stamps. I know, I worked all those years, payed taxes, earned social security disability-I can't get, work for the military, and this is what I am left with. The reality is that if and when I finish school I won't make much more, my care will be 10yrs old and probably have to move. So a starting wage even with experience and being 35 with a degreee means less time with my son, higher day care bills, and more bills in general. It's no wonder people that are on "welfare or other assistance" stay on it. If you make $1 dollar to much you lose $100's more.

So stop think about one person being the problem. It is more than that.

Thank for the positive feedback from those of you that gave it. Remember their are many suffering silently all around. I was 5 when the sexually abuse started. I could tell my parents because they were already emotinoally and physically abusing me. Why because of money and jobs. Additionally I couldn't tell because my mom would loose her job if she didn't have a babysitter. This example of being trapped is what is really going on, why drug abuse is worse in failing economic cities where the middle class is wiped out. In cities now just to rent you have to prove 3-4 times the amount of rent in income. How can a single parent do that at minimum wage. So now you can't live in town or much less anywhere. Talk about a squezze out effect. I was debt free and a student and couldn't get an apartment until I basically paid six months upfront.

Also the Dept of Ag who sets the poverty line every April only looks at household size when it to income brackets for assitance. So Dept of Human Services, WIC, and many other organizations that are there to help you make up the difference do not distinguish between a house of 2 where there is 2 adults that earn money and a house of 2 where it is only one adult and one child. A child can't go out and earn money. So many single parent homes go with out. This is one of the leading problems facing the economic downfall and social decline. More stess is being placed on families. And weather you like it or no just because a politician thinks a family should be a two parent family, the reality is that it is not. Families come in all different form. Why not (said politician) you tell an abuse child or spouse/parent that they should stay with someone that will abuse them until they murder them or they kill themselves. Or, maybe they should stay with someone that gambles their money away, plays on the computer all the time, is more involved in sports than their family. What you should be focusing on is increasing the economic health of families, tax code, and reducing the stess on people so that when they come home and that they do come home they aren't pissed up and wound up so tight trying to pay bill. This stess is what leads to abuse and finding outlets that I think on some level we could all agree take away from the lifting up a family. This crosses religious and cultural boundries. It affects us all.

Halfway through reading the comments this Sunday morning, I came upon the following post. I had earlier commented on the agony of parents over their children in the current state of affairs - this post so eloquently tells of the hardships and extreme damage those children face. I have a child who experienced terrible things as this heroic person has done.

I would like to thank her or him for this important post. It clearly expresses the damage in self esteem that has been inflicted upon so many of our children, and still what spirit they have!

[quote]Posted by: lynn rhoten | August 4, 2007 03:03 AM

Here's the thing. The people that should be in leadership that could make all the difference won't get there. Why? Because those of us that really grow up with hardship can't talk about it. The press and America really don't want honesty. They want someone to say it's okay. Everything will be better tomorrow. Isn't that what it really comes down to. America has no integrity or acutual honesty. I'm talking about the basic stuff. If your mad say your mad. You shouldn't be sued for it or told to be politically correct. Being 'PC' is a cop out. Anyone really got a friend out there that doesn't turn around and judge you behind you back. Hell, I'm 31 and my Step dad says he thinks he's better than me. He used to be a Scoutmaster, member of city council, and a rotarian. He lies about smoking to my mom, oh she's nothing to brag about either. The real thing is that as an adult they don't care to see me for who I have become. My brother and I were really good kids and stayed out of trouble, our parents were stricy. They were also selfish. Too busy partying in their 30 and 40 to realize that the babysitters kids were sexually molesting us. And I was raped when I was 19. My mom (who was in denile and still is because she was a social worker and she didn't have family problems. Oh and a social work really meanss an employment specialist)That why I went to school with bruises all the time and they tried to call me a runaway when I would put up with them beating me at age 16. No one that could do anything would help. And as a single parent in the military they wouldn't leave me alone. The military wouldn't tell them to leave me alone and when I don't return there phone calls I get some nasty messeges. They even tried to sue me for my son when I had done nothing wrong, from six states away, and at least the judge was prior military and saw through it. So ask yourself. Despite what I think about health care and the basic standard of living that is missing and other problems you wouldn't vote for me because I have experience life. You are a hypocrite America. The ones that need the most and can do the most are left to suffer siltently in shame waiting to die to be done with the humiliation and the lack of being "worth" being alive. And if you really think that these tradgeies don't happen, well my mom didn't know until I was 30 and even then she could on focus on herself. She materialistis too and as she made more money she was gone more and has become even more materialistic. She would rather look at her stuff than put pictures of her grandchildren on the wall of her new house. As for my step dad well I have no respect for him, he says he's better than me and can't let go of typical child behavior, calling me a liar, mom too, and this is the guy who lies about drinking, smoking, dipping. He also has two DUII. The sad thing is, I didn't have it as bad as many others unfourtunatly. And as the push increase to be gone from family, rely on schools and babysitter to be the family for our children they will suffer more for it. Parents are in denile, selfish. The thing is is that if we left consumerism behind, became the parents of our children again and refuse to put up with working to buy crap that we don't need for our children and to falsley convince ourselves that WE ARE FINE maybe we could turn this country, world around. We truely are selling our soles and our children's. So someone like me with this type of life would never make. People don't want to know the truth about what their selvishness and consumerism is really doing to everyone.. Employers,,,,my being sexually molested is just as much your fault as the one that did it, my family, and anyone else that ignored me. You would also be schoked to know that my mom sent someone to my house that I told her not to, she says that she didn't hear me tell her that he tried to rape me. And when I made a comment to my step dad as to what I thought of his nephew when I was a teenager, he promptley pulled off the road and beat me. He never asked why. And when I told my mom last year not even an apolgy. My step cousin had tried to rape me. Wake up America
[/quote]

Like the many other “bloggers” that have written to you, please accept my deepest thanks for creating a television series that actually helps me to understand the important and relevant issues of today. Your program is especially important as the once trusted news media is no longer viewed as an unbiased source of information looking out for the public good. Programs like yours are essential. Your program has introduced me to and has helped me to understand complex subjects that have a direct impact on my life. Often, these subjects are only given a brief mention on major news networks, with little or no attempt at giving the viewer a clear understanding of the subject matter. Today, I watched your program interview with Barbara Ehrin Reich. This lady was impressive in the way that she went about proving something that has been hinted at for several years. Her direct approach, a product of her scientific training, really hit home with me. It pains me to think that many of us, especially those in low paid service sector jobs are undergoing a slow financial strangulation. Your program made clear only what I vaguely suspected. I work in an environment where people do not reveal how much they make, but they do occasionally mention how tough it is to make ends meet – and these folks are all college graduates. Your interview with Ms Reich sheds light on how our way of life has changed and continues to change. I know that it is the result of many years of misguided public policy, public policy that holds the prosperity and well being of the powerful as more important than the prosperity and well-being of this nation’s people. When is our government going to realize that big corporations are multinational and hold no allegiance to a single government or its people? The interests of the United States do not necessarily coincide with the interests of large business, but should always coincide with the interests of the American people. As an American citizen, I have been very unhappy with the leadership of this nation for the last 6 years. It has not served the people of the United States. It seems to serve a different master and should be fired!

For the woman who was a whistleblower you must go to your Congressperson. They can help you and re the age discrimination file a complaint with the EEOC and also tell your Congressperson.
Best wishes.

Dear E,

Hang in there. It sounds like you should stay away from your parents. Don't despair. There is no reason why you can't be somebody, make something of yourself and even run for office. Many people have done it before you.

I hope that you have good friends. If not make them.

I don't understand why you stayed in that situation when you were a teenager. There are people who could have helped you.

Get going, E. There's a new life waiting for you out there.
Best wishes.

I would like to continue to thank Bill for his real journalism. I would also like to thank Barbara for all of her fine journalistic research.

But I am inclined to respond to a post by Timothy Hall. While he is right about the intellectual divide, he is mistaken about some other things.

How do you explain the outsourcing of thousands of information technology jobs to third world countries like India and China? Certainly you are not implying that the I.T. field is devoid of educated and highly skilled technicians? Or are you forgetting that corporations have simply found it more convenient to say that they must compete with one another by seeking the lowest common wage earners that just happen to be citizens of countries that value education? And what about airline corporations that lay off thousands of mechanics and then outsource that work to third world countries in Southeast Asia and Central America? They are doing the same work, are they not? But for what kind of pay? Wouldn't you like to think that it is sufficient once you board the next jetliner that you fly on? And please do not tell me that the Dreamliner is the epitome of how globalization works. This aircraft is being touted as the most fuel efficient commercial aircraft ever. Really? How do all of those parts come together to make an jetliner? They have to be flown all over the world to a central location for assembly, thus using even more jet fuel than is really necessary. Fuel efficient? This is the best that engineers and corporate bean counters could come up with, right?

You are correct in stating that not enough people are obtaining an education adequate enough for the current marketplace. I will have to agree with you on that point.

But what about factory workers and mill workers? Just look at the quality of the products coming from our Third World "business partners". The craftsmanship and quality of those products are terrible. That is part of the plan. Cheap and expendable products have to be continuously replaced. That is how the Big 3 automakers operated for decades. And we all know where that got them? Can our environment sustain such a wanton exploitation of natural resources while we "evolve" into a post-industrial era? I think not. The Earth is not an infinite source of natural resources with our current technologies.

Are we to rely upon capitalists alone to bring a new enlightenment via education alone to address the problem of non-economic value of workers who do not meet your criteria as to be valuable to the marketplace?

How do people obtain such a necessary and vital education as to afford them the benefits and rewards of a highly technicial or intrinsically economically valued profession? They are usually supported by a well paid family. But how does a family put a child through college when their wages have to compete on a global scale with people and economies that are part of communists dictatorships or banana republics?

I read "The End of Work" by Jeremy Rifkin. I also read "The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman. Even they had to update and revise their observations after the real world had its say.

Unfortuantely, there are so few Americans who are informed voters and pay attention to what is really going on. The fact that G.W. won a second term shows how so many Americans can be and were duped. They had enough info on G.W. by the 2004 election.

VALUES?? What values? Lying, corruption, greed and incompetence. Doesn't the public see that what Republicans stand for is more for the fat cats and the rest be damned. When we will you who can't see this wake up?

The only way we can take back America and revive a middle class and raise the standard of living is to vote for the Democrats the next time. The Republicans don't even want to raise a minimum wage which is still lower (adjusted for inflation)than in the 1970s.

If the majority of Americans don't vote next time or see tha light we will only continue to go down hill and be dominated by a very few pernicious, selfish and greedy fat cats.

Sadly, we are on the cusp of a new feudal society under the emergent corporate warlords and other owners of wealth that hasn't been seen since the Magna Carta was offered as an alternative to that very model of social order. Not just our country, but much of the world is engaged in the class war initiated by the the wealthy and their agents. They have made it a global struggle.
In the United States their agents have grown in number to include not only the Republican Party leadership and news media, but the electorate itself.
Its complacency has won for an unprecedented number of the Americans the reward of serfdom as was articulated by Barbara Ehrenreich on Bill Moyer's Journal. It has in turn won dictatorial power for the representatives of the wealthy whose stated agenda is to stay in power and accumulate more wealth. Witness the "K Street Project".
The number of people in poverty in this country is creeping back up to the pre-Kennedy/Johnson level of nearly 40 million. It stands now at about 37 million, as published in Newsweek (July 30, 2007), after having been nearly halved, to about 23 million by 1968.
At least in that time, and until 1980, there was a strong and very real middle class that voted its selfish interests and that no one had seriously thought of dismantling. Now, things are very different. The middle class has been taught to vote against its interests in favor of electing those who purport to hold the "values" that are just like theirs. But, these people actually are only pandering to the voter's personal and deeply held spiritual commitment. They seek to accumulate, on behalf of the wealthy elite, the temporal wealth and power that once belonged to the middle class voter. Religious leaders in this country have not yet put an end to this major channel of corruption, and those devious individuals have been elected to public office. The erosion of the middle class, now in its last stages, is a testimonial to this.
It is quickly becoming an ineffective voting bloc and economic force. People with lifelong careers are becoming commodities. They no longer have a voice. Many have joined the unskilled work force. Unemployment is low, but the ranks of the working poor are swelling. There is no longer an educational insulation from poverty. Seniority is an antiquated term. For many of you who have chosen to read this comment, YOU are next, if the collective YOU does nothing.
Please, write to your congresspeople now. Demand that hearings for the impeachment of the leaders of this rogue government begin immediately. We must ask them today.
Ask that they forgo their vacation for our sake, and get this done. In return, we will offer them our support for their courage and commitment. Our congressional representatives only need to overcome the fear that has infected their ranks, first among the Republicans who fear inevitable reprisals from their leadership, but also the Democrats, whose leadership itself fears a backlash from an uninformed and complacent electorate. Let's show them that we are not so and help them to find their courage. We may not hold as much wealth, but at least for now, we have the numbers.

Bill,
Thanks for having a great show. You are the only news program that is reporting on real issues. All other news programs are reporting on crap.

Keep up the great work.

Im sorry Mrs Harris but if you think things are worse now then they were in 1905 then you must not know much about history.

The life of coal miners and steel workers was terrible. The lives of Slaughter house workers and textile workers was horrific.

To say that the lives of people in 1905 were better then today is so far from the truth as to be almost funny.

Dont get me wrong I agree that the present group of leaders are a bunch of war profiteering corporate thugs but that doesnt mean that the nation as a whole has not seen progress. Civil Liberties, unions, education, have all gained major ground in the last 100 years.

We just need to get back on track and remove the cancer that is the bush regime.

My gawds, I want to plotz after reading here. All these victims of the system -- so branded by their reckless grammar and spelling without a clue --who are nonetheless defending it in one way or another should be shaken until their teeth rattle! Wake up, Guys! We're wearing the result of three decades of unbridled corporatism in all its fascistic glory.

Mr. Moyers and Ms. Erhrenreich weren't this blunt, but they GET IT. We regular folks were better off in 1905 than we are now. Yeah, check the statistics. The average wage of one breadwinner then could better support a family than two parents slaving their asses off can do now. This is no accident. It has been achieved by design. We, the majority of Americans, have ONE enemy: rampant corporatism, which is quite distinct from capitalism. It's causing everything that's wrong -- from syphoning billions out of our wallets every week into those of war profiteers to the collapse of our infrastructure to our actually subsidizing the export of our own jobs. For pity's sake, wake up.

I agree Art, the question I have is how do you redistribute the wealth when the wealth is controlled by 3% of the population.

You talk about industrial and post industrial economies but the truth is that very little has changed in human history when it comes to who controls the wealth.

Call them Kings, call them Presidents, call them Dukes, call them CEOs. Its all the same a small group of people
distrbuting the wealth as they see fit.

In the end who ever collects the most does all they can to keep it.

The life for the average human has always been full of hardship and toil.

I am not justifying whats going on I just don't see it as a new phenomenon but rather a continuation of the status que.

In your interview with Nichols and Fein, I have a few thoughts..

If George Bush, Rumsfeld, Chainey, and the others in power right now had as children been caught for shoplifting, and the shop owner had forbidden them from being allowed to ever enter the premises again, these rascals might have learned a valuable lesson for life; unless that is, if someone else hadn't told them "That's life. You win a few, and will also loose a few."

That attitude drives their daily lives it seems - and got them where they are today. Certainly, we need to punish them - is impeachment the answer though?

I want to see them hung in the public square for high crimes against humanity, but let's not confuse our national desire to punish these creeps with impeachment - impeachment will only have a divisive effect on the country at this late stage.

Instead, I want congress and the Senate to do all they can to restrain this administration while it's still in office (for now) as best it can, to prevent them especially in their lame-duck period from completing the final execution of their obvious designs to galvanize US hegemony across the middle east by attacking Iran, granting immunity to their friends an cronies here in the states as more and more of them will be faced with crimes in the next year or so, to complete their program of destabilization across the middle east and Africa, end to spread globalization in as many ways as they possibly can, with the time they now have left in office.

I am sure they intend to build a Gordian knot - one that will take decades to untangle, even if the next administration ends up to the far left of this one.

Their designs are insidious.

We should punish them, severely, not through impeachment proceedings, but through the criminal courts.

The disappearance of the middle class is not the result of a conspiracy by the corporate elite. Rather, it is a natural consequence of the evolution from an industrial to post-industrial economy.

From the end of the 19th century until very recently, workers of average intellect and creativity could provide real value to the economy through their physical ability to shape, assemble, store and move products. With the advent of globalization and the post-industrial economy, however, all this has changed. Now, repetitive mundane tasks can be performed almost anywhere in the world, at a much lower cost. More important, real economic value is now created through one's ability to utilize intellectually complex knowledge and skills. It's no wonder that the economic divide in this country is falling right along an intellectual divide. With each passing day,the incomes of high power scientists, engineers, IT specialists, MBAs etc. are far outstripping those who are less able to contribute to the new economy.

In response to the growing national angst, our so-called leaders resort to the old nostrum that the solution to the problem is to increase the education and skills of the workforce. This babble rests upon the idiotic assumption that someone who is quite at home in a textile mill or furniture assembly line will be equally capable of mastering subjects such as molecular genetics or multivariate statistical analysis in order to meet the needs of the new economy.

The reality is that a very small proportion of high school graduates attain advanced education in mathematics, science, engineering, finance etc. Even if that number could be increased by a factor of 2 to 4-fold, the vast majority of new entrants into the labor force would be ill prepared to add significant value to the economy.

So, the real issue boils down to a re-examintion of the intrinsic i.e., non-economic value of average people in order to redress the growing economic disparity between the intellectual haves and have nots.

My parents kicked me out of the house when I was 15 years old and I was forced to drop out of school and get a job.

So at 15 years of age I got my first full time job as a bakers assistant and rented a small room to live in.

Since then I have washed dishes; I ran a recond store; I was a janitor at Sea World; I was a security guard: I was in the Army ( honorable discharge); I was a Bartender;I was a Bouncer and Bodyguard; I was a Bank teller; I was a Lab Technician making DNA; and I worked in information systems for 14 years.

I was laid off during the dot come bust so for the last four years I have returned to school and have almost finished a Computer Engineering degree from a State University.

The reason I say all this is to show that things arnt all that bad here in the United states.

While its true that we have alot of problems its also true that if you work hard you can do many things and go many places and live a good life.

I can't tell you how many times I have been on the ragid edge of survival with less then 50 dollars to my name or how many times I have wondered why I was even put on this planet but no matter what has happened people have always been there for me helping me when they could and teaching me how to live life to its fullest.

If this nation was really so bad I would have given up long ago but its not. We give everyone that wants one the chance to get an education. There is a job for anyone that is willing to work hard.

For me the American dream is as individual as its citizens and what we as a nation need to do is create the infrastructure so that those dreams can be achieved.

At the same time its up to the individual to put in the time and effort, if you think like a victim then you are a victim.

I am not a fan of the present executive branch and I think the war in Iraq was a terrible mistake but lets not forget that this nation has survived much and if we the people would just get to work on fixing these problems we can get back on the road to fullfilling dreams.

"Nickled and Dimed" just has to be a hit musical; the title song brought tears to my eyes. Due to difficult circumstances, since the Reagan era my life has followed the course Ms. Ehrenreich experienced, with accompanying improvements actually measured in nickels and dimes. To truly appreciate the agony of such workers, add on the responsibilities of a parent, and a single parent at that, given that is the condition of very many of our low paid workers in this day. The best observation I heard in this excellent interview was that every job requires great skill, intelligence, energy.

There was one benefit to this ordeal - best expressed by the following quotation from Lao-tse:

"He who knows he has enough - is rich."

Those who make do on very little are the real life of this planet.

I now watch as my son, burdened by college debt, attempts to gain the skills necessary to join a renewable energy work force that so far does not exist. With my approval he turned down lucrative weapons lab employment - I am so proud of him.

On that 'memorable person' poll, I vote for Barbara also. Talk about the silent majority - she certainly speaks for us.

Barbara is dead right regarding the plight of minimum wage earners. I see many of them in my students struggling to earn a degree at a large state university.

As a fan of Upstairs, Downstairs, it's clear to me that what we have in America is a slightly updated (but not much better) form of "service".
In 1905 England, those in service had a place to sleep and food on the table everyday, plus medical care when required. But -- their pay was a pittance, their personal lives were closely regulated, and they often had to endure insulting remarks from their upperclass employers. Women in service were often subject to sexual assaults from their employers or other male servants, and were usually blamed for any "problems" that arose.

Are today's "service" people any better off? I don't think so.

Kudos to Barbara -- I'm looking forward to seeing her musical Nickels and Dimes.

Corporate wealth keeps people from knowing and embracing real freedom of choice. As former British MP Tony Benn said, “Choice depends on the freedom to choose. And if you’re shackled with debt, you don’t have the freedom to choose. People in debt become hopeless, and hopeless people don’t vote. There are two ways in which people are controlled. First of all, frighten people, and, secondly, demoralize them. An educated, healthy and confident nation is harder to govern. They don’t want people to be educated, healthy, and confident because they will get out of control. The top one percent of the world’s population owns 80% of the world’s wealth. It’s incredible that people put up with it. But they’re poor, they’re demoralized, they’re frightened, and therefore they think perhaps the safest thing to do is to take orders and hope for the best.” Ms. Ehrenreich reminds of the beauty of our democracy, when she asks us to remember the wonderful past examples of people working together to make change. It is time to take power away from the fat cats and give it back to the people.

First of all I would just like to thank Bill Moyers for consistently bringing light onto the "Dark Ages' of the U.S. mass media.

The question he asked last night (August 3rd 2007), of Barbara Ehrenreich was perhaps the core question that goes to the heart of everything else. He asked if she has been called a 'Marxist', for her exposee.
In fact, Marx perhaps understood Capitalism better than anyone else. Capitalism is an immoral and an amoral system, by itself. It brings on incredible suffering to vast portions of any population that it imposed over, along with obscene wealth to some.

The only way to keep its devastating side effects under control is by a strong political counter force, i.e. by 'Big Government'; which is the expression and the will of the people.
Capitalism, on it its own quickly become a 'Brazil', while with the Checks and Balances' of a Socialist oversight, it can become a Scandinavian State.

Every other explanation of any one of our problems, is simply a sideshow.

Dream? no.
Nightmare? yes.

Bush has damaged our
consitution more than
nixon. bush lied
to start a war of choice.
He deleted civil rights
in collection of intelengecy;used made-up fear to stop our citizens from exercise our
duties and rights. Bush
intendes to makes us less
free. Bush can not be
allowed to continue placing
hiself over the rule of law. I recall 7 president
and Bush fears me more
than any other .

Here's the thing. The people that should be in leadership that could make all the difference won't get there. Why? Because those of us that really grow up with hardship can't talk about it. The press and America really don't want honesty. They want someone to say it's okay. Everything will be better tomorrow. Isn't that what it really comes down to. America has no integrity or acutual honesty. I'm talking about the basic stuff. If your mad say your mad. You shouldn't be sued for it or told to be politically correct. Being 'PC' is a cop out. Anyone really got a friend out there that doesn't turn around and judge you behind you back. Hell, I'm 31 and my Step dad says he thinks he's better than me. He used to be a Scoutmaster, member of city council, and a rotarian. He lies about smoking to my mom, oh she's nothing to brag about either. The real thing is that as an adult they don't care to see me for who I have become. My brother and I were really good kids and stayed out of trouble, our parents were stricy. They were also selfish. Too busy partying in their 30 and 40 to realize that the babysitters kids were sexually molesting us. And I was raped when I was 19. My mom (who was in denile and still is because she was a social worker and she didn't have family problems. Oh and a social work really meanss an employment specialist)That why I went to school with bruises all the time and they tried to call me a runaway when I would put up with them beating me at age 16. No one that could do anything would help. And as a single parent in the military they wouldn't leave me alone. The military wouldn't tell them to leave me alone and when I don't return there phone calls I get some nasty messeges. They even tried to sue me for my son when I had done nothing wrong, from six states away, and at least the judge was prior military and saw through it. So ask yourself. Despite what I think about health care and the basic standard of living that is missing and other problems you wouldn't vote for me because I have experience life. You are a hypocrite America. The ones that need the most and can do the most are left to suffer siltently in shame waiting to die to be done with the humiliation and the lack of being "worth" being alive. And if you really think that these tradgeies don't happen, well my mom didn't know until I was 30 and even then she could on focus on herself. She materialistis too and as she made more money she was gone more and has become even more materialistic. She would rather look at her stuff than put pictures of her grandchildren on the wall of her new house. As for my step dad well I have no respect for him, he says he's better than me and can't let go of typical child behavior, calling me a liar, mom too, and this is the guy who lies about drinking, smoking, dipping. He also has two DUII. The sad thing is, I didn't have it as bad as many others unfourtunatly. And as the push increase to be gone from family, rely on schools and babysitter to be the family for our children they will suffer more for it. Parents are in denile, selfish. The thing is is that if we left consumerism behind, became the parents of our children again and refuse to put up with working to buy crap that we don't need for our children and to falsley convince ourselves that WE ARE FINE maybe we could turn this country, world around. We truely are selling our soles and our children's. So someone like me with this type of life would never make. People don't want to know the truth about what their selvishness and consumerism is really doing to everyone.. Employers,,,,my being sexually molested is just as much your fault as the one that did it, my family, and anyone else that ignored me. You would also be schoked to know that my mom sent someone to my house that I told her not to, she says that she didn't hear me tell her that he tried to rape me. And when I made a comment to my step dad as to what I thought of his nephew when I was a teenager, he promptley pulled off the road and beat me. He never asked why. And when I told my mom last year not even an apolgy. My step cousin had tried to rape me. Wake up America

Ms. Ehrenreich

Thank you for being a voice for the lower class service industry. You hit the truth about missing one day and hoping to put food on the table. It is for this reason that I and the majority are lost from democracy. We can't afford to sit in a picket line. Did you know that Oregon and other states are an "At will employment state". You can loose you job over anything with no notice. How can you stand up and fight when you can't pay for rent or put food on the table. Heck I'm a 10 yr Navy vet, honorable discharge and I can't get state health insurance. Why, I'm not pregnant or an immigrant and I'm a full time student over age 27. So much for serving your country. Even more than not having a job and get by is not having medical coverage. We loose billions of dollars a year in lost productivity just from illness or allergies. Our children suffer and those we ask to watch them suffer. And to employers and the military why do you not understand that if your children are sick no one will watch them. So in the military you get written up and in the civilian side you get fired. Employers have a responsibility beyond making money. Besides what did we expect when our nation cares more about sports than spending time and their money on their family. What did you think was going to happen. We are a nation of lost priorities and broken basic dream and shackled democracy.

-THE DEATH AND BIRTH OF YOUNG PATRIOTS-

We live in a land where to be free of poverty is not the right of all, but a gift to a few, and little more than a dream falling ever, ever away from the reach of many. For this land of great opportunity and freedom, most of us have picked the wrong places to live, and the wrong mothers to be born to, or so this is what I hear whispered to me each day by my nation until I beg and cry to hear my homeland’s voice no longer.

No one said life would be easy, and I never expected it to be. I prepared myself to dream small and have come to seek what I once thought the right of any working man: I only wish for a family of my own, a roof over my head, and fulfilling work that is just enough to free me of the fear of living in poverty.

I am told that though my spirit is willing, my hands do not know enough to do such work. Kind and wise voices tell me that the key to finding one’s way in the beginning is to learn a little more each day, heap praise upon myself, and do the dance of words and connecting so that others may know my name and see me as something more human than he who is without work and ever looking for it.

But I see that my dancing is not quite right, and my posturing not enough. I have not done good enough work to connect myself to the world. So then, I must work harder in this dance. But then for all this effort I must expend upon the dance, why can I not instead spend my efforts on simply doing the work that I seek?

Many will shun me, call me disrespectful, and say simply, that I have not worked hard enough. They would be right. But I say it is a hard thing to wake every day and fight for work that leads to nowhere. To feel that at every moment, I am nothing, because I did not study the things that a marketplace wants most at the moment—little things, that any one of us could learn but only on the condition of the much money and much time spent that so few of us have—to feel this at every moment gives even greeting the new morning the same dignity of a slave’s labor.

It is a hard thing to rise up and go to work in a land of opportunity where the work that I am so deemed worthy of is not enough to have a family, or even a roof over my head. It is the hardest thing to rise up to the morning and go to work to only at the end of the day’s toil, still be poor.

They will say that I have no respect for this land upon which I live. I must be thankful, they would say, that I am not one who toils as a slave of modern times in the bowls of broken factories. I should be thankful, for I could have been born the dark-skinned son of a beautiful nation raped by the world. I should be thankful too that I am not a farmer who must take his bountiful harvest to a market that says, even when great masses starve, that there is still too much food in the world and all the farmer’s toil is worthless. I must be thankful that I am not as that poor farmer who must listen to this market, do his best work, and then go home to starve. I must also be thankful, they all would say, that I do not live in a land where I must fear for my life every day, and where the only opportunity for the young to learn even just the joy of the written word; to live in a place where the only road to worth in the world and have a life; is to become a foot-soldier fighting someone else’s bloody war of ideas. I must be quiet and humble and thankful that I do not live in any of these other lands. I should be happy with just my fear of poverty and the destitute that I soon may face because I could have been born to a land of much harsher struggles. But loving a land because it is the lesser of all the evils is no love at all, and makes for a poor patriot.

Out of necessity, and because there will be nothing else left for me to do, I will stand up and ready myself for revolution. And yet as I say this with the zeal of a young warrior, I do not know where to march or who to fight. If I could find all in one place what is wrong with my homeland, a place so dear and so foul, I would stand and face it, even if it stood as a being ten feet tall. I would stare into the thing and let it know with my eyes and heart in tears and aflame, that it is only the will of a higher power who holds me back from flailing my little body unto it, clasping its neck, and wringing its soul with my bare hands. Whether I would kill the thing in that moment, or if I were strong enough not to, I would ask it, roar unto it all the same, “Why am I worthless?”

If a spirit of fire would come to me in my darkest hour now and say, “I will give to you all the little things you wanted, fulfilling work and fair pay, a home, and a small family to fill it…” If he came to me in my darkest hour and said “I will give unto you all the things you could not have in your homeland if you do me this one task.” “Go forth, stand before the whole world and declare you hath forsaken your homeland and have for her in your heart, only the deepest hatred.”

To this, I do not know how I would answer, and that alone is enough to make our forefathers shed tears and ask of what this land and we have become.

ECONOMICS & SELF INTERESTS = THE WEALTH OF NATIONS.

Lets face it! In this society, and in this world, economic interest coupled with political support are what drive the priorities of this society - this world society; although not every society is or has been like this. Take for instance those Native American societies that did not believe in private ownership. That land and land use was a matter of communal right and responsibility. This is such a foreign concept to our beliefs in property and property ownership that it is almost incomprehensible and impracticle, but it had been done. What changed that was the Western pursuit of self interests - private ownership and captitalism.

As Barbara Ehrenreich points out the successes that are highleted in the business news about the rise in the stock market which coupled with mergers and acquisitions, underline the priority of profits at the expence of someonelse. CEOs are the quintessential examples of the winner take all, king of the hill, capitalism is King mentality.

Shurely no one remembers slavery(although I am only four generations removed)but it doesn't take much study to realize the enormous wealth that was generated not only from owning slaves, but from slave trading, shipping, insurance, banking, etc. All this at the expense of someone else; generations of someonelse. At one point the wealthy plantation owner and South Carolina Sen. James Henry Hammond coined the phrase, as the result of the enormous profits he earned (earned is such an honest word)and the economic influnce the Southern United States had on markets around the world as the result of cotton wrote to Sen. William Seward of New York, "Cotton is King." We refer to the basic concept of "at the expence of someone else" when we talk about out-sourcing labor to other countries around the world. Even if we cannot remember slavery the effects and experiences of the NAFTA agreement should not be a distant memory. How do the rich get richer? Cheap labor! Cheap labor for a country that has become accoustomed to a minimum wage and benefits that allows this essential guarantee to be side stepped by a company's claim that it is not making profits is burning the dynamite at both ends.

Not all companies are guilty of throwing its employees into the grips of economic depravation and destitude, but those companies are not representative of the colossal profits everyone seems to be pursuing on Wall Steet. Public beware! As the shift in focus of editorial news moves from the war in Iraq and the price of oil to the problems of global warming big business will find a way to link our pursuit of individualism to either doing something good for the environment or to minimize our "carbon footprint." Environmentalists have for years been making that argument, but there was no money in it. Can we realy reduce our "carbon footprint" without outsourcing and degrading American labor? I challenge any company to find some profit in that. We should remember that the real profit that companies profess is the willingness of consumers to spend their money. It is a two way street and although consumer protection is legislated and designed to provide redress consumer discretion is left to sit on the highway of dreams like an old billboard that hardly anyone seems to notice is there.

I was disappointed that so little was discussed relating to Barbara's latest book about dancing in the streets. Really, even though food and shelter are essential they alone do not make life worth living, and there hasn't been any dancing in the streets in America since the 60's. Wake up America, we lost the revolution for love rather than war 40 years ago, and now we have become slaves to consumerism thanks to conservatism - thanks a lot for nothing Ronald Reagan!

Barbara Ehernreich is right. We are becoming a banana republic economically. The people need to wake up and stop believing the horseshit about the current economy that they're being fed by the wealthy investor class and the MSM media and politicians in thier cash-lined pockets.

Could this polarization be partly due to the immense flood of immigration going on right now in America????

Things have gotten much worse for average folks over the last thirty or forty years.

With irrefutable history showing the G.I. Bill and other government spending in the citizenry, infrastructure, or the commons were instrumental in creating the middle class dream after WWII, I'm amazed that We The People have allowed this shift of wealth to the very top and disinvestment in our country.

Thank you, Barbara & Bill for all the work you do on behalf of the disenfranchised masses and our quickly eroding democratic republic.

We have so few voices in the mass media, thank goodness for "internets"!

Just listened to your talk with Clive James and was enraptured. Such intelligent and articulate conversation I thought had disappeared in our coursened, sex ridden, celebrity worshipping culture. Where are there more such as you and Mr. James? How do we return such enlightenment to our everyday lives? Thank you for a wonderful program.

It is so refreshing to find intelligent conversation on television. Bill Moyer's show is the diamond in the rough.
I study US torture and brainwashing experiments on US citizens that came out of MKULTRA research. Currently there are 2,000 US citizens that are tortured daily and brainwashed using Dr. Ewen Cameron's techniques that the major free press will not talk about. This has to truly be the highest priority in any legitimate democracy.

It is so refreshing to find intelligent conversation on television. Bill Moyer's show is the diamond in the rough.
I study US torture and brainwashing experiments on US citizens that came out of MKULTRA research. Currently there are 2,000 US citizens that are tortured daily and brainwashed using Dr. Ewen Cameron's techniques that the major free press will not talk about. This has to truly be the highest priority in any legitimate democracy.

another good job, bill. why not get to the real crux of the matter and do some stories about why the rest of the world hates the US gov't and "system". bring on the author of "overthrow", amy goodman, arundahti roy, robert fisk, and any number of citizens familiar with our economic hit man practices, "vulture" capitalists, and desire to "own" the world, including it's water.

keep stirring things up, keep informing people. as molly said just before she died....keep bangin' on those pots and pans, otherwise this darkest of interregnums will not end.

The beautifully written comments here, bleak though they may be, are an impressive testament to the power that lies within the American people to understand their world and take charge of it.

Regular folks of all kinds are getting close to the breaking point, and when they reach it, one can just sense that they will act with calm authority to reposess the world... we've all got to get ready, and study up!

Since I watched your program featuring Barbara Ehrenreich, and based on her research and journalistic writings concerning the chasm between the super rich and the working poor in the USA, I believe that she is one of the most important women of the 21st Century.

Oh, American dream? Yes, I recall reading about it somewhere. The American nightmare of endless war, pointless development, and endless football scores is more to the point, isn't it?

What surprises me is how indifferent the Christians I know are to the problem of low-income jobs. When I count for a radical, something is wrong. I have begun to withdraw from the activities of my mainline church because I do count as a radical in that community.

Retired I now work part time as a sales associate (clerk) at J. C. Penney. I earn a tad less than eight dollars an hour. Some people who work in the store earn less than I earn. I suppose the work has some aspects of “flow” to it but I have little respect for the company for which I work. It’s a shuck.

I do hope eventually to be able to work for Costco part time. It is hard to see how J. C. Penney is any better than Wal-Mart. I recall that James Cash Penney was a right-wing Christian ideologue.

Today, I think the American Dream is too much about what we can get out of our system for our personal enrichment, with very little, if any, emphasis on how we can build communities that create a society that manages our vast wealth fairly and productively. And I think that the words "fair" and "productive" could really benefit by some updating.

I am a baby boomer. For my entire adult life, the American Dream has been focused on personal enrichment, regardless of how that enrichment affects our own disadvantaged, the people of foreign lands, or even how that personal enrichment has increased the numbers of our own citizens who can be characterized as at-risk, for any one of a number of reasons. Our current Washington administration epitomizes this ME FIRST attitude to such an extent that I can't imagine it can be outdone by increased ME FIRST thinking in future administrations. Maybe this will ultimately prove to be a good thing, in that it will awaken in more of us a longing to establish sustainable national goals that respect individual human lives and the global environment that holds us.

I'd like to see new economic models coming out of our universities and think tanks, models based on something other than consumerism, which has characterized our society now, to national and international detriment, for half a century.

Thanks to the negative influence of media advertising, our children and grandchildren increasingly define themselves by how much stuff they are able to buy and put on display for others to judge their "success" by. This national malaise is not something that can, or should, be counteracted by religion. It should be addressed by innovative leadership committed to developing new national civic goals.

Thanks for all your hard work, Mr. Moyers, through your PBS show. And keep it up. I just don't see anyone replacing what you do yet.

I whistle-blew and was fired and blacklisted. As an older single woman, I am now permanently unemployable, it seems. I can be eliminated from consideration on so many "fronts": overqualified really translates into "we don't like you, you're too old, you have integrity which means you don't follow blindly, you think independently, your allegiance is to the customer, you're too ugly, etc.
Employment at will is really employment at whim, and employers can pull so many punches that what they do to people is legal murder. I am financially ruined - can't sue because to do that would mean that every future employer would know the details and consider me too risky and not blindly obedient. My career went out the window with the blacklisting and defamation which is never provable - innuendo, rumor and off the record networking among employers.
Workers are no more than slaves at best.
The American dream became a night terror years ago. It's lost, and I don't think anyone will get it back.
The governed are oppressed by those elected and appointed. Elections are rigged, corporations rule.
Everyone is guilty until they prove they are innocent and even then, it's the luck of the draw.
We live in a police state.
The media conflates vitriolic and inflammatory rhetoric with news.
Healthcare is affordable and accessible only to the wealthy.
90% is now the majority underclass, and the other 10% live in gilded cages.
We have a de facto state religion of Jesus-baiting fundamental Christianist extremists.
The Constitution is up in flames, and Congress shrugs.
Two tyrants control the White House, and Congress protects them.
American Dream?
I wish.