Since time immemorial, the American Dream has symbolized an oasis of opportunity for those embraced by tantalizing dreams of realizing prosperity on the seemingly boundless American frontier. Immigrants from all over the world once flocked to the wide expanses of the land of liberty with a burning zeal for success that helped to melt the oppressive manacles of economic oppression that prevailed in the fascist and dictatorial regimes all over the world. American citizens too sought to remedy the leprosy of poverty that left indelible blemishes on everyday life by working tirelessly towards the boon of prosperity through sound ethical values and prudent delayed gratification in order to ensure financial stability for future generations. Embedded within America lay bedrock rich with prospects of prosperity, waiting to be unearthed by the spades of persistence held by those wishing for something better for their families. The opportunity to create something out of nothing embodied the essence of the American Dream at the time as people from all over tapped into the flowing vein of newfound possibility that would help to cure their financial and economic anemia.


Those ideals, now artifacts of antiquity, have irrevocably been polluted by the pestilences of materialism and greed that run rampant in contemporary society, spawning an “American Dream” that is just an obscene caricature of what it once was. Rather than hard work, indulging in insecure debt has been the vehicle through which Americans strive to realize their hopes and dreams. People make purchases wrapped in inflated veils of financial bravado, an attitude that conveniently satiates the current pangs of desire and places any repercussions of future financial famine on the back burner. Financial temerity has become a national affliction as hordes swarm in legion to attain whatever materializes on their money-drenched horizons as they gaze onwards at torrents of advertisements promoting the purchase of “updated” and “new and improved” goods that seem to flood us through all mediums of communication. Such purchases are now made under the aegis of a better quality of life that in reality is just shielding our vulnerable minds from an odious cesspool of decaying American ideals whose stench would stifle even the most hedonic of humans.


This mindset isn’t characteristic of a select group of people; it has been subsumed into the cultural mores of the entire nation itself. The tragic product of such a development is that society becomes inextricably mired in a morass of consumer debt as the ghastly specter of financial ruin grimaces overhead. We become entrapped in this vicious cycle of financial welter that has enveloped all stratums of society and fail to realize that the idyllic American Dream has been corrupted into one of the most vulgar manifestations of primal greed and gluttony to ever be conceived in the ulcerated womb of human desire.