Bill Maher
Excerpt from Real Time with Bill Maher, May 5th 2006
"And finally, New Rule: If you want to live the American dream, move to Europe. According to a new study, climbing up the economic ladder in this country is much harder than in just about every other wealthy nation.
If you're born poor here, you pretty much stay that way. And fat-cat catering Republicans get poor people to vote for them because they get them to vote their dreams, not their self-interests. That's why lots of people of modest means are all for getting rid of the estate tax, a tax which affects one percent of us, the richest one percent of us. You know, the ones with estates.
A category also familiar by the name, "Not you." You know, America has a lottery mentality. We think we can party till we're 40, fail in business after business, and then somehow wind up as president of the United States.
Okay, bad example. But our philosophy does come from the lottery. Hey, you never know! Yes, I do. In America, if you're not born rich, you'll die tryin', bitch. Because you're not going to win the lottery. You're not going to inherit a fortune from a distant relative. Or marry a prince. Or get that call from Hollywood saying they're making a movie out of your MySpace page.
Oh, yeah. According to a recent survey, 98% of college freshman agreed with the statement, "I am sure that one day I will get where I want to be in life." I'm sorry. You have yourself mixed up with the Asian kid.
You know, I have never understood how Americans can talk so much about dreams, how great it is to have a dream, but make absolutely no judgments about what the dream is! Does it matter that your kids all want to be rockers and rappers and ballers and divas? Watch MTV for a day. You'll see.
Your kid's dream is to be on "Cribs," living in a 50-room mansion with a shark tank and a Whitney Houston "crack nook." It's a dream about being able to spend your life pigging out on ego and money and attention in the way only this wonderful business of our allows.
So, fine. But do we have to admire it? Do we have to treat that dream the same as if it was a dream to teach, or join Doctors Without Borders? Do we have to...do we have to honor our kids for wanting to go from rags...to bitches? For wanting to live out an eternal weekend that never turns to Monday, snorting caviar off their Bentleys and air-guitaring their way to the cover of US magazine? Sadly, yes. Or they'll refuse to teach you how to clear the porn trail off your computer.
So I'm not saying, "Stop dreaming." I'm just saying, "Wake up." Because no one is ever going to give you half-a-billion dollars for sitting around like a lump. They can't. They've already given it to this "bastard."
"And finally, New Rule: If you want to live the American dream, move to Europe. According to a new study, climbing up the economic ladder in this country is much harder than in just about every other wealthy nation.
If you're born poor here, you pretty much stay that way. And fat-cat catering Republicans get poor people to vote for them because they get them to vote their dreams, not their self-interests. That's why lots of people of modest means are all for getting rid of the estate tax, a tax which affects one percent of us, the richest one percent of us. You know, the ones with estates.
A category also familiar by the name, "Not you." You know, America has a lottery mentality. We think we can party till we're 40, fail in business after business, and then somehow wind up as president of the United States.
Okay, bad example. But our philosophy does come from the lottery. Hey, you never know! Yes, I do. In America, if you're not born rich, you'll die tryin', bitch. Because you're not going to win the lottery. You're not going to inherit a fortune from a distant relative. Or marry a prince. Or get that call from Hollywood saying they're making a movie out of your MySpace page.
Oh, yeah. According to a recent survey, 98% of college freshman agreed with the statement, "I am sure that one day I will get where I want to be in life." I'm sorry. You have yourself mixed up with the Asian kid.
You know, I have never understood how Americans can talk so much about dreams, how great it is to have a dream, but make absolutely no judgments about what the dream is! Does it matter that your kids all want to be rockers and rappers and ballers and divas? Watch MTV for a day. You'll see.
Your kid's dream is to be on "Cribs," living in a 50-room mansion with a shark tank and a Whitney Houston "crack nook." It's a dream about being able to spend your life pigging out on ego and money and attention in the way only this wonderful business of our allows.
So, fine. But do we have to admire it? Do we have to treat that dream the same as if it was a dream to teach, or join Doctors Without Borders? Do we have to...do we have to honor our kids for wanting to go from rags...to bitches? For wanting to live out an eternal weekend that never turns to Monday, snorting caviar off their Bentleys and air-guitaring their way to the cover of US magazine? Sadly, yes. Or they'll refuse to teach you how to clear the porn trail off your computer.
So I'm not saying, "Stop dreaming." I'm just saying, "Wake up." Because no one is ever going to give you half-a-billion dollars for sitting around like a lump. They can't. They've already given it to this "bastard."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Raymond
this is scary and daunting, if i do say so myself.
posted by Alphaprimer at
5/11/2006 01:06:00 PM
1 Comments:
hey there, nice blog. I checked your profile. It says you like making music. I'm a producer myself and I'm recording an album. I'm guessing your Afro-American... Anyways nice post on Immortal Technique. The guy does a godd job presenting the other views that are always hidden. It's something like growing up watching Oprah thinking America is lovely and perfect when infact nobody or country in the world is and then suddenly you watch American History X and Crash... BAAM different perspective and reality dawns on you. Hit me back on my blog... PeaCe
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Drima, at 1:51 AM
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