If you are a big fan of The Office on NBC, then you probably know that Michael Scott considers autumn to be "the most contemplative of seasons".  Well, while that may or may not be true, what I do believe is that Friday is one of "the most contemplative" days of the week.  Here in the great Pacific northwest there is still a couple of hours of daylight left before the sun goes down, and as the sun relentlessly continues its trajectory towards the horizon it makes me stop and reflect on how rapidly the world is changing.  In just about any field that you want to name - technology, politics, economics, education, entertainment and even religion - the pace of change these days is absolutely astounding.  We live at a time when we get to watch the world literally change right in front of our eyes.  In the age of the Internet our attention spans have been reduced to approximately that of a squirrel, but sometimes it is good to sit back and think about the bigger picture.  What does all of this change mean?  Is it good?  Is it bad?  What kind of a future are we headed for?  (Read More.....)

As the U.S. economy implodes, a lot of American families are being faced with some incredibly heartbreaking choices.  Many of them piled up massive amounts of debt during the good times as they chased the American Dream, but now that hard times have arrived they find that they just can't handle the huge mountain of debt that they have accumulated.  Other Americans are looking at the crumbling economy and are trying to prioritize where to spend their money.  They wonder whether they should pay off their debts or whether that money would be better spent on stocking up on necessities for the incredibly hard times that are ahead.  The truth is that this article is going to raise a lot of questions but not provide a lot of answers.  In the end, each person has to make their own choices.  In addition, some of the viewpoints in this article are going to be controversial to many of you.  It is okay if you disagree.  In fact, if you find something that you disagree with, please leave a comment.  This is a topic that hits home with a lot of Americans, and a lot of people have some incredibly strong opinions about paying off debt. (Read More.....)

Before you read this, please be warned that the subject matter of this article is controversial.  It is going to upset a lot of people who read it.  In fact, it is likely to absolutely infuriate a large number of people.  Why?  Well, because it asks some really hard questions.  You see, most Americans prefer to see this nation as a "good" and "moral" country that God has richly blessed.  And there is no denying that God did tremendously bless the United States in the past.  But over the past several decades we have been relentlessly pushing God away as a society.  We have indulged in an orgy of endless greed, we have made lust and sexual gratification a national pastime and we have killed over 40 million babies since abortion was legalized in 1973.  Our families are fractured and our love has grown cold, and yet we continue to borrow mountains of money so that we can go buy things at the store to make ourselves feel better as we pursue "the American Dream".  The truth is that the United States is not a "good" nation anymore.  In fact, we have become filled with evil and wickedness.  But most Americans seem to think that there will never be any consequences for all of this evil and wickedness.  In fact, most Americans seem to expect God to snap to attention whenever we decide that we need to ask Him to do something for us.  Of course the rest of the time we are more than happy to totally ignore Him.  As the Gulf of Mexico oil spill crisis continues to get worse, many Americans are beginning to wonder where God is in all of this.  Well, is it possible that God has taken His hand of protection off of us due to all of our wickedness?  Is it possible that America could actually deserve what is happening in the Gulf of Mexico right now?     (Read More.....)

Most Americans have absolutely no idea, but a very dark philosophy is spreading like wildfire among the global elite.  This philosophy is an obsessive belief that humanity has become a cancer that is destroying the earth.  There are now large numbers of global leaders that are convinced that the exploding population of the world has become like a virus or a plague, and that it must be combated as such.  In fact, it would be very difficult to understate just how obsessed many members of the global elite are with population control.  The United Nations puts out position papers about it, universities have entire courses dedicated to it, radical population control advocates have been appointed to some of the highest political positions in the world, and some of the wealthiest people on the planet get together just to talk about it.  Those who believe in this philosophy are constantly talking about the need for "increased access" to abortion, contraception and other "family planning" services.  But even with all of their efforts, the population of the world is still expanding and those who believe in this population control philosophy are getting nervous. (Read More.....)

How in the world does anyone expect the U.S. military to be successful in bringing peace to Afghanistan?  The Taliban is constantly reinforced and supplied from bases in Pakistan, they are constantly being supplied with arms by Iran, and the Saudis keep sending them huge amounts of cash.  Meanwhile, U.S. troops are expected to endlessly patrol a land teeming with radical Islamic militants, many of which would just love to brag to their buddies about how they killed a U.S. soldier.  U.S. forces have now been in Afghanistan for nine years (keep in mind that the U.S. was in World War II for less than 4 years) and the conflict against the Taliban seems to have no resolution in sight.  The U.S. has been successful in imposing a limited form of democracy, but the truth is that the Afghan government is composed of radical Muslims that have no interest in such things as freedom of speech and freedom of religion.  The truth is that the "Afghan Dream" does not even remotely resemble the American Dream.  In fact, the current Afghan government is so questionable that many people are openly asking what difference there really is between this new government and the old one under the Taliban.  (Read More.....)

What in the world has happened to the United States of America?  Once upon a time, young boys and girls across this great land of ours could set up little lemonade stands and make a little bit of extra cash without fear of being raided by the cops.  But those days are apparently gone.  In the town of Tulare, California one little 7-year-old  girl recently had her lemonade stand shut down by authorities because she did not have the proper business permits.  So what in the world are authorities doing running around shutting down lemonade stands for?  Don't they have anything better to do?  After all, if your car is stolen these days you are very fortunate if you can even get a cop to come out to the scene.  But apparently stopping a little girl from raising money so that she can go to Disneyland is a top priority in the town of Tulare.  So now what is this little 7-year-old girl supposed to think about trying to live the American Dream?    (Read More.....)

Declaring that "we've come to take our government back", Tea Party favorite Rand Paul, the son of U.S. Representative Ron Paul, soundly defeated Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson in a Republican primary fight for the U.S. Senate seat held by retiring Republican Senator Jim Bunning.  He will now face Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway, the winner of the Democratic primary, in the November election.  It is hard to understate just how important this victory is for the Tea Party movement.  The entire Republican establishment was behind Grayson and they tried desperately to get him enough support to win the primary.  But it did not work this time.  Usually when the Republican machine gets behind somebody, they have no problem winning a primary.  Could this be a signal that politics in America is changing?  Could this be a sign that the American people are so sick and tired of what is going on in Washington that they simply refuse to listen to the two big political machines (the Republicans and the Democrats) any longer? (Read More.....)

Have you ever heard of Kitty Werthmann?  She was a child when Adolf Hitler took control of her beloved country of Austria and stripped away their freedoms, and she is now speaking out about the chillingly similar loss of freedoms that we are currently experiencing in the United States.  It is often said that "those who forget history are doomed to repeat it".  So, perhaps we should listen very carefully to what Kitty Werthmann has to say.  She has been there.  She has lived through it.  The truth is that when you do sit down and compare what happened under the Nazi regime and what is happening in the United States today, the parallels are absolutely shocking.  The American Dream is not guaranteed for us or for our children.  Freedom must be guarded.  If not, it will be taken away.  In fact, our freedoms are already being stripped away at blinding speed, and once they are gone they are incredibly difficult to get back. (Read More.....)

Today, there is a growing belief that many of the world's problems are directly related to overpopulation.  Whether it is world hunger, the lack of fresh water, the damage we are causing to our environment, or "climate change", those who believe in the myth of overpopulation have no hesitation blaming all of those problems on the "fact" that there are way too many people in the world.  What is even more frightening are the solutions that many of those people who believe that the world is overpopulated are proposing.  The solutions they propose include more abortion and "family planning" services, "one child" policies and mass sterilizations.  In fact, there are even some in the radical environmental movement that insist that we need to get rid of 80 to 90 percent of humanity in order to "save" the environment.  (Read More.....)

Millions upon millions of Americans are struggling with paying their bloated mortgages right now.  So is it fair for the U.S. government to be giving money to some people (but not to others) to help them pay their mortgages? Well, it turns out that U.S. citizens in 10 states will soon be receiving money as part of a $2.1 billion federal program to help distressed homeowners pay their mortgages.  But is this fair?  Why will only citizens in 10 states by getting funds?  What about the other 40 states?  Well, the money for this mortgage relief program is going to come from a special fund within the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) known as the "Housing Finance Agency Innovation Fund for the Hardest Hit Housing Markets".  In other words, people in the areas where housing prices have fallen the most are going to get help living the American Dream, and everyone else is out of luck. (Read More.....)

The U.S. economy has been riding out one of the worst recessions in modern history, but unfortunately every economic signal seems to be indicating that we are going to be experiencing a "double-dip" recession instead of a recovery.  U.S. government debt is out of control, a massive "second wave" of mortgages is scheduled to reset starting this year, banks have significantly tightened credit, pension funds across the U.S. are broke at a time when a ton of Baby Boomers are ready to retire, and a massive financial crisis in the Eurozone threatens to throw the world into financial chaos.  The truth is that 2010 is going to be another very tough year economically, and for many the American Dream is quickly becoming a distant memory.  The following are ten clear signs that this will be a double-dip recession in the United States.... (Read More.....)

Welcome to the American Dream blog!  So what is this site going to be about?  It is going to be about trying to wake up as many people as possible.  A generation ago, our parents and grandparents could take a prosperous future in the most powerful nation on earth for granted.  But now that has fundamentally changed.  Now the U.S. government, state governments, the big corporations and American consumers have piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world.  Not only have we completely mortgaged the future of our children and grandchildren, but we have also brought the U.S. financial system to the brink of complete destruction.  The U.S. dollar, once the most stable and most powerful currency in the world, is now dropping dramatically in value and is in a death spiral.  Unemployment is spiking all over America, and in some areas it is now next to impossible to get a good job.  Millions of quality jobs have been shipped overseas and they simply are not going to come back.  It seems like each year we set another record for mortgage foreclosures and another record for personal bankruptcies. (Read More.....)