Hiding from Reality by Bob Herbert: The Death of the American Dream

Hiding From Reality In the article “Hiding From Reality” author Bob Herbert emphasizes the death of the American dream, and what Americans need to do to re-establish it. The American dream needs to be resuscitated and that entails drastic change to the education system, job creation, and a halt to mindless spending that only serves to broaden the inequality between wealthy and the poor. Herbert describes Americans as a “hapless, can’t do society” and argues that no change will come unless America recognizes the effort and sacrifice needed to resuscitate the dream. In order for the American dream to resurrect more high paying jobs need to be created. As of 2009, statistics show that 656,000 jobs were made for foreign-born workers, while 1.2 million native-born workers were jobless. Although jobs are being created, wages are not keeping up with the cost of living; as Herbert claims workers “experienced a sharp decline in earnings” . According to Herbert, the U.S needs to accommodate and develop full-time employment to give workers a decent living. Herbert uses Pathos to connect with the readers by using words like “human suffering” and “startling information” to describe unemployment. Herbert points out the issues of employment in this country by using statistics and appealing to the reader’s sympathy. The American dream has not progressed because we are unable to pay for the wars, and we have fallen into recession. According to Herbert, “We have neither the will nor the common sense to either raise taxes to pay for the wars, or stop fighting them”. So much money is invested in wars that there has been a reduction of services, and the ones paying for the “carnage” are the children, the disabled, and the sick; there have been many cut-backs to reduce services such as, healthcare, pension benefits, and education. In Herbert’s view, “School systems around the country are being hammered... teachers are being let