<P> The vaunted American dream, the idea that life will get better, that progress is inevitable if we obey the rules and work hard, that material prosperity is assured, has been replaced by a hard and bitter truth . The American dream, we now know, is a lie . We will all be sacrificed . The virus of corporate abuse - the perverted belief that only corporate profit matters - has spread to outsource our jobs, cut the budgets of our schools, close our libraries, and plague our communities with foreclosures and unemployment . </P> <P> The American Dream, and the sometimes dark response to it, has been a long - standing theme in American film . Many counterculture films of the 1960s and 1970s ridiculed the traditional quest for the American Dream . For example, Easy Rider (1969), directed by Dennis Hopper, shows the characters making a pilgrimage in search of "the true America" in terms of the hippie movement, drug use, and communal lifestyles . </P> <P> Scholars have explored the American Dream theme in the careers of numerous political leaders, including Henry Kissinger, Hillary Clinton, Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln . The theme has been used for many local leaders as well, such as José Antonio Navarro, the Tejano leader (1795--1871), who served in the legislatures of Coahuila y Texas, the Republic of Texas, and the State of Texas . </P> <P> In 2006 U.S. Senator Barack Obama wrote a memoir, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream . It was this interpretation of the American Dream for a young black man that helped establish his statewide and national reputations . The exact meaning of the Dream became for at least one commentator a partisan political issue in the 2008 and 2012 elections . </P>

Which one is not the key value of american culture