The American Dream: "You have to be asleep to believe it" - George Carlin

This video, taken from a George Carlin stand-up comedy show clearly lays out a huge sense of doubt in the ideal of the "American Dream". Carlin states that the everyday American is blind to the oppression that he/she is under, from the people who have the real power and control over America (large corporations). He carries on to state how these corporations do not want individuals who can realize the oppression they are under, but obedient workers, who will simply go to work and ignore the fact that have little to no pensions, working "shitty" jobs for "shitty" pay and the fact that these corporations have the American people "by the balls" and  how no one notices and no one cares.

This sort of viewpoint would go directly against the ideas put forward in Ragged Dick, ideas such as the morals of the American Dream and the social mobility that can stem from it. Through the eyes of people who share a similar view with George Carlin, there is no "American Dream" it is a facade that has been created to give the American people a faint hope, when it is more of an "American Farce", there is no social mobility, you get a job and become another cog in the machine that is Corporate America and the American people are essentially trapped in a false reality, much like a fantasy. Its not real, just a "Dream".