Big Paper that is going to take forever...

AWOL is an abbreviation for the American Way of Life. Now, one might say that they know what that is, but how can one person's definition be the true meaning to all of America. In order to better understand what the American Way of Life is my class had discussions, asked random people on the street as well as family members, and did multiple stimulations to see if we could get down to the bottom of the traditions and customs that form our lives.



To better understand certain things, you must of course gather sources and information on the matter. That is exactly what we did. We set out to the streets of New York (well more like 22nd-23rd, 1st ave to Park ave) and asked pedestrians what they thought the American Way of Life was. Now, I wanted to keep variety in people I asked so that I could get a variety of answers but I just couldn't bring myself to stop a girl so these are all men responses. I did however vary in men. I asked capitalist, rich, worker, poor, black, hispanic, and white (Asians are hard to stop). There responses to me were broad and not well thought out except for this one guy who kept taking forever to answer but, came up with the same answers as the others. From the capitalist, I got the most outrageous response which is how I knew he was a capitalist. First off, I had asked the gentlemen he was with to answer my questions but, he told me he didn't have time and his friend responded "You just go, I'll do it." with a sigh. I brushed it off and immediately wrote down rich. I asked him what he thought the American Way of Llife was. He responded it was health, happiness, and freedom. Straight from the Declaration itself. I then asked what he thought were the good and bad aspects of AWOL. He said a good aspect was that we had "the best criminal justice system in all the world". At this point, I was erasing rich and writing capitalist. When he answered to the bad aspects was that I was really appalled. He told me that the bad aspect of the American Way of Life was the TRAFFIC. What?! We are in a recession and this guy thinks traffic's bad? That has capitalism written all over it because evidently he is financially secure enough to talk about traffic when thousands of families are losing their homes everyday because they cannot pay their mortgages. I was in such shock that I just said thank you and walked away.



From the working class, I recieved more sane answers. they told me that money was the main aspect of the American Way of Life and that corporations are always trying to take it all from the small guys. Some other responses were of course oppurtunity and freedom. One even said that smoking, drinking, and working were the American Way of Life. Who can deny that this is what a majority of Americans do? So is that what the American Way of Life is? I think not but if this is what people have in their heads then it must play a small part. They didn"t really vary in what they said were the bad aspects of AWOL as most said war and related things. This just goes to show that AWOL is based on money, how we can get it, and what we can do with it.



One major aspect that are class studied was capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system in which the goods and services are procuded, distributed, and consumed through the mechanism of a free market fixed deeply on the right to private property and the profit motive (says the dictionary). Andy's definition is that capitalism is an economic system in which the overwhelming majority toil for the profit of the tiny minority. In simpler words, "We work, they profit." In AWOL, we went over capitalism and tried to see if this was really the basis of the country we live in. If you think about it, it makes sense. For example, if you work in a clothing store. You work and put in the hours that can get you the type of money you need to survive, while the old, white man who owns the clothing store you work for, is sitting in his Malibu home sipping cocktails. I went into American Apparel (of course Americans must shop there as it is American). There was a very frustrated, opinionated saleswoman who started telling us what working in American Apparel was like. She said that in order to get a job there you must send in a picture of yourself with the application and was telling us how degrading and horrible the job was. My question was if the job was so horrble, why is she still working here? Simple question. She answered me simply with the answer "I do need to live." I was in shock that she would respond this way but in a way a totally understood. What else could she do but stick to the job that degraded her if she wanted to survive?! So here are thousands of Americans represented in this woman. We are not working hard and long for these corporations because we like our jobs, but are doing it so that when we go home we have enough money for the basic utilities. We work until we can no longer stand so that these rich families can go on vacation in Tahiti. However, we cannot do anything about it because that was how the American Way of Life was long ago created.



We also took time to go over the government. Stuff like the Constitution and how the powers are divided. This contributes to the American Way of Life because it divides us into our social classes. It is a base line for what is acceptable and what isn't. The government tells us the things we can do and what we can't but they trick us into believing they are doing it because we want them too. We elect our officials who are looking out for our best interest yet they are getting paid thousands with money that can be helping the working classes. This relates to AWOL because again we are working hard just in order to survive but we can't do much about it because after all it is the American Way of Life.