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Where's the Voice of the Young People?
My generation once shouted down the establishment,
protested the war, rejected material possessions. Then the draft ended
and we lost our idealism.
Now we run the wars. Our arrogant old generals refuse to admit that we
don't need the bloated monstrosity that sucks nearly a trillion dollars a
year out of the economy. Martin Luther King said it over 40 years ago,
when he condemned the spending of billions on war instead of on
education and society.
And now we run Wall Street. The Gordon Gekkos of my generation insisted
for years that the economy would grow if the rich were taxed less, for
they would spend their money on new business, research, and jobs.
In 1980, when the go-getters in my crowd were settling into management
positions, the richest 1% of America already had a big slice of the
total income pie. About 1/15 of the pie. Over the next few years they
cut a second piece of the same size for themselves. Then they cut a
THIRD piece! Three times as much in 30 years, not from working that much
harder than everyone else, but from tax cuts and deregulation in the
financial industry.
Most of you come from hard-working middle-class families who are
struggling more than ever before. If your family had the same size slice
of pie as in 1980, based on your contribution to our steadily-growing
productivity, you would be making $10,000 to $20,000 a year more than
you are now.
The money was taken away by financial experts who have devised
intricate, cunning methods to manipulate the money systems, all the
while lobbying for lower taxes and less government interference.
So now it's 'legal' to call income "carried interest" instead of income.
This is a type of capital gain, like stocks, except that you don't have
to possess any capital. It's like a bank robber saying "it's not money,
it's only paper."
And now it's 'legal' for CEOs to backdate their stock options to a time
in the past when the price was higher. Like changing the numbers on a
lottery ticket.
The bank robber and lottery thief would probably go to jail.
My generation has devised a system in which one man can make enough
money in a year to pay the salaries of every police officer,
firefighter, and public school teacher in the city of Chicago, while
paying a lower percentage in taxes than the people cleaning his offices.
A number of hedge fund managers did this.
That's why many of you young people don't have a job.
In 1980 1 out of every 15 dollars earned in America went to the richest
1%. Now it's 3 out of every 15 dollars. That's an EXTRA TRILLION dollars
a year that goes to the richest 1%.
Money that should be spent on education and jobs for all the people who
contributed to our productive economy, and for those of you graduating
from high school or college. Instead it's being held in escrow. The
richest 500 corporations are sitting on $2 trillion in cash.
The richest 1% call for taxes on soda pop and online gambling to solve
the nation's budget problems. They say "don't tax the most productive
members of society" while making most of their money on non-productive
financial strategies. They cry 'socialism' at any mention of new taxes
while demanding a bailout of their failed financial institutions.
It's your problem now, young Americans. You don't have much money, but
you have untapped power in your ability to communicate and organize
online. You need to start reminding each other that 1 out of every 5
income dollars goes to the clever little group of people who learned how
to change the numbers on the lottery tickets.
67 Comments so far
Show AllSpeak for yourself Paul. I'm a boomer but I wasn't one of the "go-getters"; I didn't do it.
The trends and financial industry decriminalization (euphemistically called deregulation) that the author describes were called fascism back in the 20th century.
When Raygun took office in 1981 the growth of US fascism accelerated to a pace that continues today uninterrupted.
Although I (like agingpacifist) have been harmed by the acceleration of US fascism and have not enabled or participated in its growth, it has been disheartening seeing nearly everybody I know, both Democrats and Republicans, believing the lies and rationalizing the destruction of the US from within (I call it drinking the kool-aid).
Hopefully enough young Americans are waking up to the fact that Obama is destroying their present and their futures as much as the Republicans are. I mentor 4 to 6 university students each year and the only graduates landing jobs during the past 3 years are the ROTC students whose jobs in Ir-Af-Pak are more secure than any of our jobs.
the young people are consuming and find "liberation" in the market. If they cant consume it they dont want to read it or struggle it or protest it...they ..consume video, tv, I phone, I pod, I pad, facebook, twitter, latte... that is what global capitalism is producing...an anti-community, passionless, consumyouth...
The author mentions the low tax rate billionaire hedge fund managers pay in the PAST TENSE.
Readers need to understand that not only has Obama failed to reign in these travesties, he has further empowered hedge fund managers and others who caused the 2008 meltdown, making the meltdown very profitable for them and assuring that they will reap even bigger profits in the next meltdown while US taxpayers spend even more bailing them out.
As a result of Obama's actions, Wall Street's license to steal now has no expiration date.
Piss off, Frog! No generation has consumed as much and given so little back, as the spoiled brat Boomers. My generation is simply waiting for it all to fall so we can quietly rebuild. Why waste time trying to prop up and pretty up a corpse? BTW, it's not X'ers, Y'ers or Millennials who run those 'consumption' companies, is it? Yeah, I thought not.
Edit: I think it's hilarious how this society has such a love/hate relationship with their young. I've read most of the comments here and people are bitching about how the young are doing this, instead of that. Far from me to quote the bible but, if you train up a kid right, when they grow up, they follow that way. If my generation is such a waste and a loss, who made them that way? If all we do is consume, who taught us that? Think on this, while you bash the young for disparaging your systems and not following your ways.
You sound an awful lot like P. Frog when you lash out at an entire generation like that. BTW, when has there ever been a quiet period of rebuilding after the fall of any society? The sharks don't magically disappear.
As the Boomers are possibly the only generation in history that has actually left their offspring far less than they were given by their parents, is not a bit of lashing in order?
Dear herdpoisoning:
I don't think that's true, that the boomers are the ONLY generation that left their offspring with less. I think that it's actually true that the previous generation was the only one to have anything to leave to the boomers. The middle class has only been around since WW II.
I also don't think that it's a good idea to try to start age warfare either. There are responsible younger people and responsible older people. The enemy is not either of them. Besides, once anyone lumps all old and all young into two different groups, then the argument is pretty much over, because there is such variation among all ages and groups.
Besides, I wouldn't worry about anything; the young people are where the hackers and the computer people come from. No matter what happens to the internet, the younger generation will find a way! to keep communication going. Just because people aren't in the street doesn't mean that nothing is happening. The author is really silly to think that his generation showed the only way to accomplish anything.
I was ranting and for that I apologize.
However, I do not see that any conversation with the youth can be started by someone of the baby boomer generation to the youth without starting with an apology.
"I am sorry we left you screwed six ways till Thursday, and are still screwing you on a regular basis as we are still in power, but since we have the power still, and would like to change it to leave a better world when we pass on, we would like to hear your ideas on how to make it better"
Especially when those of us younger (I hesitate to be called "youth" as 40 is approaching all too rapidly) see how VERY close they were, only to sell out those who came after so that they could get and consume a bigger piece of pie right then.
I see baby boomers decrying youth and their ipods, and think "but you raised them on TV, what do you expect?"
OF COURSE the youth resent Baby Boomers, when they say how "we should extend social security to 60 or 55" when those of us younger can consider ourselves lucky if we make as much as minimum wage would be if it kept pace with inflation since '67. They decry the consumerism of youth when they sat their kids in front of the TV while allowing the restrictions that used to be in place on advertising to children to be removed. When our whole lives have been spent consuming HFCS and rBGH. When there are fewer of us to making far less money to pay into the ever increasing costs of what passes for "Healthcare" - To make it personal, I haven't been able to afford health insurance in over 6 years, yet every paystub I see a good chunk of what I work for taken out so that someone who made more than me their whole life (and still likely makes more than me on SocSec) can spend more than I make in 2-3 months so that they can prolong their life for a single month that will consist of little more than being driven to the doctor and back and complaining about how miserable they are, due to not being able to take appropriate pain meds that they can't get because of the War on Drugs they pushed upon us. And knowing that most baby boomers have not even reached retirement age yet, and seeing medical costs skyrocketing, and workers wages stagnating, and knowing that there are more of them than there are us, there is obviously little to no hope that unless things change drastically, those of us under 40 will be worked to death long before we ever get to receive these benefits.
How many times have you heard Baby Boomers comment openly that they are spending their childrens' inheritance?
Society used to respect the elderly because to have lived that long, they must have been doing something right. Thanks to "medical science" this is no longer true.
I do not wish to start an age war at all, but until Baby Boomers approach it with the attitude of "we were so close, but sold you out instead" and show genuine remorse for the mess they stuck to younger generations, then an age war will be inevitable.
Even in "Liberal" circles, unless it's a group specifically aimed at youth, the voices of youth are ignored. Most Baby Boomers won't even bother to notice the mess they have created.
In the leadup to the current war in Iraq, I went to pre-war protests, and with the exception of a very few people, was treated patronizingly by the Baby Boomers, who stood there singing "all we are saying is give peace a chance" - not the song, just that one line over and over and over and over again. I was part of an upstart Food Not Bombs group that was distributing cookies that were peace signs (not just frosted - through and through roll n cut style) and I brought enough drums for a drum circle and we had people dancing and tried to make it fun, and the people who sang one line over and over and over were patronizing to us.
When baby boomers were electing Reagan (and screwing every generation to come in doing so) I was telling everyone that the man was not fit to rule the country. Noone paid attention to me at the time as I was under 10 years old.
When I see an article called "Where are the voices of the youth" when all our lives we have been told to "shut up" or "behave" or "sit still" it kind of sets me off, and for that I apologize.
Again, If Baby Boomers actually want to hear from the youth, then apologize, shut up, sit still, and behave, and actually listen for a change.
Judging from this comments section, the Right is doing a pretty good job on the "divide and conquer" front.
What is the "Right"? a scapegoat?
I would say that the Corporatists (Fascists) control the bulk of both "Right" and "Left" anymore, rendering the terms, as used commonly, to be meaningless terms used to "divide and conquer."
I cannot remember where I first heard the concept of a 2 dimensional rather than a 1 dimensional political spectrum, that - aside from the typical "liberal/conservative" had "statist/non-statist." Part of my mind tells me it was Chomsky, part of it tells me that "no not EVERYTHING comes from Chomsky"
I would one up it tho and add a 3rd dimension, that split up the economic and social "liberal/conservative" dichotomy into 2 axes.
It would still leave a lot out, but it would be far more likely than our current categorization to actually induce conversation.
An example is how by being the party of "big government" (even though it seems to get bigger when under Republicans), the Democrats have alienated most of the self described "Libertarians," even though on most Social issues, the "Democrats" are actually "Conservative" in relation to these "Libertarians"
The typical "Liberal" response to any problem is "lets write letters to our representatives, have some focus groups, pay for some studies"
This is a BIG problem the youth of today have with the political "Left"
A friend of mine (who refers to himself as an anarchist) went to a Sierra Club meeting (environmentalism and sustainability are two of his main focuses) The topic of the discussion was how a local creek was eroding its banks away and cutting into parkland. Someone mentioned that if trees were planted along the creek bank, it would substantially slow erosion. They then started discussing what representatives to write letters to so that the park district would do this. My friend asked them "Why don't we just go plant trees?" The Sierra Club members looked at him aghast, ignored his suggestion, and went back to discussing who to write to. If memory serves correctly, he had planted small trees along the bank before the letters they wrote would have gotten to the offices of the officials they decided to write to. I don't believe he ever went to a Sierra Club meeting again. So was that the "right" dividing and conquering? Or is it an example of older "Lefties" ignoring the input of "youth" because they are unwilling or incapable of extracting themselves from an obviously failed paradigm?
Happens all the time. I have seen exactly what you are describing dozens, maybe hundreds of times. You are exactly right about this.
Lash out? The author of this article blatantly admits the failure of the Boomers, as a whole, to do nothing but consume and prop up the corpse, while begging my generation to man the barricades, and I'm lashing out? Perhaps it should be noted that the Boomers, en masse, still continue to support, via the ballot box, consumption and active employment with, all of the entities that are destroying us all. Meanwhile, they've lived off the fat of Amerika and left us scraps. If I seem harsh, it's because the reality I'm facing, as a young father, is harsh.
Boomers complain about Social Security benefits when there will not even BE any benefits for me when I 'retire'. Boomers had a good chance to institute Universal Health Care for everyone, not just themselves (Medicare), to ensure a living wage for workers, to strengthen unions and fight against rapacious corporations who benefit from American law and custom but who move jobs to other nations. Instead, they sold out, bought everything they could get their hands on and left us with a bill that can never be paid.
As to what will happen after the collapse of Fortress Amerika, at least the 'sharks' will have faces and be right in front of me, rather than in Washington, D.C. or Wall Street.
Let's look at the Boomers plus 1. By that, I mean the children of the Boomers.
I am of the Boomer generation. My generation continues to be anti-war. We established and continue to support protection of the planet. Those born during WWII and the offspring of Boomers wanted & continue to want what Boomers rebelled against. Much of MY generation was killed or disabled by the war in Vietnam. We will NEVER forget that. Neither should you.
Too many people blame Boomers for the current ills of society. Sadly, our offspring, rebelled against our way of life. Post-Boomers and THEIR offspring have reverted back to a society of greed and planet degradation.
I don't have to read the history of Boomers. I have been living it for over 40 years.
"We will NEVER forget that. Neither should you."
If you didn't forget, then how come we got dragged into Vietnam and Iraq?
Even John Kerry voted for the wars we are entrenched in now...
I am post-boomer. Dad went to Nam. He finds it almost impossible to speak out against the current war with his peers, as they are largely for it. Many (if not most) People in his age group that I see drive SUVs, or Trucks, (because they are easier to get in and out of), Most have red white and blue "Patriotic" stickers on the back. Many live in oversized homes with carefully tended lawns or flower gardens, never food. Shop at Wal-Mart regularly and go out to eat at one chain restaurant or other. On 15 different pills, most of them to counteract the side effects of other ones. Most cases drinking lots of beer.
Of course this is in "flyover" country for most "Liberals"
By the time I was 18, Bush 1 was already in office, and "voodoo economics" had started. My first chance to vote showed me two options, Bush and Clinton. I thought - well, I don't like Bush, I know. Heck, I had been in a anti-war march the night the Operation Desert Storm turned into Operation Desert Shield, and had been to several "teach-ins" at my college where professors that actually knew the history of the region informed interested community members about the background of the region.
But then we got NAFTA.
I was lucky, I went to college on a full scholarship. Under Reagan, about 95% of federally guaranteed student loans were cut, Bush then cut them further. Not only did interest rates for student loans go up, but tuituion prices did as well. This is why there is little incentive to pay for a degree other than an MBA anymore. The generation you were a part of started the frenzy of deregulation before the "post-Boomers" were even of voting age. The fairness doctrine was dropped, and the trend to get rid of ownership restrictions of media was incredibly down the path of no return by the time we had any say in what was going on. The restrictions of how much commercial time in relation to how much "program" time for Children's TV shows had been removed, and advertising directly to children was basically deregulated.
Again, started before I was even allowed to vote in any national election.
And I don't know how many times I had heard "Just Say NO" by the time I came of legal age.
Buckmister Fuller published Critical Path more than a decade before I could vote.
One of the best engineers of his time, who spent the last 40 years or so of his life trying to design everything needed for mankind to be able to live sustainably without population reduction, and allowing most of the planet to go back to nature, while improving the "quality of life" for everyone on the planet substantially...
If your generation "established and continue to support protection of the planet." why do baby-boomer "residential developers" generally continue to build rectangular houses on straight grid streets designed for cars, when someone from the generation before literally handed you blueprints for a really good start towards actually achieving what you claim your generation wants?
Until they start dying off, Baby Boomers are the largest single demographic age-wise
You went off to war in a foreign land and it seemed to make you forget the coup de'tat in this country that happened while you were away. You turn a blind eye to BOTH parties dismantling everything that gave you an advantage. You didn't mind when neither party ever saw a point in giving us that "peace dividend" that we were supposed to get after "Ronald Reagan made the Cold War End".
THEN your generation had the NERVE to openly market a 70's revival as a sitcom to the kids!
How many young people do you actually know, Mr. Frog? Not many, by the sound of it.
Sadly, too many young people are more concerned with their Facebook accounts than they are with their futures.
Decades of "progress" in communications technology has produced a population that cannot communicate on a personal level.
q
If young Americans are serious about getting real jobs when they graduate from college they need to be at the forefront of not only SAVING programs like Social Security and Medicare, they need to be promoting ENHANCEMENT of benefits that are provided.
Millions of boomers are delaying retirement from their family wage jobs solely to hang on to employer-sponsored medical insurance. If young Americans succeeded in reducing the age of medicare eligibilty to 55 or 60 they would find millions of job opportunities avilable to them.
As a result of the 2008 meltdown tens of millions of boomers will never retire from their family wage jobs because the only potential retirement income they have is social security and it was never intended to provide 100% of retirement funding.
If young Americans succeeded in raising the Social Security contribution lid (thereby enabling higher payments to all recipients) tens of millions of additional job opportunities would be available to them.
Boomers still outnumber the youth, therefore why place the burden of this fight on a minority?
I do not see the push to eliminate or privatize the social safety net for the elderly being led by the young, but by the Baby Boomers themselves.
Why should elderly folks be the only ones eligible for a social safety net that they continue to shred?
Why not accept the burden of fixing your own mess?
The young people were sold the shibboleth: Vote for CHANGE! This is a great opportunity, maybe the best you'll ever have, to change the nation and the world with your VOTE.
So what do we tell them today? Do we think they are stupid?
"Now we run the wars..."
"And now we run Wall Street."
Speak for yourself, you effing jerk!
the potentially explosive power of the young tech-savvy generation is exactly the reason why the neo-dems (led by waxman) in DC poisoned the "net-neutrality" bill with unacceptable compromises and successfully buried the bill / issue, giving the green light to the global fascist corporate overlords.
another piece of the neo-fascist puzzle is soundly put in its place.
at the same time, technology will NEVER provide a magic bullet for the social ills, until people know and agree on what their target should be.
And you won't get that here. You tell the people that comment on this page that there is a way. There is a oganization that is ripe to be commandeered. It's the Democratic Party. Yes it's corrupt, but doesn't have to be. We need to get off line and go to local Democratic meeting. You and a few of your friends can easily take over these local organizations. Thom Hartmann, who posts here regularly, says basicly the same thing.
We have two choices. Start a new party (the greens aren't doing it) or take over the infrastructure of an existing party. It going to take some time and effort, but the coup can be done!
IMO the Democratic Party peaked with the ethical, brilliance of Senator and Presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey. His defeat by Richard Nixon tipped the party into a stepwise decline. The party passed away during the Reagan years and has been the Lurching Zombie Party ever since. America needed a new party in 1992.
Trylon
"Lurching Zombie Party" - I like that name for the Democrat Party of today. I shall use that name to counter the Obamabots in the future. Thank you. :)
Indeed!
Lurching Zombie Party describes those Dems quite well.
Hmmm
The voice of the people has always been expressed via the media. Prior to the current state of affairs these views often originated in local newspapers around the country.
Today those local outlets have been exstinguished by the corporate media empires. Today 5 media gaints control 95% of everything you see, hear and read in America. And all 5 of these fascist propaganda machines are controlled by zionists. These 5 corporations now control the mindset of America's youth. It starts in grade school with the course books and materials that are selected by these same 5 companies. And people act surprised when 5 guys all with the same ideology control everything that is seen, read or heard?
Come on people get real, the fact that the US population is walking around with blinders on isn't their fault. If you want to know the who, what, when, where and why---use your your brains and investigate these 5 media gaints. And then hold them accountable.
You see this concentration of power is a 2 sided coin. On the one hand 5 guys dictate for 300 million. On the other hand.....it really does not take much effort for 300 million to force those 5 guys to stop either.
The antiquated term "cop out" comes to mind after reading Paul Buchheit's piece. He acknowledges that the baby-boomer generation left Amerikkka in a state of FUBAR. Then he cavalierly washes his hands of the whole matter and turns the problems to the young people.
Yes, the young people should be in the streets, but so should the old people. Remember, the old people still have a stake in what happens here in Amerikkka. With the Constitution in tatters and the fascists figuring out ways to privatize your Social Security, you can bet your ass that things will get much worse if We the People (young or old) allow it.
It's something me and my aging have discussed often.
It's many things.
There is a perception that there is nothing left to fight for, that the Civil Rights Movement was a success.
They are busy getting educated and education is now more serious than ever because it now costs exponentially more than in the 60s and 70s.
Society is now an indoor phenomenon.
And while they may be interested and even motivated they often can't commit to long term activist programs. The numbers are there for special interest events, just not the every week type commitment. They work long hours and have many many distractions.
A sense of powerlessness in the face of overwhelming odds and the size of problems. This can be seen played out in the recent phenomenon of stoicism. The feeling that while I am powerless to change society at least I myself can be as good a person as I can.
I'm sure there are more reasons.
Robert Gates is obviously deaf & blind to the message of young Americans. NO ONE is enlisting to participate in perpetual war.
America has lost all its marbles in the game of perpetual war. America is now deficient in soldiers. It's time for everyone to go home.
The government is unable to grasp that 'the people' no longer want to be involved in perpetual war.
The greatest threat to America's security is the deaf & blind who want to continue along the path of perpetual war.
Lily_otv
Most people who Enlist in the military these days are doing so for one simple reason. They need to eat and they need a place to live.
There are 5 "officially recognized" unemployed people for every job opening in the country.
Why are we in such a state of affairs?
Under Reagan we started offering tax incentives for moving jobs overseas.
Noone under 40 voted for Reagan or Bush I.
Why, though is there no objection in MSM? could it be the loosening of restrictions of media ownership and the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine? Do you think anyone under 40 had a say in that?
But yes, we will try the hardest we can to fix the mess that you handed us. It would be nice if you listened to us tho and helped us, not by telling us what to do, you have proven that your methods don't work. Listen and support.
Baby boomers still are the majority in this country, "youth" will not outnumber them till they start dying off.
To ThinKingOutsIDe
I was making reference to a speech by Robert Gates at Duke University.
Robert Gates: Too Few Americans Bear The Burdens Of War
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/29/robert-gates-war-burdens-too-few-bear_n_744536.html
Lily
The article asks "Where are the voices of our youth?"
When you hear some of these voices responding to the question your response is to
call it "idealistic, misdirected or undirected."
With such out of hand dismissals rather than engagement, you prove every point I made about why the boomers are asking "Where are the voices of our youth"
There was this show I used to watch on TV years ago called "Mad TV"
(Don't know if it is on anymore as I quit watching broadcast and cable years ago)
Your post here makes me picture you as the Lancombe Lady from that show.
I hope you are "tech savvy" enough to look it up if you haven't seen it.
I think a sad example of what young people today are doing is the horrible story of the freshman at Rutgers who drove his room mate to suicide by cyberbullying (secretly made a video of him having sex and then webcast it.) You'd think that by the time they are in college, especially in a top tier school like Rutgers, they'd have more maturity and get involved in social issues, not malicious pranks.
Aside from being completely off topic, and somehow looking at an isolated instance hyped by MSM and somehow extrapolate it to be "what youth are doing", your post does bring up a point.
Firstly, what kind of society has been created here where such a thing could provoke a suicide. College students have sex and everybody knows it. The guy who took the film and posted it should be in big trouble, but how sick has our society gotten when a college kid kills himself because he got caught having sex? Most guys would brag about such a thing.
Of course, this is what the Religious Right has been pushing for years and a topic they have allied themselves with Fascists over. One of the people that was an elder to the Baby Boomers that they ignored and often even ridiculed was Wilhelm Reich. He was a direct student of Freud who did research, in the beginning of his career, on early childhood and adolescent sexuality. Due to repression, he left Germany before WWII, and then went North to a territory that was then invaded by the USSR where he worked for a bit till he left there to come to the US - he was working as a clinical psychiatrist in Germany before and during when Hitler came to power, and he was also working in the Soviet Union up till, If I recall, Stalin took over. He then fled to the US, and became concerned that he saw certain patterns repeating. He wrote a book entitled "The Mass Psychology of Fascism" and distributed it, hoping to prevent such a thing from happening here. Unfortunately, the "Left" mainly forgot about it, while certain elements of the "Right" came across it and apparently decided to use it as a "How-To" guide.
One of the main precursors of a repressive society is that it is deeply sexually repressed from early on in life, Reich posits the first time a kid gets caught masturbating and they are punished and told that it is bad by an authority figure.
Think of it as imprinting.
This poor kid was probably so afraid of what his parents would do to him, he couldn't face it. Abstinence-only education in his schooling probably reinforced that.
Not all of us young people are voiceless. Unfortunately, those of us who do try to speak up get persecuted at by those who are conditioned to "obey" the authoritarians. Worse, ever since 1980, more Americans have been misled into believing that they'll get "rich" just like that if only socialism is kept out of the way, regulated capitalism is looked at as that "evil communism", and disaster capitalism is here to stay. It is no wonder that today, despite the presence of the Great Depression, people of all ages except the very elderly are in serious denial about it.
Really? No personal stake? When the Boomers sold out, they had the strongest economy in the world, jobs all over the place and cheap education. Meanwhile, we're now in an unadmitted second Great Depression, no jobs, and degrees that, even if you could afford to get one, wouldn't offer you much more than an opportunity to flip burgers. Who would want to put any 'skin' in this game? Why should we protect the Boomers right to grow old and fat, still consuming more than any other generation in the history of this country? I'm not going to fight to prop up the corpse. I'm going to let it rot away and bury it quietly when there's no one left to hold it up.
Dear Black Anarch:
You sound like a tired, defeated, really, really, really old person. I'm sorry, but that still doesn't fix anything. Don't you think you are fighting the wrong group? What do "old and fat" boomers have to do with the Wall St. and military thefts? Are you sure you're not one of sarah palin's mama grizzlies trying to deflect attention away from the real problems?
Look, the question is poised "Where is the voice?" and if you don't like what you hear...
I'm hearing (not always agreeing with) someone who has seen/awakened to the ugliest sides of the "system"...
And doesn't have the fun of the sex, drugs, and rock and roll culture that was the escapism of the Boomers 60s-80s.
ThinKingOutsIDe
You & I are on the same page. Thanks for being here. I wish I knew how to inspire people to care.
We still have baby-killers. Now they use depleted uranium to kill immediately & for generations to come. As horrific as the term 'baby killers' is, it continues in a more horrific and escalated form.
Let's please refrain from the mistake of Vietnam in calling soldiers in general "baby killers" - Let's reserve it for the ones who pull the strings and profit off the MIC. Congresspersons who vote to continue war (or abdicate their responsibility to do so) Blackwater/Xe, Raytheon, Boeing, Northrup-Grummon, Bechtel, etc.
Are you fuckin' kidding me? Sorry if you don't like what I've had to say but, my voice was asked for. The Boomers fucked us three ways to Tuesday but, of course, I'm ageist if I comment about it.
I am tired. I work at one of the crappy jobs that are left here in this forsaken place, trying my level best to simply keep my head above water. Most X'ers are tired. Just wait until we get to tired to prop up the crushing weight of the corpse left to us by those who came before.
I could give chapter and verse on how Boomers have openly and continually supported everything this government has done. There's no need. Boomers are and will be for quite some time, the largest population group in Amerika. You guys run the show. Corrupt Wall Streeters? Boomers mostly own the stock in these corporations or run them directly. Overarching militarism? Boomers voted the warmongering bastards in. Why do you guys continue to pretend that this isn't the case?
I'm an anarchist. I don't give a damn about Palin or Pelosi. Both of the major parties, and pretty much any so-called party that seeks power, are and will be corrupted ultimately. This is our saving grace because, no human can be trusted with power over others.
No, young people today just have the prospect of never making a living wage, an literally toxic environment, the very real potential of a worldwide food crisis due to monoculture, a president they worked hard to elect because they believed he was what he said (along with the disillusionment that follows that), a corporate controlled world filled with corporate controlled media, schools that teach only subservience and memorization and no critical thinking, the possibilities of working a job they hate the rest of their lives in order to pay off student loans they took out so they wouldn't have to work a job they hated even more, etc ad nauseum.
your right, they have no personal stake in any of this, i see now..
the problem with the single issue activism that you talk about is that when the "big battle" had been won, the "activists" of the baby boomer generation decided to make money and work hard to ensure that such "unruliness" ever happened again.
and here is the kicker - baby boomers STILL outnumber "youth" and will for some time to come, they have far more money than "youth" will ever see because they neglected to keep minimum wage on pace with inflation, dismantled the manufacturing base in the country so they could send it overseas and make more money for themselves, therefore they have FAR more political clout, yet as it has been pointed out, they wash their hands of the problems they created and push it off on the youth - who they still have more power than.
No youth in their right mind is going to worry about "limitations" on medicare that they will never receive, even though the cost of that medicare for the people that got us into that mess is deducted out of every paycheck, even though we can't afford health insurance for ourselves.
We could have had Single Payer, but Baby Boomers decided that because the candidate who supported it was short and had big ears that he was "unelectable" - Obviously it was not his ideas that made him so, or Obama and Hillary would not have been caught on tape conspiring to keep him out of the debates.
as far as "not being activists" - EVERY protest I have been to has LARGELY been people under 40. IF Baby Boomers were out on the street with us, then they would have seen that there are LOTS of activist youth. Watch Democracy Now and count how many of their network of "New Media" people are under 40.
The problem is not that Youth are not speaking out, but that none of the Baby Boomers seem to be listening.
We'll go to jail with you.
We are listening. Some of us have been saying the same things you are now for 40 or 50 years and ignored and maligned. We have been trapped all these years between the conservative "greatest generation" - people born say 1925-1945 - and the new young Reagan Republicans - people born say 1960-1990. The right wingers have been attacking "boomers" for 40 years, and what they mean by that is those who resisted the war and led the Civil Rights battles. They are not talking about the people you are, and there are a lot of older people here who don't fit your description.
I agree that there are many good things younger people are doing now. Their perceptions are accurate, their rage justified. A new generation of people leading a populist uprising comes of age about every 40 years, with a major upheaval every 80 years - skipping a generation for some reason and with each uprising being alternately strong and then a little weaker. The major ones (Anglo-American): 1690, 1770, 1850, 1930, 2010. More minor upheavals happened in the 1890's and 1960's. The generations in between are largely smug, satisfied and conservative (of course there are exceptions at all times.)
Key to success is an ongoing conversation between the two generations that came of age at the key times. In the 60's we were talking to people our grandparents age, who came of age in the 30's, and they talked about resistors and dissidents from the 1890's who talked about the Abolitionists from the 1850's.
It is vital that people who came up in the 60's talk with and listen to people coming up now. That represents the thin and tenuous thread that connects the dissidents and radicals going back for centuries, the alternative history and narrative, the alternative experience and observations. But don't let us tell you what to do, tell us what you need. Many of us have your back. Many of us have been waiting a long, long time to listen to people like you.
The conservatives do not want us comparing notes or forming alliances - they want us to blame each other.
imo.....
if the young people....both those that voted for obama and those that might have but were not yet of age..and 2 years older now...have been "silent" -- this is partly because they HAVE seen what BETRAYAL is.
we all have been "young people" once...teenagers particularly , or just entering our 20s voting in most cases.
we can all understand that our growing into adulthood years could often be typically tempestuous : with friends, authority, school, staying out/up late, finding our individualities, feeling excited about many things, taking new experiences "so seriously"....having crushes, having special friends, getting jilted, or getting jealous,
and - FEELING BETRAYALS ...and often they become very difficult to "cure"...or take a long time..and are , for most "normal" circumstances - also are the first major parts of our growing up lives to independent character where our impressions of experiences of adulthood can leave LASTING impressions........where we might even experience our first "real SCARS"...as well as the ones we call "love" for someone special.
imo -- if , IF there was EVER a HOPE and excitement for a better america the young ones might have felt and wanted to be part of -- it was DESTROYED , probably forever.
BY the betrayal of their OWN ELDERS.
LED , in this case, by Mister Barack Obama.
and so -- if the "young ones" become cynics - america only has to look at what and who made them that way:
THEIR OWN ELDERS. "the childreN" in other words, in the most important civic and social and civilizational concerns , have been given teh WORST EXAMPLES by their own elders...
whehter it's about wall street and money and power , or shallowness, or celebrity culture, or being famous for "being famous"...or politics and war and lying and tolerance for cruelty.
i remember a long time ago:
coming from a family that was neither poor nor rich...just "middle class" but with relatively high education...and particularly my Mom being so passionate about learning about the world and everything under the sun...which she imparted to us as children..and about justice and truth..
when I was a young college kid in music - the top university that only accepted those that passed among the top 10 percent of applicants...after a semester of college, having learned some very "advanced" training - going home to the province to show off my "university" and music....
I was practicing one day ...home for summer -- and my mom, who was also trained as a musician , passed by and gently reminded me to "do the passages more slowly...don't keep playing fast only and repeat the same mistakes...listen more closely to what you are doing"....
oooooooooooooooooooo --- did I give a FIT...!!! showing a nasty face as if she couldn't teach me anything "anymore"..i was a genius, i was somebody!!!
she then snapped at me - telling me to STOP.
sat me down to face her..and told me:
"teddy--- everything that you have learned, advanced, will yet learn, will advance...are not for you to become arrogant about your talent or abilities or accomplishments, EVER. if these things are going to make you think that you are better or more valuable as a person than a laborer or a farmer who have no education like you....I would RATHER that I never gave birth to you....before you are ANYTHING in this world....you are first of all a HUMAN BEING...just like others whom you should never look down on because you have more blessings"...
I never forgot that, even if I am sure I have stumbled on that lesson so often.
but when the elders of a nation show their own children that the most important things in their lives are to ACQUIRE, to POSSESS, in order to MAKE themselves "worthy" or important......
eventually it will produce youth that , apart from feeling betrayed when they DON't GET what they expect or are made to expect...
also could become strangers to their own elders...because their elders did not leave them lessons more important than what they surround their lives with as acquisitions..be they about "personal worth" or material worth.
and AMONG those "lessons" left -- will be : that LYING , being INSINCERE, being manipulative to "get somewhere"
is what life is all about -- that it is the MEANING of life.
imo, many american youth are being shown EXACTLY that example to follow.
and so -- they act JUST like the way that example showed them how to act.
How many of us under 30 will read this article and how can we if we're busy struggling just to survive? Yeah, just insult us under 30 and leave us out of Social Security talk. I get it. Social Security will be gone by the time anyone under 30 makes it to retirement age and the retirement age keeps rising. I don't blame any generation but please stop calling us voiceless when we're struggling.
(Part 1)Why I Ranted So Much
"It's your problem now, young Americans. You don't have much money, but you have untapped power in your ability to communicate and organize online. You need to start reminding each other that 1 out of every 5 income dollars goes to the clever little group of people who learned how to change the numbers on the lottery tickets. "
If my comments here seem to border on completely irate, this paragraph from the original article is why.
after all,
YOU gave us Reagan
YOU gave tax breaks to encourage companies to send jobs overseas
YOU loosened ownership restrictions of media
YOU repealed the fairness doctrine
YOU let minimum wage stagnate
YOU broke up the unions
YOU fed us Ritalin rather than actually engaging our attention
YOU raised us on a diet of rBGH and HFCS and all sorts of other chemicals instead of food
YOU replaced the public square with shopping malls and WalMart
YOU ripped up your parents "liberty gardens" and replaced them with lawns
YOU moved out of the cities and into the burbs creating urban sprawl
YOU sat us in front of the TV rather than communicate with us as humans
YOU allowed Dominionism to take over Christianity (which, some of the youth of today might be surprised to discover actually served as a progressive force in many ways before they were born)
YOU witnessed a coup d'etat in 63 and didn't do a thing to stop it
but then we're told, to sum up:
"But it's your mess now and we better use twitter to stop it first, because we can't be bothered to do anything but continue screwing you."
Let me give these boomers a wee bit of knowledge here.
Right now, Mimimum wage nationwide is $7.25/hr
Most people I know consider it "pretty good money" if you make 10-12/hr. in a non specialized field (i.e. what is available to most people with a liberal arts degree, except teachers) $15-20/hr is considered really good.
Let's put this into terms that are a bit more relevant - if minimum wage had kept pace with inflation since 1967 (probably the last time most baby boomers were paying attention to such things) it would be over $13/hr right now.
At 10/hr, assuming a 40 hr work week 4 weeks a month, that is 1600/month. This is before social security and medicare (and taxes) are taken out. If you want health insurance you are usually talking another 100-150 a month taken out (and that doesnt include prescriptions).
Most people making this kind of money can't afford to, however.
As a complete underestimate here let's say that SocSec, Medicare, and State and Federal taxes come to 400$ - that leaves 1200 a month. How much do most SocSec recipients get? Plus free healthcare and free meds?
At the same time, we have high unemployment.