I agree that we shouldn’t let the oligarchs divide us, and that there are boomers that haven’t been voting towards oligarchy for the past 60 years. But, at the same time, I have a hard time giving any boomers a pass because I think they didn’t fight hard enough. The vast majority of them stuck their heads in the sand and stayed there for most of their relatively comfortable lives. They let their government slide further and further towards oligarchy and didn’t talk about it because talking politics was considered uncouth… Or because they’re religious and “this earth isn’t our eternal home anyways”, or some other hand-wavy bullshit. It’s very hard for me to not feel betrayed by their collective ignorance and ineptitude.
I guess we’ll see if any other generation is different than they are/were. I somehow doubt it. I don’t see Gen X or Gen Y doing all that much. Too early to tell for Gen Z and alpha, I think…I think it’s human nature.
The boomers that I knew growing up mostly lived hand to mouth. My parents were boomers and I don’t really remember them being all that comfortable. They lived a very meager existence, lived extremely frugally (I think it was generational trauma in my own family coming from the Great Depression and my grandparents on both sides) and saved as much as possible. They took almost no vacations and they were some of the first ecominded people. They were leftists (of the older type), not so much the hippie type, and most of their friends were, too. I sure as hell know they wanted nothing to do with the Republicans and the ones that are still alive despise donvict.
So, I think it varies. People born in a certain age group are definitely not a monolith. Not every boomer went to Woodstock and then later did a heel-turn and went all-in on the Reaganites and became a Wall street trader yuppie…as much as that is the common stereotype.
Well yes, there are outliers. My grandma was one of them. She participated in countless protests throughout her life, starting with the civil rights movements in the 60’s, and never stopped. She was part of the group that stopped the keystone pipeline from stealing people’s land in Texas. She was an amazing woman, may she RIP.
My point is, there wasn’t enough like her among boomers. There were, of course, plenty of boomers that didn’t have it easy. I too was raised in poverty and have known boomers who struggled. But, by and far, the boomers believed in the “American dream”, and even the ones who were struggling believed things could turn around for them eventually. The majority of them bought into or allowed reaganomics, propaganda, and blatant emperialism to thrive under their watch.
The difference I’m seeing in people below the age of 40 is that we talk politics openly, and we know who the bad guys are (the billionaires and their lackeys). We know that the billionaire’s, and their corporations, have been extracting our wealth for decades, that healthcare and higher education are scams, that we can’t trust anything the establishment media says. Even the younger right wing people know this stuff, the’ve just bought into the propaganda channels on TikTok and YouTube. But, I think the demographics have truly shifted in that the amount of people buying into the propaganda is no longer the majority. Young people actually are waking up, which is why we’re seeing all of these truth-to-power movements like BLM, quiet quitting, and “cancel culture”. These movements are growing despite major resistance from the establishment. Mostly because, those of us below 40 feel the effects of the status quo the hardest. They’ve extracted so much from us that we have nothing left to lose. We just need the older generations to fucking listen for a change, and stop fighting us at the polls every time. And we need young people to realize they can work around their work schedules with early voting. I’ve spent much of my adult life working 60 to 80 hour work weeks and I’ve voted in every federal and local election of the past decade. There’s really no excuse to not properly educate yourself on current politics and vote. Congress.gov and cspan are great resources for unfiltered information. Use them!
Sorry for the rant, OP, that last bit wasn’t directed at you. xD
The difference I’m seeing in people below the age of 40 is that we talk politics openly, and we know who the bad guys are (the billionaires and their lackeys). We know that the billionaire’s, and their corporations, have been extracting our wealth for decades, that healthcare and higher education are scams, that we can’t trust anything the establishment media says.
Again I’m just thinking about publications like Mother Earth News and so on. My memories of the boomers is that they seemed to talk politics, and talk a LOT about it. Many dropped out of the fight and became yuppies, I guess. Some continued to fight. Some mellowed out and gave up I guess - turned inward and became “pillow sitters” as I’ve heard them described and just working on their own enlightenment or whatever.
I don’t know. I guess my point is that we’ll see if it’s any different with subsequent generations. At one point, I thought Gen X might be even more fiery than the boomers because we were far more fucked than they ever were, and right from the jump. That turned out not to be the case. I personally don’t think it will be any different with Y or Z or alpha. Things might be even MORE blunted because you have more ways to blunt mass movements than ever before - far more distractions, far more ways to keep people isolated and atomized than the system ever had before.
Yea my boomer mom was a teacher most of her life and barely made enough to raise 2 kids. that’s usually who I think of when people are talking shit about Rich boomers hoarding wealth 😂
I agree that we shouldn’t let the oligarchs divide us, and that there are boomers that haven’t been voting towards oligarchy for the past 60 years. But, at the same time, I have a hard time giving any boomers a pass because I think they didn’t fight hard enough. The vast majority of them stuck their heads in the sand and stayed there for most of their relatively comfortable lives. They let their government slide further and further towards oligarchy and didn’t talk about it because talking politics was considered uncouth… Or because they’re religious and “this earth isn’t our eternal home anyways”, or some other hand-wavy bullshit. It’s very hard for me to not feel betrayed by their collective ignorance and ineptitude.
I guess we’ll see if any other generation is different than they are/were. I somehow doubt it. I don’t see Gen X or Gen Y doing all that much. Too early to tell for Gen Z and alpha, I think…I think it’s human nature.
The boomers that I knew growing up mostly lived hand to mouth. My parents were boomers and I don’t really remember them being all that comfortable. They lived a very meager existence, lived extremely frugally (I think it was generational trauma in my own family coming from the Great Depression and my grandparents on both sides) and saved as much as possible. They took almost no vacations and they were some of the first ecominded people. They were leftists (of the older type), not so much the hippie type, and most of their friends were, too. I sure as hell know they wanted nothing to do with the Republicans and the ones that are still alive despise donvict.
So, I think it varies. People born in a certain age group are definitely not a monolith. Not every boomer went to Woodstock and then later did a heel-turn and went all-in on the Reaganites and became a Wall street trader yuppie…as much as that is the common stereotype.
Well yes, there are outliers. My grandma was one of them. She participated in countless protests throughout her life, starting with the civil rights movements in the 60’s, and never stopped. She was part of the group that stopped the keystone pipeline from stealing people’s land in Texas. She was an amazing woman, may she RIP.
My point is, there wasn’t enough like her among boomers. There were, of course, plenty of boomers that didn’t have it easy. I too was raised in poverty and have known boomers who struggled. But, by and far, the boomers believed in the “American dream”, and even the ones who were struggling believed things could turn around for them eventually. The majority of them bought into or allowed reaganomics, propaganda, and blatant emperialism to thrive under their watch.
The difference I’m seeing in people below the age of 40 is that we talk politics openly, and we know who the bad guys are (the billionaires and their lackeys). We know that the billionaire’s, and their corporations, have been extracting our wealth for decades, that healthcare and higher education are scams, that we can’t trust anything the establishment media says. Even the younger right wing people know this stuff, the’ve just bought into the propaganda channels on TikTok and YouTube. But, I think the demographics have truly shifted in that the amount of people buying into the propaganda is no longer the majority. Young people actually are waking up, which is why we’re seeing all of these truth-to-power movements like BLM, quiet quitting, and “cancel culture”. These movements are growing despite major resistance from the establishment. Mostly because, those of us below 40 feel the effects of the status quo the hardest. They’ve extracted so much from us that we have nothing left to lose. We just need the older generations to fucking listen for a change, and stop fighting us at the polls every time. And we need young people to realize they can work around their work schedules with early voting. I’ve spent much of my adult life working 60 to 80 hour work weeks and I’ve voted in every federal and local election of the past decade. There’s really no excuse to not properly educate yourself on current politics and vote. Congress.gov and cspan are great resources for unfiltered information. Use them!
Sorry for the rant, OP, that last bit wasn’t directed at you. xD
Again I’m just thinking about publications like Mother Earth News and so on. My memories of the boomers is that they seemed to talk politics, and talk a LOT about it. Many dropped out of the fight and became yuppies, I guess. Some continued to fight. Some mellowed out and gave up I guess - turned inward and became “pillow sitters” as I’ve heard them described and just working on their own enlightenment or whatever.
I don’t know. I guess my point is that we’ll see if it’s any different with subsequent generations. At one point, I thought Gen X might be even more fiery than the boomers because we were far more fucked than they ever were, and right from the jump. That turned out not to be the case. I personally don’t think it will be any different with Y or Z or alpha. Things might be even MORE blunted because you have more ways to blunt mass movements than ever before - far more distractions, far more ways to keep people isolated and atomized than the system ever had before.
Yea my boomer mom was a teacher most of her life and barely made enough to raise 2 kids. that’s usually who I think of when people are talking shit about Rich boomers hoarding wealth 😂