Thank you.

Thanks for the link.

Thanks for the thread, Scuba.

I have wondered about the medication thing.

Also have wondered about the fact that kids are always supervised -- parents do not feel free to let kids roam as I was allowed to do. There are genuine safety concerns. Not arguing about that. Just wondering what does not get developed when kids cannot be free to learn/explore/taste/decide.

and so tethered them to themselves with constant cell phone calling and texting back and forth.

My mother had overprotective tendencies, and I am SO glad there were no cell phones when I was a kid. When I left for school in the morning, that was the end of parental contact until I got home in the afternoon.

I'm just a little confused seeing how that accusation is coming from someone who was and is part of a generation which helped perpetuate not only one of the bloodiest conflicts in American history but also under the reality that is was transparently a proxy for the Cold War.

I just need to hear you say again how my generation is more obedient.

The truth is the general argument that my generation is "more obedient" is just bullshit low hanging fruit for generational apologists.

You could be a dishwasher in the back of a Howard Johnsons and afford your own apartment and a car and a movie now and then and still set aside something in savings.

Forgotten is the expression, "It's only money."

Then there's the cynical "It's always been this way and it always will be" which is the very definition of "the establishment". As in, life as it has been laid out before you can actually be generationally rejected and changed. The problem is that this generation has less and is afraid it will lose what little is has so it doesn't make waves.

And too afraid to do anything about it by talking about how all of your generational transgressions, like fueling the decades long Cold War, are forgiven because the local Howard Johnsons paid dishwashers pretty well.

Did your generation not grow up around irony?

In the same way that my generation, which is reaching taxpayer status for the first time, will be the chief financiers for the War on Terror.

It's like looking into a mirror. Don't think for a moment you're a bigger rebel or that we're more obedient. That's an illusion.

"Your generation brought us this, this, this, this..."...ad infinitum. Ad absurdum.

To use that "logic" - we could say that the "greatest generation" that defeated Adolf Hitler, was the same generation that brought us Hitler in the first place!!!!!

It doesn't matter what generation is guilty of what. WE'RE ALL GETTING SCREWED!

Divisive arguments like this ultimately serve no purpose, save to make the Karl Roves and the Koch Brothers happy in their pants. Let's refocus on who's REALLY screwing us.

The ideology of our generations is not much different at all. So when someone complains that my generation is too obedient, I'm left wondering if they're simply not capable of self-reflection.

and ageism is cried out. Heaven forbid. If they can't talk to us who can they talk to?

We should make them feel very comfortable here. I'm tired of the 'when I was your age' type posts. Younger people reading this - I'm glad you're here. I want to listen.

We're not a bunch of sedated cattle. Even if many here want to believe otherwise to mask their own self-contempt.

Thanks for the nice response. I don't want to get in arguments on the net, so I'm not trying to pick fights with any specifics folks. I have friends of all ages. I learn a lot from all of them who have a sense of humor. Like me.

Interestingly, the real problem, conservative unwillingness to focus on the economic inequality that is hurting both the young and the old members of the middle and working class in our country is not getting the focus that it needs.

The 1% has taken too much of the profits from the gains in production since maybe the mid-1970s. That has made it difficult for the older generation to save for retirement and has created a lot of hopelessness in all but the luckiest young people.

We should be working together for a higher minimum wage, free college education, forgiveness of student loans, stronger Social Security including raising the cap on payroll taxes and reducing the cost of healthcare and pharmaceutical products for all.

And while we are doing that, we need to work together to protect our environment for future generations.

Remember, those of us who are older love our children and grandchildren.

There is no conflict between old and young because those of us old enough to have children and grandchildren really care what happens to them.

And the last thing an older person wants is to be dependent on his or her children and feel like a burden to them. That is why we contributed to Social Security and Medicare when we were young.

The conservative movement in the 1980s - the early 2000s really set our country back. And Obama nas not succeeded in reversing that trend. Rather his appointments and policies have continued it.

But don't think that older people have no understanding for the problems of the younger generation. We do. We just see that we have to work together to solve those problems.

Some people have already got their piece of the pie which is fine even those who got the biggest slices. Good for them!

The rest of the world is left scrambling to grab a few crumbs of a pie that is disappearing before our very eyes.

who tries to make my generation feel guilty for working until Medicare age (I did not; I retired at 52. But as a Scorpio, I WILL argue for principle).

regards to our young people of color on this site.

Broken their spirit... Lost hope....

A perfect time for a pseudo-messiah, a political saviour, fake economic hope from the Bilderberg Group and their corporate spawn, false faith in anarchy.

Hitler and Mussolini in the 1930s, Chairman Mao in China, Lenin, etc. etc. etc.

Different era. But the same stinking shit.

"normal teenage rebellion"?

And, if we're fucked now, we must have been fucked a quarter century or half a century or a century ago as well.

Revelations 23rd chapter I think.

...the ever increasing militarization of our police, and the willingness to brutally crack down on peaceful protest (see: Occupy).

Oh, and one more item: the legal system's willingness to throw the book at those same protesters with felony charges and bail amounts of between 5-and-10 thousand dollars, as was seen in Los Angeles and other places.

I agree that we as a people (not exclusive to generation) have become much more subdued over the last few years - but I would submit that it's because TPTB have raised the ante - through mass surveillance, expansion of the prison system, ostracizing and marginalizing those that speak out, and attempts to disenfranchise entire groups of voters.

We The People are now the enemy as we bring our wars home.

This:

I agree that we as a people (not exclusive to generation) have become much more subdued over the last few years...

And 99.999% of the time I'm right.

. . . but when it comes down to it, a great deal of modern American problems, in both the private and public sectors, originated in that administration.

And for many reasons. The greed is good that took hold under Reagan has had far-reaching implications both socially and politically. There used to be rules of etiquette that meant one shouldn't be outright showy and mean, that was low class and new money. It would happen behind closed doors like Rmoney's 47% speech. Now we see that normalized. The TV is saturated with images of obscene wealth and greed, even more than images of violence. The churches preach it from the pulpit. The message is do whatever you can, hurt whomever you want, sell yourself and your principles, all for money. But for the working class, that is in fact a wheel that one must keep running because it is impossible. It has broken our communities and made us turn against one another.

St. Ronnie also normalized stupidity and anti-intellectualism. If an idiot actor could be President, with no qualifications or skill beyond speaking, then anybody could get in. Gone were the days where statesmen were required to have experience & intelligence. His only experience was screwing up California, and at that time, that was quite a feat.

What we have lost is that people have no inherent value. When I travel to Europe, I do not get the same sense. People still feel that no matter the size of their bank account, they deserve to be treated with dignity. That's why they strike. In this country, being of the 99% is a crime, a failure--literally worth less. I believe it's turning us all insane.

"“Today the function of psychiatry, psychology and psychoanalysis threatens to become the tool in the manipulation of man.”

I did this:

I would agree that ADHD drugs are used to keep kids quiet in school, and that some people abuse some drugs instead of going after what they don't like about their lives. (This is nothing new - look at all the women who were on Valium in the 50's).

If drugs are to be credited with making groups of people docile, I think we have to add people self-medicating with marijuana to the list.

As far as breaking the spirit of resistance goes, what is an effective way to resist? Is resistance that goes to the streets the only way to go? Some people today think that the Vietnam protests may have prolonged the war, not cut it short. How does one go about throwing up the barricades in a suburb?

In point of fact, there are people out there changing the country piece by piece. My daughters are part of active neighborhood groups improving their city, block by block. Every young person raised in a suburb who moves to a city is taking a stand. Lots of legislation is structured in part by interest groups such as the Sierra Club.

In the 60s demonstrations were all over the news.
In today's corporate media all we hear about is carefully controlled.
There's also the militarizing of our police force.
The private prison system.
This country is far from what it was in the 60s. SADLY in some ways we have less freedom.

Fights, both physical and verbal, are not tolerated in any way and this leads to adults who don't know how to stand up when something is wrong.

The eventual evolution of expelling both students who fought... no matter the reason...

We force them to hug it out... starting in kindergarden and no one learns real conflict resolution.

. . . for instance, whatever you learn in the field of Economics is likely a Martin Feldstien-created pile that stresses cutthroat Al Dunlap/Jack Welch 1%er-friendly horseshit over any notion of Eisenhower-era Keynesian economics or the aspects of cooperation, responsibility and community. This is why the 2008 financial shenanigans are legal and never investigated . . . and also why young people are resigned to think that "both parties are the same" (really, all THREE major funded parties are 1%er-friendly). When they see a Democratic administration loading its cabinet with the likes of Jeff Imelt, Larry Summers and Tim Geithner, what are they supposed to believe in?

You can only sell them on "Well, the Republicans are even worse" (which they are, hard as that is to believe) for so long before that dog ain't gonna hunt.

I always trust the generation younger than my own because they have new eyes and can usually see what older generations have been programmed to accept without question. Not always. It usually depends on their politics and life experience. For instance, I would not put much confidence in a young republican raised by republicans. But on average, it is the young of every era that expose the Emperor's New Clothes.

Look at the Occupy Wall Street phenomenon. It was the preceding generation's blindness that ushered in this era of debt and consumerism which the young have finally questioned and exposed fully.

You also forget that the older generation you are talking about affected the great changes of the '60's when they too were young. It's almost always the younger generation that sees the problem in a number great enough to bring a change in perspective.

Every institution the the US caters to the largest and richest cohort. As long as they keep voting themselves more benefits the young will have to foot the bill.

All these points apply to all of us in this society, not just the young. The details may be different for different generations, but we are all subjected to all these forces.

Full disclosure: I'm 70.

We've all been dumbed down and made to feel powerless; although some of us are finding ways to fight!

I thought this stat, under #5 was telling:

In a 2006 survey in the United States, it was found that 40 percent of children between first and third grade read every day, but by fourth grade, that rate declined to 29 percent.

The whole article was very good.

We had a resurgence in 2008, but they now know that there is nothing they can do to stop the corporate takeover.

Upon accepting the New York City Teacher of the Year Award on January 31, 1990, John Taylor Gatto upset many in attendance by stating: “The truth is that schools don’t really teach anything except how to obey orders. This is a great mystery to me because thousands of humane, caring people work in schools as teachers and aides and administrators, but the abstract logic of the institution overwhelms their individual contributions.” A generation ago, the problem of compulsory schooling as a vehicle for an authoritarian society was widely discussed, but as this problem has gotten worse, it is seldom discussed.

The nature of most classrooms, regardless of the subject matter, socializes students to be passive and directed by others, to follow orders, to take seriously the rewards and punishments of authorities, to pretend to care about things they don’t care about, and that they are impotent to affect their situation. A teacher can lecture about democracy, but schools are essentially undemocratic places, and so democracy is not what is instilled in students. Jonathan Kozol in The Night Is Dark and I Am Far from Home focused on how school breaks us from courageous actions. Kozol explains how our schools teach us a kind of “inert concern” in which “caring”—in and of itself and without risking the consequences of actual action—is considered “ethical.” School teaches us that we are “moral and mature” if we politely assert our concerns, but the essence of school—its demand for compliance—teaches us not to act in a friction-causing manner.

Last edited Tue Jun 10, 2014, 06:12 PM - Edit history (1)

at first, I thought it was a pretty correct assessment and there are valid points but then I thought of the Occupy young folks I've met and how bright and engaged they are. I remember when I was young, it took some years to gather enough strength in numbers to effect change, it was a slow build that took decades. I also blame Reagan for everything going to shit just when we were gaining momentum, it's our own fault that goofball took over. Even though my generation can point to some radical improvements, I still think we fucked up and left a mess.
I'm 64, my daughter is 46, my grandson is 10, I've told her to please let him loose a little more, let him make mistakes or try something he thinks he can't do. When he was in pre school, they referred him for some kind of testing because he would not draw letters or numbers, the kid has had a computer since he was 2, he could read when he was 3, he was reading for information to figure things out when he was 5. I told my daughter to let him be himself and avoid taking him for any testing as long as he was finding school interesting and not burning frogs with a lighter.