Thoughts On Where We Are, and Where We're Going

[pbrower2a]

(09-27-2018, 08:09 PM)Tuss Wrote:

(09-21-2018, 11:46 AM)tg63 Wrote:

(09-21-2018, 08:59 AM)Tuss Wrote: ... But "heroes" fatefully deciding the destiny of the west at the hour of peril? Nowhere to be seen. More like a generation of prescription drug soyboys than good boy scouts, to be honest.

One blunt assessment could be that you cannot be a "Hero" generation if your head is full of goo, and certainly, the Millennials appear not only to be the most indoctrinated, but also at the expense of being the worst educated generation in history.

I dunno, I think the theory posits that the Millie generation are positioned to be "heroes" due to circumstance, not because of any innate sense or ability. From that perspective all they need to do is have a patriotic streak at a time of crisis, and then show up en masse ... the Boomers & Nomads will tell them where to go & which forts/machine guns to storm. From that perspective, I see indoctrination actually as a good thing - we don't want our soldiers thinking too much for themselves.

"Young, dumb and full of cum", basically? I don't know. I always pictured the Hero generation archetype to be more than just brawn, especially so since in this cycle there won't be any great war for them to fight and be led into. Where are the J. Robert Oppenheimers, Edward Tellers, Walter Cronkites and Robert A. Heinleins of the Millennial generation, I quietly ask myself? Oh, are they out of a job and living at home while struggling with student debt or strung out on vicodin instead of building and inventing big things, perhaps?

As they now are silently passing into their 30's, it pretty much looks like a failed "Hero" generation to me. After an ideal upbringing (at least by mid-life Boomer standards) followed by college storage for as long as possible, there just wasn't any space left for them to fill or take part in anything.

The rap on the GI generation in the 1920s was that they were wet behind the ears.  Much the same has been said of the Millennial Generation. GI young adults did not force history. America turned to them when there was no viable option but to trust its needs to them. They have been willing to prepare themselves in allotted roles, often in unpromising jobs and while assuming huge amounts of student debt just to have a chance that after stocking shelves for a few years they might have a chance in the capitalist system of America.

They are ready to be heroes, and they will exact a fair reward for what they do. That will include dismantling the oligarchic order that we now have.

Let's remember that the GI Generation typically endured hardscrabble lives in childhood. Remember that all GIs lived in the time in which America was great -- by Trump standards. Things were rotten except for the WASP elite of the North and among southern agrarians who lived much like aristocrats on the labor of poor people. Maybe Southern white people were a bit more privileged than Southern blacks. I remember GI elders of Polish origin (those were the white ethnics that I was most likely to know as a child) who recalled how poor they were as children. Their grandchildren are doing as well as the WASP elite, often distinguishable from WASPs only by being Catholic.  What happened? Polish-Americans of the GI Generation made the most of their experience in World War II and took the advantage of the GI Bill that gave them access to college education and cheap loans for affordable housing. They did well, and they deserve what they have. Let's also remember that Polish-Americans are not the only ones who got ahead by working with the system.


We need an economic system that gives people cause to work with it. Two percent of Americans live much like an aristocracy, whether as owners or executives, and they grab everything they can and expect the rest of us to suffer for their boundless greed  and then express how wonderful such is. That will  fail.