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Thoughts On Where We Are, and Where We're Going
(09-23-2018, 04:52 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I see the millennials as too busy keeping their heads above water to try to control the flood.

As an Xer with a Millie sister who has also interacted with a large number of them it seems more like they have been too sheltered to understand what is really going on.  There are a few that haven't and they act more like Xers then I would have expected.

What it interesting to me is that the generation that follows.  I have encountered a surprising number of them who know that they are screwed and know who did it.

Hint:  They don't blame Generation X.  So far they seem to be looking at Xers to pick up survival skills.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. -- H.L. Mencken

If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action.   -- Ludwig von Mises
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(09-23-2018, 11:10 PM)Galen Wrote:
(09-23-2018, 04:52 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I see the millennials as too busy keeping their heads above water to try to control the flood.

As an Xer with a Millie sister who has also interacted with a large number of them it seems more like they have been too sheltered to understand what is really going on.  There are a few that haven't and they act more like Xers then I would have expected.

What it interesting to me is that the generation that follows.  I have encountered a surprising number of them who know that they are screwed and know who did it.

Hint:  They don't blame Generation X.  So far they seem to be looking at Xers to pick up survival skills.

They know that Big Business and a government that does what Big Business wants it to do are not their friends. Plutocracy sucks -- it always has and always will.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


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(09-24-2018, 10:47 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:
(09-23-2018, 11:10 PM)Galen Wrote:
(09-23-2018, 04:52 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I see the millennials as too busy keeping their heads above water to try to control the flood.

As an Xer with a Millie sister who has also interacted with a large number of them it seems more like they have been too sheltered to understand what is really going on.  There are a few that haven't and they act more like Xers then I would have expected.

What it interesting to me is that the generation that follows.  I have encountered a surprising number of them who know that they are screwed and know who did it.

Hint:  They don't blame Generation X.  So far they seem to be looking at Xers to pick up survival skills.

They know that Big Business and a government that does what Big Business wants it to do are not their friends. Plutocracy sucks -- it always has and always will.

Yes indeed. And more Boomers than Xers realize this, because Boomers remember a government that worked before the libertarian conservatives (Reagan et al) got in and stopped it from working.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
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(09-24-2018, 01:59 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:
(09-24-2018, 10:47 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:
(09-23-2018, 11:10 PM)Galen Wrote:
(09-23-2018, 04:52 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I see the millennials as too busy keeping their heads above water to try to control the flood.

As an Xer with a Millie sister who has also interacted with a large number of them it seems more like they have been too sheltered to understand what is really going on.  There are a few that haven't and they act more like Xers then I would have expected.

What it interesting to me is that the generation that follows.  I have encountered a surprising number of them who know that they are screwed and know who did it.

Hint:  They don't blame Generation X.  So far they seem to be looking at Xers to pick up survival skills.

They know that Big Business and a government that does what Big Business wants it to do are not their friends. Plutocracy sucks -- it always has and always will.

Yes indeed. And more Boomers than Xers realize this, because Boomers remember a government that worked before the libertarian conservatives (Reagan et al) got in and stopped it from working.

A recent study made a point I hadn't given much thought to myself.  Things started to go south when the civil rights movement started to make real gains.  All of a sudden, Silents decided that they weren't for well-funded schools for THOSE kids and unions started changing rules to make newer member less a part of the union because THOSE people were coming to join and take white jobs.  It was both self defeating and bound to fail.  Test scores dropped as the children of lesser schooling started rising to the grades where testing was measured.  Unions started to fall apart as workers saw less benefit in joining.  


This all started in earnest in the early 1970's, and accelerated under Reagan when the racial dog whistles came out.  It's gotten worse ever since.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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(09-24-2018, 03:02 PM)David Horn Wrote: A recent study made a point I hadn't given much thought to myself.  Things started to go south when the civil rights movement started to make real gains.  All of a sudden, Silents decided that they weren't for well-funded schools for THOSE kids and unions started changing rules to make newer member less a part of the union because THOSE people were coming to join and take white jobs.  It was both self defeating and bound to fail.  Test scores dropped as the children of lesser schooling started rising to the grades where testing was measured.  Unions started to fall apart as workers saw less benefit in joining.  


This all started in earnest in the early 1970's, and accelerated under Reagan when the racial dog whistles came out.  It's gotten worse ever since.

Yes.  That was the realignment where LBJ basically bought the black vote, the Republicans countered with the Southern Strategy, and the two parties got rid of the idea of conservative and progressive wings.  Part of the red preference for small government and weak labor movements was to take money away from THOSE people.

I often wonder that the National Malaise came on the heels of the Southern Strategy. There was the old notion that America could do anything it put its mind to, that in part made America great. Small government and the Southern Strategy ended that in part, but how much a part? Were the fall of Saigon, the oil crisis, the hostage crisis, all made inevitable by LBJ's assault on poverty? Or were those things mostly international, the result of real overconfidence, of trying to do too much?
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
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(09-25-2018, 01:21 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:
(09-24-2018, 03:02 PM)David Horn Wrote: A recent study made a point I hadn't given much thought to myself.  Things started to go south when the civil rights movement started to make real gains.  All of a sudden, Silents decided that they weren't for well-funded schools for THOSE kids and unions started changing rules to make newer member less a part of the union because THOSE people were coming to join and take white jobs.  It was both self defeating and bound to fail.  Test scores dropped as the children of lesser schooling started rising to the grades where testing was measured.  Unions started to fall apart as workers saw less benefit in joining.  

This all started in earnest in the early 1970's, and accelerated under Reagan when the racial dog whistles came out.  It's gotten worse ever since.

Yes.  That was the realignment where LBJ basically bought the black vote, the Republicans countered with the Southern Strategy, and the two parties got rid of the idea of conservative and progressive wings.  Part of the red preference for small government and weak labor movements was to take money away from THOSE people.

I often wonder that the National Malaise came on the heels of the Southern Strategy.  There was the old notion that America could do anything it put its mind to, that in part made America great.  Small government and the Southern Strategy ended that in part, but how much a part?  Were the fall of Saigon, the oil crisis, the hostage crisis, all made inevitable by LBJ's assault on poverty?  Or were those things mostly international, the result of real overconfidence, of trying to do too much?

LBJ's tortured 6 years in the White House had many huge successes and created massive blowbacks.  Were they all interrelated?  Good question.  Civil Rights and Vietnam were the two biggies, and the linkage there is poverty rather than race.  Poor whites got pulled into that war, along with people of color, but poor whites were much more likely to see that war as righteous.  That may have contributed to the animosity that developed about that time.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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(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.
Every time period believes the Crisis "is now".

1970 Core X

Gothenburg, Sweden
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(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.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


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(09-24-2018, 01:59 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:
(09-24-2018, 10:47 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:
(09-23-2018, 11:10 PM)Galen Wrote:
(09-23-2018, 04:52 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I see the millennials as too busy keeping their heads above water to try to control the flood.

As an Xer with a Millie sister who has also interacted with a large number of them it seems more like they have been too sheltered to understand what is really going on.  There are a few that haven't and they act more like Xers then I would have expected.

What it interesting to me is that the generation that follows.  I have encountered a surprising number of them who know that they are screwed and know who did it.

Hint:  They don't blame Generation X.  So far they seem to be looking at Xers to pick up survival skills.

They know that Big Business and a government that does what Big Business wants it to do are not their friends. Plutocracy sucks -- it always has and always will.

Yes indeed. And more Boomers than Xers realize this, because Boomers remember a government that worked before the libertarian conservatives (Reagan et al) got in and stopped it from working.

They should have remembered earlier. Theoretically nothing stops us from being better people.
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