What's wrong with today's youth?

Agreed! ))
The impression never leaves me though, ever since my younger years, that there is a mechanism at work in all this, which is meant to put all things right, independent of what we may be thinking personally.
On the one hand, it shows whether or not we've taken all proper care of our children by giving them all they really needed, which may prove different from what we thought they needed.
But then on the other hand, given the answer to the above is positive, they will show us, in the long run, whether our ideas that we tried to pass unto them were right or wrong, after all. Granted, our being their parents doesn't make us undeniably right in all things we choose for them or even for ourselves, does it?

To some people it is a revelation, but each person has this potential (and I call it a gift) of being able to prove AT LEAST TO HIMSELF, that the way he's chosen is right. Some go a long distance to prove it, the length of all life even... But is it worth it? Yes, we can do things like this. But obviously, unless we want to reject all common sense, no such conviction can be taken for evidence, that the way one has chosen in not erroneous. So definitely, there are things of a more pressing importance, then trying to prove to oneself that he has the right to do what he's chosen.

Here is where our children come into play: even if something is really "wrong" about the generation of our children, we'll do well to ask ourselves whether or not something was ,and maybe still is, wrong about ourselves. Yea we can feel "happy" or "sure" or "convinced" about things, but say it again, this is no proof of our being in the right. There, our children, by disturbing that happy state of ours, may be giving us a chance to step out of that secure world of our personal opinions and convictions and sober ourselves to the reality of the real world. If it took me 40, 50 or more years to just come to that, I don't feel these are LOST years of my life, by no means. Just as it was noted here, it is what's happened to me in the past, which has made me the man I am at present.

True, we get to feel the more young inside our hearts, the older we grow "physically". But this doesn't impose an obligation upon us of remaining stubborn or stupid , as though we never learn our lessons (as folks don't their lessons at school, when they find it boring), or I'm terribly wrong.
...Oh! I'm afraid, I don't sound young at all.

Cheers ).
I can't help leaving LONG comments, sorry for that. It is impossible to express important things in fewer words. Unless, maybe, in a song?? But that's a talent quite rarely found.
Wishing everyone all sorts of good things

 

Yea, "nothing left to lose" sounds pretty nice to them who have no GOOD things left to lose. The old girl (pls excuse my frivolity) still had a thing left to lose -- her own live, that is, and she lost it eventually in the way none of use would like to follow. I don't want to forget that while thinking of herself or others like her -- that keeps me from idolizing their likes. I think having pity and compassion for them and their situation will do just well enough.

...So then, if it is that we are "trapped" with them really good things we're loath to lose (like our children or families) -- do we want to have others, who're more "free", rid us of these things? Perhaps, our children can "help", as they are "free enough" to do the thing?...
Ah, but then we'll complain, that they are "not like ourselves", that "something is wrong" about them...

I don't want to sound rude or sulky because of having to say what I'm saying here, please, understand. I just don't see any other way to say this.

...So if they want to use their power of youth to change the world for the better, then let them do it by learning how to be kind, considerate of others, peaceful and patient. By being wise enough to learn about life and the world they're living in, before they make crucial decisions. That will guard them against the shameless politicians and "leaders" of ALL sorts, who're trying to catch them with some noisy words which sound so sweet, but are in fact nothing but cunningly forged lies.

You know... Going out and "protest" together with many other folks who feel like going there makes you a pawn in the game you have no idea of. What are these other folks protesting against, and for what reason? No, you're not responsible for THEIR lives and choices, but you are for the yours. You have just enough resources to control YOUR life, and that must be done, instead of joining the ranks of them who're blindly following the ideas whereof they don't know neither the origin nor the real purpose. These ideas seem attracting to them by giving some immediate satisfaction in this way or another, but have "a couple of side effects" of which you learn but when it is too late... Just like drugs, you would say? Not surprising, that these things almost always go together. But who's wise enough to see this link? I think this is what our children need to know before the go on deciding for themselves.

 

People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy after.
Where's daddy?
Where's mommy?

 

You misunderstand my point and my intent. Certainly, any attachments you have result in some loss of freedom - but they are well worth the cost. To accomplish his work, Jesus said "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters--yes, even his own life--he cannot be my disciple. This is not, however what I am talking about.

We come to love THINGS - money, cars, fine houses, expensive clothes, luxury trips and so on. These THINGS come to own us rather than vice versa. Once you are owned by anything else you no longer have the ability to pursue the things you find truly important. You become a prisoner of those things.

Being peaceful, patient, considerate are all things I espouse. But such traits in and of themselves allow the unscrupulous to use us for their own perverse goals. Sometimes we must shout out and say "ENOUGH - THIS MUST STOP". To be all of the good things listed above does not exclude the necessity of raising our voices.

I simply say that it is easier for the young to raise their voices because they need not answer to so many bosses.

 

Sorry for having given such impression. But no, not really; it is just your words made ME think about what I wrote in my comment. So it's just me I've noticed how people obsessed with the idea of freedom destroy the things they love, believing that they will thus change things for the better...And unfortunately, more often than not, these are young folks.

Yes and yes. This idea of trying to stay free from THINGS is not only familiar to me, it's been part of my life position ever since my youth. Seeing how this attachment to things robs people of joy in so many ways... to such an extent, that it looks as though THINGS become the real meaning of one's life.
However, if we do need any "things" to make us happy, it is such things as we always have around us for free: the blue sky, the sea, the river and the forest... OK, everyone knows that. Which I like most, is that attaching to these things doesn't make anyone unhappy, nor one's life void of meaning.

This raising of the voices is just what I've been thinking about.

Is it because I've been born and raised in the country, where the "raising of our voices" has been sort of religion? As it is the cornerstone of the communist ideology... At least, I have no delusion about the fact, that this is just ANOTHER tool in them political games.

Remember the position of the hippies regarding the war in Vietnam. It wasn't like: "We'll tell how this war must be conducted!!!" It was rather:"We are NOT PLAYING THIS GAME AT ALL!". And rightfully so, too.

But when it comes to politics (whereof war is but a tool, one among many), you don't refuse to play that game at all by stepping aside. No, but with your protesting thing you hippies effectively say:"Politics is OK, just we want to show you how this must be done! We'll make you listen to OUR VOICES! You'll have to accept US into this game of yours!". Yes, because mass protesting is a "political" way of effecting the situation.

It is like fighting: whether you are hitting, or just blocking the coming blows -- you are participating in the fighting. NOT fighting means not supporting the very idea of fighting , and this is not unknown to hippies. They just fail to apply this principle to politics, since they still believe in politics. Did these mass protests of the 60's show that the thing can really change the world?

...As it says in Ecclesiastes, "there are times and seasons for each thing under the sun".
I guess, the 60's was just the "right time and favourable season" for those mass protests, since some changes were just inevitable and the mentality got ripe to accept some alternatives. So these mass protest gave some sort of relief to the tension, giving at the same time some "real" hope to many. Real -- in that everyone could touch it, partake of it as much is he wanted.
And what did it give to the politicians? Well, these protests definitely helped to change the political situation and to bring to power some new forces. Some new POLITICAL forces. Well, not even that new, after all...
Not everyone got happy, many got very UNhappy with the changes that took place (especially the "fruits" of the sexual revolution and mass drug usage are frowned upon), but in the long run "something" got changed -- and the system survived through the crisis, which is, actually, the main purpose of all political activity. At the same time people "really felt" that it all can be changed. Well, maybe not today -- perhaps, tomorrow?

...Meantime, as soon as the "inevitable" changes, such as the system could afford, took place, the protesting started becoming less effective, and gradually got stopped altogether.

Isn't this what happened? Tell me, please.

 

^^"Those who would sacrifice freedom for the promise of security deserve neither,"
Thomas Jefferson

Peace Out,
Rev J

 

Nice to see an american say that for a change

 

Exactly, ha-ha.

Well I guess mr. Jefferson told this thing during the times, when situation was so far from being "stable" according to mr. Jefferson's understanding, that trying to keep it as it then was would only bring sort of a continued agony instead of "real" security...

And even though that statement of his has been added to the "treasury of human wisdom of all times", his political heirs of modern times are not so sure to apply this principle at present, he-he...

However, XXth century has been very special in that we've seen not only one, but quite a few revolutions taking place all over the world during that period. And they all have several things in common:
1) It would always start as though taking stand for some very "noble" principle, always something like "freedom", or "deliver the poor from their poverty", or whatever "good and just" stuff you may think off.
2) Which, technically, would always end up in the robbing of some relatively "minor" group of people of all their material possessions and trying to use that to improve the material situation of the rest.
3) The end results of these techniques in all these revolutions and independence wars remain at least questionable (Russia & satellites, central & South Americas), while oftentimes obviously very bad (more or less all African countries).

It must be added, that at the times of the formation of the hippie movement and values (~1960s) the analysis above could not be made with such clarity as it can be today. Don't forget, it was also the time when "democratic" changes in many countries were just under way, bringing about lots of "great expectations" in the hearts of them who identified themselves as "progressive humankind", hippies included.
But now, 40 years later, we have much more data to process and can come out with the result, which may not satisfy those expectations if somebody should still be fostering them today.

These striking "differences" between the expectations and facts are reflected in the situation in UN itself. See how they are caught between "recognizing the sovereignty of the nations" as an "undeniable value" on the one hand, and having to protect the "human rights of every single person" violated in these nations, on the other. Somehow they can't "marry" these two, however hard they try. The harder they try, they more absurd the picture, you would say...

This all makes up a very good demonstration of how far POLITICAL methods can succeed in solving them ancient problems of humankind: THEY WILL NEVER SUCCEED.
So... the force to change the world for the better must come from some other source.

 

It's not just today's youth that can move to stop this latest insanity. We all have responsibility. Start talking it up at work, amongst friends and family, write your local politician, fuck...become a politician.

Start your ow family and stop living like this.

But just do it!!!

 

The only ones who can stop this latest insanity (I assume we're still talking about the Iraq/Afgan War) are the ones who vote out the dunderhead politicians who allow it to continue.

But ... ummm ... what did we do instead? With all the foresight and long-range vision of a fruitfly, we voted back in the dudes who petulantly threaten to filibuster anything except their own agenda. How wonderful is that? How mature. How adult. And these are the people we've entrusted with governing our nation.

The biggest problem with a democracy is that you get who you vote for.

 

Except that so few people vote. The problem with democracy is that you get who the folks that bothered to vote voted for.

 

The problem with democracy is that you get what the folks who bought votes paid for:mickey:

 

I posted this in another thread but it seems relevant here too so I'm copying and pasting:

Here's the thing I realized I was getting snowed with one simple conversation in high school:

Teacher: In a presidential election you vote for an elector who then votes for who they want for President.

Me (realizing that the electors names aren't on the ballot): So my vote doesn't count.

Teacher: No, you vote for an elector who then votes for who they want for President.

Me: So my vote doesn't count.

It kind of went in a circle from there. Then I read a great quote from Thomas Jefferson that said "The greatest enemy to a true democracy is an uninformed voter." When Arnold Schwartzenagger got elected Governor of California there were 130 people running against him. There is no way that any human can make an informed decision from that many candidates so the Musclebound actor with no political experience got the job on name recognition.

Then look at how many bond issues are on a ballot and how confusing they are worded. There is no way in fuck that you can know what they all are. On top of that they are usually arranged in some weird no means yes fasion. Then you have voices of descent on bond issues circulating petitions that counter act other bond issues to get an opposing bond issue on the ballet and both issues pass. So which one is law.

So I don't vote. But I do work and pay taxes. If I don't like how the government spends the money I give them I have every right to bitch. Just like if I give my fiancee money and I don't like how she spent it I have a right to bitch.

To me saying "If you don't vote you don't have a right to bitch" is another example of brainless reciting of a catch phrase. It's a soundbite used to over simplify an issue and placate the masses into believing that their voices are being heard.

As I see it one of the problems in this country is that who ever screams the loudest is considered the majority and the leaders try and placate them. Lets look at the past 30 years. In the 1980's you had Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority. Those pricks screamed the loudest and got Reagan in on it and Reagan bent over backwards to appease them because they were "The Majority".

Then came Universal Healthcare. A small group of people started showing up at town hall meetings and shouted down the speakers and literally drowned out the voices of the majority who voted based on Universal Healthcare. They called in death threats to their senators to vote against Universal healthcare.

Then came the Tea Party. These motherfuckers are all over the media and screaming loud for a "return to American values" I guess that means killing more brown people and exploiting the poor. But these people are hardly the majority yet the scream the loudest and are getting their way.

Stay Brown,
Rev J
__________________

 

Darn tootin', rev. Would rep if I could yet.

 

Uninformed or misinformed? I vote the latter.
I have difficulty processing as logical any premise that the voting booth is a likely setting for meaningful change that gives government back to the voters as we seem only capable of producing candidates already corrupted by big money... or maybe I'm too jaded.

I don't think we can enter into any discussion of the faults of a generation without looking at the generation and culture that reared them. It seems that it is my generation- and a little bit older- that began the quantum leap away from fundamental values of hard work and being engaged/informed in the issues that has enabled things like the new McCarthyism (labeling liberalism as Socialism) to resound among the rabble. We have multiple generations whose minds have been saturated with all manner of advertising that promotes the notion that they are entitled to the latest gadget and gizmo and parental units too distracted by their own quest for the almighty dollar and dysfunction to bother countering that very effectively.

We have collectively allowed the business of government to become intellectually un-consumable- not only by loading legislation with crap so voluminous that one must work full time and be versed in "legalese" to comprehend it but also because apart from telling us that we are a vital part of the government, our educational system does little if anything to intellectually prepare us to take on the issues and maintain the sense that our elected officials are being closely watched. They know very well that we aren't paying attention and that empowers them to do what they have done. We've become so brainwashed that no one questions why a non-issue like steroids in baseball warrants congressional hearings while the greatest swindle was under way that would take down not only the housing market but also wreck the economy and result in millions of people either being out of work or settling for part time underemployment. Roger Clemens, Mark McGuire and Barry Bonds had absolutely NOTHING to do with that.

Where the FUCK is the activism? It ain't just the kids who aren't massing on their government offices and homes of their senators and representatives. So far the swindle has paid off handsomely for them and their corporate cronies and we're left out in the cold during this so-called "recovery".

What's wrong with a culture that spends more time blaming groups within instead of demanding as one voice meaningful change and accountability? It ain't the kid's fault but they are going to pay a steep price.

 

But what does "activism" mean, Stink? What does "massing on government offices" accomplish, exactly? Isn't it just the liberal equivalent to this Tea Party stuff?

I say you gotta go for the pragmatic approach. You can't fight a war if Congress doesn't allocate funds for it. So in order to stop the war, you vote out the congresspeople who continue to allocate the funds. That's what we did with Vietnam. It's the only way that works. That's our "activism". We actively let them know that if they don't carry out the will of the people, we vote their asses out.

 

No, it's not.

The tea party doesn't want to change anything, they want to create a certain media picture, while keeping things how they are now (rich people paying no taxes, that is)

I'm pretty sure in what he's talking about, we actully fix things.

Of course you can fight a war with no funds. The CIA has been doing it since it's founding, and is still doing it, with a well doucumented (and still currently operated) drug smuggling business, working in some sort of sick symbiotic relationship to the DEA. Congress has already given this the OK, the CIA is not required to record anything about any dealings with contracted employees, or anyone else not on their payroll officially. That's pretty much everyone that an intelligence agency works with. Take the funding, and the CIA will just sell heroin to your soldiers and crack to your poor.

 

This goes back to my post about a paralizing sense of entitlement. Kids today are handed so much useless crap that they feel like they need that they don't by parents that should be telling them no but aren't. Sorry they are your little monsters you made them and now you are bitching about them. So much for making a better world.

Stay Brown,
Rev J

 

hitler impersonating kids!
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/165852/

 

Thank you... and you're correct. Now, what candidates are going to cut funding for illegal wars? What candidates are going to not perpetuate regulatory malpractice that enabled the housing bubble and economic collapse? I have yet to see any viable candidate here (Ct) who doesn't in one way or another represent "business as usual"... the same tired old campaign promises get dusted off and put back out-- and Mr. & Mrs. Gullible seem to eat it up... it does not seem to matter whether it's republican or democrat.... we're going to get fucked either way... it just gets packaged a little differently. So many people chant the "clean up Washington" mantra but like the politicians they are, it seems that saying it is as far as they go.

It galls me that if a senator does not vote in line with the will of his/her constituency, we're stuck with him/her for six fucking years.