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"8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine article

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    "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine article



    I couldn't agree more with what he has to say. What do you guys think?
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    #2
    Re: "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine artic

    yeah, I pretty much have to agree...I willprobably say more, after I think about it a bit and make dinner
    Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of HistoryPagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
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      #3
      Re: "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine artic

      I don't agree with all of it, but I do agree overall it's the institutionalization of authoritarian ideas that have led to a lot of complacency. I would add that adultism has also led to complacency since it's indoctrinated how one shouldn't question an older person because they are by default correct. I'm not saying we should reject all of what an adult has to say but I think some of it should be called into question and held accountable accordingly. Very often, in my experience, it isn't. Even my peers don't question older people now and will spout how since they're adults they are omniscient.
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        #4
        Re: "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine artic

        Originally posted by Caelia View Post
        Even my peers don't question older people now and will spout how since they're adults they are omniscient.
        I've actually found this to be the exact opposite...in my observation most younger people don't give old folks the time of day, much less treat them with any sort of reverence--they can't even manage respect.
        Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of HistoryPagan Devotionals, because the wind and the rain is our Bible
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          #5
          Re: "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine artic

          Originally posted by thalassa View Post
          I've actually found this to be the exact opposite...in my observation most younger people don't give old folks the time of day, much less treat them with any sort of reverence--they can't even manage respect.
          From what I've seen it's actually because of adultism...possibly. I'll see if I can find the study again, but I found one in passing that found a correlation between the behavior like this and adultism.
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            #6
            Re: "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine artic

            I graduated in the 70's. Back then, a person with ANY f/t job could get at least a small apartment on their own. Nowadays, debt and fear keep young people "in Mom's basement" far too long. Nobody immersed in a daily struggle of survival is going to have time to think about changing the world (in direct relation to Maslow's heirarchy of needs).
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              #7
              Re: "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine artic

              Originally posted by Hawkfeathers View Post
              I graduated in the 70's. Back then, a person with ANY f/t job could get at least a small apartment on their own. Nowadays, debt and fear keep young people "in Mom's basement" far too long. Nobody immersed in a daily struggle of survival is going to have time to think about changing the world (in direct relation to Maslow's heirarchy of needs).
              I agree with the debt and hierarchy of needs parts, but not too much the fear (assuming you're speaking about fear on the youth's part). I'm one of those youth and I have no fears about the world and one in which I'm not alone. While I'm fearful of my incredible debt I know it can be tackled. It's the job issue that I'm more fearful about than anything. In fact, most of the jobs right now are going to people within your age group.

              The people I see that tend to live in mom's basement for too long (like my ex) are the ones who have helicopter parents.
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                #8
                Re: "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine artic

                Originally posted by Caelia View Post
                I agree with the debt and hierarchy of needs parts, but not too much the fear (assuming you're speaking about fear on the youth's part). I'm one of those youth and I have no fears about the world and one in which I'm not alone. While I'm fearful of my incredible debt I know it can be tackled. It's the job issue that I'm more fearful about than anything. In fact, most of the jobs right now are going to people within your age group.

                The people I see that tend to live in mom's basement for too long (like my ex) are the ones who have helicopter parents.
                I guess it's all relative, and geographical, but most jobs I see people my age getting are serious downgrades, like laid-off software engineers going to stock postions at Home Depot, etc. For people in the 50-60 age bracket, it's almost impossible to get back up the ladder once it's been pulled out from under you.
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                  #9
                  Re: "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine artic

                  It's actually a national thing, and I only live the next state over from you:

                  Unemployment rate statistics by education, race/ethnicity, age and gender through December 2023.
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                    #10
                    Re: "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine artic

                    From what I understand, the "official" unemployment numbers don't always accurately reflect what's going on today, due to the length of time many people are unemployed, which didn't used to be an issue.

                    In any event.......I think the hippie movement was the last real attempt by young people at cultural change in America. Drugs basically killed that. And, ever since, housing & education costs have gone up so much that the "pacifying forces" Levine writes of have taken over the culture.
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                      #11
                      Re: "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine artic

                      I agree the way they figure unemployment is very questionable and actually discounts groups that shouldn't be. In all honesty the unemployment rate should be around 17% according to at least one source (though I heard it on TV, so take it or leave it). That said the number still show how the age demographic for us younguns isn't very favorable. Someone in my age group is still just as likely to be unemployed and moreso than someone from your age group regardless of how it's figured. That is, unless you have something that shows otherwise...

                      In terms of cultural events I actually have more optimism. Until the depression hit (I don't care what anyone says I was taught when an economic downturn goes on for two or more business cycles it's a depression) the Neo-Pagan Movement was showing lots of promise for cultural change.
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                        #12
                        Re: "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine artic

                        I escaped their not-so-narrow demographics by about 3 years, but...

                        I have never had to 'fight' for anything in my life (beyond basic survival). Even though my parents were dirt-poor, we still had the basic necessities - a place to live, furniture (even if it was scrounged from dumpsters & sidewalks or given to us by neighbors), food, a television. I was a little before the current wave of video games - Ataris were extremely expensive, and I wasn't exposed to new gadgetry on a daily basis.

                        By the time I was born all the major battles had been fought:

                        1) Women were working - it was the Recession of the mid-70s, what else were they going to do? They could vote, birth control had come around, Roe vs. Wade happened the year I was born... so I didn't have to fight for feminism - and my way of keeping up the 'good fight' was voting Democratic.

                        2) The Vietnam War ended the year I was born. We didn't have another major military action until the Gulf War in 1991. There hasn't been a draft in effect my entire life. I protested the actions in the Gulf - "No blood for oil!" and all that, but I had a lot of free time - I was 16 going on 17. With the whole action in the Middle East over the past 10 years... I'm an adult with a full-time (sometimes 2 full-time) jobs, I spent 5 years of the past 10 getting a degree (that my in-laws paid for), and I only know one person, personally, who was in the Air Force Reserves, that went overseas to fight, and another girl at work whose boyfriend went overseas as an aircraft mechanic & never saw 'action'.

                        3) I've known gay people all my life. I'm bi. While I've been ridiculed personally, and called a faker by purely gay people, gay people pretty much have the right to exist in the US. I know there is still a lot left to do, but less of it is fought in the trenches - protests, activism, education - and more of it is fought in courtrooms and government offices.

                        4) I work with more brown people at my job than white people, and not all of them are porters, bus-people, guest room attendants or landscapers. We have brown supervisors. There are brown people in upper management. Almost any place you work in southern Nevada is full of a multi-culturally diverse staff. I've only lived in one very small semi-rural town (with a population of about 350 people) that could even be said to be 'all-white', and I thought it was weird. I was like, "what did you do with all the brown people?"

                        5) My parents were broke, so I didn't get instilled by any sense of entitlement. If I got a new toy, not one picked out of a dumpster or given to me by a neighbor, or picked up at a yard sale, it was something rare and precious. A college education was not a guarantee, and neither was a car.

                        By the time I was in my teens, most of my friends had some form of entertainment systems in their rooms, all to themselves, not just the one used by the family as a group. A tv, VCR, stereo, video game consoles... now, most of the 'kids' I see not only have all that, but they've got PDAs/Smartphones and computers of one form or another. I'm not just talking about rich, white privileged kids, either. I'm talking about the average 15 - 25 year old. Kids today are wired. Technology is relatively cheap. My co-workers think I'm some kind of Amish because my cell phone only does 2 things - makes and receives phone calls. I'm one of the few people at work who ever watch the news in the break-room. Everyone else watches oompa-loompas from New Jersey or some variant thereof, even people my age and older. Even the men.

                        I felt entitled, that being a woman, I would be able to work (not necessarily handed a job), I feel entitled in that no one is going to stone me to death for being Pagan, I feel entitled that I can expect certain basic minimums of safety at my job, I feel entitled that I have access to birth control and extremely expensive health care. I feel entitled that I have a job that lets me pay my gas bill so I can have hot water. My parents didn't have any expectations of fair & equal treatment at work, or even a safe working environment. Their friends were drafted into Vietnam, or Korea. Their parents went to WWII or were fighting simply for the right to exist. With some exceptions, the 1 - 30 year-olds have grown up in a very privileged world. They have a sense of entitlement that no other generation in America has ever been given to this degree.

                        What all this boils down to is this: why do younger people not want to fight for anything, or even see that there is anything worth fighting for?

                        They just don't have to.
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                          #13
                          Re: "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine artic

                          Very interesting.

                          I'm inclined to agree somewhat with Caelia, too...My husband has been a college graduate for 4 years, and has yet to get a job utilizing his degree. Instead, he works two entry-level jobs (customer service for a wedding invitation company, and the photo lab at Walmart) so that we can make ends me so long as we ignore our outstanding debts and focus on not creating any more. As a college dropout, I stay at home with out kids not due to status (like in the 50's) but because in our area it would cost most of any paycheck I could bring in to pay for a reputable daycare for my children, and this way I'm able to cook from scratch, etc, keeping out entire household budget for a family of four at around $85 per week.

                          Almost a year ago we finished a two year stint living with my in-laws. It wasn't out of fear, but being unable to cover basic necessities on our own. One thing you need to remember, Hawkfeathers, is that while the cost of living has risen considerably since the 70's, what is considered livable wage by companies hasn't kept up. By this time in my parent's marriage, they were buying their first house...I can't tell you how depressing it is that we can only just stay afloat.

                          As for how quiet this generation is...a part of me worries it's a calm before something snaps.
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                            #14
                            Re: "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine artic

                            Originally posted by DeseretRose View Post
                            One thing you need to remember, Hawkfeathers, is that while the cost of living has risen considerably since the 70's, what is considered livable wage by companies hasn't kept up. By this time in my parent's marriage, they were buying their first house...I can't tell you how depressing it is that we can only just stay afloat.

                            As for how quiet this generation is...a part of me worries it's a calm before something snaps.
                            That is a point I've been trying to drive home for years. I illustrate it thusly: In the late 60's we moved, bought a nice house in the suburbs on my father's salary of around 20K. The house cost about 35K. That very same house, a few years ago at the height of the housing boom, went for about 300K.

                            So, to hold to the formula, the buyers salary would need to be around 175K. The equivalent of Dad's job, a few years ago, paid around 80K. The proportions are all off, and this began happening in the late 70's/early 80's, when you stopped being able to get a small apt. on a department store job.

                            What scares me at this point in time is how well "luxury" companies are doing. The American Dream depends on a thriving middle class. We now have a growing unemployed/underemployed population, yet the rich are most definitely getting richer. And the buffer zone between those two groups is evaporating. The frightened young are all too happy to surrender rights and freedoms for what they think is security, and the oligarchy keeps on rolling along.
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                              #15
                              Re: "8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back" - very insightful Bruce Levine artic

                              Very well said...

                              Personal rant on that note. I hate it when people imply that it's because "kids these days" aren't willing to save money, and have "fancy gadgets like TVs and mobile phones".

                              Technology is cheap in America. I can't save up enough money for a down payment on a house, but in a few short months, I can get a nice TV. They aren't the same, and it ticks me off when people elsewhere throw those statements out so that they don't have to think. That's right on par with "get rid of minimum wage, because a REAL free market will force companies to pay well or else employees will just go elsewhere".
                              Great Grandmother's Kitchen

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