8 Reasons Young Americans Don't Fight Back: How the US Crushed Youth Resistance

[crudos]

http://www.filmsforaction.org/news/8_reasons_young_americans_dont_fight_back_how_the_us_crushed_youth_resistance/#.UhaC9orgeSg.facebook

The main points:

1. Student-Loan Debt. Large debt?and the fear it creates?is a pacifying force.

2. Psychopathologizing and Medicating Noncompliance. In 1955, Erich Fromm, the then widely respected anti-authoritarian leftist psychoanalyst, wrote, ?Today the function of psychiatry, psychology and psychoanalysis threatens to become the tool in the manipulation of man.?

3. Schools That Educate for Compliance and Not for Democracy. 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.

4. ?No Child Left Behind? and ?Race to the Top.? The corporatocracy has figured out a way to make our already authoritarian schools even more authoritarian.

5. Shaming Young People Who Take Education?But Not Their Schooling?Seriously. 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.

6. The Normalization of Surveillance. The fear of being surveilled makes a population easier to control.

7. Television. In 2009, the Nielsen Company reported that TV viewing in the United States is at an all-time high if one includes the following ?three screens?: a television set, a laptop/personal computer, and a cell phone.

8. Fundamentalist Religion and Fundamentalist Consumerism. American culture offers young Americans the ?choices? of fundamentalist religion and fundamentalist consumerism.

Can't say this isn't a pretty much right on as a critique of control in our modern society.

[Well-Prepared Witch]

Not to mention that only discomfort provokes humans to action.  Look at why politicians focus so much on keeping the middle class in the middle class.  Too many move into the elite and the elite lose their privilege.  Too many move into poverty and they start looking to revolt.

[JohnyMac]

That was brilliant Wellie...Thanks! 

[Grudgie]

I find it ironic that many of the comments below the article are from 'young people' who strongly argue back:

"This is frustrating to read. My generation did NOT create this crisis. We inheirited it from the adults of the 1950's, 60's, and 70's who now condemn us for not fixing it fast enough. Many of us are trying to find ways to remove ourselves from the system in some way, from gardening to avid recycling of all products to avoiding banks and not buying cars. We CANNOT opt out of paying your social security. Believe me, i spent a month researching how to opt out and I simply can't. My generation is the open-minded generation most comfortable with gay-rights. We are the generation that is not buying cars. We DO organize protests. Remember Seattle May Day? We cannot fight the system and subdue it, so many of us choose to try and divorce ourselves from some of it. We KNOW we can't get an education... What shall we do??? Can we accredit our own universities?? As a group, we do not vote against gay rights. We do not approve of corporate bailouts, we do not agree with wall-street and the NSA and restrictions of our freedoms. Remember SOPA? Remember the NSA recruiters getting publicly shamed on a university campus? Please look to YOUR generation's voting habits, the conservative adults in your generation who complain how we all "want it handed to us" when we ask for educational opportunities and request wages that reflect the last 30 years of inflation. Instead of saying "these are reason's why these young people haven't fixed our mistakes" how about taking some responsibility for when I was 12 and Bush Jr. got into presidential office? I couldn't vote. Please, discuss how older generations can HELP change America, instead of trying to excuse us for not having "fixed" stuff yet and "not caring enough" or refrain from discussing it at all. We don't need your vindication to absolve us from the struggle we have to carve out a life in the disasterous mixture of bad economic policy, bad foreign policy, and bad educational policy which we have inheirited."

I do disagree somewhat with the article. Where it does make strong points, it fails to provide hard examples. I mean, we are the 'Bart Simpson' generation. We organized occupy Wall Street, created a thousands strong hacking army that took down Time Magazine among others. We overthrew entire governments in the Middle East. I don't understand how we quietly comply with authority as the guy makes it sound. In the sence that my generation commits less crime I agree with. I also believe we are smarter in many ways thanks to global connection. 'Young people' it seems are always a convenient scapegoat. I am sick of constantly being discriminated agianst because of age.

[rah45]

Amen, brother Grudgie. I cannot tell you guys here on the forum how difficult it has been trying to get my narrow-minded relatives from my father's and grandparents' generation to see reason and get out of the "vote Republican and they'll fix it" or "work within the system to change things" or "God will see us through." No He fucking won't. If you think God is with you while you sit and wait for shit to happen...you'll just end up wishing you had done something later, after you've lost everything. Jews and Nazi Germany, anyone? Working within the system...what a crock. We have to work just as hard to convince our parents' generation of their bullshit decisions as we do to try and find a way to make good decisions ourselves.

I have a wife, two small kids, a bachelor's degree from a respectable middle Georgia college, $10,000 in student loan debt, and no job offers that pay enough to warrant leaving my kids at home to go to work. I literally just worked my last day at my job. I gave my notice a couple of weeks ago, because I'm not making enough money an hour to warrant the costs incurred by gas, food, vehicle maintenance, daycare, stress, wife's sleep deprivation (she's a night shift nurse), and overall family mental, physical and emotional well-being. I did everything I was told I was supposed to do since I was a child. I graduated high school with honors, got a scholarship to the local college, fought to put my wife through college, she fought to put me through college, and now I'm stuck. I work hard. I single-handedly revamped the entire working process at the job I just quit. I took it from a point where the boss was going to scrap the project, and I not only met his goals but exceeded them. There was no position to move up, no increase in pay, nothing. The economy is shitty, I inherited it from the previous generation, and I'm the one who has to figure it out? Fuck it. I'd rather leave the previous generation holding the bag and make my own way in a place where I don't have to inherit all your bad decisions. My family's future is worth more than this. God help me, America or no America, if I see a way out, if I see a path to freedom and opportunity, I'll take my family and leave the rest behind. I'll take my rifle and plenty of ammo, my possessions, my family, my education and my work ethic and I'll forge a path. Without the previous generation.

Don't give me this shit about lying down and taking it while the Man Upstairs smiles while pissing on me. I had to educate my own father about why working within this system is fruitless, and why a shitstorm is coming down on us - and he is a very intelligent and open-minded man. He should have been telling me this the first 20 years of my life, not me telling him this after the first 20 years of my life. The generations before us may have passed down what it means to "be an American," but they sure as shit didn't pass down the most important duty - be always vigilant, be ever watchful, trust but verify, all the lessons from the Founding Fathers. That our generation is having to relearn what they truly mean, many for the first time since their parents didn't teach them, is a testament to the failure of "freedom-loving people" to secure the blessings of liberty for themselves and their posterity.

This rant is a response to the linked post, not to every member of the older generations. I have a lot of respect for guys like JohnyMac, my father, and many others who always carried the torch or who are trying to make amends and carry the torch now.

[crudos]

Grudgie and Rah: You guys are the exception, not the rule as described in the article. And for that you have my deepest thanks. I actually am very hopeful that people younger than me can really do some amazing things to turn this nation around in the future. There will always be the braindead mob that just drifts without much thoughtfulness, no strength, no compassion, to name a few.

[JohnyMac]

Great writing's from all. I am very lucky to be part of a group of folks "who get it!"

Rah, I applaud your decision to be a "stay at home parent." As we discussed earlier, my next door neighbor here in Rhode Island is doing the same thing. The cost of daycare school and then the stress of a parent picking their child up ON TIME. Then the babysitter who watched him while the parent went back to work was getting to be too much.

Well he got laid-off about 18 months ago. He and his wife made a decision that he would not go back to work until their son is in 1st grade and then he would get a part-time job or work from home.

Well one night I got home late after visiting MrsMac in the hospital. As I walked up to my front door a voice out of the darkness said, "it's about time you got home." There my neighbor mentioned above was sitting, smoking a cigar and sipping on a glass of wine while watching chicken grill on my Weber. He then said, "I figured you might be hungry so I cooked up some chicken for you and I using my new marinade. Get some plates and silverware as the chicken is almost done."

I went in and changed my clothes, fed the cats, got my own adult beverage and joined him with some plates and silverware. We sat there till God knows what time swapping stories. This is when he told me that he and his wife hadn't been happier in years. Because of his wife & his decision outlined above, there was no stress at home and his son was happier being with him than going to daycare.

Yes do they have less money coming in -Yup. So he buys boxed Merlot instead of $20- a bottle. He buys choice rather than prime steaks. He cooks 90% of all of the meals rather than going out to dinner almost every night. And he has been showing his son how to wash a car. Fish. Cook. Paint a boat. Tie knots. Ride a bike. Appreciate '70s rock & roll. Read a book. Well you get the idea. 

And as I have written in the past, the neighbors across from the cabin are going to start homeschooling their 10 year old this year. Their son is sharp as a whip and being brought up to be an independent thinker. When we get together he joins the adults and keeps pace with us discussing politics, the new calf (s), hydraulics on the tractor, weather, etc. He is his own man and is encouraged to be so.

Thanks Crudo's for posting the article.

[Well-Prepared Witch]

I know this is a bit gender-biased, but it's so nice seeing men not only take on the stay-at-home parenting role, but relish and rock it.  We need more men teaching our children right along-side our women.  I know it's a bit off-topic, but that part made me smile, even if the economic reasons that prompted the decisions were not good.  I know it's kind of antiquated of me, but I wish it were easier for there to be mutli-parent households where one stays at home and the other(s) work.  Even if it's grandparents staying with the kids and parents working, or one parent at home and the other at home, or what have you.

I also really liked the quote posted by Grudgie from the comments of that article.  It's so easy for people to demonize our youth.  That's like spilling acid on the floor and yelling at the janitor who comes to clean it up because they can't get the floor shiny again.  We need to help our youth and our younger adults deal with the world we've created for them.  We need to find solutions to clean up our own messes, even if it's changing our current paradigms to get rid of the current system.  I liked what that one person said about walking away from the system and gardening, recycling, etc.  That's a paradigm that we NEED, not "when can I get the next iPhone".

There are a lot of ecological issues coming (peak oil, peak water, climate change, etc) AND there are current political and economic issues (and I'm sorry, but stock markets are totally divorced from the actual economy; I work in mortgage and I see how little sense the financial industry makes and how numbers /= reality) that are still far more fragile than anyone in power will admit (unless it's to use scare tactics to get their agenda moved forward).  These issues will not be dealt with by screaming about how our young people aren't shouldering their share of the load.  They'll be dealt with by changing what we do and how we do it, by changing what we WANT out of our society and our government. 

Eh, I'm getting all ranty.  Suffice it to say that there are more younger people that I know that are good, responsible, hard-working folk than those that are asking for things to be handed to them on a platter.