Nah man that was Gen Z making themselves known on the scene. Thing is the robber barrons power comes from our parents and grandparents believing their bullshit. Being made to look silly is the kind of thing that makes people look in the mirror.
There needs to be some strife between the generations inside families now. These olds have to be made to see the light even if it means ruining some lives. We are out of time to coddle them along.
And no shit they struggled. The frog that sits in the pot and slowly boils alive is not having a good time.
I feel almost nothing about it, the design characteristics of my furniture certainly create a positive environment for me and I think its money well spent. The “reclaimed” aspect of the amount of used furniture we buy has a bit of a sustainability halo I suppose.
My old man picked cotton and was a union rep for 20 years.
One stint of life which is pretty much escapism does not define him. I am thankful for these cartoonish stereotypes as they have helped remind me of the sacrifices he made.
Generational shorthand is very seductive though for building narratives. Think of how much of out cultural touch points are related to the decades. I can say “80s” and it immediately calls to mind a number of various shared understandings of the styles, attitudes, sounds, etc of that decade but its totally arbitrary.
Nah man, I’ve watch my dad’s friends since childhood, dealt with their struggles as time went by and imo it was down to luck and luck only if they kept their jobs in the factory or had to look elsewhere in the 80’s while the owner class busted and ran multiple angles on why Union bad + the rest…
We can’t ever blame the people who voted because even bill Clinton sold them out, the MSM sold them out, everybody sold them out to the owner class when you really think about it and it was pure goddammed luck in which state, town or job they took on as children to build the country back after the war and what a noble cause that was, its their main driver imo even if they don’t realise it, the indoctrination of their youth was strong to build it back, even stronger I the USA because of the depression era.
There’s a lot more wrt there life and how they got here but they as we did not have the power to compete against such a powerful juggernaut as the USA industrial complex.
Aren’t you from Scotland or something? This entire thread is really about lower middle class+ white people from the US. I don’t know enough about how life looks in Scotland to accurately reflect on what your baby boom generation was like.
IIRC you guys vote pretty hard left every election pretty uniformly, there just aren’t enough of you to matter vs down south.
It’s practically the same systems used to hold us back, even we have gerrymandering, racism, flags & the GOP and Torys are indeed very similar and use each others tactics, atm we have Trumps men still in charge while the standard Tory has been put to the side.
It’s interesting how these generations work out. I was born in 79. Technically Gen X, depending on who defines it. My brother and sister were born in 69 and 71 and they are politically Trumpers. Though my sister is more moderate then others shes married to a racist ex military cop so i don’t give her much credit. I grew up using computers from Elementary School and was using the internet or bbses as a preteen. Them? Not tech savvy at all. I am the only person Liberal. It is tough to fit eveyone into a stereotype but my parents are the type who have zero saved for retirement. And are angry about anyone else getting any help, even though they made poor decisions financially of their life. They still are on the fox and trump bandwagon.
Just came across this blog post and I thought about this thread. I don’t remember the writer’s age, but I think he’s in his 30’s (and definitely not a boomer).
Cliffs: Dude has been fairly regularly taking advantage of cheap airfares to book transcontinental flights because he finds working from home too distracting. He literally woke up in the morning, drove to LAX, flew to Miami, had a cup of coffee in the airport, and then boarded the same plane back to LAX just so he could work on the plane (and, I guess, get something to write about for his blog).
Some money quotes:
“During the pandemic, I have taken several “day trips” to New York on United Airlines. The amount of work I get done is simply amazing and always justifies the cost of the plane ticket. In the case of American Airlines, my ticket was $70 round-trip, much cheaper than I’ve ever paid on United.”
“I fully concede I should be able to go out to the back house or the coffee shop and get the same amount of work done, but sitting on an airplane and not connecting to the internet forces you to focus. And having meals served and drinks on demand also promotes productivity.”
N=1 obviously, or maybe we can say that this guy is a boomer at heart. My thought was that some of the “progress” that occurred during the boomer generation was driving down prices of certain things that used to be luxuries to the point where a middle class thirty-something now can just straight up burn resources in a way that I’m not sure a middle class boomer could have when they were 30. IOW, if we want to reign in consumption, we better hope that younger generations really are significantly better or that they stay poorer than the boomers…
People are shaped by their experiences… correct… and you can find good and shitty people of all ages, shapes and sizes… correct… But one generation grew up when America was on top of the world and they were taught day and night that all they had to do to continue that was be greedy capitalist pigs to defeat the Communist scourge.
The generations that followed were scarred by a severe global economic crisis in their prime working years directly caused by the excesses of capitalism and then just as we were getting on our feet from that, had to live under the regime of Donald J. Trump, a cartoony villiany personification of the Greed is Good mantra that our Cold War Warriors love so much.
So yes, I want nothing bad to happen to my dumbass boomer dad and get why he is the way he is… and understand that in a philosophical sense it’s not his fault. And would expect everyone else to feel the same way about their boomer parents.
But there is little doubt that history conspired to create an especially shitty and destructive generation that they happened to be a part of.
Yes, they have hustle culture all over the world. We are talking about America reverting to a median shitty nation instead of an especially shitty nation.