Let's Talk About Laziness
So once again someone from the boomer generation has referred to my generation as 'lazy'. That's funny, because most of us younger folks are either working multiple jobs while hanging on by the skin of our teeth, if we can even find those jobs to start with. We're also having to deal with the fact that our infrastructure is all but destroyed and the reality that our 'great' leaders refuse to do a damned thing about it unless Wall Street says it's okay. And it doesn't help that many of those same leaders are on the take in order to keep things as they are. And yes, that means keeping us from having any real power.
And apparently we aren't inventing things either because we aren't creative enough and are too busy just staring at screens and playing with our phones. Don't give me speeches about how Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg made things out of nothing, because they sure as hell didn't. They took ideas other companies didn't think were practical and ran with them. And they did it while dropping out of college and working out of their parents' garage. Yet we're the ones who were spoiled rotten. Fuck that.
It doesn't seem to matter that the same technology that older folks so readily bitch at us for using is opening new doors with regards to how we get our information and how we use it, they still think we're lazy for using it despite the fact that that very same technology has also made our lives much harder as a result. We're now working much harder than ever yet we're seeing no return on that productivity whatsoever.
Speaking of technology, we wouldn't be using it so much if employers and other areas of life didn't rely so heavily on it for commerce. It's getting to the point where you won't be able to shop without your phone in another decade, maybe even sooner. Hell, employers keep threatening to replace us with machines anytime the subject of higher wages comes up. Of course, automation would take a while to even put in place and even longer before it starts paying for itself, but most folks don't seem to know that, or perhaps they just don't care because reasons.
Now, I get that there are many older folks who understand what's going on and don't think this way with regards to how we do things. And that is appreciated. But to those who do tell us we're lazy and good for nothing, I have this to say: Fuck you and the long dead rugged individual, 'value of hard work' horse you rode in on. I, for one, have neither time nor patience for it.
See ya around,
Aspie
Comments
For purposes of this article.....
...... the "boomer" generation cut-off needs to be 12/31/1955. Any younger than that, and folks (like me) have more in common with GenX than with boomers -- and with you, for that matter.
It is no more fair for that boomer jerk to have hurled that at you/us than it would be to state that boomers must be all cowards because the US and its allies lost the Vietnam Clusterfuck. In both cases, Wall Street and the 0.01% set the failure up to keep us peasants in line. We had no business being in someone else's civil war, and modern working people have just as much right to work that pays enough per hour to support them as well as what the early boomers actually had.
So if they can't support us in that, you're right: fuck them and the Calvinist bullshit they rode in on!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Correction: 2 September 1948
Not to put too fine of a point to it but I have more in common with the "younger" generation than the "boomer" generation. So, perhaps all this talk about generational hegemony is as valid as the other usual nonsense perpetrated by the powers that be . . .
Hey, look at this . . . shiny . . . don't pay attention to that man behind the curtain, this is the real point of conflict . . .
True, but there is also a real problem here
A lot of folks from your generation--and I've not noticed this from anybody here--just don't fucking get what's happening to us or how the world has been made to change.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I know too many to whom you refer . . .
. . . they should know better in my opinion, but I never expect others to experience life the same as I do even if we have (had) similar experiences. As if that made any sense‽
Isn't stereotyping people based on generational
grouping another means of divide and conquer? I am a baby boomer who at one time was working five jobs concurrently for a year in order to feed, clothe and house my children. Most of the rest of those years, I managed to keep it down to three concurrent jobs. I really do not appreciate being berated or dismissed by people because I just happened to be born in a certain year.
Maybe half of the baby boomers were able to move into the middle class which had begun to disappear as we were entering the job markets. The others struggled and are still struggling. When individuals are lumped together to become a nameless mass that is when people start to ignore the needs of others.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
I'll give you that. And it's quite sad. As is this:
No doubt about it. As to how we can address it I can't be sure considering not many who are in power are actually willing to listen.
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
It isn't up to the people in power. It is up to each individual
person to make the effort to touch another person in some way each day. Even simply holding the door for someone is a humane gesture. To let someone else know that you know they are alive and worth your attention.
Smile at or say a kind word to a stranger as often as possible. It could be the difference of that person (or even yourself) killing themselves or another. Listen, really listen, to another person's pain. We are all in pain in one way or another.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
I get blasted at my
p.o.b. for spending too much time "chatting up customers." Guess what, I tell the manager? They don't come in here to see you.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
That's the kind of value that low level employees add to
the bottom line every day without being credited for their input by our corporate overlords.
-a boomer
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
It's more about what people believe than it is about
their economic privilege--although, look, I'd have rather been getting into the job market in the 70s than in the 90s or oughts, and certainly rather than post-2008. The current conditions are horrific. They are horrific for some of you too, but most of us under 35 never had a chance.
But the real issue Aspie is bringing up isn't how well-off you guys are, it's what a lot of people in your generation believe and say to us. I'm endlessly grateful to have those of you who don't buy the crap to talk to, which nicely breaks up any chance that I'd think "all Boomers are like this."
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Here's a Boomer..
tho born 2 months past that arbitrary cutoff stated above, who doesn't see any group more of "this" than "that." In fact, I'm reminded of how, at least in my own family, it seemed each elder generation excoriated the one that cam after as "lazy," "doesn't know what 'hard work' is," "feels the world owes him a living, and then takes it all for granted."
My great-grandma said it of my grandmother's peer group; my mom SURE said it about my peer group; and I'll admit to being more than PC when it comes to saying similar to my daughter's peer group. I think it's one more of those unnecessary holdovers from our ancient beginnings... the young forcing the old to make way... now expressed in words instead of actual challenges or fighting; and the old not conceding the way at the present moment.
Unfortunately for us (and all ensuing generations in the foreseeable future), the PTB are going to ensure most of us die on the job before we can retirement. Should we then expect angst and anger among generations to intensify - and are we already beginning to see that intensification? With "money" and "jobs" at the root of envy, this is prime manipulation of the masses material now, IMO.
Boomers are no more a monolith than
GenX or Millennials. Speaking generationally Millenials are by far the most screwed.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
There are some boomers squirming now, not enough money
to comfortably retire and too ill to continue. Shit hitting fan for many of all ages. HRC will make it all better!/s
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
Born in '52 I'm of
the '60s Beatles / Stones generation. My cousin, just three years older born in '49, is of the '50s Elvis generation. A yuuuge difference among the "same" generation.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Count me in that group, riverlover!
With hubby having to take early retirement last year -- and barely any work for 5+ years prior to that -- I realized the other day our only chance is for me to continue to work until I drop or make it to 72+. We both lost around half of our retirement accounts (IRA and 401k both) when Bush crashed the world economy.
We desperately need to move 45 minutes away to the city I actually work in, Leavenworth, to make it easier to care-take my mother. And my two specialist doctors have both told me I quit commuting like that, or expect to be in a chair before two many more years. Unfortunately, robbing all accounts only nets us about $35k to buy a house. And I want to buy one outright; not take on another mortgage and my age (if they'd even give it to me!).
Between lupus and an inherited spinal disease, there are days I can barely stand on my legs, let alone walk on them OR go down the many steps from our front porch to my car. A new symptom cropped up about 2 months ago... by 2pm I'm utterly exhausted, and want nothing more than to lay down and be quiet for an hour or so. Ha! Like that's gonna happen in Academia!
I am ALMOST at the point where I'm thinking of checking out "GoFundMe" to see if I can raise the rest of the money for a modest little house... nothing fancy, just close to Mom. But I have another Boomer quality - that to do anything like that is "begging" and that is something to totally avoid. IOW, I've been raised to feel the blame and shame (blame because I've worked all my life and have so little monetarily to show for it; and shame for even thinking of asking strangers for help).
I'm not there yet, but many more days of dragging my body around like I did today, and I think I might be able to overcome than mental programming.
I will say those younger than I am of whom I know personally are not as reticent to ask for help of any kind when its needed. I count that as a "plus" in these younger generations; it means they probably know themselves and their limits better and will not suffer under them unnecessarily!
True, because of climate change.
Economically? We in Gen X are getting hit very hard.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
1961 here, so I am one of those tweeners
too between late Boomer and early Gen X or whatever you need to call it. And apparently, you do need to call it something and somehow make that generation ALL at fault. Personally, I could sit around and blame my Greatest Generation parents, but even they don't totally fit the mold, and when I look back at a little history and see just how they too were brainwashed by blatant propaganda and marketing, it becomes a LOT harder for me to squarely place blame. You really should knock off the blaming, we don't get anywhere by doing it but divide and conquer, and that meme is as old as the Republic itself. If you can't see that yet, then I'm sorry, but do not sit there and act like one generation all alone did this, it isn't true and serves as merely one more diversion from reality.
Really, it's like blaming the Clintons or the Dems for it ALL - hardly anywhere near true and once again, serves as a really nice diversion from the non-partisan fuckers who're perpetuating it. Its the banks, MIC and captured government that is the problem, and the diversion of the American "news" consumer facilitated it better than any one measly generation ever thought about doing. And we still live with the brainwashed among us every day. Which do you think might win them over to reality? Blaming them for it all, or realizing that not every single one of them is rich or a greedy thieving neo-liberal who's to blame entirely for America's ills?
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
There are lazy people in every generation
But I haven't seen that many of them among the millennials. Unless they are wealthy that is. Most people your age I know are too tired from working so hard at low paying menial jobs to be lazy.
That said, I think the issue is really more one of class. Those "Boomers" who did well seem to be the ones raising this argument the most, particularly "Boomers" in the media or political arena who have done well. Ironic, considering what the older generations thought of Boomers in their youth - lazy, drug-addled, sex-crazed, commie-loving, anti-American hippies was the general consensus among my parent's generation regarding my generation.
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
I am really sick of the laziness epithet being thrown
at the American people who are obviously, in general, NOT LAZY.
"You're lazy! That's why you're having problems!" That's the voice of the oppressor. Fuck that guy.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKgM68MzXpg]
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Please expand.
Who was this Boomer and how do you know they're a Boomer?
It is printed on our foreheads.
It is a sign that says, "Never trust anyone over
30405060uh never mind."We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle
If there is no struggle there is no progress.--Frederick Douglass
I'm a Boomer.
But I really have no idea who's a Millennial and who's a Gen-Xer and I certainly have no opinion as to their laziness or lack thereof. This kind of reminds me of the recent effort to characterize Boomers as namby-pamby layabouts who had everything handed to them by their hard-working WW2-gen parents. Somehow, I missed out on the largesse.
As WindDancer13 said, it's all part of divide and conquer.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
Don't let the bastards get you down, Aspie!
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
What generation are you?
Gen X here, and things suck for us too.
It's true that the boomers on this site tend to be a hell of a lot more awake and enlightened than your general run-of-the-mill member of their generation. What I see is that a lot of boomers I meet in my life--I'm not talking about caucusers here-- simply don't understand, or can't understand, or won't understand, the apocalyptic and fundamental nature of the changes that have been made to our world. Particularly economically. They seem to be mentally inhabiting a time no later than, perhaps, 1996.
That includes some people I respect, and some people I love, that just aren't seeing the reality I inhabit. Maybe they can't bear to. I guess I wouldn't entirely blame them for that.
But my quintessential moment for this was when I was marching against the Keystone XL Pipeline, and a boomer walking next to me said "There's only 50K people here? Why can't you younger people organize a real movement of millions? We were able to do that in the 60s and 70s, and we didn't even have the Internet?"
Not wanting to punch a fellow traveler in the mouth at that juncture, and reeling inwardly at the task of explaining to the Former Hippie the cultural blitzkrieg that had been rained down on my and my generation's heads since I was about twelve, I said, "Well, a lot of people don't have enough money to travel now, since the crash, and that makes big centralized marches difficult, because people can't afford to travel."
He gave me a big grin and said "Hippies don't have any money, MAN!"
I think I quietly burst one or two blood vessels in my successful effort not to punch him that time.
To give him his due, questioning the importance of money is a serious business, and should absolutely be done. But it shouldn't be done like that.
My mom, god bless her, when I told her this story of the guy saying "Why don't you start a movement of millions?--said, simply, "Why don't you?"
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Born in '84 here, so Millennial.
And the main thing I tend to deal with here is disabilities and disability advocacy. It barely had a pulse before but now it's invisible, especially as far as employment is concerned. And that is something that's nearly impossible to explain to those who don't live it.
Right now I'm trying to mount my case for Social Security again because with the way the current job market is, I can't get a job let alone keep one with my physical and neurological problems. Luckily I have a starting point on what I need to get before I even go for it.
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
My partner is on Soc Sec disability
And just got $600/mo cut from her ordinary retirement benefits. They said they'd been overpaying her. Also said she owed them 15K.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
We had to send back a bit recently.
Seems Soc Sec makes mistakes (same-old "overpaying her" here as well) and we are expected to correct their balance sheet on their time schedule. Fortunately, for us, I am always a bit cynical and managed to do a bit of slight of hand with the books and squeak by this time.
I expect someday someone will say I have overstayed my time on Earth and I owe them time and a half in return, sigh.
Not entirely truthful this:
We didn't have a movement of millions, it just seemed like it at times, particularly for a certain subset of my cohort. The reality is that not much is different between then and now. You-all are doing just fine compared to us. Oh, and I would have punched him (you are a much better person than I).
Thank you--that's really kind of you.
Looking back at some of the footage, it looks like you all had massive crowds, much more massive than we had except for the Iraq War protest and Occupy.
The thing is, the guy's question would have been a good one, if he hadn't been such an asshole. He framed it in an asshole way: why isn't YOUR GENERATION up to snufff???? Instead of asking, perhaps, why or how conditions have been changed so that large-scale movements are, ahem, discouraged in this culture. The truth is, and this has been found by a journalist going through the Reagan library's documents, that the Reagan/Bush administration was worried about the so-called "Vietnamization" of America, by which they meant they didn't like large, left-wing movements marching around in the streets. So, round about 1983, the CIA said to them, "You know, we can help with that. We've got things we've done in foreign countries, they work pretty well--why don't you let us try them here?"
They actually had a guy to be the official liaison between the Reagan administration and the CIA on that project. Like, a guy with an actual OMB line and a paycheck and an office and a lamp. Right out in the open, as the liaison between the White House and the CIA on a project of directing the American people's political opinions into safer channels, and disrupting protest movements.
So from the time I was 15, there has been a concerted effort on the part of the government to make large-scale leftwing movements harder to create and maintain. Because they didn't like what happened in the 60s and 70s, even though they essentially won.
I guess winning by shooting leader after leader was too blatant for their tastes.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I was in Eastern Oregon.
This was not a communist stronghold if you know what I mean. In fact there was only one anti-war fellow ever arrested and carried (literally) out of a campus building at Eastern Oregon College . . . ever. So, to say we had large marches and such is an artifact of the reality that TV coverage never got to my neck of the woods.
There was much action and excitement, but that was confined to the front of the cameras in select locations. So, "Don't trust anyone over 30.", Jack Weinberg. Besides that you seem to have a functioning brain:
There are always going to be people blaming the victims.
It's not a generational thing. Most people who aren't well off today understand why we aren't well off. And it's sure not for lack of working.
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