Have been missing your essays. Over the holidays my family began discussing fake news, etc. and what to do about it. I said that I hadn't seen an essay by Can'tStopTheSignal for days and that it was difficult to go cold turkey -- never got to the substantive point I was making, because my grandchildren thought it so funny that I was reading and commenting on someone with such a handle. They made a book for me for my Christmas present of all of my tweets throughout 2016, so I know they've noticed that I'm paying attention. So, Mr. Can'tStoptheSignal, wise beyond your years, we are probably two generations apart but truly kindred spirits. My head bobs up and down a lot when I read your comments.
I spoke to a group of undergraduates in India about 8 years ago who were full of hope, as the prospects of grabbing the golden ring was dangled before them. I tried to explain to them that those of us who lived through the 60's and 70's in the US had an opportunity to take rising hopes and move them forward, but we failed miserably at doing that. Was trying to get them to ask questions of collective responsibility for India's future, while they avidly expressed their individualistic hopes to seize the real opportunities to "get ahead" as their economy grew. Tried to say that I thought that the economic infrastructure in India was progressing much more rapidly than the development of the political framework necessary for sustaining that growth in a secular democracy -- and preventing it from moving in a rightward direction. A few years later I was resident in Ahmedabad observing Modi's rise. He is the Trump (to the 100th power) of India. During his campaign to assume national leadership, his party actually projected holograms of Modi on stage in peasant neighborhoods to wow them, allowing him to speak 'live' in multiple places at the same time. But Modi made the trains run on time.
Perhaps the opposite has happened here. We have all this massive political bulwark, a superstructure in which people have invested faith that we, as Americans, have safeguards on liberty and democracy. But as the economic base has deteriorated for the 99%, the corruption of that superstructure and undermining of democratic processes has become virtually absolute. I remember always Marx's dictum that revolutions occur at times when hopes and expectations are rising, and I am fearful of how this seizure of economic power by the 1% impacts all meaningful forms of dissent. Yet struggle we must.
Your generation is our hope and you are one of the bright beacons that will help to guide it. Welcome back!