Subject: My last post regarding 13th Gen issues......
From: Andrew Kennis (kennis@math.grin.edu)
Date: Fri Mar 07 1997 - 19:16:27 GMT
Hello all,
For those who hate my politics and my Salinger slants, you can all be
happy to know that I, once again, will not be posting for awhile. It's
Disco weekend at Grinnell College and that means Salinger and bananafish
will have to take a back seat for awhile. Next weekend is Spring Break
and that means going home to South Florida, visiting friends and my sis
at Earlham College, and finally taking a trip out to the inner city of
Cleveland to meet with some activists about urban issues. I'll be
surprised if my 7 year old 100,000 mile car does not die on me in the
middle of nowhere, probably.
Just to warn ya, the post that follows is a mammoth one. However, this
topic is really up my alley and deserving of a full reply, I thought, at
least.
And, oh yes, for those who hate me, just delete me right now and do not
allow yourself to spend your time on me. My intentions are never to waste
people's time they are only to address things to those who are
interested. And, judging by the amount of replys on this topic, I thought
there was much interest.
ByeBye all. :-)
On Fri, 7 Mar 1997, Lisa M. Rabey wrote:
> I know that many bananafishers are probably getting a little tired of this
> thread, but, I couldn't help putting my two cents in. Sorry :)
>
>
No need to apologize Lisa, your reactionary reasoning and unsupported
claims are always welcome on this list. :-)
> > On Fri, 7 Mar 1997, Andrew Kennis wrote:
> >
> > > 20% of our generation is in poverty. We receive the least amount of
> > > funding from the public sector out of all generations.
>
> This is incorrect. First off, taxes are a 'public sector'. (if I am wrong,
> then do correct me).
Um, no. Taxes are only one funding source, albeit a significant one, of
the public sector. There are many other funding sources for the public
sector. Like what, you ask? Well, bus fees, subway fees, lotto revenues,
speeding ticket revenues, there's a ton of 'em. Some of those that I just
listed were small sources and some big ones. Most of them though, of
course, are expenses that are rarely noted, and also are ones that fall
on the backs of the poor.
> Now, more then ever, it is much easier to get on welfare and stay on
> welfare.
>
Wrong again, Lisa. Now, it is harder than ever to receive the support
that our shreaded safety net is supposed to provide. Were you around when
President Clinton and the extremist Congress teamed up to end the 60 year
committment to keep innocent children from starving in the streets? I
sure as hell was. In fact, I was protesting on the White House lawn
against that crap. It's funny though, the reason why they passed that
legislation was purely political and aimed at getting people like you to
not think of the government as a source of hand outs anymore. Apparently,
not even the most political and cruel legislation against kids can
achieve this, as people like you still perpetuate false notions
concerning welfare.
> I know many welfare recievers who make more per month with
> their checks and their foodstamps then I do. Plus with the rent
> allotication (In some instances, Welfare will pay for your rent and
> utils), it is also easier for them to afford to live and exist.
>
Yes, yes, yes, every single reactionary and well off person I know who
rails on welfare recipients claims to have this personal experience which
they like to think as some sort of revelation. The strangest thing about
this argument, is that even if one accepts your false terms, it is still
very easy to show how utterly innane your final analysis is. If people
are opting for welfare money, instead of getting minimum wage jobs (the
jobs that people like you so often complain that the welfare recipients
should take, i.e. "work at McDonald's or something, they're hiring!"),
then why do you conclude we should cut welfare? What about raising the
incentives to work? You think that people who do not want jobs that do
not provide living wages are going to suddenly spring for them with
welfare cuts? I certainly don't. And if they do, they are going to have
to find some other way to supplement those incomes, because they are not
enough to live on for one person (*especially* in urban locations), let
alone enough for single mothers with kids. I can only imagine what other
ways they might look for to supplement their income. Will they work 24/7
basically, to make ends meet, with their kids growing up with no parents
and resultingly turning to a life of crime? Will they opt for illegal
ways to survive...like drugs or prostitution that could get them in jail
costing you much more money than welfare does? All of the scenarios are
weak. And this is *still* assuming there is a bountiful amount of jobs
out there, as you seem to do, that welfare recipients are turning down. I
think much more sensible solutions involve raising the minimum wage, to a
living one....getting more job training, education, and child care to
help these people get a job. What is it that you are really concerned
about, Lisa? Are you really concerned for these people's well beings? Or,
do you want to save a few bucks on your tax payments (which, by the way,
will *not* be achieved by cutting welfare....maybe corporate welfare, but
*not* AFDC and the like)...?
To me, with your line of reasoning, it would insinuate that you care little
about these people or their blameless, innocent children. Perhaps you
think they are a bunch of lazy bums. Perhaps you think their children
deserve a life of destitution. Perhaps you think it's ok for children to
not have child care or a parent at home and do not care what effect this
will have on them.
If you don't have a clue about my reasoning here, maybe an essay I wrote
on my web page could help clear it up for ya.
It's at http://www.math.grin.edu/~kennis/Political
I'll tell you what Lisa, I care. I sure as hell wish you cared about
these people too.
> With college its the same thing. Just about anybody, can get a loan,
> and if you are independent or over the age of 24, you are allotocated
> more monies to live off on.
>
Beautiful. I heard this same crap at the Heritage Foundation last summer.
I couldn't believe what I was hearing.........actual, serious comparisons
of welfare to student loans. What did they call it? They called student
loans and financial aid, welfare. They could see no reason why lazy Gen
X'ers couldn't simply get a minimum wage job and fund their own way
through college. Do you subscribe to this notion too, Lisa? Do you think
that the one of the few industrialized Democracies that charges
inordinate costs for higher education, should now cut student loans and
financial aid on the basis that it is uneeded "wellfare" (yes, they love
th is term) for lazy young people? How disgusting. How utterly
disgusting. And how reactionary.
The truth of the matter is, the youth are the future of this nation. If
you have any interest in succeeding in the new global marketplace, where
dog eats dog, you are going to have to *enlarge* the opportunities for
higher education, *not* decrease them. Perhaps not everybody is as rich
as you (if you are...seems like you are, with your utter lack of
compassion for the poor) and other rich peoples and have to resort to
loans and financial aid to get an education. This does not make them lazy
or stupid. This just means they do not have as rich as parents as you and
even if they did get jobs....it means that a pathetic non-living wage on
a part time basis is simply not enough to pay for college.
> BUT! The catchall here is that because of how simple it is to get: credit
> cards loans, its no wonder we are in debt! Its incredibley easy to rack up
> the bills, but even though we are making better money now, no way to pay it
> off. Its a vicious cycle. Especially for those who are in college and are
> lured by all the lovely deals that the credit companies give.
>
Er, sure Lisa, the government is in debt because credit card companies
are taking advantage of stupid and lazy college students, not because or
irresponsible appropriations by politicians who could give a damn about
the 13th generation inheriting their mess.
Seriously, I do agree with your claims that credit card companies are
ruthless and exploit college students, but I certainly do not agree with
the claim that our age group is richer now than 10 years before. I would
take the time to prove you wrong quickly by checking some sources out,
but you made the claim, so I challenge you to substantiate this with some
evidence and some sound sources.
>
> Its common knowldege that we won't have, or barely have, social security
> when we reach 65. But, again, with our lives being extended, it is
> prodicted that when 'me' (Being all of 24) hits 65, i will actually have to
> wait til i am 70 to retire. My brother, who is 17, will have to wait til he
> is 72 to retire.
>
The retirement age has not been raised yet, Lisa. There has been
consideration of taking up this initiative, but it hasn't been done yet
and you shouldn't assume that it is inevitable. Neither should you assume
that social security disappearing will be inevitable (though, if it's
privatized and our future is sold to Wall Street, who has no interest in
providing for us and only is concerned with making a profit of us, you
can bet it will not be there.
Believe it or not, with a few simple, albeit courageous, reforms we can
save social security quite easily. I go into specifics on my web page, if you
are curious to see it...it's @ http://www.math.grin.edu/~kennis/Political
> But, the plus side of this, is that we are no longer 'stuck' in staying in
> at one place anymore. With the advent of technology, its now possible to
> change careers to whatever the current market trend is. If someone is not
> multi-faceted enough to do this that is their own job suicide.
>
Uhhh, no, this isn't totally unsubstantiated or anything. Where do you
get the impression that transportation costs are down? Where do you get
the impression that they are more accessible to the general public? I can
tell you with certainty, air travel is not cheap nor cheaper than days
past.
As far as your changing careers thing goes....yes, more people are
changing careers, but it's not by choice Lisa. Because of changing
technology, job security is practically non-existent and it is that
people are getting *forced* out of fields and jobs, not that people are
willingly and enjoyable bouncing around from job to job.
> >> Four companies, Time Warner, Westinghouse, Disney/CAP Cities, and GE own
> >> basically the whole entertainment front (well over 70% of the market).
> >> The environment continues to sour.
>
> This is speculation. Where are your resources for this?
>
Where are my resources? I'm going to assume you meant *sources* on this
one. For, if you didn't mean sources and meant resources, I have no idea
what the hell you are talking about.
Now, you ask for sources...........which really is no problem for me. I
will always provide anybody, with a very precise and clear citation where
one is asked for. It's fine with me if you don't trust me and think that
I'm pulling numbers out of my ass. First, I'll cite the company ownership
of our media and then I'll cite the poverty stats that someone else
called into question, I think.
A very telling pullout chart is included within the latest issue of the
magazine "The Nation" (March 17, 1997 edition, not sure it's out on the
newstands yet, but subscribers have it) and also within an issue
published about a year before the one I just listed. That one also
elucidates how very few corporations own a huge bulk of our media.
Here are several sources on poverty stats......
Children in Poverty, averaged between 1979-1982:
Sweden 5%
West Germany 8%
Canada 10%
United Kingdom 11%
United States 17%
Source: Luxembourg Income study using the official U.S. census definition
of cash-income "poverty".
And, for a comparison of the % of the elderly and children within this
country exclusively, that is more recent, check this out:
Official Poverty Rates for Children (under Age 18) and the Elderly (Over
Age 65) from 1980 to 1990:
1980 1985 1990
Elderly 15% 10% 6%
Children 17% 21% 22%
I *think* the elderly are now well under 6 percent and are even hovering
around less than 1, I may be wrong though. I am sure though, that
children, once again in the 13th Generation, are still around the 20
percent mark.
> And the enviroment has continued to imporve with all the recycling that
> ppl are doing to save the earth and with componies and individuals
> becoming more enviromentally aware. A trend? No, not with the ozone,
> more like off to a good start of keep the earth clean.
>
>
Has the environment improved? Yes, a little. Are we still miles behind
where we need to be? Yes, definitely. Is Europe laughing at us and how we
constantly give in to corporate manipulation and false notions about
environmental regulations? Yes, they are. Are they, resultingly, far
ahead of us in environmental protection? Yup.
>
> EH?
>
> There are plenty of job oppurtunties. THe one huge problem I have with -my-
> generation is that its so damn lost. Everythign was force feed to us
> growing up, and with ppl getting out of college, what do they do? Move back
> home with mommy and daddy, whining about how horrible everything is, while
> sitting on their useless degree, not doing anything about improving their
> own life or their own future. That is their own damn fault. No one asked
> them to get a degree in basket weaving now did they?
>
>
Oh I see Lisa, what job you get is totally based on what you got your
degree in. Is that why only one in ten people have a job related to their
major Lisa? As much as you hate to believe it Lisa, the reason why so
many *13'ers* are forced to live with their fucked up parents whom I
assure you, they are not in love with, is because there are no jobs out
there Lisa! Not even for those with graduate degrees, as I noted, there
are more and more unemployed PhD holders with each year. Your assumption
that everybody in our generation is lazy and stupid and how you buy into
the media and elder generational stereotypes of us is sickening.
Downright sickening. The strangest thing about you doing this and Sasha
as well, is that both of you are seemingly 13'ers. This begs the
question.....are you two like, virtuous exceptions to the rule? Do you
think of yourselves this way too? If not, that's a pretty conceited
viewpoint, in my opinion. To me, that's like saying "everybody in my
generation is stupid, and lazy, and whiney, and irrational, and have
basket weaving degrees, and stay home with Mom and Dad all the time to
get a free ride, and get welfare checks, and don't vote, and are just
totally worthless............EXCEPT me, I'm the exception". Mm hmm. Sure
you two are.
> Sasha said:
>
> >Still, you can complain all you want - we've got it comparitively easy.
> >Part of the reason I'm embarrassed to be part of "gen-x" is that we can't
> >possibly be taken seriously as having ever had any real problems when we
> >make arguments like you're making. It is our need to constantly be the
> >victim of society that makes us an interolerable group.
>
> Now I agree with this totally. One thing that has become a trend more then
> anything else, is the fact that by becoming 'victimized', we can rape
> everything for what its worth. I mean, "I can't get into reletionships
> because of (Insert current trend here). I mean, its postively sickening.
> Or, insert something to blame for our weakness of getting off our ass and
> doing something for ourselves. Its so easy to blame everyting on everyone
> else. That alone is a problem right there.
>
>
For the millionth time, where do either of you get the impression that
our generation are just a bunch of whiners? Is it because you think I am?
Am I the prototypical model of my generation? Is that what you are
saying? If so, how do you substantiate this? How did you come to the
conclusion that every 13'er is as "whiney" (as you two constantly like to
call me) as I am? I'm really at a loss to know how you arrive at this
conclusion.
>
> The stock market crashed in '89, but to the extent it was in '29. Plus
> times have changed, and even though there was a incredibley minor
> recession, it was more in the 80's then there was after the actual crash
> itself.
>
>
Incredible minor recession, eh? Incredible for the Eastern airlines
workers who lost their jobs? Incredible for the AT&T workers that lost
their jobs? Incredible for my Mom who lost her job? Incredible for
countless people who lost everything in investments? Incredibly minor for
whom Lisa? You sure it wasn't just incredibly minor to *you*? Ya know, if
that's the case, you should realize that what is true for you, is not at
all true for everybody.
Yes, '89 was not '29. I agree, I agree, I agree. But, it still happened.
It still made millions of people's lives miserable. And even though it
affected less people, it did not affect only a few people. And even
though it affected less people, the government also provided *that much
less* support in the wake of its disaster. As I noted, there was no WPA,
no New Deal, no anything. Nothing. That made it, that much harder,
despite the fact that it might have been an easy ride for you, Lisa.
> >
> >Oh it did? Tell that to my ninety year old grandmother who didn't eat for
> >a week until she and her husband found a dollar on the sidewalk. Your
> >comparison is an insult to those who suffered through the real thing.
>
> Okay, this is like penis envy here. The argument is weak because its like
> our parens telling us how awful it was for them when they went to school
> because they had to walk a gazillion miles to the bus stop. Our argument
> for our children is that we had to deal with modems to get on the net or
> some other nonsense. Times have changed, people have not.
>
>
Er, Lisa? Did you know that only 15% of this country owns a personal
computer at their home? Sorry to bring the international perspective, but
as Noam Chomsky noted, half the world has not even made a telephone call.
Of course, I cannot be certain at all why you have these notions, but I
cannot avoid suspecting that your world was very different from the world
I know..........perhaps you grew up in a sheltered suburb or anything? I
mean, if that's the case, I can totally see why you're saying what you
are saying. Sure, life is easy for *them*. Sure, they only gripe about
*modem problems*. Sure, they didn't get hurt by the crash in '89. Sure,
they could afford to scapegoat welfare mothers and immigrants, after all,
according to their false notions, welfare cuts are cuts in their tax
payments, right? Ya, definitely right. Sure, I could see what you are
saying from *that* vantage point.
BUT, for the working people of America, for the impoverished in the inner
city, for the rural farmers getting pushed aside by agri-business, for
the the *rest of America* Lisa, times are not easy. And that is not
whining, that's a reality check.
>
> Erm, wrong. KKK and Nazi affiliated groups are everywhere. There was just a
> ralley held last year at our state captiol (Lansing). And anyone that is
> racist, sexist, ignorant of human kindness is threat, no matter how you
> dress it up. Again, its penis envy. SHouldn't matter how or what is going
> on, if its wrong, it shouldn't be tolerated, and that does include sexism
> and racism in ANY Form.
>
Whoa, the one non-reactionary viewpoint in your post. What a pleasant
surprise. I'm curious though, do you support affirmative action to
prevent discrimination in the work place? Do you support multi-cultural
education? Do you support gender balanced classrooms (check out Frances
Maher for her feminist pedagogy prescriptions, for the classroom if ya
aren't familiar with this)? I hope ya do. If so, it's another pleasant
surprise. :-)
> > >
> > > You're right, we aren't. We have the lowest turnout rate among all
> > > industrialized Democracies in the whole world.
>
> Voter registration for 18-24yos was up something like 48% for the last
> presidental election. MTV with their rock the vote campign helped spurn the
> '13-rs' to getting off their ass and registering.
>
:sigh: I'll just repeat the quote again Lisa.
Disgust is not apathy.
When your generation is getting as beat up and as neglected as ours (10
million children without health care, 20 percent in poverty), you tend to
get a wee big discouraged and disenfranchised with "the system".
>
> I don't think going to the Secratary of State office (as it is in michigan)
> and filling out a card is 'cumbersome'. We do not have only 'two' viable
> choices, there is a write in on every ticket, I have been in and out of the
> election booth within 15 minutes .
>
> I don't think that is the problem.
>
Once again Lisa, maybe it's not a problem for you. Maybe it's not a
problem for you, who maybe has a car or a means of getting there. Maybe
it's not a problem for you or others, who have the financial security to
take a day off of work (or even the ability to take any days off when
they want to, many people cannot choose) to get there during regular
office hours. Maybe it's not a problem for you, because you know where
voter registration is because you have two parents with college degrees
or went to college, or had more educational opportunities in some way.
Now, once again, I don't know if you've had these blessings. But, it's
important to note that if you did, it certainly is a blessing to have
them. Why? Because few people do Lisa. As much as the corporate media
would and everybody else would like you to believe that everybody is rich
and prosperous and socially mobile, the truth is, few are. It's time you
learned the truth Lisa and stop allowing yourself to be brainwashed by
reactionary beliefs and notions.
> Getting people to shut up or put up is the problem.
>
Once again, the conceited argument comes through. Yup, everybody in our
generation is whiney, except you. Everybody is not putting up in our
generation, except you. All those welfare mothers, their innocent and
blameless children, those without health insurance, innocent children
who live in impoverished, drug ridden, and run down inner cities, those
who live in rural towns who's small businesses have been put under by
Wal-Mart, those who are *not* so fortunate to live in posh suburbs, and
yes, even unemployed young colege grads.....................all these
people should put up and stop whining and be more like you, the
industrious and rational type, right? Right?
Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
I'm sorry Lisa, but your views stink of snobbism.
--AK
-
To remove yourself from the bananafish list, send the command:
unsubscribe bananafish
in the body of a message to "Majordomo@mass-usr.com".
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Mon Oct 09 2000 - 14:59:59 GMT