Re: 13 Gen'ers<-----the unlucky bunch


Subject: Re: 13 Gen'ers<-----the unlucky bunch
From: Sasha Stone (sstone@primenet.com)
Date: Fri Mar 07 1997 - 11:05:30 GMT


(sorry Bananafishians but I can't let this go just yet)

On Fri, 7 Mar 1997, Nathan wrote:

> 20% of our generation is in poverty. We receive the least amount of
> funding from the public sector out of all generations. We'll be lucky if
> social security is not sold to Wall Street. Savage inequalities reign
> free in every demographic category imaginable. We are children of
> divorce. We are the victims of corporate and worker exploitation, as
> corporate profits go sky high and workers wages stagnate while consumers
> get barraged by the most commercialism oriented state in the world (not
> to mention the lack of product safety, as Ralph Nader can attest). 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. I understand that Vietnam was bad and
> everything, but so is the fact that my generation are predominantly in
> poverty, without health insurance, are without job opportunities, are
> without educational opportunities ('specially in rural/urban localities),
> and are still subjected to an insidiously racist and sexist society.
>
Why do you insist on whining about our present condition? Are we the only
ones *forced* to live in such a society? So you're saying our future
looks bleak, eh. Does it look more bleak than before the Revolution when
we didn't even have basic Freedom of Speech?

> I think Will would even agree with me on the fact that
> undergraduates are facing less and less job opportunities and there are
> more and more unemployed PhD holders. Fuck, even the youth in the elite is
> taking a hit, when compared to the older elites.
>
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.

> Don't tell me my generation has no problems. Don't tell me we have less
> problems. We have more.
>
I didn't say it has no problems - just not more.

> Um, it did, in '89.
>
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.

> Um, Nazis are still alive and well. To believe they aren't, is naive.
>
Oh, yeah - those inbred morons living in Idaho dressing up in sheets and
throwing up one overworked arm now and again, killing black people
occasionally? Well they are scary to be sure but they are not a threat
like the Nazis are a threat. Your comparison is an insult (of epic
proportions and it's sad to see that you don't realize this) to the *six
million jews* (hello? Is anybody home?) who died in the Holocaust.

> You're right, we aren't. We have the lowest turnout rate among all
> industrialized Democracies in the whole world. We also have the most
> cumbersome registration procedures, only have two viable choices in most
> elections, have long ass lines during elections, have elections during
> the middle of the week, and a host of other pathetic vote problems this
> country seems not to care about.
>
This is laughable at best. Now you're comparing long lines to women and
blacks not having the right to vote? Are you out of your mind?
 
> Yes, it's a wonderful thing that hords of African Americans are subjected
> to impoverished third world like conditions and are forced to be slaves
> to elitists like you (i.e. service industry with *non*-living-wages) or are
> thrown in jail for trying to make a living in what is purported to be a
> free society, but really isn't at all.
>
Listen fancy pants, I know you're younger than me so I'm going to try and
be semi-nice about this but I am no elitist. Man, I wish I was sometimes
but I grew up poor. Dirt poor. Welfare poor. 16 year old mother four
children sleeping in a Mission poor. I am still poor. Broke is a better
term for an adult but please don't insult me by asuming because I disagree
with your moronic logic that I am an elitist. Quite the contrary, bub.
If you've lived on the fringe and really had gone to bed hungry a few
nights you would be more grateful just to have a roof over your head - you
wouldn't be whining about long lines and skinheads and no jobs. What are
you going to do? What is our whole stupid generation going to do? Sit in
the corner and whine about what we don't have or actually do something.
Or are we going to come to the conclusion I came to a long time ago - and
that is that life is pretty meaningless in the final analysis. But when
the sun shines and I can feel the wind on my face and the jasmine is
blooming - it is pretty incredible.
>
> Sasha, you might not have it rough, but the rest of the struggling youth
> of America does.. Get out of your hole.
>
You know what? If people like you are leading our country into the future
creatively and otherwise - we are in more trouble than even you could
imagine. You piss me off kid. Because you aren't thinking. Use your
brain. Become something else. Stop watching John Hughes movies.

Sasha

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