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Our Generation Has Failed

 
dschis1000
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07/18/2010 05:34 PM
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Our Generation Has Failed
For those of us in positions of symbolic or actual control, those of us in our fifties and sixties, the truth dawns upon us that we have collectively failed to take advantage of what we inherited, namely a welfare system which provided public services, and that what we leave to our children is a shambles, a deteriorating downward spiral of abject misery for your average twenty-one-year-old with no job prospects, no chance of buying a house, no future and no life. We created the generation of 500 dollars.

I use the expression “500 dollars” trying to cover all continents, aware of the fact that while this would be regarded as a fortune in some developing countries, it is a pittance in the USA and the more developed EU countries, yet it is a growing reality everywhere as the house of cards of the monetarist capitalist market-based virtual economic Paradise comes crashing down round our ears, taking with it those public services we grew up with and came to rely upon.

Along with this utter Nirvana fuelled by Milton Friedman, Margaret Thatcher et alia, if not aliens, came management clichés such as outsourcing, downsizing, investment through layoff, privatisation. The bottom line they spell out is misery.

The Socialist system created in and exported by the Soviet Union from the 1920s to the 1990s saw generations of Africans, Latin Americans, Europeans and Asians enjoy excellent public services, free and universal education of a high quality, cutting-edge technology, industrial development, social mobility, the right to a job and full employment, the right to a house and public utilities for free or for a nominal fixed charge, public transportation, indexed pensions, low prices, subsidised energy costs, cultural activities, access to sports amenities and the sharing of resources among the recipients of the internationalised experiment.

Angolans enjoyed educational standards equal or superior to their Portuguese counterparts, Nigerians had dental care coverage, Cuba set up its excellent healthcare and education systems, while Fidel Castro survived almost 700 assassination attempts by the CIA and friends, students from around the world studied in Moscow, for free.

Even on the other side of the Iron Curtain, where people were saying this system was so bad, there was a reasonable welfare state providing public services: universal education, free; universal healthcare, free, including dental care; decent social subsidies; municipal housing.

Then came one fine day in the 1980s when a collective wave of lunacy swept across the planet from West to East, countering each and every cultural flow which had preceded, traveling in the opposite direction. This wave was the first ripple of what was to develop into the European Union, that anti-democratic multi-national clique of Eurocrats which serves to create jobs for the boys and destroy the lives of the citizens of country after country after country. Brussels now decides whether you get your pension, Brussels ultimately dictates how much your Government will spend on healthcare.


True, the Socialist model was wide open after decades of a constant media barrage, assassination attempts, subversion, piracy, terrorism and trillions of dollars spent by a capitalist model controlled by cliques of invisibles behind the scenes, for whom the Socialist model was a threat. Suppose for example, universal energy resources became available for free?

How much does an American household spend on energy today? How much did a Soviet household spend back then? Do the math and there’s your answer. Then guess who loses out. Analyse access to healthcare in the USA today and compare it with Cuba’s system. And make your analysis. Ditto education.

The Socialist system also had not introduced such stringent quality control measures as capitalist production units had done, it had not introduced vectors which rewarded human endeavour on a scale wide enough to create a collective will towards creating personal mobility, since the State had garnered the niche of collective social mobility. It was enough for many to sit back and receive, which catered for basic personal needs, such as housing, food, and the items mentioned above.

Now comes the question: what has our generation done? On both sides of the Iron Curtain, we inherited welfare systems which grew out of the ashes of the Great Patriotic War/Second World War. We enjoyed them. We had our teeth treated for free, we were given education grants to study, we received unemployment benefit when we were out of work.

[link to 5magazine.wordpress.com]

Last Edited by Phennommennonn on 10/23/2011 02:28 PM
Anonymous Coward
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07/18/2010 05:37 PM
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Re: Our Generation Has Failed
everyone played a part in fucking this ship up. even my generation, the son of the baby boomers in my late 20's.

just one fuck up after another with hints of brilliance, outweighed by the fuckups.
Anonymous Coward
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07/18/2010 05:39 PM
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Re: Our Generation Has Failed
Maybe your generation did screw up, but people from my generation? Most of them won't even be able to understand half of the words in your post and would rather yell at you because your post is too long and confused them than actually even think about what you said.

So be lucky, maybe your generation was...frivolous and selfish. But my generation? Complete fuckwads without a single saving grace.
Anonymous Coward
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07/18/2010 05:45 PM
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Re: Our Generation Has Failed
Don't you just wish you could wave a hand, say "Nevermind" and we'd just re-boot the economy?

We get style points for managing to avoid a Nuclear Holocaust for the past 60 years! Hope the kids do the same.
Epic Beard Guy

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07/18/2010 07:23 PM
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Re: Our Generation Has Failed
The biggest fuck up was the socialist experiment that made people think that the government owed them something. Nobody owes a lazy asshole anything except the opportunity to better himself. What you do with that opportunity is up to you. If you choose to do nothing, then do it on your own, we do not owe you a living. Welfare states are not sustainable.
You Can't Multiply Wealth by Dividing It
Dec-15-2009
"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it." - Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931
militia
Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.
"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards." -- Claire Wolfe
Anonymous Coward
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10/23/2011 12:56 PM
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Re: Our Generation Has Failed
bumphf
Edge

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10/23/2011 01:02 PM
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Re: Our Generation Has Failed
Both of my parents are part of that generation. They were spoiled rotten. 5 cent pound chocolate bars!!!! >:|
Seer777
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10/23/2011 01:28 PM

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Re: Our Generation Has Failed
bump for later reading.
Difficulties strengthen the Mind as labor does the body...
~Seneca
Anonymous Coward
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10/23/2011 01:29 PM
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Re: Our Generation Has Failed
bump for later reading.
 Quoting: Seer777


jerkit
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10/23/2011 02:00 PM
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Re: Our Generation Has Failed
They all bowed down like cowards. That is what happend to those generations. Even the misguided protestors in the sixties ended up taking salary jobs at the corps. The educational misguided became the college professors of the last twenty years. All eating from the same troph they protested against in the end.

The depression era like my grandparents had a little more sack, but there own downfalls. They were too stuck in "dont bite the hand that feeds you" and bowed down in their own way. Albeit they knew much more survival and commonsense than the later generations as having lived with little and from that period of time.

But the newer generations failures will actually be their own benefit. As they cant offer the system anything and even any allegiance is too little to late. And the system has little to offer them. The misguided newer generations (im from x) look at it all with a blank stare. Clearly we lack the skills to actually add anything to the system at this point good or bad, and are just along for the ride. But this is the first stage of separation from the system. understanding the system isn't you. It is the stage of separation of wallstreet and main street. The opposite of the "dont bite the hand that feeds you" of yesteryear . The y and z generations misguided in their own ways with the entitlement mindset. They have no rainbows to look forward too though.

And as misguided as they are, there failures again work toward the correction. As there entitlement mindset only adds to the lack of ethics of the previous few generations topping the latch key kids and corporate sellouts with the icing on the cake or the last nail in the coffin.





GLP