I don’t disagree with your general point, but the idea that we can just vote these systems away is just as much as a distraction that you shouldn’t be falling for, as the generational division.
Modern “democracy” exists to uphold capitalism, and capitalism needs these divisions, along with a desperate working class, to exist. When you agree to only play within the rules they’ve set, you’ve already lost, they’ve made sure of it.
I never said “don’t vote”, what I am saying is - harm reduction is all well and good, but don’t think it will actually change anything fundamental about the status quo, because it won’t, if it did, they wouldn’t let us do it, as the saying goes…
It’s exhausting but we have to do it.
much more worth it then to invest energy and other resources in things that actually will create change, like organising within your community to actively support each other instead of waiting for the system to do it, because it won’t. Building solidarity not only among workers, but within all communities, and from there creating dual power structures (communal food banks and kitchens, child care, hobby clubs, youth clubs, libraries for books but also toys and household items, as well as potentially groups doing direct action and those who support them from the backlines from medics to propagandists, there is something for everyone).
Create the roots for a better way of living, then destroy this one. They are never going to give it up willingly (or “legally”, again, according to the “laws” they write, including those of “democracy”).
What a stupid mentality. If only younger people showed up to vote. Of course elected representatives are representative of their constituencies. Only old people show up to the polls. They are doing their job. Maybe get involved in your local government instead of coming up with this nihilistic attitude about capitalism etc.
Edit: or perhaps keep romanticizing about the Bolshevik revolution that ain’t ever happening in the US and sit on your asses and whine on Lemmy.
Like moneyed interests don’t lobby to get the deck stacked
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/04/upshot/voting-wait-times.html
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/contrib.php?ind=f03&Bkdn=DemRep&cycle=2012
Take a look at that breakdown. It was pretty even in 2020. Then look at the previous years.
Very hard skew toward the minority population party. There was only this correction in 2020 because Trump at the wheel would have tanked the economy.
Yup.
‘Boomers’ is an ageist term at this point. We have to judge people as individuals. Not based on race, age, or generation.
Shifting blame for what a few elites have done over decades and decades, onto an entire generation, is, as you said, a distraction.
Except Boomers, as a whole, swallowed right-wing bullshit and voted again and again for politicians and policies that fucked things over for future generations to come. They enjoyed the post-war economic boom fueled by socialist government policies and then promptly shut the door on their children and grandchildren by killing those same socialist programs. Time and time again, they fell for corrupt conmen, ultimately leading to the election of Trump and a resurgence in fascism.
No, not every boomer voted for right-wing assholes, but virtually every boomer fails to take responsibility for the current economic environment, choosing instead to blame immigrants, minorities, politicians, or China. No wonder Trump appealed to them.
People lose their mind as they get older. But blaming them gets us nowhere.
Boomers also elected Clinton, Obama and Biden.
Yeah, I am more progressive than the average boomer.
But there are also alt-right millenials and Gen Z.
Age based politics is dumb and will never succeed. It really only appeals to a small minority of people.
I’m not going to throw my parents under the bus and neither are most people.
This is the same thing I heard boomers say about the “Greatest” generation, and now I’m hearing the same thing about Gen X and Gen Y, too, though.
Having a “boomer mentality” means they are selfish and follow the “fuck you, I got mine” and “I got everything handed on a silver platter and nothing changed” rhetoric.
It hasn’t been solely used to describe the baby boomers for a long time. I know some Gen Zers with the same mentality.
the boomers who came out of college weren’t making the laws.
But guess who spent the last 50 years voting for the politicians that did make those laws?
Yup, boomers. They, as a generation, overwhelmingly voted for this.
Well said, generational division is pure divide and conquer. Fortune.com isn’t in the business of agitating for class consciousness.
Boomer elites will transfer their money to millennial elites.
These articles are an attempt to create an age based division.
The problem is, it never works. We all have parents and grandparents. Many of us have kids. And we tend to love them, regardless of social, economic or political differences.
Solidarity between generations is extremely solid and very hard to break.
These articles are just weak and failed attempts to sow discord.
vote for people that will help build the middle class up again
The point of the middle class is to split the working class in terms of income and wealth, so they spend their time antagonizing each other and mostly ignoring how the upper class is stealing everything.
We don’t need a middle class; we need a strong working class.
You want a class that’s got more education? Educate the working class. You want a class that’s got more wealth? Enrich the working class. You want a class that’s got the time and inclination to make informed political decisions? Deliver workday/workweek reform for the working class.
I think the middle class and the working class are the same?
Yes, but the corporate media does its best to portray the illusory “middle class” as somehow different from working class or the socalled “lower class”. It’s just more divisive bullshit to try to make the working class fight over crumbs.
Yeah, cuz all the Baby Boomers are/were rich.
Garbage.
GOOD NEWS: YOUR PARENTS ARE GONNA DIE! MAYBE EVEN BEFORE 2030!
Also, that $72 trillion will go to ~72 million millennials completely evenly–about $1M per millennial across the board. We won’t have issues where having rich parents meant you did well yourself, and the proportionately more money you inherit will be extra rather than catchup. Nope, boomer hoarding will all work itself out in the end. We don’t need any government policies to change.
Far and away the greatest wealth transfer was between the poorest half of the world to the wealthiest 1%. This is just noise caused by that statistic. That’s the culprit of that, not some boomer with a vacation home that they’re struggling to manage the payments on.
No war but class war.
What? Boomers with vacation homes likely doubled their net worth in like 2 years. All the houses doubled in value, and they have more than 1. Talk to any real estate agent. The only people buying houses are boomers rn. On the occasion it’s a younger person, they usually have help from their boomer parents or an inheritance from boomers. The scales were already tilted in their favor, and the pandemic response was to lower interest rates and let them buy more of the already scarce housing at unbelievably low rates or refinance their existing mortgage for a lower payment while first time homebuyers got outbid by people with more equity, and larger down payments. (See: boomers). They absolutely gained the most from the pandemic response, and if the high rates ever cause the correction it was designed to do, I won’t feel the least bit bad if they lose their ass and didn’t plan for it / have to go back to work (again).
2 things can be true. Most boomers I know participate in rent seeking to some degree. Corpos buying up housing didn’t help either. Nor did foreign buyers. They also benefited massively from the low covid rates and were outbidding the families those rates were supposed to be helping with. The whole housing market is fucked, and our spineless, property owning politicians aren’t going to do anything about it any time soon.
Boomers will eventually go to a nursing home, hospital, or hospice. The money will dry up from these and if they still have money left over, there is the estate tax. The children looking longingly at the large bags of money the parents have won’t get as much, and some of this captured money will begin to circulate again.
