4th of July 2019
I Did Know
I did know — during all of these many years since the end of the Cold War — that the problems plaguing America today began at least back then, if not sooner. Many were the testy talks I engaged in with moms of Millennials, the adult children who now comprise the fastest-expanding demographic age group in America. Today, I read that the bracket extends from 23 to 38 years of age. Just as was the case with the Boomers, it will soon be possible to be a Millennial and a child of a Millennial!
The pressure-to-conform by the Group of the Boomers, to work that job, put the kid in daycare, to buy the clothes to dress for success (that never really came) and to make that mark (that was ultimately erased) has been transferred almost seamlessly to the Latest Generation:
Stay in university, at least 8 years, preferably 10, and get at least the Master’s, hopefully 2 PhDs, cause there’s not a decent job in sight, but We can’t talk about it! Cause, well, then the truth would be known.
Well, during the 2000s I did know the truth and I was, as the priceless Anne Widdecombe says, fed up to my back teeth with it. I didn’t fancy being the skunk at the picnic, but the very people who ought to have known better — hard-working, law-abiding, patriotic souls — they fought with me almost tooth-and-nail about a world-view of America that, for me, was flat-out wrong where they were concerned and dead-on right where I was concerned.
In the end, they reluctantly said that I’d had a point. The country was in a fix because of the way that people wanted illusions at any cost. Didn’t matter what the illusion was, it had to be chased. With a lot of money too. Money that bankrupted the next generations.
And now I see the same sort of dishonest pimping of opinions in nascent news industries, aggregators that pitch their agendas sprinkled with data and factoids from Zillow or the Chamber of Commerce or Government handouts.
Lazy as the day is long, the “Information Age” is a big-turn-off for me, and it long has been. It’s truly a Mis-information Age. And it’s a worldwide phenomenon!
In 2015, I was cautiously asked by a friend in Northamptonshire, UK about who I thought would win the upcoming general election. The situation was, to put it mildly, a bit concerning. This woman told me about Prime Minister Cameron in an interview, slicing carrots. My first thought was: The carrots are cooked.
Which in French means: You’re done.
I said she need not worry, all would come right.
The fight had yet to begin.
And the fight for freedom has indeed begun over there in John Bull.
The fight has also begun for personal independence within that latest press piñata, the Non-Snowflake Millennials. Mark my words:
Once they get past the extreme risk-aversion, those individuals will turn out to be one of the most savvy and shrewd assortment of mavericks ever misjudged, misrepresented and miscast. According to the silly but strident definitions of the obsessively-observed Millennials, I can tell you my father was a Millennial, and he was born in 1905! So I’m a child of a Millennial!
I did know oh many truths that I could not state openly because the truth can be so unpopular amongst the truth-sayers. Maybe the Millennials will fix that ages-old problem too, although I kinda doubt it. They don’t pay attention to the Newsies, the Pollsters and the Politicians. And with a few great exceptions for a few great individuals, I don’t either.
Celebrate independence as if your live depends on it. Here in California, your smelly grody hairstyle is safe, but not much else. Or, in the immortal words of the timeless Ronald Reagan:
“Socialism only works in two places: Heaven where they don't need it and hell where they already have it.”
