Thursday, September 12, 2013

Stop Whining and Get To Work!



My daughter sent me this piece on Generation Y and why they are so unhappy. I thought it quite accurate and found myself taking full responsibility for encouraging our two girls to follow their dreams. (And maybe of convincing them they are special.) Of course, this was before the banking cartel tanked our economy and the Supreme Court decided to declare corporations people, thus allowing the tidal wave of money lobbyists use to buy support for their clients. This was before unions were busted in order to lower the wages for all workers by people like the Koch brothers.

No, in those days we Baby Boomers had great hope for the future. We followed the rules, worked hard, and saved for our children's educations. We believed in our government and our military to do the right thing for everyone involved. (This was before we realized the CIA and all of the other alphabet agencies had actually been tanking whole countries to ensure their corporate handlers had free access to said countries natural resources - but that is another post.)

The part that got my goat, actually, was all of the comments following the article that wanted to blame Boomers for their bleak economic outlook. Many of the comments actually told us to move on - quit working - retire, already! They need our jobs and believe us to be selfish in holding on when it is clear to them we are to blame for all of their troubles.

So here is my response to them -

Boomers are not working to irritate your generation. We are working because we have to work! Many have lost their homes, their savings, and any hope of being able to pass anything on to the next generation.

Boomers are working because they need health care and can not afford to pay out-of-pocket. One major illness and many of us are on the street.

Boomers are working to help their children, grandchildren, and other family members.

Boomers are working so they don't have to move in with their children!

While my generation has to take responsibility for voting in Clinton, who was the first to ship our jobs overseas and to do away with Glass-Steagall, which opened the door to the banking debacle, we truly believed in the load of garbage they sold us. We may have been perplexed how sending our jobs out of the country could actually help us -  but we still believed in our elected officials knowing more than we did about the world.

Same with Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, et al. We bought all of their lies, even though we were uneasy. Two wars later, we are bankrupt, in debt, and starting to smell a rat...

Not so with Obama. We can now see that the NSA spying on everything we do, warmongering in the Middle East, the NDAA, and the Monsanto Protection Act cannot be considered in our best interest. To say I am disappointed in a president, that I voted for twice, is an understatement. But he hasn't done this alone - Congress has passed every single one of those policies.

This last week made one thing clear, however - nothing will change unless we change it. And quite frankly, it's time for the X and Y generation to turn off their cell phones, take a break from Facebook and Twitter and get involved in the process. The future is in your hands. Call your representatives in Washington, email your President, email your Secretary of State. Start petitions and sign ones that come your way that try to reign in the evil doers that are in control. Boomers can't do it without you. And there is one thing Congress understands - voters willing to make a change in the next election cycle.

All of their numbers are right here.

So, stop whining and get to work!

8 comments:

ellen abbott said...

Hi Nancy. Long time no see. I totally agree with you. Our generation is only doing what anyone does...work to pay bills. I would love to retire but, being self employed and living marginally, my funds would be used up in no time. I'm waiting as long as I can to apply for SS but I will file. Even so, no one can live on that. People can't even live on minimum wage. So our children, who are in their 30s blame us for their problems. Well all I can say is welcome to the club. We think our parents screwed things up. True, we are living longer, able to work longer but they are not 'entitled' to our jobs. And in my case, maybe they need to go out and create a job for themselves. That's what I did. And I followed my dream in the doing. This is an old war between the very rich and everyone else. The pendulum swings and somehow it has swung so far to the right as to finally rouse the populace. We may not see it equalize in our lifetime. I do agree with one thing though. The upcoming generations need to get involved. But until our generation has died off, real change won't be possible.

And it's not just the presidency and the congress. The Supreme Court has also been bought. Until citizens united is overturned, nothing will or can change. Ad if the next generation doesn't get GMOs under control, it may not matter. Humans will lose their viability.

ellen abbott said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Nancy/BLissed-Out Grandma said...

So true. We need to work together across generations to take back our country and our institutions and get them working for instead of against us.

Cloudia said...

This is concise and wise!

Boomers took a Lilly white world and implemented inclusion. We tried to fight the rise of the corporations for decades. The Pres has done tons of good things in the face of debt destruction and rabid racism. Cut him a break, I say. One man cannot save us from ourselves singlehanded.

Send this post to your local paper as a guest column! Excellent!


Aloha

Nancy said...

Ellen - How did all three branches of the government become so corrupted so quick? I do agree that we blamed our parents before us - and we aren't without blame - just not all of the blame. We got "had", too. I do think they will create their own jobs - and be wildly successful at it. They just have to get out there and realize no one is there to do it for them. GMOs are a serious threat. The Monsanto rider is on the docket right now - call your representatives!

Blissed Grandma - It is going to be difficult - but not impossible. But we have to work together. No more partisan politics. It does not matter which party is in power - the results have been the same.

Cloudia - I agree - we did fight the fight. But somewhere along the way we started to believe. I do not look down on what the President has been unable to do because of total uncooperation on the part of the GOP. I hold him responsible for what has been put forward on his watch. NDAA, the bill to allow drones over our cities, Monsanto Protection Act, NSA spying. That can't be blamed on anyone but Obama. He sold himself as a breath of fresh air and we believed him.

CrazyCris said...

I think it is the nature of every generation when they come of age to blame the previous one for the ills of this world... And with the way things blew up in the past decade they've got plenty of fuel to fan the flames!
But it's never black and white, and sitting around whining about a situation never helped to fix it. So yeah. People need to stop complaining and take action, any kind of action! Stop feeling entitled keep trying to get ahead. It's not easy, but if people just sit around on their hands things'll never get any better...

Trish and Rob MacGregor said...

We've become a country ruled by corporations. And the military/ industrial complex has been around for decades, beating the drums. It didn't work this time with Syria, but only because in an era of instantaneous communication, they couldn't quite get away with it.

Nancy said...

Cris - I think you're right. We always blame the previous generation for all the ills of the world. In my day we called them "the establishment." This "establishment" is on steroids. It's going to take everyone to get this group under control.

T&R- Yep. And what is most worrisome to me is all the liberal Democrats calling for blood. It just reinforces my conclusion that it doesn't matter which political party it is - they are taking their orders from someone other than us.