The Generation Gap on DU is real

[Hekate]

68. Okay, if you say so. When DU was founded, I recall a group of experienced resisters...

With the installation of BushCheney into the presidency by the SCOTUS, we were facing a national crisis. When 9-11 occurred, the crisis ratcheted up, as the PNAC crew took advantage of the opportunity to ram us into an oil war.

A lot of us were in what I think of as robust middle age at the time. There were some very young people here as well, and iirc they were welcomed and we shared what we knew about resisting fascism in these times. We brought a ton of experience to the table.

But you know what happens when you add a quarter-century to the young? They become middle aged, and have the concerns of the middle aged. And what happens when you add those same years to the middle aged? They become old and have the concerns of the old — like illness and death.

It doesn’t mean we have forgotten about the world and the country, about the environment and democracy. Where have you ever gotten that idea? We talk about these things all the time, and all of us are politically active to one degree or another to this very day, as we have been all our lives.

By all means bring in a coterie of high school and college age kids. We don’t bite, but we also don’t handle people with kid gloves in a serious debate. We have our TOS and don’t tolerate the trollery that goes on in a lot of places on the internet — I mean the misogyny and racism and anti-semitism that are so popular elsewhere will get called out.

If they want a special forum to talk about issues they think only they comprehend, I’m sure that can be accommodated under the usual DU rules.

As for calling young climate activists terrorists, I guess it depends on what they choose to do. Destroying priceless works of art to make a statement is as stupid when a white European or American kid does it as when Isis and the Taliban do it. Mm?