Low on hope, but they'll still vote (youth)

[ursi]

Source: L.A. Times

ALBUQUERQUE -- College senior Brian Schreiber works as a janitor until 1 a.m. most nights, cleaning day-care centers so he can send home money to pay his father's hospital bills.

He's 21 years old and $22,000 in debt from his studies at the University of New Mexico. His father, an environmental chemist, is bankrupt because his insurance didn't cover a recent surgery. His mother teaches high school students who can barely read.

"I look at the country and think, 'Wow. The government really doesn't care,' " Schreiber said, sounding more defeated than angry.

As voters in 24 states go to the polls today, many express a deep pessimism about America's future. A Gallup poll last month found 73% of adults were dissatisfied with the state of the nation. A recent Associated Press-Yahoo News poll reported that 44% of Americans expected no real changes in Washington, no matter who's elected.


Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-youth5feb05,0,5035991.story

---

"I can only think of bad things when I think of the government," said Joseph Colbert, 19, a biochemistry major. "Lazy comes to mind."

This is the legacy of boomers ...and we still don't have it right. How many chances do we get?

[SpiralHawk]

1. "The governement doesn't really care..." - Thanks a pantload, republicons

you have trashed America, and crushed the hopes of the younger generations.

Shame on the failed, defeatist, elitist republicon homelanders & cronies...

[aquart]

2. You left out terrorizing and fearmongering.

[WillParkinson]

4. When was the last time Democrats made promises...

And then didn't keep them? Oh, yes, the last election cycle.

Very few government officials are worth their weight. Very few promise things and then follow through on it. True, Republicans are far worse at it than Democrats, but Democrats are just as responsible. Having a majority and then not being able to push through the legislation they promised? Sad and reprehensible.

All politicians make grand claims. And just as quickly seem to forget them when elected. And the cycle continues. Why? Because people are foolish enough to believe them. Over and over again. They talk about how angry they are at the politicians. And then continue to elect them into office.

We get the government we deserve. There is little disputing that.

[AndyTiedye]

8. We Deserve Better Than This. We Don't Know How To Get It Anymore

We have tried everything that USED TO work, but nothing works anymore.

To say that the Democrats are "just as responsible" is absurd.
Have you forgotten the Repiglickin' filibuster of each and every bill we propose?
Perhaps so, because there is no mention of the Roadblock Repiglickins in the media, ever.

[WillParkinson]

9. That's the problem...

We've tried things that USED to work.

It's time the Democratic party stepped up and tried NEW things. This isn't our fathers Congress anymore.

And, no, I haven't forgotten the filibusters. I also haven't forgotten that the Democrats haven't been able to gather the courage to work together to get things done. They're divided on many things. They're doing things that the average American really doesn't care about.

While impeaching Bush would be a grand and glorious thing, it doesn't put food on their tables or money in their pockets. Bush is a horrid suck of a president (complete with the *, of course) but he's going to be out of office in 9 months. Why waste time dwelling on committees and reports that get you nowhere fast and start working on something that will benefit your constituents? Impeaching Bush is frosting. The people need some cake.

[AndyTiedye]

11. What Sort of New Things?

Somehow it always comes down to compromising even more than we already are.

Who gets thrown under the bus as the cost of "working together" with those who will not work with us?

[RadioactiveCarrot]

6. It's really easy to blame just the republicans.

As a 20 year old, I came of voting age in 06.
Easily, easily, one of the biggest disappointments was the 2006 'Mandate'.
I went in there, and convinced a handful of other first time voters to do so as well, to vote on the premise that even if we couldn't override the negligent republican majority completely, at least we could put in enough to nullify and prevent most of the harmful legislation from passing.
Impeachment not on the table. Right?
Knowing the other party is corrupt and willing to fight them isn't disheartening at all. Being led around by the nose by promises that "We will fight them" and watching them cave in again...and again...and again is much more disheartening.

I did the same when Kucinich ran in 08, and now with him out the major options between Hillary and Obama you can count me in with that guy in the article. They both talk pretty, but they're in the pockets of the big hitters so nothing will change. Lurking here and watching supporters for either going at eachother's throats when I can't even see any differences between them beyond superficial is hilarious.

It's easy to blame just the republican party, but that just isn't the reality. Enough of our folks went along with them and the Man-Child residing in the White House to make it happen. And then we have to "fall in line" and vote in MORE of the people who will play ball with the Pubbies because the real dem candidates are too polarizing or don't have the funds to get wide exposure? Yeesh.

We will indeed get the government we deserve.

[GOPBasher]

3. "Republicans always say that government doesn't work, and then

they take power, and prove it!" -- Bill Mahar

[1monster]

5. I am so damned sick of this blame the generation before garbage. This is not the legacy of one

generation. It is the legacy of class warfare that has been going on in this country for a very long time. The start of that class warfare probably goes back to the Paleolithic Age, but it started heating up to very high temperatures with the Depression and FDR's programs to lift this country out of it.

Remember, it wasn't the Baby Boomers who gave us Watergate which turned many Boomers off politics for a while. (Many of the figures in today's excesses are Boomers, but they learned their trade at the knees of the corrupt movers and shakers of the Greatest Generation.)

A large plurality of Boomers followed progressive caring leaders like John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Eugene McCarthy, and George McGovern. John, Bobby, and Martin were all murdered and it wasn't Boomers who killed them. McCarthy and McGovern were marginalized by the powers that were and are, who were not Boomers.

Boomers were left with no leaders to follow.

Then came Reagan and his "Morning (or as I spell it "Mouring) in America. Under Nixon, and then Reagan/Bush, the foundations (which began with a Dulles, Atcheson, Hunt, and their ilk), for the faciastic world we now live in were growing strong. Reagan/Bush were not Boomers, although many of their followers were.

I'd like to remind you that the Boomers were not one nice homogonized genereation. They were then, and still are today, deeply divided on just about everything.

Before throwing up another generation gap, consider that division is the tatic of the neocon Republicans. If you can create ill will between the generations of the opposition, then you have effectively nullified much of what they can do. That tactic was used during the Vietnam War to great effect until the parents of the boys being sent over seas woke up to what was happening and marched along side of Boomers.

It was then, and only then, with all generations working together that our elected officials finally felt the pressure and the will of the people.

There are those on DU who have asked where are the young people in protesting the ills and wrongs of this administration. And that is probably as offensive to young people as I find your castigation of the Boomer generation.

The mess we are in now spans generations and it is not a one generation vs another problem. It is a power vs powerless delimma, and it will take all generations working together to solve it.

"This is the legacy of boomers ...and we still don't have it right. How many chances do we get?"

edited for grammar and puncuation

[otherlander]

10. .

:applause:

[Journeyman]

7. How myopic, to lay blame on a single generation. . .

I'm 53 years old, and if the truth be told, I just got here myself. The planet seemed unbelievably screwed up when I arrived -- dead Hitlers and Stalins littered the Earth, McCarthy wouldn't be censured for another month or more, Rachel Carson was only beginning her career --- it couldn't be more surreal if Kafka himself were orchestrating it.

I spent my childhood beneath a school desk hiding from nuclear destruction. As a teenager, I won my only lottery prize -- early induction to fight an asinine war no one believed in anymore. And despite all my best efforts -- and the best efforts of some of the best minds of my generation (those not destroyed by madness, who could do more than Howl) -- it just seems to be getting worse.

For every step forward we stumble three back. Again I face nuclear annihilation, though this time without the comfort of a protective desktop. Now it's my children who face the horror of death by lottery. McCarthyism runs rampant in the halls again, the ecological disaster we face is far beyond anything Carson envisioned, and the ghosts of totalitarianism seem to stir yet again.

Point a finger of blame at another generation? Why, because they arrived a day or more after me? No. It's no one's fault and it's everyone's fault. . . take your fair share of blame. There's enough for all.

[ursi]

12. hey, the boomers introduced the "me" generation and it's impacted everything that followed

[murielm99]

13. You always have to have a simplistic reply to everything.

Actually, most of the yuppies, the "me" generation types, were not the true boomers born right after WWII. They were either the very youngest of the boomers, born in the sixties, or those born immediately after. Older boomers already had established careers and families. We followed the stories of their conspicuous consumption with amusement.

The "me" generation is a term invented by some media type. And you eat it up with your typical need for a simple answer or slogan.

If the boomers did anything wrong, it was to become inactive after we lost our leadership. As the poster upthread mentioned, most of our leadership was marginalized or murdered. I disagree a bit about Watergate. Many of us thought our work was done, except for voting. Remember, the war in Vietnam was over, too. That took a lot of steam out of people who had worked hard on that issue. And we had won more women's rights, with Roe v. Wade, and Title IX. We sat back, built our lives, and did not work hard enough on politics and public events. The republicans, on the other hand, spent the next thirty years building their base and creating think tanks. Many of us did not get back into the fight until late in the Reagan years, or even after the stolen election of 2000.

I have always tried to work to get more of the youth vote out in my precinct and my county. I remember working hard to get the 26th amendment passed, and I am glad that my children had the chance to vote at eighteen. Most of the new people I have registered to vote in the last few months have been 18-21. I am working on more outreach to the students at our area's community college. Our county organization should be working to bring the college Democrats there into more of our activities. I intend to work with the Hispanic and African American communities too, after March, when I think I will be the county chairman.

I am sick and tired of your divisive posts. You support your candidate by using drive-by snark, and dismiss entire groups of people about whom you know almost nothing. Try working with people instead of alienating them. Go get a sense of history.