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Edited on Mon Apr-23-07 01:46 AM by SoCalDem
The brand of conservatism we see these days is just greed, wrapped up in shiny paper and tied up with a big red bow.
Young people, just starting out, see their futures as unlimited, if ONLY they could have a quick and easy ride to the top. What's stopping them?
Everywhere they look, they are told that their generation is the smartest, the sharpest, the best ever, and their horizons are unlimited...and then they enter the job market and find out , like ALL generations before them, that they are just one of many, and nothing in life is easy.
Conservo-babblers are everywhere, and constantly telling them that the reason they are having such a hard time getting ahead is because the deck is stacked against them.
Young people are led to believe that if only they did not have to pay taxes and if only all the poor people were not sucking up THEIR tax dollars, everything would be just fine.
What conservo-babblers don't tell them is this:
Life is a continuum. It's not a sprint. It's a marathon.
People BEFORE you, struggled to provide for you, and the poor people you will never meet, have nothing against you. They are just trying to stay alive and keep a roof over their heads. They are citizens too, and why should they expect less from their country than you do?
Your parents will age, and will need help unless they are among the lucky few. Will you deny them the assistance that they willingly gave to the generation before them (your grandparents)?
Would your parents refuse to take you and your young family in, if you lost your job? Would they expect to be paid? Would you offer?
Conservative "experts" have made fortunes for decades, by trading in the divisive rhetoric that pits group against group, and of course the ones most susceptible are the ones with the least experience at life.
Conservative leaders are linguistic-shamans. they tweak language to make it all sound so logical, so easy. Nothing worth having/doing is easy. Life is complex, and problems rarely have solutions that do not create other problems in their solutions.
Conservatives are flatterers, they build false hopes, they make undeliverable promises. It's easy to see why so many young people, who readily embrace change, can fall into their pit.
The young, attractive "recruiters" they use, would have you all believe that they are just like you, they care about you, and they know the way to success. It's very much like Amway or any other pyramid scheme. The promises are too good to be true, but people still fall under their spell, because they get a little greedy.It's all to gain converts who will vote for the older ones who are in it for the money..and only the money..
Human life is a generational promise we all make to each other. Parents are expected to care for the young,when they are young themselves, and as we age, the burdens shift , until they end up reversed. It's always been that way, and to be a "modern" conservative is to turn one's back on the elderly, the sick, the poor..
They would have you believe that Social Security is a rip off (of YOUR generation), Medicare is even worse, and most people on Medicaid or SSI are scamming "illegals". Well, YOUR parents are in a unique position in a long time. They entered the job market just at the time that the conservatives took aim on unions & pensions, so many of them, after a lifetime of working, will have only what they did not spend on YOU, to live on as they age.
If the trinkets accumulated are worth it, then I suppose there will be those who can claim success at a young age, and who can sneer as they see a "lazy" viet nam vet, begging for pocket change, or an old lady pushing her life's worth in a battered shopping cart.
I suspect that, if things go as they seem to be heading, there will be a lot of rude awakenings ahead for a whole generation of young people who won't know what hit them.
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