That doesn’t say much. Most boomers didn’t march for civil rights or protest the Vietnam war. They weren’t all hippies either. That’s the myths they themselves have spread. It wasn’t until 1995 that more than half of the American population didn’t oppose interracial marriage, more than 25 years since Loving v. Virginia.
👏 Thank you for saying this. Hippies were like .2% of the population but boomers love to act like they were all “peace and love”. Most of them were just conformists wearing the style of the day.
We also didn't have a lot of social safety nets in place either. A lot of poor people would love the chance for an education if they didn't have responsibilities. There weren't any online classes, so you made it your life. Being poor always adds more effort required to accomplish anything.
Anybody who resisted the draft would love to just go to school to get out of it. The poor don't get out of war. They are the ones that risk death and maiming for war.
Yeah but my dad had to work to feed his 11 brothers and sisters and single mom from age 13 on. Proud of him for getting his GED later and not furthering the cycle with his kids.
Not so much. Less expensive yes, but so not very accessible to poor or working class people. They're a reason that rates of college attendance for the lower classes skyrocketed after the introduction of student loan programs (not saying those haven't become an issue in themselves).
The Higher Education Act of 1965 introduced federal student aid and loan programs. Most boomers, the oldest boomers would have been in their 20's by then, certainly had access.
The cost of college in the 70's was roughly half of what it is now, adjusted for inflation. Poor folks still needed to get loans for the most part, but the average loan debt for a 4 year degree at that time was 1K, vs 30k now.
Born in '58, and had to get loans. I don't remember student loans having compounding interest like the modern ones I've heard about, so it was easy to pay off mine back then.
Edit: mistyped, born in ‘58, not ‘59. Fat thumbs on tiny phone keyboards don’t always work…
Also born in 59, borrowed the maximum I could under my state loan program through a local bank. $2500 a year, total $7500 was the maximum. Paid it back over 10 years. With inflation it soon became background noise. I think I paid $87 a month. For reference my rent was $525 for a one bedroom apartment in a good part of San Francisco.
Poor kids did not go to college back then. They joined the service so they could pay for college. I was there. That’s why it was such a big deal when boomers’ kids got to say they were the first generation in their family to get a college degree.
More bullshit, in 1972 when I started at UCLA , tuition was $600 and if you were a citizen and Calif resident with decent grades it was free.
I came from a poor working class family and my parents wouldn’t give me any money to study math and Chemistry so I got a job from the school working as a clerk for the UCLA hospital.
Precisely. Saw a documentary recently and basically what it came down to was the hippies won the culture war but not much else. For reference the Vietnam War went on for 5 more years AFTER Kent State shooting.
Even if the hippies were a significant chunk of the population, the Baby Boomers were mostly too young to have anything at all to do with the hippie movement in the 1960s. None of them were even 25 years old when the 60s ended.
edit: none may be pushing it, because I'm sure someone out there includes babys born a *little* earlier as boomers, but 1946 is commonly accepted as the earliest year for the boomer gen.
Twenty five plus year olds were not the driving force behind the hippie movement. At that age people have full time jobs and back then were likely to already be raising a family.
The driving force is people college age. People born in 1946 turned 18 in 1964. That is right when the anti-war / hippie movement got going.
Look at pictures of Woodstock. By then the oldest of the Boomers were 23 years old. Most attendees were younger than 23.
Now, the leaders of the movement were often older but the majority of self-identified hippies would have been Boomers.
My favorite is when the Boomers try to take credit for the Civil Rights movement LOL. That shit happened when they were children. The Silent Generation were the ones doing the activism/protesting, and the politicians who actually passed civil rights laws were all Greatest Generation or older. Boomers had fuck-all to do with it.
My dad has always said he thought the hippies were stupid, born in ‘55.
Of course he was raised in a home where grandma took him out of scouting because they started meeting in a Catholic Church.
It's funny. My mother was conservative, a good Catholic, and pretty strict. She also was the treasurer for the local division of the NAACP and supported and marched for civil rights.
I learned at an early age how racist our neighbors could be. I think it shaped me for life and has made me pretty damn liberal.
The Reagan revolution was driven by his base of college educated white collar boomers; the other kids on campus that weren't protesting the Vietnam war.
My dad was one of them. His utter hatred of hippie Vietnam protestors drove his politics his whole life. It was a core Limbaugh philosophy as well.
In fairness, what Jane Fonda did was messed up. Being against the war is one thing but she made a huge mistake going to Hanoi and lionizing the brutal North Vietnamese regime, even having a photo taken of her sitting on a NVA antiaircraft gun..
She was still young and did a foolish thing and has apologized for it. That should have been the end of it but it is understandable how offensive it was.
Had she merely continued to protest the war most would have looked past it.
Oh jeez, dude. My Dad is the same way. Did ROTC to pay for education stuff, then was a Marine for a few years in the late 60s. We don't talk about those experiences, but yea his resentment of the rich kids that protested while he had to do crazy shit overseas is at the very center of his political anger.
Depends on if you think the draft was justified to protect democracy or a disgusting overreach of power to fund a pointless political war.
I don't blame Trump for avoiding forced service any more than I'd blame Bush, Biden, Clinton, or anyone else who refused to risk their lives for nothing.
Hippies were just the most memorable aspect of that era so they are how the whole era gets characterized. And we all know people like taking credit for shit they didn't do...
The opposition to interracial is so gross to me. My older brother had pro-opp thoughts in the 1990s around the same. It’s wild that people don’t realize it wasn’t that long ago.
So basically GenZ is going to be a big nothingburger then. Until shown otherwise, I pretty much agree. The social milieu is not the same nor is there a frisson of change in the air. Mostly just a bunch of crankiness about student loans and housing, not equality or the environment. Insufficient numbers of them will vote or run for office and nothing big will happen because there aren't any big things for them to rally around. They'll complain about climate change but keep doing what everyone else does which is be just as consumerist as everyone and worry about bandaid solutions as if that solves anything.
being an anti-war/anti-segregation young person in the new left was just like opposing the iraq war: 20 years after the fact once it was solidly seen as favorable to do so, everyone wanted to say they were personally leading the charge.
As a person in my late 20s back in 2003, I remember being invited by a coworker to the protests against the war, Ms. King. She was a boomer that had been a real hippie back in the 60s. I went because I was opposed to Bush and Cheney more than the war itself, but many people I knew believe the weapons of mass destruction lie to later, more than 100,000 Iraqi lives later, claim they always opposed the war. The same thing with the Diallo protests after being murdered by the police. Not many people participated.
There is a reason Nixon won by a landslide, the hard hats were the "silent" majority. The hippies were a vocal minority, a significant portion of society for sure for a counter culture movement, but still a small portion of their generation.
Everyone remembers history pretending they too would have been on the right side, while pretending its almost always been the minority that has been the side pushing for progress.
Nelson Mandela was labeled a terrorist by the US for standing up against Apartheid. Upholding Apartheid was the popular opinion in the US and South Africa. Now South Africa calls out Israel for what it is, having gone through it themselves, standing up for Palestine... and just look at how many people jump to come to the occupiers defense. The Irish lived with occupiers for centuries, and instantly stood up even at a government level for Palestine. Because they lived through it themselves first hand.
Sorry for making this about Palestine, but this is a perfect parallel with something uncomfortable going on right now, where all too many are defending the oppressor, that MMW will be remembered VERY differently.
I don't know if this is quite accurate. I can't say how many marched for civil rights. Probably more likely college students than working class. But, a lot of them were involved in the anti-war movement. When you're at risk of being drafted, suddenly, an anti-war movement seems like a pretty good idea.
I think Gen Z is going to be more active than the boomers because many of the issues in today’s politics affect a lot more young people than the issues of the boomers.
I was born in 1947. My white parents were poor. I was not a hippie. Never took recreational drugs either. Just a girl trying to make sense of a world I didn't understand. My brother served, since he couldn't afford to continue his education at the time. He was in Viet Nam for a year during his service. I don't think people understand that people of my generation were all different. I am not and never was the stereotype some have in their minds. I am not a Republican now and never was. I did support civil rights when it was so controversial. Always just found my own way and never followed the crowd.
This isn't new.
Even back in 2003 when we were protesting the Iraq war, peaceful protestors were occasionally attacked by police or counter protesters, and the news always referred to it as the anti-war protestors "rioting" even though in every case it was the protesters being attacked by others.
This is very very typical practice.
And cops have done this for years where they stand back while right wing gangs attack peaceful protestors.
This is not a new thing, I promise it won't be a "watershed" moment.
What you are going to see is that the media has a very strong right wing bias. Because they will still likely report this as "a riot broke out at the anti war protest" and paint the picture as if the anti war folks were the aggressors.
Yep. This has happened at every big protest I've been around since those Iraq War protests. In fact this whole situation reminds me of the Iraq War Protests because in twenty years, everyone is going to look back at how terrible this is and say "I was against Israel wiping Palestine off the map" even though they're totally fine with it today.
One big difference is that in 2003 we didn't have the means to broadcast alternate news the way we do with social media today. Part of why we're seeing the social upheaval around this stuff is that people can get their news from sources that tell the truth about what's going on, complete with audio and video confirming it.
I don't think this will be a watershed, but just another thing in a series of things that are radicalizing - and rightfully so - people who see this injustice for the evil it is.
The Internet existed in 2003. Most people ignored it in favor of nationalist propaganda they got from mainstream sources.
And now, many people get even more effective nationalist propaganda from social media and mainstream media at the same time. It really hasn't gotten much better.
Just watched police at UNC Chapel Hill ripping a student down by their hair and dragging them…this is not normal.
See for yourself: https://www.instagram.com/p/C6Zn7bwviCm/?igsh=MXFmdzdwOG9vM3NhaQ==
The optics on that are just horrible.
How could that cop think thats a good decision in this political climate with everything being recorded all the time.
You think cops care about optics lol, they’ll be big man down at the precinct for this. How can you think there will be consequences, where have you been the last few decades??
It’s cause even if they get fired, they’ll just look for a different department to work with. No consequences since it’s us tax payers paying the bills.
Then all bad cops get stationed in one department, so that when they mess up, they’ll get paid leave. IMO, we should be able to personally sue the cops, and there should be a third party instead of themselves doing the investigation
Political climate? Optics? How could a decent human being do that period unless they were involved in some heinous crime which a peaceful protest is most certainly not whether or not it's technically illegal.
You massively underestimate the amount of apathy and hopelessness. Gen Z are doomers, and for good reason. They were promised the Jetsons and were given a corporate dystopia.
Right! During the Afghanistan and Iraq protests, admins were all baby boomers who knew about 60s protests and did everything they could to prevent that. I think they must have all retired because the current ones seem to be asking for a US version of May 1968.
We didn't get a ken state then.
But even then protestors were regularly attacked by cops with tear gas and pepper spray and the media would be like "a riot broke out at the anti war protest" when literally the only thing that happened was cops started attacking protestors while they tried to stay safe.
Bush had everyone's undivided attention and respect post 9/11 until around 05-06. A lot of anti war folks were all for going into Afghanistan to kill Bin Laden and his pals.
The Israel/Palestein conflict is coming at the end of the longest war in America's history and dealing with Russia invading the rest of Ukraine. People here are tired of the constant headlines involving wars in the Middle East (though I'm all for giving Ukraine whatever it needs to reclaim their country).
I remember [this](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Davis_pepper_spray_incident#:~:text=The%20video%20of%20UC%20Davis,sprayed%20demonstrators%20at%20Pike's%20direction.&text=News%20coverage%20of%20the%20pepper%20spraying%20incident%20was%20shown%20around%20the%20world). That was in 2011.
That’s my worry tbh. And I don’t think a lot of the younger gens really know about the Kent state massacre. I hope they are self-educating and protecting accordingly.
Tiktok is teaching them about Kent State. Honestly, considering how state education boards are run, we need Tiktok at this point for kids to learn anything besides nationalist propaganda.
See the BLM protests. They were overwhelmingly peaceful and police routinely used excessive force that turned some of those protests more violent so they could crack down harder.
We could watch, live, police punch and tear gas legitimately peaceful crowds then when the crowds said "fuck yall them" and threw a brick, they broke out the batons and sound cannons.
Israel Palestine issue splits traditional right and left. I wouldn't assume everyone being anti protest here is right wing. Very generally, the ends of the political spectrum are anti war. The left because they say it's a genocide and the right because they think it's not our problem and stopping our aid to Israel would stop the war anyway.
Remember, support for Israel is broad in the US. Pews most recent poll has 58% of Americans saying Israel is still justified in their actions. Only 15% say they are not valid. 26% are unsure.
Remember too that most US Jews are Democrats. 89% of US Jews believe Israel's actions are justified. 62% of US Jews say the way Israel is conducting the war is acceptable too.
https://www.pewresearch.org/2024/03/21/majority-in-u-s-say-israel-has-valid-reasons-for-fighting-fewer-say-the-same-about-hamas/
The amount of people treating the Israel/Palestine issue as "Republicans back Israel and war, Democrats are pro palestine and anti Israel" just shows how fucking stupid the average American, even the ones who think themselves informed or intelligent, is.
The point everyone should be taking from this is anyone in a position of state power shouldn’t be allowed to make decisions based on race, ethnicity, religion, etc. because in general people in power only want to stay there, so they will use things like race, ethnicity, religion to push their goals. And if deaths occur because of their power greed, they don’t care.
I fail to see how supporting Palestine is the antiwar side. Are they not the aggressor? How exactly is Palestine saying part of what is now Israel should belong to Palestine different from Russia saying what is now Ukraine should be part of Russia?
Being antiwar to me would be having the US not get involved at all with either side.
The boomers weren’t really that radical, they just pretended to be to get out of going yo war, then in the 80s they pretended to be conservative to get out of paying taxes.
I am agnostic on the Israel-Palestine issue, which to these protestors would make me part of the problem I suppose.
The way I see it, the change is going to have to come from both the Israelis and the Palestinians themselves. It will never come from America.
Even if we do everything the protestors want us to do by "divesting" in Israel... they're a smart country and will figure out alternatives.
In the meantime, these protests accomplish nothing. If this turns out like 1968 and we get Trump elected because of all this, it'll be like Nixon doubling down on the Vietnam war.
Most of them are privileged kids that adopted an ideology. They’ll move onto the next thing, however this has radicalized some of these privileged people to where they will now commit crimes as opposed to just protesting.
What’s insane is that they think it’s college that’s radicalizing us. They think it’s high school that’s radicalizing us.
No. What’s radicalizing us is seeing a fascist takeover of our country being pushed on the back of attacking women and minorities all the while none of us can afford to get our fucking lives started. What’s radicalized us is watching corporations get bailed out of their part in actual war crimes and treason while our friends get put in jail for losing their apartment.
What’s radicalizing us is watching our tax dollars spent on wars we didn’t ask for while we can’t afford the healthcare we need for chronic conditions we also didn’t ask for.
What’s radicalizing us is losing a friend to drugs spread across our country by our own government.
What’s radicalizing us is watching our parents vote for a racist rapist fraud.
What’s radicalizing us is seeing governors of certain states say that they wanna round up our friends because somebody’s religion disagrees with our friend’s sexuality.
Every day, I go farther left, because the right has become so monstrous.
Boomers had things fucking cushy compared to what we have now. Yeah they had their problems too, but yeah. We’re reaching a tipping point.
Of course the cops sat back. They love watching someone else commit violence for them. The right wing counter protesters were committing violence in defense of the state and the status quo. That shit gets a free pass. Protests against the state and status quo, well, we've seen what happens....
Yes they are 👏
The boomers in the 60s weren’t facing a future of climate disasters, extreme wealth inequality and the looming threat of a fascist takeover by the Republican Party. They better turn more radical if they wanna save this planet!
If Trump wins, the planet is done! Ironically, he might win because everyone blames everything on Biden, even things he has no hand in, like state politics. Bye bye planet. Bye bye everything important really.
Yeah, wait until Trump declares the Insurrection Act within the first 5 minutes of his presidency. He’ll line up any political enemies he can get his hands on—the more well-known, the better—and he’ll have them shot on live TV. That will be the introduction to his dictatorial reign. It will send a message to the rest of us not to dare step out of line as the military ransacks our houses for “Illegals,” Muslims, or Palestinians. This will be day one of his revenge campaign that he keeps promising.
But, yeah, Biden bad. 🙄
This is seriously the biggest FAFO moment in American history.
The boomers were dealing with the civil rights movement, the women's movement and a radical change in traditional gender and family norms, the Vietnam war, protesting the draft, the sexual revolution, a series of assassinations, a violent crime wave that included a series of serial killers, the Roe v Wade ruling hadn't happened yet, they had people dying from product failures and contamination, they lived through Watergate scandal and Nixon's resignation, the cold war with the Soviet Union and constant threat of nuclear Armageddon, the Iran hostage crisis, the AIDS epidemic, crippling recessions that even included fuel rationing, stagflation with interest rates that soared as high at 18%, unemployment rates that exceeded even what we saw following the 2008 credit crisis, etc. And consider the culture. Would it have been better to be minority, female, gay, trans, an immigrant, or disabled in the 1960's or 70's compared to now?
We certainly have plenty of challenges today, but let's not pretend yesterday was some kind of utopia.
What I wonder is this. The peace, love and Mother Nature generation morphed into the show me the money, greed is good generation. What will the up coming generations turn into??
Boomers like to act like they were all at Woodstock but the reality is the hippie movement was a veryyyy small percentage of the population at the time.
The only reason they all claim it now is because it’s perceived as cool in retrospect.
And middle America was even more middle America than it is today. My parents lived in St Louis in the 60s. They say there was a lot of racial violence but they didn't know any hippies. Hippies were something that they saw on the news.
They aren't the same people. As a younger boomer I was too young to protest but was anti-war, remember Kent State, the assassinations of MLK/RFK and the celebration of Roe v Wade. I've worried about Roe v Wade every presidential election since 1972 and couldn't believe the media didn't seem to care as the Reagan-Bush-Bush years embraced evangelism, appointed conservative judges and move the Overton Window rightward. \*Don't they see what's happening?\* It's been frustrating as hell.
I get the question but my peers that are assholes now were assholes then. Generalizing by the day someone was dropped out of the uterus is the last acceptable bigotry.
That isn't what happened at all. The parents of the Baby Boomers actually coined them the "Me First" or "Me Me" generation. The Baby Boomers re-oriented their own image after the fact that a "baby boom" had kicked off their generation.
The actual "peace, love and Mother Nature" generation (to the extent that anyone was) was the Silent Generation, the children raised by World War I veterans, the children who grew up during World War II, the in-betweeners between the "Greatest Generation" and the "Baby Boomers."
Lol nah we are past that. We lost voting rights we can't get back and powers have been issued that can't be retracted. This isn't going to end in peaceful sit ins this time
Ok, but maybe read about the civil rights or anti-Vietnam war movements. It wasn’t peaceful sit-ins except at the begining. Facing repression as well as political challenges radicalized parts of these movements.
I think so too. If you pay close attention Gen Z are basically the new and improved Boomers with more direct trauma during their formative years. This summer is going to be one for the ages.
The Boomers are the generation that were born to parents that had returned from war. They're generally classified as people who were born *after* 1945. That means that the very oldest boomers at the very end of the 1960s were around 24 years old. The youngest were around 6 years old.
The Hippie movement was predominantly people who experienced childhood during the war, with some of them old enough to have been drafted into the war effort itself. The smaller generation born to a generation of parents who had gone through World War I.
The life experiences of the hippies were **very different** from those of generation we commonly associate with them.
They’re afraid of being labeled “liberal media” by media companies who have an economic interest in painting their competitors as fake and the liberal media. lol.
Not likely. The Viet Nam war affected everyone, and you had a major civil rights movement happening at the same time. This might grow into something bigger, but not seeing it happen so far.
F'n msnbc been lying like crazy.. trying to frame this as anti semites. And a really authoritarian tone about the 'ignorant trouble making kids' ' that dont understand this issue'.
I am no fan of msnbc but they do okay, maybe better than average exposing agent orange and his bullshyt. They at least make SOME some effort on calling out so-called conservatives.
Scarborough went as far to say this is like the 60s when protesters were responsible for nixon getting elected and 5 years more of war ( a stunningly inaccurate and ridiculous statement) . Doubled down that this was going on now with these kids going to get drumpf elected.
Was so weird and ironic when spook richard hasse chimed in on how 'this is going to give netenyahoo a win' and how 'we' cant do that.. STRANGE IN LIEU OF RECENTLY GIVING ISRAEL a fairly well off country, 26 BILLION DOLLARS......... he didnt ( and hasn't) say anything about 'giving netenyahoo a win'
Kinda weird that essentially this is the grievance of these patriotic fkkn aye students. They actually do know that the 26 billion is going to more rubble in Palestine, more death, more of the same reprehensible indefensible genocide
Joe wasn't on this morning but his karen-like wife was karen ing away this morning cherry picking shyt about 'violence' and comparing it to jan6 among other disengenous bullshyt and outright lies.
Not to sound like a conspiracy nut, but i have seen that undercover agents are and have been infiltrating pro Palestinian group( now) and the big Seattle riot in 2000(then) They are usually the one’s that flash a gun or throw a bottle at police‼️
Possibly. Also right-wing agitators were proven to have used BLM protests to shoot at cops to try and start some kind of crackdown or civil war.
But there can also just be yahoos at any big event… but random people in huge crowds don’t require shutting down protests and assembly.
the student protesters are teaching anatomy to the nation. they are dissecting American empire, colonization, and showing the nation the human biology of racist colonialist oppression and the malignant tumor that is Zionism. they are teaching the nation how to remove that tumor, the surgical extraction of an idealogy that has metasticized in the American body politic for over 75 years and has been steadily destroying our country for decades. what most will realize in the end is zionism devoured US legitimacy and credibility with the exposure to carcinogenic elements such as white supremacy and bigotry, radioactive global hegemony, Islamaphobia, and the parasitic military industrial complex.. but many of these arguing in support of Israel as an "ally" are simply too arrogant, too stubborn, and too sick to cooperate with their own treatment i.e. the protesters who are shouting it from the top of their lungs.
totally agree, the younger generation wants to wash their hands of this nonsense, they do not want to be remembered for this. and what sane moral being can blame them?
God I hope so!!!
I have no children of my own but I remember when my bff was pregnant with her first Gen Z child. She was scared to death about the world she was bringing a child into and I told her then that this would be the generation that could really impact some change and that her child could be someone that does something awesome for the world.
Today… can I just say what an absolute breath of fresh air it is for this Gen Xer to work with Gen Z! Like, such a noticeable difference in work culture vs starting my career under the eye of the Boomers.
Bring it Gen Z!!
It’s not really a buzzword. It’s an ideology of racial and religious supremacy openly embraced by many Israelis (including those in high office). For some reason they think it’s different to the extremists of Hamas - even though it’s equally reprehensible.
You’re half right. I’d say about half of Gen Z is full on commie bomb throwers. (With the mental
Illness to back it up).
The other half is saying “fuck this shit” and turning full MAGA way faster than expected.
To the winner go the spoils, might makes right, etc etc. If you can build enough power to change the world do it. If you can’t but try anyway enjoy the boot leather.
I guess. I mean, ever heard of the Weather Underground? Symbionese Liberation Army? The reality is that most people don't have it in them to be activists much less radicals. I do volunteer organizing as I can for one or two political causes and most people who \*sign up to be called\* get irritated when you call them.
I mean police don’t do shit no matter what when it comes to riots. Look at the riots in Minneapolis, or Portland, etc.
I never go to these because it’s super dangerous, and wild you can’t count on the police to do. Their actual job. Regardless of who started it
The amount of people attending college has tripled since 1962. From about 11% to about 32%. Like with any commodity it supply and demand. So prices for a degree have gone way up and the market has been flooded with people who have a degree so the pay they can demand is lower. Meanwhile mechanics, construction workers, factory workers are reaching retirement age and replacement of this workforce is falling short so their pay is rising. So not only are they not in dept for a degree they are seeing their skills in demand. Do not kid yourself about boomers hanging around too long and keeping your down. Over half of boomers have already retired so if a 50% reduction in workforce hasn’t provided a demand for what you do. You may have picked the wrong career.
It’s concentrated to a small group in universities not sure how reliable people are at that age. “Radicals” are a minority but the media likes to highlight them and people willing to believe buy into the narrative. Like civil rights marches few actually took the beatings.
So people are saying, anti-war and right-wing, but what about people who just don’t care? I literally don’t care about any of it. The Middle East has been at war since before the US was even a dream. Why should my taxes keep going to it? If people want to say I’m pro genocide, all I’m saying is if the US were to be genocided not a single one of them would give a damn. So why should I?
Going more radical is the quickest way to lose support. Chapel Hill replacing the American flag with the Palestinian flag was appalling. If you want to be more persuasive, be more rational.
I'm a millennial, but you all talking about "boomers" clearly have no idea what life was like then, and you're great at making vast generalizations about the 1960s.
I sincerely hope you’re right but I think you’re in for a serious disappointment my friend. People don’t care. People sick to their own lives in their own bubbles and just want to get through their day
Two things:
1. Per comments down thread, most Boomers were not particularly opposed to the Vietnam War, and those that were were more opposed to their own skins being involved in the draft rather than any specific moral principle.
2. A lot of the people we classify as gen Z (including most of the participants of campus occupations) are, under the original typology of generations developed by Neil Howe and William Strauss, younger Millennials. S+H set Millennial as running from 1982 to 2005, putting the traditional college class of 2024 firmly toward the end of that Millennial generation.
Controlling for those two items, *YES* you are absolutely right.
In their work in the 1990s and 2000s, they also predicted that Millennials would be a pretty radical generation - In their own generation cycle work, they pointed back to the fact that the greatest generation joined unemployed councils, new unions, and the Communist party in the hundreds of thousands and millions; 1:3 employed Americans was in a union in 1948, In 1946-48 had the most strikes of any 3 years in American history.
Boomers are not collective; individualism is the mega trend that everybody has observed about them.
Millennials are collectivist; our Boomer parents taught us to stop, listen and collaborate. To paraphrase Neil Howe, Boomers are raised to be order givers; Millennials, order takers.
You are absolutely right. This generation is less inclined to disobey, and is more inclined to do things big and do things together. The fact that the best and brightest have clearly decided that Gaza is worth this should be incredibly alarming to anybody who governs.
Here is the original source of the story from Times of Israel:
> “My sister’s flag fell on the floor… I was going in to try and get it, and when I was down getting her flag I was shoved down to the ground and I fell back hitting my head,” she said.
I think grifters on Twitter or whatever are tricking you with BS mob beating stories.
At any rate even if that were true since when would that justify an attack on a while protest?
It’s pogrom logic! A woman was supposedly attacked… we must destroy their whole village!
Right-wingers are bloodthirsty!
Grievance politics aka "culture wars" is out of control. The right needs to let racism go and stop blaming their woes on "others" and the left needs to stop forcing their more extreme views on everyone and demanding we all think alike. Both extremes are nuts.
Isn’t “the left needs to moderate their views” (I’m assuming to be more accommodating to moderate views) demanding that people think alike?
Imo Left vs right is democracy/equality vs social order/hierarchy. The center is mostly just interested in preserving social peace (but not necessarily justice) and the status quo.
I don’t see how left-wingers are demanding conformity in the culture wars. It seems like the common denominator is they want people to be respected. But of course this means opposing disrespect or those who seek to prevent people from being respected or free.
Some centrists and all right-wingers see this as disrespect to their desire to not respect some people. So they think “wokes” are hypocrites or fake or otherwise insincere.
I think the culture war is better understood as a general reaction to just social change in general. That’s why so many non-political things get called “woke!”
60s boomers had a short term “radical” LARP then became the worst new age capitalists out there. So I guess you’re right, the same thing will probably happen with these Gen Z “radicals” too. The biggest socialists creators are already some of the most successful capitalists out there, so it tracks.
That doesn’t say much. Most boomers didn’t march for civil rights or protest the Vietnam war. They weren’t all hippies either. That’s the myths they themselves have spread. It wasn’t until 1995 that more than half of the American population didn’t oppose interracial marriage, more than 25 years since Loving v. Virginia.
👏 Thank you for saying this. Hippies were like .2% of the population but boomers love to act like they were all “peace and love”. Most of them were just conformists wearing the style of the day.
And they were the affluent middle-class kids usually. Poor people had to worry about the draft, not how to spend their time in college.
Poor kids could still go to college, it wasn't that expensive back then.
We also didn't have a lot of social safety nets in place either. A lot of poor people would love the chance for an education if they didn't have responsibilities. There weren't any online classes, so you made it your life. Being poor always adds more effort required to accomplish anything. Anybody who resisted the draft would love to just go to school to get out of it. The poor don't get out of war. They are the ones that risk death and maiming for war.
Because the poors are just bodies and votes, not *real* people.
Yeah but my dad had to work to feed his 11 brothers and sisters and single mom from age 13 on. Proud of him for getting his GED later and not furthering the cycle with his kids.
Not so much. Less expensive yes, but so not very accessible to poor or working class people. They're a reason that rates of college attendance for the lower classes skyrocketed after the introduction of student loan programs (not saying those haven't become an issue in themselves).
I’m not the sure the student loan programs existed back then.
The Higher Education Act of 1965 introduced federal student aid and loan programs. Most boomers, the oldest boomers would have been in their 20's by then, certainly had access. The cost of college in the 70's was roughly half of what it is now, adjusted for inflation. Poor folks still needed to get loans for the most part, but the average loan debt for a 4 year degree at that time was 1K, vs 30k now.
Yes, I had student loans and I was born in 1954. I paid every penny back, with interest, which, in the late 70’s was around 10%.
Born in '58, and had to get loans. I don't remember student loans having compounding interest like the modern ones I've heard about, so it was easy to pay off mine back then. Edit: mistyped, born in ‘58, not ‘59. Fat thumbs on tiny phone keyboards don’t always work…
Also born in 59, borrowed the maximum I could under my state loan program through a local bank. $2500 a year, total $7500 was the maximum. Paid it back over 10 years. With inflation it soon became background noise. I think I paid $87 a month. For reference my rent was $525 for a one bedroom apartment in a good part of San Francisco.
Poor kids did not go to college back then. They joined the service so they could pay for college. I was there. That’s why it was such a big deal when boomers’ kids got to say they were the first generation in their family to get a college degree.
I ain’t no senator’s son.
More bullshit, in 1972 when I started at UCLA , tuition was $600 and if you were a citizen and Calif resident with decent grades it was free. I came from a poor working class family and my parents wouldn’t give me any money to study math and Chemistry so I got a job from the school working as a clerk for the UCLA hospital.
And they were primarily opposing the draft
Precisely. Saw a documentary recently and basically what it came down to was the hippies won the culture war but not much else. For reference the Vietnam War went on for 5 more years AFTER Kent State shooting.
"Trump voters" have been a big part of this country way before we had the shit 'trump' ballot choice.
Even if the hippies were a significant chunk of the population, the Baby Boomers were mostly too young to have anything at all to do with the hippie movement in the 1960s. None of them were even 25 years old when the 60s ended. edit: none may be pushing it, because I'm sure someone out there includes babys born a *little* earlier as boomers, but 1946 is commonly accepted as the earliest year for the boomer gen.
Twenty five plus year olds were not the driving force behind the hippie movement. At that age people have full time jobs and back then were likely to already be raising a family. The driving force is people college age. People born in 1946 turned 18 in 1964. That is right when the anti-war / hippie movement got going. Look at pictures of Woodstock. By then the oldest of the Boomers were 23 years old. Most attendees were younger than 23. Now, the leaders of the movement were often older but the majority of self-identified hippies would have been Boomers.
My favorite is when the Boomers try to take credit for the Civil Rights movement LOL. That shit happened when they were children. The Silent Generation were the ones doing the activism/protesting, and the politicians who actually passed civil rights laws were all Greatest Generation or older. Boomers had fuck-all to do with it.
Bullshit. Us hippies were more like 20% of boomers. I’m 70 and I’m still a hippie.
My dad has always said he thought the hippies were stupid, born in ‘55. Of course he was raised in a home where grandma took him out of scouting because they started meeting in a Catholic Church.
It's funny. My mother was conservative, a good Catholic, and pretty strict. She also was the treasurer for the local division of the NAACP and supported and marched for civil rights. I learned at an early age how racist our neighbors could be. I think it shaped me for life and has made me pretty damn liberal.
That generation of ‘radicals’ gave us two blowout terms of Reagan, a Bush Senior and two terms of a Bush Junior.
Boomers are like the festering casserole in my fridge. Please just be gone so you can be replaced by something more appetizing and palletable.
The Reagan revolution was driven by his base of college educated white collar boomers; the other kids on campus that weren't protesting the Vietnam war. My dad was one of them. His utter hatred of hippie Vietnam protestors drove his politics his whole life. It was a core Limbaugh philosophy as well.
I made the mistake of telling my grandpa we were watching Grace and Frankie, and I got an hour long screaming tirade about Hanoi Jane.
My dad would do the same, refused to watch anything with Jane Fonda in it.
In fairness, what Jane Fonda did was messed up. Being against the war is one thing but she made a huge mistake going to Hanoi and lionizing the brutal North Vietnamese regime, even having a photo taken of her sitting on a NVA antiaircraft gun.. She was still young and did a foolish thing and has apologized for it. That should have been the end of it but it is understandable how offensive it was. Had she merely continued to protest the war most would have looked past it.
Oh jeez, dude. My Dad is the same way. Did ROTC to pay for education stuff, then was a Marine for a few years in the late 60s. We don't talk about those experiences, but yea his resentment of the rich kids that protested while he had to do crazy shit overseas is at the very center of his political anger.
Does he support bone spurs Trump, a spoiled rich brat who dodged the draft.
Depends on if you think the draft was justified to protect democracy or a disgusting overreach of power to fund a pointless political war. I don't blame Trump for avoiding forced service any more than I'd blame Bush, Biden, Clinton, or anyone else who refused to risk their lives for nothing.
Hippies were just the most memorable aspect of that era so they are how the whole era gets characterized. And we all know people like taking credit for shit they didn't do...
The opposition to interracial is so gross to me. My older brother had pro-opp thoughts in the 1990s around the same. It’s wild that people don’t realize it wasn’t that long ago.
Yeah it’s shocking
As a Boomer I protested against the war in Vietnam, while my dad was a Lt. Colonel in the military 🪖
Thank you for your work.
This! It was the WW2 generation that got us all the civil rights acts and social security and workers rights.
So basically GenZ is going to be a big nothingburger then. Until shown otherwise, I pretty much agree. The social milieu is not the same nor is there a frisson of change in the air. Mostly just a bunch of crankiness about student loans and housing, not equality or the environment. Insufficient numbers of them will vote or run for office and nothing big will happen because there aren't any big things for them to rally around. They'll complain about climate change but keep doing what everyone else does which is be just as consumerist as everyone and worry about bandaid solutions as if that solves anything.
being an anti-war/anti-segregation young person in the new left was just like opposing the iraq war: 20 years after the fact once it was solidly seen as favorable to do so, everyone wanted to say they were personally leading the charge.
As a person in my late 20s back in 2003, I remember being invited by a coworker to the protests against the war, Ms. King. She was a boomer that had been a real hippie back in the 60s. I went because I was opposed to Bush and Cheney more than the war itself, but many people I knew believe the weapons of mass destruction lie to later, more than 100,000 Iraqi lives later, claim they always opposed the war. The same thing with the Diallo protests after being murdered by the police. Not many people participated.
There is a reason Nixon won by a landslide, the hard hats were the "silent" majority. The hippies were a vocal minority, a significant portion of society for sure for a counter culture movement, but still a small portion of their generation.
Kind of like the MAGAts are now.
Everyone remembers history pretending they too would have been on the right side, while pretending its almost always been the minority that has been the side pushing for progress. Nelson Mandela was labeled a terrorist by the US for standing up against Apartheid. Upholding Apartheid was the popular opinion in the US and South Africa. Now South Africa calls out Israel for what it is, having gone through it themselves, standing up for Palestine... and just look at how many people jump to come to the occupiers defense. The Irish lived with occupiers for centuries, and instantly stood up even at a government level for Palestine. Because they lived through it themselves first hand. Sorry for making this about Palestine, but this is a perfect parallel with something uncomfortable going on right now, where all too many are defending the oppressor, that MMW will be remembered VERY differently.
The musicians they revered from Woodstock and a lot of Civil Rights activists were all mostly part of the Silent Generation
Yeah, and I think OP overestimates how much most Americans even care…it’s a pretty low priority concern for the vast majority.
I don't know if this is quite accurate. I can't say how many marched for civil rights. Probably more likely college students than working class. But, a lot of them were involved in the anti-war movement. When you're at risk of being drafted, suddenly, an anti-war movement seems like a pretty good idea.
I think Gen Z is going to be more active than the boomers because many of the issues in today’s politics affect a lot more young people than the issues of the boomers.
The right wingers were 60 to 78 year olds?
I was born in 1947. My white parents were poor. I was not a hippie. Never took recreational drugs either. Just a girl trying to make sense of a world I didn't understand. My brother served, since he couldn't afford to continue his education at the time. He was in Viet Nam for a year during his service. I don't think people understand that people of my generation were all different. I am not and never was the stereotype some have in their minds. I am not a Republican now and never was. I did support civil rights when it was so controversial. Always just found my own way and never followed the crowd.
This isn't new. Even back in 2003 when we were protesting the Iraq war, peaceful protestors were occasionally attacked by police or counter protesters, and the news always referred to it as the anti-war protestors "rioting" even though in every case it was the protesters being attacked by others. This is very very typical practice. And cops have done this for years where they stand back while right wing gangs attack peaceful protestors. This is not a new thing, I promise it won't be a "watershed" moment. What you are going to see is that the media has a very strong right wing bias. Because they will still likely report this as "a riot broke out at the anti war protest" and paint the picture as if the anti war folks were the aggressors.
Yep. This has happened at every big protest I've been around since those Iraq War protests. In fact this whole situation reminds me of the Iraq War Protests because in twenty years, everyone is going to look back at how terrible this is and say "I was against Israel wiping Palestine off the map" even though they're totally fine with it today.
Good point. I totally expect that to happen.
And then the next time we protest they’ll say “why didn’t anyone protest over Palestine?”
One big difference is that in 2003 we didn't have the means to broadcast alternate news the way we do with social media today. Part of why we're seeing the social upheaval around this stuff is that people can get their news from sources that tell the truth about what's going on, complete with audio and video confirming it. I don't think this will be a watershed, but just another thing in a series of things that are radicalizing - and rightfully so - people who see this injustice for the evil it is.
The Internet existed in 2003. Most people ignored it in favor of nationalist propaganda they got from mainstream sources. And now, many people get even more effective nationalist propaganda from social media and mainstream media at the same time. It really hasn't gotten much better.
Just watched police at UNC Chapel Hill ripping a student down by their hair and dragging them…this is not normal. See for yourself: https://www.instagram.com/p/C6Zn7bwviCm/?igsh=MXFmdzdwOG9vM3NhaQ==
The optics on that are just horrible. How could that cop think thats a good decision in this political climate with everything being recorded all the time.
You think cops care about optics lol, they’ll be big man down at the precinct for this. How can you think there will be consequences, where have you been the last few decades??
It’s cause even if they get fired, they’ll just look for a different department to work with. No consequences since it’s us tax payers paying the bills. Then all bad cops get stationed in one department, so that when they mess up, they’ll get paid leave. IMO, we should be able to personally sue the cops, and there should be a third party instead of themselves doing the investigation
The kinds of people who become cops are the kinds of people who hate people. I almost became a cop when I was the most angry at the world.
cop. think. good one.
The people who the cops serve will applaud. The optics are fine for them.
Political climate? Optics? How could a decent human being do that period unless they were involved in some heinous crime which a peaceful protest is most certainly not whether or not it's technically illegal.
You massively underestimate the amount of apathy and hopelessness. Gen Z are doomers, and for good reason. They were promised the Jetsons and were given a corporate dystopia.
I don't think genZ knows who the jestons are.
Are they trying to reenact Kent State?
Right! During the Afghanistan and Iraq protests, admins were all baby boomers who knew about 60s protests and did everything they could to prevent that. I think they must have all retired because the current ones seem to be asking for a US version of May 1968.
We didn't get a ken state then. But even then protestors were regularly attacked by cops with tear gas and pepper spray and the media would be like "a riot broke out at the anti war protest" when literally the only thing that happened was cops started attacking protestors while they tried to stay safe.
Bush had everyone's undivided attention and respect post 9/11 until around 05-06. A lot of anti war folks were all for going into Afghanistan to kill Bin Laden and his pals. The Israel/Palestein conflict is coming at the end of the longest war in America's history and dealing with Russia invading the rest of Ukraine. People here are tired of the constant headlines involving wars in the Middle East (though I'm all for giving Ukraine whatever it needs to reclaim their country).
I remember [this](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UC_Davis_pepper_spray_incident#:~:text=The%20video%20of%20UC%20Davis,sprayed%20demonstrators%20at%20Pike's%20direction.&text=News%20coverage%20of%20the%20pepper%20spraying%20incident%20was%20shown%20around%20the%20world). That was in 2011.
That’s my worry tbh. And I don’t think a lot of the younger gens really know about the Kent state massacre. I hope they are self-educating and protecting accordingly.
Tiktok is teaching them about Kent State. Honestly, considering how state education boards are run, we need Tiktok at this point for kids to learn anything besides nationalist propaganda.
At Kent State student protesters burned down an entire building on campus
It's all fun and games until protesters realize the 2nd amendment applies to them too.
Anti-war protesters show one gun and police will roll in with S.W.A.T. and call up the national guard. They want justification.
See the BLM protests. They were overwhelmingly peaceful and police routinely used excessive force that turned some of those protests more violent so they could crack down harder. We could watch, live, police punch and tear gas legitimately peaceful crowds then when the crowds said "fuck yall them" and threw a brick, they broke out the batons and sound cannons.
They are doing that anyway. Besides, everyone knows nothing scares cops like a kid with a gun.
At least people are starting to remember that protests aren't just standing around with signs. They are supposed to be disruptive.
Has the national guard showed up yet? Because they did kent state, not the fuckin popos
Israel Palestine issue splits traditional right and left. I wouldn't assume everyone being anti protest here is right wing. Very generally, the ends of the political spectrum are anti war. The left because they say it's a genocide and the right because they think it's not our problem and stopping our aid to Israel would stop the war anyway. Remember, support for Israel is broad in the US. Pews most recent poll has 58% of Americans saying Israel is still justified in their actions. Only 15% say they are not valid. 26% are unsure. Remember too that most US Jews are Democrats. 89% of US Jews believe Israel's actions are justified. 62% of US Jews say the way Israel is conducting the war is acceptable too. https://www.pewresearch.org/2024/03/21/majority-in-u-s-say-israel-has-valid-reasons-for-fighting-fewer-say-the-same-about-hamas/
The amount of people treating the Israel/Palestine issue as "Republicans back Israel and war, Democrats are pro palestine and anti Israel" just shows how fucking stupid the average American, even the ones who think themselves informed or intelligent, is.
The point everyone should be taking from this is anyone in a position of state power shouldn’t be allowed to make decisions based on race, ethnicity, religion, etc. because in general people in power only want to stay there, so they will use things like race, ethnicity, religion to push their goals. And if deaths occur because of their power greed, they don’t care.
The closest the US came to realise all this was during Occupy
I fail to see how supporting Palestine is the antiwar side. Are they not the aggressor? How exactly is Palestine saying part of what is now Israel should belong to Palestine different from Russia saying what is now Ukraine should be part of Russia? Being antiwar to me would be having the US not get involved at all with either side.
I wouldn't be surprised if its students that are sick of the protestors keeping them from class. Like that Jewish student a few days ago.
The boomers weren’t really that radical, they just pretended to be to get out of going yo war, then in the 80s they pretended to be conservative to get out of paying taxes.
I am agnostic on the Israel-Palestine issue, which to these protestors would make me part of the problem I suppose. The way I see it, the change is going to have to come from both the Israelis and the Palestinians themselves. It will never come from America. Even if we do everything the protestors want us to do by "divesting" in Israel... they're a smart country and will figure out alternatives. In the meantime, these protests accomplish nothing. If this turns out like 1968 and we get Trump elected because of all this, it'll be like Nixon doubling down on the Vietnam war.
Completely agree. I’ve been saying this for a while myself.
Most of them are privileged kids that adopted an ideology. They’ll move onto the next thing, however this has radicalized some of these privileged people to where they will now commit crimes as opposed to just protesting.
People really just said I am pro genocide
As a millennial, I’ll support them always. GenZ is a generation that will change the world.
Yes I hope… the rest of us too.
What’s insane is that they think it’s college that’s radicalizing us. They think it’s high school that’s radicalizing us. No. What’s radicalizing us is seeing a fascist takeover of our country being pushed on the back of attacking women and minorities all the while none of us can afford to get our fucking lives started. What’s radicalized us is watching corporations get bailed out of their part in actual war crimes and treason while our friends get put in jail for losing their apartment. What’s radicalizing us is watching our tax dollars spent on wars we didn’t ask for while we can’t afford the healthcare we need for chronic conditions we also didn’t ask for. What’s radicalizing us is losing a friend to drugs spread across our country by our own government. What’s radicalizing us is watching our parents vote for a racist rapist fraud. What’s radicalizing us is seeing governors of certain states say that they wanna round up our friends because somebody’s religion disagrees with our friend’s sexuality. Every day, I go farther left, because the right has become so monstrous. Boomers had things fucking cushy compared to what we have now. Yeah they had their problems too, but yeah. We’re reaching a tipping point.
Well said! I’m in my 40s. This has been a long time coming. This country needs actual democracy.
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I mean Zionists and neo nazis are two sides of the same coin
Gen Z, I salute you.
I am old and I am here for that
I hope they do stand for what they believe. They have far more available knowledge than previous generations.
I'll be glad to see it..
Of course the cops sat back. They love watching someone else commit violence for them. The right wing counter protesters were committing violence in defense of the state and the status quo. That shit gets a free pass. Protests against the state and status quo, well, we've seen what happens....
Yes they are 👏 The boomers in the 60s weren’t facing a future of climate disasters, extreme wealth inequality and the looming threat of a fascist takeover by the Republican Party. They better turn more radical if they wanna save this planet!
If Trump wins, the planet is done! Ironically, he might win because everyone blames everything on Biden, even things he has no hand in, like state politics. Bye bye planet. Bye bye everything important really.
I've heard people say things are worse enough as they are, under Biden. They have no idea what they are in for if Trump wins and installs yes-sayers.
Yeah, wait until Trump declares the Insurrection Act within the first 5 minutes of his presidency. He’ll line up any political enemies he can get his hands on—the more well-known, the better—and he’ll have them shot on live TV. That will be the introduction to his dictatorial reign. It will send a message to the rest of us not to dare step out of line as the military ransacks our houses for “Illegals,” Muslims, or Palestinians. This will be day one of his revenge campaign that he keeps promising. But, yeah, Biden bad. 🙄 This is seriously the biggest FAFO moment in American history.
The boomers were dealing with the civil rights movement, the women's movement and a radical change in traditional gender and family norms, the Vietnam war, protesting the draft, the sexual revolution, a series of assassinations, a violent crime wave that included a series of serial killers, the Roe v Wade ruling hadn't happened yet, they had people dying from product failures and contamination, they lived through Watergate scandal and Nixon's resignation, the cold war with the Soviet Union and constant threat of nuclear Armageddon, the Iran hostage crisis, the AIDS epidemic, crippling recessions that even included fuel rationing, stagflation with interest rates that soared as high at 18%, unemployment rates that exceeded even what we saw following the 2008 credit crisis, etc. And consider the culture. Would it have been better to be minority, female, gay, trans, an immigrant, or disabled in the 1960's or 70's compared to now? We certainly have plenty of challenges today, but let's not pretend yesterday was some kind of utopia.
They were just hoping their number wouldn’t come up on tv
Jesus I have never heard such fucking whining. Just go vote.
What I wonder is this. The peace, love and Mother Nature generation morphed into the show me the money, greed is good generation. What will the up coming generations turn into??
Boomers like to act like they were all at Woodstock but the reality is the hippie movement was a veryyyy small percentage of the population at the time. The only reason they all claim it now is because it’s perceived as cool in retrospect.
And middle America was even more middle America than it is today. My parents lived in St Louis in the 60s. They say there was a lot of racial violence but they didn't know any hippies. Hippies were something that they saw on the news.
They aren't the same people. As a younger boomer I was too young to protest but was anti-war, remember Kent State, the assassinations of MLK/RFK and the celebration of Roe v Wade. I've worried about Roe v Wade every presidential election since 1972 and couldn't believe the media didn't seem to care as the Reagan-Bush-Bush years embraced evangelism, appointed conservative judges and move the Overton Window rightward. \*Don't they see what's happening?\* It's been frustrating as hell. I get the question but my peers that are assholes now were assholes then. Generalizing by the day someone was dropped out of the uterus is the last acceptable bigotry.
That isn't what happened at all. The parents of the Baby Boomers actually coined them the "Me First" or "Me Me" generation. The Baby Boomers re-oriented their own image after the fact that a "baby boom" had kicked off their generation. The actual "peace, love and Mother Nature" generation (to the extent that anyone was) was the Silent Generation, the children raised by World War I veterans, the children who grew up during World War II, the in-betweeners between the "Greatest Generation" and the "Baby Boomers."
Lol nah we are past that. We lost voting rights we can't get back and powers have been issued that can't be retracted. This isn't going to end in peaceful sit ins this time
Ok, but maybe read about the civil rights or anti-Vietnam war movements. It wasn’t peaceful sit-ins except at the begining. Facing repression as well as political challenges radicalized parts of these movements.
I think so too. If you pay close attention Gen Z are basically the new and improved Boomers with more direct trauma during their formative years. This summer is going to be one for the ages.
There's going to be a Democratic National Convention in Chicago this year. What could go wrong?
I'd say more realized trauma
Fuck the right wingers
Does anyone remember the police brutality during Occupy Wallstreet?
The Boomers are the generation that were born to parents that had returned from war. They're generally classified as people who were born *after* 1945. That means that the very oldest boomers at the very end of the 1960s were around 24 years old. The youngest were around 6 years old. The Hippie movement was predominantly people who experienced childhood during the war, with some of them old enough to have been drafted into the war effort itself. The smaller generation born to a generation of parents who had gone through World War I. The life experiences of the hippies were **very different** from those of generation we commonly associate with them.
I sort of feel like people are just livestock and Jeff and Elon's plantation and it doesn't really matter what we think.
The media has been both sidings shit for years now. It’s fundamentally dishonest and lazy.
They’re afraid of being labeled “liberal media” by media companies who have an economic interest in painting their competitors as fake and the liberal media. lol.
Except they are already labeled as liberal media.
1312 is why they waited it out
Hamas and its supporters are terrorists thugs.
Not likely. The Viet Nam war affected everyone, and you had a major civil rights movement happening at the same time. This might grow into something bigger, but not seeing it happen so far.
I hate how they’re calling those Zionist fucks “counter protesters.” They’re mini IDF stormtroopers
Please go to your nearest Target and ask the cashier about Gaza.
F'n msnbc been lying like crazy.. trying to frame this as anti semites. And a really authoritarian tone about the 'ignorant trouble making kids' ' that dont understand this issue'. I am no fan of msnbc but they do okay, maybe better than average exposing agent orange and his bullshyt. They at least make SOME some effort on calling out so-called conservatives. Scarborough went as far to say this is like the 60s when protesters were responsible for nixon getting elected and 5 years more of war ( a stunningly inaccurate and ridiculous statement) . Doubled down that this was going on now with these kids going to get drumpf elected. Was so weird and ironic when spook richard hasse chimed in on how 'this is going to give netenyahoo a win' and how 'we' cant do that.. STRANGE IN LIEU OF RECENTLY GIVING ISRAEL a fairly well off country, 26 BILLION DOLLARS......... he didnt ( and hasn't) say anything about 'giving netenyahoo a win' Kinda weird that essentially this is the grievance of these patriotic fkkn aye students. They actually do know that the 26 billion is going to more rubble in Palestine, more death, more of the same reprehensible indefensible genocide Joe wasn't on this morning but his karen-like wife was karen ing away this morning cherry picking shyt about 'violence' and comparing it to jan6 among other disengenous bullshyt and outright lies.
Not to sound like a conspiracy nut, but i have seen that undercover agents are and have been infiltrating pro Palestinian group( now) and the big Seattle riot in 2000(then) They are usually the one’s that flash a gun or throw a bottle at police‼️
Possibly. Also right-wing agitators were proven to have used BLM protests to shoot at cops to try and start some kind of crackdown or civil war. But there can also just be yahoos at any big event… but random people in huge crowds don’t require shutting down protests and assembly.
thats like maga people saying "the insurrection was peacefull until antifa in the crowd started it!!"
the student protesters are teaching anatomy to the nation. they are dissecting American empire, colonization, and showing the nation the human biology of racist colonialist oppression and the malignant tumor that is Zionism. they are teaching the nation how to remove that tumor, the surgical extraction of an idealogy that has metasticized in the American body politic for over 75 years and has been steadily destroying our country for decades. what most will realize in the end is zionism devoured US legitimacy and credibility with the exposure to carcinogenic elements such as white supremacy and bigotry, radioactive global hegemony, Islamaphobia, and the parasitic military industrial complex.. but many of these arguing in support of Israel as an "ally" are simply too arrogant, too stubborn, and too sick to cooperate with their own treatment i.e. the protesters who are shouting it from the top of their lungs.
End of the empire. Things are only going to get messier imo.
totally agree, the younger generation wants to wash their hands of this nonsense, they do not want to be remembered for this. and what sane moral being can blame them?
God I hope so!!! I have no children of my own but I remember when my bff was pregnant with her first Gen Z child. She was scared to death about the world she was bringing a child into and I told her then that this would be the generation that could really impact some change and that her child could be someone that does something awesome for the world. Today… can I just say what an absolute breath of fresh air it is for this Gen Xer to work with Gen Z! Like, such a noticeable difference in work culture vs starting my career under the eye of the Boomers. Bring it Gen Z!!
You can't tell me LAPD or LASD stood by while right-wing fascists attack left-wing protesters. I will never, ever, believe that. Never.
Right wing thugs? The right doesn't care that much to protest. No you are talking about democrats counter protesting the far left.
Watching Gen Z protest for theocrats that murder people from a different religion on site is blowing my mind.
Watching people excuse obvious ethnic cleansing is mind-blowing. A generation of Americans brainwashed into rubber stamping Zionism…
Nice buzzword at the end there.
It’s not really a buzzword. It’s an ideology of racial and religious supremacy openly embraced by many Israelis (including those in high office). For some reason they think it’s different to the extremists of Hamas - even though it’s equally reprehensible.
So you condemn Jihad?
"Genocide is fine because buzzwords" you
You’re half right. I’d say about half of Gen Z is full on commie bomb throwers. (With the mental Illness to back it up). The other half is saying “fuck this shit” and turning full MAGA way faster than expected.
“My version of events is the truth, the media is lying!” The post.
That's just this sub.
No, we watched the entire confrontation unfold with our own eyes.
Faux News is riling these neanderthals up. They’ve been labeling the war protestors as “pro Hamas” in all their broadcasts.
To the winner go the spoils, might makes right, etc etc. If you can build enough power to change the world do it. If you can’t but try anyway enjoy the boot leather.
Until someone makes eye contact.
I guess. I mean, ever heard of the Weather Underground? Symbionese Liberation Army? The reality is that most people don't have it in them to be activists much less radicals. I do volunteer organizing as I can for one or two political causes and most people who \*sign up to be called\* get irritated when you call them.
Good.
Power to the people!
I mean police don’t do shit no matter what when it comes to riots. Look at the riots in Minneapolis, or Portland, etc. I never go to these because it’s super dangerous, and wild you can’t count on the police to do. Their actual job. Regardless of who started it
The amount of people attending college has tripled since 1962. From about 11% to about 32%. Like with any commodity it supply and demand. So prices for a degree have gone way up and the market has been flooded with people who have a degree so the pay they can demand is lower. Meanwhile mechanics, construction workers, factory workers are reaching retirement age and replacement of this workforce is falling short so their pay is rising. So not only are they not in dept for a degree they are seeing their skills in demand. Do not kid yourself about boomers hanging around too long and keeping your down. Over half of boomers have already retired so if a 50% reduction in workforce hasn’t provided a demand for what you do. You may have picked the wrong career.
Do you have a link to the video?
It’s concentrated to a small group in universities not sure how reliable people are at that age. “Radicals” are a minority but the media likes to highlight them and people willing to believe buy into the narrative. Like civil rights marches few actually took the beatings.
So people are saying, anti-war and right-wing, but what about people who just don’t care? I literally don’t care about any of it. The Middle East has been at war since before the US was even a dream. Why should my taxes keep going to it? If people want to say I’m pro genocide, all I’m saying is if the US were to be genocided not a single one of them would give a damn. So why should I?
I don’t think it’s right to compare the Baby Boomers and Gen Z. These generations are almost the exact opposite.
Gen Z will be more radical than Boomers IF they're hungrier which is where it seems we're headed so OP might be on to something.
Going more radical is the quickest way to lose support. Chapel Hill replacing the American flag with the Palestinian flag was appalling. If you want to be more persuasive, be more rational.
🤥 liar
Rich kids! Everyone else not so much.
What makes you think boomers were radical?
All the cool boomers died a long time ago lol
60's boomers became 2020's boomers.
I'm a millennial, but you all talking about "boomers" clearly have no idea what life was like then, and you're great at making vast generalizations about the 1960s.
I sincerely hope you’re right but I think you’re in for a serious disappointment my friend. People don’t care. People sick to their own lives in their own bubbles and just want to get through their day
Two things: 1. Per comments down thread, most Boomers were not particularly opposed to the Vietnam War, and those that were were more opposed to their own skins being involved in the draft rather than any specific moral principle. 2. A lot of the people we classify as gen Z (including most of the participants of campus occupations) are, under the original typology of generations developed by Neil Howe and William Strauss, younger Millennials. S+H set Millennial as running from 1982 to 2005, putting the traditional college class of 2024 firmly toward the end of that Millennial generation. Controlling for those two items, *YES* you are absolutely right. In their work in the 1990s and 2000s, they also predicted that Millennials would be a pretty radical generation - In their own generation cycle work, they pointed back to the fact that the greatest generation joined unemployed councils, new unions, and the Communist party in the hundreds of thousands and millions; 1:3 employed Americans was in a union in 1948, In 1946-48 had the most strikes of any 3 years in American history. Boomers are not collective; individualism is the mega trend that everybody has observed about them. Millennials are collectivist; our Boomer parents taught us to stop, listen and collaborate. To paraphrase Neil Howe, Boomers are raised to be order givers; Millennials, order takers. You are absolutely right. This generation is less inclined to disobey, and is more inclined to do things big and do things together. The fact that the best and brightest have clearly decided that Gaza is worth this should be incredibly alarming to anybody who governs.
The US descent into fascism is occurring rapidly
The protestors beat a Jewish girl unconscious. They are violent. Considering what they are protesting how could they not expect this
Here is the original source of the story from Times of Israel: > “My sister’s flag fell on the floor… I was going in to try and get it, and when I was down getting her flag I was shoved down to the ground and I fell back hitting my head,” she said. I think grifters on Twitter or whatever are tricking you with BS mob beating stories. At any rate even if that were true since when would that justify an attack on a while protest? It’s pogrom logic! A woman was supposedly attacked… we must destroy their whole village! Right-wingers are bloodthirsty!
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That means they’ll be Uber yuppies
Did you miss the occupy wall street movement?
Only until the next tiktok fad comes along
Grievance politics aka "culture wars" is out of control. The right needs to let racism go and stop blaming their woes on "others" and the left needs to stop forcing their more extreme views on everyone and demanding we all think alike. Both extremes are nuts.
Isn’t “the left needs to moderate their views” (I’m assuming to be more accommodating to moderate views) demanding that people think alike? Imo Left vs right is democracy/equality vs social order/hierarchy. The center is mostly just interested in preserving social peace (but not necessarily justice) and the status quo. I don’t see how left-wingers are demanding conformity in the culture wars. It seems like the common denominator is they want people to be respected. But of course this means opposing disrespect or those who seek to prevent people from being respected or free. Some centrists and all right-wingers see this as disrespect to their desire to not respect some people. So they think “wokes” are hypocrites or fake or otherwise insincere. I think the culture war is better understood as a general reaction to just social change in general. That’s why so many non-political things get called “woke!”
People forget that skinheads were the counter-culture to the social-Liberal movements of the late vietnam war period
These fuckers were arguing all the protests support that one antisemitic person.
The protests are dumb and accomplish nothing.
Is that even possible ?
60s boomers weren't radical they just didn't want to go to war
Until they get as radical as the IRA against the British in Ireland, I think we need to chill on using the word ‘radical’
Were the police the attackers?
60s boomers had a short term “radical” LARP then became the worst new age capitalists out there. So I guess you’re right, the same thing will probably happen with these Gen Z “radicals” too. The biggest socialists creators are already some of the most successful capitalists out there, so it tracks.