This blog will probably resonate more strongly to the 40= crowd but I think it speaks to everyone. And please don't think I'm saying I had to walk to school uphill both ways and wear shoes made from a bear I shot for breakfast, I'm not, but: something has changed in the basic core structure of american culture and I'm not talking about the war and I'm not talking just post 9/11.
Growing up, small town upstate NY, there was a different sense of who we were as a people and as a nation. Threre was, for lack of a better word, a sense of optomism I'd say up until about 1978. If you remember, the economy fell, but we always knew it would get better, human/civil rights progressed slowly but steadily forward, we had protested a war and, for the first time, young people had not kept quiet and remained in the background. Music and the arts experienced a rennissance of a sort. Rents, even in NYC, were realistic and the average working family could buy a home on one person's paycheck. If things went bad people spoke up. Voter turnouts were still well above 60% and the basics in schools were not set up to gear a student towards a career but instead to educate the MINDS of our youth. That's all changed.
The economy is terminal and has been so for years. We are rolling back human/civil rights, not just legally but culturally. The hippies betrayed us and today's youths do not question authority they buy pre-packaged Mcdonaldized rebellion and fail to see that they are endorsing the very machine they believe they are raging against. They have no voice and they, and more importantly their parents, sell their voice to the cheesiest bidder. Music and art have become generic and radio sucks! Two income families struggle to make ends meet and forclosures have reached record highs. When things are bad we don't take a stance we waffle. Voter turnout is approaching an aneamic 40%. Worst of all a corporate mentality of uniformity now permiates the schools and education is measured by standards that force teachers to fail in educating students minds/souls(not in a religious sense) The kids themselves have no sense of who they are or what they do. (otherwise please explain why one would spend "mad dough to look ghetto." answer me please)
The answer to all this is a permeation of corporatism in the mentality of the average american. No real questioning, no rocking the boat. Fear is their weapon. Fear of being different, of suffering, of losing one's home and possesions, keep us in line. We are far closer to being a facist state than we ever were at any point in American history. Be afraid. Be very much afraid.
DP
