Coming February 6, 2024 . . .
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
Coming February 6, 2024 . . . MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
I normally don't post a blog from Daily Kos. This was just posted and it is excellent.
The Millennials are the largest voting block now and even out number the baby boomers. This is the generation that is going to drive the direction of future policy in politics. We are experiencing a generational realignment in our political discourse. The conservative Reagan era is headed to the dust bin of history. The GOP is in decline and disarray. This realignment isn't going to be in little baby steps because history shows it never is. Sanders gets this and has offered to lead.
Clinton's credentials are excellent only they are the skills that was needed in the last era to hold the line. But are they the skills that are needed for this generation to push the kind of changes through that they want?
Please read this Daily Kos diary. In fact read it more then once because this is the direction the realignment is going to take and why.
Comments
Dear Mellennial,
I appreciate your enthusiasm, however I would point out the there was no silence on the abuses suffered by minorities. There was a long battle to force the end of the NYPD's program of Stop and Frisk. The elderly Reverend Al Sharpton played a large role in the fight. The GOP's program of voter suppression was opposed vigorously. One of the organizations fighting back against the Republicans was the elderly William Barber Ii leading a group called Moral Mondays. There was an ongoing fight that pressured Eric Holder to decrease federal drug sentences that heavily impact minorities. There are ongoing fights concerning the housing crisis in black communities. There has been no silence by the elders.
We admire the passion of Occupy Wall Street, but note that it did have an #OsarsSoWhite feel. We elders admire the passion of BlackLivesMatter. Both OWS and BLM are millennial led and label themselves as "leaderless". The leaderless nature of the organizations make us elderly folks somewhat uncomfortable. We are accustomed to structure. For many elderly black activists, that may be due to being raised in the church which has a hierarchical structure. We also note that OWS and BLM, for the most part, do not directly support political candidates. We elders see that as a flaw. We see continued Republican opposition as a continuing problem. Developing a strong base of Demoratic candidates is a prime issue.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/clinton-sanders-debate_us_56a809c9e4...
Regarding Bernie Sanders and the elderly black voter, Sanders does have difficulty connecting with us. He sees class as the major issue. We old geezers still see race a the major factor. This difference shows up even in political ads. Bernie's restoring hope in America ad comes across as viewing American as white Iowa or New Hampshire with a few blacks sprinkled in. Hillary's ad seems multi- racial.
http://www.bet.com/news/national/2016/01/22/how-bernie-sanders-and-hilla...
The elderly are choosing the person they see as most capable of getting things done. We elderly are still in the struggle. There have always been generational political differences. We have seen Washington vs DuBois, MLK Jr vs SNCC, and now Sharpton vs BLM. The generational differences of today are nothing new.
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 01/28/2016 - 9:32am
Right, this millennial invented sticking to your guns? I'll repeat one of the comments and note that many voted LBJ as the change, then rfk, then McGovern, then Carter, then Clinton, *** then Dean, then Obama and Hillary, and then whoever this time. Your wish sandwich is also someone finding the ingredients and making it - that's why I support Hillary, someone who knows the kitchen and the dining area and paying the bills. I didn't sacrifice my vision - it's more complete.
*** oh, for some reason I forgot Gore - maybe because he had the election stolen from him and fell off the map. Yeah, we voted for him - and it wasn't enough. The other side played nasty, as they usually do. Al brought global warming to mass public attention, and the right hated him for that. He was also on the forefront of pushing the internet legislatively and executively, which made the 90's boom what it was, and they hung that around his neck - including "liberals" - as "inventing the internet". So kid, prepare for some disappointment when they kick you in the gonads. That's not "giving in to cynicism and the status quo" - that's having your hard work stolen out from under you.
PP
I remember. I still live by ideals and enthusiasms. Not everyone sold out or grew jaded. Enthusiasm and hope are important and don’t let yours die. Especially after a few decades of always being on the losing side of every larger-than-local election, whether policy or candidate. What losing taught us is to focus on specifics geared to our talents and interests, and to keep trying.
We are the people who gave you clean air and water regulations, NEPA, ESA, non-leaded gasoline, mass transit, ecological restoration, conservation biology, asbestos removal, Medicare, monkey-wrenching, and tried our best to enact the ERA. We brought abortion, birth control, Title IX, second (and third) wave feminism, legal cannabis. The loosening of gender/age-specific clothing, suit/tie business attire, mountain bikes, alternative tech, and most of the tech hardware that runs your life come from my generation and the children we raised. We popularized and made secular Buddhist concepts about compassion and open-heartedness. We removed the onus from aging and being grey-headed.
I have nothing to apologize for and neither do millions of my peers. I’m still as opposed to those who sell out and adopt the policies they despised when younger as I was when those people were the older generations. Now some may be my peers in age but none of them represents me. I’m interested in hearing you report back in late November. May you remain hopeful, enthusiastic and thoughtful.
Besame Jan 28 · 12:01:43 AM
by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 01/28/2016 - 1:46pm
Largest voting block and by far the least likely to vote. Why becomes a chicken and egg argument. Theoretically they don't vote because the candidates aren't progressive enough. But if they voted we'd get more progressive candidates. If they actually were politically engaged they could have voted for the Green Party candidates which are often more progressive than Sanders. If significant minority of young non voters had voted for the Greens that would have shaken up the system and forced major changes in the democratic party. We'd have seen many new democrats running to appeal to this voting block.
While Trump and Sanders are polar opposites the question those who watch politics are asking about both is similar. Both have a large percentage of support among people who are not in the likely voter category. How well they do depends on how many of those typical non voters actually get out and vote.
by ocean-kat on Thu, 01/28/2016 - 3:23pm
Your logic has a bit of egg on it,OK if these young folks voted more they would just elect more LOTE poseurs because voting is not democracy and without democracy there will be no real progressive candidates only vetted representatives of the PTB.
Young people are just more aware, than older voters, of our totally corrupt system and refuse to support it in large numbers regardless of the nonsense tripe some people try to feed them about shaking up or forcing change in the entrenched and thoroughly corrupt Democrat Party.
by Peter (not verified) on Thu, 01/28/2016 - 4:45pm
And yet it's the older voters who have had to live the longest in this corrupt system. Pity they've never tried to do anything about it. Oh, if only they had been younger. And smarter. And younger.
by Ramona on Thu, 01/28/2016 - 5:14pm
Nonsense. You have zero grasp of history or politics.
The change that has happened in the last 300 years is incredible, unprecedented in human history. Just looking at America the amount of power that has been wrestled from the plutocrats and the increase in the power and freedom of the proletariat is amazing even though in any individual's lifetime the pace of change may have seemed glacially slow.
In 1776 only white male landowners could vote, about 6% of the population. It took a hundred and fifty years for women to get the right to vote, more when we consider that women were fighting for state and town voting rights before there was a United States of America. It still took another 50 years for women to just get the right to say no when their husband wanted sex. While women had the right to leave their husband all they had the right to leave with was the clothes on their back. She didn't even have a legal right to the jewelry she brought into the marriage nor to the children she birthed. Married women couldn't own land in their own name. almost her only option was to return to her parents since she didn't have the right to seek employment except as a school teacher, secretary, nurse.
It took 100 years to end slavery, again more since the struggle for emancipation preceded the USA. It took another 100 years for civil rights for blacks and other minorities to begin to become a reality.
It took a hundred years of fighting, often brutal and violent, for workers to get negotiating power and workers rights.
Damn it Peter, we've been fighting for decades and decades and decades just to get parents to stop beating their kids. And making remarkedly good progress on this issue. The issues are myriad. None of this is easy. And its not democracy or the government that's at fault.
Slow as its been the change has been immense and it's democracy that fueled that change.The problem is not that the vote lacks power. It's that people haven't been using that power to make the changes that I, and likely you, would like to see. Politicians respond to people who vote. If young people or older people want to see change they have no choice but to vote for it. When they begin to pay attention and vote for the change they desire then they will get it.
I posted it before and I'll probably post it again and again. Because I think it's a good line that encapsulizes the reality and the problem. Every generation a small group of liberals drag the people, kicking and screaming, into the future. Their children take those changes for granted and wouldn't change back if they could, but give no credit to the liberals that made it possible. They in their turn, will have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into the future.
When enough people wake up and vote, we'll see changes. You're either part of the problem or part of the solution. From my pov Peter, you are part of the problem.
by ocean-kat on Thu, 01/28/2016 - 10:22pm
Dear Millennial, one of the degenerates of our generation said that ninety percent of success is showing up for work. Despite his flaws, he has stayed in the game and produced art many of us enjoyed, flawed as he himself was.
Voting is much the same as having a job or running a business. You don't go in everyday dependent upon what you like or dislike about it, you go in because that's the way you stay in the game. Maybe the difference between you and me is that I'm going to vote for whomever the Democratic nominee is, regardless of who I would have preferred. I can't account for adults who have said they might not vote if their favorite loses the nomination and of course telling them to "grow up" is a waste of breath---they are beyond such an admonition in so many ways.
Many of us have had our early ideas of retirement altered and are working harder at our age than we had expected to. So, we blame the system? We quit? Unfortunately if we give up there are no longer any parents to go and live with. Well, there's always the kids, but their apartments are kind of small and then there is that thing about pride. Many of the folks working at Home Depot and such are older, one guy is 90. He was a successful contractor before one of the economic crashes. Yeah, blame the system---but you know, most of the older workers who I talk with have a positive outlook and I need not say the two admirable qualities that supervisors say they possess when compared to workers in your generation. .
BTW, do you mind sending your address, I may be visiting you permanently because I am sick and tired of running my own business and dealing with shitty attitude and regulations. A garage would be fine or a parking space near your or your parents' residence. My van is pretty much self contained except it doesn't have a shower.
by Oxy Mora on Thu, 01/28/2016 - 7:33pm
In the last election in Florida, the voters under 30 cast more votes then any other age group. In 2012 the under 30 crowd cast the same percentage of votes as the over 60 group. (17% each) I have no links because it was discussed on local political radio shows.
Proceed daggsters. I usually don't get this much response.
by trkingmomoe on Thu, 01/28/2016 - 10:00pm
[Withdrawn - Turned into a blog post instead....]
by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 01/29/2016 - 7:42am
Oh you deserve response Monoe!
WELL DONE!
You have a connection with kids. Some of us lose that connection.
There is something happening here, and the kids are not quite sure what that
is!
But neither are we, the seniors!
by Richard Day on Fri, 01/29/2016 - 3:19pm
Thanks Richard.
Sanders has drawn 63,000 people to his rallies in Iowa all total. I like that kind of magical thinking and unicorns that seems to work. That is far more then what Obama did. I think Bernie shut down Iowa State U. this week end.
He also raised 20 million dollars in the month of January from over 700,000 small donors.
We get to watch history in the making. Nothing like walking on the wild side. I still have my old love beads.They are made from seeds. So this old hippy chick just might get to wear them tonight. If you get time, go to my FB page and scroll down through my postings. There is some very good articles on what has been happening in Iowa.
by trkingmomoe on Mon, 02/01/2016 - 4:29am
No, Bernie got over 700,000 individual donations from maybe 200,000 donors. Apparently Bernie fans think it's better to keep going back to the atm rather than figure out once what you're going to give and giving it. $27 buck contributions is part of his marketing just like weekly Gecko insurance for the poorer make their brand. Whatever cranks your tractor.
by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 02/01/2016 - 5:39am
***raspberries****
by trkingmomoe on Mon, 02/01/2016 - 8:24pm
ok, mea culpa - could have been said less abrasively.
by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 02/02/2016 - 12:34am
Hmm. I'll keep the raspberry response in mind.
by barefooted on Tue, 02/02/2016 - 12:51am
This'll help.
by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 02/02/2016 - 2:07am