When Will Young Americans Get Angry About The War?

[♦ nivek ♦]

When will young Americans get angry about the war?

USA Today

by Peter W. Fulham

 

"Young people are tired of hearing about Iraq, and they gave up

getting angry about its steep death toll and mounting costs a long

time ago. There is indeed an unsettling absence of anger here in

Middletown, Del., at least within the hallways of St. Andrew's, the

small boarding school I attend. Instead of fretting about the war,

upperclassmen worry about this year's record-low acceptance rates at

Harvard and whether we'll get custom T-shirts for the junior prom. Sad

as all this is, it's tough to blame anybody my age for this

indifference. Why should we worry when we have no personal stake in

the conflict?" (04/22/08)

 

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/04/when-will-young.html

[Grandpa Harley]

Want to get them pissed? Reintroduce the draft...

[Vigile]

Gramps beat me to the punch...

[The-Captain]

Want to get them pissed? Reintroduce the draft...

 

Yeah, as is there isn't much to be consistently angry about. It makes me all kinds of mad when I stop to think about it, but day to day its not something that affects me much. Couple that with the feeling of helplessness of changing the current situation and the fact that most of us weren't voting or politically active at the time it started and its no surprise that most college age types are worrying about the matters at hand. As for me, I'm taking notes and names, like any episode of history there is something to be learned and I for one will remember how this happened at what it was like.

[Comanche]

Want to get them pissed? Reintroduce the draft...

 

Do that and I'm off to Canada. I'm not into defending something I no longer believe in, and besides, the only military organization I'd be willing to go into is the Air Force, which is a no-no, considering I'm pretty much blind without my glasses...

 

I am really angry about this war, but I just don't see how any politicians are going to take me seriously. Even the politicians themselves are getting ignored by Bush's bullheaded idiotic administration. I keep up with the news, and I privately seethe over it, but there's not much I can do for at least another four years (unless I could maybe get a job at the local newspaper when I'm 16...*ponders*). I just try to not be too sad about the fact that I feel like I'm the only person my age who desperately wants to do something the minute they can.

 

If I get much more stir crazy, though, I'm going to start writing letters to the editor. Maybe I'll send them the most depressing poetry I can crank out.

[Grandpa Harley]

Reminds me of a common version of a 'popular' patriotic music hall song

 

"I don't want to fight

And I ain't a 'Briton True'

And you can let the Russians have Constantinople"

[MathGeek]

Want to get them pissed? Reintroduce the draft...

 

Yeah, as is there isn't much to be consistently angry about. It makes me all kinds of mad when I stop to think about it, but day to day its not something that affects me much. Couple that with the feeling of helplessness of changing the current situation and the fact that most of us weren't voting or politically active at the time it started and its no surprise that most college age types are worrying about the matters at hand. As for me, I'm taking notes and names, like any episode of history there is something to be learned and I for one will remember how this happened at what it was like.

 

The United States has been in a perpetual state of war since the end of WWII. We were at grindstone odds with the Soviets and we still have Cold War era bases in Europe STILL. Korea still has the DMZ almost six decades later and we've diverted troops from there to fight in new our fronts of Afghanistan and Iraq. To get America to stop fighting the war in Iraq means we need to cease being a warring nation. I think a paradigm shift of monstrous proportions needs to occur for Americans in the near future. Once the power game ceases to be, then maybe the warmongering will stop as well.

[SilentLoner]

Want to get them pissed? Reintroduce the draft...

 

Do that and I'm off to Canada. I'm not into defending something I no longer believe in

 

Mind if I tag along? Right after I go draft card burning that is.

 

There was a point I was extremely angry about the war (I still am), but it has been somewhat dulled by the attitudes I see around me, even here on my college campus. Plenty of people are mad, but there's just a feeling that nothing can really be done.

 

If the draft were reintroduced the war would be over.

[Crazycatlady]

So, you want to know when young people will get angry about the war. Well, guess what? I am angry, my friends are angry, we've organized protests. No pays any attention. After all, my generation is in the minority when it comes to sheer numbers. And the economy in this country is going downhill. I honestly don't see things improving, so I've decided my time is better spent focusing on doing well in school, so that I can actually emigrate successfully.

[Grandpa Harley]

Well, protests worked so well that it's largely the Generation of 68 that have engineered this mess

[MesaGman]

Will the Iraq war be regarded the same as the Vietnam war? My mom told me stories, of her and her friends seeing alot of American soldiers visit Hong Kong.... and My Grandpa remembers when the Japanese occupied Hong Kong.

 

Will they make "That 00's show", using the Iraq War, as a reference backdrop as we make reference to the 60s in the backdrop of the race issues, economy issues, and Vietnam war issues?

 

I tried to join the Canadian army, but they found out I was bi polar, and disqualified me... which is just as well, as the S is really hitting the fan over there now.

[Vigile]

The United States has been in a perpetual state of war since the end of WWII. We were at grindstone odds with the Soviets and we still have Cold War era bases in Europe STILL. Korea still has the DMZ almost six decades later and we've diverted troops from there to fight in new our fronts of Afghanistan and Iraq. To get America to stop fighting the war in Iraq means we need to cease being a warring nation. I think a paradigm shift of monstrous proportions needs to occur for Americans in the near future. Once the power game ceases to be, then maybe the warmongering will stop as well.

 

I think that's because the military industrial complex has discovered what a cash cow war can be. Michael Moore, love him or hate him, had it right in his comedy Canadian Bacon.

 

The government and US economy is so entrenched with the military industrial complex that it's difficult to see where the lines are between the two anymore.

 

It's not a conspiracy theory, it's reality. I used to work in Rosslyn, VA. One of the largest skycrapers in Rosslyn, right across Key Bridge from Georgetown, is the lobby agency for Lockheed. Other lobbiest just rent floors of buildings on K street, but lobbies like Lockheed are so big they buy 17 story buildings across the river where the zoning laws don't prohibit skyscrapers. NBC is owned by GE. Most news sources are owned by conglomerates that also make guns, planes, ammo, etc... It doesn't take much to see how they are all tied together, which results in a news media that promotes the war agenda, a congress that is dependent on lobby dollars to get elected, or a major group of the electorate that doesn't rely on the dollars spent to make war.

 

The US has evolved into a giant war machine that probably couldn't change if it wanted to at this point.

 

I spent some time involved in the war protest movement during Kosovo. I realized through my efforts and observations of how things worked that I was just wasting my time and marginalizing myself.

[Vigile]

Will the Iraq war be regarded the same as the Vietnam war?

 

The government learned their lesson during Vietnam. They now bar reporters who would dare share an independent view of the action or who would dare send home pictures of bloody, burnt bodies unless doing so would help the propaganda effort.

[Grandpa Harley]

... I was just wasting my time and marginalizing myself.

 

And if you'd been effective you'd have ended up with your guts up a wall, found in a gutter with a double tap, or just never seen again until some far future Archaeological programme found your remains on Nat Geo...

[MathGeek]

... I was just wasting my time and marginalizing myself.

 

And if you'd been effective you'd have ended up with your guts up a wall, found in a gutter with a double tap, or just never seen again until some far future Archaeological programme found your remains on Nat Geo...

 

And your quote, Grandpa, sort of edifies why I am nihilistic about the entire undertaking.

 

I think the only way for the USA to stop its warring ways is to have it implode in on itself. All of the big empires of the past collapsed either in flames or through the enlightenment and uprising of the popular citizenry. What seperates the USA from the rest, my theory anyway, is our nation is that easy distractions and creature comforts are plentiful and our citizenry is so apathetic on pressing issues like Social Security and the War on Terror that the men behind the curtain likely don't find sport in the intellectual fleecing of the masses anymore.

 

Eventually, everything will implode and even then, the couch potato mentality probably won't budge.

[Robbobrob]

Back in Part I of the Gulf War, I had a friend who was so worried about the draft that she wanted another friend to knock her up so she would not have to go. (Never occurred to her she had, um, never registered for selective service).

 

The rising death toll is a bit hard to accept.....taken us a lot longer to get to these "magic" numbers than in wars past. Plus, as mentioned above, everyone who goes volunteered to go. Every American who has seen any military action in the past 30 years have volunteered to go.

 

I think a lot of the down time in mass protests has been people waiting for 01.20.09, the day a new president is sworn in. I don't expect much of a honeymoon for that president before people really get angry.

[hereticzero]

I think young Americans will talk about the war but do little to end the war, so long as the govt. is business as usual. The attitude of the country will not change unless we have a leadership with a determination to actually get out of Iraq. You cannot withdraw gracefully from Iraq. Whenever we leave, there will be a civil war in Iraq to fight for power. We won't change that by staying another year or 30 years. As long as young Americans get their cell phones, ding dongs and cheeseburgers, they will not perceive anything is amiss in the world because their world still gives them what they want. I watched this attitude in the Vietnam conflict and it has not changed. They will protest and make a lot of noise but when it is said and done, they go home and watch television. The church pounds the state propaganda about helping the poor Iraqi people by occupying their country until we can leave them with their own security forces. Churches puke out how much the Iraqi people need us. The church kisses the ass of our govt. in order to keep their tax exemption status. The church, in turn, fills our young kids with so much crap about how much good this war is--Jesus against Satan, that kids grow up believing this shit. The process will not end until we have sufficient leadership in Washington, DC, to say, 'enough is enough.'

[Vigile]

Eventually, everything will implode and even then, the couch potato mentality probably won't budge.

 

The real question is, are the Joe 6packs really to blame for not budging? Maybe it's just their nature. You're born with an IQ of 100, give or take a few points and you just don't have the mental stuff to ever give a shit about anything that takes place outside your own little realm of influence.

 

The world has always worked this way. Those with the intelligence and the means have used it to their advantage for eons. You can't expect a monkey to lose its tail and you can't expect the average man on the street to ever be able to untertake a serious critical view of the world he lives in or the message he is being fed.

 

I've tracked a few of the political boards recently just to see what people are thinking about the current elections. Even those who have enough interest to get off their duffs and vote and actually form an opinion don't, for the most part, form their opinion based on the facts as they fall. 99% of them just go back and forth at each other with their candidate's talking points. IOW, they just parot what someone else told them to think.

 

Guess that makes me more nihilist than humanist, but it's my observation.

[L.B.]

First of all, Gramps is not kidding. I've seen the most uncaring, fat-bellied parochial local police all of a sudden get *THIS* excited when the feds came looking for a guy I knew. Imagine if it were, dear me, a matter of "national security" for you to be considered a threat as a protestor or a reporter. Just like GH said, bang, bang, bag, bye-bye.

 

I think there are several reasons why many young people are so uncaring about this war:

 

1) Even in a down-turning economy, the "goodies" like home electronics, clothes and so on are still cheaply available for the average college/party kid to splurge on. They're being distracted.

 

2) There is so much preemptive activity by local police whenever they hear of an organized protest that many young people feel as though they will lose a chance to be heard before they even get started. They're being discouraged.

 

3) The "juvenilization" of culture, especially towards young men, whereby males are fed images of backwards-capped, skateboarding soda-pop drinkers as the standard of "cool", has led many young people to adopt the hedonistic "fun while you can; fuck caring" attitude that destroyed the idealistic drive of the "hippies" 50 years ago.

 

I also have a theory that we as a nation are subtly being fed anti-sovereignty propaganda, especially with the changes in our currency and the "in god we trust" controversy. Now, i'm not saying we should have IGWT on our money, I'm just saying that for many people, the phrase IGWT lends itself to a view (however false it is) of this nation having been conceived by 'god's grace' and allowed by Providence to exist independently and sovereignly. Take a look at your currency, Americans: notice how, on many coins (esp. quarters), the government buildings and presidential memorials have been replaced with images of national parks and landmarks that, while inspiring loyalty to our land and our culture, do NOT demonstrate the obvious we-are-in-charge attitude that symbols of our power and government would.

 

It's all, IMHO, a set-up for a time when the leaders of this nation sell out US sovereignty to join the EU (which will of course have changed names by then) or some other grandiose-sounding conglomerate of power-brokers who will whore out to each other in the name of grasping at more power. See? The leaders of this nation dumb the young people down, get them distracted and basically apathetic, and then slowly introduce the idea of giving up our nation's rights so we can all live happily ever after. Scary, but maybe plausible.

 

My $US.02

[MathGeek]

Guess that makes me more nihilist than humanist, but it's my observation.

 

Well, your signature is a quote from my favorite author. And he has a knack for penning mentally stimulating and perception-jarring tales.

 

Either way, if you feel like you are doing good in the world, then you must be a humanist also. I feel both ways a lot of the time.

 

And you make a good point about the IQ of Joe 6-Pack, and maybe the lack of influence of the mass class overall.

[Alan Bragg]

I think probably never, as the education of highschool and junior school pupils is getting worse, and the schools are getting heavily subsidised by morally questionable companies such as Pepsi etc... This bleak outlook of poor education and everyday exposure to huge faceless corporations will no doubt lead to a generation of pawns too busy forking out $40 for a pair of once-utilitarian Converse Allstar to care what the hell their country is doing.

[Legion]

In medicine they have a term for the unexpected consequences that arise as a result of exerting corrective control on a poorly understood complex system. They are called side-effects. I think a good many of our problems arise in this fashion.

 

Many of us seem to be so quick in wanting to exert corrective control, but do we have the understanding to do it well? I suspect that I do not. But I often wish I did. I want my nation to be healthy.

[One_World]

So, you want to know when young people will get angry about the war. Well, guess what? I am angry, my friends are angry, we've organized protests. No pays any attention. After all, my generation is in the minority when it comes to sheer numbers. And the economy in this country is going downhill. I honestly don't see things improving, so I've decided my time is better spent focusing on doing well in school, so that I can actually emigrate successfully.

 

Absolute perfection. Excellently worded. I agree 110%, this nation is going into the toilet. Everytime I try to voice my anger towards the war and the administration, I get fed the line:

 

"If you're 20 and have no heart, you're a Republican. If you're 40 and have no brain, you're a Democrat"

 

This irritates me to no end...there HAS to be a political stance that believes in the value of diplomacy and global interdependence.

[Jincks013]

OK hold onto your horseshoes there pops. Firstly my mother did not 'engineer' any mess.. she was definately involved in the protest AGAINST war, AGAINST killing and for getting rid of stupid crap sex only when married, pregnancy is bad if you weren't married, be a good quiet woman thing, she was part of the ERA working actively to promote womens rights, fFS she had to get my dad's PERMISSION to get the pill and that only stopped one measly year before Roe Vs. Wade.

Engineered you bet your bippy she did.. she engineered a whole new generation of free thinkers not tied to archaic 'morality' and accepting of the status quo.

 

Your next shot sucks just as bad.

Why isn't my 18 year old angry about the war? Well sparky what did you want her to do about it percisely? Walk into the white house and tell bush he's a arrogant egocentric jerk whose linage is confused with the average donkey? Providing she could get into the white house do you really think Bush is going to listen to a 18 year old girl telling him to stop?

Why don't you go provide a example and YOU do something instead of pointing fingers at children and baby boomers?

 

How about take me on? I'm not either and I am more then willing to play mental ping pong with you, get a paddle first though.

[gradstu09]

I think that's because the military industrial complex has discovered what a cash cow war can be. Michael Moore, love him or hate him, had it right in his comedy Canadian Bacon.

 

The government and US economy is so entrenched with the military industrial complex that it's difficult to see where the lines are between the two anymore.

 

Yep. I used to work for the DoD, and while I wish I had some sordid stories to tell, my time there was rather boring. The one thing I did learn, though, was that the government and the contractors are so entwined that it's scary. I got out as soon as I could. Eisenhower warned us about it, but no one cared. Or rather, no one cared enough to see past the $$$ and think about the future of the country instead of their own pockets.