I am 68 years old and a responsible adult. I have raised my kids, my grandkids and helped veterans with benefits and worked for equality and know a lot about the injustices in this America.
I have worked for pennies on the dollar, and was too busy staying alive and feeding myself and youngins to be politically active. When I was in my early twenties I worked ALL the time. I had very little social life and it was before computers and technology other than newspapers and there was no cable.
I was never a partier regarding drugs and alcohol. If I consumed alcohol, it was a glass of wine and in moderation if by chance I got time to go out to dinner and date in my single mother days. I was young and did not worry too much about how or when Nixon would be impeached but I heard the talk from my elders and co workers who also were older… much older. I thought it had nothing to do with me.
Today, it is a different story. Young people have no choice ,YOU have to be aware as your very lives, not just culture is at stake.
I started coming into the political scene about the time Reagan was elected. I was getting wiser. I saw jobs closing, ( MY JOBS) and I felt the impact very strongly. I never kept up with DJT during the 80’s. I never kept up with much of anything but working and visiting my friends who were as dumb about the political environment as me. For that I am truly sorry. I have tried to make up for lost time.
I was very aware of Vietnam and the Womens Movement and the Civil Rights Movement but still did not involve myself very much in day to day..month to month year to year politics. (Now it is minute to minute)
Well the truth is, I was pretty content to have enough to get by on, work my ass off and pay the lights and rent while going to free May Day events with local bands and hot dogs. I was pretty content to catch a dollar movie and see Saturday Night Fever a dozen or more times or stand in line for Christine, the horror flick. I would check out the local Grand openings and watch a band or grab a hot dog. I lived in an apt. complex where there was a pool, so there was that. I had no clue how fortunate I was with what all was going on and the fights that were fought for me by dedicated activists. I was young and dumb. The one thing that made up for my ignorance was I was pretty happy.
I was content and not worrying about my birth control or my women’s healthcare, or someone snooping around in my mailbox. I was not bombarded with phone calls from people wanting me to do this or that like the robo calls. I was not hounded to go to this church or that church. Occasionally, I would get some enthusiast knock on my door and invite me to their church. I was never hounded to death by them. I felt no urgency to involve myself in political things. I left that worrying up to other people. I thought it was just the way things were.
I worked and made less than my male counterpart. I grumbled but did nothing to try and change that little problem. I kept the groping thingy to myself…I must have asked for it somehow, I thought. I voted democrat but really did not know the candidates. I knew my parents voted democratic. Good enough for me, I thought. I saw a big change when Reagan came along. This was a turning point for me. The world was getting a little crazy. Something was happening. I was either looking for a job, about to lose a job and prices were very high plus I was more poor than I ever had been and that is saying a lot compared to my carefree single days. When I started paying CLOSE attention to the now cable news, I remember feeling a little more than uncomfortable.
During the 80’s, I was hearing things like the president’s attack on unions. I was watching the airline controllers strikes and people crossing picket lines. People were losing homes. I was paying attention.
It was during this era that we had increasing insurance costs and we were learning about Agent Orange and the effect it was having on our veterans. This knock on the door from almost every religion was begging me to come to Sunday School and Church, as the mark of the beast was coming through the UN and Left Behind had taken hold on top of all kinds of con jobs holding down religious programming. Tammy Faye, 700 club...YOU name it and they were selling God and all the so called God shirts, and oil that was available. I was raised in church and I knew this was a con but had no idea where this all was coming from. My Dad, who was a real minister that never got a dime for his time behind a pulpit shook his head in disgust of what was happening on the far right. I was brought up with Howdy Doody but this was Jerry Falwell time.
I never heard of any school shootings or movie shootings, or any major gun rampage until Columbine. That and the Oklahoma City bombings would come much later in the 90’s. I never knew there were Milita groups radicalized to kill other Americans. I never heard of a lot of things that was coming down. I was getting wiser to our lives but I certainly was not as happy or carefree as I was during the early to mid 70’s. I saw the court appoint a groper with Clarence Thomas… I saw fear mongering. I experienced the men wanting to assault women and brag about it.
By the end of Reagan’s reign, I was pretty up to date but still not fully involved.
I was not being bombarded with all kinds of big Pharma ads and could watch a program on TV without worrying about the latest and greatest miracle drug with tiny lettering scroll line of how fast this stuff could possibly kill you.
By the time the nineties rolled in, I was trying to get people to vote for the democratic party as I was seeing what was happening and it scared me. I was watching polarization and attacks on the party I was affiliated with and watching the Clinton’s getting pulverized daily. I had taken up the banner of keeping up with things on C-Span. I was truly involved. I saw hate and I knew it was hate up close and personal. Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robinson was dominating the airwaves and things were not real good as I popped out of my bubble or hatched from my comfort zone.
Well, I now have evolved into seeing what my lack of participation has cost us. Not just mine but millions and millions who allowed the right take the talking points. We had a few good years with Clinton but then Bush the second with compassionate conservatism hit the scene again and it was worse. FERMONGERING was the talking point and war again. We had enemies abroad, and a seriously divided country. We had Big oil and Wall St that started with Reagan but was handed power along with the Focus on the Family bunch. We had all kinds of nonsense going on and I got super involved when I saw an election get stolen by the Supereme Court. I never ever imagined the chaos and mayhem like we have now. I never really thought someone sitting in the oval office would buddy up with a country who was once the Soviet Union and behind the 1962 Cuban crisis, and just 90 miles away from the US and a few mintues from blowing us into oblivion. I never thought a former KGB agent would be best friends with a man sitting in power undermining our own institutions.
I may have been happier in my dumb years but what was the price? Will my grandchildren and children pay a heavy price for any progress that was made without too much of my participation continue to go backwards for generations to come? The right side of history got way too comfortable with the election of Clinton and Obama.
We did not realize that the fight continues everyday to preserve democracy. Some people woke up in the 80’s and 90’s and then realized those rights are disappearing. We are not happy people. I can only imagine a person such as John Lewis feeling defeated. He doesn’t by the way but I am sure he is not happy. Can you imagine how John Lewis feels today?
This has been a long diary but it is a warning to young people who think that the way things are does not affect them. Milleniums...VOTE. Don’t allow the media to normalize things. These things are NOT normal.
Young people, you may not be happy go lucky anymore, once you get involved but do inform yourselves about what is really going on in this country. It did not start with Trumpism but your freedoms could very well end with him. Be part of the process. Be part of progress. Don’t fall for this doesn’t affect me. It does. Protect the Mueller investigation. Protect your right to choose and vote and get off your phones and playstations long enough to see your future and what that may look like. Look at truth and quit buying BS spewed from Fox and other right winged sources. You won’t be young always. Time will catch up with you. So far, I am impressed with some of the millenium participation and still very disappointed in many of the Boomer and Generation X buying into Reaganism.
This is YOUR life. The appointment tonight will affect your lives for generations.
Your partner, the planned parenthoods, the voting rights can all affect your good times. Be AWARE. We need a strong narrative other than R bad and D good. We need a bigger message than just voting against republicans because we can’t reason with those apathetic or brainwashed. There are so many who want to vote right up to election day and then get distracted. FOCUS….We have corruption running amuck. We have election interference and yes one person can make a difference.
Guns are awash in your neighborhood, lost immigrant children held in cages and where there was one Donald Trump, there are many waiting in the wings just like him or worse. People have taken to the internet and not put their feet to the street. Been there ..done that...I wrote letters….Well I should have had my feet to the street. Don’t make the mistake many of us late bloomers have made. Let your youth and spirit call out the horrors we are facing and keep fighting the good fight and never let down your guard. Never think that one election, or the midterms does not matter. It does. Taking to the internet to play games as a diversion is not good and a way of hiding from truths, but taking to it to join movements is the path to take. Do not divide the party wanting purity,either. People can hold their party accountable but first they have to get elected.
RESIST daily. Yes, this is like a lecture, but being late to the game can get the game cancelled due to apathy.
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