Why aren't young people more angry?

It was easier back then, today you have all kinds of stupid laws which makes young people more dependent on the establishment. And we got Internet as a timesink.

I think that they’re just taking a more empowered approach. 150 million in donations mostly from people giving under $100.00 is a productive statement of outrage at the status quo.

I think one reason is because young people are distracted by so many different things. They have game consoles, Internet, television, they have to focus on school. It’s almost sad because it seems like we as a people are being distracted/brain washed, so the government can do whatever they want without having to answer to us.

With the removal of Civics from most high school curriculum, youth today don’t have a full understanding of the process, and understand the importance of voting, even if you feel neither candidate have anything to offer you. There used to be a youth advocacy lobby that I believe has just begun a comeback after a long absence.

Both of my college-age daughters have already voted, and all of their friends are voting. My youngest said that she felt lost on what the local candidates stood for, and it was too time-consuming to check them all out. Perhaps communication methods to this group need to be changed.

They have it pretty easy, even with this recession. What’s to protest about?

Also, the all volunteer army plays a role. No one has to volunteer to join the armed services.

Maybe not all of them share your particular viewpoint?

I agree with Judi. There were 632,000 new Obama donors in Sept. I think young people today just feel that money talks. It might be a cynical view, but it’s probably accurate. For my own part, I feel I’ll be better able to “change the world” when I’m established in my career. Then I’ll have the time and the resources to put my money where my mouth is.

Hard to pay attention to what is going on around you when your ears are busy with your iPod and your hands are busy texting your friends.

I think a lot of politics is bewildering. Even to adults. Who also don’t vote at an alarming rate. Joe the Plumber voted for the first time ever in March.

Thanks liz22,
If Obama wins this election I will give most of the credit to the young people! Hip Hip Hooray for the under 30 crowd!!

“the economic situation are far worse”. It would be interesting to see if there are any stats to back up this statement.

I knew you would show up Dale!

a hush falls over the crowd as Dale prepares his response

hey dale, the crowd is getting bigger…;-)

Certainly, the fact that we have no draft makes a difference. Today, the people who are fighting in the war chose to go—based on promised educational opportunities and better pay, which is one way out of poverty. Clearly unfair. Not having to worry about getting drafted is a huge factor—that conversation dominated the 60’s and early 70’s.

Also, I do think the schools (and the testing of certain subjects—not civics or citizenship) fail to give students a sense of empowerment.

But, overall, there was something in the air in those days, a sense of hope and personal power. Kennedy may have started it—with his notion of what everyone could do for the country, and not what the country could do for us—that was inspirational. Also, the music supported the sense that change was coming, and we could do something about it.

Given the enormous challenges we face right now—environmentally, educationally, financially—I too am surprised at what seems to be an acceptance of the situation. However, I think new fresh leadership from Obama will help to galvanize the youth to make the world a better place. And, they are clearly working hard to make this change happen.

Although, remember, the activists back then were never more than a small percentage of youth. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same percentage is still working for change, but in a different way. We know a lot more about organizing now. We know that violence doesn’t work.

There may have been some kind of unified vision of change back then, but I don’t know how many people held it.

Ok four people writing at this moment. It’s too distracting.

it’s the damn “emo” music! It’s messing all the kiddies up…

I think 4 people crafting a response all at once is evidence that people, young and old are quite passionate about the situation!

and yet so many people join the army every day….

People were pissed back then because of the draft…They didn’t get to join the army, they were forced into the army…huge difference between then and now.

I agree with sk. Reinstitute the draft and you will see the young people talking about the war. The kids I know have such a cavalier attitude about it. I think they are much more insulated from this one as opposed to Vietnam. When I was young, every night on the news, you saw horrific images of the war and caskets being delivered back to the states. Since this administration has controlled the imagery coming out of Iraq, it does not have the same impact. I think the young people are too insulated to know the reality of this one. This is something that is on my mind frequently and saddens me a great deal.
@ cheeb A good part of the troops are National Guard, who believe me never expected their government would throw them into this. The enlisted population consists largely of economically disadvantaged youth and minorities, you know the Republican parties “expendables”.
Great question, I would give 100 lurve if I could!

Sometimes you have to suffer and experience thing to be angry about them.

Fantastic question. Great answers.

I’m 28, do I still count as youth for this question? If I do, I’d say I’m focused in my life on my sphere of influence. It’s cynical to say we’re too busy texting to care. To speak broadly… we care, but what can we do about the bailout, for example? Carrotmob is a brilliant example of something we can do – I’ll send a link later.

Top ten reasons the youth of today doesn’t get as angry about social and economic injustice as the youth of the 60’s

10. PS3
9. Reality television
8. The death of investigative journalism
7. Plasma HDTV
6. XBox 360
5. Paris Hilton
4. Ipods
3. Wii
2. The World Wide Web
1. No draft

In the 60s, the youth culture was driven by musicians were were literally activists in every sense of the word. The news actually reported the news, people could see the cognitive disconnect between the “official story” and what was playing out on their TVs. In college, people were interested in discussing these things…there weren’t as many D-I-S-T-R-A-C-T-I-O-N-S.

Our youth culture has become completely self absorbed, and focused on things that don’t matter. First off, you can’t count on the news to tell the truth anymore…at least not the whole truth. Our culture has grown up around an era of 15 second sound bytes…if you can’t make your point in under half a minute, no one is paying attention. It’s a vicious cycle…once marketers realized that they could capture a person’s attention with flash more easily than with substance, it led to a deterioration of the quality of every piece of data we are fed. In the 70s it was “why read the book when you can see the movie?” Then it became “why read the newspaper when you can watch the news?” Now it’s “why watch the news when you can go to Perez Hilton or Matt Drudge’s blog?”

The news tried to keep reporting those things that were important, but it became clear that the things of importance didn’t capture the imaginations of people. So, we have these celebutards (stupid young celebrities who are famous for being famous and haven’t got two brain cells to rub together) sucking all the air out of the room. The news is in the business of making money, and they are going to sell what people are going to buy. Sure there are plenty of thoughtful, intelligent people out there who want to buy the information that impacts their lives, but there is a LOT more money to be made in telling us where Britney showed up without her underwear this week. So, this is what kids are exposed to, it’s what they take an interest in, and tune out the boring stuff.

Look at how a lot (not all), but a lot of kids are raised today…you don’t even have to make an attempt to move in this direction, it just happens if you go with the flow. TV, the internet, DVRs, satellite dishes, on demand…constant flow of entertainment options all there at your fingertips 24/7 for consumption. And we are a consumer society. If you have a kid under the age of 12, sit in the room with him/her for about an hour some time when they’re watching cartoons, see if you don’t come away humming jingles about Bratz Girls and the Littlest Pet Shop.

BUY BUY BUY. Shut your brain off! And that new game that took 2,000 people 3 years to program can be had for 59.99 (which parents don’t see as a lot of money to drop on Junior these days).

We’re exposed to an overwhelming number of in home entertainment options, kids learn how to download music and movies to their Ipods, they learn to set up their own blogs and record their every whim to post on YouTube. They learn how to beat up a hooker in GTA. It’s fun, it’s exciting. It’s not some old dude blathering on about how we’re killing babies in Afghanistan…it’s much more fun to blow shit up on the screen in our living rooms than it is to hear about someone really getting blown up in real life.

Now, I love technology as much as the next person, but I think unless you’re personally engaged for some reason (such as an inherent interest…which most of us here have, or you could get drafted, or you’ve struggled with poverty or what not), there’s just too much out there to occupy your thoughts. All these things we have now that they did not have in the 60s, it’s a different world, and fun things to occupy one’s time an thoughts are just an easier sell, always have been, always will be. We have just managed to create an abundance of these fun things and have perfected their marketing, and thus the demand for substance has all but disappeared.

But young people are not all complacent. If anything, we saw the 80s MTV generation go through this, and we saw new lows at that time. Back in the 80s we had Rubik’s Cubes, Ataris, CDs…lots of great things for the youth generation to distract themselves with, and we saw the real rise of the Yuppie culture. But what we DIDN’T have was the internet. Now, in this day and age, the internet can be used just like all those other distractions, but it has an interesting wrinkle…it is also the most powerful information tool humanity has ever seen. So, we do have far more activism in the youth culture of today than we did 20 years ago, but not as much as we did 40 years ago. The problem is, the information, though abundant, comes from so many sources these days that we’ve got people fighting all manner of causes, and so much of the information any one person gets conflicts with so much of the other information, it becomes hard to get ones grounding without doing the work that could be better spent figuring out how to download Superbad on Limewire.

But some do figure it out, some become passionate, and I think we see that with the Obama campaign…I think there are more young people than at any time since the 60s involved in grassroots organizing. But the main difference that keeps our culture from going the way the 60s culture did was that in the 60s, the core values were more communal. The way culture disseminated information was by person to person, face to face contact with kindred spirits. Today it’s all depersonalized, diffused. We’re encouraged to embark on ventures which if not completely solitary (such as listening to our personal media devices) are social in only an indirect sense (communicating with everyone on Fluther, or logging onto XBox live to take on another player several states away). Our culture is moving away from personal, face to face contact, and that’s what real grassroots community organizing and involvement at a level sufficient to change the world is really about.

Today, the most impassioned use the internet as a tool to hook up with others whom they will eventually meet with and organize with. The rest of us use it as a collossal time waster to feed our own desires. That is why the youth of today is not, and could never be like the youth of the 60s.

But reinstitute the draft, that would personalize it, that would get a few people to stop texting their friends on their Iphones and make them actually get together and discuss what they’re going to goddamn well do about it.

@jess you are right, you have to suffer and get angry. I will never forget my family saying goodbye to my (drafted) brother when he was shipped to Vietnam. I was only seven, but I saw the fear in my parents eyes and lived with the idea for years that he my not come back. We were one of the lucky families, he came back and in one piece. There are so many coming back from this war now with tremendous disabilities physically and emotionally and this government has not even had the decency to take care of them properly. Some “thank you” for serving their country. It’s despicable. Those are the young people angry and suffering this time.

I have to add this as an example of the attitude I have encountered from the “youngsters”. A few of us were discussing the Irag war when he said “I don’t care about the war I just want cheap gas”.

Dale hit it on the head. there are to many options for youth to look to. It is easy to not care.

They wont worry until they are hit hard and can’t live in luxury with game systems and tv’s in their rooms and cellphones etc.

And jess and soapchef are right as well.

Oops sorry! I forgot to add that my friend is 26 and Republican on that last paragraph.

I think a fundamental problem re: Iraq is that many people have bought into the concept that if you do not support the war, then you do not support the troops (a tactic invented by the Nazi’s when the populace was not buying into Hitler’s early tactics).

I also agree that the lack of a draft is a big component as well.

@dalepetrie: “youth culture was driven by musicians” What???

because we’re too preoccupied with facebook and our ipods that hold a bazillion songs!

Less LSD, more marijuana?
Just kidding.

I think the lack of draft is certainly key.
Also, our culture of information/disinformation.
People feel involved by consuming information.
Which is true to a certain extent, but it’s also a means
to have these little mini catharsis instead of building up inside.

We watch the news.
We get angry.
We go to work.
We come home.
We watch the Daily Show.
We laugh at the stupid politicians and the absurd state of the world.
We get on the internet and find some new site making fun of Palin.
We get on boards and chit chat with like-minded people.
We blog or Twitter about it.

We’re still angry, but just a little bit of it is released each day.
Repeat.

There was a stronger sense of there being a distinct ‘youth culture’ in the 60s and 70s, i.e. there was a clear demarcation between the values and priorities of the under-30 demographic and those of their elders. Young people saw themselves as sharing an ideology that both united them and placed them in opposition to the establishment. Since large populations of young adults were concentrated on college campuses, these became natural organizational hubs for rallying around this common cause and giving it political expression.

While there is still a deep ideological divide in the nation, it no longer clearly breaks down along generational lines. There is no longer a “youth culture” per se, no common set of values that consistently sets young people apart from their parents. Young people experiment with different self-expression modes (goth, emo, gangsta…) as youths always have, but they more often see themselves in opposition to other youth cultures than to their elders. This lack of a core youth identity makes it less likely that youth will coalesce around a political cause. They may just as easily find themselves in ideological alliance with a 50 year-old as with a fellow undergrad.

@jvgr – A lot of the late 60s youth/hippie culture was centered around musical expression, yes. Not entirely, but to a large extent, yes. Musicians started to use their music to say things about what was happening in the world. Not in the half assed way they do now, but rock and roll and folk music were at the center of the countercultural universe at that time. It was a complete rejection of the button down work ethic that had driven generations past, and the industrial and war machines that this culture had built itself around.

However, there are quite a few reasons I think, today’s distractions, lack of core culture, etc., all seem valid. However, I think communication channels or “venting” or “calming” channels help to make the difference too.

Back in the old days, there were no internet, no online community, no youtube, no facebook, no blogs, no cell phones, no instant messaging, no text messaging, ..., and whatever means people had then were also not that cheap or accessible. They had the anger and opinions, but they had limited channel to express and share them.

And it was hard to hear different opinions back then. Today we have all sorts of ways to find out what is really going on, and what others’ opinions are. You are much less likely to act on emotion, or on bias, or on only what you know.

And, because of the advancing of communications and media, we actually have more power. We are able to expose things we don’t like easier and faster.

In a way, we are more empowered now than before to make the right decisions, and to influence the society.

I am!
And what makes me more angry is because, like you said, not many kids seem to care about it.
They don’t care that buying absolutely everything at Walmart is not at all good in the long run, and don’t understand why all these family owned restaurants and stores in town are disappearing. Ugh. I just can’t stand it.
And that is why I’m moving some place a little like this.

Those in their 20s today have not had to suffer much, as a generation. I think the ones who may become involved in a much broader way will be the young teenagers of today. By the time they come of age, it’s likely that they’ll have suffered through an economic mess the likes of which most of us have never seen. If the war continues, and the draft is reinstated, we will see it sooner rather than later.

@generals: It does look lovely. Take my advice, and move there while you’re young. Once you’re accustomed to the “normal” consumer-driven way of life, it will be ever harder to pull this off.

I think that people’s asses are on the line every bit as much as during the draft and Vietnam, the only difference being they are different kinds of risks. People’s lives seem much more financially precarious than they did 30 to 40 years ago, such that one disaster or economic downturn and one could easily lose one’s job, one’s home, one’s credit and one’s health in a relatively short time. People are certainly more likely to be arrested and sent to prison on a whole host of “designer” laws criminalizing people’s lifestyles. People are also much more likely to be victims of corporate crime. Credit card companies, for example, are notorious for jacking up interest rates and tacking on bogus charges at will. Cell phone companies engage in ambushing billing practices, etc.

What is different now is that people are encased in electronic cocoons that despite their ready access to information insulate people from reality. In these informational cocoons the imperatives of entertainment often trump reality testing; so even though people have access to factual information, they tend to pick and choose facts they find more “interesting”—which all too often turn out to be self-serving, self-flattering and self-reinforcing notions, which combine to form tight little solipsisms that ultimately become a highly partisan view of reality.

Here, everyone becomes a star in their own movie, and a prisoner of their own cult of celebrity. Conventional reality gives way to a kind of cult-like reality validated by fame, notoriety, and hit-rates. One’s site becomes a projection of one’s virtual self, while traffic to it becomes a surrogate measure of social esteem and approval that one can easily mistake for the validation of truth by reality testing. Here, one’s authority as a source of reliable information flows from the vindication implied in successfully evangelizing others to switch to one’s particular brand of “reality.”

People’s electronic cocoons allow them to overlay their socially validated virtual worlds over the natural world of evidence-based reality. People encase themselves in such things as the “absolute certainties” of Born Again religion or economic fundamentalism. People immerse themselves in the intellectual haze of New Age mysticism—or the distractions of an irresolute and dilettantish post-modernism. Others cordon themselves off in their own private Idaho implied in the notion that “everyone is entitled to his own opinion.”

But, in fact, some opinions are not only wrong, but grievously wrong—and even inimical to the maintenance of a reality-based and empirically validated understanding of the world. Hence, the noble impulse to engage others in constructive dialogue tends to descend into a kind of vicious partisanship that seeks to attack the authority of its opponents. Religious True Believers, for example, have touted the pseudo-scientific claims of Intelligent Design in an attempt to discredit the authority of science. Liberals and conservatives accuse each other of “drinking the Kool-Aid,” and not only are people beginning to wonder if they can trust and believe in anything at all. Under this onslaught, people are beginning to question the authority of accredited reason and, along with it, whole idea of intellectual integrity—which, in essence, is the belief that people can tell the difference between a fact and a lie, between what is real and what is fantasy, what is moral from what is immoral, and what is truthful from what is spin.

Now that I think about it a while, I see plenty of anger and outrage, only it tends to be directed toward one’s opponents in partisan exchanges. While this may seem like ineffectual and self-indulgent ranting, it is actually a legitimate and necessary form of partisanship in a very real cultural war. The cultural wars between religious fundamentalists and secular scientists, and between liberals and conservatives is actually the continuation of a larger and more important class war.

Social conservatism may appear to spring from a wellspring of tradition and “family values” these are really well-orchestrated and well-financed propaganda efforts sponsored by corporate interests. They are attempts to define social problems in terms of people’s individual moral failings, rather than in systemic terms. And, of course, if you can convince one class of people that another class is morally “undeserving,” you set in motion a round robin of blaming and finger-pointing that undermines any consensus for investment in things that generally benefit the lower classes.

People generally seem to be aware that something weird is going on with language. The word “liberal” used to be a word of praise (connoting generosity and open-mindedness) which has since come to mean the opposite and connote treason as well. The word “elite” has become a word that marginalizes and denigrates educated people. In fact, our entire political vocabulary has become reduced to a kind of Orwellian Newspeak where terms like “big government” become thought-stopping propaganda tropes that can abort any constructive discussion about the role of government before it ever begins.

What we need is a better understanding of this politics of reality works. We need to understand how code words come into being and how people in the shadows orchestrate attacks on the authority of science and other trusted sources of information.

But, even more important, we need to develop an understanding of and empathy for society’s underdogs. It wasn’t just the war in Vietnam that brought us together in the 60s, it was also the civil rights struggle, and the recognition that blacks and working class folks were being disproportionately selected to go to war. We need to throw off the racism and “blaming the victim” rhetoric that pervades conservative thinking and prevents us from seeing the current struggle in terms of corporations and oligarchy against everyone else. That can be particularly difficult in a forum such as this, since its structure tends to limit the depth of intellectual engagement. Nonetheless, this is a constellation of ideas whose time has come.

I am having a hard time equating

“People’s lives seem much more financially precarious than they did 30 to 40 years ago, such that one disaster or economic downturn and one could easily lose one’s job, one’s home, one’s credit and one’s health in a relatively short time. People are certainly more likely to be arrested and sent to prison on a whole host of “designer” laws criminalizing people’s lifestyles. People are also much more likely to be victims of corporate crime. Credit card companies, for example, are notorious for jacking up interest rates and tacking on bogus charges at will. Cell phone companies engage in ambushing billing practices, etc.”

with the idea I might be forced, against my will, to risk my life in a war I don’t believe in.

Credit card interest rates are only a problem if the cards are abused to begin with, cell phone billing is still billing. You should, as you do with all bills, watch your bill.

I don’t follow how this ties in to risking your life, your very existence, in a war. I dare say those who have would question it as well.

“it was also the civil rights struggle, and the recognition that blacks and working class folks were being disproportionately selected to go to war.”

I do agree with this whole heartedly. I find it disgusting.

Were did you go bri? You got dropped in mid sentence

Sorry about that. Editing mistake

@ Bri L: I find it somewhat disturbing that only the risks that seem real to you are the ones that are the most extreme and dire—namely, death. It seems to me that there are many lesser risks that are nonetheless real and worthy of note. One should not have to lose one’s life in a in a Katrina-style disaster or a financial meltdown before one starts questioning things. It therefore puzzles me why you do not see them.

In terms of raw probability, I would think the odds of getting sent to prison on a drug charge are at least comparable to those of getting drafted during the Vietnam war. If I recall correctly, there were something like a half a million soldiers in Vietnam at the height of the war, out of which around 55,000 died. Today there are 2.3 million people in American prisons, most of them there on minor drug charges and technical violations of parole for things like not keeping an appointment or showing up drunk.

One might think that going to prison isn’t as serious as getting drafted and therefore not as deserving of the same weight but, I don’t think you really know what incarceration entails. Even though a prisoner remains nominally and physically alive, he undergoes what is known as a “civil death.” In other words, he is stripped of his dignity and his rights. This includes such basic rights as being allowed to pay his bills, or make arrangements with someone to do so on his behalf. As a consequence, most prisoners lose everything they have—their homes, their cars, their credit, and their wives and children. Incarceration also tends to reduce a person to depression, apathy and a deep, deep disgust toward the society that makes him an outcast.

If you have ever seen the HBO series “OZ,” or other similar fictional depictions of prison, you might get the impression that prison life is kind of like life in a college dorm, where people are free to hang out in one another’s rooms, or move about freely from library, to chapel, to laundry, to weight room. But, in reality, most prisons are tense, filthy, disgusting places where prisoners are confined to their cells for upwards of 20 hours a day in order to keep them from stabbing one another. They are let out for two 20-minute meals a day, under very strictly controlled trips to the showers, the exercise yard and their jobs, if they have one. In other words, being incarcerated is like being entombed, only subject to constant exposure to violence, infectious disease and risk of death due to substandard medical care.

If you are a person of color or a poor rural white, nobody has to explain this to you. These risks are very real.

As for the recent epidemic of bank robberies, I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t be upset about it, unless you didn’t know about it. The banking and credit card industries have used their political clout to get age old usury laws removed from the books. There is no longer a limit on the amount of interest that banks can charge, and they charge way, way more than their customers deserve. Credit lending is now so obscenely profitable that one banking executive quipped that it is like having their hand in the public’s pocket. There is an excellent documentary on cable called “Maxed Out.” There are also a couple of editions of Bill Moyers Journal that aired this past Summer. These companies are so rapacious that they are not content to get their predatory practices legalized; they go the extra mile to tack on illegal (non-contractual) fees and surcharges at will.

I had a real eye-opener this past year when I decided to check the arithmetic on one of my credit card bills. I caught Capital One billing me for 4% to 6% (it varied from month to month) in excess of the 29.9% interest the bill told me it was charging. And my experience is by no means unusual. If you really think everything is alright and bad things only happen to people who are “careless” or they have “abused” their cards and, hence, presumably “deserve” it, go to one of those consumer complaint sights like complaints.com and read the hundreds and hundreds of horror stories from people who have gotten screwed by the ambush billing practices of their cell phone companies, or the predatory practices of their credit card companies and their mortgage lenders.

One of the things that has contributed to the sub-prime meltdown is the perverse incentives that the banking and credit industries have been able to get enacted into law at the expense of the general public—namely, a tax credit for loans written off. In other words, rather than deducting the loss as an expense of doing business, they are able to apply the write-off directly to the bottom line, at several times the value of what the loan would produce if it the borrowers continued to perform and the profit from it was subject to normal taxation.

Not since 1929 have the rich and the powerful been able to take so much from ordinary citizens. Class warfare is in full swing, and yet people seem cheerfully oblivious to it, going so far as to deny that we have classes in American society, much less any animosity between them. Indeed, there are still some who manage cheer it on by beating the drum-beat against “big government” and “regulation” as if the mere pronouncement of these words was an adequate explanation.

So, I think the most benign explanation is that people nowadays live in a bubble of their own creation—they are encased and somewhat immobilized by the informational and ideological insulation provided by their electronic cocoons. If it isn’t something that, then it has to be something more sinister, like a cynical and selfish disregard for the rights and dignity of other people, or some sort of brainwashing that incites people to act against their interest.

MontyZuma – Vigilance is always key. I pay between 3.9 and 5.9% on the credit cards I carry balances on, everything else I pay off. If something happens where my rate does something unexpected, I contact them immediately and straighten it out.

As for incarceration for drugs…I don’t sell them, I don’t use them, I’m not worried about being sent to jail for them. Now philosophically I think most laws against drug use should be repealed. But in a country where you can get life in prison for possession of marijuana, I’m staying the *#&@ away!

@MontyZuma -

“I find it somewhat disturbing that only the risks that seem real to you are the ones that are the most extreme and dire—namely, death. It seems to me that there are many lesser risks that are nonetheless real and worthy of note. One should not have to lose one’s life in a in a Katrina-style disaster or a financial meltdown before one starts questioning things. It therefore puzzles me why you do not see them.”

I never said that only “death” was it. I said that I, and I believe others, would have difficulty comparing misuse of credit cards to being drafted to Vietnam. You also didn’t mention Katrina or any other disaster in your first example, I would not diminish such events by comparing them to the items you listed either.

Personal mismanagement or miss fortune which still does not, in my mind rank on the same level as death. I have had 1 bank and 1 healthcare company with an employee who stole my personal information. I have also had a credit card number stolen. You survive.

To be honest, you kind of lost me on the drugs, jail and OZ reference. I will tell you I am quite familiar with the jail system as my stepfather works in it. But I will say I don’t take drugs. Have lost friends to drugs and to assholes who thought they could take them and drive so I don’t support them.

I do understand what the banks are doing. But it is all laid out. You make your payment and it is not a problem. Credit cards are a method of convenience NOT a source of income. People need to take care of their finances. I am doing with out because I can’t afford it and don’t go load my cards up. Sorry but I have no sympathy for those who overload their cards or get to many because they live beyond their means.

the only way someone can get life in prison for marijuana, would be if they already had 2 strikes on their record…

@cheebdragon You say that as if anyone who has two strikes for marijuana deserves life in prison.

Strikes are usually from violent crimes.

in California you would need 2 strikes from violent crimes, and the 3 can come from anything….even stealing a bottle of shampoo can get you life in prison if you have 2 strikes….

@cheebdragon I agree strikes should be reserved for violent offenses, but in California and in the Federal system they don’t have to be. Our prisons in California are packed to the rafters with relatively harmless people, where it is possible to get struck out (i.e., life in prison) for something as minor as shoplifting. The violent strikes are like wild cards in that they don’t all have to be the same violent crime to count. But you can have three burglaries or three petty thefts and still get struck out.

By the way it costs $46,000 a year to incarcerate a prisoner in California, which is hardly worth it to protect society from shampoo stealers.

@dalepetrie

I’m sorry, I don’t see how vigilance protects you against banks and credit card companies from using their vast wealth to get the usury laws changed so that they can charge people unlimited interest. You are fortunate to be paying the low interest rates, but the reason they are low is because you keep your balances low, if not paid off entirely. You no doubt think that your low rates are a reflection of your good character and vigilance, but I am suggesting that you are living in a bubble of complacency.

The fact is, your low rates are low because you don’t really need credit. Its the people who do that really get soaked. I don’t doubt that you are a person of good character who lives right, and does everything they are supposed to, but I assure you that all can change very quickly. You could get sick or have an accident and be sidelined from work for a couple of years. It is also much easier than you might think to run afoul of the law.

There are hundreds of new enacted laws every year, and a lot of them carry prison time. Its much easier than you think to disappear into some gulag over something you never even knew was a crime. For example, I had friend who used to think nothing about walking around town with a 12” Bowie knife strapped to his leg (it was out in the sticks, so no one else did either). Consequently, he thought nothing of carrying a knife with a 2.25” blade in his pocket. He had a run-in with the cops. They searched him, found the knife and charged him with carrying a “concealed weapon” for which he was sentenced to 3 years, and served 20 months. Things only went downhill from there. He ended up doing an extra 3.5 years on 4 parole violations because he would get drunk and miss his appointments—i.e., for things that are not even a crime. He lost his home, his car, his job, his credit, and more than four years of his life all because he didn’t know that carrying a knife in your pocket with a blade longer than 2” is a felony. Now, can you tell me off hand if it would still have been a felony if the police found the same knife on the floor of his car under his seat? On the floor in the back seat? In the glove box? In the trunk? What if it had been a gun?

The thing is, nobody plans on getting in trouble. And, nobody thinks about how easy it is to get in trouble, because they think that being good having good intentions is enough to save them from a system which is becoming increasingly predatory and tilted toward the rich, and to those who benefit from incarcerating others.

I need credit as much as the next guy, I carry way more in credit card debt than I wish I had to, and I carry it all at low interest rates…rates which I am not “fortunate” to have, but rates I have earned, just so you know before you tell me why I’m paying the rates I’m paying.

As for your friend:

1) Ignorance of the law is no excuse, and
2) Even if it were, it doesn’t excuse him choosing to get drunk, choosing not to keep his appointments…there’s a level of personal responsibility (or irresponsibility) that it seems you are trying to excuse by demonizing “the man” without looking at the other side.

That said, yes, the credit card companies are using their massive wealth and power and political connectedness to prey on the ignorant, and the irresponsible. And yes, ideally, we would have more protections for these people, but in the meantime, if you educate yourself and take some personal responsibility for your actions, you’re far less likely to get screwed over by the system.

@dalepetrie

Man, you really do live in a bubble. Haven’t you noticed that our country continues to drift toward an increasingly centralized imperial style of government. (If not, there are some historians I could recommend.) With each passing administration the Presidency becomes more centralized and more monarchical as it presides over an entrenched military-security-surveillance-prison-industrial-propaganda complex, increasingly owned and privately operated by smaller and smaller corporate elite.

Our Legislative Branch no longer serves the interests of the electorate, it serves the corporate plutocracy. The two parties now each cater to different factions within the elite. The American public are irrelevant bystanders who, at best, get a chance to ratify candidates nominated by big money. The Legislative Branch no longer forms policy by consulting experts who contribute to a debate as to the public interest, it simply farms out its prerogatives to political constituents who now write their own legislation, granting themselves tax breaks and freedom from oversight, in exchange for contributions. (The last substantive public legislative debate I recall was the health care debate during the early Clinton Administration.)

For a couple of decades now, our corporate power elite been quietly rewriting the laws to permanently tilt the playing field in its favor so that it becomes a hereditary aristocracy. The first step toward this was the elimination of inheritance taxes, followed by an elimination of the capital gains, against a general background of shifting tax burdens from the rich to the poor.

This was greatly accelerated during the one-party phase of the Bush Administration, which privatized and outsourced government to an extent not seen since the Roman Empire. Private companies not only directly profit from war, they are now able impose what amount to private taxes on the public in the form of higher prices (e.g., $4 a gallon for gas). Favored oil companies have garnered hundreds of billions in profits, distorting prices throughout the whole economy, plunging us even deeper into trade deficits. Everyone is being fleeced and there is little or nothing ordinary people can do about it beause their political institutions have been taken over and no longer serve them.

In addition, the corporate state has privatized domestic security and militarized the police. It has increased prison beds ten-fold (with no effect on traditional crime rates). Our legislatures have enacted such a tangle of draconian laws that nearly everyone, whether they know it or not, is guilty of something. Our constitutional rights have been rolled back or abolished; the government illegally spies on citizens; employers can invade your privacy by demanding a pee test (which has nothing to do with one’s health, safety or job performance, but is essentially a litmus test for one’s loyalty to the state).

The whole population is being subject to increasingly frequent and intrusive searches, virtually anywhere the state decides to set up a checkpoint. This is not for the public’s protection (these checks don’t turn up anything); this is simply a ritual to gets people used to being docile and accepting their subordination to their new masters.

People are already being encouraged people to turn each other in, not because the state really needs the information, but to create mutual suspicion and hatred among groups of people that might otherwise join together in solidarity against the incursions of the corporate state. Giving people an easy way to inflict misery on one another unleashes the very worst in people.

I don’t think your vigilance and your personal responsibility is have kept you from getting screwed in this $850 billion Wall Street bailout. Nor is it going to get you out of paying $4 a gallon for gas, and the umpteen trillion dollar cost of the war in Iraq. Indeed, if are vigilant and virtuous and still getting screwed, what happens if you get old and doddery and somebody—or a whole industry—decides they are going to take you down. I can tell you from personal experience that even if you are ruled by paranoia, if someone is really determined to screw you, chances are you will never see it coming. If they work as a team, you don’t have a chance.

I think you are living in a self-congratulatory bubble in which virtuous and responsible people (like yourself) are somehow morally superior to people who get screwed. I’m sorry to say that your notion that only morally flawed people get screwed because they “deserve” it sounds suspiciously like the rationalization of someone who profits from taking advantage of the ignorance and vulnerability of others. It therefore strikes me as a form of hubris to suggest that because you are so virtuous and wise that you are somehow immune from the predatory machinations of others—indeed, it almost strikes me as ridiculous in light of current and foreseeable events.

Way back at the beginning of this question, I promised to send a link to Carrotmob, one of the most inspiring things I’ve seen lately. This is an inspiring idea where we get to mobilize to entice corporations to do cool shit. Check it out.

(For those who haven’t looked… the link is about what happens when the power of social networks is actually leveraged onto the streets of real life. Change happens. Since this video, this is what these guys are up to now.

@MontyZuma, with all due respect, I think you have read too much into what Dale had to say.

@ Trusinglife – That was so f’ing cool!!!!! I can’t believe how well that worked!

@MontyZuma – You’re preaching to the choir. Take a chill pill. I agree with you about all the ways in which the world is fucked up, but I ain’t livin’ in a bubble. Read my lips…

No matter HOW messed up “the system” is, you CAN protect yourself. Your credit card companies are NOT going to charge you 30% interest (or MORE) unless you fucked up. And if they do, get another credit card and transfer the balance off. This should be possible unless your credit sucks, in which case it ain’t the system that messed up your credit. Credit cards only start charging these rates IF you fuck up. And even if you DO fuck up, if you’ve been a good customer, a phone call can get you back on solid ground. You have to OWN UP to your own part in creating the problem. You are NOT 100% culpable, but IF you are someone who consistently makes at least your minimum payments, the bastards who run the credit card companies WANT to loan you more money, they would RATHER charge you a REASONABLE rate and have you pay them slowly than charge you usurous fees that are going to motivate you to pay if off somehow.

If you pay your bills on time (doesn’t have to be in full, even just make the minimum payments)...essentially do what you PROMISED TO DO WHEN YOU BORROWED THE FUCKING MONEY, you will have no problem.

I am not immune from the predatory machinations of others, but I take my responsibility to pay my bills on time seriously. That’s nothing to be self congratulatory about what I’m saying. I’m saying, yes, the cards are stacked against the little guy. But it’s not hopeless. And ALL I hear coming from you is blame, blame, blame…it’s the system’s fault that your credit card rates went through the roof…it’s the system’s fault that your friend was walking around with a concealed weapon and then got drunk and showed up for late for his parole meetings.

Look, I know people who have been screwed over by the system in ways that make your examples look like a Disney movie, OK? But the problem is, the predators are not praying on the informed and responsible consumers. It IS possible to get the low interest rate cards, it IS possible to get a mortgage you can afford at a low fixed rate, it IS possible to borrow responsibly, not beyond your means, and to pay it back.

But when people just think they can borrow and borrow and borrow and that bill is never going to come, if they borrow more than they can afford, if they allow some slick talking loan salesman tell them they can buy a house they should flippin know they can’t afford, if the credit cards tell you they will charge you usurous interest rates if you don’t make your payments on time, then when the piper comes to collect payment, OK, it sucks, they have way too much power to make it impossible for you to dig yourself out of the hole…but the bottom line is, YOU DUG THE FUCKIN’ HOLE.

Yes, people people are vulnerable, yes, people are not as informed as they should be, and yes, people take advantage of that, and yes, it is wrong. But being ignorant of consequences that were KNOWABLE just because YOU didn’t know them is not sufficient in my mind to absolve you of 100% of the responsibility.

I believe there needs to be far stricter oversight in lending. I believe people shouldn’t be allowed to borrow beyond their means. I think you need to be able to demonstrate that you’re worthy of the credit being extended to you. I don’t think loans should ever be sold on commission. And I think if you get in over your head, we should have better consumer protections to help people get out of situations if they make a mistake. I think the changes to the bankruptcy laws were a bullshit giveaway to Wall Street.

But the fact remains. If you have credit cards which suddently jack your rates, step one, call the credit card company. Ask them is there is ANYTHING you can do to get the rates lowered. If the clerk can’t help you, ask to talk to a supervisor…YOU CAN DO IT! They are only going to be unwilling to do this ultimately if you have been deadbeating them and not paying your bills on time. If they won’t work with you, search for a credit card company that will. You WILL find one UNLESS you have fucked over your credit card company so many times they’ve reported you to credit agencies and no one thinks you’re credit worth. And the only way no one is going to think you’re credit worthy is if YOU AREN’T. And if you AREN’T, then yes, the greedy robber barrons have certainly stacked the deck in a way that it’s going to be very hard for you to dig your way out of this situation, but it is nonetheless a situation which YOU CREATED BY NOT PAYING YOUR BILLS.

Bottom line, I’m neither a fan of “that’s the way it is so suck it,” any more than I’m a fan of “c’mon guy, give me ANOTHER chance.” Even if you’ve messed up your credit, you can get out of it. The price you will pay is usurous credit card rates, but what you need to do is to improve your credit rating. You can do this by making all your bill payments on time every month, pay 10% more than the minimum amounts due, and do WHATEVER YOU HAVE TO in order to make this happen. Stop eating out, stop spending any money you don’t have to spend like in vending machines, coffees, etc., wear those old clothes a bit longer, turn down your thermostat, cancel Netflix and Dish Network or whatever, get your books and movies from the library instead, put off buying anything you can put off buying and sell anything you don’t need, turn lights off when you leave the room and replace all your bulbs with compact flourescents, keep your tires properly inflated, drive conservatively (no jackrabbit starts or sudden stops), don’t spend ANY money you don’t have to. And put that money to paying your bills on time. Within a year your credit score will climb dramatically, you will be able to get a better card and transfer that money off. It ain’t rocket science. And it’s not ALL someone else’s fault.

I have sympathy for people in trouble, I truly do, you misunderstand me when you say I advocate for them. I have gotten myself through some pretty lean times and I don’t expect everyone to know as much about the system as I do or to always be perfect. But I know that there is a difference between making one or two mistakes and making a pattern of mistakes. I know there is a differnce between doing what you have to do and completely shunning any responsibility or culpability. Blame runs both ways, it seems you’re having a hard time seeing the other side of the street.

Excellent, Dale, excellent.

Thanks boxing.

And I’ll add that every single thing in Monty’s last post, EXCEPT for the last paragraph, I understand and agree with 100%. Which is why I’m voting for Obama. I think he can break the back of this system by moving us from a trickle down borrow and spend economy to a bottom up, pay as you go economy. I think he’s not slavish to the corporate interests, I think he has demonstrated via his campaign that he is not betrothed to big money and will do the right thing for the little guy and not the big guy. The system has been jacked since Reagan took office. We need to revert to FDR era economics and social policies…the idea of looking out for each other and not the priveleged few. I support that entirely.

But the other reason I support Obama is he acknowledged, in the very first speech I ever heard him give in 2004, that people don’t expect government to solve all our problems, but they sense that with a slight shift in our priorities we can do much better. So, if you’re looking for Obama to create a welfare state where you can borrow whatever you want and never pay it back, not gonna happen. If you expect him to create a financial system that has protections built in for those who aren’t savvy or always perfect, then that’s what I expect too. But those who refuse to own up to their own personal responsibility will always pay the price, and that’s how it SHOULD be.

@Trustinglife: Fabulous!

Thanks Augustlan and Bri_L!

Ooh, I just found a 0:57 sec version of the concept on Current TV. So cool. That’s all I’ll say about it here.

Well, I don’t share your particular viewpoint (I’m a young conservative) but most of my friends do. And yeah, they don’t really do anything about it.

Why? Well I think because they have more distractions. During the 60’s, there was no internet, game consoles, etc. Also, the culture was very different from what it is now. Given our current youth culture/activities, protesting the war just isn’t a priority or desirable anymore.

Whether that’s good or bad, I don’t know, you tell me.