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I'm 27, too, have a few acquaintances in the 16-22 age range (and oh, boy is there a difference between us... it's scary....)
Start with: You bust your ass for $6.00 an hour part time and then lose 33% of it in FICA, SSA, and other payroll taxes. You file 1040EZ since you really don't have any deductions and get part of that 33% back, but not a lot.
You didn't have a great deal of indepth US economics, so for you, a tax is that money they steal out of your paycheck. You only hear the sound bites and don't think about how they will apply to you and yours.... but assume they will. Cuz you're average, and this is average people news.
You don't read the paper because it takes forever and it costs money and they write like old farts. Papers aren't l33t.
College is costing you about $40K a year, up over 200% in 10 years. You hear your parents bitching about the costs and how much more they would have under some delusional Repug plan.
In HS, every day you had abstinence only health class, wore WWJD junk, the cool kids were getting "2ndary Virginity" certificates and talking about their one-on-one personal relationship with God, the Goddess, some such. Everyone who was anyone was really spiritual and semi-fundie Xtianity is much more socially acceptable than liberal Xtainity or any eclectic belief or other belief system. Repug are tightly tied with the fundie Xtian community. Being different is bad in HS. (This is not to say that Xtianity is necessarily bad, but the HS version is very fundie at times.)
The churches sponsor youth groups that are actually kind of cool. They do free skate parks, (except for that 10 minute sermon and prayer session you have to sit through) dances and such. They have outings - go to the neo-con rally and then the beach. And hey, there are adults that pay real attention to your problems, not just yell at you and bitch because you're asking for money AGAIN.....
Thus you absorb unsound, possibly dangerous (if it's one of the white supremicist churches or one that teaches everyone's going to hell but us) theology with your ice cream, right-wing propaganda with your free pizza. Osmosis, baby.... (GROSSLY OVERSIMPLIFIED, but interpolate, people.)
If your parents were at all yuppie-ish, you were very protected, very scheduled and had little to no freedom to explore who and what and where you wanted to be and go and do and think. You were too busy with tutoring and play-dates and extra activities.
Your teachers squashed any discussion of controversial topics because the freeper parents would call in and complain, go to the school board and ask for the teacher's ass on toast with white sauce, and otherwise make it not worth the $14 an hour. The Freeper parents have learned the value of a cowed and cowardly school board, or better yet, one made up of their own, covert friends and collegues. They also know that the impoverished public school districts can't afford a lawsuit and will do ANYTHING - including fire a very good, liberal teacher - if there is even the possibility that a suit will come up. (BTW, my friend the teacher says this is why kids don't respect teachers - in America, a person is respected based on their salary and teaching pays about as well as managing a fast good outlet.)
If you're a teen, you're scared to death that things are just going to get worse and you're too young to realize just how good we had it under Clinton (under Clinton, you were in Junior High and only really noticed the sex stuff that made your parents get all weirded out when you had to watch the news for civics) because you weren't working then. So better the devil you know, right? And they've got to be smart to be president, right?
The Repugs do the same shit your parents do - do as I say not as I do, My money's different than your money, I'll tell you what I feel like telling you and nothing more - so it feels comfortable and safe. Not necessarily fair, but comfortable and safe. And no matter how liberal or conservative your parents are, they do this kind of thing because it's part of the territory for being a parent.
And yet, there is an even bigger, stranger, thing that makes you go huh.... The big truth is this: The next generation always rebels against the dominant paradigm. This process is also speeding up - what used to take 30 or 40 years now takes 10 or less. The Early Victorians were a rebellion against the excesses of the Regency. The Late Victorians were an economic rebellion against the laissez faire economics of the Early Victorians, and the Edwardians were strong regulators of the trades and anti-monopolists. Then 20's Lost Generation was a rebellion against the restriction and prudery of the Victorians and Edwardians; we see a return to laissez faire capitalism and another backlash in the Great Depression, though we miss the social rebellions thanks to the Depression and WWII. The post-war period is a rebellion against the forced frugality and economic restrictions of the Depression and the War years; social behaviors that were fine in war time - women working, more casual attitudes towards sex - disappear. The Hippies were a rebellion against the rigidity of the post-war anti-communist period; the 70's-80's Moral Majority was a rebellion against the hedonistic late 60's and 70's; the liberal 90's were a rebellion against the failed moralization and excessive consumption of the Me Decade. You can really see this in women's fashion, as bizarre as that seems.
Which means.... that the current kids are rebelling against the liberal 90's when X,Y, and Z all failed (what ever those are....)
There's a reason that many cultures consider "Nostalgia" a disease.... and why the root words do literally mean "returning home" and "pain". The greeks literally considered homesickness and illness.....
Can we fix it? Yep. Return the voting age to 21 and raise the age of military service to 21. Require 2 years of government classes, plus a full year of economics - and let one year be Liberal politics, and the other be Conservative politics , conducted a week at a time, balanced back and forth.
Befriend a couple of teenagers/young college kids and steer them in the right direction. Help them understand what's going on and how it affects them. Be gentle and kind, and be a friend, not a parental figure. Peer pressure - if you're close enough in age to be a peer - works great here.
Support a liberal, brightly colored, fast paced television cable station.....
Politicat (who knows too much about history to want to live in a "Golden Age". Brass, all of them at best. I like my plumbing and my equal rights, thank you.)
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