How many of you who are over 40, find yourself thinking more

[raccoon]

and more these days,

(1) when you hear that by the year 20__, such and such will happen,
that you're glad you won't live to see it,

or

(2) that you're glad you're not a young person nowadays,

The way I do?


Of course, it's possible that many middle-aged/elderly people in any time period think either or both of these. I don't know if this is because of the time or just human nature.

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. I worry, though, that my kids will live to see it.

[Warren Stupidity]

2. I worry what my kids are going to have to deal with.

I agree that I frequently figure that it will not be my problem.

[Atman]

3. Me.

I keep feeling the urge to apologize to my children for having them!

[bdamomma]

4. I will do everything in my power not to leave this mess

to my children.

[Marymarg]

5. glad I'm nearly dead

say it all the time, only partly joking.

I'm 58 and glad I have had most of life. I worry about my children. They are still in their 20's.

Life is tough! That never changes. However, it seems that all this meanness/hate-mongering is making it inordinately tough.

I think everyone I know is on an anti-depressant.

[acmejack]

17. I hear you.

And I agree.

[Individualist]

6. I've thought that for quite some time,

and think about it more and more frequently as time goes by.

[Hugin]

7. I find myself becoming more nostalgic...

About how things were back before Martial Law...

When most of the current Administration were indicted criminals.

Things made more sense then.

[WePurrsevere]

8. Not much since my children & now grandchildren probably will be &

so I worry for them and I continue to fight for them.

[NoPasaran]

9. I feel that way a lot

Disaster X is on the way by 20-whatever, I just say "whew! I'll already be dead, I'm going to miss that particular shitstorm!"

And I don't have kids.

[Cassandra]

10. I do.

I so can't recognize this country. Who are these slimy people who couldn't recognize the Constitution if it hit them on the head?

[tnlefty]

21. Heh, heh, I've told my kids to envision repugs as scared, pitiful people

who are cowering in the corner of a closet, pissing themselves, and that they've used the Constitution and The Bill of Rights to line the corner with. Ya know, like paper training a puppy.

[madokie]

11. all I know is, I think, I worry and I fight

and I must continue all three until I die for the ones after me.

[Warpy]

12. A sign of how bad things have gotten in this country

is that the old no longer envy the young.

[magellan]

13. I don't have kids, but I worry about the young people who are

...just starting out in life, and am glad I'm not one of them.

But mostly I worry for the little ones, who were born just before or during the Bush** regime, and will never know the mighty heart of America that beat for 225 years before it was silenced by these bastards. I think there will come a time when they'll miss what they never knew...and want it back.

[raccoon]

24. Ditto.

" I don't have kids, but I worry about the young people who are
...just starting out in life.."

[Frances]

14. I'm officially a senior citizen now

I have very good memories of my past from the time I can remember until now. But I don't forget that there were bad things then too. For example, I remember being very frightened as a toddler because we had to cover the top part of our car's headlights so the Japanese and German submarines couldn't find out where we were (we lived on the Gulf Coast). When I was a teen, I was sad to learn that my U.S. born Methodist minister and his wife had spent the World War II years in an internment camp because they were Japanese-American. Americans finally came to their senses and apologized to the Japanese-American people for their treatment. I can only hope that in the future Americans will come to their senses about torture and see that the torture amendment doesn't do any more to protect them from real danger than interning Japanese-Americans did in the 1940s.

[trixie]

15. I don't

Don't be an old biddy cynic. Study ancient philosophy to see that thoughts like that were around for thousands of years.

Sure Bush is an idiot but 20 years ago Bush was an idiot. Nixon was an idiot. Reagan nearly destroyed the country. Wasn't the first and won't be the last.

[mwb970]

25. It's not a matter of being an "idiot".

True, Reagan was a dolt, and Nixon was a criminal. But our current president is a traitor. This is truly something different, having an anti-American president. Don't be naive about this.

[Flying Dream Blues]

30. So right. This is another level of evil entirely. Our country

will be lucky to survive in any recognizable form. I hope I will have the courage to help the change that must come.

[trixie]

42. I don't believe the question was

Are you naive about the current mess we are in. The question was about how people internalize their era as compared to other eras. That is an old cynics trap to fall into. Move ahead, fight the good fight but don't whitewash the past.

[Skelington]

27. I agree with you Trixie,

the country is not crashing and burning, the US will fall eventually, every empire does. However this is not our time.

The number of people on DU that have written off the greatest nation the world has ever known, because of 6 (soon to be 8) years of ignorance make me sad. I certainly can't speak for anybody but me, but this is not the most difficult of times I have seen for my family or my country.

[RebelOne]

16. Yup, when I hear that such and such catastrophe will happen

in 20__, that I won't be around to see it. Unfortunately, my kids and grand kids will.

[Bonobo]

Parents NEVER think that way (unless they are Rapturists...)

[shadowknows69]

18. I wish I was 21 again

for more than the obvious reasons lol. I wish I had the youthful energy and health to carry on this fight with all cylinders firing. As it stands right now someone better find me a desk job with the resistance.B-)

[Flying Dream Blues]

33. Delete...the dreaded triple post!

[Flying Dream Blues]

34. delete

[Flying Dream Blues]

35. That's funny...I may need a filing job, too, shadow! ;)

[sweetheart]

19. or that loved ones died will never come back

And the many loved ones gone is greater than living, not
loved in a buddhist sense, but personal-like.

Whats the point of being alive if the world is only ever
going to come to meanness and bully criminality spreading
by mine own helping hand, still driving a petrol 4WD and
drinking wine from South Africa, but the biggest hottub does
not make up for the loss of the pax americana.

Now its a generation of prison youth and grossly ingorant elites,
unable to create a society any longer, with nothing in common
whatsoever except mutual tyranny from a prison state.

But it was pretty grim for the jews who stayed in Germany as well.
A lotta folks have pollyanna views on what stay-and-fight really
means, and that a strategic retrenchment of life might be in
order given the unconscious choice to stick out the reich to its bottom.

I do not find the depressing view that healthy, its not innocent or
in love, or profound, or awake even, its a dreaded dukkha-like
assonance of existance. It is how i feel too, when i feel unhealthy,
when i give up and wish i was fucking dead too.

And the loved ones gone, left alone like i always was anyways,
even for a graced moment with my lover, Time, as she eats my skin.

[tenshi816]

20. Yes, and I worry about my children

and their grandchildren's children.

I wasn't old enough to vote when Richard Nixon was President, but I was old enough to know that what he and his gang were involved in was really bad, even if I didn't understand all the specifics. I couldn't even begin to imagine at the time that someone would come along when I reached my middle years that would make Nixon seem almost benign in comparison.

I never imagined that American politics - and America itself - would be taken over by right-wing religious zealots. I never imagined that the world would find itself heading for a religious war in the 21st century. I worry that my children, or their children, will one day find themselves having to practice a religion, any religion, by force.

[KharmaTrain]

22. 1 No...2 Yes

I gave up the crystal ball gazing in year 2000. That was such a big milestone that I never really thought about what came beyond. Hell, I'm from the generation that never trusted anyone over 30 and hoped we died before we got old.

On the second part, I have a 21 year old daughter and 19 year old son who faces a far more cynical and complex world than I did. While they have better technology than we did, the also have had to make far more choices...choose preferences and limit a lot of their options at a lot younger age than I did.

Personally...coming of age in the 60's and 70's was a blast. It was an exciting time where there was an optomistic feel to this country that vanished during the 80's and only briefly returned during the Clinton years. While we can communicate with one another better than ever before, our ability to communicate has never been worse. It's a lot trickier world they face...limited in careers or in knowing that what path they decide to go into will be the one they stay on.

It's all perspective...and jaded by our current situation. When I was younger I had less responsibilities and experiences that affect how I look on the expeiences my children are going through.

Cheers...

[mwb970]

23. I've thought that since the 80s.

(I'm 56.) Reagan's presidency appeared to usher in a new America, one I didn't like the looks of. It's been a long downhill slide ever since, with the pace picking up recently as our once-great nation becomes an emblem of evil and moral depravity in the world.

People say, "Don't you wish you were young again?" and I say "And living in a fascist America? No thanks!" I feel so sorry for today's young Americans.

Bush and his fellow criminals are ruining everything I used to love about America. This horrible administration is the worst tragedy to befall our country in its history, one that I don't think we will ever be able to recover from.

Sorry, but that's the way it is.

[havocmom]

26. Describes me well, but I would add...

there is a certain freedom that comes with knowing you have lived most of your life. IF enough of us geezers and geezers-in-training decide 'what the hell, we're almost dead anyway' there could be much done to help turn it all around and show our children that one doesn't not have to accept 'what is'. If 'what is' is bad, then we need to light a path to 'what may be' and take point down that trail.

Really, what have we go to lose? Be radical, but do it in ways that are effective. Light the way to a path out of this morass. What FDR said about fear is still true. No point in being afraid of what they will do to you if you dare to speak truth to power. Look at what they have already done. Extrapolate what will be done to our children. Pick a different path.

If somebody sends white powder to you, do you shrink away in fear at this point in your life? Or do you fire up and decide they are going down for their crimes? Which route is really safer?

You can't beat bullies unless you stand up to them. Corporations are well heeled, well insulated bullies. And, yes, they hold most of the cards in that they own most of the politicians in most of the developed nations.
But they don't own me. And they don't own you.

Age can bring a fearlessness and that can be a formidable tool. Baby Boomers are a large group. Could be quite a battery of loose cannons if we decide they can't scare us into inaction at this point in our lives.

I tell the young people, let us old farts march in the front. Lots of us have faced the gas, water cannon, clubs before. If we fall, hell, we were falling already. Shock troops are best made of people with short futures. We can turn that old tactic against the powers.

[neebob]

28. I catch myself thinking a thought

for which I've criticized and argued with my wingnutty Mo-mom - that is, wouldn't it be nice to bring back old times. I sometimes think I'd be willing to go back to about 1960, maybe even before, and be this age. Then I wonder if I had full knowledge, would the world seem as absurd and disgusting as it does now.

[annabanana]

29. I want my kids to experience the America I grew up in. .

no, no, no. . not picket fences and apple pie...

The America where you feel like it's your Country. The America that champions citizens and works to do their bidding. The America that shines as a beacon for the world..


THIS America:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

[NJCher]

31. the fatal flaw in our system

Is the use of fear as a weapon on the American people.

I'm hesitant to say this because I'll sound like a know-it-all, but I saw this happening when I was about 10 or 12 and that's why I didn't have kids.

Figuring out that money was the be-all and end-all in this society (yes, even back in the 60s), I went to the library to study up on the best way to make $80 million. That was my (modest) little childhood goal. By reading Newsweek magazine, I figured out there was one field where one could justify endless orders: military armaments.

I saw and recognized the scare tactics going on around me and realized exactly what they were doing: scaring the American people into spending on "defense." And it's never stopped. They scare us so we're essentially slaves supporting the endless development and acquisition of armaments.

The only time I saw any hope was when communism fell but even then I said that it's only a matter of time before they come up with a new and more expensive boogieman. And did "they" ever come back with a vengeance, going after Clinton like they did.

And sure enough, now we're not only enslaved to supporting the war on terror but we're still shoveling money into Star Wars.

This is why I never had kids and why I plan everything in my life to pay the minimum amount of taxes to the federal government.




Cher

[asjr]

32. In all my 74 years I never dreamed

I would see this magnificent country falling apart because of one man. Sometimes I think woman was put on earth to worry. I worried about my children when they were young and still worry. Add to that my grandchildren and great-grandchildren. In the year 2006 I can't believe our government is going to pass a law that allows torture. We will have to go back to school and take Inquisition 102.

[davekriss]

36. Late forties here

And what I think geeze we can't let this be, my kids will struggle and suffer. I never get to the "glad I won't be around" thought.

[Hamlette]

37. I keep "hearing" myself but can't remember former outrages

when I see a post here like this opening post or "how did this happen to my country", "Im moving to another country", I remember myself in the 60s, 70s and 80s thinking the exact same thing. "How could this country have re-elected Reagan/Nixon." "I have nothing in common with my 'fellow americans'." "They are ruining what was great about our country."

It seems a bit worse to me now, but it did throughout all those other periods as well.

Hard to judge.

I think we took our eyes off the prize then, and we are now. I am sick to my stomach when I think about the war in Iraq and this torture bill but they want us to look like mad men screaming about civil rights while rome burns. They want us to play wack a mole.

Whenever you say things like "I took the Harold Ford sign off my lawn" (Because he voted for torture) you feed into their game.

I was disappointed to see my congressman voted for torture but its because his district is so gerrymandered here if he doesn't, he'll lose.

Looking back I wonder if Reagan wasn't the worst because he started it all by making being stupid fashionable and making eduction unimportant.

[mentalsolstice]

38. I'm So Glad I'm 45

And hopefully won't live to see the fall of our country, or other man-made disasters. And I have no regrets about deciding not to have children. However, whenever I look at my 21 y.o. niece, and her one year-old sister, I don't have the hope for them, that my parents had for me. It's so sad!

I'm also pissed about what's going on today. I see so many hard-working people who had so much hope 10 years ago, for their children, for their own retirements, etc., and now that's all being dwindled away. Ten years ago we were sitting on top pf the world, thinking about all the wonderful things we were going to do when we retired (travel, community work, etc.) because of good career decisions and hard work. Now those plans have been drastically ratcheted back, and we're just hoping we'll be able to get by.

I can't imagine being twenty...

[NewYorkerfromMass]

40. I'm 45 and have a 7 y.o.

I want her to be brave and fight for what is right.
Right now she is a very happy little child, and she's had a very good start, and I know she will do what she needs to do to remain happy.
I've lived the pessimistic life, the optomistic one is better.

[sinkingfeeling]

39. I'm glad that during most of my lifetime, the USA wore the white hats

and feel glad that I'm not a young person that will be hated by the entire world for what America is now becoming.

[WinkyDink]

41. ALL THE TIME. AND glad that I never reproduced.

[Igel]

43. Sometimes.

Then I remind myself of what my parents used to say when they saw me happily playing.

I grew up with race riots, and hippies; rampant drug use and soaring crime rates. Stagflation and ever increasing pollution, with Soviet-American proxy wars fought in Central America, Asia, and Africa and the risk of ideologically-driven thermonuclear war hanging over our heads. Over-population would lead to starvation and massive wars. A real buzz-kill for your average teenager.

Our lifestyle is different from theirs, radically different. We don't have a house yet--too spendy, on one salary. We decided leaving the kid to day care 8 am to 6 pm five days a week was a bad idea, so one of us is pretty much always with him. But we have luxuries and toys they never had, and our kid has conditions better than I ever had. And we don't have to work shift work. I look at my little kid, happily playing, and wonder what various problems we're facing now will lead to, and how horrible his life is.

Then I remember that most of the worst problems my parents lamented weren't unsolvable, and some have stopped being problems. Some have metamorphosed. There are some new ones. But my life isn't as horrible as my parents assumed it would be, and the problems they find intolerable I consider background noise.

I've known people that grew up in Stalinist USSR and Brezhnev's USSR. They had happy childhoods, and while they weren't always happy as adults, they found that, in general, they were happy to be alive. Those that went off to the GULag even preferred that, mostly, to non-existence. Hope does that.

It'll be the same, in all likelihood, for my kid(s).

[Ksec]

44. I think about both

I fear that the country could easily fall into a dictatorship . When you see nearly half this country rubberstamping an administration that has done the things this one has its become evident that these things could easily happen. With media disinforming the public and a sleazy Congress more than willing to give up oversight who can deny the possibility. I have two children, 17 and 13. I worry about their future, and I have educated them . Thats the best I have right now besides my efforts to throw these bums out.

[OrangeCountyDemocrat]

45. I Turned 40 This Year....

I've been saying more and more, how I see myself elsewhere at some point in my future. Assuming I have the means to get out, and I do so in time, before I'm somehow sucked down into the vortex by this facist regime.

I would like to see more of the world anyways, so if I am able to, I hope I get the chance, because I don't see this country's future in a favorable light unfortunately. Things just keep going from bad to worse, to downright DISGUSTING.

Those who wish to stay and fight, you're better than me. I don't feel the need to be left on the Titanic as it sinks thinking how noble I was to sacrifice my life when I could have been safe in a lifeboat.

[Ameritopia]

46. You're glad you're not young??!

Bullshit! I'll take being 30 again any day of the week. You have a poor attitude. Don't let the Bush Junta get you down!!

[blonndee]

53. But you said you were "depressed beyond belief"

and "America is over." Sounds like the Bush junta's got you down, too. Hope you feel better now.

[fishnfla]

47. Chronic aged thinking

1. Back in my day things were great

2. Today really sucks

3. Tomorrow is going to be worse than ever

Living amongst the dinosaurs, I have been hearing this for decades. That and it sucks to get old or its variant.

Yesterday is just the day before today

[Bake]

48. At least ten times a day.

Whether it's the accelerating loss of basic freedoms or the loss of the basic social contract that said that if you got an education and worked hard, you'd have job security and retirement to look forward to -- and so many other things I can't list them all, I'm glad I won't be around to see it. And I feel exceedingly sorry for my kids. The whole world has changed for them, and for the WORSE.

Bake

[Mountainman]

49. All the time. I'm 60 and I'm glad I will not be here for that much longer

If a real progressive movement broke out before I died, I would wish to remain here longer but I doubt that will happen.

We all have the power to work together to take this world and country back from those who are screwing it up but we don't trust each other enough to work together on it. I am so often reminded of the picture from the nuclear freeze movement where a guy was pushing in the plunger on a explosive device and he was blowing the top of his head off and a mushroom cloud was coming out of the top of his head.

[truebrit71]

50. I must confess I do that more and more...

Both 1) + 2)....I feel awful for my kid, but shit, not my problem....*smack*...sorry that was my inner republican speaking....I feel awful for my kid, that's why I fight like stink right now...to make things right for the future...

[roamer65]

51. Lest you think being 40+ makes you "immune"

remember that in the final days of Nazi Germany, just about every able bodied male was forced into military service or they were executed. I am near 42 and do not consider myself exempt.

[novalib]

52. I Feel ASHAMED

I remember when I was younger how we used to hold our parents and those of that generation in utter contempt.

THEY gave us the Cold War. THEY gave us the Bomb. They gave us a world we all felt was intolerable. THEY gave us racism and sexism.

I feel ashamed for the world we are leaving for future generations.

And I tremble to think of how future generations will hold us in utter contempt.

And I shudder when I realize that we will deserve the contempt.

[leesa]

54. I think that a lot lately. If I were 20 or so, I don't think I could

stand it. I just don't see anything heading in a very positive direction on any front...actually, more along the cataclysmic line.

[Art_from_Ark]

55. Back in the late 1960s, there was a show called "The 21st Century"

that was narrated by Walter Cronkite. Although the program was supposed to have been upbeat about the future, it scared me for some reason. Then Zager and Evans came out with the song "In the Year 2525" and that really made me pessimistic about the future.

I have been mostly pessimistic ever since.