Sunday, July 26, 2020

"We never sold out. We bought in!"

Gerard Vanderleun writes in part about his time at UC Berkeley.
...Nope, we never sold out. We bought in. But we kept the Che poster pinned up forever in our hearts.

And now, we’ve arrived at our rendezvous with history.

In our aging hearts, we hate what we’ve become and, like any good group of neurotics, transfer that hate to the country that gave us everything including the Long Peace in which to enjoy it.

We’re the first in line to bitch and moan and hate a country that makes our freedom possible. More than that we’re also in love with the always -denied privilege, comfort, money, and safety that makes it possible for us to mouth off without limit. And finally, we’re coming to understand that we are not our parents’ generation, we’re “The Not-So-Great” Generation, and deep down we’re cowards.

We say we’re ‘afraid’ of losing our cherished ‘freedom’ to the jackbooted legions of Trump’s Conservative Brownshirts that seek to stifle our dissent from every street corner. That’s really what a lot of us think. That’s really just how bull-goose looney we’ve become.

...We like the slogans, books, movies, TV shows, politicians and publications that confirm for us the deep liberal dream that if we are just understanding enough, long enough, apologize for living enough, and offer enough in the way of bribes, the oppressed of the world will come to love us… and then just leave us alone.

...We’re so stupid we’ve even started to believe “It can’t happen here” after it already has.

...But my generation, being eternally drenched in a mindless nostalgia for its weird youth, refuses to learn that. It believes that the cool answer to the great crisis which has been brought to us in the last years is to make a sign that says ” I still heart New York more without the twin towers,” parade about in their plague infected ideology to say, “Give up.”

When I look at the spectacle that my Boomer generation has made of itself, a generation that had everything going for it, that had every opportunity, and came up with Caramel Soy Lattes and “Impeach the President,” all I can say is:

“I resign the Revolution. I’m joining the Resistance. The REAL Resistance.”
Read more here.

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