I See You Hiding.....

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

I see you hiding around corners, lurking behind trees and bushes.  I see you watching the children as they play their silly games in the park.  The children still young enough to think it’s a beautiful world and mommy and daddy can fix everything. 

I see your handiwork in the “Hannah Montana” and other celebrities (High School Musical, Gossip Girl) who direct their careers towards elementary school girls and those other young people looking for a hero.  You lure them in young and innocent with all of the glittery room accessories, the baubles and perfumes, the complete makeover kits.  The dolls and the dress up, teaching our daughters that “slutty” is the new black!  And making sure our sons look for girls wearing the new black!

I see you as you follow newly double digit aged kids, those 10-15 year olds who are finding that not only is it not a beautiful world, but mommy and daddy can’t even fix themselves, let alone everything.  I see the stain of your touch on those children, their clothes, their iPods and cell phones.  What messages are you whispering in their ears as they walk down the street to the beat of whatever music you have convinced them that they need to listen too.  I see your plan, you decide who and what is “cool” and then you get them young.  But I question who is truly working for you, the kids who everyone wants to be like, or the kids they torment into shooting the school to hell?

I see you as you struggle to maintain your control over the young twenty something kids who have started asking questions you really don’t want to answer for fear they will see you as the lie you are.  You start losing control as they start developing lives, ideas and ideals of their own.  Well you lose a few.  Less that you did 20 years ago, but hopefully more than you will 5 years from now. 

That is my hope, that the generation that is coming into its own now has the wherewithal to stand up and put a stop to you, to your lies.  That they will be strong where we were weak, educated where we were ignorant, and brave where we ran off to do something else.

Because I have to have hope in something, so I’m putting it into the children we’ve raised with the knowledge, strength and bravery we didn’t have.  That they will either rise as an example or lead others in the struggle to survive.

Or else it was all for nothing.

[Doktor Howl]

Unfortunately, the next generation is being raised to accept that expedience > the rule of law, that principles are not actually binding, and that everything will be just fine, if they do as they're told.

I am equally certain that Roman children were taught this in 80-50 BCE.

[Jenne]

I dunno, Rog, my kid stood up at 11 years old and decided not to say the pledge of allegiance--as a son of a Muslim in San Difuckingego, land of the many military compounds and their red state counterparts--because HE thought it was tantamount to religious practice to do so.

I think, as always, SOME kids are going to be "brainwashed" into accepting as many lies as are spoonfed them by their "elders."  And then there'll be others for whom the emperor's naked ass becomes more of an everyday accepted tr00f.

Funny thing is, one of my kids falls into the former, the other falls into the latter group.  The one who likes the spoonfeeding has a hard time in this house...I'm hoping he doesn't decide to embrace some bumfuck idiocy of a religion out of kneejerk reactionaryism.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

Unfortunately, the next generation is being raised to accept that expedience > the rule of law, that principles are not actually binding, and that everything will be just fine, if they do as they're told.

I am equally certain that Roman children were taught this in 80-50 BCE.

You are right, I'm sure most are being raised with that mind set no matter how much that breaks my hope.  I pray mine have learned (if nothing else) to think for themselves.....

[Doktor Howl]

I think, as always, SOME kids are going to be "brainwashed" into accepting as many lies as are spoonfed them by their "elders."  And then there'll be others for whom the emperor's naked ass becomes more of an everyday accepted tr00f.

Interesting historical notes:

1.  The youth vote in 1968 split right down the middle on Nixon.

2.  The youth vote in 2004 went to Bush.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

I think, as always, SOME kids are going to be "brainwashed" into accepting as many lies as are spoonfed them by their "elders."  And then there'll be others for whom the emperor's naked ass becomes more of an everyday accepted tr00f.

Interesting historical notes:

1.  The youth vote in 1968 split right down the middle on Nixon.

2.  The youth vote in 2004 went to Bush.

You know I hold the vote going to Bush in 04 as a direct result of his daughters campaigning.  They are both quite charismatic even if they are brainwashed.

[Doktor Howl]

I think, as always, SOME kids are going to be "brainwashed" into accepting as many lies as are spoonfed them by their "elders."  And then there'll be others for whom the emperor's naked ass becomes more of an everyday accepted tr00f.

Interesting historical notes:

1.  The youth vote in 1968 split right down the middle on Nixon.

2.  The youth vote in 2004 went to Bush.

You know I hold the vote going to Bush in 04 as a direct result of his daughters campaigning.  They are both quite charismatic even if they are brainwashed.

Naw. 

It's just that John Waynism comes into style every other decade.

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

I think, as always, SOME kids are going to be "brainwashed" into accepting as many lies as are spoonfed them by their "elders."  And then there'll be others for whom the emperor's naked ass becomes more of an everyday accepted tr00f.

Interesting historical notes:

1.  The youth vote in 1968 split right down the middle on Nixon.

2.  The youth vote in 2004 went to Bush.

You know I hold the vote going to Bush in 04 as a direct result of his daughters campaigning.  They are both quite charismatic even if they are brainwashed.

Naw. 

It's just that John Waynism comes into style every other decade.

 

I can't argue with that in any way!

[Luna]

Scary-awesome, Khara.

[Doktor Howl]

[Dysfunctional Cunt]

You know it was the masks topic that inspired me to start this, it's been sitting in my documents for a while now!!!

[Doktor Howl]

You know it was the masks topic that inspired me to start this, it's been sitting in my documents for a while now!!!

I'm flattered.   

Still and all, awesome piece.

[Jenne]

I think, as always, SOME kids are going to be "brainwashed" into accepting as many lies as are spoonfed them by their "elders."  And then there'll be others for whom the emperor's naked ass becomes more of an everyday accepted tr00f.

Interesting historical notes:

1.  The youth vote in 1968 split right down the middle on Nixon.

2.  The youth vote in 2004 went to Bush.

But what was the "youth vote" for Clinton?

And what was the "youth vote" for Obama.

The pendulum DOES swing both ways, and the voting spectrum STILL seems to curry favor with the middle of the road--whereverthefuck that may be.

The thing is, reactionaryism goes BOTH ways.  So yeah, one generation or one sector of the voting population goes "liberal" (yeah, we don't really HAVE liberal politics here, just what holds a placeholder for them elsewhere), and the next reacts and goes the opposite direction.  FDR begat Ike begat JFK begat Nixon begat Carter begat Regan/Bush I era begat Clinton...and so on.

I'm not arguing that head-up-ass syndrome isn't passed down.  But folks tend to pick a side and squeeze their minds into that party's platform...rather than the other way around.  And anything in any other direction tends to read like a buncha no-nothings.  Unfortunately.

Not to mention the way the corporate plutocracy holds so much "invisible" sway that can't be cracked nor revealed to the "unwashed masses."

But it's ok to think and feel and desire that YOUR kids, somehow someway, MAY DESIRE FOR BETTER and actively seek better than that.  And it's ok to want them to desire that better and actively seek bettre than that.  In fact, I'll go so far as it's ok to work actively that they continue to want that, and seek transparency around every fucking corner of their universe, however long they can and have the energy to do so.

Or maybe I'm just full of it.

I've come a long way in my activism in that I'm not beat down nor am I seeing it as a continual exercise in futility--but neither am I that person that was laughed off the forum for her idealism about voting and participation, either.

*shrug*  I don't have all the answers, but I'm not going to presuppose my kids can't read and learn and look at to judge for themselves what reeking injustices they were born into, either.

[Jenne]

You know it was the masks topic that inspired me to start this, it's been sitting in my documents for a while now!!!

It was an awesome piece, Khara.  And it's food for thought.

[Placid Dingo]

I like your attitude Jenne.