At last, I finally see. Baby Boomers are everything wrong with society.

Originally posted by dadudemon
It can certainly bring the "war" to the people in a more sentimental definition of "war", which is exactly what happened to the Vietnam.

I also do not see how the protests did anything spectacular to end the war. Politicians were already divided over the issue from "day 1".

Originally posted by Omega Vision
Is there a single instance in history where protests or riots (not rebellions/revolutions mind you 😛) ended a war?

the closest one I can think of would be Russia in WW1, but that was more of a revolution

or maybe Ghandi if you want to consider colonial occupation as a "war"

Originally posted by inimalist
the closest one I can think of would be Russia in WW1, but that was more of a revolution

or maybe Ghandi if you want to consider colonial occupation as a "war"

I don't.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
Well it's called the October [b]Revolution for a reason.

I don't. [/B]

picky, picky

there is more to the October Revolution than just the revolutionaries. Protests from regular people who weren't necessarily part of any formal revolutionary group were just as effective as bringing down parts of the state as a result of wartime famile, etc. You are right, it was, in general, a revolution, but there were way more people in the streets than just the communist radicals.

I think I agree on the other

Originally posted by inimalist
picky, picky

there is more to the October Revolution than just the revolutionaries. Protests from regular people who weren't necessarily part of any formal revolutionary group were just as effective as bringing down parts of the state as a result of wartime famile, etc. You are right, it was, in general, a revolution, but there were way more people in the streets than just the communist radicals.

I think I agree on the other

Originally posted by Omega Vision
Just a random question but do you (or anyone here for that matter) happen to know the distinction between a rebellion and a revolution (if any)?

wiki explains it as, a rebellion is any challange to the established authority, whereas a revolution is a type of rebellion that seeks to overthrow and fundamentally change the way a system works. So, all revolutions would be rebellions but not vice versa.

Also, to call a something a Revolution it must have suceeded in seizing power.

Originally posted by inimalist
maybe "hippie" isn't the best way to group these people, but the 60s were a much more radical and socially conscious time, at least that is how it is remembered

that almost all of that radicalism has turned into white flight and suburban living is an interesting point

the change in social consciousnes on university campuses, for instance. I guess those london riots were something...

You're right; and this generation is the one paying for it. We're cleaning up their mess. Feels bad, man.

My hatred for Boomers has been revived. I was discussing with my parents something, and they both talked in grandiose terms about how their generation was the backbone of America and that "kids these days" blah-blah-blah. My mom even had the nerve to conflate the Greatest Generation with the Boomer generation. Then my parents had the audacity to speak in glowing terms about Ronald Reagan and how he had a spine, unlike Obama, and how they elected him but my generation elected Obammy.

This reminded me: I ****ING HATE BOOMERS SO MUCH. I love my parents, but the world will be a better place when they can no longer vote and their poisonous supply-side philosophy is ridiculed for the nonsense that it is and hated for the greed it represents.

Thus, a brief message to the Baby Boomers:

Thank you, Boomers, for descending like a horde of locusts onto America and devouring our Eden, leaving in your wake a mountain of debt. The Greatest Generation knew sacrifice. You knew plenty. And now we, your children, know only want. You cut taxes, spent more, and have converted the government into a corporate puppet. You demanded more for your pocketbooks and stock dividends, all the while not considering what your children would do when faced with your Medicare and Social Security bills. You outsourced jobs, foisted low wages onto us, and told us to pick ourselves up by our bootstraps and make our way using the good ol' Reagan work ethic. You left us with your pickings, and you act high and mighty, claiming that our generation is lazy and entitled.

You, the generation that never knew want! You, the selfish, spoiled brats of our grandparents, forcing us to sacrifice and undertake austerity measures because you didn't want to pay for your political mishaps! You, the generation that brought America from its mighty throne, desecrated her, and left her a dying king, a relic of a time long lost!

And who is to fault? It's not you and your greed--it's everyone else. It's the unions--those damn workers wanting wages and benefits! It's the environmentalists--those damn greeniacs wanting to protect the Earth! It's your children--those damn kids not working as hard as you!

Your love of money has crippled us, and you dare to blame our generation for the country's faltering steps? You dare to blame Obama for our country faltering? You scream that the sky is falling with socialism, Communism, and Big Government takeovers--but those "socialist policies" that you have so greedily used up were what allowed you to prosper. They were what allowed you to grow beyond your means.

**** all of you. **** all of you who shriek about big government and then support the military-industrial complex. **** all of you who lament socialism and then take home your Social Security checks and let Medicare fund your Viagra. **** all of you who talk about liberty and small government and then legislate morality. **** all of you who extol the Constitution and then support the Patriot Act and the government's use of torture. **** all of you who bought into that "peace and free love" bullshit in your youth and sold your souls to corporate America in your twilight years.

**** you, Boomers.

Needless to say, the world will be a much better place when people stop becoming enraged at generational differences.

**** all of you. **** all of you who shriek about big government and then support the military-industrial complex. **** all of you who lament socialism and then take home your Social Security checks and let Medicare fund your Viagra. **** all of you who talk about liberty and small government and then legislate morality. **** all of you who extol the Constitution and then support the Patriot Act and the government's use of torture. **** all of you who bought into that "peace and free love" bullshit in your youth and sold your souls to corporate America in your twilight years.

**** you, Boomers.

Well said. That pretty much sums up all my complaints against the "logic" of boomers any time we argue.

Luckily, my economics professor (A baby boomer) was a staunch homo economicus subscriber so he was all about dissolving almost all socialist constructs at the cost of forcing everyone to have to govern their own finances. It was like a breath of fresh air amongst boomers. Not that I entirely agree with him, but the libertarian side of me couldn't resist agreeing with most of the things he was saying.

Not to play devils advocate but as a baby boomer we did nothing any other generation wouldn't have done given the opportunity. The "greatest generation" started social security and were still in power when medicare came to pass. I see many here singing the praises of capitalism but decrying corporatism which is ironic because you cannot have one without the other....especially in this era.

Bottom line is...humans are greedy, from any generation. We want far more from this world than the world is able to give over time. We boomers just caught it on a high end cycle. Now it's crashing, at least for the USA and the west.

Now to wait and see how China, India, and Brazil really fukk things up.

Originally posted by The Dark Cloud
Not to play devils advocate but as a baby boomer we did nothing any other generation wouldn't have done given the opportunity. The "greatest generation" started social security and were still in power when medicare came to pass. I see many here singing the praises of capitalism but decrying corporatism which is ironic because you cannot have one without the other....especially in this era.

That seems unsupported, and incorrect.

Originally posted by Bardock42
That seems unsupported, and incorrect.

But it is correct. Just look at history. Every great civilization goes through a period of excess which eventually leads to their undoing.

THat usually lasted centuries. This one only one generation.

And they don't seem to adamant to leave something for the generations after them.

I think he means the idea that capitalism has to lead to corporate oligarchy, which I'd also argue with you about. The collusion between government and the corporate elite which allow for the conditions as they exist today is counter to almost all philosophical capitalism, especially in terms of Smith/Rand/Friedman (though the latter two also sang loudly about deregulation, which might not be such a good idea)

^True...But a surreally opressive oligarchy of bureaucrats only namely concerned with the people's wellfare that reinvented slave labour and sent millions of workers and freethinkers packing to concentration camps for nor knowing their places wasn't quite what Marx and Engels were getting at either.

sadly, concrete reality is all we got to show for, so I'm extremly skeptical of discourses about the true spirit of whatever that happened to get twisted by assholes in the course of history. too close to the no true scottsman fallacy for confort.

Originally posted by 753
^True...But a surreally opressive oligarchy of bureaucrats only namely concerned with the people's wellfare that reinvented slave labour and sent millions of workers and freethinkers packing to concentration camps for nor knowing their places wasn't quite what Marx and Engels were getting at either.

sadly, concrete reality is all we got to show for, so I'm extremly skeptical of discourses about the true spirit of whatever that happened to get twisted by assholes in the course of history. too close to the no true scottsman fallacy for confort.

The thing though is, why exactly is this interpreted as a failing and/or implementation of capitalism, when it is more akin to a perversion of a social economy paired with a corruption of the government. Sure there is a lot of propaganda about capitalism and the free market, but it is not an implementation of that, we don't have a free market, the problems with the health care now (and before) is exactly that it is NOT a free capitalist market (admittedly it could perhaps be solved with more government oversight as well, but it's not capitalism that causes the problem). It is like blaming socialism for the Nazis, as their rhetoric included "the workers".

Originally posted by 753
^True...But a surreally opressive oligarchy of bureaucrats only namely concerned with the people's wellfare that reinvented slave labour and sent millions of workers and freethinkers packing to concentration camps for nor knowing their places wasn't quite what Marx and Engels were getting at either.

sadly, concrete reality is all we got to show for, so I'm extremly skeptical of discourses about the true spirit of whatever that happened to get twisted by assholes in the course of history. too close to the no true scottsman fallacy for confort.

no, and I'd agree with you, ultimately pure "anything-ism" is going to fail because it assumes things about the nature of humans. Capitalism assumes that there is a way to stop money and power from colluding to control certain aspects of the economy or society.

However, if we look at what has happened in our society, much like if we look at the time of Lenin before the time of Stalin, we can see where and why these ideological regiemes break down. I would argue, for capitalism at least, that there never was this even attempt at real capitalism. Colonialism protected and expanded local markets at the expense of the colonized, America (re: smedly butler) basically used its army to enforce import/export monopolies, and in modern times, sets the trade policy of small nations trough the IMF and World Bank. The case of Haiti is exemplary, as they were only allowed access to American markets if they imported American rice (a commodity Haiti was trying to export).

Show me a state that has actually tried to break these ties between wealth and political power, and sure, then we can talk about the corrupting influence of capitalism. The problem as I see it is not that the ideal itself is unworkable, but that the psychology of power probably doesn't select for politicians who want to dismantle the institutions that keep them in power (whereas I would argue that the command economy in communism is actually unworkable on real grounds, and not just because people are crazy [which is also problematic for communism too])