Hey piglets! It’s Good Friday and therefore a bank holiday weekend here in the UK, and the sun is shining. This might be witchcraft or a trap of the highest order, but we’re still going to enjoy it.
It’s such a grim worldview: I don’t care if I win so long as you guys lose. It’s government by spite, and it’s corrosive.
One of the smartest reads I’ve found on “cancel culture” so far.
Well well well, if it isn’t the consequences of their actions.
The news is still breaking so we still have to call this a bunch of allegations and reported rumor, but honestly if half the stuff being reported about Rep. Matt Gaetz turns out to be true, I will not be in the least surprised. He’s been a boor and creep for along time, and he’s spent a lot of energy leaning into his bro-style messaging and behavior. He’s Trump-lite and made no effort to dissuade anyone otherwise. A horrible sex scandal with underage girls is the least surprising thing I could have imagined, awful as it is. But what I really want to know is WHICH OTHER ELECTED OFFICIALS are trading nudes (including potential child porn given the ages we’re talking here?!) like baseball cards on the House floor? Out and prosecute every last one of them.
The correct take:
Klippenstein does some brilliant reporting (and Twittering, if that’s your jam), and his latest reported piece is an absolute dystopian doozy. The Atlantic picks up and add context to the tale.
In this house, we stan Dr. Fauci and Prof. Whitty.
Woof. I may need to retire from the links gig, because the great and good Anne Helen Petersen just dropped the motherload. And yes, ducklings, this one is required reading and there will be a test later.
Small Dog Syndrome 
“In the end, there is only one winner in a generation war, and it’s not millennials or boomers or Gen Z—it’s capitalism.
Generational stereotypes are often inaccurate and tend to whitewash the histories, needs, and financial realities that can matter more than age.
These essentialized, whitewashed stereotypes impede the intergenerational organizing needed to create meaningful change.”
THIS, she shouted — again and again.
I have a LOT of compassion for my friends in their 20s and 30s and 40s, saddled with insane amount of student debt, facing stagnant wages and many more “gig” jobs with zero stability, etc.
But I am so weary of being told, as a Boomer, that we destroyed everything and we’re all REALLY rich.
Not true and — sooooo easy to forget or ignore or never even KNOW that Boomers had to survive 3 recessions in the past 20 years, each of which meant (usually) a long period of job searching, lower pay in the next job and the next, (making it harder and harder to bump Social Security pay and retirement savings) plus rampant ageism so every fresh job loss put a new, well paid job acquired within less than a year —– very very elusive.
So I would argue that being a Boomer is indeed more nuanced than that.
AMEN. The soundbites are attractive because they are simple ways to explain big problems (and there is just barely enough broad strokes accuracy for some accusations to stick) but they aren’t helpful.
As a millennial I’m sick of being told I’m destroying everything (generational overlap there!), and selfish for not making life choices which are honestly completely out of scope for me and most people I know. And I’m sick of being spoken to/about as if we’re all still in college…when I turn 35 in a couple of months! Elder millennials are nearing 40.
I have a lot of thoughts about cultures that simultaneously require certain tickbox exercises for full inclusion or participation (religious, political, social, and more), while making those actions more and more difficult to meet. It’s a self-fulfilling failure cycle and it HURTS people. I actually think that’s what at the root of so much unrest and activism across the entire political spectrum from left to right these days: massive groups of people are either discovering they are left out of systems, OR are refusing to take that exclusion lying down.
The tragedy is that whether it’s generational, racial, class based or otherwise, we would benefit so much more from collective action and allyship than infighting, but we can’t seem to stop the circular firing squads.
ALL OF THIS!
It is one of the most frustrating aspects of life (capitalism) that we have so much common cause but so much energy and political power gets squandered and wasted this way.
I am ONLY able to own my home because i inherited some family money. I would never been able to do so at 30, maybe even at 40, since journalism pays so little and real estate is so costly.
I can’t imagine the endless frustration of wanting to own a home or be free of student debt or have a secure job, and all of these remain out of reach — no matter how hard you work.