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| With apologies to the 1961 American musical romantic drama directed by Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins |
Reply by Ed Rogers
Nixon was a crook, but unlike the one in the White House now, he did care about the country and its people. As you said in your comment, “under Nixon’s watch was founded NPR and the EPA, and he promoted the Family Assistance Plan and tried to implement universal health care.”
The Sixties were a lot like the Vietnam War. What they were about depended on what you saw and did, and on where and exactly when you were there. Unless you and others were at the same place at the same time, the world around you was different for you and them. The soldiers in the delta in Vietnam fought a different war from those in the highlands. And we in the peace movement saw the world a lot differently than those not in the peace movement. We all had two things in common, however: marijuana and dislike for the way the country was going.
Hippy, protester, A.I.M., NAACP – whatever movement you were in, all someone had to do was fire up a torpedo and you became brothers and sisters. Looking back from where we have ended up, it appears the hippies were right: you can’t change a society that owns all the power and money. The hippies were easy to pick on, because they stood out from the crowd, and your parents or your employer could say bad things about them without fearing that they were referring to their children or employees.
So, what happened to change? It is more like what didn’t happen. The only changes that protesters accomplished were changes that benefited the establishment. One thing that we fought to change was the reality that you could fight and die for your country, but you couldn’t vote or buy a beer when you came home. We also fought against the draft. Poor kids went to the front lines, while rich kids stayed home.
The mad moms (Mothers Against Drugs) did away with the lower drinking age that was permitted for a few years, and corporations began providing our new army and are now making a killing, in both body count and money. The voting age was changed to 18 and has remained in place, but I have grown to question the wisdom of that. We hope that the young people of today will turn out and vote, but if history is the judge, they won’t.
| Copyright © 2020 by Paul Clark, Ed Rogers |
Ed, you are correct that young people don't turn out in great numbers to vote, but how much of that is because they know they will be outvoted by older generations, so why bother? Do you think restricting voting age at the upper limit would bring the changes imagined by the activists of the 1960s?
ReplyDeletePersonally, I don't understand why those of us well into retirement, and far removed from the cutting edge of life, should have the right to foist our old way of formerly doing things on the generations who are actually still doing things and having to live with the consequences. I thought about this after the Brexit debacle, where a bunch of older people basically dumped the system that had worked so well for them, and forced their children and grandchildren into an unknown world that might not work for anyone.
If we quit allowing older people, especially retirees, to make political changes that will affect generations to come, might that energize the younger generations who actually have to live with those changes? Is limiting voting age to 60, or 65, a cause that aging '60s activists could get behind? Or would they be against giving up their power, further proving they became their parents, even though they vowed they never would?
Wow, limits on old-age voting is a provocative idea! You raise some good lines of debate. Maybe limit voting to people under a certain net worth as well? Might a psychological test weed out some crazies too?
DeleteSorry Paul, I meant to add this but forgot; as for old voters and young voters. The character of the voter can be the same across the lines of age. Look at Bernie Sanders his followers were mostly young. In fact the young voter and the old voter have more in common with each other than they do with their parents.
DeleteI never intended to give the impression that I was against 18 year olds voting. We worked damn hard to get it. At the time, I thought maybe the murder of John, Bobby, and Martin, may have let the air out of the tires of the youth movement. But in each election since then they still have not shown up. This batch of young people may be the fruit of the seed that was planted so long ago. It would be nice to live long enough to see it happen.
ReplyDeleteEd, in my opinion you really nailed it with the 'you can’t change a society that owns all the power and money' line. You may be right that this batch of young people is the result of what was planted long ago, but what chance do they have when they are so greatly outnumbered? Look what happened to Bernie Sanders and his young followers in 2016: the people with the power and the money derailed them. What I'm saying is if we take those voters out of the equation who already made their way in life--at whatever age they choose to retire, for example-- it would give younger generations a better chance at making their way in life.
DeleteTwo things I will never understand about our society's rules: 1) that men (especially old men) get to pass laws telling young women what to do with their own bodies; 2) that people with enough excess income to purchase stocks and investment property get to pay a lower tax rate on income from such, rather than a higher tax rate.
Morris, you describe my idea as provocative, then you offer a couple of ideas that seem to mock mine: Is that your intent?
ReplyDeleteI see no connection between limiting voting by age versus limiting it by wealth or some sort of competency test. Rich or poor, wise or impaired, every young person has to live for decades with rules imposed by people too old to worry about having to live very long with the very rules they are imposing: Is that fair? I used Brexit as an example, but we have parallels. When older people here, especially those invested in stocks and investment property, push politicians to not tax their "unearned" income at the same level younger people are taxed on their "earned" income, that is a bit of our own Brexit. Ditto for old people voting for tax breaks for the coal and oil industries, but against tax breaks for solar energy and electric cars: young people will have to live with the resulting global warming, rising sea levels and other environmental damage, shouldn't they have more of a vote than people who won't even live long enough to see the damage?
Another example is old men having the same voice on abortion as young women: Is that fair? Is it even reasonable? People in their 60s, 70s and 80s, voting as a block, can make it illegal for young women to make their own decisions about their own bodies. Think about that. Doesn't that sound like some sort of far-fetched fiction (oh yeah, like The Handmaid's Tale) rather than any reality we might know in a healthy society?
Ed made the statement "it appears the hippies were right: you can’t change a society that owns all the power and money." If we limit the voting age on the people who own most of the power and money, maybe we finally get the healthy changes in our society that so many people were hoping for 50 years ago.
Mockery was not my intent. I think your idea is sound as well as provocative. But my brain was frazzled from a morning’s eye exam and trying to drive with dilated pupils and mental exhaustion. I had no business commenting; I should have left the stage and not foiled a saner commenter’s scene. With apologies (to both you and Ed)....
DeleteI think I am rested enough, though, to applaud you again, this time for deducing possibly beneficial limitations on those Ed singled out as “owning power and money.” Kind of what my frazzled brain was picking up on, I think.
DeleteMorris, you are driving under those circumstances? You are brave! Or something. Ha. Be careful out there.
DeletePaul, your theory is intriguing and I have given much thought to it. If the only factor that is in consideration is the age of the voter, then you haven’t addressed your two major reasons for giving the vote only to the young: 1. A woman’s right to her own body. 2. The disparity of Taxation.
ReplyDeleteThere are more reasons than this I’m sure, but I’ll stick to only these two. For number 1: Here we have to assume all young people are pro-choice. This is not the case. If you but look at the pro-life marches, there are no old white men, but young women. With just the youth voting, there is no guarantee that they would vote for women’s rights. Here in the Southern States of America, I see people vote against what I believe to be their best interest all the time. These same people raise the youth you are speaking about, and these young people they may rebel, and march for this or that cause, but the core of their being—how they were raised will remain the same. I’m 77 years old and I still say, yes ma'am and no sir. It comes out of my mouth without me thinking. But to eliminate the involvement of the parents in a childs life would do more harm than good. It is not the age, that determines the way a person votes, but their character and how they look upon their fellow humans and even the animals they share it with and the world in general. With the election of Donald Trump, a darkness came over our world. The marches that are taking place now, show light through that darkness, but not everyone wants to see; they are content in the darkness and this goes across the age groups.
As for number 2: Here you would have to assume that money had little meaning to the youth of today. It still goes back to the character of the person—greed doesn’t have an age limit up or down.
There were two books I read in my youth that had the same theme. Something kills off everybody over a certain age. In one I believe the age was 25 and in there other it was younger. Anyway, the world fells apart because they didn’t have the knowledge to keep it operational. In the end, they removed themselves from the old world and set up a new civilization. Both books stopped at that point. The reader was left to believe this new world that they were to build would be different and wonderful. I have my doubts—we are who we are. I can no more change a Trump voter—no matter their age or sex, any more than they can change me.
The conclusion I've come up with is that changing the voting age will do little to get us out of the shit we find ourselves in. Changing the character of the voter, would. I just don’t see that happening.
Ed, there are exceptions to every rule, and yes, there are staunch conservatives and anti-abortion advocates among younger generations, but let's take a look at the big picture: 1) in 2016, only 28% of voters under age 30 voted for Trump; 2) Trump's disapproval rating with people under age 35 is around 75-78%; 3) Americans who turned 18 during the Truman and Eisenhower era and who are now in their 70s and 80s, consistently vote Republican; 4) Americans who turned 18 during the Bill Clinton era, and the years since, consistently vote Democratic; 5) a Gallup poll shows that 62% of people age 18-29 consider themselves "pro-choice" while only 37% of people age 65 or older consider themselves "pro-choice."
DeleteAgain, there are always exceptions, but based on those numbers alone, it is fairly obvious that if we cut off voting rights at age 65 or 70 it would create a paradigm shift in the direction of this country's political future--and probably just about all the financial and social rules that are controlled by those who have the most political power.
I go back to the same basic premise: why should those who have made their way in life have more control over the younger people still making their way, than those younger people themselves?
Let's not forget the hardhat riot in New York City. The blue collar workers and many office workers physically attacked the protesters and helped coin the phrase "Silent Majority". Unfortunately, they were too silent--silent as their jobs went overseas, silent as their foods became more and more processed and dangerous, silent as they watched their schools flounder and fail, silent as they watched the rich grow richer and the middle class begin its slide into the lower class.
ReplyDeleteBut we did do a lot--don't think we didn't. We were there when the civil rights movement came together and had its first successes in decades. We were the catalyst for the woman's movement. We provided the first positive steps for gay rights. Yes, the powers to be are still the powers to be--but what's happening now is caused in part by those of us who were protesting in the sixties and seventies and you can find millions of us in the protests today.
Michael, your remembrance of the May 8, 1970 Hard Hat Riot in New York City is educational at many levels. You are correct on all counts: while the 'hard-hat' construction and longshoremen types, spurred on by their union leadership, were short-term and violently activist against the anti-war protesters they disagreed with, they completely dropped the ball when it came to being activist enough to save their jobs and their communities. In the aftermath, the tactics Richard Nixon used to win re-election in 1972 by dividing union groups and others who might traditionally have unified against him is almost a blueprint for what Trump has done to create divisiveness among groups that would normally unify against him, while building a small but rock-solid core group among many who would not normally support him.
DeleteAs I said in my response to Ed, there are always exceptions, but overall the numbers do not show the liberal activism or voting patterns among aging boomers that those aging boomers like to imagine. The numbers show that for every liberal minded and liberal voting boomer, there are two conservative minded and conservative voting boomers. I'm glad there are at least thousands--if not millions--of aging boomers still protesting today, but the numbers show the majority of that age group is who elected Trump the first time and who will very likely vote for him a second time.
All good points, Paul. I'll give much more thought to the subject as I'm still not convinced. Most of us, who were in the streets back in the sixties, were of the Truman and Eisenhower era. Something changed their thinking long before they turned 60. Trump isn't the first Republican they have voted for. They went from liberal to conservative back in their late twenties or early thirties. There is no reason to believe that wouldn't happen again, but I will give much more thought on it. I have noticed that people of all generations tend to want to believe a lie in hopes that it is true, before believing the truth that they hope is a lie. Maybe that helps explain what happened to the boomers from back in the sixties--they bought into the lie. If that is the case who can say it won't happen again.
DeleteI presently live in the heartland of Trumpland where every lie he speaks they think is a new chapter of the Bible. I am still hopeful the boomers from the sixties and seventies will wake up, become reinvigorated, and vote Trump out of office because they will remember they made all the difference decades ago.
DeleteMichael, speaking of the Bible...I think a lot of what lured boomers into the myth of the conservative "trickle down" theory has its roots in religious belief. As I understand Christian dogma, you can basically live however you wish just about all your life, and as long as you repent before you die, you still go to heaven. You don't get something for nothing, but you get it for very little. That is basically the idea Reagan preached--less income from taxes means the government will somehow be able to provide more services: something for nothing. It is an easy lie to buy into, and the older boomers bought it. And despite the disastrous results of Reagan's something-for-nothing scam, those same older boomers bought the same lie again and again and again when they voted for Bush, Bush and Trump. Hopefully they won't repeat their multitude of mistakes in 2020, but I'm not holding my breath.
DeleteEd, as I just replied to Michael, I think the boomers bought into Reagan's something-for-nothing 'trickle down' scam, because it basically mirrored the premise of Christian dogma: you don't have to do much to get to go to heaven. Problem is, even though Reagan's idea of 'less taxes for more services' was a disaster, and trickle-down tax breaks have yet to work for anyone but the rich, the same people who bought in back in 1980 were still buying in when they voted for Trump in 2016. As you say, the same thing could happen yet again...and it could happen in just four months.
DeleteThe Auto Union even endorsed Nixon. I never could understand their thinking, even today.
ReplyDeletePeter J. Brennan, one of the strongest union leaders in New York in the 1960s and 1970s, is arguably the lynch pin for the shift in political thinking by union leadership. The about face by Brennan led Nixon to appoint him Secretary of Labor; it also helped bring about the destruction of the power of the unions Brennan once led.
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