I'm young and angry. **major rant**

I'm 21. I'm angry.
And I keep getting angrier-- isn't it supposed to be the other way around? Aren't I supposed to "accept the establishment" as a part of my maturing process?

Well, I'm not. I keep getting angrier and angrier at this horseshit American Culture.
I hate this cut-throat capitalism that tears people apart in the name of money.
I hate this war-mongering culture of hypocrisy that values a fucking fetus over the life of a person outside the womb.
I hate beauty/fashion/muscle magazines that brainwash men and women into roles they act instead of simply being themselves.
I hate the materialism.
I hate the processed food that makes us ill, fat, and stupid.
I hate that I feel like screaming all the time because I feel trapped.

When is this shit going to end? I'm angry, and I keep fighting, but it's getting so lonely and sad being one of only people I know that is truly angry at this condition we find ourselves in.

Why are so few people genuinely angry? Should they be? How can they not?

up with it for a shorter period of time than you.

every year, a stunning statement when you realize I was SDS in the 60s.

You may be catching it right. People have mostly realized how totally bankrupt the GOP is in terms of morals, ideas, programs, ethics, finances, and everything else but bribery, corruption and murder. The country is due to a shift to the left, so you will be saved having your adult life scarred by 40+ years of conservative bullshit like mine was.

I just hope we can figure out a way to keep these ASSHOLES from ever coming back and doing it all over again: monopoly, wealth concentration, artificially low wages screwing everybody who isn't rich, constant wars of corporate convenience, and the abolition of our constitutionally guaranteed rights.

If we can do that, we may end up with a stable country that will be a decent place for us all to live in.

towards something positive. You can`t change the world but maybe the lttle corner that you live in.
Your 21 these are to be you fun years,try not to let it fester to much. :toast:

Going out with friends, drinking too much, making bad decisions, meeting new people--

there's no lack of fun in my life, I assure you :D

I'm just pissed I'm the only who apparently feels this way.

I mean, fuck, I almost got fired when I told a coworker who asked me why we don't have health insurance that "we have to go to Iran and North Korea to kill some brown people". You know, BITTER SARCASM.

Fucking a.

before. But, I have a particular intro phrase that I used when folks raise questions like "Why don't we have health insurance?" -- it is "Whose interests are served by our not having health insurance? Have you thought about that? Study up on it . . . it's very interesting." Certainly makes folks pause for a moment. Just might make them actually read something about it! Hang in there, 21 and passionate about the world around you is a good place to be.

d we are the majority imo.

Good for you. Wake the rest of your generation up, will ya?

This administration is destroying YOUR future. While I don't like the fact, that means MY generation is at fault. WE should have run these guys out on a rail YEARS ago. Things should NEVER have gotten this bad.

My apologies. I wish you well.

A lot of us felt crushed after it as well :(

:hi:

27 this month. And getting exponentially more angry every year. I've decided to embrace it:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=1329177

:hi:

Filled me with even more angry bitchy anger }(

If you wanna see a cool, liberal town, come to Austin!

Resources for individual young progressive democrats in Massachusetts
http://www.progressivedems.org/YoungVoters.htm

http://www.youthvote.org/
The Youth Vote Coalition is a national nonpartisan coalition of diverse organizations
dedicated to engaging youth between the ages of 18-30 in the political process.
The Youth Vote Coalition has over 100 national members who represent young people across the country.

working on an ulcer! ;) Welcome to my nightmare!! You are NOT alone!!!
I know many younger people (not me anymore);) who are just as angry and feeling helpless.
I just try to turn the anger back on 'them' by spreading petitions, correct info., etc.
Keep fighting back! Don't give up!
I'm trying to reach the teens now...
:hug:

Hey? Just thought I'd add this:
Young Progressive Democrats of America
http://pdamerica.org/orgs/chapters.php
Already existing groups --
such as Democratic Clubs, peace groups, Meet-Ups, Young Democrats,
senior citizens groups or other special interest groups --
can become a PDA Chapter while maintaining their original identity.

I'm pretty sure they have LOCAL meet-ups near you somewhere!
Check for a group near you at the link!
Go to a meeting and meet like minded people your age!
:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

At twice your age, I am also just starting to realize what you already do. I never fit in with this society. I did everything according to the rules, but it never felt right.

I'm not optimistic. Maybe it's my personality, or maybe it's because I see a future that really isn't good.

But I hope it helps that you know there are others out there.

Like I've been saying lately, the further we depart from nature, the more unpleasant things become. I mean, the more dependent upon someone else, we become. Until driving to MacDonald's is how we eat, when really we should be on a hillside picking berries with our tribe.

I'm afraid we've slipped too far.

One thing that keeps coming back to me is indigenous people. How they lived for so long without any mechanical help or petroleum. We only got way off track in very recent years. So the more I look for a solution, the more I feel that the indigenous people have that solution.

I feel that we may end up trusting our survival to those indigenous people. I envision myself dumping all of my posessions and tagging along with some tribe in the Kalahari. It sounds stupid and unrealistic. But to be honest, what could be more unreasonable than jumping in a fire breathing two ton steel monster and joining millions of other people all doing the same thing on some asphalt freeway at 7 in the morning? I would rather stress about where I'm going to get my next drink of water than do that every day. I quit my engineering job in 1993, and haven't worked since. It has had it's ups and downs. I've had to keep moving to make enough money to survive. But I'm not in what I called the "idiot parade" every morning.

I don't know. We're in this together regardless of our ages. How to survive in a society that makes survival so expensive. How do we live without having to pay for it with money? And we've lost the knowledge we once had, to survive with nature.

I once built a boat with a friend. It was in the southern tip of the San Francisco bay. Every once in a while we would get in the rubber raft and putt out into the bay. There was a man who actually lived in the reeds of the bay. He had a reed boat he had made. And he foraged for food in the bay. Every time we saw him out there, we were amazed. No one knew he was there except for us. We always left him to what he was doing, but I would have loved to know his thoughts. I'm just rambling here. The important things in life are very small.

I am beginning to think we should start a 'Drop Outs' Forum here at DU. :hi:

:hi:

But, I will use my anger to fight back on election day. I will also get every one I know who is not registered to vote to do so. And, encourage every one I know to vote. The only consolation we have is that every one who voted for bush is suffering just like us. And, regarding those who are not angry yet---they must either live in a fantasy land or it just has not sunk in yet.

It does no one any good if you burn yourself out with outrage. There's always going to be injustice, and while we are morally obligated to fight it, moderation, as in all things, is key.

When is this shit going to end? I'm angry, and I keep fighting, but it's getting so lonely and sad being one of only people I know that is truly angry at this condition we find ourselves in. Why are so few people genuinely angry? Should they be? How can they not?

You rail against other causes of illness, but a constant state of rage is one such source - it's not good for your mental well-being.

I'm only 22, so I can't exactly give much in the way of life-experience advice. All I can tell you is what I did to deal with it - made it my goal to work to fix the problems. I'm entering law school next year to fight back against those who enchroach upon our civil liberties.

So I will be working for justice :hi:

Good luck!

than you imagine. Middle aged men and women
speaking of things best not written, things
which would surely get this post removed.

That anger is kept inside and rarely shown
to anyone. This is a survival tactic in our
present society.

Of course, a powerful force, too long
repressed, can result in surprises. And if
matters continue as they are, the surprises
may be large.

I swear everybody I work with watches this show religiously. They have 30 minute discussions on <insert name of AI idiot here> and look at me when I say I have no idea what they're talking about. Then they have the nerve to tell me I "need" to watch it!!! Pisses me off because they haven't got a clue about anything else. And why??!!?? Because they can't "do anything about it"!! They really don't give a shit and that scares me. :mad: :mad: :mad: :grr: :grr: :grr:

and like it, mostly...

but that's about the only thing I watch other than CSPAN and PBS.

:shrug:

Tired of AI being a litmus test.

Question Authority was the motto I grew up with. I am middle aged and mad because I have already done this as a young adult and here I am again! Question authority, ask why, ask why again, continue to ask why and why not.

Get mad, use your anger, lots of us are mad and working also. Don't let those accepting ones get you down. Yes, there are lots of people who just want to watch their favorite tv show and watch the "happy news". It's always been that way. You are not alone and this is not a problem singular to right now. Keep fighting, keep working, keep in contact with others who think and care and feel like you. Lonely? Yes, sometimes it is. But keep up with it all because we are all they have. Hard being others conscience.

John Steinbeck said that to a group of literature students in the Soviet Union he was lecturing. At that time (the '60s) the students here, and around the world, were in the streets, learning, fighting, questioning everything. They came within an ace of toppling the government of France.

You are not alone. The whole world is awakening to the fact that the rich and powerful really are paper tigers and that they can be toppled.

Or, as another young man said once:


"Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear." - Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, Aug. 10, 1787

I have a nineteen year old daughter and I
am terrified for her and every other young person I know.
Your generation has been robbed of any
possibility of a "normal" future.
Between global warming and the militarization
of the planet by the US led multi national corporates
I see nothing but hell on earth for young people in the coming years.

I would like nothing more than to see my daughter
look into joining a sustainable living community
in a part of the world that will allow her and her
friends to grow their own food and live off the grid.

I believe that people who do this now will
have a chance to survive later.

BHN

Why are so few people genuinely angry? Should they be? How can they not?

I don't know if "angry" is the right label for how I feel. I was angry, incredulous, in 2000. That seems so long ago.

I'm tired. I'm disillusioned. I'm disenfranchised, marginalized, and ignored. I'm distanced. I'm done.

To be honest, I never thought that angry energy was the way to make changes. Anger is destructive, rather than constructive, no matter how righteous it may be perceived to be. I'm not angry, because I don't think that anger helps, or accomplishes anything.

I can refuse to comply with destructive policy without anger. I can take positive action to create change without anger. I just don't need it. It increases my stress level, which hurts no one and nothing but myself.

I once thought anger would generate the energy needed for change. It didn't. What I saw anger doing was grouping people together in little angry groups where they spent all their time and energy spinning giant rant wheels which changed nothing. I saw anger create a narrow focus, and limit the vision of the "big picture." I saw that if an issue I was angry about wasn't one of the fashionable angers of the moment, my issue would be ignored no matter how important it was, and is.

I saw TPTB using anger and fear as a way to manipulate people. Anger that should have been turned on perpetrators turned on victims of corrupt leadership and policy, instead. I saw anger turning good people into sullen, ranting spectators looking for heroes to "save the day," and desperate compromisers, compromising principles and issues for the bare bones tossed by those would-be heroes.

I'm not angry. I'm disgusted, repelled, impatient, and all those other things mentioned above.

J/K

But you are dead on. I wish I had an answer.

I guess some shit you grow out of...but if you keep your eyes open you never grow out of hating stupid shit.

Even angrier than when I was young and angry during the '60s. A lot of people are angry; but I agree that it seems strange that *everybody* isn't so batshit crazy furious that they're marching on Washington with torches and pitchforks. I don't know what will finally make that happen -- in the '60s it was the draft. But I have my garden fork and tiki torches at the ready...

As a member of Generation X, which is the first generation to be worse off than their forebears, I commiserate with your generation, because you are getting more ripped off than we have been, And the boomers will tell you from their McMansions that you're a spoiled brat for complaining about it "Why look, you kids have iPods and DVD and computers! You are so much luckier than we ever mere!", and try to distract you from the fact that when they were entering the work force, a modest home could be bought on a single full-time income, and anybody with any job could afford a basic apartment.


Now, an apartment will eat up half or more of your income in most cities, and you can't even dream of buying a home. And they give themselves tax cuts while raising YOUR tuitions and fees, sales taxes and continue to vote against making health care affordable to all.

No, you have every reason to be angry. My generation knew it was screwed, but it has mostly tried to grasp at the crumbs dropped by the boomers, and clung to the hope that a dot-com boom or other miracle might give it a chance at prosperity. I hope your generation is a bit more savvy and start to fight back, because the system as it is is PHUKT UP.

. . . then I must be a 54-year-old teenager.

Anger can be inspiring, or you can use it to chew up your own gut. Most people prefer the latter. Easier on the feet, and it can let you soak your anger in beer at the end of the day.

On the other hand, to use that anger and apply it to something useful...that's probably caused most of the important changes in society and inspired the world's greatest leaders.

When is this shit going to end? I'm angry, and I keep fighting, but it's getting so lonely and sad being one of only people I know that is truly angry at this condition we find ourselves in.

Why are so few people genuinely angry? Should they be? How can they not?

Maybe it is time to push the envelope.

I'm 24 and I'm already losing my hair. I keep pulling it out. :(

I figure.

It generally leads people to partake in rash actions that are against their interest. If you think something is wrong don't get angry. Get motivated, get inspired and most importantly get educated. The more you know the more you can change and you can do so with better outcomes.

:evilgrin:

You mean like that?

I am pissed and often I feel like suicide because so few around me are angry enough,Pissed enough to risk thier comforts and face the clucking tounges,upset the status quo, go offending the boss,church or family to make lasting changes happen.
I too feel so alone I see while the world is so blind.

The big lie for 6 years has been that the *majority* are a bunch of right winged idiots...quite the contrary WE the people with brains are the MAJORITY and once we stop feeling isolated from the *norm* all hell is going to break loose for the TRUE minority in this country!