"OK, Boomer!" Really? Why This Laughable Meme Is Going Nowhere Beyond The Instagram-Twitter Bubble

Here we go again. Time to pound on the Baby Boomers, this time by an apparent "alliance" of twerps consisting of Millennials, Gen Z losers ("Zeds") , and other younger generation malcontents who feel compelled to blame Baby Boomers for their lot in life or state of the world. According to the relevant Denver Post op-ed (Perspective, Nov. 10. p.1D) by one Molly Roberts.

Okay, we know that in the era of Trump and his retinue of enabling, sycophantic Repukes the fetish of grievance and victimhood has attained new heights. One beheld it on 'Fox & Friends Weekend' yesterday a.m. as a trio of caterwauling muppets cried their eyes out at Adam Schiff appearing before California Dems in Long Beach on Saturday and vowing to "send the charlatan back to his golden throne".  "How he could he say that?" They whined in unison. "Isn't he supposed to be above partisanship as head of the House Intel committee?"  

Give me a break. What are you losers, crybabies or journalists?

Given the Reeps will always wear the victim and grievance badge, but one expects the younger generations to rise above that and in particular, cease conflating all Boomers and blaming an entire generation for their ills.

Anyway, Roberts informs us that "OK, Boomer" has now become the all purpose comeback or retort anytime a perceived Boomer offers a criticism, e.g. "your grandpa tells you kids these days have lost all sense of civility for yelling at Ellen Degeneres for going to a football game with George W. Bush"

As Roberts puts it (ibid.):

"It's glib. It's short, and its's not at all sweet but 'OK, Boomer' also reveals something about each of today's generations.  So does the response they wrought."

Fair enough, but again let's be clear that despite the media's laziness it is not okay to conflate entire generations, particularly one like the Boomers that's been singled out for opprobrium far more than any other.

How did the meme originate?    Well, we learn: "the mainstreaming of the meme was making its way onto $36 Redbubble style sweatshirts sold by entrepreneurial 17 -year olds."

The meme evidently then caught fire because a conservative talk radio host (Bob Lonsberry) took to the internet to publicly pout and - instead of ignoring the (then) minor memetic insult - whined that "boomer  was the n-word of ageism".   Well hey, I never said conservos were not whiners and wimps, did I?  After all they're the ones driving the GOP grievance, victimhood mission against impeachment.

In any case, the response of the right wing radio jock  Lonsberry circulated, went viral, and "OK, Boomer" was born. Again, spawned on the back end reaction to a 3rd rate conservative talk show host.

Roberts goes on to inform us:

"Millennials have allied with Gen Z and managed to vitiate the meme in the process by basically, overdoing it.  'OK, Boomer' was fun and funny, so we said it about a million times on Twitter in the space of one day, and now it has become unfunny and lame.  That's appropriate too for a generation that supposedly kills every good thing."

But, of course, as one Denver Post letter writer (Susan Cummings),  responding to the piece in yesterday's paper noted (Perspective, p. 3D)::

"Boomers created the internet, the personal computer,  synthetic skin, the artificial heart and the cell phone so beloved by the young- all of which are taken for granted. Being a Boomer is an honor. We protested for peace, the environment, the end of the Berlin Wall, LGBTQ rights, animal rights, etc. At this point, all a Boomer can say is, 'OK, Kid".

Another letter writer (Douglas Croot) sounded off (ibid.):

"Being universally dismissive and surly is probably not the surest path to the success and fulfillment you seek,"

So it's a bit off to say - or even suppose- that  the Boomers "killed every good thing" especially given "recycling and composting programs around the nation were started at the demand of Baby Boomers, same for fuel efficient cars" (Letter from Mandell S. Winter Jr.).

Then the kicker from the 'OK, Boomer' author:

"It makes sense that millennials are taking up arms with our Gen  Z comrades-  because we're the ones who've been maligned the most for the sin of our birth years."

In fact it's not the "sin of your birth years"  but your indolence and insufferable lack of pluck especially (for millennials) in getting your asses out to vote and away from the tiny screens!  What we're all about then is the evident lack of independence, autonomy, and resilience i.e. that most of us had to develop very quickly given there was next to zero hand -holding from parents.   As one commenter put it, in response to my March 16, 2017 post excoriating Bruce Cannon Gibney and his anti-Boomer book:

"Most of us were raised by people with massive and undiagnosed PTSD from WW2. Mr Gibney has no concept of how much those people scraped up their lives and bravely had children and encouraged them to be better, and no, most of us, did not have a golden ticket."

The generational differences in autonomy and resilience are most evident in the younger generations' dealing with the  environments of college and political representation (namely lackadaisical voting patterns for the Millennial brigade). 

Hara Estroff Marano, the author of A Nation of Wimps: The High Cost of Invasive Parenting,  put the issue in a nutshell in the case of the first:

"But in a real sense, students don't really leave their parents behind. Their parents go to college right along with them — in their front pockets. That is, the parents are a speed dial away by cellphone. And the evidence is clear that students call parents and parents call students at an alarmingly frequent rate. This, of course, significantly reduces independence.

A student gets a C on her first paper? Instead of absorbing the negative information and figuring out how to resolve the problem or how to do better, the call gets made to home, where Mom or Dad solves the problem, often by calling the school administration. This kind of behavior is, sadly, commonplace today and is a mark of the lack of coping skills among students because all the lumps and bumps have been taken out of life for them until now."

Protect the precious little dears so they undergo a minimum of pain or travail. Keep them in an artificial cocoon to sustain their dependence as long as possible. Don't allow them to have to negotiate their way in an unfamiliar college environment.  God forbid!

This take has also been confirmed by Linda Bips, a college psychologist:

"Many of today’s students lack resilience and at the first sign of difficulty are unable to summon strategies to cope. The hardship can be a failing grade on a test, a cut from the team, or a romantic  breakup. At the first sign of trouble many become unable to function and persevere. Often they even anticipate difficulties and their anxiety alone paralyzes them."

She then goes on to point out just how many incoming college students are on "meds" and writes:

"The number of students who arrive at college already medicated for unwanted emotions has increased dramatically in the past 10 years. We, as a society, don’t want to “feel” anything unpleasant and we certainly don’t want our children to “suffer.”

As Prof. Bips also observes:

 "The resulting problem is that by not experiencing negative emotions, one does not learn the necessary skills to tolerate and negotiate adversity.

The preceding observations are relevant if we (older Boomers especially)  are expected to take the young rebels' snark and memetic impudence seriously.  Particularly after Ms. Roberts writes:

"OK, Boomer' flips the script and is now telling old people that they're the one who don't  get it, and this 'despite countless chances to learn'"

But if she (and the OK, Boomer contingent) expect us to take that ""flipped script"   seriously - and not howl with laughter-  how about proving it. Showing us you have some moxie by being independent and not texting mommy and daddy every minute while at university, or expecting them to run interference with your college instructors. 

In the 60s, in our college days then, we took our lumps like the adults we one day wanted to be - whether from our profs or fellow students (including for 'Hell Week' orientation). The lumps taken helped us build character, personal authenticity (not just being part of a crowd) as well as reinforced critical thinking skills, i.e. when we engaged in sometimes animated 'bull sessions' in the dorms..

So the issue is not decrying Gen Zs or Millennials as "profligate"  or being "basement dwellers" but rather the consistent failure to evince pluck and autonomy,   to project their own authentic power and exercise it - whether in university or the political arena. You may be a "basement dweller" but (if a Millennial) you can still vote, and in so doing affect the arc of your life and that of your generation.

What one would like to see- certainly in my Boomer demographic - is more of the "OK, Boomer" lot not merely churning out snarky memes but emulating the courageous Parkland students, like David Hogg, Emma Gonzalez. and Delaney Tarr.  They not only mounted a credible and effective move for more gun control in Florida after the Feb. 14, 2018 Parkland massacre, but actively went out to sign up young prospective voters.  What are the rest of you doing? Will you even vote next year?

I ask this because it turns out that seniors, e.g. Boomers,  are the most reliable voters with nearly 70 percent counted on to cast ballots as in the 2020 election. Compare that to the 18-24 year demographic  who've only exceeded a 40 percent turnout twice since 1996. Pew Research reports consistently that only 10 percent of likely voters are under 30.  Do you really want to change things so your agenda is dealt with and not ignored? Then you need to triple or quadruple that performance.

 Yet this is the age demographic most adversely affected by a plurality of federal resources being spent on seniors. So what exactly do these under 30s  (e.g. Millennials)  expect when the political class feels it can write them off each year as non-serious threats?

The voting percentages are even worse in the off year elections, which are often as important as general elections. The reason is that House seats are often up for grabs and it is in the House that budgets are made and where economic winners and losers determined. In the 2010 election, for example, barely 16% of 18-24 years olds voted compared to 28 % in 2008. 

My point is that if you really want to impress me and other Boomers, don't invoke a dumb meme and then wear it out. Get your butts out to vote - in every election- and change your lot in life by pushing the political class to recognize you instead of ignoring you.  Even more impressive, put down your cell phones and the incessant, vacuous search for 'likes'  and cut out the social media -instagram blabber.  Instead,  emulate the Parkland students' style of activism and maybe even voter enrollment instead. 

Thus, we want to see action - again, voting is a start- as opposed to reading this malarkey from Roberts:

"'OK, Boomer' indicts not an individual but an entire generation, or entire generation's attitude- and it does so with two words dripping with dismissal. "

Adding:

 "OK, Boomer sends the message that grown-ups have screwed up  totally, and are veering so speedily into irrelevance that convincing them of anything is a waste of keyboard characters."

But you don't get to be "dismissive" unless and until you make your own marks on the world, and not merely as petulant victims of older generations' perceived attitudes.  As Post letter writer Mandell Winter Jr. went on to point out (ibid.)

"The dismissive 'OK, Boomer' is the same as saying the classic, disrespectful  'whatever' - when you don't have a constructive response.  

Not happy with the world you got? Neither were we. So start fixing it and stop blaming."

Want to convince me you've "flipped the script"?  Then put down the cell phones and project your power in the real world.  Tired of all the "long endless Middle east wars"? Then take to the streets and protest like we did against the Vietnam war, playing a huge role in its more rapid ending. Do more than we did in our era and I will grant that you've truly "flipped the script".

 In other words, start acting more like the Parkland students in the wake of the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas school massacre, and not like the grievance -filled twerps who spawned the 'OK, Boomer' meme misfire.

See also:

• Another Clueless Dimwit - Bruce Cannon Gibney - ...

Spare Me The Right's Tears For Kyle Kashuv - He Deserved Being Bounced From Harvard

"WAAAAAHHHA! Dem Libwuls gotta stop pickin' on Kyle! BWAAAHHAAA!"

Back on March 26 last year I posted about the fearless Parkland students who marched and demonstrated to return gun sanity to this country. I also tore into the NRA-backed punk, Kyle Kashuv,  who gained notoriety by going against his classmates.  In the words of fellow blogger Ilana Novick on smirkingchimp.com:

"Kashuv’s political views are often at odds with his fellow Parkland survivors. After the horrific Parkland shooting, many of the surviving students, including David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez, became activists. They organized the March for Our Lives in support of gun control and often spoke out against the policies of the Trump administration. Kashuv was an outlier among his classmates, a conservative defender of the Second Amendment."


 As I wrote at the time, in my above-cited post:

"Then there is the other clueless NRA tool making the talk show rounds on behalf of the gunrunners and 2nd amendment phonies. That would be Kyle Kashuv who.actually tweeted the following ding on his fellow Parkland  students:

No one's feelings are hurt by a group of people who Don't have a basic understanding of US case law and are fighting to get existing laws passed.

Which is total balderdash.

In fact it's Kashuv who lacks a basic understanding of U.S. case law pertaining to the 2nd amendment given he is blissfully unaware there is NO  "existing law" that currently bans military grade weapons like the AR-15 which is one of the provisions his classmates want passed.

Nor is he aware of the D..C. vs. Heller  Supreme Court decision  e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2018/02/sorry-you-have-no-constitutional-right.html

Kashuv is now in the news after Harvard decided to revoke his admission. He asked for a face-to-face meeting but was told the matter was closed. Predictably, conservative Twitter erupted Monday, arguing that this was another case of liberal -elite Harvard bashing conservatives. Actually it was not, so these Reich whiners are off base.  It was a case of Kashuv trashing his own  Harvard aspirations by posting racist slime drivel - and Harvard finding out about it.  But I will get to that.

The backstory is that when he was 16, some months before the shootings, Kashuv wrote racist comments in text messages and on a collaborative Google doc.  In many ways it reminded me of the gaggle of 10 dimwits who also had their Harvard admissions rescinded in June of 2017.  This  after their depraved texts under a self-branded  “Harvard memes for horny bourgeois teens”  were posted on a Facebook message board.  The story was first reported by the Crimson.     Suffice it to say that even one of the "least" offensive posts -  by one person in the original clique -  is simply too abominable for words, or repetition here.

Back to Kashuv: He was studying for the A.P. American History exam with some classmates online. Around midnight, they got restive and suddenly thought posting aberrant brain farts would be cool. At least a change from the drudgery of study. So they began posting assorted racist garbage and tried to see who could outdo the other in terms of outrage.  Much like the ten losers noted above on the deformed "memes for bourgeois teens" group.

Kashuv’s comments, to any normal, sentient person who read them, were degenerate, blatantly racist and anti-Semitic. He wrote the N-word twelve times and then even explained that he was good at typing that word. “[P]ractice uhhhhhh makes perfect.”

All sorts of excuses have been made for him in the wake including by NY Times scribe David Brooks,  who wrote:

"Moral formation is not like learning math. It’s not cumulative; it’s inverse. In a sin-drenched world it’s precisely through the sins and the ensuing repentance that moral formation happens. That’s why we try not to judge people by what they did in their worst moment, but rather by how they respond to their worst moment. That’s why we are forgiving of 16-year-olds, because they haven’t disgraced themselves enough to have earned maturity."

A nice patter but it doesn't hold water.    Left off Brooks' defensive radar is that each sentient human - certainly by the age of 16, and according to Catholics by the age of 7 - at least possesses the capacity for reason and a rudimentary conscience.  The role of conscience  as Ethics professor Cheryl Mendelson has noted ('The Good Life', p. 71) is critical to having a moral compass:

"In the premoral mind.... in place of the individual's capacity to think and act according to conscience - there is mere egoism: the demand or wish, to be allowed to do and have what one wants."

Even a 7 year old arguably has the capacity to know it's wrong when he grabs a candy bar off a store shelf and stashes it into a pocket.   He may not know the details and nuances of his moral choice, but instinctively he knows it was antithetical to societal accepted norms. And indeed, the furtive act amounted to taking something that wasn't his, he just wanted it at that time. Ego over conscience.

In the same respect, when the 14 year -old Donald Trump Jr. in Queens tested home -made switch blades on alley cats, he had to know at some level it was wrong to slice up those animals and leave them to die in agony. (The discovery of Trump's penchant for testing custom-made switch blades on cats was what led his dad Fred to ship him off to a military school in New York.)

Likewise,  Kashuv already had a moral compass and conscience by the time he wrote those racist epithets. His conscience may not have been fully aggregated or formed - but it was there - and he damned well knew right from wrong.   Hence, all the caterwauling now by the conservo crowd is a bit rich, especially in appealing yet again to the tired trope of  'political correctness'. Which has now become a general catch all and escape clause for dodging any moral responsibility .  An ethically grounded citizen appears and critiques Trump for his caging of migrant infants? "Political correctness!" is the knee- jerk response by these dingbats.

Finally, Harvard would have looked inconsistent in its admission rescission standards had it given Kashuv's vicious mischief  a pass while not doing so for the ten previous "bourgeois memes"   miscreants.  Kashuv, if he really had a brain - say to have earned that reported 5.345 grade point average at Parkland (preposterous grade inflation!) - ought to have known the competition to gain the advantage of a place at Harvard was enormous,  Tens of thousands of worthy candidates apply each year and receive rejection slips.

  In the words of two recent NY Times commenters:

"Harvard has the widest talent pool to draw from. Why would it accept a bright student who makes racist comments when they can accept the next equally bright student who doesn't?"

And:

"For every maybe racist kid who gets into Harvard there are thousands of non-racist kids who are dying to go. Harvard simply set an example for teenagers everywhere to clean up their acts and to be aware of how their social media is presenting them to the world. Without reforms like this, social media will take us and our kids all down the swirling toilet of crass behavior, bullying, words that should matter but don't seem to. Kids and adults alike should take this as a lesson in life."

Amidst this milieu and so many other more worthy students trying to gain admittance, Kashuv's best response now is to suck up his rescission and learn from his errors.  Also, cease thumping his chest about his "act of contrition".  Fine, he rendered himself contrite for his reckless and disgusting words, but now there is the piper to be paid.   Learn and move on!  Besides, not gaining entry into an elite school (or the prime one desired) it not the end of a talented person's options or aspirations.  Millions do not graduate from Harvard (or Yale, or Princeton) and still have very successful careers, lives.  Kashuv could as well if he ditched the self-pity and moved on.

Meanwhile, his conservative whiners, enablers, and apologists need to also grow up and rethink their stance.  No, Harvard isn't saying Kashuv "can't grow" or hasn't learned. They are merely saying that vicious words, as well as actions, have consequences - and for Harvard these are taken seriously. Unlike in the rest of  Trump's America.

And yeah, Kashuv did "experience a vicious shooting spree" but let's bear in mind his vile words on Google.doc were dispatched before that event, not after. So he doesn't get to claim it as an excuse, nor should he. 

See also:

Conservatives and the Right

Conservatives Play the Victim as Harvard Pulls Parkland Student’s Acceptance

If We're Depending On An Obtuse Breed Of Millennial Women To Flip The House in November, We Might As Well Pack It In

Millennial "genius" Rachel Funchess brushing her teeth with charcoal tooth powder (WSJ, Aug. 13). If we're depending on young Millennials like this to flip the GOP House in November, we're screwed.


It appears young Millennial women, the type who are least likely to vote in any election, are on to a new kick: brushing their teeth with charcoal powder to "enhance whiteness." As CBS co-anchor Bianna Golodryga said yesterday morning in a segment on the practice: "Well, the joke's on them".    Indeed it is. According to a consumer adviser from the American Dental Association, quoted yesterday in the Wall Street Journal's piece on the craze:

"It may whiten teeth in the short run, but will eventually wear into the dentin."  (The dentin is the next layer below the enamel)

Anyone for ghoulish vampire teeth?  Anyone?  Well, what about the even more ghoulish voting tendencies of the young and undone - who appear to have no remote clue? That is, no more clue about the impact of not voting on their civic health than using an abrasive,  like powdered charcoal,  has on their dental health.

According to a CBSNews -Refinery29 poll reported yesterday morning, a full 70 percent of young women (ca. Millennial age or 18 - 35) are "dissatisfied and angry about the Trump presidency".  Now, normally for such an outraged demographic the action would be clear: vote to get him out, ultimately. But also, in the meantime, check his power  by turning at least one house of congress over to the opposition party.

But what do we find instead from the same poll, when the women were asked if they will actually positively show up to vote? "Only 30 percent said they will definitely vote in November," In other words, though 70 percent are dissatisfied with the Trump presidency, 70 percent don't plan to do a damned thing about it.

Stunning, and as absolutely vacuous  and illogical as using charcoal powder to whiten teeth when it destroys them in the long term. (And believe me, you do not want high dental bills when you're on Medicare, given they're totally uncovered by Uncle Sam!)

As wifey put it when she happened to come in when the segment was on: "What are these young women, stupid?"

When CBS co host Alex Wagner asked the Refinery29 chief content officer Amy Emmerich:

"I don't like this statistic at all! Young women are the least likely to vote in November, Why is that?"

Emmerich replied:  "They are more invested in the experiential, activist movement where they can feel the change. They don't believe their vote matters."

Well, hey geniuses, tell that to the three states Trump won by a razor thin 77,000 votes. That is, barely enough to fill a proper NFL football stadium,  thereby taking the Electoral College margin and the presidency.

As Janice put it, when she heard that: "What do they have,  air for brains? Of course your vote won't matter if you don't get off your butt and actually exercise it."

Ms. Emmerich went on:

"They don't trust the process. They believe it's all about the politics and not about the policy."

Right. So you're going to fix the mal-designed process by not voting? Oh wait, you also believe you'll fix your teeth by using charcoal powder on them....right....

So, according to Emmerich:

"Why would you vote for something you really don't believe in, when you can get out on the street and feel the impact you make?"

Typical solipsism of the young and dumb.  They embrace the transient fresh air in the face and feel the throbbing pulse of activism while marching, hoisting banners and yelling - believing (wrongly) they are making a difference. But forget when the parade or march is over,  that's it. The gusto is gone and no permanent imprint is evident.

 It's a rush like swigging a high caffeine drink then it wanes.

At least the youngest citizens-  the Parkland kids - knew that voting was the core issue and ultimately without it, they'd never make  long term progress. This  was why when they organized their events in March and April they always included registering the attendant young people to VOTE. But these dumb women exposed in the survey think it's all over after you just show up to march. No way Ask David Hogg or Emma Gonzalez of Parkland.

As Bianna Golodryga - another co host put it: "And yet they're so invested in these policies, like health care."

Confirming this is another aspect of the poll of these young women, the issue priorities, showing the following as "very important":

- Healthcare   62 %'

- Civil Rights and equality  55 %

- Equal pay for women   54 %

- Crime and safety - 50 %

So it's incredible these young women believe they will get any of these without voting. Know why the elder population in this country gets more fiscal protection than the young? Because we come out and vote - every time!  70 percent of us vote in general elections, and almost as many in midterms. Because we know it's important. We vote to protect the programs we rely on,  whether Social Security or Medicare. And the Right's extremists know if they try to take those away they will have to face the blowback at the ballot box.

Co-host Vladimir Douthier then asked CBS election specialist Anthony Salvanto:

"What is it about these younger women that they choose not to vote? What reasons do they give?"

Salvanto replied:

"Well part of that is just that as you grow older you start to see how politics affects your life. Or, you put down roots, you buy a house, and have kids so you start to see how policies affect you. We also see that for the young women who are going to vote, the motivation is really high. Their enthusiasm is really high and they believe it matters who controls congress.  Whereas those who aren't going to vote say it doesn't matter who controls congress."

Which effect will be interesting to see when these indifferent youngsters need food stamps or help to pay off their college loans and can't get it because the Repukes in the House (and Senate) have insisted on 20 hours per week of work to get the food stamps, and raised the college loans to 7 percent.

Well, duh. Of course, it does. Something we've learned very painfully since the 2014 midterm election when barely a fraction of the young turned out.  And yet, fully 26 percent of the young women share the belief that party doesn't matter in terms of which controls congress. Clearly these fools haven't been paying attention the past 17 months. Or....maybe they've been too busy marching. Who knows?

But given 70 percent are dissatisfied and angry about the Trump presidency- according to the CBS poll- it beggars the imagination that such a large proportion of them would also not be aware of which party is protecting that presidency they're leery of. Hint- hint: It isn't the Democrats!  As one political specialist put it on 'All In' last night, regarding the GOP: "They are no longer even operating as conservatives. They are no longer a party of fiscal responsibility. They're not a party of family values. They're not a strong on national defense or free market party.  So they've become a party of identity politics and white grievance".

And as Sen. Bernie Sanders put it in a recent piece in The Nation: The GOP are essentially now a party of right wing extremists who primary goal is to protect Trump and advance a radical agenda, as well as line up with white nationalism. (Also evident in the degree to which they suppress the votes of minorities, e.g. African-Americans.)

Would any real red-blooded young female with a grain of common sense then fail to discern the difference between this party of white supremacist -backing, traitor -protecting degenerates and the Dems?  Evidently, the subset of nincompoops exposed in the CBSNews - Refinery 29 survey- who believe it doesn't matter which party controls congress-  meets that deplorable standard.

As Jess McIntosh bluntly put it on the same program:

"You cannot be for a few things, and not white supremacy, and still support the president and this administration."

Which, of course, also means you also can't blind your eyes to the GOP and how they've supported Trump, as well as their history of racism since the "Southern strategy" - after the Civil Rights movement - as McIntosh noted.  Hence, if you see no difference between the parties - as 26 percent of the young women do not - you must de facto be a supporter of racism, white supremacy. Either that, or you are abysmally ignorant and "likely stupid"  - to invoke Janice's parlance.  As stupid as those who brush their teeth with charcoal powder, I asked her. "Absolutely!"

Those 70 percent of young women positive they will not vote in November need to take a page from the Colorado student below - who despite being a recent HS grad - obviously is far wiser.

Why The Parkland Students #Never Again Movement May Founder

Delaney Tarr, a senior at Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland FL, three months ago, warned the NRA backing pols: "We are coming after every single one of you and demanding that you take action, demanding that you make a change!" 

Part of the crowd which showed up for the "March for our lives" in Washington, D.C. two months ago.

No fully conscious citizen can forget how the Parkland #NeverAgain protest movement began with great fanfare three months ago, marking its high point with the "March for our lives" on March 24. The event featured stirring speeches from a number of the students whose Parkland FL school was the scene of the worst ever mass shooting for a high school.  In one of the first speeches, Marjory Stoneman Douglas senior Delaney Tarr told the crowd of the students’ demands, including background checks and a ban on assault weapons.

“When you give us an inch, that bump stocks ban, we will take a mile. We are not here for breadcrumbs, we are here to lead.”


Before her D.C. march appearance, Ms. Tarr appeared a number of times earlier, including on CNN, and MSNBC, warning NRA-backed politicos that "we are coming after you".  She achieved much prominence, as did the other Parkland students  - including Emma Gonzalez, David Hogg, and Cameron Kasky  - based on their poise, knowledge and ability to articulate the anxieties of millions of kids nationwide, trapped in an out of control gun culture. (An estimated 300 million guns are possessed by a minority of U.S. citizens.)

Parkland student Jordan Khayyami, 15, warned: “I think that legislatures should be aware that the next generation of voters is right in front of them so if they don’t want to promote change then we will vote for change.”

The scenes of  hundreds of thousands of activated students was overwhelming to many of the victims of earlier gun violence, including Mark Barden, whose seven-year-old son Daniel was one of the 20 children murdered at Sandy Hook in 2012, Barden told a reporter from the UK Guardian:

“I did not expect this. I’m still astounded,. To me, it looks like our entire nation is finally on board, on the right side of this issue. It’s so inspiring and encouraging and overwhelming, and beautiful to me.”

The students - including speakers from other gun-victimized high schools, e.g. in  D.C., Maryland, Chicago,  also took time to set up voter registration booths, to prepare as many 18-year olds and others eligible to vote this year as possible.

But what has transpired since the last marches in April? Not much, and this bespeaks why the #Never Again movement may now be running out of steam.   This also highlights the bane of too many incipient mass movements that begin with energetic protests but soon expire - especially in the modern era (including "Occupy Wall Street"). The cautionary note being that even the most sensational mass marches and activism are often interpreted in hindsight as merely temporary shows of enthusiasm.  

Indeed, as we discovered in the 1960s, it is extremely difficult to translate march protests into sustained mass movements that can change history.  In fact, for most of American history -  going back to the "Wobblies" in the 1920s and even before - it was understood that movements required months or even years of planning and effort as well as determined commitment. It couldn't simply be a case of rousing the masses to concerted action, then say going off to college and forgetting about them, or assuming they will organize on their own.

This is why starting in the mid 1960s one was often asked to be part of "the movement", which was understood to mean committing your heart, mind and soul to the work at hand and then showing up whenever and wherever bodies were needed. That included not only in march protests like the kids from Parkland put on, but also appearing in Southern diners alongside African American students - say in Birmingham or Jackson, Mississippi in the fall of 1964, or on buses as "Freedom Riders".

I learned early at Loyola, in September, 1964, at a rapidly- called meeting by the  Loyola chapter of the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE) that I was not cut out for such commitment.  I came out of curiosity to the meeting, held at nearby Tulane - with about 35 other Loyola freshmen - expecting to learn ways we could contribute. But when we were told we needed to board buses that weekend to go to Montgomery, Alabama as "Freedom Riders", many of us balked. For me it was a matter that I'd just commenced my college first year and was on scholarship - which I didn't want to risk. For others, it was that they simply didn't feel the amount of time  needed was feasible.  For others, it was a fear of actual physical harm since we'd already read of Freedom Riders being beaten and buses set on fire.

As it turned out, those who joined the CORE campaign were not seen at Loyola from the next year. The word was most had either dropped out to join the movement full time, or had been injured, or flunked out and left.   This brings us to the #Never Again movement.

Recall how two beat writers (Arian Campo-Flores and Nicole Hong)  on the staff of The Wall Street Journal wrote a stirring article ('From Shooting To Gun Control Movement')  of why these Stoneman  Douglas students were different, noting:

"The students at Stoneman aren't like those who witnessed previous mass shootings at Columbine High School in 1999, or Virginia Tech in 2007. They are digital natives, at one with the language and power of smartphones and social media.  That is one reason why the movement they started, dubbed #NeverAgain, has become a nationwide phenomenon in barely a few days, and shows signs of becoming the kind of campaign success that a company or politician can only dream of."

This and similar media pieces naturally spawned vast expectations.  It prompted the expectation - especially after a number of states had enacted new gun laws in response  - that this was just the beginning. But one little element appeared to escape the attention of the movement optimists: Most of the Parkland activists were Stoneman Douglas seniors who were now in the midst of Advanced Placement preparations (the AP Calculus test, for example,  was last Tuesday a.m.) and are going off to college. How then can the needed motivation and commitment be sustained if one must take on intense, new obligations? As many of us learned in our first year at Loyola, it can't. You can't honor two masters at the same time. If you honor your education with first priority you have to let full commitment to the movement go.

This is what Parkland's ambitious student activists are now learning and the rest of us as well.  That is, just dispatching social media texts  from an office and organizing to show up on the streets and in schools,  does not necessarily presage a movement or earn you enduring credit.  While jump starting a movement is easy, making it stick is a helluva lot more difficult - especially to translate into concrete change.

Make no mistake the latter has been achieved by the Parkland kids and victims, in terms of new state gun laws (see previous post), but much more could still be done - especially mustering the numbers to get 18 years registered to vote for the mid terms. Who will see this through?  What is possible, of course, it that the younger Stoneman Douglas students, e.g. 15 year old Jordan Khayyami and 16 year old Morgan Williams, can now take up the banner from their older peers.

If they don't, or can't - say because of time constraints or academic priorities - then the #Never Again movement that held so much promise three months ago, may now founder on the rocks of lower energy and inattention.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/cesar-chelala/77791/a-student-s-message-to-politicians-about-the-florida-massacre

David Hogg Is 100 Percent Correct On His Gun Control Stance - Never Mind The Right's Haters

After the Laura Ingraham faceoff with Parkland survivor David Hogg, with the conservo guntards and snowflakes still melting down in screaming fits, it behooves us to try to get it into their thick skulls that Hogg is not against the Second Amendment.   As Hogg and fellow classmate Cameron Kasky made clear last month on HBO's Real Time, neither condemns the Second Amendment or wants it repealed.

It's not the Second Amendment that needs  condemnation or rejection but rather ignorant and juvenile interpretations  of it, i.e. which claim that one is entitled to own an AR-15 or any similar military type assault rifles under that banner. I had previously skewered this balderdash in my citation of the 2008 SC case District of Columbia vs. Heller:
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2018/02/sorry-you-have-no-constitutional-right.html

The majority opinion was written by arch-conservative Justice  Antonin Scalia who - while upholding the right to own arms - adamantly asserted that those weapons "most useful in military service" fall outside the scope of the 2nd amendment. What exactly is there about this ruling the guntards don't get - or are they plain and simple "gun-tarded"? Do they need to be spoon fed and walked through it paragraph by paragraph, or sentence by sentence? 

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal ("Ban On Military  -Style Rifles Upheld", April 7-8, p. A3) notes that earlier SC ruling was once again upheld in a Massachusetts case whereby:

"A federal judge ruled that the Constitution offers no protection for the military style rifles used in recent mass shootings - dismissing a legal challenge by gun owners and dealers in the state."

Adding:

"Judge William G. Young's ruling followed the reasoning of an opinion last year by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld a Maryland law similar to Massachusetts."

The piece also noted that Judge Young  cited the 2008 Heller case that assault style weapons fall outside the province and protection of the Second Amendment. As he wrote in the ruling:

"The AR-15 and its analogs - black, semi-automatic rifles with pistol grips and other military features - are simply not weapons within the individual constitutional right to bear arms."

The same legal cases are now also being invoked  (according to a Denver Post report two days ago) to ban all AR-15s and other assault type rifles in Boulder, Colorado-  along with bump stocks and high capacity magazines.

Seems to me if the guntards want to whine, piss and moan about gun control "infringement" on their rights, they'd do better to condemn Scalia's 2008 ruling on the unconstitutionality of  a "right" to own AR-15s in  the Heller case.   As long time conservative pundit Joe Scarborough put it two months ago, soon after the Parkland shooting:

"If you want to make the argument that the Supreme Court should protect your rights to have military style weapons, that's legitimate.  But if you say it is your God-given constitutional right to have an AR-15 that is not what the second amendment says. And it's not what Justice Scalia says or the Supreme Court says."

But the guntards ignore all reason, and all legal basis for limiting military grade weapons, preferring to scream like banshees on their blogs and spew hate at Hogg. who is merely the messenger. All Hogg is really demanding is that the same standards Antonin Scalia already upheld in D.C. vs. Heller, be implemented nationwide.

The biggest howler in all the protracted hyper reactions of the Right, is the absurd belief that Hogg  is being fed prompts and scripts by Left groups, George Soros, or Media Matters.  Again, as I noted before, because these knuckle draggers can't conceive themselves speaking articulately and knowledgeably at the age of 17, they refuse to accept David Hogg can do it. Hence, he must be part of a halfwit "conspiracy"  - as confected by the dunces -  like Steve Duncie- ...errr Doocy...on 'Fox and Friends'. (Doocy is the resident genius on "Fox and Friends" who once tried to roast marshmallows using just his bare hands and a plastic spoon, e.g.
https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2010/11/19/fox-amp-friends-attempt-to-roast-marshmallows-w/173553

He also once averred that the Swedes are "pure" because they only marry other Swedes, not "other species".)

All this is part of the  disproportionate vitriol directed at Hogg, much of it driven by pure envy given Hogg's motley crew of haters wish they had  half  the brains he has. The Right's snowflakes' hate is also spurred by the kid's resolve, given  he has not been deterred by their attacks. He continues to speak and write in whatever venue allowed for the limits on military style weapons with pistol grips and high capacity magazines..

Among the Right's vitriolic haters is Virginia Lamp, aka Ginni Thomas, the wife of the dumbest, most unqualified candidate ever to be appointed to the Supreme Court (as the classic token black). Lamp wrote  on Monday - in one of the most lame brained posts ever - accompanied by images of Holocaust survivor shoes:

"To all the kids that walked out of school to protest guns. These are the shoes of Jews that gave up their firearms to Hitler. They were led into gas chambers, murdered and buried in mass graves. Pick up a history book and you’ll realize what happens when u give up freedoms and why we have them," 

Well, at least we can see she's a good I.Q. match for hubby, Clarence! She doesn't even know that Jews were allowed to keep their guns until  November 11, 1938, when the German Minister of the Interior issued the Regulations Against Jews Possession of Weapons.    Assuming she can count  using the fingers on one hand this was five years after Hitler was appointed to the Chancellory by Paul von Hindenburg.  Why didn't the Jews rise up in those intervening years? Huh? Speak up, Lamp and fellow cretins!

Again, NO one has any intent to  "take guns away" or make anyone "give up freedoms", as the hysterical Hogg haters  (and Parkland activist haters) like Lamp  insist. They can still stock all the other weapons they want:  shotguns, pistols,  bolt action rifles, you name it - just not ARs or their cousins (like the Bushmaster .223).  Maybe, these complainers and Hogg attackers need to go back to school and study some of the legal aspects related to the Heller case. They'd sure as hell make much more constructive  use of their free time than spamming juvenile Hogg -Hitler images!

Kudos to Hogg for taking on almost single handedly the entire vile NRA-linked  network of fools, lobbyists, hacks and yahoos who'd rather spend time creating fake images of Hogg with Hitler than learning more on specific legal cases limiting the ownership of assault- style weapons. 

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/jill-richardson/78566/this-popular-pro-gun-argument-doesn-t-make-any-sense

Excerpt:

"As our nation debates gun rights vs. gun control, there’s a stupid argument that keeps resurfacing on the anti-gun control side. I’m not anti-gun, but I am anti-stupidity, so this is bugging me.

It’s the idea that because criminals, by their very nature, do not follow laws, we should not pass any laws limiting gun rights.

The thought goes that if we, say, require universal background checks, good, law-abiding people will follow that law, but criminals will still buy illegal guns. Therefore, why bother with the background checks?

This is ridiculous for several reasons.

First, that’s not how laws work. We don’t say, “Well, we could ban rape, but rapists would still do it anyway. I guess rape should be legal.”

Second, it could deter some people. There are some people who believe in following laws, or at least don’t want to get punished for breaking them. Even if the illegal gun buyers are unethical, many gun sellers will refuse to violate a law.

Third, not all criminals plan their crimes in advance. Some gun violence is done in a fit of passion.

Yes, the person premeditating murder might go get a gun in advance.

But let’s say it’s someone who would not be able to get a gun legally if there were universal background checks. Maybe they’re a convicted felon, or they have a mental illness that predisposes them to violence, or they’re a domestic abuser.

If this person flies into a murderous rage, it’s harder to get a gun quickly, because nobody can legally sell them one."