Ten years

[winston]

Dane you are so funny man! Kira you hit the nail on the head. Many of us got absorbed into the establishment which conveniently swallowed us whole and never gave us any chance at all to start making the difference that we could see as an opportunity from our earlier vantage point.

[kiramdear]

Hindsight is 20/20.

[wayang]

Especially if you wear trifocals...

Well, late night forum friends, I have to fly back to Denver tomorrow, and I'm about one 'whiff' away from bedtime, so I'll say goodnight for now...

...and (even though some people look at me funny when I say it) : keep the faith.

[kiramdear]

Happy landings, Dane. See ya on the flip side.

[winston]

Have a good kip and a good trip mate. I'll catch you another night for a bit of fun on the board.

[jimk]

A whiff, yeah....and it ain't pot for once, neither.
JimK (who was 6 to 16 in that decade)

[kiramdear]

Smells like good ol' fresh air, Jim, maybe for a minute or two.

[whojamfan]

Ok, my personal opinion here,

It just appears to me that all of the marketing schemes and trends have duped the public. People seem to be so concerned with keeping up with the Joneses that political and social issues took a backseat. The 70s brought that "me" generation of self importance through consumerism, and the 80s multiplied that with over the top decadence. It wasn't untill crack and aids that people generally started to rethink their lifestyles and capitalize on corporate ventures. The last 20 years, people have bought in to the whole credit myth, and are too busy paying bills to be concerned with what is going on around them. I hear people all of the time complaining about this and that and wondering why we take it. Well, quite simply, all social economic levels are usually 3 to 5 paychecks away from being homeless, thanks to all of the items they buy on credit, leases, and loans. People quite simply aren't going to miss out on work and risk that job to go on a march to protest something. Why do you think the corporations can do whatever they want and all people do is ***** about it? 1 or 2 days of not using petroleum would have brought those 4+ dollars a gallon prices down immediately, wouldn't you agree?

[cjj]

1 or 2 days of not using petroleum would have brought those 4+ dollars a gallon prices down immediately, wouldn't you agree?

No. The oil companies have enough money to survive a few days (or weeks) with no sales knowing that it's all temporary. We CANNOT live without petroleum, so stopping for a few days only means everyone will buy the same amount anyway, either before or after the stoppage days...

[wayang]

Mike, I'm afraid CJ's right about that...you might as well fantasize about having us go a couple of days without dropping bombs.

Man, them oil companies...where would we be without them?

[whojamfan]

Not if we drop the bombs on the oil companies

To expand on my own highly subjective opinion of the oil situation;
While I don't think that a few days of boycotting the oil companies would have bankrupted them, the sheer greed of the executives would not tolerate the profit loss that a couple of days would represent. Money is by far the most addictive substance out there, and once you reach a certain point, no amount is ever enough. Without getting overly political, as I don't want to close this thread down, the oil companies had us all by the shorts, and all people did was complain and wonder why someone wasn't doing something.

As long as we can watch monday night football on our big screens drinking Bud light, who really cares what's goingt on outside? Unfortunately, I don't feel this observation to be too far off the mark.

However, those of you that play your Ricks instead of watching Football, that's a different story

[jimk]

Cynic like, I've often said to a friend of mine that if you really wanted to start a revolution in the US, you'd have to cancel Monday night football, and effectively take away all the Budweiser beer.

Boycotts are long, tedious, require lots of advance organization, and did I say they were long? It's the non-violent equivalent of laying seige to a walled city. It can succeed, if you have the patience, and the resources to carry it out. But it may, like a seige take months, perhaps years to take effect. Strikes work the same way as boycotts.

Unfortunately, I don't think my generation had the patience, nor the organizing ability to make its dreams a reality. And when we found out that The Establishment was willing to shoot unarmed kids dead in Ohio, that pretty well put the kabosh on the movement.

Remember the old chant?
"What do we want?"
"Peace!"
"When do we want it?"
"Now!"

Yeah....right. What nobody paid attention to was the fact that peace like war must be waged.

OK....that's enough from me.

Over.....
JimK

[whojamfan]

I agree wholeheartedly Jim!

[sowhat]

Not sure that wouldn't be an off-topic, but still.
10 years ago: 20 yo, believing in miracles, kinda romantic, way too vulnerable.
Now: 30 yo, cynical but still believing that the future will bring lots of interesting and fun. No other choice. If i show and tell my child that "mommy thinks life is cr@p and there's no way to go, nothing to wait for", would it do her any good? I would have doubted it. Besides, "life is what we think of it", and if we look closer, we may find lots of things happening that we may consider our personal events, be they small or not meaning much for others. Like, "build" our life on little joys that we see and not on what we get "fed" with by those who think they know better.
All imho, of course.

[sloop_john_b]

How about "Five Years"?