DO WE LEARN NOTHING FROM HISTORY?
Robert Reich’s May 18, 2012 article ("The Commencement Address That Won't Be Given") on the soaring costs of college educations and diminishing support for undergraduates reminds us of one more way in which the senior generations are screwing their kids.
The leaders of the senior generations have selfishly mismanaged fiscal, economic, education, environment, worker safety/health, health care, foreign policy and corporate practices, and then shifted the consequences of their folly on to the younger generations who lack the political awareness, the organization and the money to oppose them.
Fiscal policy: Overspent and under-taxed, creating a huge national and state debts they are passing along to the junior generations, thereby burdening them with the high cost of carrying these inexcusably bloated debts. By spending surpluses accumulated in the Social Security and Medicare trust funds on wars, tax cuts for the rich, and other current expenses, the senior generations have provided a pretext to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits to junior generations while leaving the benefits to politically powerful seniors untouched.
Economic policy: Ran the economy into a ditch, leaving recent high school and college graduates with limited job prospects and high unemployment. That suits corporate America just fine in that it provides a pool of fearful youngsters willing to work for subsistence wages.
Education policy: The combination of high government debt and a sluggish economy has given the rich folks of the senior generations the pretext to cut spending on education, undermining the quality of secondary education, thereby making it more difficult for youngsters to bear the many burdens thrust upon them. Unlike Finland (which enjoys the highest quality of education because they accord their teachers the respect and compensation necessary to attract top graduates to the profession), the U.S. underpays and under-appreciates their teachers and so fails to attract top talent to the teaching profession, again, undermining the quality of education for our youth. By withholding financial support to college students and pursuing policies increasing the cost of college education faster than inflation, senior generation leaders are burdening youngsters with huge college loans.
Environmental policy: In their unbridled quest for corporate profits and outsized C-Suite compensation, corporations have undermined attempts by the EPA to reduce undesirable environmental externalities, leaving younger generations to suffer the consequences of global warming, polluted air and water and unhealthy food.
Worker safety and health: Similarly, corporate influence has undermined efforts by OSHA to provide safer and healthier workplaces.
Health care: By giving unscrupulous health insurers their head, ruling senior have placed the health of uninsured/underinsured children in jeopardy.
Foreign policy: The leadership of senior generations have engaged in “Long Wars” of choice, with no other purpose than to swell the coffers of the armaments industry and fatten the paychecks of its executives. The cost in blood and treasure of these follies is ultimately borne by youngsters who are called on to fight such wars, and, ultimately to pay for them.
Corporations discriminate against youngsters in their “two-tier” benefits packages and engage in the selfish, unconscionable practice of offering unpaid internships, taking advantage of the vulnerability of youth in the early stages of their careers. Corporations also outsource jobs to foreign countries, cowing American youngsters into accepting subsistence wages and unpaid internships, thereby swelling corporate profits and shareholder/C-Suite compensation. Corporations also foist fat- sugar- and salt-laden foods, and cigarettes on younger generations, increasing their incidence of obesity, diabetes, lung cancer and other health problems.
What have I left out?
Bottom line: Rich seniors are living large and handing juniors the bill while undermining their ability to pay it.
My Dartmouth classmate, the late Senator Paul Tsongas, correctly warned us of generational warfare as the inevitable consequence of such short-sighted, selfish, self-serving fiscal policies. In the Occupy Wall Street Movement we are beginning to see the early stages of a leftist revolution by abused younger generations awakening to the injustices being heaped upon them by their elders. We are also seeing the cultivation of an extremist reactionary right-wing movement duped into the service of the establishment as a counterweight to the emerging radical left. Throw into the mix an economy in turmoil; a polarized, paralyzed government overburdened with debt; and a frustrated military with a “stabbed-in-the-back” narrative, and you have an ominous simulacrum of Weimar Germany.
Whether the righteous anger of younger generations can be channeled into the democratic process (as I have advocated in my blog, “Occupy Theaters” www.cassandra-chronicles.blogspot.com), or will ultimately result in violent revolution remains to be seen.
I see little evidence that senior leaders are aware of the dangers posed by their self-serving policies or that they are prepared to remedy the injustices such policies wreak on their children. Nor do I see much evidence of the Millennial Generation mobilizing effectively to achieve needed reforms through the democratic process. Consequently, I predict we are facing increasingly violent protest by the youth of this country, to be met with increasing repression by the authoritarian establishment (which has already put in place dictatorial powers in the name of fighting the war against terrorism). The clash between youth and their elders also increases likelihood of further Long Wars abroad as a means of deflecting such protest away from the establishment.
Do we learn nothing from history?