To the Next Generation

I had an interesting discussion with a woman close to my age today. She wrote to me after I posted a comment on a facebook discussion about needing to step up the fight against the Republican Party's War On Women. I said that while I would continue to actively play a role in the battle, it was no longer my generation's fight, and that it was up to each generation to choose their battles.

At the risk of sounding like one of those tedious old folks blathering on about young whippersnappers who just don't understand the sacrifices we made for them, I still feel it's important to do a bit of generational back slapping for what we did accomplish and explain how all of that is at risk now.

As archaic as it may sound, I grew up in a time when birth control was limited and not very affective. For women who don't even think twice about filling their prescriptions for the varieties of protection available out there, here's something to think about.

When the pill first came out, women couldn't just go and get a pack or two for themselves. They had to be married and in far too many cases, had to have their husband's permission to get a prescription. No, this wasn't the dark ages. This was the late 60's, early 70's. We wrote notes for each other pretending to be each other's husbands saying yes, we give our permission for our property to get something to put in their bodies.

Can any of you imagine doing that today? But we did and we also began to object, to protest, to demand the right to get our own prescriptions, to take charge of our own bodies. It wasn't easy and yes, some of us lost our jobs over it, were considered no better than prostitutes if discovered that we had a prescription without being married. And today, any woman has the right to get any kind of birth control she wants. It's so easy, most women just take it for granted and ignore there's politicians in office right now who consider birth control as a form of abortion.

And speaking of that topic that is guaranteed to stir up heat in any discussion, try this one on. Women of my generation and before either gave themselves abortions that often killed them or left them torn up so bad many of them never had to deal with an unwanted pregnancy again. Or they went to some backroom butcher that did the same thing, only he/she charged them lots of money to do so.

Or they did as my mother did and went to Mexico to some dirty little clinic just over the border that was a short bus ride there and what can only be described as an horrendous bus ride back. I was about nine or ten when a cab pulled up to the house (an unheard of luxury as they were expensive and rare) and the driver half carried my mother to the porch and left her there bleeding. She wouldn't let us call an ambulance because she'd probably end up in jail for having an illegal abortion. I became pro-choice that day and along with other women of my generation, fought hard for the right for women to have safe and legal abortions.

And now we live in a time when women can find a safe abortion, even though they may have to travel to another state. They really don't think about how they may not be able to get one, or that they can't afford it, or that it could kill them or leave them seriously infected or butchered.  Thanks to my generation they know they will not have their insides ripped up, infected, destroyed, and then left bleeding on a doorstep.

But we also live in a time when immoral bastards on Fox News and hate radio promote the active killing of Abortion doctors. If this doesn't get women's attention and compel them to action, then maybe it's time they woke up because those same crazy politicians that consider birth control as a form of abortion, want to classify  abortion as murder. So the next time you pop that pill in your mouth, remember that some vicious little tyrant is plotting on how to charge you with murder.

And even though racism and discrimination against women, gays, and minorities exists, it was our generation who took to the streets and demanded change, who protested and got ourselves arrested, and walked arm and arm with each other until equality for all people is the norm instead of the exception.

But we aren't there yet. There are still far too many people who use all kinds of blatantly transparent bullshit to cover up their racist hatred of Obama. There are still parts of this country where Gays and Lesbians get beat up and murdered just for being born homosexuals. There are still places in this country where women are second and third class citizens and who are routinely beat up, raped, and killed.

And far too many people look to their friends of color, their Gay and Lesbian friends, the women who hold public office and positions of authority and think not much has to be done anymore. This is where my new email friend said she felt like we did almost too good a job in changing the mindset of our culture away from racism and bigotry and toward tolerance. Because it's no longer so blatant, it no longer seems like such an important thing to fight.

But even as I write this there are people in power who are working to find ways to take away the equal rights we fought so hard to make ordinary. There are people fighting to roll back all the work we marched in the streets for, made phone calls to politicians for, wrote books for, composed music for, made art for so that equality and tolerance and acceptance of each other as human beings would seem ordinary.

Which brings me to my biggest complaint, my biggest whine as a 60 year old aging activist: how dare you not vote! I get really angry when people tell me there is no difference between the two parties, that they don't even bother voting anymore. To these people I say they need to go read up on the women who took to the streets, who got beat up, who got shunned and had their families destroyed so you unappreciative little shits could say voting was meaningless. And oh yeah, it wasn't exactly ancient history. Women in America got the right to vote in 1920. It's a good chance your grandmothers had baseball bats taken to their heads so you could stay home on election day.

And finally on that there's no difference between the parties crap...it's not the Democrats who are trying to take away the rights my generation fought so hard to make sure you could take for granted. Educate yourself and find out who the real dangerous party is right now in America and get off your ass and vote them out or everything my generation worked so hard for will disappear.

But as I told my friend, maybe that's the way the cycles move. Maybe you don't want those rights. Maybe they mean less to you than other things. Maybe the concern with the state of our planet is so dire that you can't afford to take time to fight any other battles. I have to admit I partly agree with you on this. It is a battle that must be fought.

You also have to continue the work we put into peace because it sure didn't work out too well. We still have stupid wars, stupid bought and paid for by defense contractors politicians, and too many ways the wealthy get even richer from war.

So yes, I can see there's a lot to choose from but I'd sure hate for all the work the women of my generation put in to go to waste. It's much more valuable than that and hopefully you will realize that and fight to keep it for the next generation to take for granted.

Fight For Rights by orsobear
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To the Next Generation

Oh My that sense of entitlement...

Before I get to the point, you first need to understand my objection to the very concept of entitlement and how I came to feel this way about it.
This is how Merriam-Webster defines "Entitlement."

1 a: the state or condition of being entitled : right b: a right to benefits specified especially by law or contract 2: a government program providing benefits to members of a specified group; also : funds supporting or distributed by such a program 3: belief that one is deserving of or entitled to certain privileges.

Over the years I've lived with and among those who have embraced definition #3 as their personal savior. They're the ones who got the mortgage that was a little bit more than they could afford because damn it, they were entitled to a nice home, not just any home. It didn't matter that they couldn't afford it because that was irrelevant in their world. They wanted it and therefore were entitled it.

I'm not talking about the working poor who squeezed their dreams into a trailer, manufactured home, or apartments given a paint job and renamed condos. I'm talking about the privileged little princes and princesses who were raised with the latest fashions, consumer goods, and tuition paid adventures in the land of College.

They are also the ones who grew up and refused to deny themselves anything because damn it, they were worth it. They handled their few broke moments by never getting their hair cut at the discount places, and they always chose the more expensive stylists because they were entitled to something to make them feel better by looking better. It didn't matter if they chose feeling better over paying their utility bills, buying groceries, or meeting the mortgage on that home they couldn't really afford. That wasn't their problem. SOMEONE would take care of it eventually. That was the way it always was and always will be on their planets.

I've lived with such people and I never understood the selfishness of someone who would stick their roommates with their share of the bills just so they could get a haircut or an outfit or a car or a vacation to make THEM feel better. Now I know they weren't selfish but entitled. How silly of me to not know.

But of course I grew up poor so I knew what it meant to not be entitled to something, like a place to live, electricity, hot water, heat, a choice of what to have for dinner. I learned early that what I wanted was minor in comparison to the mythical being called "the greater good." It translated as eating everything on my plate, no matter how nasty it was, because there were children starving somewhere who would love the meal I was turning my nose up at. It meant seeing myself as lucky to have a crappy meal to eat at all, much less whining because it wasn't what I wanted or couldn't afford. It meant working my way through life and earning things. What a concept!

Yes, I could have bought a new car and struggled to make the payments each month because everyone had a nice car. I could have bought nice new furniture to go with the house I couldn't afford. I could have eaten at restaurants because I was entitled to a break from cooking, even if I had to max out my credit cards to do so.

And yes, I could have spent thousands of dollars on weddings, vacations, college educations, trendy degrees, and expensive toys because as a poor person I was entitled to get some of what the more privileged had. After all, I was entitled to it, wasn't I? Wouldn't my sense of self, my personal power be forever damaged if I was denied anything that others had?

But I couldn't afford to go to private high schools and alternative colleges where no one ever failed because it would hurt their self-esteem, or to schools where no one had to work beyond their potential because that was inflicting the stigma on them of being less than perfect, or universities where no one had to do much to get that piece of paper because after taking up space for a specified amount of time, well, damn it, they were ENTITLED to it. And besides, the parents who raised these societal sucks waited with their lawyers to enforce their pampered spawns entitlement to the same degree others worked hard to get. Or to get in the face of anyone who dared to utter the word "no" to their special little twits. Or to strongarm the teachers to change the grade into one that would get them into a "good" school.

I got married by the Justice of the Peace, went camping instead of trekking, worked my way through three degrees at average Universities, and bought everything already used and discarded by those who felt they were entitled to something better.

I found value in good friends, in the power of love, in the warmth in the heart that came from doing good for others. I lived simply. I didn't need much to be happy. If you had a childhood like mine, a roof over your head that no one is going to evict you from any day is an astonishing luxury.

I read books I bought in boxes at garages sales, or rescued from dumpsters where they were discarded by college students who were "done" with them, and avoided anything on the best seller lists because I couldn't afford either the cost or the brainwashing.

And because I knew what it meant to work and study and take care of the basics I needed to survive, I was able to get a far better education than those who wasted their money on trophy degrees or whatever was currently popular and must have. I read books I never would have read because they weren't cool or popular or special. But they were damn good stories. They were real. They shaped me into a more whole and complete human being.

And reading of the struggles and hard times of others made me strong enough to survive being used as a scapegoat for all the petty issues these entitlement creeps could dream up. They lied and made up stuff and looked for anyone but themselves to blame for things they did, because damn it, they were too special to have to take the rap or responsibility for their own actions. Better to take it out on me and others like me who weren't like them, who didn't grow up like them, and who were happy, content, and had a life filled with loyal and loving friends carefully and lovingly nurtured for years instead of things that gave nothing back.

For many of the entitlement bunch, it came down to resenting me and others like me for serving as an example that happiness wasn't something they could buy or command, that love was something that was earned and reciprocated, not something that was compensated for in divorce court. It came down to believing they always had the right to abortions, birth control, college educations, a chance at shattering the glass ceiling because damn it, they were entitled to it, not because people like me worked to make sure they had those rights.

They hated that in the real world no one gave a damn if they were special or not. They were shocked to discover if they couldn't do the job, they were fired and replaced by someone who could. If they didn't pay their mortgage, the bank took the house back. If they didn't pay their bills, there were repercussions. If they fucked over their friends, the friends went away.

I share all this with you because as someone who spent my teens and early twenties working for the right of women to be treated with respect and financial equality, as someone who spent several years of my life working for candidates who promised an emphasis on peace, equality, tolerance, and public service, and as someone who spent the last several years shaking off the leeches of entitlement that fed off me for far too long, I just want to say fuck you to the Clintonistas who try and diminish my choice of voting for Obama instead of Clinton. I've never been treated so badly or accused of such things as I have by people who believe that Hillary deserves to be President for reasons that have nothing to do with her ability to lead this country in a way it needs to be led right now.

I want to say I've earned the right to vote for whomever I want. And it's no accident that many of those whining that I have to vote for Hillary or betray my gender, my politics, my liberal seat on the bus, are the same people I wrote about above. Of course, Hillary, with her sense of entitlement to the Presidency would draw these pampered little entitlement brats. Of course. If they weren't so entitled, they'd quit attacking people like me and go after the real enemy, the Republicans.

But that would require compromise and entitled people don't compromise. I began as a Hillary supporter and I'll vote for Hillary if it's between her and a Republican. They won't. They'll throw an entitlement tantrum instead and then whine when nothing changes and their rights to abortion are taken away, their jobs get shipped to some third world sweatshop, and either they or their children end up picking sand fleas out of their dumb asses in Iran.

And of course it is their whiny little sense of entitlement that destroyed her candidacy, not Obama, not me, not people like me. They did it with their arrogance and bullshit the same way Bush and his minions did it with arrogance and bullshit. And they turned me and many others like me away from Hillary.

In the meantime, I'll take my history of working against war, for civil rights, for women's equality, for personal accountability and help make Barack Obama the next president of the United States because he, and not Hillary, truly represents me, the child of dirt poor parents who worked my way to a career I love and still managed to maintain my integrity, my compassion, and my belief that no one is entitled to anything just because they want it.

And the interesting thing about all this? It is the children of these entitlement creeps that are behind Obama's rise. They were raised with a Bush or a Clinton president and parents who went through life like a self-indulgent bulldozer. Somewhere in that strange and misguided world they found a clearer path to follow, a more honest way of living, an altruism that put their parent's so-called compassion to shame. And for them Obama speaks a language that reflects who they are and want to become together.

Oh My that sense of entitlement...

Thank you, Dr. King

As someone who grew up with the dream of equality and remembers the despair over your death I felt as a High School student, I look to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as proof it was not all in vain. And one day we won't have to refer to them as the woman candidate and the black candidate anymore. They will be simply candidates.

But until then, in the interest of fairness, I think we should refer to the GOP side of the ticket as those crazy ass white guys.

Thank you, Dr. King

Flies On The Wall #29

Flies On The Wall #29