Here’s a draft of a rant from April of2006.\u00a0 Again, another typical GS article from the period.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Where do you see yourself 70 years from now?<\/p>\n
Something wicked this way\u2026 No, wait, something wicked has long been here.<\/p>\n
It all began with my generation.\u00a0 The children of the 80\u2019s.\u00a0 Now the 30-somethings who, quietly, play Talking Heads songs in the basement while chain smoking and searching for cancerous lumps.\u00a0 This slow downfall of humanity\u00a0 — the unfocused, the embittered, the jealous, the confused \u2013 is all right here with my people.\u00a0 Hands across America.\u00a0 Jesus fucking Christ, who are we?<\/p>\n
And so the grey hairs wonder.\u00a0 The dying Golden Generation along with our parents, the treacherous sell-out hippies and Silent Majority \u2013 weakness and hatred hand in hand \u2013 all wonder:\u00a0 What are your goals, darlin\u2019?\u00a0 What is your ten year plan?\u00a0 Asking a 30 year old that question?\u00a0 Here\u2019s the only possible reply:\u00a0 Mom, dad, grandpa, auntie Violet \u2013 fuck you.<\/p>\n
There are deep undercurrents of concern:\u00a0 Has America come to an end?\u00a0 Will all these people under 40 simply fade away and leave nothing of The Great Legacy?\u00a0 By the time I was your age, I had a house, three bullet wounds that had poorly healed, and seven child.\u00a0 By God\u2019s grace, I was a man.\u00a0 The forward thinking man.\u00a0 I rode through Vietnam, I battled Korea, I crushed Japanese skulls, and your great grandpa, let me tell you, he urinated into a living German\u2019s mouth and rallied his neighbors for the mine wars.<\/p>\n
When I was your age\u2026<\/p>\n
Thirty-two rises on my horizon.\u00a0 May 10th, rock-out, the dance through my 30\u2019s continues and I am at the glass ceiling, unmotivated, downloading porn, uncaring, flippant, quick to anger.\u00a0 My colleagues have post dot-coms, unique self employment opportunities, shuddering and exhausting mid-level management jobs.\u00a0 Far more of them are serving me slices of apple pie at the local diner, whispering dreams in my ear, feet up at the night desk behind the hotel check-in counter.\u00a0 The majority are spun out, but not in the traditional way.\u00a0 The sense of hopelessness and apathy isn\u2019t there.\u00a0 Good is good enough.\u00a0 Children of the 80\u2019s?\u00a0 The 90\u2018s?\u00a0 No, we\u2019re the children of Nike, Coca-Cola, Enron, Walmart.\u00a0 Rise from the chair with a question mark on our brow and the hole is instantly filled by what we need.<\/p>\n
Rise up and blaze a path?\u00a0 Old man, the path is right here.\u00a0 The big bad wolves have all been slain. Stop.\u00a0 Don\u2019t you fucking think for an instant that these lost generations won\u2019t rise to the cause\u2026if a true cause comes along.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the story:\u00a0 America has succeeded.\u00a0 The rush and tumble of the 19th is over.\u00a0 The wars and fire of the 20th have been won.\u00a0 Sure, they took the Towers.\u00a0 Oh yeah, something wicked this way does come.\u00a0 You can bet your failed gold dollar on that.\u00a0 Yep, the war rages.\u00a0 Okay, kids are dying.\u00a0 Sigh, Mama Corporation has tainted out souls.\u00a0 But, hey, is it a surprise?\u00a0 Really? We made our bed.\u00a0 We made it long ago.\u00a0 We stuffed our mattress with money and short-sheeted the goddamn bed and crouched in the closet, guns and drugs and intolerance all ready for the night.\u00a0 None of this has been as bad as it was.\u00a0 There were days when this world rocked to the foundations, and this country shuddered and cried.\u00a0 Can you show me on this doll where Germany touched you?\u00a0 Can you point out Vietnam for us, Mr. Six Pack?\u00a0 Is he in this courtroom?<\/p>\n
We have succeeded not only in consuming this world, but in surviving through absolute horror.\u00a0 A few little well-aimed planes will never match what we\u2019ve seen and done.<\/p>\n
The path is right here.\u00a0 Blindly, we will follow it.\u00a0 Happily, we will spin it out to the ultimate conclusion — your conclusion, old man.\u00a0 When you were my age, you were destroying whatever independence I would be able to achieve.\u00a0 When you were my age, you were selling out to Nixon.\u00a0 Hey there, old one, when you were my age, you were swallowing whatever the machine told you.<\/p>\n
What is your ten year plan?\u00a0 Old man, I just want to get through today.\u00a0 I just want to stumble my way back home where I can forget that I\u2019m living the handicraft of your ignorance and betrayal.\u00a0 There is no plan.\u00a0 Around me is one huge cushion, Credit Card Class, the welcoming jaws of kindly crocodiles.\u00a0 Fall back.\u00a0 That\u2019s all I want to do.\u00a0 Maybe those younger folk will be the spring forward generation.\u00a0 Maybe you should talk to them.\u00a0 Me, I\u2019m horrified.\u00a0 I\u2019m watching the grey hairs march us, resolutely, into repetition, repetition.\u00a0 The constant playback of the ignorant sins of my parents, the misguided nostalgia of my grandparents.\u00a0\u00a0 Jesus Christ, you cheating, lying monsters.\u00a0 My ten year plan is to run as far away as I can.\u00a0 I\u2019ve lost my stomach for the bodybags.\u00a0 This habitual prejudice, so easily enforced, gives me a headache, even as I continue in the footsteps of Klansmen cousins.<\/p>\n
My ten year plan is to not be like you.\u00a0 But that\u2019s common talk, isn\u2019t it?\u00a0 You said the same, didn\u2019t you, old man?\u00a0 You leaned against a car and smoked a cigarette and drank whiskey and you said it with all your heart.\u00a0 So that leaves me no options.\u00a0 If I refuse to follow the human error, then I have to step off the path.\u00a0 Turn to the left, turn to the right, and start all over again.\u00a0 Into that mighty jungle.\u00a0 Ten years from now?\u00a0 I want to be a night watchman.\u00a0 Maybe a school janitor like that guy in The Breakfast Club.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want kids.\u00a0 We need to stop that cycle right now.\u00a0 This here used car is a dreamboat.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want to keep up with the Joneses.\u00a0 I don\u2019t like them.\u00a0 Own instead of rent?\u00a0 That\u2019s a myth.\u00a0 Church bells singing.\u00a0 God doesn\u2019t come into my house.\u00a0 Not anymore.\u00a0 Fool me once.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Here’s a draft of a rant from April of2006.\u00a0 Again, another typical GS article from the period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[137],"class_list":["post-136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sunday-archive","tag-archives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=136"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1045,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions\/1045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}