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10-10-02
Youth
whinges Eternal
Trust The Age
to print this
load of assnuggets.
A 25-yo self-righteous
postgraduate student - Michelle Almiron - squeals about how nobody is
listening to her generation, and how she has to deal with the everyday
issues of life, like bills, debt and working for a living. Oh, the pain!
Of course, as with
most agonized leftist twits, she doesn't understand that she is
being listened to. The thing is, nobody cares.
Some choice excerpts.....
I am 25 and part
of the invisible generation. I am in full-time education (still) accumulating
a HECS debt that I will have to repay as soon as I earn more than $21,000
a year.
Oh dear. Fancy being
forced to contribute a portion of the cost of your seemingly never-ending
education which everyone else is subsidising.
The likelihood
of my partner and I becoming either home owners or parents is non-existent.
We have other needs and aspirations for the moment.
Yeah, non-home ownership
and cost of having kids is a problem exclusively for the young. Gimme
a break.
You oppressed "youth"
could always move outta Melbourne, and - you know - go somewhere cheaper.
It's simple:
as a group, generally, we don't have a mortgage, children or full-time
career jobs. So John Howard has little motivation to listen to our voices.
We are a generation that speaks to brick walls.
Christ almighty. Somebody
fetch the Kleenex. You have as much power to make John Howard listen as
anyone else: you can vote. It's called democracy. Don't
start crying about being unfairly ignored when your vote has the same
weight as an older person.
A good example
is the furore caused when Kirsty Ruddock had the courage to voice her
objections to her father's actions. She was readily dismissed for failing
to appreciate the responsibilities involved in managing such a weighty
portfolio. I can just imagine Philip Ruddock shaking his head - I admire
her zest but, ah, the innocence of youth.
Ah good: she didn't
forget the required dig at the Evil Nazi Howard Government, irrelevant
as it is.
Alternatively,
when we are not ignored, we are patronised. Reports abound about our
lack of savings and our love affair with credit. We don't buy houses,
preferring to spend our money on mobile phones and travel. There seems
to be a hysteria that surrounds this notion of young Australians travelling
the road to economic perdition.
Interestingly, she
can give no specifics.
In reality, there
is hardly any room for us to put our finger in the financial pie. Who
can afford a house when you have a $25,000 HECS debt?
Valid point, but so
what? You expect to be a home owner at the age of 25 while you're
still a full-time student? How about getting a job, and
paying off your debt, before you start crapping on with your righteous
spiel about how evil older people and the government are.
Next, Michelle - the
Gulag Oz inmate - cries censorship;
My generation
is recognised for labels. We're the indy-media types, hanging off the
end of the Xers, labelled as "generation Y", "generation
tech" or the first "global generation". I understand
that labelling is necessary. But, in effect, it acts as masking tape
over our mouths.
Um, how?
This imposed
silence encourages accusing snarls that we are an apathetic bunch with
no cultural clout or direction. But this couldn't be further from the
truth. Australia's youth are more than an age bracket. We have views
on politics, lifestyle and social justice.
Australia's youth
have opinions. Well, fuck me. Who would have guessed?
This imposed
silence encourages accusing snarls that we are an apathetic bunch with
no cultural clout or direction. But this couldn't be further from the
truth. Australia's youth are more than an age bracket. We have views
on politics, lifestyle and social justice.
What "imposed
silence", you clown? To start with, you are able to get a piece this
bad published in a major broadsheet newspaper, for chrissakes. And you
can hardly go a day without the TV news showing the members of the Unwashed
Student Stinky Platoon protesting and screaming "fascism!!!"
about something or other.
The Youth Parliament
was in session last month. Mandatory reporting of child abuse by religious
leaders, reproductive rights (the availability of the morning-after
pill over the counter), compulsory blood donations: these were some
of the bills discussed by Australians aged 16 to 25.
Well, the ones aged
18-25 can vote and register as political candidates if they want, just
like anyone else. What the hell is it that you are complaining
about?
There are many
other places to find us discussing and enthusing. Go to any spoken-word
event on a weekend at a pub or other venue and you might be surprised.
Uh, no, we're all
quite used to the sight and sounds of boring university students lecturing
us all on our evil ways thank you. Oh, and I bet you don't count young
libertarians/conservatives as part of your generation.
Walk down Swanston
Street and you might be asked to sign a petition and become involved
against the mandatory detention of refugees or against war on Iraq.
Visit any of the university corridors and catch the conversations of
students running to class from part-time jobs. You might find us discussing
how our education is deteriorating, how daily living is becoming more
expensive, how lacking in human compassion our political leaders are.
Oh, we know all this.
Problem is that at election time, we couldn't give a rat's ass about what
you have to say. People have a right to have different opinions to yours.
You are not being silenced or oppressed - other people are making decisions
of their own. I realise that as a leftist this idea of freedom of
choice is a scary one, but you'd best deal with it, Whitlam-girl.
There is a rich
array of young voices striving to be heard. Yet these voices rarely
penetrate mainstream politics and culture.
Says the words printed
in the The Age, and similar voices being spoken on a certain taxpayer
funded nation-wide
radio station. Never mind, I guess the Zionists are brainwashing the
unwashed masses against you.
Naomi Klein suggests
that one of the reasons that youthful voices do not permeate the mainstream
is because as soon as our cultural movement awakes, baby boomers come
along and steal it to make "cool" ads - which they then try
to sell back to us. This never happened to the baby boomers. They had
time to revel in their movement and explore it before it was sold off.
I think I'm gonna
barf.
It's a shame.
Our generation has an important contribution to make to Australian society.
So get out there and
make it, and stop fucking whining about your poor, silenced self already.
This would mean however, you have to join the real world the rest of us
live in, where we have a lower tolerance for middle-class welfare brats
like you.
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