What happened to Students?

Seriously?
I think WE'RE to blame. Our generation I mean. The people who were teenagers during the 60's, 70's and early 80's are now parents to offspring of student age.....AND ARE OUR PRESENT LEADERS.

Teenagers back then were interested in Politics. I remember really heated discussions going on with our large group of young 'uns in the Pub.
It felt worthwhile discussing politics, as we really thought that we could change things.
This was also happening in the Colleges and Universities at that time. We all couldn't wait to vote, when it came the time for elections.

Thatcherism was the first hammer blow, with the "Me me me" culture, that almost made it a sin (certainly uncool) for young people to think about others.
Then came the coup de grace with Poodle Blair. He and his henchmen just about ruined British Politics, with their spin, deceit and "bullet" headlines way of governing. No matter what you thought about them, they would do things their way and then very cleverly manipulate the situation come election time, so that all the sheep thought they were wonderful for a couple of weeks before the vital voting took place.

I try to talk politics with my son, who then dismisses the whole thing and shows no interest at all. I bet your daughter is the same.
A shrug, a toss of the head, before he says to me "They're all the same...it's not worth me voting, as it makes no bloody difference"

Very much the same thing has happened in the USA.....Reagan (me me me) Bush (cynical manipulation)


As far as the rebellion bit goes, they probably find it hard to find anything that is considered rebellious nowadays, as WE'VE done it all before.

Dope smoking? Marching? LSD? Heavy, strange music? Political "Dylan style" music?

All done before.

Maybe their way of being rebellious IS to not give a shite. Who knows?

Of course, the other MASSIVE change has been with the Media.

When we were teenagers in the UK, we had three channels of TV (four if you were posh and had an expensive telly), Newsapers and Pop music....
...and that was it.

The TV was quite highbrow and scheduled many programmes about Politics, News, debates, quizzes etc. Todays TV consists of 640 channels, mainly crappola, with the odd "Question time" type programme wedged in between on rare occasions. The accent nowadays is on "Celebrity" and whether they can survive in a house/jungle/Love Island and other such death defying situations.

The "Mainstream" Newspapers then were good reading. Take the Daily Mirror for instance, a Newpaper aimed at the working masses. In that paper were several top quality political/investigative journalists......Paul Foot, John Pilger, Ann Robinson, Keith Waterhouse before he watered himself down.
All good, informative, enjoyable reading.

Now we have the Sun in addition to the Mirror.

Open either newspaper and what do you find? Which celebrity was showing her neatly shaven genitalia when she tried to get out of a car whilst wearing a micro mini skirt. Another celebrity dating a so called pop star heroin addict.....the list goes on.

Try to find ONE story that covers an indepth coverage of what's really happening in Iraq or N.Korea and you'll be out of luck.

I used to sit waiting for my Dad to finish reading the Mirror so that I could grab it and take it away for an hour's reading. I thought it was brilliant.

Now...I wouldn't give it house room.

So........if a teenager is being brought up only learning how to get out of a car properly, or discovering the wonders of how to get longer lashes, I wouldn't really see that as a healthy breeding ground that will set him/her on the way to campaigning for a better world, myself.

Well, I'd be the first to say that many of our bloody politicians seem to come from the same stripe, no matter what level of government they come from.

Take me, for example. I always have voted provincially and federally, but never locally at the municipal level.

Recently, though, I got out to vote on a referendum on a monsterously expensive plan that our local politicians wanted to ram down our throats. Unfortunately, most got sold on the proposals and it passed, but we'll be paying for the next 20 years for it.

My point is, it's amazing how motivated one can become to vote when you realize how much money will come out of one's pocket.

Younger folks haven't garnered that motivation yet, but they will.

I think it's about apathy, Reyn, and I wonder if they will ever really care about world politics in the future.

It would be interesting to sit a 20 year old down and ask him/her what he/she thought about the North Korean situation. I bet they wouldn't even know what you were talking about.

Sit a 20 year old down in 1970/1/2/3/4 and ask them what they thought about Vietnam and you'd be there all night.

Yes, there is truth to what you say, but in regards to voting, one gets motivated if decisions made by our politicians dig deep into your wallet. :wink:

Funny I was thinking about the war in Iraq the other day and started wondering what the bloody helll students at Berkly were up to. Studying.

I think the draft is huge there, in America anyway (I know far less about how that did work and now works in England). 20-year-olds are, as a group, extremely self-centered. If the stuff going on over there has a very good chance of resulting in one's own death, one sits up and pays attention. If they stuff going on over there doesn't mean much beyond slightly higher gas prices, whatever. Where's the party?

And protests DO happen, it just might not be for issues that we think are worthwhile. There were huge protests (hunger strikes, whole nine yards) at Gallaudet recently, for example, about the new president (I have a thread about that here, need to update it).

I also think there is a great deal of cynicism about the 60's protest culture (and I think some of it is warranted) and that the current crop of young people consider themselves to be far less naive.

I have been asking all along "why are there no protests?" Our leaders are more corrupt than ever. I guess it's hard to be motivated for societal change while perched in front of an X-Box.

Seems to me I recently saw a bit on the news about Target pulling its inventory of Che Guevara tee shirts because of loud protests from local parents.

I remember at the time shaking my head and muttering something about "stupid people" and then heading out to my shed, but I had forgotten about the incident until now.

I'll see if I can find the story.

I guess my memory is failing me. It was a cd case.

Speaking as a current student, I find that my view on protests/demonstrations is influenced by images of hippies acting irresponsibly, extreme animal rights activists abusing people, and basically disorder and disruption of people's lives. Then again it is also influenced by images of King's March on Washington, etc.

I can only speak for myself, but I find that political issues are often double-headed. On one head are the details provided by the media, journals, etc. On the other are the secrets and complications of the situation. Couple those factors with the shady consequences of a protest and I find myself being cautious of the goals and results of demonstrations.

There are students who participate in protests and if you ever went to my college facility, you'd see posted on the bulletin boards anti-war meetings scheduled. I never went to one, because I don't know the full agenda of the organization and because I am cautious of radical groups and their actions, so I don't know how many students actually went there. I live in Canada though, so I'm not in the epicenter of global issues.

We need something like Punk again - we need to stir emotions, I need to be outraged by some young persons protest. The natural order of things isn't flowing. I'm still more radical at my age than most younger people. I remember being on the pickets in 1984, and delivering food parcels and donations to Bold colliery... fully supported by a vast numbers of students. Coal not Dole was the last major public agitation in the UK.

I quite miss those days...

And I ALWAYS vote in every election.

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