I’m 33 years old now. Throughout my life, there has never been a UK Government that cares even the slightest bit about me or anyone else my age or younger. Why would they? They haven’t needed us to win and they still don’t.
Baby Boomers are an interesting bunch. Like all generations, there are good ones and there are bad ones. Unfortunately though, there are a hell of a lot more bad. They are entitled, they are selfish, they are destructive, consumptive and they love machines that pollute (the smokier the better).
The bad ones are also extremely adept at lying and changing the subject when faced with inconvenient facts that threaten their world view. Especially when said facts pertain to the climate disaster, capitalism vs socialism, electric vs fossil, bike vs e-bike (both obviously) and so on.
It would be bad enough if these nature destroying, garden paving, decking loving, petrol lawn mowing, 2m fence building nut jobs would leave it there. But sadly that’s not the case. They also find it necessary to tread on the futures of their children and grandchildren by continuing to vote in huge numbers for their own interests. And without a second thought about how the following generations are going to live on a rapidly deteriorating planet.
To be fair. there are some good Boomers. But in my experience they tend to be the quiet hippy type, who generally don’t like to speak up to authority very strongly and so they don’t make much progress when dealing with less than useless local politicians. They’re easy to ignore and get away with it (just like millennials).
The other major problem is political apathy and lack of political education among people under 40. And of course our entirely corrupt media which exists purely to get anyone centre right to far right wing elected while screwing over anyone who dares to question the corporate status quo (see Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders). But I’ll do another post soon on the problem with the quiet majority.
Another thing that Boomers are really good at is finding far right conspiratorial nonsense on Facebook. They’re incredibly efficient at finding and spreading it far and wide in fact that a significant percentage of the British population hate Jeremy Corbyn for no legitimate reason whatsoever. A percentage that certainly couldn’t be due to newspaper and TV news alone.
They’re also ruining the train network by holding it back. Fetishising smokey diesels and arguing against progress towards a fully electric network. The same thing applies to roads, cars and car ownership as well as the fuel that powers them. Slowing down EV uptake, the building of bike infrastructure and the transition to a car free society full of cargo bikes and e-scooters, and I’m just scratching the surface.
I think the saddest thing for me now is just how these despicable people who don’t give a fuck about anyone younger than them, will never have to face justice. By the time the mainstream figure out that they’ve been betrayed and left to suffer in a hellish future, many of them will be dead. They’ll never feel bad about what they’ve done. They’ll just lie, deflect, and die happy. That’s a sickening thought. Especially when it comes to the right wing politicians and fossil fuel CEOs of that age group who have presided over the last 3 or 4 decades.
Yes, they’ll be remembered as villains for the rest of human civilisation. But maybe that won’t even be very long. These excuses for human beings need to pay for their crimes of ecocide before it’s too late. We have Baby Boomers in power with outdated / wrong ideas listening to other loud Boomers with the same mindset. We’re never going to get the change we need in the timescale necessary unless we stop this.
Perhaps the real saddest thing of all will be the realisation of those boomers who aren’t climate deniers or hippies, but those who just did nothing. When they realise that their kids and grandkids will not forgive them for not acting when they had so many chances to do so.
I don’t really know what to say at this point other than I’m so sick of waiting for them to decide when their time ends and ours begins. I feel both the most optimistic and most pessimistic I’ve ever been. Totally conflicted about where we’re going. All I know for sure is that our time is now or never.
