It’s a deliberate process powered by rightwing and capitalist interests designed to create a dumber, less educated and more distracted population. A war as stupid as the one with Iran would not have been possible three decades ago. As ill-advised as the Iraq war was, Bush at least spent months explaining the rationale and building support for it, successfully. Now that’s not needed.

I saw interviews with young Americans on spring break and they were so utterly uninformed it was mind-blowing. Their priorities are getting drunk and getting laid while their country bombs a nation “into the stone ages”, according to their president. And it’s not their fault: they are the product of a media environment and education system designed for exactly this outcome.

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vinceguidry 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I was there for that war. Kids weren't listening and didn't care back then either. If anything, Gen Z is the most politically-aware generation we've had since we started keeping track.

Trump doesn't have to justify a single thing because the billionaires behind him know that every last bet is off and their very livelihoods are at risk, and his entire base of support up and down the chain are either complicit or fooled.

What the world does when they finally realize Democrats and Republicans are simply two sides of the vast apparatus suppressing the will of the people by any means necessary will be... spectacular.

	▲	foobarchu 27 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I was there as well, the bush presidency lasted my entire middle and high school career, and I got the chance to vote for Obama in my senior year. I remember things very differently. Everyone cared about the Iraq war, gay-straight alliance was one of the most up and coming clubs, and political music was everywhere. Green Day had their big second wave with American Idiot, System Of A Down was on top of the world, Rock Against Bush was huge, anarcho-punk like Rise Against was getting big. I'm not a teenager anymore obviously, so it's entirely possible I'm just missing it, but I've seen very little that compares to those sort of movements. On the other hand, most millennials I know are still wildly politically active.
	▲	iwontberude 15 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Where exactly because in the Midwest we were very vocal about it. We have tons of military families out there and we were poor enough to feel almost like military service was inevitable if we didn’t get scholarships for school. You know the band NOFX had an album, the War on Errorism that was quite successful based on the fuckery of the bush administration. Punk rock and protest music was huge then.