Omar Has Opinions. Get Used To It.

[PatrickforO]

85. Agreed.

Trump can't hold a candle to Obama. But Obama was not perfect. Definitely a bit to my right. Yet, he was who was needed. The country was sliding to an economic abyss and we needed some good old-fashioned Keynesian economics to get us out of it. That's what we got, along with the ACA.

Now, I think Obama was the best president in my lifetime (I'm 60) by virtue of the scope and magnitude of his accomplishments.

How old is Omar, maybe 20-something? She's in a whole different generation, a generation that has never enjoyed the opportunity we boomers had. 44 million people are slaves to student debt. These kids can barely afford a car and an apartment. There's nothing, nothing good - they had their friends blown away in the forever war, they have been exploited every which way but loose, and they have seen old white greed-heads pollute this world until it is almost too late to ensure its continued habitability.

Omar's comments remind me of the old movie Cross of Iron, with James Coburn as Rolf Steiner. They are on the Russian front. It is 1943, the beginning of the end as the Germans were forced to retreat across the Taman Peninsula towards the Crimea, which was itself in the process of being surrounded.

Rolf leads a rag-tag platoon and he's in the Colonel's dugout. The Colonel tells him, "I'm getting tired of getting you out of trouble with other officers," and Steiner replies, "I never asked you to."

This infuriates the Colonel, who tells Steiner to 'get out!'

On the way out, the adjutant asks Steiner why he is so ungrateful, and Steiner looked at him unbelievingly and replied, "WHAT do I have to be grateful FOR?"

Same thing with Omar and the whole Millennial generation. As I say, they have been screwed every which way but loose in this capitalist utopia of ours.

So, just a warning, I guess - when these kids get their voice, and they ARE getting their voice, we shouldn't insist on liking what they have to say, because we've left them a world that is much worse, less forgiving and more tilted against them than the one we found.