REVIVING THE GENERATION GAP.
The myth of limited resources.The Battle of the bus passes.
Do you remember the 1960s. If you were there and you do then what was the matter with you. UGLY? Ha ha! I was a kid in the 1960s and observing the world I was in both the real world around me and the world the media revealed to me by songs,radio,later tv,magazines,etc, and now I know “the trick” I realise (as more and more people are recognizing) that the world as portrayed to us via the media,even when it has verisimilitude to what we see around us, is actually a distorting mirror to unsettle and betray us. Hey,more and more of us can see what you're doing there. No wonder you're getting concerned and passing Online Safety Bills,and establishing Misinformation Commissions and maybe abolishing the TV licence fee (in UK) so people will return to having a TV in the corner of the room so you'll have that universal guaranteed conduit for public information. In the 1960s the Generation Gap was focused on SEX. The babies born in some mysterious way in the 1930s and into the 1940s became the young adults of the early 1960s. Their parents had been teenagers in World War Two fighting a World War on behalf of God's Chosen Bankers. Any day could be their last day on earth. The young men and young women were playing hard when not working hard. That fighter pilot might die on his next bombing mission,why should you,the pretty and vivacious typist in an office of SOE deny him. It was all going on. Young men and young women trying to live ‘normal’ lives in conditions of abnormality but doing their best to keep up a front of discretion. When the War ended these 20 + 30 years olds had had all the action,excitement,sex and foreign travel anyone could ever want. They wanted peace,quiet,stability and order and a strife free world for their children,the future 1960s generation. And how did that peer group reward them - by dismissing them as dull,tedious and conventional (Another Pleasant Valley Sunday) AND (did that generation not think it through) by INVENTING SEX - in 1963 and then proceeding to DO IT IN THE STREET,frighten the horses,and MONETIZE IT. I can assure you I'm only exaggerating a very little. But this wasn't real life or real people in real places. Even the Swinging Sixties was only a small cadre of people in one or two small locations in London. I can assure you that the rest of England got the Swinging Sixties in the 1980s by which time home pcs,mouses and tapping at little icons was more exciting than sex! So that was The Generation Gap first time round. Your Mum and Dad are old fuddy duddys (in their late 40s but dressed older),they know nothing about this fabulous thing your generation discovered - sex. It honestly seems like - at the time - at least some of those young people never imagined that they were born from sex involving the two people they knew as Mum and Dad - but actually who can? Eurghh! But time passed,the world turned,by the 1980s kids and their parents often liked the same bands. Cool Mums and Dads and their cool kids attended Stadium Rock in family groups. Big Summer Festivals like Glastonbury were Family Outings but too expensive and druggy for the weekend hippies so a plethora of smaller family friendly festivals sprang up,anywhere a farmer could spare a field,it didn't matter that the bands were local rockers doing covers,they were younger and better than the originals and it was really about being in the country in the sunshine with your pals and seeing your kids happily and safely running about. Over the next three decades attempts were made to re-establish the Generation Gap but they never took. But now God's Chosen Dementors have found a Hot Issue that has traction. And it's based on a lie but underwritten by a REAL threat. In 1997 Tony Blair while he was still in Anglican Clergyman mode (but not gay) introduced the universal bus pass for all British citizens aged 60+. Ever since then it's been a great boon. This year there was a move to consider granting free bus travel to young people and from 16? I heard or saw various ages mooted from 14 - 18 up to 22 or 25? Hey,if you're a young man of 25 ON A BUS,USING A BUS PASS - Loser. No sex for you! Now I don't think this is a BAD IDEA. For young people to get to KOLLIDGE all identical in their slop-shop black torn and dirty clothes. I don't know what they do larn in Kollidge but I'm guessing the Kollidge gets money from them registering there. I wonder if once they've signed in they've got the day free to slope off to the shops looking like an Azov brigade seeking a mission. Yeah. East Europeans. Dontcha love em.
But the Dementors are slyly asserting the Limited Resources threat. If young people,the future,get bus passes then old people will have to lose them. If old people continue to have free bus travel then young people won't get to college or that crappy-doo gig job and who will pay taxes in the future. That's a whole other essay that I intend to do. The whole argument is based on a LIE,that the cake is small and only so many slices to go round. Well,stop inviting so many people to the party then. Bake a bigger cake. Bake two cakes. Stop robbing out the Treasury.Liars,Tramps and Thieves as Cher nearly sang. The genuine fear that pensioner callers in on the radio express is not based on enmity for the young. They've got struggling Grandkids. Many like me say it's a good idea for those tricky young adult years. Why can't both young and old have bus passes. But THEY,the Dementors are subtly letting us know that they might withdraw the over state pension age bus pass. It's not an idle threat. Do as I say or the puppy gets it is kind of the unspoken threat here. They have found an issue that works to build a Generation Gap around but as before it will mostly exist in the media not in real life! Which is an optimistic note to end on!
Later today I am going to post more on the lie of limited resources be that money or time.