You know I just had an argument with three union reps at a bar tonight - basically around the idea that "you were lucky..." but the outcome as phrased by one of them was "individual thoughts don't matter, I have no interest in that. Everything is systemic".
I've staked my entire life on being an individual who won't support a team, a religion, or a social movement (beyond individual points I agree with). I happen to believe that if everyone acted this way, we'd have a lot fewer problems as a society. I refuse to take the side of a movement that claims some holistic righteousnes, just like I refuse to accept religion and race. So on a case-by-case basis, I decide what seems fair. I should note that before that dog-beating kid drove his van into six cars, I went out there with a gun and a six pack of beer which I distributed to his 17 year old homeless friends, who I sat around with while they told me he was a crazy shithead. I think that was what really drove him mental.
Individuals. That's how the world functions. Everything else is theory.
So my rebellion didn't work? It did. I was gassed in the street in 2004 protesting the Iraq war. Everyone hates neocons now and hates that war, don't they? Did I do nothing? An argument is ridiculous if it asks every person to pawn everything they ever did to the next struggle in the future. Portland is a shit show in the real estate market, but where isn't? It's by leaps and bounds the most progressive city in America.
The boomers' homeless and ultimately functional children grew up richer than I did. They need to come halfway and see that acting savage and refusing completely to partake in society is not an ultimately winning strategy. They're not going to win some revolutionary war where they suddenly abolish all private property - and if that's their goal, they've really got to become more coherent and stop doing so much heroin, because I can't even understand what they're saying.
[edit] my contention is that the 20-yo shitting in my yard's problem is that he is spoiled and rich, by every standard I've seen everywhere I've traveled in the world. And that's why I can't relate to the conditions that led to him, or sympathize with his plight.