Boomers Are Not Destroying the World— Capitalists Are
There’s an irritating and stupid amount of memes and idle, worthless discourse going around in the series of groups and other spaces collectively termed “Leftbook” blaming “Boomers” and other older generations for various ills ranging from climate change to Trump being President to the 2008 financial crisis. This is incredibly dangerous and lazy analysis that can only be produced by…Leftbook. Only someone who doesn’t engage with the masses on a regular basis, is estranged from their family, and spends most of their time in online echo chambers (aka Leftbook) can come to the ridiculous conclusion that “Boomers” or any other generation is responsible for the myriad of ills that we face as a species.
Communists know that the interests of a class lie behind all political decisions and acts. The transnational bourgeoisie starts and prosecutes wars because it is profitable. The American bourgeoisie incarcerates my people by the millions because we are a surplus population that is more profitable behind bars than free. We are the most dangerous people in America, regardless of age, because of our status as an internal colony comprised of proletarians and semi-proletarians with nothing to lose from the destruction of the United States and the overthrow of the capitalist-imperialist system. This would be to our benefit and the most advanced of us politically, again regardless of age, have come to the conclusion that this system has never worked for us and for us to get to that Zion that our grandparents sang about we need to start swinging. To engage in egregious and constant memes about “Boomers” and blame your is to willfully obscure the real mechanics at work behind our oppression, the class and racial dynamics. Black Boomers are not colonizer Boomers, Black millennials are not colonizer millennials, etc. There are a myriad of different experiences, methods of thinking and behaviors that can’t just be flattened down into generations — to do so is lazy and un-Marxist.
The situation that we face can’t be laid at the feet of a single generation. The situation that we face is because of the settler-colonial regime under which we live, the settlers who love, support and uphold the havoc it wreaks across the world regardless of generation, and all capitalist-imperialists who continue to knowingly pollute our planet, kill and maim and incarcerate our people, steal our land and resources, and commit various other crimes against nature and our species. For these things to cease, all revolutionaries regardless of age must unite under the principles of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and make revolution to topple it. To do so requires putting away idle chatter and meming. Leftbook and social media in general can be a tool, it can also be a curse. It can be a way to educate people and connect people who are in roughly the same area with the intention of actually organizing, but it can also be a time sink where one spends more time engaged in self-aggrandizing behavior and useless drama than actually developing the infrastructure that we need to survive and build revolutionary bases. The “Daddy Xi” memes that revisionists enjoy along with the stupid trend of First World people living vicariously through the DPRK on Twitter are a testament to the dangers of Communists getting sucked into these things. Outreach is not hard to do, talking to people at the bus stop is not hard to do, talking with your coworkers is not hard to do. Every conversation is propaganda and the development of a potential new mass organizer, cadre, or contact. You won’t have the opportunity to develop these if you are complaining about baby boomers on the Internet. The last time I checked the Boomers gave us the Panthers. We’ve got DSA and Chapo Trap House. I’ll take the Panthers.
