On the useless outrage of my generation

On the train today there was a guy about my age. Clean but scruffy. Not homeless but clearly not on his way to a job. He was drinking out of a simply lemonade container but it was wrapped in a bag so you couldn't see the label. As I entered the train he was prepping masking tape. Once the train started moving he ran up and posted a sign on the train door “that said meet us in DC on July 4^th . . . . blah blah corrupt government.” He moved quick and sneaky as if someone might see him, as if everyone on the train wasn't already watching him. The next sign he was going to post, sitting on the seat next to him read “quit paying your taxes and get the government to do their jobs.” He proceeded to post this up at the next stop. Taped to the wall of a PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION DEVICE. A mode of transport he obviously needed as he exclaimed later that he was busting his ass but had no money.

Me and the guy in the seat across from him eyed each other. He was telepathically warning me not to rile up the crazy kid. The he started talking. He chose to speak to the guy instead of me. I expected crazy to come out but instead it was just stupid. He went on about how the government works for us. Since they aren't doing their jobs we should quit paying them. He then went on to use the ammunition buy ups by the government and private ammunition clip failure rates as evidence that the evil government was planning something.

At this point I took out my head phones. I was prepared to engage him. I didn’t want to fight or even disagree with him that the current government and politics sucked. I just wanted to point out that he was encouraging we quit paying taxes on a public train. I wanted to ask him if he meant we just quit paying Federal taxes or all state and local taxes too? I wanted to ask if he thought the ammunition purchase of the us government over the last decade had anything to do with the fact that we have been in a state of open fire war fare for 14 years unseen since Vietnam and that the population of the United States in that time period had, in fact, doubled. I wanted to ask him what specific goal his march on Washington was going to accomplish. I wanted to know if he believed that enough people would ever stop paying their taxes long enough for it to make a difference. Did he think that even if half of the United States quit paying the Fed that they would be taking a significant pay cut or would they simply funnel the funds a different way and perhaps start prioritizing local municipality’s police force funding over public transit.

But I didn't say anything because of the other man on the train. He saw me take out my head phone and knew that, in that moment, I was game; and he shook his head at me. He just wanted to ride the train to work. It was such a simple silent request so I stayed quiet. Maybe I shouldn't have because I am still upset. Not at his ideas but at his lack of understanding of the complicated whole that he is up against. I didn't disagree with his view of the current problem or the idea that it needed fixing. I was pissed that about his lack of game theory. I was mad that he was so representative of most of the public and what they believe and how little they consider when they rage against the machine. All they are doing is raging and that is the point of the machine, it doesn't have to care.

 

Outrage means nothing without a specific goal and a directed plan to achieve it. Rage doesn't hurt machines, you have to know where to throw the wrench. In my lifetime I haven’t seen a single public uprising that has done anything more than “bring awareness.” Sometimes this is good and important but it’s never enough. I am disappointed about how stupid this makes our entire generation look to me. I would love to see just one movement that had a good target, and a wrench.