Doom and Boomers
It was May of this year. North Carolina. The University thereof, in fact. At Chapel Hill. Rah, Rah, Car’lina-lina and all that. Sunday. Commencement Day. Mother’s Day. My elder daughter, Hannah, was there, dressed in cap and gown and not-quite-sensible shoes, commencing with a few thousands of her peers. I’m pretty sure I saw her, sitting in that sea of sky-blue youth. She called across the stadium on her cell phone to tell us where she was. Next to the girl with the big red balloon. That narrowed it down. But I can’t be sure. I was pretty far away. In more ways than simply the spatial.
Madeleine Albright was there too. Former ambassador. Former Secretary of State. Former lots of things. Currently professoring and CFRing and Board of Directoring and Hillary-Campaigning her ass off, it seems. She was there to pick up an honorary doctorate of laws degree. But she was nowhere near the girl with the big red balloon. She was up on stage. Coach Dean Smith, another honorary degree winner, may have received the most applause, but Madeleine Albright got to deliver the commencement address.
She started with a couple of jokes. Nothing fancy or forced. Appropriate to the occasion. From the book. She proceeded on to congratulations. And from there, she moved to guidance and inspiration. She spoke of “the shadows”, of tragedy and catastrophe, of political insecurity, social and economic inequity, and environmental instability. She spoke of religion and war and genocide. And then she said these words:
All of which is another way of saying: Class of 2007, you have work to do. You are the leaders of tomorrow, and it will be your job to pick up the baton so often mishandled by the leaders of today.
And then a most curious thing happened: not much. Where in a sane society one might have expected a rising retort of “Fuck you, Madeleine!” issuing from the thousands of young throats there assembled, what happened instead was… nothing. There was a pause. Maybe a mass sigh. As if something truly inspirational and profound had been said. But after a beat she moved on. I looked at my younger daughter, Kate. I made a face of disbelief. She returned it. We hadn’t misheard. But the moment had passed. I wrote myself a note on a mental sticky and pasted it to my brain.
Lest we give Ms. Albright too much grief (there are many people, I know, who still revile her for her careless words on 60 Minutes), I should point out that her declaration is pretty much standard fare for commencement addresses in our culture. I’ve attended my share of graduation ceremonies and I’ve heard this sentiment before, seriously intoned by some well-dressed representative of the “older generation” (which is us, now, baby boomers… it’s us…): well, we’ve pretty much fucked things up, kids…guess ya’ll are gonna have to fix it! It’s a sentiment that ranks right up there with that other commencement day golden-oldie, best voiced by Cat Stevens: Work hard boy, and you’ll find, one day you’ll have a job like mine.
It’s all bullshit, of course, but we’re long past letting such things as the truth get in the way of a rousing speech. Long past.
I’m like, ya know, excuse me? The kids have work to do? Madeleine? Have you looked lately? I mean, I can’t be sure about ALL of them, but I’m fairly certain that my kids are too busy getting the shit kicked out of them by this culture to do very much world-saving, thanks very much. After thirteen years in public school and four years in college, seventeen years of hard work and dedication serving the great lie of which Mr. Stevens (now Yusuf Islam) sang, they’re out in the world now just trying to make ends meet, trying to survive without getting swallowed up whole, working crap jobs for low wages and wondering just when that American dream is going to start. They’re hearing the tales of impending doom, the news of peak oil and climate change and economic meltdown and the fascist takeover and they’ve noticed – ahem - that pretty much nobody has a clue what’s going on or what to do next.
They have work to do? These young people who are mostly just struggling to stay afloat, who are trying to figure out who they are and what they can do in a world that is rushing ahead now at blinding speed, who are now learning, if they look closely at the situation, that all of the rules have changed, and that few, or none, of the expectations they’ve held, few, or none, of the assumptions they’ve carried, few, or none, of the plans they’ve made, can be counted on for much longer? These young people who are beginning to understand that the culture in which they were raised in is, in fact, quite insane, and that they’ve been lied to from the get go?
These young people? They have work to do?
How about this, boomers: we’re the ones that have work to do.
We’re the one’s who’ve been surfing the last waves of the “post-exuberant lifestyle” (to borrow a phrase from William Catton’s Overshoot) for far too long. We’re the ones who’ve been here long enough to amass whatever wealth and power has been available to amass (all of it, we should remember to point out, at the expense of the planet and the community of life). We’re the ones who’ve mishandled baton after baton after baton after baton.
It’s time to bend over, ya’ll, and pick those batons back up and get our asses back out on the track.
If there is work to be done, boomers, let it be ours to do. Sure, we’ve been sold the same bill of goods. We’ve been trapped in the same insanity. We’ve been cheated out of our rightful heritage as human animals walking the Earth. But we’ve also largely looked the other way, and ignored the obvious signs, believing the delusion and living the fairy story and covering our ears when the music got louder and more painful. Let’s at the very least step into our response-ability, and not foist things off on the kids.
Couldn’t we at least do that? Our parents have been called “the greatest generation.” Couldn’t we aspire to something more that “the Pepsi generation?” I mean… really?
Ms. Albright went on to speak of the heroes on United 93 who, upon realizing they would soon die, decided to act, and how it’s what we do with our time here that counts. She spoke of leadership and courage and meaning. She spoke of a “largeness of spirit and generosity of heart”. Some of it was really quite nice. Some of it was even wise.
And then she said this, a sentence so confusing in construction and meaning as to leave my head shaking in admiration:
It is not my intention this morning to place the weight of the world upon your shoulders–for that will always be your parents’ job.
Um… hold on a sec…wow. Could we ask for a better example of this culture at work? In my most generous mood, I could look at this sentence and say to myself, “Well, ol’ Maddy has seen the errors in her previous statement and corrected them, taking responsibility for the world situation off the shoulders of youth and placing it firmly on the shoulders of their boomer parents.” But that, in fact, is not what she did. First, because her previous declaration rendered it already too late. And second because, in throwing off her academic cap and gown and standing there before us all, dressed only in her Freudian slip, she simply told the truth as this culture lives it: it is always the parent’s job to place the weight of the world upon the shoulders of their children.
Don’t you love it when people tell the truth despite themselves?
Here’s what I would have said on that cool May morning, had I been invited to stand at that podium.
Rise up, yo, you graduates, you kids, you young ones, you youth. Join in the work of dismantling the absurd and destructive culture of Empire at every level. Join in the work of creating a new way of being here on this precious Earth, a way that actually takes reality into account. Do it because this is your world, your life, your love. Do it because you are working for Life itself. Do it because it’s what you came here to do. But do it only if you are called to do it.
Don’t do it because some confused boomer can’t be bothered to bend over and pick up the baton that they themselves dropped. Screw ‘em. Tell them that that’s their work to do. You’ve got enough on your plate just trying to pay the rent.
The forests are burning. The markets are crumbling. The poles are melting. The floodwaters are rising. If there are arks to be built, tell your boomer parents to build ‘em. Noah was six hundred years old, for Moses’ sake. An established husbandman. A man of means. He “walked with God.” The ark was not built by twenty-somethings working data-entry temp jobs in the morning and waitressing at Moe’s at night.
We boomers have some important lessons to learn as the current world unravels. Our young people need us to get our shit together. We have work to do.
We may wish to start by learning what the hell a cubit is.
Let’s go out with another bit o’ the Cat. A few words of wisdom from Catch Bull at Four. Sing along, boomers. You know the words.
Silent sunlight, welcome in
There is work I must now begin
All my dreams have blown away
And the children want to play
They’ll soon remember things to do
When the heart is young
And the night is done
And the sky is blue
Those words of commencement from Madeleine Albright on a Sunday morning in May?
Those were for us.
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September 9th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Dear Madeline:” Fuck you and the chubby horse you rode in on, the cheezbrgrs and commodity cash it brought with it, and anyone that thinks that when they voted for a Democrat, they voted for changes to the way we do things.
I hope you choke on that honorary degree when the ketchup runs out because we are growing corn instead of tomatoes, thanks to the Iowa caucuses and Monsanto and ADM. I hope your doctor tells you that you are in “excellent health” just before you pass out from chronic fatigue that doesn’t exist in an HMO world where everyone goes to Bally’s and lives on corn syrup and prozac.”
Yeah, I’ll jump right up and save the fuckin’ world, as soon as the numbness goes out of my legs so I can walk back out to the field. Fuckin’ boomers and their goddamn accountants, trust funds, money market accounts, and de-fuckin’-regulation!! “Run the government like a business”, they said. Apparently they meant a failing business bent on hostile takeovers of other failed businesses…. It’s okay, though, because we can still buy a Harley and a McMansion and ignore the neighbors while their kids make extra cash selling CIA/Arkansas dope on the internet.
Here’s some lyrics for you:
“Some are born to rule the world
to live their fantasies,
But most of us just dream about
the things we’d like to be.
Sadder still to watch it die
than never to have known it.
For you, the blind who once could see,
The bell tolls for thee.”
Rush. “Losing It”
September 9th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
I love you, little brother. Thank you. You bring tears to my eyes with your passion and honesty. I’m so grateful to have you in my life. Keep writing. Keep writing. Keep telling the truth you’ve been given. Maybe some more of us boomers will step up to the plate. Just maybe.
May it be.
September 9th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
As one of “those kids” I almost want to laugh. It’s true that I am not graduating from college, and I still have a year to go in high school before I can even set foot onto a college campus and call it home. But hey, I’m almost there.
I’m taking a Marco Economics, a U.S. Government and Politics, and a Human Geography class this year in hopes to learn more about the polices, issues, and the way things work in this culture. It is also for an understanding as to why and how we got to where we are (human geog). Basically I am not claiming to be well emersed in understanding what’s going on around me but I do have eyes, and I do have ears, and I have been useing them.
I hate being called a janitor that you “boomers” happened to create. I am not going to clean up your mess, sorry. I don’t have a purpose for my future yet, I am not even sure if Empire can be helped. But something that I want to let you know is that many of the people around me, my fellow students, are deeply emersed in Empire and chances are they aren’t going to come stridding out and think to themselves “Damn! this place sucks!” Most of them have medical educations all lined up and are planning to find the best niche in Empire that they possibly can. Alot of kids don’t realize what is going on around them, and I for one even have a hard time articulating what is going on around me. It is hard to explain it to someone who refuseses to even consider my point. I find myself tripping up over my words and my arguements only to come up with the answer 15 mins after the converstation has already ended.
As for my Boomer parents and their generation, I’m not sure I should leave building the ark in thier hands. Most of them don’t want to think about the train crashing and burning, let alone to actually bring themselves to building an ark for everyone. I bet most of them are so deeply invested in Empire that they will go crashing down with the train just as people leapt from penhouses in 1929. I think it is to the younger generation (my generation) or maybe even YOUNGER than me. The people around me have had their dreams set on positions in this culture since they were in kindergarden and their teachers told them “the point of life is to work hard in school, go to a good college, work hard and get a good job, marry, have kids, work hard, retire” blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. But guess what? it worked. Last year in class we had a “what do you want to have accomplished in 20 years?” I would say that about 90% of my class wanted to be married with X amount of kids. I wanted to be educated and familiar with the world around me, and to have a good number of longterm friends. I wonder how I came to that conclusion instead of the other. I have guesses, but thats a different rant.
The generation that is really going to have to work to change Empire is the generation who grows up with seeing it the end comming, or at least the vast possilbility. It is easy to show people what is going to happen, and yes some minds will be changed, but after the greater part of ones life has been set on some future in a system that is doomed to fail, it is hard to just opt out and say, “Wait, no, this is wrong, how can I work with my fellow humans towards a change?”.
Here are some more lyrics to take into consideration: “As soon as you’re born, they make you feel small….”
September 10th, 2007 at 1:13 am
Greetings Tim,
I sincerely appreciate your thoughtful reply to my previous note entitled “Reproductive Responsibility”. I recognize you are very busy and your time is valuable. I have now watched and shared your documentary three times with others and I continue to be impressed and inspired by your efforts.
My seeming incredulity concerning reproductive irresponsibility stems from the fact that these destructive behaviors were always self-evident to me since the early 70’s, for as long as I have been alive, breathing and aware. I could not imagine it otherwise and I forever and continue to be amazed and perplexed by those who do not share this awareness. I was born into the same white-centric, human-centric, capitalistic-centric cultural stories that we both were. However, at a very early age I saw through the smoke and mirrors, I peered unflinchingly through the wizard’s veil, I questioned religion, I questions authority and I doubted Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. We both now recognize this cannot be a sustainable pattern. I am curious however, how denial developed in others and particularly, why the so-called genetic attribute of “intelligence”, seems determined to extinguish itself. I can only assume that we humans have a lot of other genetic baggage that gets in the way (Richard Dawkins, “The Selfish Gene”). I most concern myself these days with why humans are congenitally unwilling or unable to voluntarily self-regulate their numbers. The only thing new is that which has been forgotten. These aware nesses always existed deep inside of you, and me. How did we learn to forget? What were the psychological mechanisms that gave us permission to bury/deny/dismiss these truths? The most frustrating aspect to me is that those guilty of the environmental sin of procreation, are the ones who seemingly with the loudest voices who most want to repent and set the world right again. Sadly, not for the planet, nor their fellow man and not for all of the other species going extinct at dizzyingly accelerating trajectories, not because it is the correct moral choice, but only for their own spawn. As Richard Dawkins observed in “The Selfish Gene”, “Over multiple generations, it is the gene that is selected for rather than the individual, group or species. Genes that code for selfish strategies are the most stable. Altruism evolved as a means to a selfish end. Selfishness, not altruism drives our behavior.” Unfortunately, the most powerful forces of natural selection seem to favor psychological denial at this time.
It’s not the fault of Madeleine Albright, the government, the bureaucrats, Jesus, Mohammad, Buddha, or the sun and the moon or civilization. For civilization is comprised of the groaning masses of humanity that individually and exclusively make choices to treat their fertility with such inattention.
“Denial” and “hope” are just other words for mental laziness. People form their opinions where they got tired of thinking last. We were all told “the stories”… “You can lead humans to the slaughter but you cannot make them think; Relief for starving children is just a symptom of accelerated ignorance, unaware of how a world forecloses on invading circumstance”. I think apathy, indifference and mental laziness are what bind us to these unlivable circumstances. But why, what specifically shifted in you to “wake up”, and where did you, and how did you, bury “it” previously? I am convinced that all conservation, sustainability and environmental healing is futile, whilst populations continue to rise. How can we set about a global mind shift, and particularly, how can we defuse the population explosion and what goes on inside the breeding mindset? Creating more babies today is like renting rooms in a burning building, to our children no less. No fiber of my being can identify with that cruel madness.
I have shared your metaphor of the train ride called “civilization” in my own literary musings. We are speeding down the urban growth highway without any brakes. I fear we will soon be hitting the mountainside, the finite limits to population growth and Rome’s insatiable desire for infinite expansion in a finite world; Population Overshoot, Collapse and Die-off. An energy source to power civilization’s continued growth and exploitation of natural and human communities will only further postpone our moral and practical reckoning with Earth’s ecological limits. Even if technology comes up with a substitute for oil, it would need to find substitutes for soil, coral reefs, ocean fauna, forests, water, air and indigenous wisdom, all of which are being ravaged by overpopulation. It’s not so much what we are doing to this planet that matters; it is that there are so many of us doing it! The demand-side solutions will all involve sacrifice, social change and ultimately prohibiting the so called “rights” of our fellow man to breed with reckless abandon. Can we collectively enact a serious working social prohibition on human breeding? I feel any other conversation is self-delusional and a waste of, otherwise, good intentioned activist time and energies. Do some people still share this fantasy where 10 -20 billion people will live in harmony on this planet if we simply denounce the corporations, the stories and live a little more sustainably? That is the greatest contemporary myth and “story” being advocated today by the kid-centric counter culture eco-revolutionaries. Really, what other chance do we as a species have other than to very seriously discuss population reductions? It is clearly going to happen with, or without our consent. Let us choose wisely… Wise men have said that the optimal solution may be for us to voluntarily extinguish ourselves and return dignity to the earth and all of her other creatures. If not approached voluntarily (www.vhemt.org), are humans prepared to “live with” genocide over possible non-voluntary population abatement methods? China, with four times the population on a land mass the size of the USA, is not an evil empire, they are only being realist in their “one child” policies. They are the first nation with a policy beginning to face the harsh necessities of limiting growth in an empire of human flesh. We ain’t seen nothing yet on what is going to be required to get the job done. We all know that we are being bred for slavery by the cooperate elite and urban growth is a pyramid scheme. How can we truly save the world from itself when the beast called civilization is continually being gorged with fresh meat? Man, be not a cancer upon this earth and leave room for nature. Leave room for nature…
Tu amigo, Zimba in San Antonio, TX
“Baby not on board; celebrating planetary preservation and responsible non-reproduction.” Viva the Vasectomy!
http://opr.princeton.edu/popclock/
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1484635787266506285
http://www.vhemt.org/anobreed.htm
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/49845
“Having weaved and dodged our way around the main issues by expending critical time and effort on spinning out non-renewable energy, we will
eventually have to confront our essential challenges as a species and decide whether we can respond logically to our intellectual understanding of the world’s limitations and thus overcome flaws in
our ancient DNA or whether the primitive urges towards procreation, tribalism and power will prevail and we will behave like other plague
species and suffer a truly catastrophic situation because we have no control over our exponential population growth or urge to consume. World population more than trebled last century from 1.8 billion to 6 billion in 2000 and has added a population of consumers the equivalent
to that of North America since 1998; we are currently adding 3 humans per second. It is ironical that we should be agonizing over this issue
in Australia, the continent where wildlife species had adapted their breeding cycles to respond to resource availability long ago and where
the indigenous human population had more or less reached a steady state with the environment over a period of some 60000 years.
As an educator I believe that humans can be trained to step back from the abyss, but it will require a level of self discipline and regulation that takes people to the edge of their genetic capabilities.
Dominant religious, economic and political frameworks today fail to take account of man’s capacity to destroy the earth’s life support
systems and the concept of divine power excuses believers from taking absolute responsibility for management of themselves and their earth,
leaving an urgent need for an overarching set of global ethics and principles through which wise decisions can be made.
Now that some leaders have accepted concepts of climate change and that oil is a finite resource it is time for the ‘population reduction
issue’ to be addressed in public. Limiting the right of humans to reproduce has been a ‘no-go’ area even for most permaculturists but it is clearly the core issue. Our education, legal and medical systems must seriously address the matters of bioregional and national ‘carrying capacities’, school and tertiary curricula, family planning,
euthanasia, sterilization and abortion in a philosophical, humane and scientific manner; every hour that we delay in developing a workable
approach to population 11000 extra people arrive on this overstretched planet. Without offending our increasingly mainstream students we need
to introduce this issue in our courses.”
- Running on Empty Oz’s discussion group
“The most important aspect of necessity that we must now recognize is the necessity of abandoning the commons in breeding. No technical solution can rescue us from the misery of overpopulation. Freedom to breed will bring ruin to all. At the moment, to avoid hard decisions many of us are tempted to propagandize for conscience and responsible parenthood. The temptation must be resisted, because an appeal to independently acting consciences selects for the disappearance of all conscience in the long run, and an increase in anxiety in the short.
The only way we can preserve and nurture other and more precious freedoms is by relinquishing the freedom to breed and that very soon. “Freedom is the recognition of necessity” and it is the role of education to reveal to all the necessity of abandoning the freedom to breed. Only so, can we put an end to this aspect of the tragedy of the commons.” - The Tragedy of the Commons by Garrett Hardin (1968)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1484635787266506285
September 10th, 2007 at 11:00 am
I just watched Tim’s Documentary “What A Way To Go” and this is the first blog I’ve read. I’Ve read all of Daniel Quinns books and I’m blown away by how ingnorant I’ve been about the world around me.I’m a baby boomer htat has been jarred awake.Since everyone seems to like lyrics in songs, here’s some by Kasey Chambers that I really relate to now. “If you ain’t pissed off at the world, you’re just not paying attention.”
September 10th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
This Moanday morning, before getting in harness to go to my cubicle, I checked out the blogs (as usual). I’m blown away once again at the frankness coming down from the mountains of NC. Tim stoked my fire this AM. And now, as I strap on my feed-bag at my desk, I have to reflect: We’re the Boomers, the flower-power, revolutionary, change the world, totally different generation. The Hopi even have a prophecy about us. WE weren’t buying the “establishment” lie, right? Except most of us bought into it just enough to make us sick, and then had to stay with it so we wouldn’t lose our insurance. And now time is running out, and the lie is being revealed on all fronts. Collapse is here, now, one household at a time. I’m one or two paychecks away from being on the street, and I have been living that way for years. I’ve had folks move in with me that would have been homeless otherwise… And are forever wounded in their souls by the betrayal of Empire.
Weren’t we going to change the world? Are we too distracted? Is the programming too strong to break? Or are we just too lazy? It’s only sensible to plan ahead seven generations, but we only live for today. We need a new/old vision for how to live - one that has worked for millions of years. How ironic! We’re going thru the same kind of cultural collapse that was perpetrated upon the natives of this land by our ancestors. Divine justice for “Manifest Destiny” perhaps, but how can we justify not caring about the life we leave for our own children?
It’s hard words, I know. And we do care, sure. But do we care enough to change minds, one mind at a time?
September 11th, 2007 at 12:25 am
Yo dad! Yer daughter ‘ere! (Not the college grad one either).
I just wanted to respond cause it’s a fun new experience.
Thank you for stepping up to the plate, here. As the generation who’s “responsible” for the cleaning up the mess, I must say, knowing that you’re doing what you can, gives me as much strength as I will ever need to clean up whatever I need to when it’s my turn. It isn’t so much what you do…not the numbers of people who buy your DVD nor the amount of conversations you’ve had trying to spread awareness. But the simple gesture…that it isn’t up to me…that I’m not alone…that you’ll help…that you’ll understand…that you’ll be dealing with it too….that means everything. You could have done nothing but say “Kate, I think you’re comming up against some hard stuff…and even though I can’t tell you what…or when…or how to handle it…I can tell you, I’ll still be there with you, stepping ahead of you as your father figure, helping you as your friend…and I’ll do whatever I can to make sure you don’t have to carry all the weight alone.” If anyone ever asks you what they should do as a parent, I think you should suggest, that they make it clear to their kids that they’re sharing the weight…if not trying to carry more or all of it themselves.
For people like Albright…well…who can blame her? She’s just as lost about what to do and how to handle it as anyone else. She’s a caged animal who knows nothing besides what the people in control make her believe…and it isn’t her fault that she says what she says. I know that people’s first response…is to blame the person closest to the crime scene. And that follows with anger and confusion. There’s all these people in the world that you come across so often that spit out all that culture sludge and walk along the culture path and argue against the things you fight for…but it isn’t their fault. And I don’t think there’s a right answer…or a correct way of being or dealing. I think there’s just facts…there’s just the way it is. Some people react differently to things and for you and me and the people we look up to…we all just had a different, natural reaction. And all the people who oppose and don’t understand, just reacted their way too.
September 12th, 2007 at 6:30 am
Hey Tim
I love it when you get out there with your truth!
Choice mate!
Kia Kaha! (be strong, get stuck in, keep going!!)
Ted
September 15th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
Hello Tim,
Well done movie, although I would have cut the suicide standing on a ledge bit and all the fast intercutting of growing up in the midwest and historical and home movie footage. Didn’t think that was really necessary as the movie would be stronger by getting to the point quicker.
As for the boomer responsibility for our current predicament you are half right. Actually though, the population bomb went off first in our parent’s generation when all things seemed possible and the technological revolution was in its heyday. As a boomer of the 1946 generation I started to see the limits of growth early on as my childhood haunts in abandoned gravel pits and orchards were paved over with development in the 1950s. This had a lasting impression on me as a developing naturalist and it all came home to me when I travelled to Alaska in 1968 at the time of the Oil Rush. It was apparent that no matter how far I went, there would be no escaping the nature destroying hand of man. I promised myself in 1969 as a young college graduate that I would never bring children into the world in what I considered by that time as hopelessly overpopulated. Paul Erlich’s book,
The Population Bomb served to confirm my suspicions.
The one thing that I have never understood is the number of so-called environmentalists who have too many children. From David Boder to Al Gore and even you Tim, surely if all the environmentalists with more than two children had a glimmer of environmental conscience, family planning decisions would be made differently.
As for the next generation that is now in its child bearing years, I do not see a lot of hope. At least in the ’60s we did a lot of thinking about war and environment. Today’s young people seem totally wrapped up in themselves and are blissfully confident that there will be a technological fix for all the environmental problems that are piling up. Even more troublesome, the notion of population has been separated from Global Warming and the looming energy crisis. Not only is immigration out of control with a virtually open border for illegal immigration, but our own young people are having more children.
I am just relieved that I will have no descendents to fight it out in the coming collapse of civilization as people fight over dwindling resources.