Bernie and AOC demonstrate how Baby Boomers could help Millennials escape the neoliberal Matrix

globinfo freexchange

In a recent ad, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez explains why she endorsed Bernie Sanders for President. Yet, it would be interesting to examine a specific point she makes at the beginning of this short video. AOC says:

                    The first time I ever heard about Bernie Sanders was when I was a waitress in a greasy spoon diner type of restaurant in downtown Manhattan. And I had been working 12 hour days. I didn't have health insurance. I was being paid less than a living wage. And I didn't think that I deserved any of those things, I thought that that's just how life was. 

Her last (highlighted) phrase tells you a lot of how deeply the neoliberal perception has penetrated inside societies and especially inside the minds of new generations. Entire generations have been trained to believe that that's how things are, in order to accept the neoliberal order and retire from any attempt to overthrow it.

As we wrote in a previous article, during the last four decades or so, the dominant neoliberal ideology has penetrated in the minds of entire generations, shaping their cultural characteristics. Essentially, a significant part of the Generation X as well as the entire Generation Y (Millennials) was born and raised inside the cultural totalitarianism of neoliberalism, with radical individualism, economic cynicism and uninterrupted consumerism as its key characteristics. This cultural totalitarianism is actually the Matrix of our times.

But now, the fact that Bernie Sanders inspired AOC and changed her political view, proves that Baby Boomers can help Millennials escape the neolliberal Matrix. Other key political figures like Jill Stein and Jeremy Corbyn also played a critical role to inspire the youth in the motherlands of neoliberalism.

Although the Baby Boomer generation has been largely succumbed to the neoliberal order, it also has memories from the FDR Keynesian-style welfare state heritage. A heritage that remained strong and was still playing a central role on the implemented policies in the Western societies during the 50s and 60s.

It is not accidental that this is the heritage that the neoliberal totalitarianism attempted even to erase from the collective memory of the American society.  Even the establishment Democrats participate in this operation.

Therefore, it was almost inevitable that some of the most progressive Boomers - like Stein, Corbyn and Sanders - would start mobilizing the youth when the dominant system reached its limits, especially after the 2007-08 financial meltdown. The Millennials found themselves struggling hard, not to gain a comfortable life, but just to survive. 

Perhaps the most critical point is that Millennials suddenly realized that they live inside a system that not only destroys their lives. It even deprives them the right to dream a better future.

And Boomers like Stein, Corbyn and Sanders showed them that there was life before 1970. Not only THERE IS alternative, but it has been successfully implemented in the past. When the Millennials will manage to fully escape the neoliberal Matrix, they will realize that actually there are plenty of alternatives. And they can choose the one through which they can live a good life and at the same time, save the planet.

The technology is here. All we need now is a political revolution ...