Like I have been really thinking about how it was to live in the 90's within the larger arc of 20th-21st century America as an upper middle class white kid. I remember the absolute extreme pressure to perform in school, extra curriculars, socially, etc... Like everything was approached with this intensity that revealed the undelying insanity that none of the problems were going to be fixed "But you are the future and you will fix them! YOU NEED TO FIX THEM."

Like I remember in middle school the herded us into the auditorium at our local community college to give us a lecture on the importance of education and getting a college degree. They had a whole section at the time on how costs were outpacing inflation and it was "important to save now!" in order to afford it because without college there were no good jobs. I remember thinking as a kid like why not make it cheaper then?

While there was this intense pressure to make sure "the children succeed!" There was an equal and opposite refusal to expend any kind of resources to make anything even remotely better. Like it was almost as is society at large was actively (now I know it was, though like all things in capital it's a drive without a guiding mind) uprooting and with holding resources to ensure failure of young people.

Like I don't know where I am going with this, it's just stunning the level of insanity that people have lived with for so long. Like people knew we were heading for a cliff at least as early as the 90's when the Democrats finally took the wheel in the "Lets strip the copper wiring out of this New Deal!" bandwagon. And yet nothing was done.