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Angry Youth


When I was young I was often angry. Angry about how I felt slighted, by one thing or another mostly. Angry about injustice. Angry that children didn’t have rights, that we could be conscripted to fight and die by a political system we didn’t have a voice in.

This anger gave me strength and it gave me power. It drove me toward the political system, not away from it, and I determined at a young age that I would become the youngest and angriest president ever.

The anger wasn’t directed toward any one person and it wasn’t driven by evil. It was anger directed toward enabling positive change in the world. Our country had just pulled out of Vietnam, Nixon had just resigned office, and no-one seemed to know what was next except the inevitable nuclear holocaust and societal collapse that so many people were prophesying.

Into this mix I saw the world as a place that needed help. I lashed out and took swipes. At times I was taken down, “put in my place”, by adults who were less angry but stronger than I was. I ran for student council in High School but that was a farce. I voted as soon as I turned 18 but then, in the mists of life and the pea-soup-fog of booze, I drew back and grew less angry.

As I aged I lamented not keeping that fire burning longer, Though I didn’t stay involved in politics and counter-culture activism, I look with envy on the movements of our recent history. If I were younger I would have been an Anarchist, a member of the The Anonymous group activities. I am currently a huge Greta Thunberg fan. In our current political-separatist-state I wish more than anything that there was a viable third-party. Maybe someday there will be. For now, I am just getting angry again.

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