March For Our Lives, centered in Washington, DC. leading Millenials' speakers, from 11 years old to teens of all kinds, shown giving voice, in numbers of hundreds of thousands, to their anger and frustration, their fears and hopes of the future ... and mostly showing they will no longer wait for adults to solve the problem of violence, trauma and social deterioration because politicians, community leaders, and adults generally have not done enough to make their lives safe and secure. The surface symptom of their battle centers on gun violence (especially in America). To see this movement and their rebellion in words, "without fear" and "enough is enough" and "never again" go to the four hour media coverage https://www.democracynow.org/live/watch_democracy_now_march_for_our
To understand one core dimension of this problem that these children and youth are standing up for, is to understand that when the so-called "safe," "wealthy" and "privileged" youth are attacked by a mass murderer in one of their schools (e.g., Parkland, in Florida Feb. 14, 2018), then enough is enough and masses of organized protest happens. And it was a revolution and movement very evident, very rooted, very generationally based. Youth will not lay down any longer, so it appears, and watch their future deteriorate before their very eyes by threats of being killed in schools or traveling to school--by terror(ism) and the resultant fear from victimization and collective trauma, etc. They are speaking out they do not want their schools and communities to end up as militarized "war zones" [1] where just about anyone has a gun hidden away in wait for the next battle. This is not the fearful kind of lives these traumatized youth want to live.
"The truth about youth... is that they have learned and been conditioned to trust humans less and less since the Boomer's generation of peace and love. Youth now face the great challenge of whether to continue down that road of fear and mistrust or turn their generations' perspective around. Without them on the path of fearlessness, we can be certain the result will be deadly."
The protest of these youth of course has great historical ripples recently as I have documented the "No Fear Movement" in America (especially) since the early 1990s. I see this March for Our Lives as the culminating breakthrough and much needed, of what started as a commercialized "No Fear!" slogandia in 1990 in California when a few young entrepreneurs began to put No Fear! on just about everykind of clothing thinkable that youth were buying. This was a time of wars and especially the HIV contagion which shook so many people because of deaths from a disease mostly sexually transmitted and traveling through youth-based communities without anyone knowing the cause or cure at the time.
The word "Fearless" was then a follow-up as the next branding term for many commercial products and advertising, all of which are meant to capture what the young people were wanting in their lives, as they were getting sick and tired of living in so much fear and terror. With more acts of mass murders through guns and terrorism attacks, etc. the world was just becoming more and more unsafe and it became harder to trust just about anyone.
I have to say, I so appreciate the youth movement today of children and teens, and seeing such masses united on the streets, are no doubt a revolutionary change ... trailing and necessarily built on the young adult movements of Occupy in 2011, of Black Lives Matter, of the women's and #Me Too movements --all led at a time of total frustration by so many people, especially post-9/11 and especially with elitism and facism growing rampantly, and especially the levels of violence everywhere. The trauma and fear has led too many young people to be paranoid. If you listen to their talks at the March for Our Lives, you'll hear this comment about fear, and how they want to live "without fear" in their daily lives, but I was pleased they didn't just throw around the arrogant slogans of the past, of "No Fear!" or "Fearless" ... no, they were more talking about how paranoia was now their norm, and their ghost, living with it everyday, they have simply seen too much too close and they are hurting and grieving and ducking bullets. They do not believe most forms of adult management of fear (or guns) is doing much good at all. They don't want to live in a war zone in their communities and schools anymore. Of course, the marginalized youth and adults in America have been saying that for decades, and so have the wartorn countries of the world, and refugees. But now it seems, the tide has come in, and the scales of intolerance to living in paranoia have flipped. And it is damn well time! Good for all youth for being intolerant of an insane normalization of fear/paranoia [2] that has occurred in the world in the last century especially.
But youth need assistance from adult allies to be successful in their goals to overcome the terrorism, the toxic fearism-t, and paranoia in societies. I invite adults and youth on this FM blog and elsewhere to join dialogues and actions to help the cause. There is so much good knowledge and wisdom available throughout the world's fearlessness teachings and non-violence movements to provide wise guidance for youth and everyone. It is obvious the March for Our Lives has tapped into some of those experiences of nonviolent protest but there is much more too. There is quality information on the faults of oppressive adultism and how it makes youth's concerns secondary. It is there. I have worked with some others, to make this available. Let me know how I can help (r. michaelfisher52 [at]gmail [dot] com).
p.s. it seems my prediction in the late 1980s is coming true--it will be fear that unites the most people for the common good, not love ... love comes into it but fear is the major driver for liberation--and, fearlessness is the meta-motivation more invisible in joining the natural telos of Fear towards Love ....
Notes:
1. Eventually, more or less, the truth is going to come out in these youth protests, and actions. The truth is, that America is a warring country, always has been, and wants to dominate the world. You do that by "guns" of one kind or another. So, within the domestic sphere of society, school culture, urban realities, guess what... guns are everywhere because people for the most part are so afraid and so think war is the answer. America can truly change if youth rebel and don't stop... on this way to making countries everywhere give up on the war strategy as primary in fear management (i.e., safety and security management)... of course, we need lots of other strategies to handle the conflicts going on, which are real, and in which some take up arms to try to win.
2. This is like an "addiction to fear" which is arguably characteristic of what many critics call the "culture of fear" phenomena.
