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Baby boomer to millennials, get out and vote

September 10, 2016
Diane Griffin-Duenow

Diane Griffin-Duenow

OPINION by DIANE GRIFFIN-DUENOW

Dear millennials: If you think this presidential election is a “joke” and will not affect you, listen-up!

We baby-boomers are retiring and past our earning years. You, on the other hand, are just getting started as wage earners and the bulk of the purchasing public in America.

The biggest two issues in this election are “saving the planet” and the Supreme Court – both of which effect you and your children directly.

The current Supreme Court has given us Citizens United, which allows unrestricted and unreported money in politics. This is why you think your vote doesn’t count.  Corporations are allowed to pour money into campaigns (e.g. Koch Brothers).

There will be at least two vacancies on the Supreme Court soon. Who do you want representing you? Do you want multi-national corporations running the world and making democracy irrelevant?

Second, the very future of the planet is at stake. Republicans deny climate change, when the world’s scientific community agrees that climate change is real and time is running out for you and your children.

You must vote in this critical election. Your future is at stake and the future of your children’s survival is melting away with the glaciers.

Wake-up, inform yourselves and get to the polls!

Diane Griffin-Duenow has lived in San Luis Obispo for 40 years. Before her retirement, she taught English at San Luis Obispo High School.


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“Republicans deny climate change”


NO THEY DON’T!!!! Get it through your thick skull that Republicans deny HUMAN-CAUSED climate change.


Holy cow lady. get over yourself.


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P.S. I am a “baby-boomer”.


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Oh, so Republicans recognize Climate Change… whatever the cause… And, still they support protecting the interests of fossil fuel companies and ADDING carbon to the atmosphere?


Instead we should be working together to build global business opportunities by creating a thriving GREEN ENERGY economy. At the same time, we should support legislation to keep American jobs and American company profits at home.


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Unfortunately, I think the tone of the article seemed to indicate that the author might think that some younger people aren’t paying attention to, or don’t care about what goes on in the world. Maybe she got that impression from statistics on who votes.


If you look up historical voter turnout rates by age, there’s a clear pattern over many decades that shows that the highest turnout rate is for voters over 60. Following very closely behind are the voters 45 through 59. Behind them are the voters 30 through 44, and behind them, with the lowest turnout rate, are those under 30. This information is from the Web site of the National Elections Project.


So, the statistics do show that the older you are, the more likely you are to vote. HOWEVER, that obviously doesn’t mean younger people are clueless as to what’s going on. The ones I know are very much up on the issues.


There are probably a lot of reasons for the voting rates that the statistics show, but I think a big one might be that some people just don’t think that their votes will make much of a difference,. An even bigger reason may be that many younger people are so busy working from dawn to dusk, taking care of the kids, and just trying to survive financially that voting just isn’t a priority.


The solution for some people might be to vote by mail. It’s certainly faster and easier than going to a polling place, and you can take as much time as you want to study the ballot just as long as you mail it in on time..


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Dear millennials: Before you vote, do your own research. Do not believe the media, do not believe the politicians, Hell, don’t believe me! Think for yourself! Look at the European countries and decide if that is really how you want us to be. NOTHING is free, EVERYTHING has a price. Decide if you (and your children) are willing to pay it. This just might be the election from which we can’t recover.


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“The bulk of the purchasing public” Yeah sure, buy,buy,buy…all that crap made in China awaits you. The worst polluter in the planet making junk that has to be replaced in short order because its junk. Thanks to years of bogus trade deals by your party line, its the number one reason your global warming or climate change exists. BTW, sure feels colder this am, must be climate change coming on, aka fall.


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“Republicans deny climate change, when the world’s scientific community agrees that climate change is real and time is running out for you and your children”


She is a democrat

She is leading you to vote for Hillary


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Here’s a hint, madame Boomer, it was 50 years of your generation’s ideology and politics of division that got us where we are. You think humans can “save a planet?” What planet are you from? Please take a course in geology or any other real science, and stop reading your propaganda. If you want people to pollute less, then say that, instead, we’re given a bunch of manufactured B.S. that has corroded the pop-culture (the most ignorant and easiest culture to corrode, I’ll add) and then your generation turns around and GUTS education like nothing any culture on this “saved planet” has ever seen.


Then you cry about “corporations” giving money to politicians? Are you for real? You think this is something NEW? You ever heard of a UNIONS? Here’s another free tip: It isn’t the money a group of a select few (unions or corporations) that is the problem, the problem is a desire for an ignorant, compliant society.


Great job, boomers, your parents and grand-parents should be real proud of what you have done to all they worked so hard to build.


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Isn’t Ms. Duenow aware that this site is largely viewed by fairly conservative boomers not millennials?


She is right about the importance of this election on the subjects she mentions but can’t seem to understand that there are no good choices from the two major parties. (The “third party” choices aren’t great either — but not as bad.)


She brings up the issue of the Supreme Court and how the next President will be selecting at least one and perhaps as many as 3 new justices. From my viewpoint BOTH major candidates have serious flaws in that they don’t seem to respect the fourth amendment. Hillary would love to overturn the second amendment and I worry about Trump on first, fifth, sixth and eighth amendment issues.


As for the effect of massive campaign contributions contributing to corruption, I am unconvinced that the Democrats mean what they say about reform. One of their puppet PACs, Majority Forward, had just been found using the same sleazy tactics that GOP PACs follow in several states with tight senatorial races. It borders on the illegal and would be illegal if the politicians writing the rules had any moral character.


I think the only way this will change is with a new Constitutional Amendment about the legal standing of Corporations (and other GROUPS of people). I don’t think new Supreme Court justices will be able to interpret their way out of an existing unanticipated flaw in the Constitution. Even if they could, I don’t see either Clinton or Trump appointing such people or the US Senate approving them.


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Millennials to baby boomers: go pound sand. You thought you could foist off this bullshit on us by calling it “democracy” and making us sing paeans to it every morning in elementary school? Maybe you can fool each other with this garbage, but you ain’t fooling us. We’ve got better things to do than vote for your idiots.


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idiots for sure, but i’,m sure WTF you’re are talking about.


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If you’re a millennial, then count yourself lucky for being the last generation to be taught pride in your country. For many years now, public schools have been on the anti-American curriculum. It was that ‘change’ thing.


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Hogwash. Get over yourself, lady.


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