Two-Glock Greta

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I'm always on the lookout for exceptional young people, and a few months ago, I first become aware of Greta Thunberg. I had just misspelled her name “Great” and I felt like leaving it. Greta was only known to a few people, but I suspect now she is known throughout the world. I haven't listened to the speech she gave at the UN yesterday—I'm saving that for later when I really need to get inspired—but I watched the video of her talking without sound (you really don't need the sound to know that she's coming after people!). I read a few of the quotes and decided that I needed to make a few remarks.

Since my earliest memories, I've been disturbed by the way we shut young people out of leadership roles in society. I felt this more and more as I got older and realized that I was a person fortunate to have some exceptional capabilities, and I watched adults fumbling around with things that I knew how do to easily. And a lot of these kids I run into are smarter than me. There are a ton of twelve year olds in the world who are smarter than all but a very few adults.

It was simultaneously inspiring and hilarious reading the quotes of how this young girl told these world leaders how it is, and then, it occurred to me this morning as I was on my way to get some pancakes for breakfast that, instead of having Greta have to come yell at these people, why don't we just give her their job? Why not? I don't know who the EU parliament member from Sweden is. Perhaps they are doing a great job, and facilitated Greta's UN appearance. But why shouldn't Greta Thunberg be allowed to stand for that position, or any position that she may be qualified for?

People will say she too young, too immature. Really? What is that based on? There is no money in honest political activism, so Greta qualifies for the MAT Girl club because she is doing things that are incredibly important. And the MAT Girls in entertainment here in America have proven that there are young people that can handle enormous responsibility. It would appear that yesterday, Greta was the responsible adult in the room.

Yes, there may be things she would need to know that she doesn't. But do you really think THAT girl isn't intelligent enough to ask for advice and help when she needs it? What the hell does she need to waste the next fifteen years of her life in school learning quantum physics for? She can call me or a thousand other people, and I'll explain that. All more school is going to do for her is make her jaded with all the shit she's going to have to watch in the next decade if we don't do something, and she might give up and go do something else.

Smart people know how to ask the right questions, and I'd bet that Greta does. It's just that she won't be asking the entrenched political cronies, so they are afraid of her. And that's the bottom line. Power is AFRAID of Greta Thunberg and all the young people like her. That is why the promote the idea that you have to be fifty or have a PhD to know anything. And that is why our world is chained to the past. I'm not proposing we cut out older people—I think we need more ninety year olds in the public discourse too. More on that later.

But I do think young people need mentors, and if younger people were allowed to stand for such high offices, I would propose a system where they have an official mentor in the body that they are joining. Not someone seventy years old; that would defeat the purpose. The mentor should be someone else who is also young, but with a little more experience so that they can show the young person the ropes. We need this is sports, in business and in entertainment as well. Any young person who enters a field should have an official mentor that they can choose.

I don't usually like to nominate people for jobs as I don't know if it is something that they would want to do, and certain ideas, once they are out there, can put pressure on people to do things they don't feel comfortable with. But in this case, I think it will be okay. I would nominate Greek European Parliament Member Eva Kaili to be Greta's mentor if she became Sweden's MP. I know Germany and Greece have some tension in recent years, but I'm not aware of anything between Sweden and Greece where Swedes would be uncomfortable with their EU MP being mentored by a Greek.

Eva Kaili seems to be a capable and responsible young leader, and it doesn't hurt that she's also beautiful. Am I going to get in trouble with Interpol if I say that Eva Kaili is smoking hot? Because she is. And she's an architect? How would I not like that girl? She also looks like a young lady that really needs a break. If Jane Galt doesn't want to marry me, I would love to go spend a few days on a Greek island with Eva and talk about Frank Lloyd Wright, Aristotle and where to find the best gyros. I might not come back...

If I did come back, if I'm asked if we visited the Parthenon, I'll say what Shaquille O'Neal said when asked that question after returning from the Athens Olympics: “I don't remember the names of all the clubs we went to.” One of Shaq's many hilarious one-liners. But if Eva likes the Parthenon, and hasn't already seen it a million times, I'll go with her. And I'd like to know if she agrees with me that a lot of what's wrong with the world today is Plato's fault.

We need more diversity in leadership, not just ethnic diversity, but we need more age diversity, more economic diversity, more diversity of educational background. Hey, if we can find a baby smart enough to follow things, then we should have babies represented in the public discourse. Perhaps holding public office would be too much for a baby, but then again, I don't know. Some of these so-called leaders, all they do is whine and cry and shit their pants on television. But I certainly think that there are plenty of teenagers qualified to hold public office, and we should start putting them in there.

Now, I know what would happen. Older people will try to conspire to make them fail, and then say, “See!”. First page in their playbook. I'm going to be the number one cop on the beat looking out for that shit. And I'm a nice guy, rehabilitated to peacefulness from pacifism, but I'm the last one you want after you because you tried to sabotage Greta Thunberg, or any other young leader. I won't even come in with guns, I'll come bare-handed so you know I'm dead serious. And I've been though page two, three, four, page ten thousand of your playbook, so don't even try it. Give them an honest chance to do the job.

While I'm deeply concerned about environmental issues just as Greta is, I have some different perspectives on some of these issues. I think that we have to begin to recognize that polarization is a tool that powerful people use to avert change. A lot of young environmentalists have been pushed to an almost anarcho-primitivist worldview because of all the seemingly pathological actions they have seen perpetrated by industrial society. This is not good, and to combat it, we need more voices in the conversation, rather than voices yelling at each other from a distance.

I saw an exceptional twenty-one year old young man named Benji Backer give an interview. He represents a conservative group focused on environmental issues. Benji was more articulate, informed and thoughtful in discussing these issues than a lot of the leaders twice his age that I've heard, and in about ten minutes disseminated a lot of good information. If I saw him talk, and then saw Donald Trump talk, and didn't know otherwise, I would think Benji must be the president and that they changed the age requirement while I was sleeping. We should change it. I'm not a conservative, so I might not support Benji for that job if he even wanted it. But I'll support him when he right, and he's right on this.

Benji and I probably disagree strongly with Greta on a lot of things, and Greta and I probably disagree with Benji on a lot of things. But the three of us all agree we want to live on a planet that is green and bio-diverse, with fresh air and clean water, and safe healthy communities. So, I would propose that the two of them form a leadership team on this issue, and forget about the areas where they may disagree and work to find a solution plan that everyone can embrace. And I'll support them in any way that I can.

We need more of this. This is the medicine to cure social and political polarization. Instead of everyone acting like Gollum and trying to be the “One to Leader To Rule Them All”, we need to form leadership teams—two leaders from opposite sides of the spectrum who agree on a fundamental issue, and a person who has connections to both sides of the spectrum who endorses and supports them. Then we can really start to get this train rolling.

The establishment has had literally forever to solve these problems and they can't. But we must give them credit for the fact that most of them aren't bad people, and they were trying, but the voices of the 21st century will have to be people who are closer to the 21st century. But the leaders we have had did a lot of good work, and many of them will do more still. But there are some that, like a coach subbing in a new player, we need to pat them on back and say “Good job, your work is done. Go have a seat on the bench.” By that I mean, take your family to a nice resort and relax. Take your kids to the park and museum and remind yourself what real life is like. Go back to that favorite old cheap restaurant where you used to go with your wife in law school when you were struggling. But in any case, GET OUT OF THE WAY!


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