MacGougan at Large

Notes on My Ineffectual Boycotts - 2

AARP

The AARP (now just four letters, but formerly the American Association of Retired People) is a non-profit organization that advocates on behalf of Americans 50 and older, some of whom are not actually retired. It’s a rite of passage in America as you near your 50th birthday to receive a letter from the AARP, welcoming you as a member and offering you discounts on various services.

My turn came back in 2004, and I was having none of it. My contention - then and now - is that seniors as a group are already privileged in America. Certainly there are plenty of seniors who are hard up and need all the help they can get, but your average senior appears to me to be better off than your average young adult. So why do I get free bus rides and discounted museum tickets while struggling families with young kids have to pay full freight for everything?

The answer is that we seniors are a strong voting bloc that has historically been focused on our own financial well-being. If you’re the AARP, your schtick pretty much inevitably is to claim to speak for all seniors and to advocate for as many senior benefits as possible.

It may be worth noting here that my stance against special privileges for seniors would be a bit more morally inspiring if I had ever just once in my life turned down a senior discount that was offered to me.

One thing I learned in preparing this posting is that the right-wing world is down on the AARP because it advocates for preserving and enhancing (rather than reducing or eliminating) public support programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and SNAP. This highlights one of the problems of a boycott. It doesn’t always send a clear message. 

I’ve been boycotting AARP because it privileges seniors over other people. Other people boycott AARP because it supports government safety-net programs. So I have sympathy for the AARP. How are they supposed to know if I’m sitting out because they support too many or not enough programs?