Open Letter to "Generation Screwed"

I was at a meeting earlier this week. An important meeting, where the Saint Paul Police met with local activists about next year's Republican National Convention.

There was passion. There was idealism. There were a few insane rants, and a couple just plain crazy people. But, other than two or three avowed anarchists, there weren't any young people.

There were people in their 40's and 50's. There was one guy, well into his 70's, who has been protesting since Eisenhower was in the White House. But there was virtually no one in their 20's or 30's, except those anarchists.

The protest movement needs people in their 20s and 30s (ever try throwing a tear gas canister back with a torn rotator cuff?). And people in their 20s and 30s need the protest movement.

Indeed, if and when America craps out completely, it will be because of the suffocating political apathy of our current crop of young people.

Let's call them what they are - Generation Screwed. Here, in an effort to light a fire under their asses, is an open letter to a bunch of people who don't have a clue that the other shoe is about to drop:

Dear Generation Screwed,

Where are you?

Haven't heard or seen anything from you while the Bush Administration drives you, your children, and your children's children into perpetual war and debt.

Don't see you at meetings. Don't read you on the op-ed pages. Can't even find you on the Internet, Nothing. Not even a text message. What's up with that?

And you really are screwed, you know. These jokers are borrowing the money to fund the war in Iraq, and putting your name down as co-signer. They're not raising taxes to pay for it. They're borrowing it.

Who do you think is going to pay all that back with interest? Not George Bush. Not Dick Cheney. Not the huge international corporations who are profiting from the war. Not the Baby Boom. No.

You are. You're going to pay it back. You and your children and your children's children. Some estimates say it'll be more than $2 trillion before they're through with Iraq.

A billion is a thousand million. A trillion is a thousand billion. That's one million million. $2 trillion is $2 thousand billion - $2 million million. Not counting interest.

You are so screwed. You're screwed eight ways from Tuesday, Monday through Friday and time and a half on weekends. You're screwed at school, on the job, in the housing market and at the store. And when you get old, you can look forward to spending your golden years screwed, too.

So where are you? Down in the basement trading bong hits and playing Guitar Hero?

Dumb and apathetic is no way to go through life, let alone unscrew yourself. If you don't get off your collective asses and get active, it's over.

Let's go.

Comments

[mac63]

If there is a chance to change this govt. - and I believe there is - , we will need to work together. Attacking groups based on age or any other characteristic is akin to self-mutilation.

We are losing this democracy - some say it is already lost. I don't agree. I applaud all who are now awake regarding the on-going effort to destroy our constitution and keep us in an eternal "war on terrorism."

The boomers of which I am a member is a very large (~78 mil)group. Not all were or could be involved in the protests of the 60's and 70's. Many who were of age were also self-absorbed - that is always the case. But there were so many of us that the protesters were large in number.

I also remember being so busy in my late 20's and during my 30's with raising our family and just working, paying the bills, etc. that I was only dimly aware of what was going on. I am very grateful for the Internet or I would not be as informed today - but I have time now that I did not have when working and raising a family.

So, I will not attack any age group - it makes no sense. There are many in America in all age groups working to change this system - I respect the thinkers, the doers, and the agents of positive change. Never lose heart.

[jomama]

That's enough to make an anarchist out of
anyone.

[personallydisinterested]

We are screwed, and your generation did it to us, and now you have to audacity to blame us for the fact that we are screwed? You have all the money, power, free time, and you did this to us. Imagine the nightmare that those of us that are awake are actually living through. Have some sympathy. Your generation failed to steward our budget, educate us, or hold our polititians accountable.
You need to wake up to the fact that your generation failed us.

[GWChimpzilla]

Yah, we screwed you -- and you're doing nothing about it.

[personallydisinterested]

Now that we have determined who is at fault lets talk about damages :)

[genscrewed]

Continued... Dear Mr. Smith,
Sorry for the break, had to go get some cheetos to get rid of the bong haze, after the guitar hero session

Thank you also for the fascinating math lesson. All I can say is “ 2 million million WOW!” Your inspirational calculations shamed and motivated me into using the internet that you haven’t seen me on. I learned from the U.S. Census that, voter for voter, the population group your motivational diatribe is aimed at is outnumbered by approximately 52 million, or in your mathematical terms, 52 thousand thousand. Now I know that number doesn’t have quite the wow factor at first glance, until you consider that our current president won his two victories by a tiny fraction of that each time.
Thank you for putting both the country and also the world in this pre-screwed state, and then having the forethought to make sure that we would never outnumber or outvote you. I guess too many protests wore out all of the liberal Boomer’s swimmers which resulted in the conservative Boomer’s out-breeding you.

Rather than sounding like an out of touch, bitter old Boomer, unable to see past your own generations failings and inadequacies and wanting to blame everything on the generation you have “screwed”, why don’t you aim some of your post protest-era angst at your contemporaries who not only bent us over the table, but then elected and re-elected the charlatans who refuse to wear a condom or even use any lube for the screwing we have been getting.

Your open letter has opened my eyes. Not only am I, my children and their children screwed, but we have no hope of stopping the future screwing unless we get off our lazy, apathetic, screwed asses and start acting like the generation that screwed us. (I tried to fit the word screwed into this paragraph as many times as you Mr. Smith, but in having succeeded I have exemplified how screwed my generation really is… we are only equal to you in profanity.)

[genscrewed]

Dear Mr. Smith,

I wanted to take a moment away from the epic groove I was in on guitar hero, to thank you.

Anyhoo, thank you for the uplifting and spiritually motivating letter. Without Boomers such as yourself to set us straight, my generation would never find our way out of the world of drugs and mind-numbing entertainment we have immersed ourselves in.

Reading enlightening paragraphs such as, “You are so screwed. You're screwed eight ways from Tuesday, Monday through Friday and time and a half on weekends. You're screwed at school, on the job, in the housing market and at the store. And when you get old, you can look forward to spending your golden years screwed, too.” Makes me want to get right up off of my couch ( careful not to spill any bongwater) and go protest something… anything. It obviously worked for all the super enlightened Boomers out there. Without you where would we be?

You are so correct, we should all run right out and start protesting away just like your generation did, then when we had exhausted our self-righteous energy we could line up like good little Boomers, desperately climb the social and income ladders, talk a lot about how our kids will have it better than we did, and then when we finally get them out of the house we can tell them the truth about how screwed they are because we spent all of our time either partying, protesting, or scrambling to make up for it, and gave no real thought to the future. Then when we are where you are, we can hypocritically lecture our kids about how drugs are bad and how apathetic and lazy they are, which of course will justify the situation we have left them in.

to be continued...

[personallydisinterested]

Excellent.

[jdm58]

The world has changed. Generation "Screwed" doesn't need to waste time picketing in the streets, when one video on "you-tube" or one posting on "facebook" reaches tens of thousands more people, and is much more effective. Our presidential candidates are just now realizing this. "Screwed" is trans-generational anyway. We are all in this together. Seniors are "screwed" because Social Security is going bankrupt, babies are "screwed" because by the time they reach middle age the earth is predicted to be far less inhabitable than it is today, water and food will be scarce, and there will be millions of displaced refugees looking for a place to live. I'm a boomer parent- both my children will be voting in their first presidential election next year. I've taken the responsibility of talking to them about the issues (you can be sure they're not getting good info at school!), making sure they know how to register to vote, and then do. This year, my son turns 18. If we ALL don't stand up and do what is right, even though it may be painful, his generation will most likely face the draft. If anyone is generation "screwed", it is boys his age. It's up to US to make sure they understand what's at stake- they sure don't learn it on TV!

[wanked]

Ive been to a dozen or more major political rally/marches over the last 4 years, and Im seeing more and more young people all the time. Its the comfortable uppermiddle class white people who talk the talk, but cant seem to find time between sales at bloomies and macys, to walk the walk. I personally think the kids are waking up. Sat Oct 27...marches across the whole country Check out United for Peace and Justice for one near YOU

[StatingTheObvious]

You do realize the reason our Debt is so high is because of:

1. Social Security
2. Medicare

Those 2 elements are 2/3 of the expenditure of the United States tax revenues.
http://www.federalbudget.com/

Socialized medicine will only make it worse. The question is, will the Baby Boomers pass the buck like the generation before?

I'm 34 and I feel my generation has been screwed.

[amerdiaspora]

fair enought we do need some young blood and youngins are pretty apathetic from how much we spoilt them.....but waaait a minutes, we were doing bong hits and protesting back when we were in our 20's. and remember a lot of our problems come from the 50-60 somthings from the summer of love and marching aginst the vietnam war turning into right wing assholes that near 50% that voted for the power elite didn't crop up out of nowhere

[beryll]

A million years ago when the Iraq war was a single year old, thousands of we Generation Screwed(ers) headed down to D.C. or held on-campus rallies. Mr. Bush smirked and declared he could care less about what we thought, then shipped more of us off to die in the desert.

It’s easier for us to pretend to ignore the war. We’re terrified and can’t bear to face the repercussions. Have you any idea how MESSED UP our friends and brothers are when they come back? How do you talk to the kid you used to play Ninja Turtles with, now that he has screaming fits during nightmares he can’t recall and is generally socially inept? What do you say to the boy who was discharged because he permanently injured his back when his patrol’s humvee flipped, killing everyone but him—the boy who now spends his days coked up out of his mind because he can’t deal with it? And I’m supposed to go hold up a protest sign so a president who has already made it perfectly clear he could care less can go play with more of his rockets and toy soldiers? So a painfully inept Congress can pass a meaningless resolution? How the hell does this help my friends???
Our self-entitlement is primarily a façade. (Though honestly—can you blame us for thinking we could do a better job? The way things currently stand one has to wonder how they could possibly be any more mismanaged.) We’re utterly horrified by our position as sacrificial lamb of the older generations, and wonder what the hell you’re going to do to us next. We've no muscle, money, or wiles… Somehow we decided sticking our heads in the sand (or turning up our iPods) was the best solution.
This is not to say we have no clue about the world around us. We do. It’s just we’ve got an entire mountain to topple, we’re working different angles, and given our fewer numbers it takes a lot of subtle pushing before the momentum carries any weight.

[cautionbug]

Here's how my attempt to get involved would go:

Hey Boss, can I have the next few months off work, with full pay, so I can go take part in political protest that you, as a corporate manager and/or executive do NOT support because it's completely against your business interests? C'mon, I need the full-pay vacation time because I'm $35,000 in debt from student loans I had to take out because my parents were already on the short end of trickle-down economics when they had me, and on top of that, I now "own" a house that I can't afford because I was told that it's cheaper than rent and "anyone can buy a home, all you need is a job and $49.99 a week!"

Really Boss. Is it so bad that I want you to pay me for the six to eight weeks I won't be at my desk bending over backwards so that you can golf every afternoon at a country club whose membership fees are approximately twice my monthly gross income? I mean, you don't have HALF the credit card debt I do because you buy everything with the company cards and write it off from the business at tax time. I have to buy GROCERIES with credit because I'm paying for my house and car with my net from this place.

I see. No, I understand. It's okay. Maybe someone else is in a better position who can stand in my place at the rallies.

[cautionbug]

Which basically means, Mr. Smith, get off your high horse. There may be apathy, but i'm damn certain there's more numbness from the futility and being trapped.

[Ben Dixon]

So what your saying is that we Gen Xer's will have to clean up the mess cuased by you Babyboomers, is that about the size of it?

[larry278]

Well said. You could update the old hit, "We didn't start the fire.", for 2007 too.
Oh yes, there was apathy in the 1960's too. To get along-you have to go along was a popular mantra of the silent majority. There was a silent majority. Don't forget them.

[Woofer58]

Ah.. the strategy becomes clear now....

The Republicans get the country so broke (war debt ?...ya think ?) that the Demos, when they get into office, can't finance any social programs without raising taxes. This, of course, pisses everyone off .. so they re-vote Republicans back into office in 2012.

Hmmm... and who said Republicans were stupid ...?

[srmorris]

First of all, I think ranting against an uninvolved younger generation on The Huffington Post is like a teacher ranting about tardiness to the students who show up on time.

The people who are reading these articles, young or old, aren't indifferent or apathetic. If they were they wouldn't be here.

Second, I think it's important to remember, that the character of a generation isn't defined by itself. It is defined by those who come before them. Generation Screwed" as you call them were created by the self involved, and frequently self-righteous baby boomers. They were born into hypocrisy and waste forced to listen to the older, corrupt, money grubbing generation rail against how useless they are. Maybe "generation screwed" isn't such a bad name because if you listen to them very closely what they are really saying is, "screw you".

Which, in my opinion, isn't such a bad response to the way they (and their future) has been treated.

[ZanIts1984]

EXACTLY! Good post.

[Kissydee]

As part of this generation, I wonder why my friends seem so disinterested in politics. Federal funding for college has been gutted, companies are no longer offering pensions; we are the ones who fight wars based on lies, etc. So much of it effects us.

Yet many of my friends are also working two part time jobs while in school full time, have no health insurance, have credit card and student loan debt and are just trying to keep their heads above water.

I often talk to my boss, who is in his 60's, about stuff like this. We talk about his time in law school, in the late 60's/early 70's. His tutition at Boston college was $500.00 per semester. I think that same tutition at BC is close to 30K (per year) now. He supported himself by working full time in the summer, delivering Pepsi, and was paid $10.00 an hour. Most of my friends make less than that NOW. Who's having the harder time?

The thing is, people of my generation grew up in the 80's...we feel like it's hopeless because the rich have been screwing people since we were kids.