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.
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 for this post are now closed
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
That's enough to make an anarchist out of
anyone.
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.
Yah, we screwed you -- and you're doing nothing about it.
Now that we have determined who is at fault lets talk about damages :)
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.)
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...
Excellent.
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!
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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 ...?
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.
EXACTLY! Good post.
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.
Gen X has been screwed every step of the way. We're used to it. We've been told that we will be the first generation in America to make less than our parents. Also to pretty much forget about things like social security, since we will be keeping the baby boomers up to their ears in botox and viagra.
The protests and public demonstrations that you call for are hollow efforts, at least in the eyes of this gen x'er. Why? Because of the history of the boomers.
The anti-Vietnam protests? Supposedly political. However upon closer inspection, true boomer motivation reveals itself as the adolescent neediness combined with the self-centered fear of the draft and the urge to have sex, er "free love."
The environmental movement? Time and time again, people rallied to one cause or another only to find hyperbole. Think Chicken Little. Either that or it was a power grab. Think Greenpeace.
Of course, all that would be ok if the boomers stuck to their guns. If that were the case, one could just call it naivety. However as history is showing, they have become what they protested. They are the ones bankrupting the country, destroying values, and sucking the world's resources dry. They created the Christian coalition and voted for Bush. They publicly denounce the war, but privately vote for it. They gave sweeping police state powers to the white house as a result of irrational fear. They are the ones that sacrificed basic civil liberties.
Bush. Enron. Koslowski. The stock bubble. The current real estate bubble. Divorce. Gas-guzzling, 3 ton SUVs.
See a pattern forming?
Is it any wonder that Generation X is cynical? We care. We just haven't figured out a way to bypass the overwhelming numbers of the boomers.
As for Generation Y, I can't really speak for them. But right now the poster child for Generation Y is Britney/Lindsay/Paris. Can you really expect political activism?
The boomers are the driving force in America. Rather than point fingers at other generations, they need to look in the mirror.
First, if you're throwing in people in our 30s, it's not Generation Y you're talking to. I'm 39 and am quite firmly a member of Generation X. You know, the slacker generation? We're definitely still paying off our student loans for the most part. The kids, for those of us who've had them, are in school. How many thirtysomethings were going to the barricades in the 1960s? Protests are for college students with time to kill. We who care are studying the issues, voting their best options, cannot be blamed for voting Bush in either time, and wish the people who protest would get over their misguided approaches, like combining Iraq protests with pro-Palestinian sentiments while wearing Che Guevara T-shirts.
They'll come out when the war affects them directly. Right now, only military families are feeling the impact of the war - the rest of us were told to "go shopping" by this administration. No one, save the military, is suffering as a result of the actions of the madmen in power. Paying off the debt of this war is something that is WAYYYY into the future - something to be thought about tomorrow or two or twelve years from tomorrow - kinda like the impact that prolonged exposure to the sun will have on skin...sometime in the future you'll get nasty wrinkles, but not today.
If there was a draft, then you'd see the younger generation heading for the streets with bullhorns & signs, just like we did when a stupid war was killing our brothers & sons & husbands & fathers back in the '60's & '70's. Really. The war - and the cost of the war - just ain't real until one is directly smacked between the eyes with it.
Yeah, ok, I'm an Xer, I guess, I don't think
generational labels really mean much, and I
think if you call yourself a Murkin you can
see that there's some problems related to the
fact that basically our representation got
bought and sold a long time ago. Listen to
Carlin, he kind of lays it out, and he's not
the only one that's talked about this. I'll tell
you what, though, doesn't matter which generation you consider yourself a part of,
if you don't vote, don't speak up, don't
at least read and avail yourself of some
of the News out there, you're doing yourself
a disservice. Ironically, CNN, one of our
more relied-upon sources of that 'news'
has people like Glen Beck on it, talking about
things like how 'people that don't really like america' are being punished in the California
fire or whatever. Are you surprised there's
a high tune-out factor? Young or old, if that's
the 'news', shut that damn thing off and start
thinking for yourself. Which may, in fact,
be what the kids are doing these days. They
don't call it 'programming' for nothing...
Peter, I remember too. And yet, I think there is hope. I see dissent every single day on thousands of blogs and forums throughout this marvelous new thing called "The Internet."
I also, cautiously, see the distinct unraveling of the ruthless conspiring which lead us to the brink of .. I do say, "the brink" of .. World War Three. Thanks in part to the Internet, the dissent that exists in -this- country has a voice, and the dissent that exists in -other- countries has the same voice.
The news-media does not represent that voice, and even The Huffington Post only represents it occasionally.
Not a single one of the "so-called candidates" that are trumping around spending billions of dollars has, I think, a ghost of a chance. But there's really no point in engaging in a serious campaign for political office a full year ahead of the election. The fact that they are doing so merely means that they're clueless.
It does not take the threat of a military draft to "light the fires" that are already well-lit.
No, no, I am not ready to dismiss this generation, nor to chide them for not doing what must be done in the same way that we tried to do it. There's a very different media now, and I think that these people are using it quite well. And wisely -- not indifferently -- biding their time.
Uh, what's over?
All those trillions of debt will be paid in dollars that are worth two cents. Problem solved! Buy gold.
As Drew Carey commented on Bill Maher, "America's at the mall." Generation Screwed has been raised to think and take care of only themselves.
A Generation "Screwer" working for an employee leasing company, shared with me that within a short time, she was given her own office, several promotions, and "nice" income for firing homeless people considered "undesirable" by the company"s health insurance "risk managers." Though illegal, in direct violation of EEOC laws, which are unenforced, evident from a disability employment discrimination complaint I"ve filed with Florida Commission on Human Relations (one of Florida's many "straw" enforcement agencies that do anything but), these injustices and abuses of power go unchecked.
The young Gen "Screwer" also shared with me she "feels bad" about what she's doing for a living, but has a child...
This is another example of corporate America's stranglehold on our country. They've bought politicians, hold health insurance hostage to employers if they don't allow illegal pre-employment screenings and acts of treachery against existing employees who use "too much" of their health insurance benefits, essentially destroying the middle class, consigning America's greatest resource, its citizens who want to use their intelligence, education, experience, and strong work ethic in gainful employment, to a "slave labor" class comprised of the disabled, "medically challenged," and chronically ill.
In such manner was my own career and health destroyed, with no flicker of conscience whatsoever on the part of arrogant corporate America, "straw-haired" government agencies, corrupt, self-serving politicians, "blackballing" employers, crooked attorneys, greedy physicians, and so-called "charitable" organizations, and so it remains, while I face imminent homelessness, lack of medical care, and increasingly waning health.
America, in adopting this Darwinian "survival of the fittest," "Logan's Run," "you've-reached-your-'peak,' time-to-die" attitude toward its work force, has essentially created its own concentration camp gas chambers, murdering Americans who have the gall to use their health insurance benefits, as Nazi Germany killed six million Jews in WWII, considering them to be a "national plague;" only in America, 47 million uninsured Americans enter that "gas chamber" daily.
I am generation screwed (and that is the polite version). I would LOVE to be out protesting, rallying and raising hell with the politicians. But I can't. I am SCREWED living paycheck to paycheck, with a measly 3 weeks off, one of which is manditorily used for a christmas shutdown. And I can't use that time whenever- it has to be planned for.
How can I join into any protests or rallies when it means losing my job and home?
Instead, I am lending my comments on sites like this, signing petitions online and off, hoping like hell my voice gets heard.
It hurts to be disparaged when most of us 20-30's can't afford to protest to old way. On the other hand, we are pitching our voice and a few spare dollars at bigger groups like Move-on.
A-f**kin'-men!
Organize a Saturday or Sunday morning protest.
Or dedicate 2 hours a week to letter writing.
You don't work 80 hours a week.
We hold a regular Friday, 4-6 protest. It's mostly symbolic. But it's better than whining "But I can't!"
You can. Get off your ass Ferris.
In our current culture, you either make your mark huge, or you don't make it at all.
If it's mostly symbolic, it's futility. Letter writing is not newsworthy. Candle vigils of 10 or 15 people do not get attention. And while it's also not NOTHING, it's not exactly holding a lot of water against corporate lobbyists and megalomaniac "presidents."
Public opinion is driven by persistent, consistent, and often obnoxiously loud but easy to remember buzz phrases. Thousands of people chanting, "Hell no, we won't go!" will do far better than a dozen writing "Dear Mr. Congressman, It is with heavy heart that I write you this letter...." into their word processor.
I don't say this blindly. I've gone to the local "rallies." They're a dozen people holding up signs to drivers going by. It's a waste of time. Either the driver agrees, honks, and you've successfully preached to choir, or they disagree, flip the bird, and you've influenced no one. And when you hold rallies after hours, whose attention can you get? Your representative or other government official who left the office at 3:30pm to beat traffic?
Mr. Smith is right only about one thing: we need the massive protests in the streets that forced Washington to change course on Vietnam. But that can't happen because most people are in my situation, or wiseferret's.
Dang! You get Three weeks?!?!?
Or, there's the possibility that "Generation S" is "OK with it" - for years, the vestiges of my own generation (the one that embarrassed me into becoming a Republican) has been banging the drum for their successors to validate their youthful silliness and take to the streets and destroy everything in sight - to little avail. Of course there is opposition to the war, and not without strains of validity - but that's not good enough for the children of the 60's and 70's - they expected to have produced clones.
Posted October 25, 2007 | 11:41 AM (EST)