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

[rip]

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.

[blueraven]

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.

[ceu]

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.

[realitytrumpsbull]

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...

[Sundialsvc4]

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.

[hopeless277]

Uh, what's over?

[Gary50]

All those trillions of debt will be paid in dollars that are worth two cents. Problem solved! Buy gold.

[ctuck622]

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.

[wiseferret]

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.

[choada777]

Dang! You get Three weeks?!?!?

[wadenelson1]

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.

[cautionbug]

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.

[cautionbug]

A-f**kin'-men!

[Mizzuramule]

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.

[Zenobius]

Meaning no disrespect, but "Generation Screwed" is probably busy starting families, trying to deal with student loans, etc. If they are still in school, they are trying to work and get their degrees at the same time.

The anti-Vietnam protest movement was fueled by a number of factors. Some major ones:

a) the draft, which created an imminent threat to many young men, and left the rest of us feeling a little guilty;

b) a large generation of optimistic types, whose parents were wealthy enough to pay their tuition, and who had high expectations of "America";

c) the recent success of the civil rights movement, which were evidence that protest tactics worked;

These conditions are no longer present. The draft is gone; belief that it is "un-American" to get involved in an imperialist war has declined; and the civil rights movement happened before most of these people were born. Perhaps most important, rising college and housing costs combined with flat, or nearly flat, real family incomes have made young adult life a struggle.

This doesn't mean it's hopeless. It does mean maybe we'll have to go back to union organizing and the like, and focus less on tactics like organizing protests at party conventions, if we want to connect with the people in their twenties and thirties.

[SaintJimmy]

"Generation Screwed" was also the only voting age group who DIDN'T vote in the majority for Bush in 2004. Maybe the OTHER generations (including my own) are the ones who really need to look in the mirror.

[paixa3]

EVERYONE in the USA needs to take a very hard look in the mirror !!!!!!

[NealMaffei]

Dumb and apathetic? We are neither. It seems to me that those at that meeting were old and hopelessly naive. It is not 1968. It is 2007. The younger generation of opponents to the current regieme, are keenly aware that the older tactics of dissent are outdated, and totally ineffective. No one who 'takes to the streets" is listened too or taken seriously any longer. That is something that the older generation has yet to comprehend. We create change with the choices we make when we make purchases and when we give our time and money to charities. And our generation gives more of our time to public service than any previous generation. We understand the sad reality that the government and the system within which we live are damaged and rigged beyond repair. It doesn't pay to yell when no one is listening. Instead we create change by living it! In addition, we understand that the only language that those in power today understand is the language of money and the threat that their corporate "backers" will abandon them if the public threatens to abandon their product or service. My suggestion to the older generation.. "Put down the signs, take off the old hippie garb and look to each other for the solution, not the government..." For better or worse, the world has changed!

[MissFortunate]

OPM - We keep finding money for the war, we can find money for the important issues that need to be taken care of.

As a married, working mother in her mid thirties, I'm often saddened by the fact that all the people I encounter at political events are older than me. I love them, I love that they want to fight for their kids and their Grandkids, but I want to fight for myself and I've made this a priority after my family.

I was hoping to meet like minded mommies, not happening. But it's not going to stop me from being involved, for canvassing, blogging and campaigning for the people and the values I believe in.

[alibe]

You got that right!. Generation "S". Where are they? We won't have to pay the price of these fascists. We are at the end of our productive time. But we fight for them and they shrug their shoulders and take a hit of fantasy and think we are over re-acting. They are so screwed..as are we.