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

[ShockedSHOCKED]

Ending these wars ASAP (and in an orderly fashion) would help as would ending the tax cuts Bush insisted on. As Obama says, it is time for some adult supervision of the budget.

In the meantime, I remind my own Gen Screwed daughters of who has put them in this situation and am doing everything I can to leave them something to ease the pain. It is not going to be pretty!

[Overd0g]

They know they don't have to worry, because global warming is going to destroy the earth. Party hard while you can!

[oldpotsmuggler]

There's a corollary to what is said here, and I see it nowhere yet. The plans and platforms of all of the Demos for President are wonderful, except that we don't have the money to pay for any of it. It's important to know that their heads are in the right place, but I also want to know that they realize the need to spend the entire four year first term just economizing and budgeting to get our national financial house in order. Under these circumstances, anyone who makes big promises for fancy programs right out the gate is simply lieing. Or is fundamentally unfit for office otherwise.

And, no, they are not going to get the money out of the military budget. Not spending another dime on Iraq would only make a down payment, and gutting DOD would do the job but neither they nor We The People have the will to actually pull that one off.

[CaveatMagnusFrater]

Perhaps the Democrat presidential candidates are capable of multi-tasking and budgeting. Think of it this way. Your swamped in credit card debt for some reason that was primarily out of your control. The situation changes and you're now ready to tackle that debt. Do you just pay the credit cards or do you also pay the mortgage/rent, utilities, insurance and buy food. Form your premise, I'd hate to depend on you as a provider.

Think about it,
mike

[oldpotsmuggler]

I wrote that we have to pay the bills first, and you read that we don't have to pay the bills. Either i don't write well or you don't read well.

When you're swamped in credit card debt, the last thing you do is go buy a fancy new car.

[fpie]

I know it's naive of me (I am after all 56) but it seems to me that the only solution is to grab all the "Monopoly Men" by the ankles and shake vigorously. FDR and his crew did it and saved American democracy setting us on the path of prosperity for sixty years. The founders knew that coservatives are the enemies of democracy. That's why they had a revolution. The Tories (you know, the King's guys) were the roots of todays conservatives. But of course the current crop of Democrats can't seem to find their cahounes with a flashlight and a magnifying glass. What's an old hippy to do?

[StatingTheObvious]

"What's an old hippy to do?"

Save for your own retirement?
That's what I'm doing.