I just spent the last three days at the California Democratic Convention. This was my second time attending and it was a great experience, but quite frankly I'm alarmed and pissed-off at what I see unfolding. I'm a 20 year-old activist who's been plugging along at this give-a-fu** racket since high school, i.e., the type that the old politicians are constantly showering with the bullsh** catch phrase, "You are the future of America!"
The problem is that we ARE the future of America and that we have been badly misguided by the incompetent, corrupt, lazy, unimaginitive leaders of the present.
Let me preface this little rant by saying that I don't want to insinuate that ALL of the young Left is like this, but rather that this is the impression I've gotten from mingling with young Dems for the last couple years, and in particular the last three days up at the convention. And this is only my opinion.
Ok, here goes.
A lot of my peers are focused on, driven by, and loyal to the institutions that have been created by our predecessors, rather than the ideals inherent within ourselves. I guess this probably happens to every generation, but I can't help but feel that we have it worse than a lot of others have had.
The biggest thing I learned this weekend is that a lot of the young Dems I ran into are totally resigned to the fact that politics is about who-you-know, not what-you-do. And, to be sure, in a way they're right. Politics is about who-you-know. But my problem isn't with how my peers react to how politics are. My problem is that they seem to have absolutely no opinion as to what politics (and the world, for that matter) should be. They are so grounded in the bleak reality we've inherited from generation after generation of failed leaders, that many of us lack the ability to come up with our own idealistic vision of how the world should be. Through inaction and lack of initiative, we blindly perpetuate this failed system, simply playing our parts and reading our lines rather than challenging this horribly mangled script that seems to be rapidly advancing toward a very unhappy ending.
I spent a lot of the convention (and the last two months, for that matter) trying to recruit college Dems for Students for Impeachment... a project which I see as a golden opportunity for us to actually set the agenda instead of just passively rolling along with what the old people are up to... it would be a chance for us to voice our own ideas rather than just playing support roles for old bureaucrats and politicians who haven't had original thoughts in decades. But most of the young Dems I talked to about my idea to kind of shrugged... it was amazing: I could actually FEEL their lack of faith in their ability to change the world. They'd rather hold onto their titles and go through the motions of another round of tabling, voter reg, and GOTV on behalf of the old people's agenda than break it up with some direct political action that we can control, invent, and run ourselves.
They're institutionalized, if you will.
What infuriates me is that these people who are so unwilling to take initiative to change the world KNOW and UNDERSTAND exactly how bad things are going right now. They pay attention the terrible things that Bush has done. The people I was talking to are not the people who flunked their high school government classes and have never read a newspaper. No, on the contrary, these are the ambitious young men and women who are competing with each other for key positions within the Democratic Party and who are making connections that they will exploit in the coming years as they inherit power as the current wave of failed leaders gradually fade out of office and into the history books.
My problem is that my peers ARE the future and they are ALREADY messing it up. It's like watching a horror movie. I seriously spent the last three days seeing college kids pretend to be politicians. I saw pandering. I saw drama. I saw huge amounts of money and time being wasted on things that do not matter at ALL.
Simply put: I saw twentysomethings who do not give a damn about the future of the country but will suck up to anyone in order to advance their own individual political futures. I do not believe most of the young people I met at the convention have their own ideals; I think they have certain causes they believe in and particular issues they feel strongly about, but that they have been spent more time learning (read: being taught by our current failed leaders) about how to feed their ambition than seriously reflecting on how the world should be.
I found myself feeling self-conscious because I had a new idea, and new ideas do not have a place in Democratic politics. I was hoping it might be different among young Democrats, but damn was I wrong.
I'll cut to the chase. Do not think for a SECOND that my generation will do a better job than yours has. We have been placed in an extremely difficult position. We are being pumped into an oppressive system that we all know doesn't work very well, but our only option seems to be to join that system and attempt to influence it from within (which obviously is much easier said than done).
Our role models--and bosses--are corrupt jerks like Tom DeLay, opportunists like George Bush, panderers like John Kerry, ambition machines like Steve Westly, hypocrites like Rick Santorum, and liars like Bill Clinton. Nancy Pelosi refuses to back impeachment even as it is blatantly obvious that impeachable offenses have occurred; instead, she tells us to focus on winning an election instead of organizing to stop the Bush administration from further violating the Constitution. We are being trained to imitate leaders who refuse to take stands on anything. We witness glaringly clear compromises of democracy that should DISTURB us as citizens who have been taught to respect America and to do good in the world; yet things like this don't impress us anymore.
We are so numb to our leaders being incompetent/complacent failures, that we have simply come to accept their mediocrity.
I get the feeling that most of the people of my generation don't even know where to start. And can you really blame us?
Simply put: my generation cannot do a good job if your generations keep wrecking the country and the world like this... and that applies to the right wingers who hold power and the left wingers who refuse to directly challenge them. The reality is that we cannot overcome the incredible handicaps that have been put in place (in politics, media, culture, among other areas). Our chances of helping the world have been violently set back by the Bush administration and it will take a massive output of effort in order to revive our capacity to achieve major positive accomplishments in the future.
It's very simple: We need to be inspired. I just spent the last three days mingling with young people who have spent their entire political lives on the defensive. We get bombarded with speeches by old people who have spent THEIR entire political lives resignedly perpetuating a system that does not work. How the hell are we supposed to change the system--which inherently resists change--if we have all been brainwashed into thinking that in order to change the system, we must join it and meekly adhere to its failed processes that got us into this mess in the first place?
My generation is being set up to fail.
Please remember this the next time you see some stupid old politician blathering on about how kids are the future of America.