Letter To a Former Hippie from a 20-Something
Wed Jul 25, 2007 at 03:07:10 PM PDT
These are my insane ramblings to my 55 year old former hippie mother. I was attacked... ATTACKED I SAY... today when she accused my generation of never contributing and playing such an apathetic role in the political process.
"You guys are the problem! Why aren't you marching in the streets?! Why aren't you yelling at the top of your lungs? Why do you prefer video games to the news? How many hours a day do you spend on your computer and what good does it do you?"
... at the moment words choked up in my mouth. Is this really what she thought of me and my friends? Had she lost faith in all of us to do the right thing?
So this is the letter I finally wrote to her today, during work that turned out to be half loving/half self-loathing of my generation with a smidge of honesty and a dash of hope. Please excuse my voice of "we". Obviously I'm not speaking for everyone so please don't be offended.
Join me after the flip for a 20-Something's letter to a former hippy...
Ms. Muffin (pet name for my mother),
You asked me to tell you what the word on the streets was about the YouTube debate. Honestly, I can't tell you much in that regard because frankly people in my neck of the woods have stopped talking about it. I am constantly amazed at the attention spans of the media and the public. This really was a ground-breaking debate. A new usage of technology and including people in a process who have long been alienated. This gives the opportunity (though a small window) for the younger generations to have a reason to get interested in politics again. To be able to give volume to their voices which for so long had been discounted. Granted, it had mostly been discounted because of our own doing... but in a lot of ways those of us that do care have still been marginalized because of our age.
We don't vote in elections in the numbers that we should. Many of us are seen as uncaring, video-gaming, spoiled brats who can go to a Rock the Vote concert for free because we're Fired Up! to see Green Day but when it comes to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November we have other things to do like Comic Book Festivals and pot-smoking parties. This is untrue. Though we do tend to turn out in high numbers for free concerts, our election day woes for the masses of youths are not because we don't care, not because we don't feel the tightening grasp of the political noose (because anyone who has glanced at the price for 1 credit hour at an acceptable college can clearly see the great divide), it's because we have been taught through previous years that our vote really doesn't count.
We don't have the kind of money it takes to have our interests heard. I donated to a political campaign for the FIRST TIME EVER last week. I was able to donate $10 and I felt DAMNED proud of myself.... until I scrolled down to see the other contributions. PACs and Unions had donated thousands of dollars and though those groups were in my interest, I knew that if I called Hillary Clinton's office and asked to speak with someone about a few questions, I would probably be put off indefinitely because really, I'm just one vote to them. She has to win whole states. She has to win whole corporations and huge donors just to be able to compete in the election and most of her time has to be spent catering to those interests. It's not her fault, it's the system. But how much would I have to give to be able to ask,
"How will you protect my student loans from being sold to collection agencies that will fight me and harass me until I'm 80 years old? How will you ensure that the job market stays open enough that if I decide to change jobs in the future that I won't have to start at $7.50 an hour again and claw my way to a living wage? Do you have plans to make sure that I don't have to go to funerals of my friends of my friends' little brothers in the future because you've quit poking Iran and Pakistan with your proverbial sticks of justice and democracy? What will you do to make sure that my children's life is better and filled with even more opportunity than my own?"
Do you think those questions are worth a hundred thousand dollars? I bet their campaign fundraiser does.
So this brings us back to the question... why are people of my generation so apathetic to vote. Do you remember 2000? People my age... this was the first election we were relatively mature enough to understand if not our first election to vote in. This race was literally decided among a few hundred votes in some backward towns in Florida and Ohio. Some of us had never even heard of the electoral college at that point, and the rest of us certainly had never seen a situation where it could reverse an election. But this race came down to that odd provision put into the constitution back when there was no television and definitely not a reliable or even timely media. This provision was marketed by the country's creators as a precaution to make sure the people of the country didn't accidentally elect an imbecile or crazy man because the pony express couldn't get the newspaper out until three months after the election claiming the candidate maimed three dogs and mowed down his own grandmother with his shotgun. At this junction, though, even the electoral college could not safely prevent us from electing a madman... no, the supreme court was the ultimate accomplice. This was such a ridiculous offense on the citizen's rights, that how could politics ever be taken seriously? This act alone would discourage countless almost-graduates from considering a life in politics or even a minimal consideration of government. So can you blame us for thinking that one vote doesn't count when the man sitting in the Oval Office probably couldn't pass the GED test tomorrow, but could sway the supreme court to discredit the decision made through every American that sported an "I Voted" sticker that day?
If that wasn't enough, I'll give you one more reason. People like myself, who are not born with silver spoons lodged sweetly in their collective palates have a lot on their plates. Of all the high hopes in my high school class, at this point (5 years after graduation), only 29 of my class of 112 have finished college with a degree (alumni website information). The rest of us that tried and either failed or had more pressing matters come up, are now faced with a daunting challenge.
Could I go back to school? Yes.
Would it be harder than before? Yes.
Are you smarter and wiser and more understanding of discipline at this point? Yes.
Will you be able to balance 23 hours of school per semester, a 40 hour per week job, student loans, and 20 hours of reading and comprehension per week? If we're honest.... probably not.
So here we are at the next junction, will the rest of my life be miserable if I don't graduate college? Probably not.
Will it be harder than those that were able to finish college? No question about it.
The housing market is falling through the cracks right now. This is not because the companies inflated their projections. This began when subprime loans, or lower class families couldn't afford their house payments. That was bad enough news, because we're all thinking... in a few years I'm going to need to buy a house and that would be the market I'd be buying into. Does that mean I'm not going to be able to afford my payments? Does that mean I won't even be able to get a loan? Then today the worse news happened. Normal, good credit, middle-class loans are foreclosing as well. These are the people who should be able to not only afford their house payments but have cushions for vacations and new cars and retirement funds to boot... and they can't even afford their house payments?! The inevitable question rears its ugly head... what does that mean for me? Even if by the grace of God I am able to break that earthquake proof ceiling over my head, and jump into that comfortable upper class level... I'M STILL GOING TO HAVE PROBLEMS!
What a horribly bleak outlook for my generation. We haven't even had our kids yet! We don't even know what a 401K is used for! We're still searching the couch cushions for enough money for a latte! That pinprick light at the end of the dauntingly long tunnel, this star in the sky I've clung to even knowing the light reaching me is lightyears away just flickered and disappeared. There is a clear downward spiral happening, and to think that the relatively educated, lower class 20-somethings aren't seeing it is to be naive and stereotypical. We do see it. We feel it. We hear it. So at the end of the day when we're organizing the budget, thinking where we can move to find a better job, and praying our abused vehicle will cough up a few more miles... who has time to think about politics? Who the hell has time to stand on street corners with a shirt that says "Enough!" and get spit on by goat ropers and flipped off by church grannies? Who finds him/herself with the advantage to be able to afford to make a statement to Wal-Mart by shopping at the corner gourmet? When I get off work I might want to sit outside with my friends, have a few drinks, crawl into bed and sleep late on Saturday... why is that seen as such a luxury when others can play golf 6 days a week and go to church on the other? Why do we seem spoiled for wanting to do that?
Our pressures and our fears are no less than yours. Most of us don't have families to support yet, but that doesn't mean we don't recognize at some point in the future... whether it is convenient or not, we are going to fall in love, get married, and have babies. We will, and we are painfully aware of it. Not only do we feel the moment's pressures, but we have the responsibilities of the years to come. Don't you know each of us are picturing those kids in our classes growing up, the ones who we know had everything and subsequently still do. We're picking out which ones will be our mayors, which will be our children's principals, which will be ambulance chasing lawyers, which will go to rehab, which will have snotty little kids we'll have to listen to our kids complain about, which will maybe go even further to where their influence isn't just local. That in itself is terrifying and we feel the pressure of needing to change that. Needing to prevent some of those people from being in those positions to which they are pre-destined unless we're able to infiltrate the boy's and girls club. We have to balance our paychecks and squeak by each week just like you do. We don't feel like we should make decent money and still have to have a part-time job or two. We get exhausted and frustrated just like you do, and sometimes want to read junky People magazines to see what Paris is up to or play video games until our eyes bug out, just like you enjoy Grey's Anatomy reruns and who's standing where in NASCAR this week.
The point of this rambling is to say, we don't vote because it's hard to pay attention and care when you're already a discounted member of society... and those truly spoiled pot heads and sorority queens who don't vote... don't vote because they don't care. We are painted by the camera-friendly few. I'm aware lots of us were spoiled growing up, threw away good opportunities, like to party hard and have little responsibility, were slow starters on the path to maturity, and like video games, email, and frappacinos, but that doesn't mean we're worthless. Don't loop the rest of us into this crotch-showing, sex-tape-making, coke-snorting, binge-shopping tribe of haveitalls. Don't make this mistake, because you'll discount us even before we've had a chance to prove anything. People become what you expect of them... and if you let us be represented by the small portion of losers that are the most visible then you will suffer the consequences of the Paris Hiltons and the Lindsay Lohans getting and doing anything they want because you never put faith enough into the rest of us who might have been able to stand against them and change the world.
I thought the YouTube debates were a step in the right direction. Show the tech-savvy generation that they, too, can be a part of the process. You don't have to donate a hundred thousand dollars to ask a presidential candidate a question, all you have to have is a digital webcam and a thought process. They're still going to poke fun at this side of the population. We're still going to make stupid videos that people cram to the internet's unconstrained peephole to laugh at. We're still probably not going to show up in record numbers at the polls and we still probably would rather spend Friday night watching reruns of the Simpsons than sit around at the town hall meeting. But this is the right direction. This, through the backdoor of insane corporate sponsorship, gave us a quiet but resonating voice. This shed light that some of us do think about these issues even if we're not the first ones to volunteer for a fundraising bake sale.
We gather our information in a whole new way. We choose what we think is true and factual by seeing five different reports/videos/podcasts about the same issue instead of hearing it on Fox News at 7am for a sixty second blip and assuming it's true. We videotape everything and when you fuck up and say Macaca we'll be there to spread it to half the country before you can say "Oppsies!". After 2006 it is nearly impossible to say that we don't contribute. We may not believe that our one vote counts as much more than an antiquated symbol of American freedoms to please the corporate puppetmasters in ensuring our complacency. We might even be conspiracy theorists claiming that 9/11 was an inside job and I have the clay models exactly to scale in my basement. You might not even hear about some of the brilliant works we've authored because the world wide web is so big you could never run across all of our accomplishments, but we run in circles. Think of the internet as one giant conversation and we're all talking to each other and finding niches and seeking out abilities that are complimentary to a specific goal in mind. We're working together even when it just feels like we're playing around. There are the older crowds that have bought into some of the bigger spaces, but it is vastly consumed by the twenty-somethings. We point out liars to the best of our abilities, we catch fools in the act and exploit them for our own popularity mixed with the need to call a spade a spade, and we are passionate about things the older generations have even yet to understand their future impact. We believe in something bigger than ourselves and though we may not slap a religion on it and govern our joy by ten commandments, but instead pay homage to the Punk Rock dieties that be, doesn't mean there isn't something spiritual in the way we feel the music. We stay in coffee houses or the local IHOP or the taco bell parking lot until 3 in the morning but the mass majority of it is just talking and sharing and trying to find optimism even if it's for a few hours. We are selfish but we also realize a community at work and there is hope in that.
There is hope in us. There is hope that the next YouTube debate will be even better and more real than the first. There is hope that even aside from our quiet and virtual movement inside the wires, we'll vote and we'll make a difference. There is hope for the next generations as long as you keep believing in us, and I think this debate was the first acknowledgement of our unaccredited power. Does anyone know the name of the guy who shot the Macaca video? Does anyone know the true identities of the bloggers that volunteered to root through the thousands of files in the email dump the White House flopped on a Friday afternoon that ended up paving the way for the investigation and thereby the contempt charges that are about to be filed on Harriett Miers?
Our reasons for doing things may not be for the noble cause, maybe it's just because it's fun and we enjoy it... but that doesn't take away from the fact that we're still doing it. Don't discount us just because our contributions are often anonymous. Keep doing things like YouTube Debates. Keep talking about it because it's YOUR voice that keeps programs on televisions and dictates what the high news hours are filled with. You contribute to those things without even knowing it, so keep talking about it. We're still kids. We still need the encouragement and the pep talks and the pushing and prodding to do good things, you're our moms and dads and that's what you're supposed to be for. When we were in school you never failed to do good and go the extra mile, so why would you stop? Just keep pushing and eventually we'll learn how to balance and pedal at the same time all by ourselves. And one day we'll be able to smile and astonish you by saying...
Look Ma, No hands.
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