To the youth of America, when I see you march with passion, determination, and faith, believing that you can make the world a better place, I am reminded of my generation when we were young.
We were children of the sixties.
We were full of hope and vision and certain that we were going to change the world and make it a better place, too. And the world did change with our generation. We gathered in great numbers making music that freed our souls. We ripped off the uniforms of conformity, exploded the conventions of identity, and made our religion love. We raised consciousness and liberated the oppressed.
But we did not succeed at everything.
We took to the streets to end a pointless, tragic war. But we did not win that battle. The war stretched on for too many years and 50,000 of our brothers and sisters perished and millions of innocent Vietnamese died without cause.
Our mission of transformation met setbacks.
Our heroes were shot or died at their own hands. Millions were sent to prison. The chemicals that opened up our minds and bodies began to enslave or numb us. Liberation movements met reactionary responses.
While believing we were classless and free, without noticing, we got co-opted by the system.
We became indulgent and self-absorbed. Then we fell for the lie that money would solve all of our problems. We went to school and got MBA’s where we learned that it was OK to exploit our fellow human beings to squeeze the last dollar for the almighty corporation. We lost our balance and life became less important than work.
We got older.
We cut our hair, bought suits, and listened nostalgically to the music of our youth, now just a soundtrack for a movie, barely remembering a time when we believed that there was a greater meaning to our lives.
This all played into the hands of the rich and powerful.
The cigarette and drug manufacturers killed us. The financiers stole from us. The oil barons choked and poisoned us. The police state beat, shot, and imprisoned us. The media lied to us. The churches raped us. Drink and entertainment, the opiates of the masses, were used to distract us while the oligarchs gathered more wealth and power for themselves. We worked for them, and became them.
Forgetting when we all danced to the same songs, we lost connection to each other.
The politicians appealed to our prejudices and our fears, blaming the “other” while the rich and powerful picked our pockets, crushed our unions, subjugating us, exploiting us, telling us there wasn’t enough to educate us, pay us a living wage, care for us in our old age, protect us if things went bad, and it was all the fault of the poor we once tried to defend against injustice.
And in our fear and distraction and numbness, we stood idly by, buying the bullshit, and just watched it happen.
We did nothing as the palaces of creativity came crumbling down and were replaced by imposing monuments to mammon.
Along the way, imperceptibly, as we grew fat on the sugar we were fed by our overlords, we lost touch with the idealistic dreamers we once were, when we were your age.
Instead of maintaining our commitment to growth and open-mindedness, we putrified, vitiated, and too many of us became corrupt.
The generation that was born in the summer of love, with all that promise, has reached its end as millions of my generation created the presidency of Donald Trump: a crook, a con man, incompetent, small-minded, greedy, selfish, and avaricious – everything we railed against when we took to the streets all those decades ago.
And an entire political party, the Republicans, also of my generation, have so lost touch with their moral center that they have thrown away the last remaining shred of integrity to support the worst President of the United States – ever.
In a word, we blew it.
Perhaps every generation says what I am about to say to you, to the next generation. Perhaps every new generation cannot hear the message and is doomed to repeat the mistakes that tragic humanity is destined to make.
Or maybe not. Please learn from our mistakes. If this terrible, terrible end for my generation can have some redeeming value, let it be that it serves as a cautionary tale for yours.
Don’t ever buy into the bullshit. Don’t ever lose the clear-eyed vision of youth. Don’t ever give up, or give in, no matter how much the bastards try to grind you down. Learn, learn, learn, seeking the truth, as if your life depends on it, because it does. Never surrender the vision, never lose your ideals, never shut up. Keep your hearts open no matter the disappointments and pain and fear. Love with everything you have.
My generation will soon be gone and we’re going to leave this fucked up world to you.
Please. Don’t blow it.