No Minced Words: Millennial’s Open Letter to the Worst Generation, Pt 2
by Will Nichols, a Millennial
Clash Daily Guest Contributor
And then there’s what you did with the media. You must have buried investigative journalism in the same hole you buried black intellectualism because I see no signs of it. Can you give me the address and a shovel? The world could use both. The Pulitzer Prize has degenerated into a pat on the back for irrational and self-promoting (and perhaps even paid foreign agent) propagandists/activists disguised as journalists like Glenn Greenwald for promoting narcissistic, sociopathic Benedict Arnolds like Edward Snowden as if they were whistleblowers. Take a look at Edward Snowden’s appearances on Russian state propaganda TV station Russia Today and take a look at the national security secrets he’s given to our enemies and tell me with a straight face that he’s a whistleblower.
Snowden defecting to a mafia-run police state over NSA practices is like a child running from a parent who snuck a peak in their diary out of love and concern and jumping into the arms of a convicted child molester. You can talk to Mom about her possibly misguided overprotection without bringing the creepy guy in the van into this. We have freedom of speech in this country after all, unlike in Russia. Not even in Darth Cheney’s wildest Neocon bondage and waterboard loving dark side of the force fever did he enable the NSA or any other agency to do a tenth of the surveillance and rounding up of political undesirables that goes on every day in Putin’s Russia.
But back to the mess you’ve made of the media. Instead of a genuine quest for the truth, Worst Generation editors and journalists merely report propaganda talking points from both sides of the aisle and call it a day. Even worse, the trend now is for cable television stations to become actual propaganda arms of political parties, letting viewers decide which conclusion they want all the facts fudged around. Frankly, if you had any balls, your generation would discontinue all awards for journalism like the Pulitzer until ethics and the pursuit of the truth return to the field.
And why is it that the American people believe their children are going to be shot if they go to school when they are a hundred times more likely to die in a car accident and crime has actually consistently been going down the last few decades? Oh, that’s right. It’s because the Worst Generation media figured out they can get more advertising money from terrifying viewers by giving month-long wall-to-wall coverage of freak, anomalous events like school shootings to keep them watching and thus drive up their Nielsen Ratings. Edward R. Murrow would be proud. Not only have you made Worster parents scared to let their kids play outside over things statistically about as likely to affect them as a meteor to the head, you’ve also made deranged lunatics into celebrities, thereby inspiring other deranged lunatics to do the same.
Now let’s move on to the havoc you Worsters wreaked on our politics and finances. Never one to stick to your guns, you are hippies that became yuppies, further proving that your glorious 1960s were more about being lazy and getting high than delusional utopian politics. Conservative used to mean thinking with your head on behalf of your heart about long term, five moves ahead, chess game methods of bettering everyone’s lot. Now you’ve made it mean denying modern science and pandering to ignorance and fear. Liberal used to mean concern for those less fortunate. Now it means, “I don’t like guns and I’m not sure what else I believe, but I’m not quite as crazy and have read a few more books than those to the right of me.” Pitiful.
And because your generation has no cojones, the politicians you send us are scared to say a word or even make a facial expression without checking with the focus group political consulting racket. No wonder they all act like androids programmed to sell used cars. How about a few of them take a risk and just be themselves on stage? Again, the biggest payoffs can only come from taking risks, a memo the Worst Generation apparently never received. And I would like to congratulate all of you on creating the least popular Congress in American history.
And don’t even get me started on your generation’s foreign policy disasters. George H.W. Bush, a World War II hero and card-carrying member of the Greatest Generation, quietly tore down the Berlin Wall and defeated the Soviets and World Communism as he ran Reagan’s foreign policy from behind the scenes and continued to run it in his one term as president. Indeed, Poppy Bush may actually be the only politician of the Twentieth Century who accomplished far more than he took credit for. The norm for Worst Generation politicians is exactly the reverse. Why didn’t you give him a second term? Apparently, he didn’t have his baby kissing technique down as well as Bill Clinton did.
And what did your two subsequent Worst Generation presidents do with America’s unique opportunity as the world’s sole superpower? They squandered it. Clinton neutered our intelligence services in a bizarre and misguided victory lap and W. Bush war mongered in the Middle East and Central Asia like a rabid dog to no avail, only to have totalitarian criminal mafia state Russia and boot stamping on a human face China catch up and balance against us. Sixteen years of American supremacy wasted by the Worst Generation as they then presided over the worst financial collapse since the Great Depression. Now President Obama, an older edge of Generation Xer, is left to pick up the pieces. At least he’s trying.
Is there hope for your children, the Millennials? What will their legacy be? As much as you’ve tried to ruin them by treating marriage as the new dating with skyrocketing divorce rates and broken homes, giving them trophies just for trying and expelling them from school for making a pistol shape with their thumb and forefinger and medicating them for just being kids, they may very well surprise you and greatly surpass you. Indeed, as a twenty-seven year-old Millennial myself, I hope they do. And, um, it’s not a very tough act to follow.
I hope my generation uses their parents’ model as what NOT to do and looks back to their grandparents instead and restores to the public consciousness traits like patriotism, heroism, sanity, loyalty, and the courage to take noble risks. I hope my generation says, “Mom, Dad, I love you, but you blew it, and when we look to our elders for advice, it will be from Grandma and Grandpa, not from you.”
I hope my generation matures beyond “selfies” and Facebook public navel gazing and rids the world of the last gasps of tyrannical governance in Russia, China, and the police states of the Third World. And I hope we don’t do it by war mongering and nation-building, but instead by covert action, economic warfare, currency manipulation, and enlightening the world with the internet, all without firing a shot or occupying a single square foot. I also hope we learn to truly appreciate the freedoms we have as Americans and not take them for granted like our parents did. I hope my generation rejects the Worster model of the internet as online shopping and porn and turns it into international cooperation, mutual understanding, and enlightenment spread across all people on this planet. I hope, like the Greatest Generation, we do far more than we take credit for and don’t demand fifteen minutes in the limelight to gloat about it. You’ve given us the worst job market to graduate from college into, but maybe that will help us build character that you never had. And after all, you Worsters are T.V. babies who grew up lulled into a mindless stupor by passively sitting in front of the television. We Millennials are computer babies, inspired and challenged by the opportunities to learn and do in active engagement with the internet. I wouldn’t bet against us. Advertising jingles were your lullabies. We block our pop-up ads.
Indira Gandhi, a card-carrying member of India’s Greatest Generation, once said, “There are two kinds of people in this world; those who do the work and those who take the credit. Be in the first group, there’s less competition there.” Maybe the same can be said of generations. While the Greatest Generation did the work, the Worst Generation wasted all their time taking the credit. To my fellow Millennials, I say let’s all vow to roll up our sleeves and do the work. And if we’re looking for a symbol to inspire us, dear God please don’t let it be a treasonous clown like Edward Snowden. Exposing and stopping genuine corruption are patriotic pursuits we Millennials should embrace. Handing secrets to our enemies and defecting to police states are not.
And I’ve got one last message for the Worst Generation: You are a generation of cowards and blowhards, credit takers and blame shifters, attention seekers and empty suits, draft dodgers and chicken hawks and Play-It-Safe-ers and I’m Too Scared-ers and Kick-The-Can-Down-The-Road-ers and The-Buck-Stops-Over-There-ers. As you begin to head off to pasture, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Sincerely,
Will Nichols, a Millennial
Image: Courtesy of: http://mipropiadecadencia.blogspot.com/2011/05/las-influencias-sociales-vencen-la.html
