Apoc-Election 2012

Stop feeling sorry for yourself, young America. You feel that the world has done you wrong because you’re unemployed and you can’t pay off your college debts. You shout with the ninety-nine percent on your way out of Starbucks about the greed of corporations and/or the liberal elite. You talk with your friends in hushed tones about the foolishness of social movements or the greed of immigrants over a bottle of beer made in Mexico by a unionized company. You aren’t going to vote because there’s nobody worth your time; you don’t write to Congress because you don’t want to be part of a corrupt system.

Guess what, 18-to-30 demographic. If your politics are about you, you’re doing it wrong. Treat your college education like the privilege it is and use it to analyze the barrage of information you receive every day. Put your energy into raising money for scholarship funds for those for whom higher education isn’t a given next step, who didn’t party with you in college because their booze money went to help pay their parents’ bills. If you’re unemployed and living in your parents’ basement, drag yourself away from the blogosphere and volunteer for an organization that is doing good for the world. You may be the 99% in the U.S., but by virtue of living here, you are the 1% of the global population. The hungry/sick/trafficked/abused/pick-your-cause are left in the great wake of your privilege, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

There is a lot in this country to be mad about, twenty-somethings. We are a generation whose nature is idealism, and the frightening state of national and international politics chip away at that resolve. I’m jaded too; the $5 given to each of a dozen causes I cared about have resulted in a flurry of emails that hit my inbox every week telling me about the refugee/sick child/poor family/poached whale that will be helped if I dig a little deeper, and I’ve become inured. The news is a flurry of soundbites from policymakers who have forgotten the difference between principles and ideology. The bickering is grating – I’d rather listen to the new Glee soundtrack too. But it will never go away until we find our voice.

That is the reason to bother. For the first time in decades, 20-somethings voted in 2008, and they voted hard. Politicians began to wake up to the thought that allowing retirees to control their agenda wouldn’t work forever. We got expanded healthcare coverage, (briefly) extended Pell grants, and an end to segregation on the basis of sexuality for our country’s largest employer. Don’t let them get away with retrenching the gains that we – and frankly, folks smarter and more dedicated than we – have gained. Call the national campaign committee of your party and ask how you can organize the vote, or hell, run for office. You matter, as much as you fear and hope. Live up to it.

Eagles

(Note to the children in the audience. This blog post uses a word derived most likely from a Swedish word meaning to strike or push. If this is a problem for your interwebz censors, stop reading.)

I am pretentious as hell. (I don't know if you noticed with my last post on gerunds.) I walk around using phrases like "spring term" and "to wit" because I read the Chronicles of Narnia too many times as a child and apparently think I'm an upper-crust British lass.

That said, there are brief (but all-too-frequent) moments when I grow perversely, irrationally irate and full of patriotic fervor. These are the moments when some very nice person full of personhood and valuable values walks down the street (or, say, the terminal in the Honolulu Airport), minding his/her/zer own business, imbued with different cultural norms than those with which I was raised. As a result, this person walks down the left side of the street. My immediate reaction, particularly upon encountering this person face-to-face at all-too-little distance, is to mentally shout, "THIS IS AMURRICA, GARDANGIT!"

BALD EAGLE!

AMERICAN CULTURAL HEGEMONY!

For the love of all that is holy, walk down the right -- both right-hand and correct -- side of whatever throughway you are traveling.

Then I calm down and realize that this is foolish. After all, these persons are simply locomoting to someplace just as important as I, and why should my cultural spacial norms prevail? CUZ THIS IS 'MURRICA! Okay, whoo, I calmed down.

Enough to wonder: Do you suppose that the eagle is embarrassed with that name?

 "The correct term is not bald. It's receding hairline. Asshole."

On that same subject, the eagle is also probably pretty pissed about being exploited in every advertising item sent out by the Tea Party EVER ( "I AM THE TEA PARTY." ).

"HEY your people want to cut environmental funding - which has kept me alive - ENTIRELY. So fuck you, you patriotic fucks. I don't even LIKE tea."