#generational rage

I don’t want to be angry anymore.

i have generation rage inside me for all the women who still have to fight today.

A college professor I had, a man who came of age in the 1960's, once told me that he thought what his generation objected to about the Vietnam War wasn't war on principle, the way the pacifist movement of that time is now portrayed. What they resented was the fact that their elders had given them a "bad war." He thought if they had gotten a "good war," like World War II, most of them would have been fine with that. After 16 years of war in Afghanistan, it's a discussion that haunts me a little more every day. I was 15 when 9/11 happened and the US dived head-first into war without a moment's hesitation. At that age, I had long since learned that adults didn't believe most of the shit they told kids about morality and ethics and two wrongs not making a right, so it wasn't really a surprise that the "Give Peace a Chance" hippie nostalgia I'd been brought up on was just as disingenuous. Still, there was a sting that came with it, because I genuinely believed (and still do) that war is almost never the answer to international disputes, and was certainly not the answer in this case. There was another angle to that sting too, though, because in the case of the anti-war movement, the history books were full of material evidence that my elders really had believed in pacifism, at least back then. I had to wonder, what had happened? Had they changed? How was this Bad War different from their Bad War? A year and change later, when the US invaded Iraq, a move that was clearly even more sketchy and dishonest than the invasion of Afghanistan, that was based on obvious lies and no material evidence of any danger, there were a few token stirrings of protest. I watched a few of my neighbors voice their quiet, passive Midwestern opposition with signs politely held on street corners, but there wasn't any kind of substantive movement. My high school class organized a "walk out" to protest. I asked some of the kids who were involved, "What are we going to do? March to the Statehouse? Block the street?" No, we were just going to stand outside the school, maybe hold up a few signs. All of it together was little enough for President Bush to dismiss on national TV as "irrelevant." And the Baby Boomers, so proud of their self-described role in ending the Vietnam War through protest, were still decidedly behind him. Now, with the Baby Boomers still forming the dominant base of the political status quo and a corporate media culture that creams itself with delight every time the government bombs somebody, anybody at all, I think I finally get why that remark by my professor strikes me as so relevant. I don't think the Baby Boomers have ever been anti-war in any kind of general sense, and their opposition to the Vietnam War had more to do with their own cultural mythology about themselves than their overall feelings about warfare itself. If anything, I think the Baby Boomers have always loved the idea of war. They grew up on their parents' and grandparents' stories about the two World Wars and the righteous glory and sacrifice popularly attributed to them. To hear my professor tell it, his generation wanted a Good War almost more than anything else in the world. Being given a Bad War felt like a betrayal to them, not just because of the death and destruction and trauma it left behind, but because it could not fit with their persistent need, as a generation, to be the Best At And Most Deserving Of Absolutely Everything. That mythology, of the Baby Boomers as The Very Best (Like No One Ever Was) has come to be far more visible to my generation, the Millennials, than any anti-war sentiment they might ever have held. For us, they have long since ceased to be the anti-war generation as they occupy themselves daily howling out the hollow mythology of their own inherent superiority. They do this to the point that all of the successes of my generation, our progress toward frugality and environmentalism and away from the allure of capitalism, must be phrased as failures through comparison to them. Reduced reliance on fossil fuel? "Why Aren't Millennials Buying Cars?" Disinterest in corporate chain retail and food service that treats its workers like shit? "Millennials Are Killing Applebee's." Finding happiness while rejecting materialism? "Why Aren't Millennials Buying Diamond Engagement Rings?" Their need to be the best is so all-consuming that they have to turn shitting on their own children into a full-time occupation just to keep us from outshining them. And I don't think this twisting of the narrative to suit their pride started with us, either. When I remember what my professor told me, about his generation's resentment over getting a Bad War, I think they did this with Vietnam too. Because they couldn't stand to be fighting a Bad War while their elders had gotten such a very, very Good War, they had to twist the narrative so that war itself was bad, and their opposition to that war was more righteous than anything anyone else had ever done. I think many people really did believe in pacifism, and the culture of the time gave the true believers the opportunity for a lot of good work and progress which we have all benefited from. But on the whole, I don't think very many of the participants really believed it on a core level; war, to them, was only bad insofar as it allowed them to claim a moral high-ground over people who otherwise would have been and done better than them. There's no way to prove this, of course, but look at the way the same people exist in our culture today. Millennials, with our increased interest in inclusivity and fighting oppression, are faced with a massive backlash by our elders against "PC culture" that they swear is nothing more than us "trying to make them feel guilty" and "wanting to feel like we're better than them." Which, I mean, they would know. And then there's our invasion of Afghanistan, the longest continuous military engagement in US history, which they have never been anything but fond of. Anyway I hope everyone enjoyed the eclipse.

Bumper sticker: "I, too, was once an honor student"

i hope you don’t mind me posting this publicly.  i want it on my blog.