My Generation...

What will be the legacy of my generation? This question has been plaguing me for quite a while now. I’ve been reading the interviews in the recent issue of Rolling Stone, celebrating the magazine’s fortieth anniversary, and I’ve began too wonder. I’ve began to worry. The interviews include George McGovern, Jane Fonda, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, former president Jimmy Carter, and many more icons from the sixties and seventies. They talk a lot about the counter culture of the 1960’s and the social issues plaguing the United States and the world during that time. Desegregation, women rights, fighting for the Vietnam War, and recreating America’s culture were all accomplishments of this generation. The baby boomers, or hippies, which ever you prefer, were vital instruments in retaining our nation’s democratic ideals that were threatening to disappear. They fought for what they believed. They fought hard. Hard enough that most of their ideals and accomplishments are still in place today.

It’s the recent crisis’ plaguing our great country and world at the moment that has me so worried. Not just worried, but terrified! I’m terrified for the world I will leave behind for my children and their children. Will I really stand by and allow these horrible things to continue? Will I allow them to take shape forever corrupting my offspring’s future? I am optimistic that I will stand against the foes that our currently plaguing our society. Global warming, the corrupt criminals sitting within the Bush Administration, and the recent drought-fueled genocide taking place within Darfur are just a few of these foes. Why are we not fighting?

My generation, both college and high school students, is not adequately standing for our country’s beliefs. We are allowing ourselves to be lied too. We are ourselves to harm our environment. We are standing by as thousands of people are being slaughtered daily on the African continent. Do we not care? Or are there just too many problems for us to choose a cause?

I look back at the young Americans of the 1960’s am I find myself inspired. I am inspired by their determination. I am inspired by their involvement. They saw our democratic state in shambles and fought to repair it. What has happened to that spirit? As we see record low poll numbers on Bush’s approval rating, and that of the Iraq War, we are, at the same time, seeing few individuals stepping up to publicly proclaim their disapproval of Bush and his administration.

As I looking back at the reign of King George II, I suppose he has accomplished one thing. He has succeeded in keeping our country subdued against using our First Amendment rights against him and his fellow criminal posse. “You’re unpatriotic!” I have heard that statement proclaimed somewhat loosely lately as though we have forgotten what the word PATRIOTIC actually means. Isn’t the right to question and protest our country’s authoritative figures what our fellow Americans are currently fighting for in Iraq? Is that not the ideal our country was founded on? If I remember my history correctly, I believe that is correct.

Stand up!! We are allowing our true “morals” and “values” to disappear into oblivion. We owe to our children’s future to fight these tyrants around the world.

With that, I return to my original question. What will be my generation’s legacy? What will we leave behind for our offspring? At our current state it will most likely be a very scary world for them to live in. With no chance to flourish in society, civilizations, much as the current crisis in Darfur, will begin to crumble under the strain and consequences of global warming, and democracy in the United States of America will no longer exist. That will be the outcome brought on our silence. We will be remembered as the SILENT GENERATION… I must say that the idea terrifies me. I do not want my generation to be looked upon by future generations as the generation that allowed America’s democracy too die.