“I don’t get why young people today are such pussies. Turn over a car- why don’t you?”
(That's a picture of John Waters- you get the idea) Not to be a traitor to my generation (which anyone who knows me, knows I blatantly am), but I couldn’t agree more. What happened to the days of the youth running riot? Standing up for something? Protesting? Defacing private property? Being anarchic opinionated brats?
Our government wants to increase military spending at a time when there is no real threat yet we are set to face the worst economic crisis most of us will see in our lifetimes (paradoxically the whole military spending fad only raises tension in the Asia-pacific area). Australia may soon be run by one of the few governments in the western world which unconditionally censors and monitors the public’s internet usage. I’m pretty sure that that’s a concept which usually washes in countries such as, oh I don’t know, communist china maybe? The European Union is pledging to cut emissions by 20%, whereas our government is revoking election promises of making major emissions cuts and has instead decided to cough up a mere 5%. We are looking at a very real global environmental melt down in the near future; unfortunately, the politicians of today who still won’t take it seriously will be long dead by the time we’re all decked out in our designer oxygen masks.
We’ve hardly even scraped the surface of scum directly affecting us, though: What about 3am Lock outs? What about alco-pop taxes? What about extra university fees? What about that little kerfuffle in Iraq? Does anyone else see a problem with the shit and fuckery we’re lapping up without question here? Am I some kind of crazy person?
Somehow the onus to stand up to all these things continues to fall on people like the ones who were out there protesting ‘nam and dropping acid the first time around. What’s the best our generation has come up with? Make a facebook group about it? Wow- Achievement! There’s an island of garbage floating in the Pacific Ocean twice the size of Texas, when I found out about this I rushed to face book, joined an “awareness” group and sent invitations urging all my friends to do the same ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch ). There I waited smugly as the notifications multiplied, congratulating me on signing up x number of people. But guess what? That island of trash and plastic and nappies is still out there and it’s only getting bigger. See, the point of spreading awareness is so that more people know of a problem and are subsequently driven to action. Yet this is where we fall short. We’re all fabulously “aware” of many things, yet no one is DOING much about them.
I raised the issue whilst out to coffee with a friend of mine at sassafras in Paddington. We lamented the inactivity of our generation as we were swooped by the resident bird population that anyone familiar with the cafe dines in fear of. University students have recently been forced to pay an extra $200 a year in fees, “If it were my parent's generation, they’d be chaining themselves naked to the gates of the university!”, my friend declared. There we sat- a mixture of gloat and sympathy towards the other young punters who were clearly ignorant of the infinite wisdom being dispensed at our table. Really though, no one was getting naked yet and no one was getting chained to any gates in the near future either. Who could blame us though? When was the last time you saw someone of our generation take a stand who DIDN’T have dread locks and an aversion to bathing?
