I've never understood the people who think Friedman is brilliant. He's always struck me as someone who pulls his material out of his ass.

Don't know if you're old enough to remember this one, Amy, but his "Generation Q" nonsense brought to mind the old Lily Tomlin Laugh In bit, "I'm Susie Sorority from the Silent Majority. Rah."

Don't remember it (we weren't allowed to watch TV), but Lily is my homegirl (from Detroit).

He did make a lazy little try on this one -- "Generation Q"? Oh, please.

Wait a minute. There IS an important social factor involved here.

"Sloganeering", used by a great many publicists to heighten awarenes of issues such as worklace safety, carries with it a huge disadvantage: it makes the audience think they have actually done something, when all they did really was move their mouth-parts repeating the slogan (there's a great story about Ford Motor Co's safety program being exposed as a sham in front of company pres Petersen, but I digress).

The short story is that once somebody has vented on a forum or blog, or even in an e-mail, they've discharged whatever angst has driven them. Thus, their concerns don't get to their representative, at any level.

Further, on-line entry does not force the poster to propose a solution, educate themselves about the issue - they don't even have to form sentences. How is a "public servant" to get a coherent message from that (an assortment of blogs), or establish that a unified force of activism exists?

The Quiet Americans? What would Graham Greene say?

The Quiet American sounds like a vacuum cleaner.

And are protest marches and Cindy Sheehan-type stagings really effective for making change?

> Kennedy didn’t change the
> world by asking people to
> join their Facebook crusades

Some of us don't think Bobby Kennedy changed the world, and to whatever extent he did, we're not impressed.

> once somebody has vented on
> a forum or blog, or even in
> an e-mail, they've discharged
> whatever angst

What are lefties fascinated by expression of emotion? But he's wrong on the larger point: Ideas aren't spread only by a decisive voice at the top of the mountain... Nobody can hear you through the wind, anyway. Rhetoric does its best work down in the valley, where everyone's bumping into each other and catching fragments of persuasion from passersby. People are reading all these blogs and challenging each other in ongoing scuffles. Political influence doesn't just happen through the single-warrior combat of the op-ed page.

Hitchens once pointed out that nobody ever makes the same argument twice. (Friedman may be an expection to this rule: We'll know by April.) Tiny little adjustments are made to wording, and recent challenges to an argument are given defense in the new presentation. Each person on the web is doing this, and Friedman's just annoyed that he'll be expected to remember all their names.

Newspapers are dying. To a certain extent (but not including the bottom line), the NYT Times is protected from these irresistible trends, and probably won't cease publication outright. But if you're a Friedman or one of his cronies and you like to meet your buddies at the watercooler to complain about how tough life is, you trade bullshit daydreams with each other about leaving the stressful life and moving to Maine or Oregon to work on some much smaller newspaper. An important component to the fantasy is that having working for the NYT, you'll be received with open arms... What little newspaper could turn down an experienced (if pricey and cantankerous) talent such as yourself?

Well, it turns out publishers of the Eugene Register-Guard have their choice of gifted writers who not only work cheap, but have all kinds of experience writing for the desired audience (including opinion pieces), and will come in without a chip on their shoulder in the bargain.

"...America needs a jolt of the idealism, activism and outrage (it must be in there) of Generation Q. That’s what twentysomethings are for — to light a fire under the country."

Most people in their 20s don't know a damn thing, let's be honest. I sure didn't, and the ones I speak today also don't. First, they have no historical perspective on anything, thanks to our schools, and second, they really haven't had time to do anything in a big way and learn from their mistakes, and third, they really have no clue how the world works. The real source of a lot of their outrage is that they just entered "the real world" and are finding things a lot harder and a lot less forgiving than the coddling they grew up with.

And these are the people Friedman wants to lead the country?

Baby boomers always think that the 1960s are what everything else should be measured against.

If I hear one more boomer go on and on (and on and on and on...) about how cool they were back then, I'm going to puke.

It's nothing but nostalgia masquerading as political commentary.

All you have to do to be an activist is get off your big jiggly ass and do something. (Of course, it helps if you know a thing or two before you start flailing around.)

I talked with the teacher yesterday who's helping me get this inner city schools program off the ground (where people who are successful, but not stratospherically so, go talk about what they do and the methodical steps it took to get there). The teacher said they're a little behind because they had a flood, but we should be doing the first talk (mine) within a month, hopefully sooner.

André-Tascha Lammé, my favorite bleeding-heart capitalist, has offered to do a website.

My plan is to talk myself the first time, Gregg is going to record it, and then post my talk and have two weeks of blog-style Q&A with the kids, which will then be archived.

I will interview the people who talk next, as some are not that accomplished at public speaking, although they have stuff of value to say.

The website will encourage people to "steal this idea" for their own city/town/area, and will offer directions for doing that.

People in their 20s should read and listen and shut up until they have something worthwhile to say. I wish I could go back and give myself that advice, but I hereby apologize to anybody who had to listen to me between 20 and 27, when I was at my most vocal and insufferable. (Yes, worse than now!)

I wish I could go back and give myself that advice, but I hereby apologize to anybody who had to listen to me between 20 and 27, when I was at my most vocal and insufferable.

See, I was too busy playing music (a lot, a lot lot), doing lots of drugs and fucking, to be all that opinionated back then. I limited my expression to my music, usually the only opinions I offered, were along the lines of; "lets be nicer to each other and stop being such assholes." I have since of course, become an asshole, so I guess the whole not knowing anything was probably fairly accurate. Though I do think it would help if we were nicer to each other.

Yep, I was right there with DuWayne - sex and drugs and rock and roll, was really all I cared about at that age. I didn't see all the excessive nastiness that people were perpetrating until the late '80s, at which time I was still involved with music and sex, but not so much the drugs any more. I hated cocaine, and the more prevalent cocaine use was, the nastier the people who used it were. The peace-loving hippies got overpowered by the "me, me, me, it's all about ME!" yuppies and preppies. We still need to be nicer to each other, but it's hard to get that idea across to so many nasty people, who don't give a rat's ass about anybody other than themselves.

In my 20's, I had a chance to vote for the ERA & didn't. The memory of Viet Nam was too recent and I just plain didn't want to have to worry about getting drafted for the next idiotic war. Oy, hindsight! Hell, I didn't even vote at all for that matter until I was 29 (which makes most of today's kids much more conscientious than I was at their age when I sat back and reaped the rewards of the 60's activism.) But yeah, my biggest concerns were what disco to go to on the weekend and though I never drank let alone do drugs, I partied with one hell of a lot of people who did and was more concerned about music, my hair and clothes than I was issues. I've grown up since then.

"I noticed at Auburn and Ole Miss more than a few young men and women proudly wearing their R.O.T.C. uniforms."

Funny how the very example he uses to cite youthful apathy is that of young people taking a very definite action on their young beliefs (joining R.O.T.C.)

Putting on a tie-dyed t-shirt and blocking traffic is not vocalizing a political opinion, it is disorderly conduct in the hope of having recreational sex with other hooligans (I should know.)

These kids are only quiet in Friedman's eyes because they are not spouting his line and following in his sandalled footsteps.

I felt Cindy Sheehan hurt the left's cause. Her cause, after a while, seemed to be Cindy Sheehan more than anything else.

:::earworm alert:::

One generation got old
One generation got soul
This generation got no destination to hold

I volunteered for the revolution when I was younger. They said they'd keep my resume on file.

That's very funny.

Condolences.

I didnt know that all those people that dont vote, in any election, are all in their 20's.

In a way, Friedman is right. I have not yet seen the power of the blogosphere win or lose an election. There have been some political triumphs, true, such as Dan Rather's unceremonious retirement. But remember the Ned Lamont fiasco? When Joe Leiberman, running as an independent, won the election for Senator from Connecticut, the DailyKos notwithstanding? I think that bloggers are increasing in their influence, and this should be not be disregarded. But still, a Code Pink manifestation gets the (equally pinko, imo) press, even if no one identifies with them either (and how could anyone, honestly?). Blogosphere rumblings are not very much covered by the nightly news or the MSM, which is still the medium of choice for the majority of voters.

I remember when the protest came back in style, back during the WTO meeting in Seattle years ago. I thought that this kind of direct street action was cool, being an 80s chick who missed all that. Now, alas, I think that most protesters are incredibly stupid, in that they make coalitions with anybody who seems slightly antiestablishment, and any message they might have is completely diffuse and just a big fuck you to anyone trying to get by.

So I don't really see how demonstrations are going to do much either. For example, both the demonstrators and the bloggers love Ron Paul. The only way that RP will run for president is as an independent, and he will be lucky if he gets over 3 percent, no matter what the demonstrations, or the bloggers, might lead you to believe. Ron Paul is too dangerous to be taken seriously by the entrenched powers that be.

I dunno, I think that most people think that hippies smell and bloggers are geeks. I hope that the latter gains more influence than the former, cause at least it means that we can not be hassled trying to get to work in the morning. But the grass roots has to seriously struggle, whether it is in the form of demonstrations or blogging. Shit, we have all the car commercials to compete with.

Hey liz, can I be the first to point out the irony of you posting a 350 word blog comment on how blogs aren't that big a deal?

Still, well said.

Winston said:
"Baby boomers always think that the 1960s are what everything else should be measured against.
If I hear one more boomer go on and on (and on and on and on...) about how cool they were back then, I'm going to puke.
It's nothing but nostalgia masquerading as political commentary."

THIS. Thank you, thank you for voicing something that I think every time I hear some wretched old opinion columnist say even the phrase "protests of the 1960's".

I think that the reason people aren't out there marching in the streets over everything is because they know it won't do any good. They'd get arrested for disorderly conduct, or ignored. And (as someone already mentioned), most protesters are morons. Their either looking for a fight (amazing how violent anti-war protesters can be) or looking to get laid. Lame.

As someone who is in their twenties and trying really hard to make up for the complete lack of education you get in high school & college, I see most of my generation feeling like we've already lost. None of our leaders seem to want genuine change. Partisan politics are all that matter to them, with no true goals other than to get power and maintain it. So who are you gonna protest to? Who's going to listen if you get up there and spout your outrage? Just another guy looking to take vacations on taxpayer dole.

In college I was taking a sociology class that focused on the generational differences in American society. The teacher is one of the louder liberal activists in the state (Bob Fitrakis). He would fondly talk about his generation (hippie) and how he'd protest all over the place, tie up his dean, picket, etc etc. During this time he was going to college on grants and scholarships (no loans), had a stipend, what that didn't cover was through food stamps and other tax-funded government sources. As he didn't have to provide for himself, he had plenty of time to protest.

We get to our generation. Most of us in the class worked one (some 2-3) jobs while in school full-time, and were either partially or fully paying for school through loans. We're much busier, and less likely to fill our schedules with fluff classes (since we're actually paying for them). These factors are covered in detail (along with the general antipathy Generation "X" is known for), and then ironically chastised by Bob for not being rabid activists like he was. Well gosh, if we had everything paid for and never had to work, we'd have the spare time, wouldn't we? Like celebrity activists, it's much easier to have pet projects like that when you don't work 40+ hours every week - plus 16-20 credit hours in a quarter.