Activism

The Inaugural Post.

By Maegan Carberry ⋅ March 2, 2008 ⋅   Email this post ⋅  Digg This ⋅  Share on Facebook ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

Standing in the disco-70s “TV room” of a dilapidated Hollywood apartment building for seniors on SuperTuesday while casting my vote for Barack Obama, I couldn’t help but think of Thomas Jefferson riding in a horse-drawn carriage, stopping to kiss little colonial babies on one of those early, literal campaign trails. Perhaps in TJ’s context, despite the puke-colored carpet and unmistakable smell of sardines, the assembly of hipsters casting ballots would have been considered progress. At the very least, he would probably have been impressed with the advances in breast augmentation and the invention of Aviator sunglasses; but I was not.

As the guy in front of me tried fruitlessly to jam his ballot into a contraption that resembled a Special Edition Electoral Pac Man (we checked for hanging chads!), I marveled at the fact that even though I can TiVo election debates and question the merits of Campbell Brown’s moderating skills with pals on Blackberry messenger while monitoring viewer responses on Facebook, I still had to attend a Shuffle Board convention just to cast my vote on paper.

This disconnect is one push-pull of many at the end of an era. And it is the end of something in America, because as voter turnout specifics trickle out this primary season, it’s clear that we Spoiled Millennials are stepping up to the plate to take our place as the new leaders of society. (Sorry to all those middle-managers whose big plans for promotions and beige houses and golden retrievers are being thwarted by those little text-messaging twirps and their grandiose ideas.)

I’ve started this blog because there are questions no one has sufficiently answered. Why are the future resources available to my peers and I being squandered in Iraq? How will technology change the right to privacy in my lifetime? Will I drown when the Polar Ice caps melt? Is someone ever going to teach impoverished children math and science or keep funneling them into the Army? Will traditional media outlets learn to generate thoughtful news or continue to recycle the same tired, sensational sound bites that fuel public disillusionment? Will China own America in 2020? How will we reinstate the credibility of American ideals and display true global leadership? Are my friends going to keep calling me at midnight in the midst of quarter-life crises trying to find meaning and motivation in a mess of uncertainty?

In many instances where there have been opportunities to evolve, I’ve seen people/industries/processes clutch gravity with their collective fingernails.

But we are a generation that refuses to accept conventional thinking and submit to antiquated systems. We Google the things we don’t know. We got 5s on all our AP tests and went to Stanford. We were the captains of militant soccer teams since conception. We were not impressed with the suits at our first jobs and got written up in performance reviews for being instigators. We quit said jobs because they weren’t innovative enough. Our activism is electronic. Many of us are Hope-mongers because we’re sick of uninspired leadership.

And now we’re a force to be reckoned with.

It’s a fallacy that we are disengaged. I’ve met so many amazing people who are organizing to improve our collective American experience, and their efforts deserve to be showcased as a springboard for thoughtful discourse and a glimmer of inspiration. In this blog I hope to share such stories and respond to some of these troubling questions with solution-oriented answers.