The International Writers Magazine: Reality Check

American Youth Movement - Fad or Voice? Occupy Wall St., Maintain a Presence • James Campion All you people in the streets from NYC to Chicago to Seattle and all points in between; when the signs come down and the chants die out and FOXNEWS and MSNBC are not frightened or titillated by you anymore, there is something you need to hear: Anger and protest only gets you so far, and in most cases it gets you nowhere.

Maybe at best it's something you can tell the kids or claim in a documentary 20 years from now that it actually had an effect on the course of events but really didn't. I'll assume people over the age of 25 have a basic understanding of what I'm talking about and thus are already guilty of repeated dumbness. You are, therefore, beyond retribution.
    However, to the youth; fists in the air, spitting mad about The Man, The System, The Rip-Off; I got you. I was there, a few times too many. I marched, sang, spoke and wrote up a storm and really, aside from the fleeting moments of blessed solidarity and being left with a strange hangover filled with the sense that I'd devoured an overload of empty ideological calories, it was a misguided binge.
    Yeah, it's the "piss on the status quo" thing. It's very sexy. It's why the Lefties love Che Guevara and Woody Guthrie and the Righties worship Ayn Rand and Douglas MacArthur, and why I graduated to Lenny Bruce, John Adams and Jesus; take down the elite, crush the unrighteous rule makers and blaze a new world order on their bones.
    I love that shit. It makes for great poetry and folk songs, but in the end you become another generation of statistics. That is unless you play the game -- and play it to win. And in order for this to take place, you have to matter, be counted, force a payback from those who use you for a few minutes, whether its through antiwar rhetoric, promises of better education or the vote-or-die/cyberspace shuck.
     That's what the hicks and the religious nuts and the elderly and the war hawks and the big business tycoons do; put the scare into politicians, buy them up, and make them do their bidding. This is why you're pissed, right? Yeah, they have the cash, the organization, the backbone, and as a result the voice, while your future is at best cloudy to dismal. We filled you up with all that Disney, American Dream, sporting life bullshit; study hard, eat your vegetables, say your prayers, and do an extra lap and the free market will beg to fit you into the machinery -- Gonna get yourself a fancy car, cool gadgets and a kicking apartment.
    That con is as old as the corner shell game or the lottery jive; plays on your sense of hope and seduces your pride. It is insidious and stupid and you should no longer buy it without organizing...for real.
    And please do not make this a political movement based on frayed crap like conservatism or liberalism. None of it works. Just look it up. See for yourself how this dumping ground of "isms" ultimately treated your forbearers. Study how the myopic thrill-seekers built this nation into a shameless superpower by not getting sidetracked with antiquated ideas of economic or social structure. That kind of recidivism gets you Jim Crow, Prohibition, John Birch, The Weather Underground or worse. What you need is to pool the youth concerns about the import of education, environment and what matters to you -- freedoms; sexual, intellectual and chemical, if need be.
    Focus. Organize. Demand. Conquer.
    The AARP, the NRA, the UAW, the Christians for Family blah blah blah, these people have titles and form petition groups and push agendas. This is how the shit goes down around here. Revolution? Ha! We joke about "Ready You Muskets" here all the time, but who has the stones to take up arms against the government? It's a costly and no-win endeavor, no matter how many times these brainless fucks scream about hording weapons to protect themselves against the government. This pitiable gaggle of dickless self-esteem beggars waving loaded penis substitutes just because mommy didn't hug them enough couldn't fight their way out of a PTA bake sale.
    But you know what? They get the vote out, make demands, and no matter how idiotic the cause, it works.
    You know why Social Security is considered the third rail of American politics? The elderly make it so. You know why every time someone's tit shows up on a Super Bowl halftime show, there are forty new FCC laws? The religious groups make it so. You know why any time someone farts in the Middle East your pals are being shipped over there? The Oil Companies make it so.
    You know how something becomes too big to fail?
    I dare you, bring up a new gun law or a tweak to abortion rights, and here come the gun types and the women groups.
   You're pissed because you are ignored. Well...
    Courted. Coddled. Exploited. Ignored. Mocked. Roused and then passed over.
    This is the history of the youth vote in this nation since the Baby Boom, and especially since the expansion of the voter base to 18 years old. Suckered and screwed first by Nixon, who claimed to have a secret plan to end the Viet Nam War in 1968 and then four years and an escalated conflict later, he trounces the anti-war, pro-pot, rock and roll candidate by a record landslide.
    Then you were suckered by Jimmy Carter's "Aw-shucks" routine, shoved aside by Reagan and Bush, completely snowed by Clinton's hipster two-step, and later made to feel guilty by Baby Bush, only to finally and completely be sold down the river by the very campaign that had you amped; Barack Obama.
   You're damn right you don't matter.
    So it's time to get real and organize. Time to demand your space in this fixed arena by becoming a voter-oriented lobby machine for, say, ending wars. Hell, you're the ones asked to fight these things. Demand a more dynamic and accountable education system that properly prepares you for the dog-eat-dog-stomps-cat-and-dumps-on-you world. Make a stand for appropriate attention paid to the quality of the air you're going to be breathing and water you'll be drinking long after we're all fossil fuel. Lighten unjust drug laws, legalize gay marriage, whatever the hell you want, just make it a movement that matters, and make those who court you answerable.
    Trade in this overblown righteous indignation for serious backdoor, strong-armed influence.
    Infiltrate The System by using it, abusing it, and if you have to, ring it dry.
    You've never done it before. Ever. But you better start, because the standard of living around here has been rapidly eroding for decades and aside from maybe your parents no one, and I mean no one, gives a flying dung heap what becomes of you.
    You appear to have their attention now.
    What are you going to do about it?
© James Campion Oct 23rd 2011
realitycheck@jamescampion.com

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