Reply #68: new member butting in [View All]

[melliyna]

I was born in 1987. And although I'm not from the USA I think I can safely say that as many of my generation are stupid sheep there are just as many who are not. (I have online friends from all across the world - including US).

My friends and I go to rallies, write letters and volunteer. One friend is off to spend a year in Indonesia as a volunteer aid worker. I've volunteered for amnesty and worked in a soup kitchen. So many of our generation are caring, intelligent people. Of course there are those who are not (I should know - I've been tormented by them, had to suffer through them in class).

The problem (imho) is that many of them don't know how to be engaged. They've been raised on a diet of endless TV and magazines (I know families that have no books in the house at all), by a school system that only requires that you memorise and regurgiate answers to achieve a passing grade (with exceptions of course and it's not neccessarily the teachers fault - it's the system)in a society that says "politics is boring. why don't you watch Big Brother instead?" They aren't given a chance to be educated or engaged in politics - my parents, my friends parents are all progressive. They encouraged us to think, to read, to create and question.

I've never been content with the status quo. In a society in which my dear friend and his boyfriend and my other friend and her girlfriend cannot marry or have children because some politican thinks it's an affront to "family values" when you can still be spat on for walking down the street holding the hand of a boy with darker skin who may have lived in the country longer than I have but it doesn't matter is not the society I (or many of my generation want). We want to be encouraged to think, to question - to be different.

I feel awful for those that can't/won't be able to do this. That they are so close minded at such a young age *sigh*