Is political activism skipping a generation?

I saw a film today, oh boy…

After a particularly busy week at work, I decided to kick back and relax by watching Across the Universe (and yes, there is a point to this post besides my ridiculously mundane Friday night). I still hadn’t seen the movie, and being a huge Beatles fan, I was anxious to give it a shot.

The movie was pretty good, but most of all got me thinking about the stark differences between the society of the late 1960s and the one we live in now.

Characters in the movie protested the Vietnam War, mourned the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and generally believed they could change the big, bad world that surrounded them.

Nowadays, the story is something else entirely. If you want to do something about Darfur, you simply join a Facebook group. If you think the war in Iraq is a sham, you start a political blog that nobody reads and vent your thoughts into the wasteland of cyberspace. Obviously, your humble author is not exempt from the times.

I’m not saying people should blow up any oil refineries to protest global warming, but it’s staggering to think what could take place if we had even a shred of the willpower that the previous generation did, and I am forced to ask myself why.

Is it because of a lack of leadership? There is no modern-day equivalent to Martin Luther King, and while I have the highest of hopes for Barack Obama, the comparisons to John or Robert Kennedy (Examples one, two, three) remain unearned in my mind.

It’s also worthwhile to wonder if it’s possible to have a John Kennedy or a Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 21st century. Would JFK’s notorious bad habits have cost him a modern-day election? Could Bobby raise enough cash to get the Democratic nomination in 2008, given his radical stance that corporate executives had a moral responsibility to protect the general public, not just their shareholders? Would the NASA program be attacked as a wasteland of government spending, another example of how the big, bad Democrats want to spend your hard-earned money?

When it comes to that, I wonder if John, Paul, George and Ringo could have grown and evolved like they did under today’s rules and culture, with a modern-day producer, record label and management?

Maybe the problem is that young people simply don’t believe that the worst is possible. We’ve never faced a Vietnam (certain parallels in Iraq notwithstanding). We’ve never faced the possibility of being drafted to fight a war thousands of miles away. The soldiers we do send are volunteers, often from the lower class, those who saw the financial incentives of enlisting and put their lives on the line.

Sure, scientists are up in arms about global warming, but they were fired up about CFCs and the ozone layer a few years ago and that took care of itself with barely any consumer burden at all. Besides, when members of Congress are calling the whole thing a hoax, it’s easy to believe whichever truth you find most convenient.

I do think politicians share part of the blame. In the past 10 years, the Republican political machine has gotten very, very good at launching attack campaigns. They slam people and policies with equal abandon, spending millions to convince the public that any change is a change for the worse. Obama’s plan to invest $150 billion in green technologies: government pork-barrell spending. Nevermind the fact that the total investment costs as much as only 15 weeks of the Iraq War.

If we can spend a trillion dollars to fight insurgents in Iraq, while giving giant tax breaks to oil companies and the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans, I find it a sham that anyone can even suggest it’s not worth it to invest in finding a solution to the climate crisis, which contrary to what they would have you believe, is real, is caused by man and is the greatest threat to security we face in this day and age. It’s the kind of thing we shouldn’t even be taking a chance on.

Yet for both candidates, the heart and soul of their energy policies center around things that do not actually exist: cheap nuclear power and clean coal. It’s worthy of a seperate post down the road, but those two things are as far-fetched as flying cars that run on water. Nuclear power is inherently, ridiculously expensive and leaves waste products that will be around for hundreds of thousands of years. Building 45 to 100 new nuclear power plants, as John McCain wants to do is totally irresponsible fiscally and environmentally. He wants to trade one environment crisis (global warming) for another one further down the road (turning Nevada into a nuclear waste land). He’s checking the depth of the nuclear water with both feet, never a sign of a reasoned, thoughtful politician.

Coal is inherently dirty. It can be cleaner, but carbon sequestration simply doesn’t work. All the proposed methods of carbon capture are theoretical and would consume so much energy that the impact on the environment might actually be negative. There is no way to burn coal without contributing to global warming. Period, end of story. And don’t forget the the unconscionable methods in which a lot of our coal is mined. Yet, Obama mentions this non-existent technology in all of his energy speeches as a way to endear himself to the bitter old West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio coal miners, whether or not there’s any scientific backing to even the concept of clean coal (there isn’t).

When you really start to follow politics, it’s easy to see why our generation can be so skeptical and pessimistic. The empowerment and optimism that young people in this country once felt seems to have been bought and discarded by special interests. Nowadays, it’s much easier to affect change with millions of dollars than a sense of what is right.

But the spirit is still alive. As dim as it appears now, people want change and are ready to be called to duty. That’s what Obama’s campaign has been about so far, rekindling the can-do attitude that many people have left for dead. It may just get him into the White House, particularly if McCain keeps showing the voting public how impulsive and reckless he is. That’s why I’m voting for Obama, even if I don’t agree with all of his policies. America is ready for a government that doesn’t (blatantly) cater to the wealthy at every opportunity. To me, Obama is not the lesser of two policy evils. My generation needs someone to believe in, and Obama may be the best chance we have.