History's Middle Children

So I was watching Fight Club last night, the first real night off I've had since the beginning of the month due to college, and a line struck a chord with me. "We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off."

I sat for a while, at 5:30am, with a bowl of Peanut Butter Captain Crunch and mulled it over. That line is the truest thing I have ever heard. We really are the middle children of history. Everything after the "baby boomers" really are.

Think about it. World War II was over 60 years ago. Even Vietnam was easily a decade before I was born. Vets are having grandchildren now. The Great Depression? My grandmother was born after it, even. Though, that's not to say we don't have our own sot of war. We're fighting ourselves.

Just take part of the chorus to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana: "With the lights out its less dangerous/Here we are now/Entertain us/I feel stupid and contagious/Here we are now/Entertain us"

That is truth in its harshest form. We've been at war since we were born. At war with a generation of Communist witch hunters, hippies, and people who were all about drastic, radical change. All we wanted was to have our own. Our own role, our own lives, our own world. Not this ball of shit that we're basically cleaning up. My generation has to pay for the Baby Boomers' Social Security. My generation's going to be the one paying for a war we never believed in, yet had to fight and die for.

We don't want to claim that. Not to mention the ONLY people who can claim Iraq are those in the Bush Administration. Hell, BOTH Bush Administrations. This isn't my generation's legacy. Nor is the internet. Or the information boom. They're byproducts. All that came out of the Cold War.

So the question is: What DO we claim?

Answer? Columbine. Virginia Tech. Jokela. North Illinois University. That is our war. We're fighting ourselves and the tree-hugging, limp-wristed, bleeding-heart bullshit we were raised with, and the cut-throat, dog-eat-dog capitalist bullshit that runs the country. We were being raised with flowers and sunshine, while the dogs licked their chops and waited to bite us in the ass.

So we fought the only monster we could see. Ourselves and those who raised us. Honestly, look at it. For this generation, there is no Communist threat, no terrorist threat, those are relegated to those who sired us. Islam isn't our threat. We are our threat.

The capitalist regime we've been brought up with and in opposition to has given us the idea that if we don't fit on a magazine cover, don't wear trendy clothes, smell like a designer, we're dead wrong and will have no greater meaning. How many of us know what Abercrombie and Fitch is? Now how many of us know who Sacco and Vanzetti are, what they stood for, and why they died? Or who actually went to a school where they were taught who Che Guevarra was? Yes, he wasn't a great person, but what he fought for was much larger than him.

We're overstimulated, overmedicated, overtaxed, overstressed, and overly sick of it. How many government agencies control us, in terms of finance, education, jobs, and just the small ins and outs of life? I know that for college alone, I have gotten so many groups of people giving contradictory answers about my financial aid, my student loans, the classes I take, and what my degree entails. Not to mention the doublespeak by the organizations, federally funded, mind you, who deal with my case, as I am a disabled student. In any given week, they flip flop more than a fish on the end of a hook. Then look at how much I have to bust ass to get scholarships, grants, student loans, then have to do my homework in the 20 minutes I have left.

Is it any wonder we keep shooting up the schools?

Back to Nirvana.

Load up on guns.
Bring your friends.